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95
While placing on record the experience of other towns, I do not at
present feel called upon to recommend definitely any of the above
mentioned measures.
I would, however, point out, that, in an undoubted instance of
nuisance from a surface ventilator, the Works Committee authorised the
closing of the opening in the road and the erection of a ventilating shaft,
with the result that the nuisance was at once abated.
In this particular instance the exhalations from the surface
ventilator immediately in front were distinctly perceptible inside the house.
The question of danger to health from the present system of sewer
ventilation is a most important one, and while in my Annual Report
I state that my experience does not warrant me in ascribing disease to
it in Hampstead, I am nevertheless of opinion, that, under certain
circumstances, exhalations from sewers are quite as capable of producing
disease as those which, through some defect in a drainage system, are
permitted to enter dwelling houses.
That I am not alone in this contention may be gathered from a study
of the statistics submitted; and I would point out that your late Medical
Officer of Health in his reply to the Medical Officer of Health of the
Strand District in 1896, stated that "the only apparent cause of
certain cases of Diphtheria in Hampstead, was effluvia from street gullies
or ventilators in near proximity."
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
HERBERT LITTLEJOHN,
Medical Officer of Health.