Refuse Disposal and Power Production

Abstract

THE destruction of town refuse by fire is a comparatively modern development; the first furnaces erected for such a purpose were constructed to the designs of Mr. Fryer at Manchester in 1876, and these furnaces, though considerably modified, are still at work. The gross insanitary character of the ordinary system of refuse disposal is patent to everyone who has occasion to move about in the neighbourhood of any of our large cities; the refuse is deposited in tips; often an old quarry or gravel pit is selected for this purpose, and the refuse is dumped into these cavities until they are filled up. How unsatisfactory this is has been proved by the fact that outbreaks of disease have occurred directly traceable to the existence of these heaps of abomination. The author states that an outbreak at Fratton was certified by the medical authorities to be due to the contagion brought by flies bred in the pestiferous heaps of Portsmouth refuse which had been deposited in this neighbourhood. These refuse heaps in the summer time breed flies in millions, and they are the constant resort of rats, which spread from them, all over the neighbourhood, and how readily most dangerous diseases are disseminated by both these agencies is well known to all medical authorities. We had this fact brought home to us clearly during the late campaign in South Africa, when the nurses and doctors in the field hospitals were frequently able to tell that a patient being brought in was a typhoid sufferer from the swarms of flies round him.

Refuse Disposal and Power Production.

By W. Francis Goodrich Pp. xv+384. (Westminster: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1904.) Price 16s. net.