On the use and abuse of refuse organic matter by different modes of sewerage / by Thomas Hawksley.

  • Hawksley, Thomas, 1807-1893.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use and abuse of refuse organic matter by different modes of sewerage / by Thomas Hawksley. 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.

    3/12 (page 3)
    The art of drainage made a great retrogression when the practice was commenced of pouring solid matters into the sewers. This is essentially and altogether wrong in principle and practice, and no amount or extension of drains can ever rectify it. There must be always a large quantity of solid matter clinging to and accumulating in the sewers, undergoing decomposition and producing malaria, and the sewers must act like long chimneys, with a draught of air blowing constantly from the periphory to the centre, and conveying into every part of the town the malaria so cleverly engendered within, and which no amount of trapping can prevent. The longer the sewers, like chimneys, the stronger must be the draught; and the direction of the current must always be to the towrq and not from it, because the town must be the highest and warmest extremity. What do we find the result to be in London] What of the air] “ It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things.” Dr. Gavin in his “ Sanitary Kamblings ” gives the following illustration, He says, “ The patent manure manufactory is established next door to a bottle merchant, who complains that the putrid emanations adhere to the inside of his bottles, and spoil the wine that may be put into them, and consequently his trade will soon be ruined if the manure manufactory is not removed.” The purplish black colors that form on the wliite painted fronts of houses, what are they but demonstrations of the sulphuretted hydrogen in the air turning the lead of the paint into the black sulphuret ] This change is especially seen near the opening of the sewers. Again, how much of the extraordinary low vitality character of disease in the present day is due to this cause ] Dr. Copland, writing on j this subject, says, “The effluvia or emanations from the sources pointed out are not always perceptible to persons who have become, by residence, accustomed to them, and their effects are hence often slowly and imperceptibly produced. In all members of a family, and more especially among the younger members, debility, in its numerous forms and consequences, is the soonest and most injuriously induced by these causes • occasioning numerous forms of visceral disease in some, and