Refuse disposal and power production / by W. Francis Goodrich, with ninety-eight illustrations.

  • Goodrich, W. Francis (Walter Francis)
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Refuse disposal and power production / by W. Francis Goodrich, with ninety-eight illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    sistent with the production of a considerable amount of power, it would be sheer folly to disregard a valuable asset. It is common in these days to find the commercial aspect too prominent; with the desire for sanitary improvement there is an overbearing anxiety on the part of the layman to know whether such improvements will pay—or commercially speaking—show a profit. If the councillor is assured that the only benefit accruing will be a lower death rate, his sanitary zeal sometimes does not last long. If a sweeping sanitary reform is calculated to add a few pence to the rates, the erstwhile rabid sanitarian decides that the Council rate must be kept down, even if the death rate has to go up. It is indeed regrettable to think that this attitude may be largely attributed to the striking success achieved in some towns where Destructors have been employed in connexion with Sewage or Electricity Works; in the case of the former often saving the entire coal bill, and in the latter case materially reducing the same. The layman too often fails to appreciate the difference between two towns, being possessed of the notion that what has been done in the case of (A) is equally possible in the case of (B); if it is not, then he at once exerts his influence against the introduction of a Destructor. It will be very evident that this is very mischievous, inasmuch as the Destructor does not appeal to a man of this type as a Destructor—a sanitary sine qua non, but as a profitable under- taking commercially speaking, and so we find that in some towns where it is not possible to combine a Destructor with an Electricity Works, Sewage Works, or Water Works, the introduction of the Destructor is resisted, or at any rate, left severely alone, until it cannot be neglected any longer. Notwithstanding the splendid progress already made in this countrj'-, much yet remains to be done. It is, moreover, becoming increasingly evident that every shifty method of getting rid of filth will have to be abandoned, and that destruction by fire will, in course of time, become universal.