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140
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
VENTILATION OF SEWERS.
Owing to repeated complaints from the inhabitants in a
certain locality in the Borough of offensive smells from the sewers
the Council appointed a Sub-Committee, consisting of members
of the Public Health and Highways Committees, to consider the
whole question This Sub-Committee instructed the Surveyors
and myself to report to them on the matter, and these reports were
as follows:—
Surveyors' Report.
In order that the Public Health and Highways Committee
may not have to consider two reports on the same subject, we
have embodied in this, the substance of one recently made upon a
communication by Mr. Councillor Cusden.
With one exception, viz., the abolition or otherwise of the
interceptor trap at the out-go of the house drain, we entirely concur
with the report of the Medical Officer of Health.
In the treating of the question of sewer ventilation of a large
district such as Wandsworth, we have not to deal with a sewerage
system designed as a whole, but one which has grown up piecemeal
and which was commenced when local conditions were far
different from those existing at present and therefore we have to
consider what, short of a wholesale reconstruction will remedy the
evils complained of.
In a perfect sewerage system, sewage should be conveyed
as quickly as possible from house to outfall so as to prevent putrefaction.
A constant circulation of air should be provided through
every part of sewer and house drain.
The sewers should be self cleansing or, where this is impossible,
they should be frequently flushed and the deposits removed
therefrom.
It will be seen from the spot map prepared by Dr. Caldwell
Smith, that nearly all the complaints are from streets in the
vicinity of the main lines of sewers, whether belonging to the
London County Council or the Borough Council, this points to
the necessity of dealing specially with these sewers. In the first