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Ozone has an odour similar to diluted chlorine, has an irritating effect upon the air passages, is a powerful oxidizing agent. Paper soaked in a solution of manganous sulphate indicates the presence of ozone by turning brown. Ozone, when heated to a little over 212 degrees, is converted into ordinary oxygen.

Ozone may be procured in the shape of the disinfectant, known as "Terebene," designed by F. T. Bond, Esq., M.D., B.A., F.C.S. It is a liquid, and when exposed to the air developes ozone. The odour is of a pleasant nature, resembling pine wood. The fragrant aromatic and agreeable smell constitutes this one of the best disinfectants for the interior of sick rooms or hospitals.

CHAPTER X.

VENTILATION.

THIS subject has of late years been dwelt upon at great length, by many very able men. Ventilation may be considered as being the art of supplying the requisite quantity of pure air into the interior of a dwelling or other building, and extracting the foul air therefrom in the most effectual, cheapest, and least perceptible manner. Now how to do this is the question which naturally arises. Many methods have been tried from time to time; the one which is evidently the favourite at the present time is the vertical air tube. There is also a system, introduced many years ago, I am informed by the respected medical officer of health for Carlisle, Dr. R. Elliot, M.D. and J.P., which the inspector will find easily adapted to the humblest cottage, and the largest mansion. This plan is to place a bar of wood, made to fit neatly underneath the lower sash of a room window, by which means an open crevice is left between the two sashes in the centre of the window, thus directing a continual stream of pure air towards the ceiling of the room, on the exact principle of the vertical tube system, the fastening of the sash is done by inserting the thumb screw in the sidepiece of the sash instead of the centre. The plan is an admirable one, and well worth the attention of those interested.

When we speak of pure air, we understand it to be air composed as follows: 79 parts of nitrogen, 21 parts of oxygen, and 4 parts in 10,000 of carbonic acid gas. In ventilating a room, we must not allow the current of air to exceed the rate of 3 feet per second; the test may be made by that useful instrument, the aneometer. The space allowed per head in many lodging-houses, is 300 cubic feet, in hospitals, 2,000 per head.

The inspector will often find opportunities for expressing his opinions, and carry out his ideas as to ventilation, and occasionally as to sewers and drains.

That improved health indicates increased wealth, few will deny. If sanitary inspectors can by removing the stinking accumulations of filth which surround us, save a few poor fellow-men whose names crowd the death lists of the Registrar-General's Report year after year, under the head of zymotic disease, they will not only be doing a good work morally, but in the same ratio be adding to the prosperity of the country.

The following is an extract from the Carlisle Journal of January 23, 1877, giving my report, which I presented to the Health Committee of Carlisle, during the week preceding that date, which shows the difficulties to contend with.

Extract from the "Carlisle Journal,"
January 23rd, 1877.

THE INSPECTOR ON SEWER VENTILATION.-The inspector in his report said he would take this opportunity of making a few remarks on the ventilation of sewers and drains. The conclusion arrived at by the

committee to replace the present solid manhole covers with perforated covers of improved pattern was a sound one as far as the main sewers are concerned. But they must not lose sight of the fact that they have also branch sewers and branch drains that are not fitted up with manholes, and will not receive that amount of benefit from the replacing of covers that will be received by the main sewers.

What he meant by branch sewers are those generally known as back-street sewers, or where the drains of more than one house are connected together, which the town clerk is of opinion the urban authority are liable to cleanse, repair, and ventilate. For the purpose of explanation he directed attention to the branch sewer and drains behind Victoria Place, where about twenty water closets send their contents through long lengths of private drains.

There three soil-pipe ventilators figure in positions where circumstances have placed them, and are acting as ventilators not only for the water-closet and private drains belonging to the person who erected them, but also for the branch sewer, thus concentrating anything that may be brought out of the sewer on his own premises, and what may be the result of bad workmanship in drain or sewer other than his own; whereas if each soil-pipe or the head of each private drain were fitted with an efficient ventilator, any dangerous gas sent forth would be so diluted as to be practically harmless. It was his firm opinion that they would not have done justice to the ventilation of the sewers for which they were responsible until they either compelled individual owners to ventilate the heads of their

private drains, or the committee to ventilate the heads of the branch sewers. With a view of carrying out this principle, he proposed to submit any case coming under his notice where improvement is required, so that any particular instance may be treated upon its merits. He accordingly reported two cases where want of ventilation and erroneous ventilation had caused fever, and notices would have been served but the committee thought that probably if the improvements were suggested to the owners they would be adopted.

The inspector agreed to take this course, which in such cases will be adopted for the future.

Although the removing of nuisances outside dwellings will occupy much of the inspector's time, it will not by far be his most important work; the nuisances to be contended with, inside the dwellings of both rich and poor, are numerous and important.

In the dwellings of the poor will be found overcrowding and filth, which must be followed up with notices to abate, by quitting the lodgers or taking larger houses, and by limewashing, scrubbing the floors and woodwork.

In the houses of the rich, the nuisance assumes a more refined but deadly form, namely, sewer gas, coming from the unventilated soil-pipe, or the slopstone waste-pipe in the cellar-kitchen, which is often answering as ventilator for the branch-drain and mainsewer, by charging the house with sulphuretted hydrogen, and implanting the seeds of typhoid in the systems of many unsuspecting useful men to society, whom we can barely afford to spare.

I am fairly within the mark when I say, that

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