Mr W.H. Power's report to the Local Government Board upon infectious disease prevalence in the Atherton Sub-district, Leigh, Lancashire.

  • Power, William Henry, Sir, 1842-1916.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr W.H. Power's report to the Local Government Board upon infectious disease prevalence in the Atherton Sub-district, Leigh, Lancashire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    contents. The Atherton Sanitary Authority should in any case adopt the plan followed in Tyldesley, and take into its own hands the emptying and cleansing of all excrement and refuse receptacles in its district. 3. Sewer and Brain Ventilation.—It may be questioned whether entrance to sewers of fresh air and exit from them of foul air has in either township been sufficiently provided for. Sewer air is systematically shut in at all surface inlets to sewers and drains, while opportunity for interchange of sew7er air and fresh air is but sparingly given by downspouts, supplemented in a few instances by ventilators at the street level. This ventilation may under ordinary circumstances be sufficient, but in time of heavy rain, downspouts when most required for ventilation would most of them be acting as water carriers in a contrary direction, and would thus oppose exit of air from sewers at a time when its escape was most necessary. Under such circumstances the forcing of drain traps can hardly have failed to have occurred. Stress is laid on this matter of sewer ventilation from the fact that enteric fever, constantly present in both townships, has, in all probability, had relation to defects of sewerage arrangements. Each Authority should therefore provide in its district more efficient sewer ventilation, and should, so far as this can be done, make general without delay the disconnection of sink pipes and drains, already recognised as a safeguard against sewer infection of dwellings. /