The treatment of sewage / by M.F. Anderson.

  • Anderson, M. F. (Mark French)
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of sewage / by M.F. Anderson. 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.

    2/12
    TREATMENT OF SEWAGE. There is perhaps no subject occupying at the present moment more general attention than the question how the Nuisance created by draining our Towns into rivers is to be obviated The nuisance has arrived at such a pitch as to necessitate a change in the present system, and the choice of means for remedying the present state of things is restricted to one of two methods : that of irrigation; or that of defecation by chemical means, that is, the precipitation of the impurities in an insoluble compact form by some chemical agent. That irrigation can be employed with great advantage to the soil under certain conditions has been proved beyond doubt at Edinburgh and elsewhere, but the necessary con- ditions for ensuring success are not universal; foremost amongst which I place a porous gravelly soil. Even where irrigation has been apparently a great success, it is still an open question in my mind whether the success has been complete. That the land can be and has been immensely increased in value is beyond question; but it is under circum- stances where the purification of the water is a matter of secondary importance ; where the water can be turned on to the land at pleasure, as may suit the crops, and its subsequent state is a matter of no consideration. Where in fact sewage is used as a fertilizing agent and there is no imperative reason for purifying it. I know of no instance where the land has been used as a perfect and continued filter and remunera-