A METHOD OF DISINFECTING AND DEODORIZING OR TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER MATTERS, AND STRUCTURES AND PLACES
Year: 1858

page_text: En the Matter of a Patent granted to JOHN CHISHOLM, of Bermondsey,
in the County of Surrey, Manufacturing Chemist, for "A METHOD OF
DISINFECTING AND DEODORIZING OR TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER MATTERS,
AND STRUCTURES AND PLACES," No. 1499, dated 3rd July 1858, and
of the Specification thereof filed 3rd January 1859.
DISCLAIMER. AND MEMORANDUM OF ALTERATION.
WHEREAS I, the aforesaid John Chisholm, have petitioned for leave to enter
and file a Disclaimer and Memorandum of Alteration, to be certified by
Her Majesty's Attorney-General's fiat and signature, according to the
Statute in that case made and provided, in order to alter and amend the
said Specification by striking out the words erased by a line or lines
drawn through them, and inserting the words which are underlined and
between.inverted commas, so that the said Specification may be altered,
amended, and read in the following manner, that is to say :-
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME I, JOHN
CHISHOLM, of Bermondsey, in the County of Surrey, Manufacturing Chemist,
end greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
atent, bearing date the Third day of July, in the year of our Lord One

page_text: thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, in the twenty-second year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said John Chisholm, Her special license that I, the said John Chisholm,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John
Chisholm, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "A METHOD OF
DISINFECTING AND DEODORIZING OR TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER MATTERS, AND
STRUCTURES AND PLACES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said John Chisholm, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should par-
ticularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the
Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Chisholm, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement thereof, that is to say:-
This Invention consists in the application of electric or galvanic agency to
the sewage or other matters or to the locality to be disinfected or deodorized,
whereby foul gases are decomposed, noxious air or matters purified, and in
certain cases the resulting products may be turned to useful account.
Having thus set forth the nature of my Invention, I now proceed to describe
how the Invention may be practically carried into effect; but in so doing I'do
not restrict myself to any particular method of or means for obtaining and
applying the electric or galvanic agency which I employ, as various modes
and apparatus or contrivances may be adopted for the purpose.
The application of electricity or galvanism, as proposed by me, to the
vitiated and noxious. gases contained in confined places, produces effects
analogous to those of ozone acting naturally on matters exposed to its in-
fluence, in situations where the atmospheric air has free access and circulation;
but as this natural action is neutralized or destroyed in localities where free
access of atmospheric air is prevented, as in crowded towns and structures,
drains, sewers, and other confined places, I propose, according to my Invention,
to apply electric or galvanic agency to them and their contents, and thereby

page_text: produce or disengage ozone; and this agent, which is absorbed almost as
rapidly as produced, destroys with it a quantity of deliterious and vitiated
gases, and the electric or galvanic action being exerted continuously, ozone is
reformed "or produced "as rapidly as it becomes absorbed, or electricity or
galvanisin may be so applied as to burn "or destroy, decompose, and disinfect"
the vitiated gases, and thereby decomposer.disinfeet; and destroy them;
I first proceed, by way of illustration to exemplify certain means of
per-
forming the Invention. Supposing, for instance, a sewer to be the place acted
on; the vitiated atmosphere of confined places containing fecal and foul
matters, such as a sewer, is charged with various gases, such as sulphuretted,
phosphoretted, and carburretted hydrogen, nitrogen, carbonic oxides, &c,
arising from the decomposition of organic matter. The action of electricity
on such an atmosphere produces ozone, which destroys the noxious gaseous
compounds, or rather transforms them into healthy and innocuous gases, and
these gravitate, owing to their superior specific gravity, and are absorbed into
and combined with the fecal matters which they disinfect and also form
by their combination therewith inert and inoffensive compounds, such as
nitrates, sulphates, carbonates, phosphates, &c. Thus, supposing a sewer to
contain sulphuretted, phosphoretted, carburetted hydrogen, &c., the applica-
tion of electricity will remove the hydrogen and replace it by oxygen, thereby
substituting healthy for deleterious compounds. For example, the passage of
an electric current- through sulphuretted gaseous compounds will form
sulphurous acid, the specific gravity whereof being greater than that of the
other gases, it will fall to the lower part of the sewer, and combining with the
fecal matters therein will produce sulphites, or, if the matters, disengage a
large amount of oxygen, sulphuric acid will be formed producing sulphates;
in like manner carburetted, phosphoretted, &c. gases will form carbonic acid
phosphates, phosphites, &c.
According to one arrangement, which I term my sewage battery, I submerge
in the fecal matters, and at certain distances from one another, two plates of
electrically opposite metals or materials, as for example, a copper and a zinc
plate, which I connect by conducting wires, one proceeding from each, and
meeting at a point where they are soldered together. These wires are
insulated by a coating of gutta perchia or other insulating material up to
their points of tna! junction with the plates," where-the-insulating-eeating
eenses-60-ms-to-set-free-the-electrie-current-which-will-be-generated-by-the-nction--of
the-feel-fluids-on-the-positive-and--negative plates, und-allow-it-to-net-on-the-feen!
matters-in-order-to-deodorize-und-disinfect-them Here the fecal fluid matters

