THE DANGER OF WATER CLOSETS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2595, 1 August 1882, Page 3

THE DANGER OF WATER CLOSETS.

The following letter appeared in this morning'* issue of the " Frees ":

Sib,—The proposal of the Drainage Board to introduce the water-closet system into Ohristchuroh calls for serious consideration of the risks attending that mode of disposal of exoreta. The question of auoh disposal has been hitherto discussed purely from an engineering point of view, without- any regard to the consequences resulting to the health of the community, owing to the inevitable introduction of sewer gas into the homes. The inhabitants of London have tried the watercloset system under the most favorable circumstances, with ample means of flushing the sewers, and the most perfect appliances fo protecting the houses from contamination, yet their experience may be learned by perusing the following leading article of the "Lanoet," of 27ch May, 1882, which has arrived mo:t opportunely by the last mail. I propose to offar some further contributions to this subject in a fature isßUe. Yours, &0., W. H. Sikhs, M.D.

The following is the leading article referred to : "Sewerage is a thoroughly artificial device for the disposal of isssal matter, but as we hsve adopted it, not only wisdom, but safety, is concerned in oarrying out the process on natural principles. The great underlying law of nature ordains that all excrement shall go back to the earth. The cyole must be completed. The ultimate, or, if we please, proximate, elements extracted from the earth crust by living organisms have to be returned to it. We may delay the satisfaction of this claim, but the demand is inexorable, and in postponement lies the danger. The ancient Isruelitish mode of disposal by direct burying was the true and natural one. Dwellers in cities will not, and suppose they cannot, return to this plan. The earth-system, which is the one and only rational recourse, is, for the time at least, set aside as impracticable. We have adopted the clumsy and complicated artifice of 'sewerage.' Let us saa what this involves, and how its needs may bo satisfied, i'.s perils avoided. " We have to rid ourselves of a mass of material which is noxious in itself, whioh daily becomes increasingly injurious, and whioh forms a nidus for the growth of specifically poisonous germs. Fiscal matter is composed of animal and vegetable debris in process of decomposition, and it contains special organisms which are either living or capable of being vitalised, and whioh, being quickened into activity, will reproduoe other organisms as mischievous as themselves. The exposure of fsscea to the air has a double result; first, the passing off of mephitio gases aiid vapours; and, second, the suspension, but not the extinction, of vital processes in living organisms, which the exorementitious matter may contain. Obviously, therefore, the general tendency of delay in the complete removal of sewage is to increase the dangers of its proximity while disguising them. If we do not wholly rid ourselves and our houses of the excrement oast into the drains, nothing is gained by the trouble and disturbance of moving it a short distance only, and there exposing it to the atmosphere. The gases and vapors it gives off are not simply effensive, but injurious. The system of close drains by which wo try to get rid of the decomposing fiscal matter is, in faot, a system of pipes by which we collect and lay on the products of decomposition, as coal gas is laid on for lighting purposes into our houses. If it were seriously intended to secure the dissemination of sewer gas throughout a populous district, and to bring it into direot contact with the breathing organs and mucous membranes of the peoplo under conditions most, favorable to blood poisoning, it would be difficult to devise a more psy.rpt apparatus for this malevolent purpose than the system of drainage extant and approved tal an oppoiite purpose. I The closer and better the aewer pipes, the more mischievous the result. With the old fashioned brick drains there was a chance of leakage into the earth, so that albeit the surface water might be poisoned, some portion of the baneful material escaped. With the perfect drains of recent times no such leakage is possible, and every measure of the poisonous exhalation given off must be retained in the sewers, whioh are conneoted with the bouses of the district. If any house in the district, is infected with fever, the whole district ia poisoned. The closest and most comfortably heated houses draw the largest supply of poisonous gas from the sewers, wherein it is carefully conserved. Even when the sewers are flushed, and so successfully as to remove the whole of the fasal matter which has been accumulated in them since the last previous flushing, whioh seldom happens, the sewer gas is not necessarily carried away with the sewage. As in the case of a river or stream, there is an over current of air running counter to the liquid, and this must needs rind its way back into the houses. The more capacious the sewers, the larger will be the accumulation of sewer gas. They act as a multiple reservoir, from which the houses conneoted by drains draw their supply, It consequently happens that in a particularly well constructed systems of sewers and drains, with ample space and impervious walls, the results to health are often peculiarly