History of Sanitation

Synopsis OF Chapter. Early British Sewers—Sewer in the Great Hall of Westminster—Shape of Early English Sewers—Adoption or Recommendation of Pipe Sewers—Early Paris Sewers—Paris Sewers of To-day—Lack of Sewage Data in America—Effect of Memphis Epidemics on Sanitary Progress. THE earliest mention we have of English sewers is contained in an old record of the fourteenth century, which informs us “ The refuse from the king’s kitchen had long run through the Great Hall in an open channel, to the serious injury to health and danger to life of those con- gregated at court. It was therefore ordered that a subter- raneous conduit should be made to carry away the filth into the Thames.” This description of the sewer from the Great Hall presents a vivid picture of the sewers of that day. At first the main sewers were natural water courses which, having become offensive, were arched over to shut out the sight and odor. Street gutters leading to those arched-over water courses became foul in turn, and were replaced by underground channels of the roughest brick- work or masonry. These drains which were square in cross section received and carried off slop water and rain water from the streets; the drains were constructed accord- ing to no regular design nor fixed principles, although usually they were 12 inches square and made by laying flat stones to form the bottom of the drain, then building walls of brick and topping off with flat stones, spanning from wall to wall. Excreta were collected in cesspools often built beneath the floor of the house. The introduction of the water closet about the commencement of the century, though it abated the nuisance of the latrine, aggravated 85