LIS UNIV. SITY DOMESTIC SANITARY DRAINAGE AND PLUMBING, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. THE City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education, acting in conjunction with the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, London, arranged for the delivery of courses of lectures to technical teachers of plumbing, journeymen plumbers, apprentices, and others, at the Central Technical Institute, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, on the subject of Domestic Sanitary Drainage and Plumbing. These lectures are published with the object of extending the sphere, and of promoting in some degree the ultimate success of the efforts made by the Institute to advance the technical education of plumbers. These pages are arranged with the special intention of enabling plumbers to obtain a more intelligent grasp of the questions which they may be called on to solve at technological examinations in plumbing, and which they must inevitably face in daily practice. The author hopes, from forty years' practical experience, not only to provide useful instruction for plumbers in the theory and practice of their craft, but also to give to architects, engineers, and B others in professional contact with the craft, a wider and deeper appreciation of the importance of domestic sanitary drainage and plumbing, and to induce the public to consider and understand more fully the intimate relation existing between sanitary plumbing and public health. Various causes have combined to lower the dignity of the plumber's craft in public estimation, but in recent years the vital importance of sanitary plumbing and drainage has been admitted, and a desire has arisen among masters and artisans to elevate and improve the craft, which it is the object of this work to stimulate and strengthen. Dr. Pridgin Teale, of Leeds, has rendered good service to the public by stating boldly his opinion: "One-third at least of the incidental illnesses in the kingdom are the direct result of drainage defects, and therefore can be, and ought to be, prevented." The truth of that important statement is attested by the experience of the author, who, in the course of over 3,000 sanitary surveys of dwelling-houses, from 1860 to 1890, was forced by the facts disclosed to furnish reports condemning 99 per 100. Out of 3,000 houses, 30 were in a sound sanitary condition, 2,970 were dangerous to the health of the residents owing to defective plumbing and drainage. Plumbing, or the art of casting and working in lead, claims a great antiquity. Lead undoubtedly was worked contemporaneously with silver, and is referred to in the oldest known writing, the Book of Job, as existing four thousand years ago, in patriarchal times "Oh that my words were now written! They were graven in the rock for ever!" Italian plumbers wrought so nobly two thousand years ago that their lead-work remains to-day in the excavations |