Report on the practicability and probable efficacity of the proposed plan for deodorizing the sewage of London, by means of perchloride of iron / by H. Letheby.

  • Letheby, H. (Henry), 1816-1876.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the practicability and probable efficacity of the proposed plan for deodorizing the sewage of London, by means of perchloride of iron / by H. Letheby. 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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    him, and his factory was closed. I inspected it at that time for the Parish, for there was then no local Board of Health, and my conclusions were that his process was a signal failure, and was whoUy in- operative as a sanitary scheme. I will not venture to pursue its history further, except to say, that for more than a dozen years it has been a profitless and useless speculation. Nay more:—the salts of iron, in one form or another, have been before the public as possible deodorizers for nearly a hundred years, and yet, as far as I know, with singular want of success. In 1762, the salts of lead and iron were recommended as antiseptics by De Boissieu, and from that time to this they have been the subjects of numerous patents; the last of them all was the patent of Brown, and its modification by Eller- man, in 1847; but where, I would ask, with all this historical prestige, is there the slightest proof of its practical utility, or even of its theoretical capabi- lities 1 This is by no means an unimportant ques- tion, when we consider that the adoption of this scheme is not only for the sake of the public health, but also at the cost of a large sum of public money. I refrain from entering more deeply into the subject; for the reference to me merely requires that I should express my opinion of the proposed scheme. It is, therefore, sufficient for me to say