page_text: act on the plates as the exciting fluid, and the greater the amount of noxious
inatter they contain, the greater will be their electrical activity ou the plates,
"and the more rapidly the noxious matter will be acted on and decomposed
"by the electric current passing between the plates, fresh sewage matter
their-junction-by-n-hook-or-proper-instrument-from-the-top,-and-I-insulate-them-to
near-op-at-their-junction; there the insulation-eenses,-so-as-to-allow-the--eleetrie
eurrent-to-pass-into-and act on the vitiated atmosphere of the sewer, and
produce the decomposing and disinfecting effects referred to. To obtain
intensity "quantity," a number of similar plates may be employed with a wire
pro.eeding from each, the wires of each pole being united into clusters or
bundles, so that each cluster may as it were form a single wire, the wires of
the positive and negative plates being respectively connected "as before men-
tione," by-soldering, and insulated-up-to-neur-the-point-of-junction; or an earth
battery may be substituted for a sewage battery, that is to say, I bury positive
and negative plates in the earth outside the sewer at a depth of not less than
four feet, and carry their wires into the sewers, where they are brought into
the fecal matters or through the atmosphere of the sewer..
Another arrangement by which the impure liquid from sewage, &c.,
collected in a reservoir may be deodorized and disinfected, an also raised in
a purified condition from a lower to a higher level, consists in fitting in the
reservoir a number of cones or cylinders of clay or other porous material
having wires leading from their upper part to the fluid matters at their base,
and these being charged with electricity the liquids will percolate the cones or
cylinders and asceud through them, and through a spout or conduit at top to
the higher level. Or I suspend a series of horizontal rods in the sewer at
certain distances apart, so as to form an interrupted line, through which I pass
electric or galvanic currents, and circuit being broken between each rod, a
spark or flame will be produced, which by using certain instruments, such as
Ruhnkorf's induction coil, may be obtained of considerable length, forming
jets or lines of flame, so to speak, which burn "or decompose," deodorize, aud
disinfect the impure gases. Or I employ au electric light, suspending the

