View report page

22
while scarlatina and diarrhoea are below the average.
The prevalence of fever in the Metropolis is not
strikingly illustrated in our district by the number
of deaths. The fact of the prevailing epidemic
being connected with imperfect drainage and emanations
from sewers, dependent on the want of proper
means to cut off such emanations from the dwellings,
is now almost universally admitted by the
best writers on fever and by all sanitarians. Most of
our sewers contain so much of decomposing vegetable
and animal matter that they are literally elongated
cesspools. Mr. Uawlinson has shown this to be the
case in every district where, in his capacity of Civil
Engineer, he has been called upon to examine drainage.
It is a fact, known to all who are much on the River
Thames, that animal exuviae are less frequently
observed than they would be if they were discharged
from the sewers soon after their deposition; but it
would appear that they lie in the sewers under our
streets, and are there decomposed before passing into
the river. This is the reason why we have sewer
smells in our streets, and sewer emanations in our
houses. In the city of Carlisle, the sewerage of which
has been, within a few years, rebuilt under the supervision
of Mr. Uawlinson, the bottom of the drains are
as clean as if new, no deposit whatever remaining,
The refuse of all kinds which pass into the drains and
sewers is immediately carried out of the city. In
London, a deposit of filthy mud, resulting from the
more or less solid exuvia necessarily poured into them
from houses and factories, remains at the bottom of
our sewers. After very heavy rains the mud so formed
is partially washed into the river, but probably the
larger quantity remains, especially in those sewers
where the fall is not great, and continues to cast off
its putrescence into our crowded thoroughfares, and
into our houses, if not properly protected.