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34
A great amount of controversy has for many years
ranged around the necessity or otherwise, of providing intercepting
traps on house drains, and recently a Departmental
Committee of the Local Government Board presented a
report upon this matter to the Houses of Parliament. The
conclusions of the Committee are very important and should
be more widely known.
They report that:—
"The necessity of the intercepting trap, on bacteriological
or epidemiological grounds, has not therefore
been established. It appears, in fact, that the
characteristic of sewer air which is of practical
importance is its smell, and that, therefore, the
question, as to the necessity or otherwise of the
intercepting trap, is narrowed down to the issue
whether, in any given case, sewer air will be more
perceptible or less perceptible to the sense of smell,
with or without the trap.
Nevertheless, the question is one of serious public
health importance. Human beings vary greatly in
their perception of smells, and offensive and
unpleasant odours affect the comfort and physical
well-being, and probably the health, of the individual."
It also appears from the evidence given that the splashing
of sewage in drains may be far more harmful to health
than any thing else connected with drainage. The Committee
report that:—
"The relationship between the splashing of sewage
and the temporary presence of sewage microbes in
drain air, and the wafting of such microbes to
considerable distances by currents of air, which has
been established in the course of our enquiry,
appears to be a matter of practical importance,
whether the intercepting trap is present or not.
The bacteriological evidence suggests that if
exposure to drain air is related, as many suppose