The Sanitarian (Volume 36) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: to drink well water, which is always more or less contaminated by infiltration from a filthy soil. The construction of drains for the houses has been a great step in advance for the healthfulness of the city. The following drawing will give a good idea of how this drainage is accomplished: The soil pipe (i) empties into the receptacle A through the orifice B, and the household waters enter the receptacle C through the second orifice B. The solid matters from the water-closet settle in A, while the liquid portion is drawn off through the pipe E to a point below the lowest water level. There is a species of tide in the canals in Venice which occurs twice a day, and which amounts to from two to three feet. This tide, which raises the depth of the water in the canals, dilutes the waste from the pipes and then carries it off to the sea. As for the solid matter, it is no longer carried off into the canals as it used to be, but is taken away, in a closed apparatus, outside of the city limits, where it is made into manure. In this way has been abolished the chief cause of the former unhealthfulness of Venice, which is now superior in point of health to many other European cities. During theyear 1894 the death-rate in Venice was 22.3 per 1000 inhabitants, which is noticeably lower than that of Pisa, Florence, Genoa, Naples, and Cairo, all largely frequented winter resorts. The following table shows a comparative view of the health of Venice with five other large cities: DEATH-RATE PER 1,000 INHABITANTS. Venice.Paris.Monaco.Florence.-Cairo. 24 8 2d ' 1894Tq -i21 724 O2O 7SS.8id " i8cu . 17 8 16 sec oisi " 1895 26 T27 O11 Op2d " 1 80 21 7According to this table, it appears that the death-rate is much higher during the first three months of the year, and yet that is th...