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219
[1903
depots must be largely increased, the amount of refuse to remove will remain
the same. Be this as it may the fact remains that it is most desirable that there
should be at least a removal of refuse at least twice a week, and as the
Medical Officer of Health desires that there should be no misunderstanding
of his view of the matter he has prepared the following memorandum:—
MEMORANDUM BY THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DUST REMOVAL.
1. The great essential condition for the reduction of the vast quantity
of preventable disease is cleanliness. This doctrine has been the cardinal
one of all Medical Officers of Health for many years, and the practice
of it has led to the saving of innumerable human lives.
2. It follows, therefore, that the more thoroughly it is practised, the
less will be the loss of life.
The first great step in removing filth diseases, of which Enteric Fever
is the great type, was the abolition of Middensteads and similar means for
the disposal of filth and house refuse, and the last, the introduction of
water carriage for the removal of excreta.
3. When Middensteads were abolished, the house refuse still remained
for removal, and, until a comparatively recent time, was only carted away
at uncertain dates, depending greatly on the idea of cleanliness possessed
by the individual householder.
4. The dust of each household contains more or less decomposing
moist organic matter, the refuse of the different comestibles of the house,
the peelings of potatoes and the waste of various other vegetables,
according to the season of the year, also tea leaves; the guts of fish or the
entrails of fowls; and, therefore, the necessity for frequent removal has to
be estimated not by what the mere fire ash and other dry refuse would
require, but by the extreme offensiveness of these unusual adjuncts.
5. Householders of the wealthier classes can with ease keep their dust
comparatively free from organic matter likely to cause effluvia by destroying
the waste matters in their kitchens, but not nearly to the same extent as
formerly, for owing to the great difficulty of getting servants, the use of
gas stoves for cooking has very largely superseded closed ranges. But in
any case they do not practise that care their education should have caused
them to take.
6. The domestic power of burning refuse among the lower classes is limited
by the poverty which must spare fuel, and there are many poor persons to whom
such fires as would consume their scant potato peelings are luxuries entirely
unknown.
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