Letter and suggestions from the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, on the pollution of the water and the cleansing of the canal basin.

  • Hardwicke, William.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter and suggestions from the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, on the pollution of the water and the cleansing of the canal basin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    on the banks until the owners of each wharf can take it away, is a dangerous practice, and altogether unnecessary. Between 30 and 40 barges are required to be in readiness, moored over night in the middle of the Canal, and a gang of 20 to 30 men, will in a few hours load all the mud within reach of them. From -want of these preconcerted arrangements, the letting off and refilling of the Canal, has on several former occasions been inconvenient, dangerous and ineffectual. Such precautions and arrangements for the work to be done speedily, will render less necessary any process of deodorization, that would otherwise be safer to adopt, and which on the last occasion was used at the expense of the Parish with satisfactory results. After the water had been run off, and the mud was exposed, the Parish fire engine was employed to irrigate the exposed surface with a solution of Condy’s liquid—one gallon to 200 gallons of water being the proportion used. Having taken great pains to point out the remedy for preventing a future recurrence of so dangerous a nuisance as now exists in the centre of such a populous district of the Parish, the Sanitary Committee hope this Statement will be of service in obtaining an effectual and permanent settlement of the question, which has so long been a grievance to them and to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. I am, Gentlemen, Your obedient Servant, WM. HARDWICKE, Medical Officer of Health for Paddington. July ith, 1868.