The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-03-26
House Drainage.

Custom, luxury and fashion, as affecting
the interior arrangements of dwellings,
have gradually converted house drainage
into source of danger, which does not
properly belong to it as a hygienic element
in sanitary system. Before the art of
construction of the purely mechanical ar
rangements which belong to house drain
age was brought to its present state of
excellence, and, indeed, before the insidi-
GUS dangers connected with it were dis
covered or understood, the fashion of
placing the openings through which house
refuse is discharged into the sewers within
the very iDnermost recesses and most
imperfectly ventilated parts of dwellings
was introduced as matter of convenience
or socalled luxury. When the evil con-
sequences of this began to be felt, remedies
in the form of traps and plumbing devices
were multiplied, until iually, after the
inventions of more than quarter of
century have been brought to bear on the
subject, we are obliged to confess that the
problem is not yet satisfactorily solved.
While it is true that, through the progress
of the mechanic arts and constant study,
stimulated by sad experiences, there has
amelioration of evils which for long time
numbered victims by thousands, yet no
system of construction or patent devices
which has been, or probably will be, intro
duced, can be pronounced perfectly and
permanently safe, 80 long as the present
custom continues of placing plumbing
conveniences within the walls of living,
and, above all, of sleeping, rooms. Pipes
will decay, traps will become unsealed,
the water supply will occasionally be in
termitted or suspended, drains will become
foul or leak. And when we consider the
impracticability of constant supervision,
especially in rented or tenement houses,
by competent persons, and the cost Of such
supervision, SO reluctantly borne, even in
cases of the most fragrant defects-defects
which usually announce themselves by the
outbreak of disease, and perhaps by deaths
it is impossible not to feel that the sys-
tenn, as it is now generally practiced,
should be abandoned. 1t is, of course,
impracticable to change at once the house
drainage of dwellings already built and
occupied. In most cases the cost of so
doing would be too great for the ordinary
tenant or householder 10 bear; and it is
every precaution which can be devised to
render more efficient, without great ex-
pense, existing constructions and arrange
ments; but wherever proprietors are will
ing to undergo the expense, and, above all,
in new designs, it appears little less than
inhuman for architects and builders to
adhere to system which exposes all
especially women and children, who are
most confined in-doors-to the deadly and
insidious COMMUNICATIONS of the air of
dwellings which arise from the numerous
fixtures which have direct connections
with sewers. 1t is, moreover, not always
the sewer gases that do the most harm,
but the poisons which are generated in
the plumbing pipes and house drains
themselves, aud which arise from the very
use of the conveniences in the first in
stance. There is remedy so simple,
especially in all new designs, that it is
almost inconceivable that it has not al
ready become universal, viz TO confne
the closets, bathrooms, lavatories, and all
other so called conveniences within an
annex, or within impervious walls at the
to the roof. Such inclosed space may be
warmed and ventilated more thoroughly
and easily than any other part of dwell
ing. Any leakage would not affect the
air of the dwelling, while the total cost of
the plumbing would be greatly reduced.
This system has frequently been suggested
during the last few years, and its great
advantages were forcibly presented re-
Gently by DR.. Hamilton of this city-W.
p. TrOubridge, in Harper's Magazine.