BOARD OF HEALTH.

Press, Volume XL, Issue 5860, 25 June 1884, Page 3

BOARD OF HEALTH.

The usual meeting of the Board of Health -was held yesterday afternoon, and attended by Messrs Vincent (chairman). Harper, Clephane, Flesher, and Hosting, A letter was read from the Colonial Secretary's Office etating that the question of the disposal of drainage from the Addington Prison had been referred to the Prisons Department. It was agreed to write and ask Government if they had received a reply from the Department. The Medical Officer reported:— I have the honour to bring under your notice that the side channels in a large portion of Linwood are in a very unsatisfactory condition, and that unless they are properly formed and it will be only reasonable to expect that in a short time disease of an infectious nature will become common in this part of the district. As requested by the Board I have looked over the *' sanitary regulations which the Beard propose to adopt," and they seem to mc to be excellent guides for protecting the public health. It was decided to call the attention of Linwood authorities to the report. Dr. Nedwill also wrote accepting the salary offered by the Board. He would not admit that the services he had given had been'! sufficiently remunerated, but he thought that after the expression of confidence on the part of the public it would have appeared ungrateful if he had not accepted the terms. He hoped to seethe measures initiated by him. carried out by the Board. •■

The following report wae read concerning Boberte* Bjetem:— Christclmrch, June 9th, 1884

To the Chairman Board of Health. Sir,—l hare the honor to acknowledge the' receipt of a communication from the Secretary to your Board, to ask my opinion on the following proposition, " Supposing the effluent water from Eofeerts' patent system runs direct into the sewera, would there still be any objection to it; the solids being emptied at short intervals?" In. reply, 1 would state {that I can see no sanitary objection to the effluent water being allowed access to the sewage Eewers, provided the regulations now in force with regard to water-closet connections be adhered to. With regard to removing that portion of the excreta which has not filtered through the perforations in the pans, as no particular time is specified to define what is meant by " snort intervals," I feel called upon to state that delay in emptying the pans shooM not be tolerated. With reference to this subject, I would submit, for the guidance of the Board, the following quotations from the " Eeports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council and Local Government Board of England/ In excrement disposal, "success hae been obtained from certain well denned principles of action, which appear to mc to be essential to successful work of the same kind elsewhere. Foremost amongst these, and regulating all that follows, is the frequency of removal of deposited excrement.' . The arrangements to this ecd must of necessity govern all other arrangements, and it is requisite that they should be first determined by a -local authority. The peculiar advantage of the water-closet is that, with properly arranged and rightly constructed drains and sewers, and duly supplied with wafer, it admits of excremental matter being removed without offensiveness beyond the precincts of a house, and from amidst a community, immediately after it has been deposited. l)r. Buchanan and I, in discussing the period during which excrement should be permitted to remain in the vicinity of dwellings, expressed ourselves, in 1869, in the following words, which I reiterate now in 1884:—" In the present imperfect state of our knowledge of the conditions under which fecal diseases spread, we do not feel ourselves entitled to say at what time, after being passed, dejections are, or may (under various external circumstances) become dangerous to health. We cannot say this, either in regard of he-.lthy excrement or of that passed frero persons affected with diseases, specific or other; but we think it may probably be taken as sufficiently true for practical purposes that there is little chance of mischief from the storage of excrement for a d*y, even though along with healthy excrement that of persona affected, for example, by enteric fever ehovld, without proper disinfection, chance occasionally to be included. We propose, then, te regard complete removal of all excrement within a day as practically constituting safety in the case, -where excrement is unmixed, or is only mixed with ashes." " The want of clear recognition of the principle that systematic frequent scavenging is the initial consideration in improved methods of excrement disposal other than water sewerage, has led to much fruitless work in attempts to improve the midden system." " It is unnecessary to dwell upon a sanitary truth so certain as that excrement, if it is to be stored at all in the -vicinity of houses, along with no better guard than ashes, should be stored for the shortest possible space of time." " The plan of weekly scavenging of nightsoil is at present held alone feasible as a general practice in those towns which have adopted systematic measures for abating midden nuisances; but special arrangement are commonly made tor scavenging, at more frequent intervals, particular houses, such as lodging-houses, or districts where greater frequency is obviously called for. The important principle, in fact, is steadily becoming recognised, that where it has not been found practicable, as yet, to bring the intervals of scavenging for a whole place within those limits which considerations of health render desirable, a different rule should be applied to i the least wholesome localities of the ! place, by scavenging those more frequently, thus regulating the scavenging by the greater or less degrees of nltfainefs or liability to filthiness of particular localities." "——Dosing with chemicals or covering up with ashes and dry refuse, as the excrement may have been submitted to, has been designed merely to diminish offence from it pending removal. The dry system of. excrement disposal differs materially from the foregoing systems in this— that the eartfe, if used in sufficient quantity, while acting as an efficient deodorant, at the same time destroys the excrement as each, producing a uniform, inoffensive,

eartty mass. In this state, judging from the sight and the smell, it might seem as if the removal of the mixed earth and. excrement from the vicinity of dwellings could, with safety, be greatly prolonged, and the cost of such removal .proportionately economised. In ear present state ef knowledge of this compost, and of the precise mode of origin of diseases connected with excrement, such a conclusion would be premature, and, for the present, st least, the same principles should apply to the removal of the mixed earth and excrement from the vicinity of houses as apply to mixed ashes and excrement, or to excrement alone." "It is claimed for mixed charcoal and excrement that it need not be removed from the receptacle more than once in twelve months; but the same observations apply here as have been made in respect to mixed earth and excrement. The claim is made upon a presumption which has no present substantial foundation; and the use of the system among a community should be governed by the same principles as govern other systems of removing excrement by cartage. In speaking of the Goux absorbent system, where compressed shoddy or stubble is used as a lining in the pans, the report from which Ihave quoted states—" Dr. Buchanan and I had seen this system at work in Saltord inlß69,andastheremanaged,aslhave!etated in my report on that town, we observed no sanitary advantage which was nat to be obtained from a simple pail system. A detaCed examination ot the working of the system in Halifax showed, as a rule, a less degree ef offensiveness to the eye than is commonly ebserved in the simple pail system." While I readily admit that the pail system, as carried out in this district, is very offeneive —the full pails not being replaced by clean, deodorised, empty ones, and their removal not being carried out in properly closed vans—l have considered it my duty to quote thus largely from the highest authority in order to prevent any system coming into use in this district which contemplates having the pans emptied "only once in from four to six weeks.", I am, &c., CotntTNBY Nbdwill, iMedical Officer. The Chatrhan stated that complaints had been made of a nuisance arising from Brightling's pits, and the Board decided to write to Mr Brightling requesting him to abate the nuisance. Accounts amounting to £52 Is 8d were pessed.