Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hanover Square, The Vestry of the Parish of Saint George]
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combination of almost every conceivable mode by which
a house can be polluted with sewer air. After the owner
had exhausted himself in his efforts to remove sources of
contamination within the house, he applied for the assistance
of the local authority to deliver him from the
evils arising from the stable of a nobleman which adjoined
his house. The party-wall was old, cracked, and tunnelled
by mice, which brought oats from the stable into the
space under the floors of the house; and through these
apertures, not only the common stable smell, but gusts of
air from the stable sewers, and from the house sewers
beyond, used to be wafted into the house. Fortunately
we had a nobleman to deal with, who, at great expense,
caused the drainage of the stable to be renewed, and
efficiently trapped, and the whole wall to be faced with
cement, so as to shut out effluvia absolutely, and render
the physician's house less unwholesome.
Half-Moon Street, Nos. 32 and 33. The occupant of
the former of these houses has been a frequent complainant
; first against a cow-shed and slaughter-house,
White Horse Yard, at the back of her house; then, in
consequence of her complaints, the discovery was made of
an old disused sewer running under her house, as detailed
in former reports; in consequence of fresh complaints,
her neighbours were invaded, and cesspools obliged to be
abolished, and new drainage effected at Nos. 33 and 34;
and now again fresh complaints are made against the
slaughter-house. But these were soon found to be
utterly unfounded. About the same time the occupier
of No. 33 complained of nuisance arising from No. 32 ;
but after a long investigation, Mr. Grant found a rain
water-pipe, previously unnoticed, which passed down the