page_text: electrodes at a short distance from the crown of the sewer, and pass a current
through them from a battery, so as to burn and decompose the offensive gases,
destroying the hydrogen, transforming sulphuretted hydrogen into sulphurous
acid, hydrocarbons into carbonic acid, and so on. Both specific gravity and
volume of the gases being affected by combustion, the atmosphere of the sewer
will undergo considerable disturbance, causing a continuous current to set in
towards the pint of ignition, and consequently allowing a large mass of
sewage to be disinfected by a single light or rod, or a number of vertical rods
let down at right angles from a series of horizontal, carrier rods suspended in
a sewer may be employed, each vertical rod terminating in a platinum wire
similar to electrical firing contrivances in mining operations, and the platinum
wines being charged by a strong battery (as, for example, Grove's piles) are
made red hot, and so burn, decompose, deodorise, and disinfect the noxious
gases. A battery arrangement similar to what I call my sewage battery may
be applied to waterclosets, the plates being cimbedded in the area, cellar, drain,
or sufficiently damp situation, and the wires brought therefrom one to each side
of the closet pan, "and there united by the interposition of a resisting medium
or a Rulimkorpff coil."
I now procced to describe an arrangement for disinfecting the vitiated
atmosphere of theatres and other crowded and heated structures and places.
In a hole "not less than four feet deep," at the side of the building, a zinc
plate is sunk and surrounded with bone ash, an insulated wire is led from this
plate, carried into the building, and soldered "connected by the interposition of
a resisting medium (as described in reference to the atmosphere of sewers)"
to the end of an insulated wire proceeding from a copper plate sunk inanother
aperture "about eight feet from the other, and" at the this junction of the
wires "conductors" where there must be no insulating coating, "sparks or
"beating effects are produci,the electricity being thus " they are brought into
contact with and disinfeet "disinfecting" the currents of air within the
structure. In hospitals, or where fever, cholera, &c. is raging, a temporary
arrangement may be adopted consisting of a vessel containing water,in which
a stick of phosphorus is immersed, but so as to have a part out of the water,
which being exposed to the air rapidly absorbs oxygen, and forms phosphoric
acid, which is received into the water, so that ozone will be rapidly disengaged.
After this contrivance has been used for about an hour, its action should be
aastad Lually submarine the whaanties in water LaLA

page_text: this contrivance, believing it may have been employed, though for experimental
purposes entirely different and distinct from the purposes of my Invention.
Sewage and such like fecal matter treated by electric or galvanic agency
according to my Invention, and especial where my sewage battery is employed,
may, when suitably collected, be turned to advantageous account as manures,
or in the manufacture thereof. The nitra'cs, phosphates, sulphates, and other
salts formed in the fecal matters by the disinfection thereof by electric or
galvanic agency, or by the combination therewith of the gravitating phos-
phorous, nitrous, sulphurous acids, &c. produced by the passage of electric
or galvanic currents through the vitiated atmosphere of sewers,
&c., all as
herein-before described, may be applied commercially, especially as manures,
on account of the presence of the phosphates and nitrates.
Although I have herein referred more particularly to sewers, closets,
theatres, &c., I wish it to be understood that I do not confine myself to such
localities, but that my Invention may be applied to the disinfection and
deodorization of fecal,noxious, and infected matters, whether in a liquid, fluid,
semifluid, aeriform or solid state, and whether contained in sewers, cesspools,
ships, houses, or other structures or places. I further wish it to be distinctly
understood that I do not confine myself to the particular means described for
carrying my Invention into effect, as any suitable means of, or apparatus for
obtaining electricity or galvanism and applying it to the purposes of my
Invention may be employed, the main object of the Invention being the so
arranging, adapting,combining,orapplying means, instruments, and appliances,
as to enable electric or galvanic agency to be applied to the matters or.
places, &c., to be treated according to my method. Of course in the term
electric or galvanic, I include the various designations of electricity and
galvenism, such for example as magnetic,, voltaic, &c.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and exem-
plified in what manner the same may be performed, I wish it to be understood
that I do not claim any particular apparatus or means for generating, disen-
gaging, and obtaining electricity or galvanism, whether herein referred to or
not, apart from the combination, arrangement, adaptation, or application
thereof for the purposes of my Invention, but I declare that I claim,-
First, treating sewage and other noxious or infected matters in a fluid,
semifluid, aeriform, or solid state, by electric or galvanic agency, in orderto
deodorize and disinfect them, and obtain innoxious and useful products
therefromu.
Second, I claim the combination, adaptation, arrangement, and application

page_text: of means with,in, and to structures and places containing noxious and infected
gases and other matters in such manner as and in order to effect the appli-
cation of electric or galvanic agency to their contents, for the purpose of
disinfecting and deodorizing them.
In witness whereof, 1, the said John Chisholm, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this First day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
In, witness whereof, I, the said John Chisholm, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Third day of February, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
I hereby grant my fiat, giving leave to the above-named John Chisholm to
file in the Great Seal Patent Office, with the Specification to which same
relates, the above-written Disclaimer and Memorandum of Alteration.