Bad Drains; and How to Test Them / With notes on the ventilation of sewers, drains, and sanitary fittings, and the origin and transmission of zymotic disease

by R. Harris Reeves

Whilst making experiments and taking observations five years ago, to trace the origin and transmission of some cases of zymotic disease, I formed an opinion that the theory as regards the transmission of zymotic disease by contagion was to a certain extent an erroneous one.

I mentioned this to some of my medical acquaintances at the time, but as it was so opposite to the prevailing ideas, I was advised not to publish or hold out such opinions, as they were contrary to the theories accepted by the medical profession.

Now that these theories have been severely shaken, and in many cases reversed by medical men themselves, during the past year, I shall plead no excuse, but insert them for the guidance of those engaged in sanitary work.

The source of zymotic diseases may be traced to persons inhaling or taking into the system poisons from putrid sewage matter, and those poisons are conveyed into the body, either in the food they eat, the water they drink, or the air they breathe. Whether they are organic or inorganic, they poison the blood, which becomes more or less diseased, according to their density or vitality, or whether each of the zymotic diseases is produced by distinct organic germs grown and developed from putrid matter under different atmospheric influences, it matters not to my mind in proving the true method by which zymotic diseases are transmitted.

On the origin or source from which these diseases are produced, I do not think there are two opinions, viz. that of poisons from putrid matter, and the question to be solved is in what manner these poisons are conveyed into the system. To do this it will be necessary to quote some cases of zymotic disease and the circumstances which surrounded them.

In a small district, a girl thirteen years of age was taken with diphtheria, and in two days after the younger brother was taken and the other children appeared sickly. From investigation it was certain that the poison had not been conveyed into the system by food or water. The children generally took their meals in the kitchen, the door of which opened into the yard, which was about 10 feet long by 8 feet wide, in the corner of which was the W.C. I tested the atmosphere entering the room at the bottom of the doorway, and found that it contained poisonous matter, and on testing the closet and drains I found a hole 3 inches by ¼ inch in the closet trap. Here was the source of poison which produced the disease. The gas in the drain was confined between two traps and in contact with putrid sewage matter, and when it was removed no poison from any other source could be detected. The first child that was taken ill died, but the other recovered.

Now it is quite evident that the second child did not take the disease from the first, as it had not time to develop. The atmosphere of the room and the breath of the child were not as poisonous as the atmosphere of the kitchen in a line between the kitchen fire and the door, and it was on this line both children sat at their meals, and thus inhaled the poison with their food. Had the gases in the other drains of the district been of the same density as in this one, and similar leaks existed in the sanitary fittings, diphtheria would have spread, and by the popular theory its transmission would have been attributed to contagion from this family, which in face of the above facts would have been incorrect.

Another case. In a large town diphtheria broke out, and some hundreds were attacked and over two hundred died. The source of the disease was not in the food or water, and the only disease-producing poison that could be found was in the gas issuing from the sewer gratings and sanitary fittings. Schools were closed and the usual remedies used to prevent contagion, but all to no purpose. The sewers being of an easy gradient had silted, forming at intervals masses of putrid matter, and in the best houses, where the disease was most prevalent, poisons from the sewers were laid on to them by the badly-constructed drains and sanitary fittings. The authorities at last took the matter vigorously in hand, cleansed and sweetened the sewers as much as possible, and then the disease abated and died out. Had contagion been the means by which the disease was transmitted, it would have continued as it existed in the town under almost every kind of atmospheric temperature.

Here we have evidence showing that putrid matter did exist from which poisons were given off and their mode of transit into the body, but not the slightest evidence to prove the poison passed direct from one person to another.

These poisons in the gas can be destroyed by washing the gas in a chemical solution on leaving the grating, and since this has been done medical men have cured the disease by washing the throat in a similar solution.