Twenty-first annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-first annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    them unsuitable, and the Superintendents, as above stated, report their removal. The Superintendents of Berks, Caterham, Colney Hatch, Bent, Leavesclen, and Rainhill report equally unfavourably of them, and in Kent they have been replaced by Water-closets in all the wards, and their use confined to out-of-door situations. The weight of evidence appears to your Superintendent to prove clearly that they are less effectual than Water- closets, that they require much greater attention and care, that they are frequently very offensive and pollute the atmosphere, and that their use should be confined to airing courts. In constructing a new Asylum some of the objections to their use can be partially removed by placing Earth-closets in situations where they can be charged with dry earth, and the soil removed from the outside of the building, but where the closets are placed, as in this Asylum, in exposed situations, much inconvenience and nuisance would arise from the filling and emptying process. If Earth-closets were fixed on the first floor wards, considerable inconvenience would result from having daily to carry earth for their supply through the wards occupied by the patients, and this would be much more incon¬ venient and undesirable in female wards, vdiere men would daily have to enter at an early hour. Where Earth-closets are in use, it is absolutely essential in an Asylum to provide some paid labour for the daily attention and supervision of providing them with dry earth and removing the contents of the tanks. It is also necessary to have some provision by means of which dry earth may be procurable at all seasons for the supply of the Closets, and this must entail considerable expense in erecting a building for stowage of earth during the summer, or of constantly having some artificial means of drying earth during the winter. The product of the use of Water Closets is equally applicable to land in the form of sewage, and at present this is constantly carried out, and entails no charge for labour, and appears to be equally valuable as a fertilising agent. Since the last visit of the Committee several members of your Board, accompanied by the County Surveyor and your Superintendent, visited the Shrewsbury Asylum, where Earth-closets were known to be in use, both in ground floor and first floor wards. Without exception,