Hygiene: a manual of personal and public health (New Edition)Newsholme, Arthur, Sir
Science
Hygiene: a manual of personal and public health (New Edition)
Newsholme, Arthur, Sir
Hygiene; Public health -- Great Britain; Sanitation
Ventilating shafts should be erected at intervals and particularly at
the highest points of the sewage system of a town, the upper end of
these shafts being remote from the windows of any dwelling-house. When
sewers are laid with too steep a gradient, they act as chimneys, the
gases mounting to the higher part of the town, and frustrating attempts
at ventilation on lower levels. Various attempts have been made to
ventilate sewers by artificial means, as by the aspirating effect of
street lamps, etc., but these efforts have not been successful, as the
effect of the up-current only influences a short length of sewer. The
usual method of combined up-shafts and street grids answers fairly
well, but when any complaint of smell from street-grids occurs they
should be replaced by up-shafts. In Bristol and a few other towns
no provision is made for sewer-ventilation, and no ill effects have
apparently resulted. There can be no question that the importance of
sewer-ventilation has been exaggerated. If the sewer has a sufficient
gradient, and is properly laid, and efficiently flushed, so that no
offensive deposits occur, the provision of up-shafts at favourable
points is all that is necessary. Sewer effluvia have been credited with
causing enteric fever, diphtheria, and other diseases. These diseases
rarely if ever owe their origin to this cause. The microbes discovered
in sewer-air have always been those of the outside atmosphere, and not
derived from the sewage. Sewer effluvia might, however, predispose to
such diseases, if exposure to them were frequent or protracted, by
lowering the powers of resistance of the constitution.
=Flushing of Sewers= is required at intervals, in order to remove any
deposits of grit or other solid matter. Flushing is effected by filling
special flushing shafts placed at intervals in the sewers with clean
water and then suddenly releasing this.
_Whenever there is stagnation, a foul odour_ is certain to be emitted.
The cardinal rule with regard to sewage is to keep it in rapid onward
motion, until it has passed the outlet of the sewer. _The introduction
into a sewer of hot water_ or waste steam is an occasional cause of
nuisance.
=The Outfall= of a sewer requires to be large and perfectly free in
order that the progress of the sewage may not be impeded. When the
sewage is discharged into the sea above the low water level, it becomes
backed up in the main sewers when the tide is high. The same condition
of things has occurred when the outfall is into a river below the water
line, or into a tank out of which the sewage has to be pumped. In all
these cases the ventilation of the sewers requires to be perfect, and
great precautions taken to prevent obstruction of the outflow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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