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14
the sewers, as suggested by Dr. Nicholas several years
since, and repeatedly alluded to in the Reports of the
Medical Officers of Health, who fully concur in the views
of their colleague.
To the ordinary trappings of sewer gratings practical
engineers do not appear to attach much importance. In a
sensible letter upon this subject in the Times, a few months
since, the following remarks occur:-"Sewer air can be
forced through most of the ordinary traps, and even
where the amount of water they contain is so large as to
resist a considerable amount of pressure without letting
the foul air bubble through, this water soon becomes saturated
with sewer emanations." This view of the matter
affords an additional argument in favour of the plan of a
constant water-flow as a means of preventing, to a great
extent, the generation of sewer gases, by the speedy
manner in which the material is carried away, thus allowing
decomposition to proceed only to a very limited extent
within the sewers.-(See Report, 1856.)
The Disinfection of Bedding, Clothing, &c.-The following
appeared in a London newspaper of December last:-
"At Marlborough Street, on Friday, December 1st,
Mary Rennary was charged with neglecting to disinfect a
bed upon which a person from Small Pox had died. The
defendant, according to the evidence of the Sanitary Inspector
of the parish of St. Marylebone, had not used
proper means to cleanse the bed in question (although a
disinfecting chamber had been established in the parish
for public use), and the consequence had been that two
persons who had subsequently slept upon it had been
attacked by Small Pox. Mr. Mansfield fined the defendant
20s., with 5s. costs."
The above circumstance is referred to for the purpose
not only of showing how Small Pox is sometimes propagated,
but the great injustice that might be done to the