Volume 8

The Health Exhibition literature : Health in relation to civic life. Vol. VIII.

  • International Health Exhibition (1884 : London, England)
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Health Exhibition literature : Health in relation to civic life. Vol. VIII. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    154/646 (page 148)
    The foul air from sewers and drains gets into houses through defective drains, soil-pipes, and other sanitary apparatus. It is not at all uncommon in houses to find bell-traps in the basement-floor leading directly into the drain, and this into the main sewer; these traps having been disused for some time, being perfectly dry, and allow- ing a passage of sewer-air into the house only partially obstructed by the dust and dirt which collects in the trap. Foul air eats holes in unventilated lead soil-pipes and traps, and so finds its way through numerous small fissures and holes into the house continuously, but more freely at night, when the doors and windows are shut and the fires lighted. It has been shown that the poisons of several of these diseases may be conveyed by means of clothing, even when the persons conveying them are not suffering from the disease itself. This is notably the case in typhus fever, as was seen in the instance of the Black Assizes, where pri- soners, not suffering from gaol-fever themselves, infected by means of their clothing, policemen, jurymen, and even the judges in the courts. It is probable that several of these diseases are very frequently conveyed in this way; I know, for example, an instance in which chicken-pox was introduced into a house by a gentleman who had been playing with his children who were suffering from the disease, without his even seeing the children who shortly afterwards contracted it in the house where he paid a morn- ing call; and there are no doubt many such instances that are never traced. Fortunately, it appears necessary that the poison should be in a very concentrated condition to be conveyed in this manner, as otherwise its conveyance by medical men and attendants on the sick would be very much more frequent than it is at present. These poisons are sometimes spread through the agency of laundries, both by infected clothing being sent to these establishments, and also by the presence of a case of one of these diseases in the family of a laundry keeper. There can be no question, too, that it is a most dan-