Introduction and Background

BAD DRAINS; AND HOW TO TEST THEM: with NOTES ON THE VENTILATION OF SEWERS, DRAINS, AND SANITARY FITTINGS, AND THE ORIGIN AND TRANSMISSION OF ZYMOTIC DISEASE. BY R HARRIS REEVES. E, & F. N. SPON, 125, STRAND, LONDON. NEW YORK: 35, MURRAY STREET. 1885. ae \67q. e.4. EIAN L, or “ ISJANC3 ? OXF S INTRODUCTION. THE impetus given to improvements in sanitary matters by the conferences held during last year at the Health Exhibition, as well as the desire shown by engineers and others to improve the sanitary condition of towns, has induced me to publish the following system of detecting defects in drainage and sanitary fittings. It must be admitted that grave errors have been committed by engineers, architects, and builders, both in planning the fittings of houses and in laying drains to the main sewers, during the last twenty years. These errors have been found to have produced serious effects on the public health. They have also been the means of establishing throughout the country a number of Sanitary Protection Societies. These institutions have been the means of saving many useful lives, but I trust that the day is not far distant when these societies will cease to exist, and iv INTRODUCTION. such terms as “scientific plumbers” and “sanitary arrangements carried out on the most scientific principles” will be a thing of the past. To my mind it is a national disgrace to know that in this nineteenth century architects and builders fixed fittings to houses, and laid drains from houses to sewers, which affected the health of the occupants to such an extent that it was necessary to establish insurance offices to protect persons from being killed by workmen or their employers. What a page for future historians! The work or purpose of drains and sanitary fittings is to carry off by water the soil and dirt from our houses, and it is lamentable to think that this cannot be done without injury to life. What should we say if the same precautions were necessary to test or examine the work of other pro- fessions or trades ? To many the system described in these pages may appear new, but it is by no means so, as it was dis- covered and used by me in 1880, and was then the means of finding out serious defects in a supposed perfect drainage system. From that time up to the present it has proved of considerable value in determining any defect in the INTRODUCTION. v construction of drains and fittings. With the detector and anemometer I have been enabled to” discover the cause of so many failures in sewer ven- tilation, and to trace the origin and transmission of many cases of zymotic disease. The object of this work is to place the same knowledge in the hands of every person .connected with sanitary work. May, 1885. CONTENTS. ——— PAGE BAD DRAINS, AND HOW TO TEST THEM « 1 SEWER VENTILATION .. ” ” ” + 82 THE ORIGIN AND TRANSMISSION OF ZYMOTIC DISEASE ” ” “ . . 56 BAD DRAINS: AND HOW TO TEST THEM. “Bap Drains.” How often has this term been used during the last few years? By the medical profes- sion alone, thousands of cases have been attributed to this cause. To the honour and credit of that profession its members have thought out and worked out the cause of innumerable cases of disease under their charge, and rightly fixed their origin to be due to “bad drains.” In many cases it has been but a fashionable term to describe cases which had the appearance of gas poisoning, but did not owe their origin to drains; but rather to the heated and impure atmosphere of rooms, late hours, and the sudden change from heat to cold. If there have been a few hundred cases where “bad drains” were supposed to have caused B 2 BAD DRAINS; the illness and such was not the case, there have been thousands of others where the disease origi- nated from them, but was taken as a matter of course, or as one of the frailties of the human frame, when undoubtedly the cause was “bad drains.” It is a most remarkable thing, that whilst on the one hand we have the medical profession energe- tically working to find out defects in the planning of drains and sanitary fittings, and writing articles on them, we have on the other hand surveyors and others who have treated the matter as a doctor's fad. During the last five years scarcely a medical con- ference has been held without the question of “bad drains” forming one of the principal subjects dis- cussed. Medical officers of health have made stirring speeches and reports to Local Boards; but where is the surveyor who has had the energy to do the same unless it has been actually forced upon him? It is a curious but noteworthy fact, that nearly the whole of the evils of badly constructed drains, and the prin- cipul improvements in them, have been forced on surveyors, builders, and plumbers by the medical profession and the public. The reticence shown by surveyors in dealing with “bad drains” may be attributed to their unwilling- ness to acknowledge the errors and defects in works already executed. These works were, at the time, executed according to the theories adopted by the AND HOW TO TEST THEM. 3 most eminent engineers in the profession, and it would be considered unprofessional to admit errors. There is scarcely a district (excepting where drains have been laid within the last three years) where the branch drains are trapped into the main sewers with an efficient water-seal. Surveyors feel that to ac- knowledge this would be tantamount to acknowledg- ing a want of professional knowledge or neglect of duty on their part. Now, strictly speaking, this could not be the case, and a surveyor (placed in such @ position where he knows that there are defects in his drainage system, and probably these errors were made by himself,) could say that these now known defects were not previously known by the most eminent engineers, and especially with regard to sewer-gas, its treatment, and action on the public health. Boldly facing the matter and advocating that the drainage under his charge should be so perfected that no medical man could point to it as being detrimental to health, if it entailed an unusual expenditure, coming from the surveyor he would carry the Board with him, and in doing so would make his position at the Board doubly secure. To prove this we have only to refer to reports made by engineers during the last fifteen years on drainage schemes, compare the results of the theories laid down, and note the instances in which B2 4 BAD DRAINS; they have failed, especially those in connection with sewage farms and the ventilation of sewers. I will quote a few extracts from these reports :— “No injury to health can possibly take place from gas issuing from properly constructed gratings fixed in the middle of the road, and if one is a nuisance, dig down and put in others until the nuisance is removed.” This has certainly not been the case. You may dig as many holes as you like, and put in as many gratings, yet some will be injurious to health. In describing sewage farms, they were described as being (if adopted) the