General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the town of Kelso : drawn up at the request of the Board of Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the town of Kelso : drawn up at the request of the Board of Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    to tliat of tlio principal current. Notwithslaiuling tlii^, either from deficient size of the conduit, or from faulty arrangement of the levels, the water does not always find sufficiently ready ingress. The surface drainage from the west side of Bridge Street, a portion of the Square, and tlie lower part of Roxburgli Street, is received into this sewer. Tims, with regard to the important subject of Sewerage, we find that not one of the conduits can be considered as fulfilling per- Sum of defects the design of an efficient street sewer. They permit the of Se^veragc. escape of oftensi\ e emanations ; their floors and walls ai’e generally too imperfectly constructed to prevent the oozing of their putrid contents into the surrounding soil; their forms, their modes of junction, their dimensions, and their levels, are not adjusted so as to transmit their contents with sufticient rapidity ; and, beyond all this, they are too superficial to be adapted to receive the sewei'age of the adjacent houses, from all of which it should be possible to conduct covered, or tube-drains, into them, in order to avoid the necessity for jirivate cess-pools, the eftect of which is to saturate the sub-soil Avith baneful mattcr.«, tainting even our springs, and gradually diflusing themselves eveiywhcre at too near a proximity to the surface to be Avholly innoxious in our dwellings. You will not bo surprised to learn, that the announcement, in the public newspapers, of your intention to require a Sanitary in- liack Courts, spection of the town, had the immediate elfect of awakening in a A.lleys, &c. iuhabitants a regard for habits of cleanliness such as they had shcAvn little zeal in evincing previously ; and you Avill, no doubt, bo prejtarod also to anticipate, that during the time which must necessarily intervene between the period of the inspection, and that in Avhich you may feel callctl upon to imikc any special apj^li- cation of your authority, such farther measures will have been adopted as will ])resont matters under an occasionally diftcrent aspect from that which I shall now consider it my duty to record. But it is for you to judge Avhat degree of confidence is to bo placed in zeal ajiparcntly so dependent on a chazice incitement: and 1 have no doubt that you Avill not permit it to disarm your vigilance Avith reference to the future proceedings of those, Avho may apjjoar to have hitherto habitually neglected one of the most important, though, certainly, least understood or adequately defined, duties of a citizen, that of contiibuting, by every act in his poAver, to the promotion of the health and safety of the community. In noting my observations on this branch of the inspection, I shall class them, for your couA'onieuce, under three divisions.—In :i.is.sificatiun the first, I shall arrange those examples of gross and dangerous f Niiisiuices. nuisance, Avhich appear to demand a more immediate interposition of authority ; in the second, I shall include those less clamant cases, Avhere interference is still requisite, but Avhere the nuisance is of a someAvhat less aggravated dcscrijjtion; Avhile the third will embrace