Annual address : on the shortcoming of some modern sanitary methods / delivered by George Vivian Poore.

  • Poore, George Vivian, 1843-1904.
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual address : on the shortcoming of some modern sanitary methods / delivered by George Vivian Poore. 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.

    12/30 (page 10)
    barley than with wheat. May not the fact that farm animals are largely fed with barley-meal, have something to do with this.^ There are experiments which show that minimal in- gredients in manures are not without effects which are often surprising. There are a priori grounds for thinking that the best manure for barley must be the excrement of a barley- eating animal, for in that excrement must be all that is necessary for barley. I wish some agriculturist would make the experi- ment of growing wheat with the excrement of a wheat-eating or bread-eating animal. As a gardener I have grown potatoes with the excrement of a potato-eating animal, and certainly the result has been most encouraging. I have been obliged to draw my illustrations as to the prac- tical result of burying organic matter from the agricultural employment of farmyard manure, because facts based upon exact experiments with the organic refuse of our towns is not forthcoming. What I loant to insist upon is this, that the proper destiny of organic refuse is immediate burial just below the surface of the soil. Most of the shortcomings of modern sanitary methods are due to the fact that in our dealing with organic refuse we commit a scientific error, i.e., we pui'sue a com'se which is in opposition to natural law. This error consists in mixing organic refuse with water. When organic refuse is mixed with water, it undergoes changes wdiich differ widely from the changes which it under- goes when mixed with earth. According to Wollny whose paper I have quoted previously, the process of oxidation of organic matter and the formation of nitrate takes place most readily when a moderate amount of moisture is present. The most favourable amount is about 33 per cent., and if the moisture rise above or sink below this amount, the process of nitrification and the formation of car- bonic acid is hindered. When water is in excess the amount of free oxygen is insufficient to favour the growth of mould fungi, the schizomycetes (Bacteria and Micrococci) are formed, and in place of oxidation, putrefaction takes place with the formation of ammonia, free nitrogen, carbonic acid, and carburetted hydrogen. Under these unfavourable circumstances it is possible that the nitrates which may have been formed may be again reduced. This process of de-oxidation takes place in mixtures of putre- scible matter with water, and takes place also, it is said, in soil which is thoroughly soaked with sewage (i.e., putrescible matter mixed with water). In the face of these facts it is not to be