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Page 17
I would now draw your attention to some points of detail in the
fittings for carrying away waste water.
First, with regard to lavatories. As already mentioned, every waste
pipe from the sink should deliver in the open air, but it should have
an opening at its upper end as well as at its lower end, to permit a
current of air to pass through it; and it should be trapped close to
the sink, so as to prevent the air being drawn through it into the
house; otherwise you will have an offensive smell from it. I will give
you an instance: At the University College Hospital there are some
fire tanks on the several landings. The water flows in every day, and
some flows away through the waste pipes; these pipes, which carry away
nothing but fresh London water to empty in the yard, got most
offensive simply from the decomposition of the sediment left in them
by the London water passing through them day after day. A small waste
pipe from a bath or a basin is a great inconvenience. It should be of
a size to empty rapidly--for a bath 2 inches, a basin 1�, inches.
There are other points connected with fittings to which I would call
your attention. The great inventive powers which have been applied to
the w.c. pan are an evidence of how unsatisfactory they all are. Many
kinds of water-closet apparatus and of so-called "traps" have a
tendency to retain foul matter in the house, and therefore, in
reality, partake more or less of the nature of small cesspools, and
nuisances are frequently attributed to the ingress of "sewer gas"
which have nothing whatever to do with the sewers, but arise from foul
air generated in the house drains and internal fittings. The old form
was always made with what is called a D-trap. Avoid the D-trap. It is
simply a small cesspool which cannot be cleaned out. Any trap in which
refuse remains is an objectionable cesspool. It is a receptacle for
putrescrible matter. In a lead pipe your trap should always be smooth
and without corners. The depth of dip of a trap should depend on the
frequency of use of the trap. It varies from � inch to 3� inches. When
a trap is rarely used, the dip should be deeper than when frequently
used, to allow of evaporation. In the section of a w.c. pan, the
object to be attained is to take that form in which all the parts of
the trap can be easily examined and cleaned, in which both the pan and
the trap will be washed clean by the water at each discharge, and in
which the lever movement of the handle will not allow of the passage
of sewer gas.
And now just a few personal remarks in conclusion. I have had much
pleasure in giving to my old brother officers in these lectures the
result of my experience in sanitary science. In doing so, I desired
especially to impress on you who are just entering your profession the
importance of giving effect to those principles of sanitary science
which were left very much in abeyance until after the Crimean war. I
have not desired to fetter you with dogmatic rules, but I have sought,
by general illustrations, to show you the principles on which sanitary
science rests. That science is embodied in the words, pure earth, pure
air, pure water. In nature that purity is insured by increasing
movement. Neither ought we to stagnate. In the application of these
principles your goal of to-day should be your starting-post for
to-morrow. If I have fulfilled my object, I shall have interested you
sufficiently to induce some of you at least to seize and carry forward
to a more advanced position the torch of sanitary science.
* * * * *
PASTEUR'S NEW METHOD OF ATTENUATION.
The view that vaccinia is attenuated variola is well known, and has
been extensively adopted by English physicians. If the opinion means
anything, it signifies that the two diseases are in essence one and
the same, differing only in degree. M. Pasteur has recently found that
by passing the bacillus of "rouget" of pigs through rabbits, he can
effect a considerable attenuation of the "rouget" virus. He has shown
that rabbits inoculated with the bacillus of rouget become very ill
and die, but if the inoculations be carried through a series of
rabbits, a notable modification results in the bacillus. As regards
the rabbits themselves, no favorable change occurs--they are all made
very ill, or die. But if inoculation be made on pigs from those
rabbits, at the end of the series it is found that the pigs have the
disease in a mild form, and, moreover, that they enjoy immunity from
further attacks of "rouget." This simply means that the rabbits have
effected, or the bacillus has undergone while in them, an attenuation
of virulence. So the pigs may be "vaccinated" with the modified virus,
have the disease in a mild form, and thereafter be protected from the
disease. The analogy between this process and the accepted view of
vaccinia is very close. The variolous virus is believed to pass
through the cow, and there to become attenuated, so that inoculations
from the cow-pox no longer produce variola in the human subject, but
cow-pox (vaccinia). As an allied process, though of very different
result, mention may be made of some collateral experiments of Pasteur,
also performed recently. Briefly, it has been discovered that the
bacillus of the "rouget" of pigs undergoes an increase of virulence by
being cultivated through a series of pigeons. Inoculations from the
last of the series of pigeons give rise to a most intense form of the
disease. It will be remembered that the discovery of the bacillus of
"rouget" of pigs was due to the late Dr. Thuillier.--_Lancet._
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