The design, construction and maintenance of sewage disposal works ; being a practical guide to modern methods of sewage purification / by Hugh P. Raikes.

  • Raikes, Hugh Percival.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The design, construction and maintenance of sewage disposal works ; being a practical guide to modern methods of sewage purification / by Hugh P. Raikes. 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.

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    that it will be desirable, probably for some time to come, that scientific experiments should be carried on in order to ascertain all the real dangers of pollution against which they should be protected. In the present state of knowledge, and especially of bacteriology, it is difficult to estimate these dangers with any accuracy, and it seems quite possible that they should be either exaggerated or undervalued according to the predis- position of those who have to deal with them. An autho- rity guided by medical considerations might not unnaturally be inclined to insist on a degree of purity which may ultimately prove in certain cases to be uncalled for, while another authority, with his mind fixed upon economy, might shrink from taking essential precautions. It is, perhaps, scarcely for us to say what arrangements should be made, but we are of opinion that the general protection of our rivers is a matter of such grave concern as to demand the creation of a separate Commission, or a new department of the Local Government Board, which shall be a Supreme Eivers Authority, dealing with matters relating to rivers and their purification, and which, when appeal is made to thein, shall have power to take action in cases where the local authorities have failed to do so. In the same report the Eoyal Commission also give a list of the artificial processes investigated in considering Ques- tion II., which, together with the alternative forms of land treatment, comprise all the methods of sewage purification in general use at the present time; but before proceeding to define these different methods, it may first be advisable to briefly explain their classification and the essential principles involved in the theory of. bacterial action which they are designed to facilitate.