The high death rate. An answer to the question "What is to be done?" : being the substance of a paper read before the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association, March 19th, 1869 / by J. Conyers Morrell.

  • Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: The high death rate. An answer to the question "What is to be done?" : being the substance of a paper read before the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association, March 19th, 1869 / by J. Conyers Morrell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    f means of disposal of the sewage matter. This, as yet, cannot claim to be a successful means of doing so, either in a remu¬ nerative point of view or in its power of cleansing* sewage * Mr. Phillips, of the Mnseiim of Economic Geology, states the following as the result of his analysis of the Edinburgh sewage, before and after irri¬ gation :— I have here an analysis of six specimens of water taken at Edinburgh, the first taken at the mouth of a sewer, as the water issues; there was found in a gallon 224 grains of solid matter in suspension, 87 grains in solu¬ tion ; there was found in the second specimen 52 grains in suspension, and 87 grains in solution; in the third, there were 31 grains in suspension, and 89 grains in solution, showing that the water was getting stronger; there was more in solution after it was passed over two lands. The fourth specimen, 15 grains in suspension, and 82 grains in solution; the fifth ex¬ periment, 2i grains in suspension, and 67 in solution; the sixth experiment, which was on very sharp sand, just at the sea shore, before the water was allowed to pass away, having passed over all the meadows, so that all the matter in suspension was nearly deposited, only two grains of matter in suspension, and 72 in solution.” On this point Mr. Pearce says :— Soils, too, like other bodies, are only capable of retaining a limited quantity of those elements which constitute the food of plants, and when this point of saturation is reached, it is absurd to expect any purification of sewage. It is utterly contrary to the nature of things that, for a course of years, a limited extent of land can extract from sewage the almost un¬ limited quantity of manurial matter it contains, in proportion to the area it passes over, and, therefore, the greater part simply departs in the liquid as it comes. The ground, too, at the same time, is overcharged, and literally poisoned by the excess of nutriment cast on it; it becomes, in fact a simple dunghill. Every agriculturist knows that an excess of manure is more in¬ jurious to healthy vegetation than a deficiency of it: and this, added to an excess of moisture, caused by too frequent application of sewage in wet as well as in dry weather, renders rye-grass—a coarse and unpalatable food at best—the only growth adapted to such treatment.” The sewage of Croy¬ don seems to contain 32 grains of organic matter, soluble and insoluble, when it leaves the sewers; and, after the settling of the solid particles, 22 grains of organic soluble matter still remain.” Mr. Alderman Mechi’s evidence, given before a select committee on sewage, in June, 1864, further confirms the above.