Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1877-03-02

TIE SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND
TOWNS, by COL GEORGE f. WARM q, JR.-Hurd 4
Houghton NeD York.
This is n work of nearly four hundred
pages, which grew out of a series of articles
in the Atlantic monthly the author tells us in
the preface. We read some of the papers
rs they appeared in the magazine, and find
| ing them of such value we have waited with
some impatience for the appearance of this
book and now after examining it for sever
nj weeks we can express both our admira-
ton and astonishment mt the amount of in
| formation contained in it. 1t is information
| which should be within reach of every man
! who has home and u family, or who rents
n house. especially in II village or city. 1t
has long been known that valley or low
meadow land is much more unhealthy as II
| place of residence than the uplands; indeed,
| the plain in this village is rs least twenty
| per cent. more desirable rs Il place of resi-
dence on the ground of health Alone than
the section of the town down near the river
or over in Summerville, aud the matter can
bo as easily tested by coming down tho Av-
enue some evening after one of our warm
days when the air is full of moisture. This
work OF Col Waring first deals with the ne
cessity for drainage on the ground of health,
namely, to prevent poisoning the AIR we
breathe and the water we drink. Many
houses are built on moist land and unless tho
cellars are well drained, tho accommodating
|
and breed disease. If the air is contami-
mated by odors from pigsties, privies. sink
| drains, and decaying bodies of animals or
refuse from the house, the health of all is
dangered to u very large extent and fevers,
especially those of typhoid character diph-
iberia and kindred diseases are generated to
an alarming extent. The first hundred
pages or more of this book is devoted to this
matter and the practical drainage of houses,
and any one who has sink drain or out
buildings would be more than compensated
for the cost of this book by its practical sug-
gestions in this regard. We once moved in
to u new and well-built house, in whose
small cellar was the only well on the prem
ises, the pump directly over the well stood
on one end OF the sink and the waste pipe
went out mt The other through the waste pipe
upon the ground. The soil being coarse
gravel, how long does any one suppose it
would take for the sink slOps to percoate
through the earth into the we'll. OF course
one of the first things we did was to carry
off the waste water by wood cutters, and of
course in warm weather there was more or
less arrangement of the stomach and bowels
of the various members of the family, and
attacks of fever, one of which was very se-
we're. Doctors bills, To say nothing of injury
to health and loss of time, would have paid
the cost of this book several times over.
Similar conditions existed some years since
in connection with the Muplewood young la
dies school in Pittsiield, Mass, which re-
suited in iifty-siX cases of typhoid fever in n
family of one hundred and twelve persons,
and of those sick sixteen died, and medical
skill attributes large proportion of typhoid
lover to such causes rs we have enumerated.
Next Col. Waring discusses with elaborate
methods, estimates and illustrations, the best
plans for draining II village or city, with nu-
merOus instances given where these plans
have been followed TO the great improve
ment in the general health of II town and q
marked decrease of the death-rate. In some
towns in England the Introduction OF some
of these systems of drainage has been fol-
lowed by a saving of life, twenty, twenty
five and in some cases thirty-two per cent.
MS shown by the records of local physicians
aud we know that in England such statistics
are kept with much greater care than in this
country. Also typhoid ievers have dimin-
ished forty, fifty, sixty aud in some cases
sevonty-live per cent. since tho introduction
of a carefully constructed system of drainage.
But his methods of house drainage have in
terested,us most, rs he tells how farmers or
residents of a small country village may
drain the cellars, sinks, ETC.. without danger
TO health, but with great profit to the gardens
aud fields also. Every reader of these
pages recalls the back door-yards of farm
houses, with its great unsightly "slop hole. y
. whose stenches We're utterly stilling many a
day in midsummer, and how To get rid of il
the worthy people knew not. Col. Warnings
book tells just how Il is 10 be done; Just how
he has done II on his own farm, so that the
! old unsightly back yard is clean green turl