Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Rotherhithe]
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??? and escape of noxious gases in manure making. I cannot venture to
??? opinion upon the result till I have seen the apparatus at work.
???y-one deaths were registered last month.
Yours respectfully,
???ch, 1862. W.MURDOCH.
SEVENTY-FIFTH REPORT.
Gntlemen,
During the elapsed month much attention has been given by the Sanitary
???cers to the premises of Mr. Salmon, manure-maker, Brighton Railway
???es. The apparatus recently erected on those premises for the purpose
???preventing the escape of gases during the mixing of artificial manure, was
???d on Saturday, 9th March, in the presence of Dr. Letheby, Dr. Odling,
??? myself. The apparatus consists of an iron box with close-fitting lid, and
???able of holding about half a ton of the materials employed. The box is
???versed by a spindle or cylinder armed with strong iron teeth, and which is
???de to revolve by a handle and wheel. The box having been charged with
??? usual ingredients, the handle is turned for four or fire minutes by two
???n, and the contents, agitated and worked in every direction by the teeth of
???e cylinder, are soon mixed thoroughly, and converted into a homogeneous
???ass. A flap of the box is then opened, the newly-mixed manure is raked
???t, and falls into a chamber beneath. The gases evolved during the
???ocess pass up a chimney into a scrubber, or close vessel full of wet coke, a
???reamiet of water there meeting them as they rise, and dissolving them, they
???ting all soluble. The refuse water from the scrubber is conveyed by a
???nall pipe into a tank below, and used again in the mixing. Any gas es???ping
the solvent action of the water, passes from the scrubber into an iron
???be, and hence under a fire of glowing coke, and the result of the com???ustion
by the coke goes up an iron funnel or shaft, rising twelve or fourteen
???et above the level of the railway. The constant current of air from the
???ox to the shaft, is kept up by the coke lire. The apparatus is well suited
???r the purposes it has to fulfil, and if properly worked, and kept free from
???akage, will much abate the nuisance hitherto complained of. The only gas
which can escape into the factory during the operation of mixing being the
???mall quantity hanging about the newly-made manure when the flap is
???petied to let it fall into the chamber below.
The nuisance occasioned by the accumulation of decomposing animal
???matter in the factory, is at present remedied, to a certain extent, by storing
such substances in a close compartment with only one opening, namely, the