On the application of sanitary science in public works of irrigation and works for the relief of towns / by Edwin Chadwick.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the application of sanitary science in public works of irrigation and works for the relief of towns / by Edwin Chadwick. 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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    7 }i;^tT~ iiijpi^ Ji^ 6 Oh the Application of Sanitary Science to Public Works of Irrigation and Works for the Relief of Towns. By Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B. I SUBMITTED to the Public Health Department, at the meeting of the Association held at Liverpool, a paper on the application of sanitaiy science to the protection of our army in India—a subject of imperial importance. One object of that paper was to show the necessity of the cultivation of the special engineering required for the practical application of that science, without which special engineering enor- mous expense, as well as failure in the production of the sanitary etfect, is too commonly incurred. I have received a communication on the subject of the irrigation works of India, which have recently occupied public attention, show- ing on a large scale the evil consequences of the prosecution of such works in ignorance or in disregard of sanitary science. This com- munication appears to me to be so highly important as to render it incumbent on me to solicit the particular attention of the Association to it. Where a clear money profit from any woi’ks is in prospect, any evidence as to evil effects produced on others, we find, meets only with inattention or hostility on the part of those by whom the profit is derived. In my own experience and investigations I have, how- ever, found no case of works, attended with evil to the public health, which are not of a low state of structural or engineering art, and at the same time excessively expensive, and in various ways wasteful of money. Thus, the poison pit—the cesspool—in its original cost of construction, in the cost of repair and maintenance, and in the cost of constant cleansing, apart from all foulness and offensiveness, and all noxious influences, I have proved to bo more expensive than a properly constructed, self-cleansing watorcloset, the expense of the water included.* Thus, too, the old brick house-drains, which accumulate noxious deposit, are more than double the expense * Vide “Minutes of Information on the Drainage of Dwellings and of Towns,” published by the General Board of Health, 1852, pp. 12, 155, lOG; also jtaper on “The Drainage of Towns, by Robert Rawlinson, Sanitary Engineer, ])ub- lished in the Transactions for 1857.