Daily Kennebec Journal

INDOOR VENTILATION.

An English scientific journal has recently and very ably discussed the grave problem of indoor ventilation. It is a matter of the greatest marvel that while engineers have provided the means of draining out cities of their noisome and pestilential matter, as yet nothing has been done to prevent the infection of our houses and bedrooms by the exhalations of the sewer. It is probable that very few of our most intelligent citizens have ever reflected upon the possible distribution of deadly poison among the inmates of their dwellings and even their palatial residences from the common drain of the whole city population.

It has generally been supposed that when the streets are kept clean and the sewers in good order municipal prudence has nothing more to do. It is very certain that in the present atmospheric condition of our Eastern cities the epidemics of the season will make rapid strides without these sanitary precautions. But we need to look further. It has been shown very clearly that the foul and disease-laden air of the public sewer can and does obtain admission into our chambers through the soil pipe, the bath outlet pipes and the pipes which connect our bathrooms with the subterranean drain. It was conclusively shown by the medical press of England that even the elegant saloons and tapestried rooms of Londesborough Lodge were tainted and impregnated with foul sewer gas, and that the late illness of the Prince of Wales was due to this exciting cause. It is very clear, too, there must be a constant pressure of the sewer air on the pan or trap of the closet which must inevitably lead to an infiltration of the poisonous vapor into the house. If we suppose that the excremental matter which passes through the sewer in epidemic seasons is capable of conveying diseases, as we know it is, the most cleanly and elegant mansion on our finest avenues, and even our sumptuous suburban villas, are seen to be in direct communication with the most filthy and putrescent nests of disease in the worst tenement houses.

The open pipes in the house (which are also introduced into every bedroom) in performing their functions in removing waste water are so many vents for the deadliest vapors confined in the sewerage. The foul air returns and insinuates itself into our houses by more than one process. A wind pressure, exerted on the open mouth of the sewer at great distances from the house, or such a pressure on any street corner sewer opening, at once sends the infectious miasma into the internal atmosphere of our dwelling. The increase of the specific gravity of the external atmosphere also forces the sewer air into our nostrils. Even the draft of chimneys in a tight building, and especially when it is closed at night, must be fed and kept up partly through the numerous small pipes which connect with the general sewer drainage.

All these unsuspected avenues of death are alarming, because no amount of care and cleanliness can avert the danger, so long as our houses are arranged as at present. But the remedy is not a difficult one. No cesspit, sink or trap should be allowed anywhere inside the walls of the dwelling; but these should be constructed outside, and charcoal strainers and filters be extensively employed. As our London contemporary-Nature-suggests, the pneumatics of the private dwelling are quite as important as the hydraulics, and the dozen or more small pipes of sinks, baths, &c., should every one be made to empty, not directly into the sewer, but should be collected and "allowed to discharge their contents into the open air over a trap communicating with the house drain, so that reflux of sewer gas into the house would be simply impossible."