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11
But the microbe sometimes finds a habitat outside the
human body, and colonics arc formed in decomposing animal
or vegetable matter; in the effete material of the drains; in
the organic contents of the dust bin, arid elsewhere; and from
the consequent augmentations of its poisonous particles, the
chances are increased of the admission of its elements into
the water and the food, and of their ingestion by those who
arc predisposed to infection.
From the light conveyed by these facts, the early removal
of organic refuse from the neighbourhood of the houses of
the people receives additional importance; and the perfect
disconnection of the house drain from the sewer, together with
the enforcement of measures which are effectual in the
prevention of the contamination of the air by sewer gas, is a
matter of the first consideration.
The importance of this subject may be recognised when it
is considered that sewer gas may find access by a drain,
which has not been disconnected, or which is faulty, and as
the sewer acts as a bond of communication between house
and house, from the existence of an infectious case in one
house, disease may be generated in many.
The abolition of the cesspool and its replacement by a
system of drainage had not at first that success in the abatement
of disease which might have been expected from a
sanitary measure so advanced. The builders who had the
practical means at their disposal, and who were responsible
for carrying into effect those improvements in house drainage,
which a knowledge of the poisonous properties of sewer gas
dictated, ignored the existence of that knowledge and
neglected to give efTect to its teaching. The truth or the
reverse of the theory that sewer gas is dangerous to health
was to them a matter of indifference.
There is a class of men, so called practical—and builders
for the most part belong to this order—who regard all things