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.

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    consist of a cast-iron box, of a convenient size and shape placed in the front or back area of each house. Its floor would communicate with the sewers by means of a suitable perforated plate and trap. It would also bo provided -with the means (air-tight) of introducing into it the fire-ashes and the soot, and for clearing out of it, at appropriate seasons, the whole contents. Its summit, or roof, should terminate in a cast-iron tube about six inches in diameter, which would ascend the side of the house perpendicularly, like the present rain-water pipe. Into it the water-closets of the house would eject, by a convenient arrangement, their receipts. The whole apparatus, by the expenditure of a little ingenuity, could be made very simple in construction, little liable to get out of repair, and perfectly air-tight as regards the possibility of ill odours or gases escaping. A single tube outside the house could thus easily carry down to the deodorizing receptacle the contributions of the largest number of water-closets any house might possess. Its simplicity and strength would enable it to be easily and derfectly cleansed when necessary. Before employment the floor of the receptacle would be covered by a sufficient layer of cinder dust, and, upon the latter, by another layer of soot. In action the fluid excreta from the water-closets would by percolating the soot and ash give up the greater part of their sensible qualities, and would escape into the sewers with very little power to contaminate our river, which objection would be removed by carrying the point or points of outlet into the river, some miles below the metropolis, this time, however, without objection from the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the outlet. This great advantage to our sanitary reforms would result—that we could have no underground accumulations of putrefying matter. The solid excreta would mingle with the soot and ash, become deodorized and condensed, and form a very perfect and manageable manure—manageable, because in this form it would admit of such easy and expeditious removal by the scavengers, and -without greater nuisance than the present mode of removing our dust. Thm portion of the business might be practised once a week, a fortnight, or a month, as experience