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into the sewer. The method has, I believe, been now abandoned.
A somewhat similar mode of ventilation is that known as Reeling's
Extractor, in which the sewer air is passed through a ring of gas
burners placed beneath a column. The foregoing criticism is equally
applicable, however, to Reeling's method. The initial cost is great,
the care and attention required mean labour and expense, the action
obtained is local, and last, but not least, even where the method does
act, it merely treats the offensive symptoms without attacking the
cause of the nuisance.
All the foregoing schemes are founded upon the belief that there
is a large and constant manufacture of foul gases in sewers, that
frequently there is considerable pressure of air in the sewers, and that,
if sewer air escapes into a house drain, it necessarily escapes into the
house. It is not too much to say that all the methods of ventilating
sewers (from the point of view of obviating smells) have been weighed
in the balance and found wanting, while, singularly enough, the City
of Bristol has for many years exhibited throughout its entire area a
complete system of absolutely unventilated sewers.
During the drought of 1898, owing to the drying of the waterseal
of the roadside gullies, complaints of smells led to an attempt on
the part of many to urge the City Council to adopt the ventilation of
their sewers by means of street openings. The City Council in
November considered special reports by Dr. Davies, their Medical
Officer of Health, T. H. Yabbicorn, Esq., the City Engineer, and
Messrs. Taylor, Sons & Santo Crimp, and "decided by a unanimous
vote to adhere to their present system of unventilated sewers."
The zymotic diseases which may reasonably be looked upon as
likely to be associated with sewer emanations are Diphtheria, Fever,
and Diarrhœa. I give below the statistics from the RegistrarGeneral's
last-published Annual Summary (1898) relating to these
diseases in various towns, including West Ham and Bristol, for the
ten years, 1888 to 1897.