The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-08
HOSPITALS IN BAD SHAPE,
Plumbing Inspector Sullivan Says
They Engender Conta-
gion.
Twenty.Sixth Street Building Not Fit
to Harbor Animals-CheerlesS
and Horrible.

Now comes J. J. Sullivan, Plumbing In
spector of the new Board of Health, and
makes his report, which is calculated to
take its place among the sensationalisms
that have made that department conspicu-
Gus in the public eye recently. Mr.. Sulli-
van uses strong language and does not
qualify it much.
''In general way" he says, my report
is that the plumbing system and scheme
of sanitation in the different buildings
with one or two minor exceptions is in
adequate, dangerous to health, offensive
and in violation of the laws which the
Board OF Health has established. The
system involves no attempt to recognize
accepted methods of good plumbing. The
sewer system in each building is old. In
several instances 1t is OF imperfect con-
struction, and IN crumbling allows IN
healthful odors TO escape The fixtures
are of the cheapest and least effective
patterns. Their condition in a majority
of instances is filthy in the extreme. In
some cases a small expense will remedy
the defect, but IN others il will be neces-
sary to entirely remodel the plumbing of
the buildings, changing the plan Of sewers
provides shall be used in buildings.
The permeation of the atmosphere in
the County Hospital and Branch Jail 2 by
sewer gases and nauseating odors is ex-
tremelY dangerous.
I'm the City and County Hospital the
plum bing in some instances is danger
ously bad, polluting with its odors the
atmosphere of the Wards. Fixtures which
should never have been allowed in the
main hospital have remained there for
years in neglect, forming a constant and
growing danger to the inmates. Unused
fixtures are the mediums through which
sewer gas enters the wards. In no part of
the main building is the plumbing in a
perfect sanitary condition.
THE plumbing in the Twenty-sixth-
street Hospital is simply outrageous, no
attention whatever having been paid to
the sanitary construction of sewers and
fixtures.
The appearance of the ba.htubs is such
as to cause disgust, especially the one in
the female leper department. In the hall
close to the officers sleeping apartments
Is an old sink and closet. The sink has no
trap and the stencil coming from it is dis
gushing in the extreme. especially in a
place of this kind where the fixtures
should be of the most improved sanitary
description. 1t must be terrible for the
inmates and especially for the officers who
are compelled to breathe during both
sleeping and waking hours the atmosphere
that Is continually escaping from these
fixtures.
The sewage from one of these build
ings is discharged into an old wooden
sewer, part of which lays under the build
ings, and thence is conveyed through
the grounds to Mission fats, where it
empties. 1t is settled feet that this kind
OF sewer is the worst that can be used,
the wood absorbing and retaining all the
offensive elements contained in the sewer
age, forming gases that are continually es-
Gaping into the buildings through the de-
fective plumbing arrangements.
Underneath one end of the leper ward
is the chicken-house, and the accumulated
filth there is sufficient in itself to cause
contagion. The buildings themselves, on
which it is no part of my duty to comment,
are anything but what the name i'm
plies, not being fit to house dog in. II
they were used as hospital for sick cattle
the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals would raise a hue and cry that
would arouse the whole community, being
in such cherries and dilapidated condi-
ton as they are.
sit is terrible for the afflicted inmates
shut up as they are, isolated from the rest
of the community as they necessarily
must be, and forced to pass the balance of
their lives in such an abode and in an at
mosphere made foul by system of plumb
ing worse than none"
Variations of this story-none of them
quite so bad, but each of them bad enough
to demand immediate action-are reported
with regard to the Receiving Hospital,
the City and County Almshouse, the
County Jail. Branch Jail 2, formerly the
House of Correction, and Branch Jail 3,
g. L. - I'D, - II Oh