From a New England hospital we had the following report: “For four years we have used a crematory for disposing of soiled dressings, and have found it most satisfactory. It has gas burners and could be placed in a bath room if it is large. With such a crematory on each floor dressings can be burned immediately, and thus the objectionable dressing or refuse pail be dispensed with. A careful nurse will turn out the gas after the dressings are dry and ignited, and the expense of the apparatus will thus be very slight.”
Through the courtesy of the Morse-Boulger Co., who have installed crematories in a considerable number of large hospitals in the east and in some smaller institutions as well, we are able to present a cut of a crematory for a small hospital.
GARBAGE CREMATORY
Garbage Crematories
The crematories are built in many sizes to conform to the location. They provide a medium for the disposal on the premises with the utmost rapidity and economy of every class of waste produced in a hospital. They can be operated with any available fuel and all are provided with perfectly efficient means of consuming the smoke and inflammable gases thrown off by the burning material. These crematories can be placed in the basement or cellar if necessary and connected directly with the chimney or smoke pipes, from the heaters or steam boilers of a building, or can be placed outside when deemed desirable.
In order to ascertain some facts concerning the working of these crematories, letters of inquiry were also sent to a number of hospitals in which the Morse-Boulger crematories are in use, and without exception the reports were most favorable. The following from one of the largest Philadelphia hospitals is characteristic of all the reports received and goes to show that there is no risk of unsatisfactory working in such an apparatus:
“It is true that we have a Morse-Boulger garbage destructor, and it has been in service about four years. The capacity of the chamber is about twenty barrels. In selecting the size we had in view the quantity of garbage that we have to burn each twenty-four hours, so that the chamber would hold all the garbage produced in twenty-four hours at one charging, thus relieving the necessity of keeping the fire going all the time. As it is now, the fire is started in our crematory about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and by 10 o’clock at night the charge is all burned out. This gives the apparatus time to cool off, so that the night fireman can clean it out before he goes off duty and leave it ready for re-charging in the morning.
“The destructor has worked very satisfactorily for us, and burns the whole of our garbage with about 500 pounds of buckwheat coal per day, which means an expense of from forty to seventy cents a day, owing to the price one has to pay for the coal.
“I do not believe you can recommend too strongly the use of such an apparatus for hospital purposes.”