means of securing a large revenue to the Local Board by the excellent crops grown, one engineer stating that persons could walk through them with as much pleasure as through a flower or kitchen garden ; but practical experience has proved this to be incorrect: and although these statements were made in good faith, they have not been realised. You may regulate the irrigation of a sewage farm to such a nicety that no odour from the sewage is perceptible in the district; yet the atmo- sphere will contain poisons which will have a very detrimental effect on the health of those living there, For a few years after sewage farms have been laid out, they pay, and you get good crops from them, AND HOW TO TEST THEM. 5 but after that the ground becomes so soured that the farm is almost useless. In face of these facts no surveyor should hesitate to bring forward known improvements to his Board. Many owners of property have recognised the im- portance of adopting the best sanitary measures for their houses, although in some cases it is only a plea to let or sell their property, As an instance of this, some time ago I was in search of a house in the suburbs, and met with one described as standing on good gravelly soil, with good drainage and perfect sanitary arrangements. The builder and owner took me over the house, and on reaching the kitchen pointed out with some degree of pride that the sink was cut off from the drains, and stated that the drains were constructed on the most “ scientific principles.” ~ Now although scientific plumbers have done good work in making our dwellings more healthy, they have in many cases overdone the matter. The fact of their displaying conspicuously, on signs and bill- heads, “Sanitary work executed on the most scien- tific principles,” is not always a guarantee that a healthy house can be received from their hands. In the house above referred to, everything to the eye appeared sound and good, but on the house being occupied, a disagreeable odour was noticed in the kitchen, and in some of the lower rooms. The sink- 6 BAD DRAINS; pipe, which was pointed out by the builder as being “cut off,” ran from the sink trough without a trapor water-seal of any kind, and through this pipe, when the doors were shut, the air was supplied to the build- ing at the rate of 180 feet per minute. The back of the w.c. was ventilated from the outside to give free ventilation to the space under the seat, and through the ventilators (which were working as in- lets) the air came into the house, which supplied the bedrooms, passing over the pan, between it and the seat. The above is an illustration of a house where the sanitary arrangements were supposed to be on the most. scientific principles! Fresh air being supplied to bedrooms by passing over the closet-pan, and in the kitchen and rooms below by passing through a 2-inch sink-pipe. This is one of the many cases that may be mentioned to show the necessity of testing any system of drainage and sanitary fittings. This is not an unusual occurrence, as thousands of similar cases exist, where the principal air supply passes over sanitary fittings or through apertures which bring it in contact more or less with de- composed matter. In a building where a number of fireplaces exist, a constant current of air is pass- ing in from the outside, which after mixing with the air in the building escapes up the chimney. An ordinary chimney extracts from the room from 60 AND HOW To TEST THEM. 7 to 120 cubic feet of air per minute, thus in a ten- roomed house you have going out of the chimneys at least 1000 cubic feet of air per minute. When the house is closed this large volume of air is drawn into it through apertures offering the least resis- tance, whether it be ventilators in the w.c., kitchen sinks, or drains in the basement (which traps may have been siphoned), over sanitary pipes or through doors and windows. Whichever point offers the least resistance, there the supply to feed the chimneys will come. The injurious effects on the health of persons who occupy buildings that take in their air supply through unclean apertures are too well known to those medical men and others who have had ex- perience in sanitary matters, and it can be only estimated by resulta I could enumerate cases where the health of the inmates and the death-rate were conclusive evidence to prove the disastrous effects produced by air being supplied through such inlets. One case in particular, which consisted of eight blocks of buildings planned exactly alike, The drains were cut off on the outside at the foot of all soil-pipes, and a second disconnection about 50 feet from the building. In one building the basement was drained into the branch drain with a trap in the inside, and from the quantity of water and soil which flowed through this branch drain 8 BAD DRAINS; the basement trap was constantly being siphoned, leaving a 6-inch air supply into the building through 50 feet of drain. This, combined with 200 feet per minute through the w.a, had the effect of causing an unusual depression of spirits in the occupants of this building, and more deaths occurred in this one block than in the whole of the others, It does not require a large amount of scientific knowledge to ensure a healthy building. What is required is sound pipes, the area of them in proportion to the work they have to do, tight joints, and a know- Jedge of ventilation. Nothing must be left to theory. A pipe either leaks and lets out the soil, or it is sound. If it is sound, sewage matter can be carried through it anywhere without the slightest injury to health or unpleasantness of any kind. Pipes can be ventilated without traps being siphoned, and the gases from sewers and soil-pipes treated so as to ensure healthy buildings at a moderate cost. As a rule, the first intimation of any defect in the drainage system of a town or the sanitary fittings of a building is given by the medical officer of health or the medical attendant of the family, whose atten- tion has been forcibly drawn to it by the serious illness of the inmates. It ig no unusual occurrence, that after the medical officer, surveyor, and inspector of nuisances have made a minute inspection of a building, they leave it with- AND HOW TO TEST THEM. 9 out discovering defects which exist in pipes carefully cased over, or in the sanitary fittings. To detect the manner in which poisons from drains are thrown into a building and inhaled by the occupants, is oftentimes not an easy matter. In many cases the drains have been so cut about and additions made to them, that to trace defects or even the number of drains which are attached to the branch drains or sewers, a considerable amount of excavating is necessary. The system described in these pages is intended to prevent in a measure this excavating, and to enable a person above the ground to determine the number, capacity, and state of the drains underneath the surface, as well as to more readily discover any imperfections in soil-pipes and sanitary fittings.