The Dwelling House

by George Vivian Poore

We shall all of us be ready to grant that the addition of excremental matters must be something extra added to the sewage, and that such extra matter must be either in suspension or solution. The fact, therefore, that the total solid and suspended matters is less by 3½ grains in the water-closet towns than in the midden towns can only be accounted for by the enormous dilutions of the excremental matters in the sewage. Notwithstanding this dilution we find that the water-closet town sewage contains 20 per cent. more combined nitrogen than midden town sewage, 23 per cent. more ammonia, and, what is very remarkable, 35 per cent. more suspended mineral matter.

This excess of mineral matter in suspension could only be caused by the precipitation of mineral matters by the ammonia and sulphuretted hydrogen formed by decomposition of the albuminous and other organic matter. This excess of mineral matter in suspension must therefore be taken as a measure of the enormously increased putrefaction in water-closet sewage, a putrefaction probably to a great extent brought about by the millions of microbes which are provided from the human intestines with the excrement, and we must therefore assume that the increase of mineral matter in suspension is an indication that a large quantity of foul putrefactive gases has been given off into the streets and houses of water-closet towns.

This table, therefore, seems to me to conclusively demonstrate that the sewage of water-closet towns is far more bulky and far more filthy and dangerous than the sewage of midden towns.

Sewage is not to be regarded too absolutely from its chemical side. We must use our senses, inclusive of our common sense, in coming to a conclusion, and we must not pin our faith on analyses alone. When I am told that it is of little use to deal with solid excreta, because the liquid household slops alone are as foul and difficult to treat as the complete mixture, I confess I am incredulous.

When I see the housemaid's pail filled with three gallons of soapy water and perhaps a pint of urine, am I to believe that the addition thereto of five ounces of solid excrement, a second half pint of urine, and a square foot of paper, will make no difference to its foulness and cause no increase of difficulty in its purification? Credat Judæus Apella! Such a statement is manifestly absurd.

Again, we must remember that it is the solid excreta which constitute not only the foulest but the most dangerous ingredient of sewage, the only one which has caused widespread epidemics again and again, the one which has hung a load of debt round the neck of every municipality in the country.

The other ingredients of household slops, unlike the fæces, are little liable to contain pathogenic microbes. The urine of a healthy man is, as we all know, sterile when passed. In diseased conditions it may occasionally possess infective power, but this is a speculation rather than a practical fact acknowledged by the sanitarian. A large proportion of cooking-water has been boiled, and is therefore sterile, and the same may be said of the water in which our linen has been washed. Household slops, therefore, are not liable to be really infective.

They are nitrogenous, and consequently, if allowed to stagnate by mismanagement, they become very foul from decomposition, but that they are capable of producing epidemics has not yet been proved. Between excrement and slop-water there is this difference, that solid excreta are foul-smelling ab initio, but slop-water (if we except the smell of water in which cabbage has been boiled) only becomes foul if it is mismanaged.

In places which are not overcrowded a great deal has been done when the wholesome treatment of the solid excreta has been arranged for, and I feel that to neglect the doctrine that 'half a loaf is better than no bread,' and to discourage people from dealing with solid excreta, because they do not see their way quite clearly for the disposal of slops, is most dangerous.

One thing is certain, viz., that if the solid excreta are dealt with by dry methods the liquid sewage will be 25 per cent. less bulky than otherwise would be the case.