Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, September 26, 1891Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, September 26, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
How often, too, are the nose and the eye offended by disregard of the
Mosaic injunction, found in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
verses of the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy! Of course this
injunction was addressed to a people who had been debased by slavery,
but who were being trained to fit them for their high calling as the
chosen of God; but is not some such sanitary regulation needed in these
times, when a natural office is often made so offensive to us by its
environments that it is difficult for us to believe that "God made man a
little lower than the angels," or that the human body is the temple of
the Holy Ghost?
Dwellers in the aristocratic regions of a well drained city, whose
wealth enables them to surround themselves with all devices tending to a
refined seclusion, may doubt all this, but sanitary inspectors who have
made a round of domiciliary visits in the suburbs, or the older,
neglected parts of a large city, of to any part of a country town or
village, will readily affirm as to its general truth.
This unpardonable neglect of one of the minor decencies by the mass of
the people seems to be caused partly by a feeling of false shame, and
partly by an idea that it is expensive and troublesome to make any
change that will improve their sanitary condition or dignify their daily
lives.
The Rev. Henry Moule, of Fordington Vicarage, Dorsetshire, England, was
one of the first to turn his attention to this matter. With the
threefold object of improving the sanitary condition of his people,
refining their habits, and enriching their gardens, he invented what he
called the "dry earth closet."
"It is based on the power of clay and the decomposed organic matter
found in the soil to absorb and retain all offensive odors and all
fertilizing matters; and it consists, essentially, of a mechanical
contrivance (attached to the ordinary seat) for measuring out and
discharging into the vault or pan below a sufficient quantity of sifted
dry earth to entirely cover the solid ordure and to absorb the urine.
"The discharge of earth is effected by an ordinary pull-up, similar to
that used in the water closet, or (in the self-acting apparatus) by the
rising of the seat when the weight of the person is removed.
"The vault or pan under the seat is so arranged that the accumulation
can be removed at pleasure.
"From the moment when the earth is discharged and the evacuation
covered, all offensive exhalation entirely ceases. Under certain
circumstances there may be, at times, a slight odor as of guano mixed
with earth, but this is so trifling and so local that a commode arranged
on this plan may, without the least annoyance, be kept in use in any
room."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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