Draining for Profit, and Draining for HealthWaring, George E. (George Edwin)
Science
Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health
Waring, George E. (George Edwin)
Drain-tiles; Drainage
"In another instance, the abolishing of cess-pools and their replacement
by water-closets, together with the abolishing of brick drains and their
replacement by impermeable and self-cleansing stone-ware pipes, has been
attended with an immediate and extraordinary reduction of mortality. Thus,
in Lambeth Square, occupied by a superior class of operatives, in the
receipt of high wages, the deaths, which in ordinary times were above the
general average, or more than 30 in 1000, had risen to a rate of 55 in
1000. By the abolishing of cess-pools, which were within the houses, and
the substitution of water-closets, and with the introduction of tubular,
self-cleansing house-drains, the mortality has been reduced to 13 in 1000.
"The reduction of the mortality was effected precisely among the same
occupants, without any change in their habits whatever."
"Sewers are less important than the House-Drains and Water-Closets, and if
not carrying much water, may become cess-pools. In the case of the Square
just referred to, when cess-pools and drains of deposit were removed
without any alteration whatever in the adjacent sewers, fevers disappeared
from house to house, as these receptacles were filled up, and the
water-closet apparatus substituted, merely in consequence of the removal
of the decomposing matter from beneath the houses to a distant sewer of
deposit or open water course.
"If the mortality were at the same rate as in the model dwellings, or in
the improved dwellings in Lambeth Square, the annual deaths for the whole
of the metropolis would be 25,000 less, and for the whole of England and
Wales 170,000 less than the actual deaths.
"If the reduced rate of mortality in these dwellings should continue, and
there appears to be no reason to suppose that it will not, the extension
to all towns which have been affected, of the improvements which have been
applied in these buildings, would raise the average age at death to about
forty-eight instead of twenty-nine, the present average age at death of
the inhabitants of towns in all England and Wales."
The branch of the Art of Drainage which relates to the removal of the
fecal and other refuse wastes of the population of towns, is quite
different from that which has been described in the preceding pages, as
applicable to the agricultural and sanitary improvement of lands under
cultivation, and of suburban districts. Still, the fact that town and
house drainage affords a means for the preservation of valuable manures,
justifies its discussion in an agricultural work, and "draining for
health" would stop far short of completeness were no attention paid to the
removal of the cause of diseases, which are far more fatal than those that
originate in an undrained condition of the soil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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