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70
The numbers using the swimming pools and private baths in 1935
were :—
Buckingham Palace Road: 119,249 men; 69,033 women.
Great Smith Street: 131,442 men; 53,879 women.
Marshall Street: 162,707 men; 105,471 women.
The numbers relating to users of the public laundries were:—
Buckingham Palace Road, 27,023; Great Smith Street, 22,636; Marshall
Street, 9,448.
Sterilisation of Water in Public Swimming Pools.—The Baths and
Washhouses Committee requested the Medical Officer of Health to inquire
whether the present methods employed for the purification of the water
in the City Council's Swimming Pools could in any way be improved in the
light of modern developments.
At that period trial tests were being carried out at one of the City
Council's pools with the chloramine (chlorine-ammonia) method of
sterilisation, and finally comparative tests of the chlorine and chloramine
methods of treatment were arranged and carried out at the Marshall
Street Baths. The following is a summary of the results obtained:—
(1) The use of chloramine has a definite advantage over chlorine in
that the stated level of bactericidal action is maintained,
particularly in the deep end of the baths.
(2) A satisfactory bactericidal action can be maintained with
chloramine while materially lessening the smell and other
unpleasant effects of chlorine in the baths.
(3) The value of the residual chlorine, using the chloramine method,
must be considerably higher than with chlorine alone, and the
level should be maintained at not less than 0.9 parts per million,
This point must be taken into consideration when evaluating
the methods from an economic standpoint.
(4) Owing to the binding action of ammonia, this higher level should
be attainable without a gross increase in the use of chlorine.
(5) It was observed from a comparison of the chlorine content under
the two methods that the chlorine is more evenly distributed
in the water when incorporated with ammonia while when
chlorine alone is used the water at the deep end is somewhat
deficient in chlorine. That is to say, whilst the water at the
shallow end and perhaps the middle would be sterile that at the
deep end would not have the same degree of purity when the
pure chlorine is used.