Dr. H. F. Parson's report on the general sanitary condition of the Bedlingshire urban district, and on the recent prevalence of scarlet fever in the district.

  • Parsons, H. F.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. H. F. Parson's report on the general sanitary condition of the Bedlingshire urban district, and on the recent prevalence of scarlet fever in the district. 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.

    3/10 (page 3)
    water of streets and tlie house drainage enter, and the only means of flushing are the street hydrants, except at some of the colliery hamlets, where the stream of water pumped from the colliery is allowed to run down the sewers. The outfall of most of the sewers is into ditches which join the Sleekburn brook; in some cases they are provided with catchpits, to retain the coarser sediment and prevent it from silting up the ditches. The central portion of the village of Bedling- ton drains down a street called Vulcan Terrace into an old colliery shaft, whence the sewage seems to percolate away without causing any nuisance. The sewer which drains the eastern part of Bedlington main street with Coach Road and Walker Terrace, discharges into a steep field on the side of the valley, down which the sewage trickles into the Blyth. Choppington Guide Post is drained into the Wansbeck, and Cambois into a drain which discharges by a tidal valve into the sea. The fall of the sewers is good, and so far as could be observed, they were acting efficiently. The only instance observed of nuisance arising from absence of proper provision for drainage was at Sleekburn, where the owner of some property had built a number of additional houses and had drained them into the existing drain of 6-inch agricultural pipes, which being unequal to the work was stopped, and the sewage bursting it open had formed a stagnant pool near to the houses, causing a grave nuisance. The Urban Sanitary Authority had brought a sewer within 100 feet of the property and were about taking steps to compel the owner to connect his property with it. The branch drains are said to be as a rule constructed of 6-inch socket pipes; they do not run under the houses, nor are there any openings within the houses. The openings are situated in the yards, but not unfrequently close to the house doors and windows. The inlets are rarely efficiently trapped ; in comparatively few cases were earthenware gully traps used, the inlet usually being one of the small square catchpits about 2 feet diameter, to which the term “ cesspool ” is applied in the North. These are covered by a perforated flag ; in some cases they are entirely untrapped, in others they are provided with iron traps which fit loosely into a hole in the flag, so that they can be taken up when the catchpit requires cleansing, leaving open chinks at the sides through which the sewer air can come up. The inlets to the drains are frequently not placed at the lowest part of the yards, and thus they do not properly carry away the surface water: this is said to be done in order to prevent the loose ashes off the surface being washed into the drains and silting them up. In one or two instances the yard drains were found blocked up, but the dry weather which prevailed at the date of inspection rendered defects of drainage less apparent. The rows of houses belonging to the Bedlington Coal Company are provided with open channels instead of with covered drains ; these channels are placed not along the centre of the backyards but nearer to the houses, so as to leave about a third of the width of the yard next the houses as a footpath, the remaining two-thirds serving as a cart road to the ashpits and coal sheds. The channels are made of concrete, and are laid in straight lines with a uniform fall. An inspector is employed by the company to go round and see that they are kept clear. They are said to answer better than pipe drains for the class of persons for whose use they are intended. Certainly they were found free from offence in cases where they were kept clean; and though they are liable to be partially stopped by solid matters thrown in by careless people, yet they can be cleared out much more readily than a pipe drain. The chief objection to them from a sanitary point of view is that should a case of infectious sickness occur in a house at the upper end of the row, the offscourings must flow exposed past the doors of all the houses lower down. Children, too, playing in the yard will be likely enough to soil themselves with the liquid flowing down the gutter. At their lower ends the gutters discharge into untrapped catchpits about 3 feet square, which are emptied of sediment from time to time : these give off offensive effluvia within a few feet of the house doors. Disposal of Excrement.— Except in a few cases where waterclosets have been substi- tuted by order of the Sanitary Authority for midden privies in confined situations, the midden privy is the only method of excrement disposal in the district. The usual arrangement is one ashpit between two privies. The ashpits are very large indeed,— 10 feet by 5 feet is not an unusual size,—they are invariably open, and most frequently receive the drip off the privy roofs ; the walls of many were dilapidated and broken down. The privies are generally without any openings for light and ventilation, and are not so constructed as to facilitate the mingling of the excreta with the ashes. Some, even newly built ones, had double seats. Not a few of the privies in Bedlington and Chop- pington were in a very dilapidated and filthy state. In the colliery rows each house has, as a rule, its own privy. The Urban Sanitary Authority insist that for existing