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16
The drainage of houses appears to me to be faulty in principle.
All these inconveniences might with small amount of
cost be remedied, by cutting off all direct communication with
the sewer.
Thus—
Let the water-closet be well trapped and in a well ventilated
building, which may be connected with the house, but not
within it.
Do not allow the soil pipe to bo within the house; do not
let the waste pipes from cisterns, or the pipes from sinks communicate
directly with sewers or cesspools; these pipes should
merely pass through the wall of the house, and have a free
end hanging a few inches above a trapped gully outside tho
house. By this arrangement many of the inconveniences of
stopped drains would be avoided, and no sewer gas from this
constant cause could enter the house.
It appears to me always injudicious to place a drain within
a dwelling-house, and I have from this cause seen pernicious
effects to arise from the entry of sewer gas. If it is positively
necessary to resort to this method of drainage, the pipes should
be well cemented together, and carried at a sufficient depth
in the earth; and to make this additionally secure, they should
be ventilated by stack pipes or shafts outside the houso.
The ventilation of houses is also of immense importance; no
house should be so closed, either by day or night, as to exclude
the ingress of fresh air or the egress of foul or used-up
air, and no house can be wholesome in which this is not provided
for.
The decomposition of air by human beings in a closed room
soon deteriorates the atmosphere, and renders it unfit for
oxidizing and purifying the blood.
This decomposition of air is increased enormously when gas
is burned—one gas jet consumes as much oxygen as five
human beings.
The sitting rooms should have communication with the
exterior air, when occupied in the day time, by means of a
properly constructed ventilator; but it might be sufficient
in this changeable climate to keep a landing window open, or
have an open ventilator in the ceiling of the landing at night.
Overcrowding.
The only legal means for preventing overcrowding is by
section 29 of Nuisances Removal Act, section 67 Metropolis