Report to the Honorable Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, on Sewage and Sewer Gases, and on the Ventilation of Sewers (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Report to the Honorable Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, on Sewage and Sewer Gases, and on the Ventilation of Sewers This may, perhaps, appear unnecessary; for it might be truly said, that public opinion, guided by the commonest observation, has long since decided that these miasms are injurious to health. It is, in fact, a popular, as well as a medical notion, that every kind of putrid pollution is hurtful to the human body; and this has been impressed upon the public mind, not by the fancies of the faculty, but by the terrible and unmistakeable facts of experience. The history of the old epidemics, and especially of those in the middle ages, has but too fully demonstrated how, little by little, the people, as well as the profession, have come to know that the neglected filth of their houses and cities has fed the plague, and spread the pestilence. When there were no sanitary regu lations beyond the merciful regulations of heaven, which now and then sent torrents of rain to wash away the heaps Of ancient filth from their Old resting places in the public streets; when every house incorporated its own stink, and treasured up its own putridity; when earth, and air, and water. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.