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5
drinking water should be kept scrupulously clean and free
from the possibility of contamination, For this purpose cisterns
should be placed in accessible situations, in order that
they may be readily and frequently inspected and cleansed.
Care must also be taken that no contamination takes place
from any connection with the water-closet or drain.
Sewer Gases.
Continued watchful care is required to prevent the
ingress of foul air, the poisonous product of sewage putrefaction,
and the vehicle for epidemic germs from house
to house, into dwellings. Houses are frequently found
which communicate with sewers and drains by soil pipes
constructed within the house, by waste pipes, overflow pipes,
sink pipes, bath pipes, and lavatory pipes, which, although
supposed to be secured by traps, completely fail to attain their
object.
No oil pipe should be constructed within a house, and
whether within or without the house should be ventilated
by an upright shaft with a "Banner's cowl."
No direct communication should exist by means of any
of these before-mentioned pipes and the sewer They should
pass through the wall and terminate with a free end over a
trapped drain outside the building, remembering that every
pipe entering a sewer is a chimney to the drain.
The ventilating shafts to sewers and gullies in the roadway
are often complained of as emitting filthy odours, but
they arc useful in protecting houses from pressure of gasses,
and disinfectants are used by order of the Board to obviate
this nuisance.