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22
THE DISINFECTION OF HOSPITAL SEWAGE.
Following up the suggestion made in my last Annual Report,
recommending that the excreta passing from Small Pox and
Fever patients in Hospitals should be thoroughly disinfected
before being allowed to mingle with the sewage of the district,
Dr. Soper, member of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, has invented
and applied to the drains of the Stockwell Fever and
Small Pox Hospitals an apparatus by which any infection contained
in the sewage can be conveniently and effectually
destroyed on its way to the main sewer. The invention consists
in the application of chlorine gas by means of a generator of
Dr. Sopor's own design, which is in the shape of a cone, and
perforated at its apex. Connecting the sewer with the surface
of the ground is an eighteen-inch sewer pipe, placed perpendicularly
into which, the generator, previously charged, is lowered
by means of a chain. It is so adjusted that when in situ, its
perforated end dips some inches into the sewer, and emits a
continuous stream of chlorine gas, the charge being so regulated
as to require renewing twice a week only.
During the recent epidemic, the defective drainage in many
of the houses in which Small Pox occurred within the Stockwell
district, pointed strongly to the possibility of the infection
having been conveyed through the medium of sewer gas, and I
shall watch with the greatest interest, the result of this novel and
important sanitary application, as affecting the health of that
immediate locality.
THE ARTIZANS & LABOURERS DWELLINGS ACT,
1875.
In the month of August, a representation under the above
Act was made to the Metropolitan Board of Works, recommending
four unhealthy areas for demolition.
Block No. I included Bond Court, Bond Street, John Street,
Cottage Place, Elizabeth, Henry, James, and Perry's Places,
Cornwall Road.