View report page

31
I am led especially to call attention to these drains, because their
condition endangered health; and their inspection and removal
occupied much of the Sanitary Officer's time; further, the careless and
injurious way in which many of the new drains were constructed
showed the necessity for careful inspection.
All these old drains were leaking,—owing to the bricks being much
decayed and the mortar softened; some of these drains had no bottom
or only loosened brick or tile bottoms, consequently the ground around
them was saturated with sewage matters. The inhabitants in the
houses situated over and adjacent to these drains had been evidently
exposed to much annoyance and danger. And it was surprising at
first sight how little health apparently had suffered. Many families
had seemingly lived for months or years on, or in close vicinity to,
ground charged with decomposing organic matters, and escaped severe
illness. In one house, for instance, situated in Windsor Street,
immediately under the kitchen floor were accumulated many gallons of
thick, black, bubbling (decomposing) sewage which had escaped from
an old broken brick drain which carried off the overflow from two
adjoining cesspools. The earth under this kitchen, (in which persons
were daily working,) and doubtless the ground, to some extent, under
the house itself also, was charged with sewage matters. Yet the
tenants had lived in this house for months and had had, they said,
no illness.
Many instances might be brought forward from the year's
experience showing that drains had leaked and sewage, in or near
houses, accumulated for weeks or much longer, and yet persons in
such dwellings had seemingly escaped disease. I say seemingly, because
increasing investigation is showing more clearly every year that many
minor ailments, such as sore throat, diarrhoea, weakness, headache,
febricula, and other signs of slight poisoning occur in persons thus
situated. No sanitarian would deny the existence of danger in such
premises; he might appeal to scores of similar instances and show that
fever or other allied acute outbreak occurred when it was least
apprehended.