The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-08-05

ociAoA sAu pauo LIS congregation BOOttDy,
and asked their prayers for himself in his new
field of labor in Wostchester, Pa.
The Ventilation and Disinfection OF
Sewers.
One of the most vital sanitary questions now
agitating the public mind, and, we are glad to
soy, enlisting the experimental researches of
eminent savans, is the ventilation and manage
ment Of the sewage systems of our towns and
cities. In nothing can science make it's i'm
portance more deeply felt than in mastering
those subjects which most concern the health
and happiness Of our homes. For some years
o few quiet and patient laborers in the field of
chemical and municipal climatology have been
experimenting to ascertain the most favorable
methods of treating the drainage and sewerage
Of the densely crowded marts of Europe and
America, and we have had their various and
somewhat varying conclusions put before the
world. Without attempting to give all the
results of these valued Investigations it is
highly necessary in the present morbid and
morbifc season to point out the surest and
safest conclusions reached.
The HERALD some time ago pointed out the
danger of the pneumatic dissemination of
sewer gas in our houses, hotels and public
buildings, and suggested proper architec-
tural precautions and safeguards from the
invisible and subtle poison of these sewer
exhalations. 1t is of paramount Importance,
however, to protect our streets and avenues
from the pestilential odors, as well to secure
our parlors and bedrooms.
There is no perfect method yet devised of
ventilating sewers, and until some such plan is
devised as will meet all the conditions re-
quired it is highly desirable to resort to dis
infection on q large SCALE If we cannot deal
with the poison by diluting it sufficiently in
the great atmospheric ocean, the obvious
alternative is to destroy or extract its deadly
power by some chemical agent.
But very recent investigations show that the
evil of sewage infection can be very materially
diminished by certain methods. Water, the
great cleanser is, of course, first appealed to to
do its work, and in London the Board Of
Health have occasionally adopted the plan Of
flooding the sewers and purging by the
mechanical action of water This remedy is
impossible in many Of our cities where the
water supply is never superauous and must
usually be carefully husbanded. It is objected
to the use of water that in flooding the sewer,
the rats-the only perfect scavengers-are
kept out, and Mr.. Thorn, an experimenter of
Chorley, England, found it necessary to con-
struct sidings or landings for these invaluable
animals. It is certain, also, that water greatly
assists decomposition and, unless used in ex-
cessive and exhaustless profusion, so as to
carry off in its rush the poison it has helped to
disengage, it is the most fatal agent at work in
the sewer. The extremes of excess and want
of water have been conclusively proved,
therefore, to be the safest; for, in the absence
Of this element the process of decom-
position is slow. 1t is clear, then, that
in all cities and towns where it
is impossible to deluge the sewers and keep
them ever gorged with water, the next best
thing is to prevent and cut off their supply
and preserve them as dry as possible. Water
waste, beyond doubt not only deprives the
people who recklessly squander it of this great
necessity Of life, but also rapidly promotes the
processes Of decomposition and renders the
sewer system intolerably offensive and deadly.
It should ever be remembered that all accumu-
lations of filth and offal in our suburban de-
positories should be put upon high and dry
ground and kept as dry as possible. AS to
the actual ventilation Of the sewers, the inter-
ests Of health will never be guarded until we
learn to seal up Theoretically these chan
nels of infection, and permit no COM
munication between them and our streets
or houses except by trap openings. If this
were done, it might be worthy of considera-
ton whether, as has been suggested, the
sewer might not be ventilated by steam fans,
causing current of air to pass through it as
through our pneumatic railways, or in another
way, by tubes opening high up above the
ground and discharging their putrid air into
the more rapid currents above. But until
some such plan is adopted for ventilating the
sewer or diluting its poisons, it is better
to multiply its street openings and
hasten the process of dilution. 1t is now
well known that the human system is
very susceptible to the faint Of small body OF
concentrated infection, inhaled for few mo-
ments, but is quite safe from the same infec-
ton, even in cholera or smallpox hospitals,
when the infected Dir is diluted. 1t results,
from what has been advanced, that the best
means that now offer for getting rid Of the
great pest Of modern cities are, first, to dimin-
ish as much as possible the supply OF water to
the sewers unless they can be perennially
flooded second, to multiply the facilities for
dilution by contact with the open dir, and,
lastly and chiefly, to resort in the utmost de-
gree to the use of disinfectants
If our people are to be visited by the long
threatened scourge of Asiatic cholera not o