disastrous. The larger the sewers the greater is the difficulty of flushing them, and the less effect does this flushing have on the volume of oontained gas. Sewer gas is a special product of our refined and scientific sewerage. The exhalations from fasaal matter could scarcely accumulate in the old drains. We Lave cow a perfect apparatus for treasuring it up and laying it on into our houses. As a safeguard against the danger of poisoning by the sewer gas whioh ia elaborately supplied to our houses, we trust wholly and implicitly to ' traps. The trap is, as everybody knows, an application of the law that gas will not desoend in water. It is assumed that if water is divided by a partition oarried well down below its surface, the sewer gaa will not pass down on one side and rise on the other. This is all very well in theory, but the assumption wholly ignores two other law*, whioh are not less universal and important than that on which we too exclusively rely. First, standing water is ever absorbing gas and giving it off again, so that the sewer gas is taken in on one Bide of the trap and given off on the other ; and, Beoond, when there is any great difference of pressure in the atmosphere in contact with the opposite sides of a trap, however ingeniously oonstruoted, the gas on the side of greatest pressure will slowly, and in imperceptible bubbles, but surely, pass through the fluid, to escape on the side of least pressure. These are facts wholly overlooked or disregarded by sanitary engineers. The traditional faith in the ' trap ' is great, and it is not orthodox oven to suggest a doubt as to its efficiency. We venture to be heterodox, and as the result of distinct experiment, we do not believe any trap oan pcrfeotly exclude sewer gas from our houses. This brings us at once to the question of sewer ventilation. If we would avoid the worst evils of the sewerage system, measures must bo adopted for allowing the gas to escape from the sewers so that pressure may be prevented. Everything practically depends on the success of our endeavours to provide a way of esoape for the gas as rapidly as it is formed, and on the manner in which we effeot our purpose. Considering that this gas is the very thing wo dread, it is nothing less than madness to letit escape into the Etrcets of a city. The process of collecting and laying on sewer gas into the thoroughfares of a populous treti, is only a little less outrageously foolish than that of laying it on into the houses of a district, and expressly, as it would seem, into bedrooms and bathrooms, so that the population may be exposed to its noxious influences in the manner and at the time likely to be most favorable to a bad result. The artifice of ventilating sewers by gratings in streets is Ma ohiavellian in its refinement of folly and wickedness. If we heard for the first time of any community adapting or sanctioning 6uch a Bystem, we should be amazed at their ignorance. Nevertheless, there are great ' sanitarians ' in cur midst, who do not recognise the danger of this devioe. It has even been gravely recommended. Obviously and plainly, as the most self-evident faot in nature, if we ventilate sewers at all, the pipes by whioh we expect the gas to escape shou'd be carried far above the level of the highest bedrooms. It is not enough to consider the height of the immediately adjaoent houses ; the stratification of the atmosphere by currents and relative pressures requires that the summit of every ventilating pipe shall be above the roof of any house within a considerable distance. This is a point scarcely recognised even by those who do poroeive the need of ventilating at a high level. Another matter of moment is to protect the open end of every ventilating pipe with a dome, or cover, of some sort, which shall relieve the gas in the pipe from the downward thrust of the atmosphere and wind pressure. We shall never be safe until this, the only rational Bystem of sewer ventilation, is enforced by

Act of Parliament, and all other systems ar* rigorously interdicted.

" Great harm has been done by the popular recourse to so-called 'disinfectants,' which. are, in faot, only etink-dectroyer*, or disguieers. Nothing is gained by making the odour of sewer- kb« lest offeniire than it would otherwise be. It it not the 'smell' that doe» the harm, though it may nauseate ; that is a small matter. Poisoning by sewer-gas which has been disguised ordeprired of its characteristic smell is, we believe the carse of many unrecognised maladies. The evil influence against which we need to protect ourselves is a gas or vapor laden with the products of disease, whioh are nearly always, if tba late William Badd was right, desiccated ova or seeds, requiring only a warm and moist place in some living body to vitalise and fructify. It is a beneficent provision of nature that poisonous or poison-carrying gases or vapours generally have an offensive smell. We destroy the warning odour, without destroying the poison it denote*. We taker the rattle off tke tail of the snake that he may the better bite us with impunity. Deodorisers whioh are not alao destroyers of all organic material, are mischievous, and their use militates sgsinst the health of tne people, At another opportunity we propose to return to the eubjaet, and place the facts and inferences detailed in order. Meanwhile they call for the serious consideration of practical sanitarians."