Coventry Herald
23 November 1831MEETING IN COVENTRY,
TO ADOPT
PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES against CHOLERA.On Monday last, a Meeting of the respectable inhabitants of this City was held at St. Mary’s Hall, for the purpose of taking into consideration such precautionary measures as might be necessary against the introduction of the cholera. . . . . .
“The Committee appointed to inspect the course of the river Sherbourne, having examined the same from Ram Bridge in Paybody’s or Shut Lane mill, in their Report feel it not an easy matter to convey to the public the impression made upon themselves by the dirty and abominable condition in which they found it, along the almost entire extent, as mentioned above, arising from an accumulation of filth of every description, and various other obstacles, opposing a free current of water. . . . .
The Mayor and Dr. Southam thought the proprietors of the property along the line ought to cleanse the river.
Mr. Alderman Vale arose and proposed the establishment of a Board of Health.
Mr. Wilmot seconded the resolution.The 1848 Public Health Act was the first step on the road to improved public health.
Edwin Chadwick considered that the most important steps to improve the health of the public were:
• improved drainage and provision of sewers
• the removal of all refuse from houses, streets and roads
• the provision of clean drinking water
• the appointment of a medical officer for each townIn Sunderland Robert Rawlinson reported:-
“There is a most filthy place between two walls from 4 to 5 feet wide, behind John Street...called the Stinking Ditch, and it is literally so. This nuisance has not been abated, for no one will own it. A little from the Brandling inn is a cottage in a most unhealthy state; the water falling from a large building completely soaks through the walls, behind which is a stable in which sometimes pigs and rabbits are kept. The manure is allowed to be deposited for weeks together, until there are two or three cartloads. When I first visited this cottage I found it occupied by a very clean old woman and her husband; their bed-room was very offensive; they are both since dead of cholera....”
After the Great Stink of 1858, Parliament realised the urgency of the problem and resolved to create a modern sewerage system.
Joseph Bazalgette, a civil engineer and Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, was given responsibility for the work. He designed an extensive underground sewerage system that diverted waste to the Thames Estuary, downstream of the main centre of population. Six main interceptor sewers, totalling almost 100 miles (160 km) in length, were constructed, some incorporating stretches of London's 'lost' rivers. Three of these sewers were north of the river, the southernmost, low-level one being incorporated in the Thames Embankment. The Embankment also allowed new roads, new public gardens, and the Circle Line of the London Underground. (wikipedia)
Starting around 1848 the Victorian nation of Britain constructed hundreds of pumping stations like this one in Coventry together with extensive sewage works. They also built hundreds of reservoirs and fresh water pumping stations and distribution networks. They utterly defeated cholera and dysentery. They spent their burgeoning wealth on things to improve the health of the population and also built hundreds of hospitals which had previously hardly existed at all. They acted in a manner of enlightened self interest.
After 170 years of progress we now have mega corporations foisting upon us, be means of appeal to vanity, a device called a wet wipe which is inevitably going to be flushed down the toilet and has blocked, after only a few years, dozens of sewers in this area alone. These evil appliances are going to reverse 170 years of progress and there WILL be an epidemic as a result. The government should act to stop this idiocy now. Our great grandfathers must be turning in their graves.
Two years ago an acquaintance of mine started using these wet wipes and after just a few weeks I had to remove two buckets full of wipes from the sewer which had not deteriorated at all. They formed a solid and impenetrable barrier and backed up the detritus from the toilet to spread it across the floor of the house. Only my good action and offices saved the day.
Yesterday, the 13th February 2018, my neighbours knocked on my door to report that the sewer in my garden was overflowing across the lawn and down the street. I lifted the cover and had to pass my drain rods through approximately a ton of the most foul looking and smelling shit blocked up by wet wipes. Its appearance reminded me of the descriptions of the river given above by the commissioners who had investigated the cholera in 1831.
Modern medicine is, in many respects superb, but it will not protect us against utter stupidity. If the sewers that have served us superbly for 170 years are to be regularly blocked by stupid wet wipes then the plague will return. Do not think anything will stop it. The Health Service cannot protect you against crass stupidity.
The last plague in this country was stopped by the very wise action of Parliament—although against much opposition - which passed an act to build the London embankment. The Public Health Act of 1848 and some subsequent Acts have worked to improve the heath of the nation by good engineering which could not have been achieved by any other means. We now need another Act to protect those Acts and the sewers and stop this utter nonsense. As a Chartered Engineer I can assure you there is not an engineering solution and I very much doubt there is a medical solution. Wipes which do not disintegrate in water must be banned - and very quickly. Do this or have another plague on your hands. I am not scare mongering - this is plain fact.
C Feb 2018 Colin Walker
C.Eng.M.I.Mech.E.
15th February 2018
Ban non-disintegrating Wet Wipes
Sent to the Minister of Health
Colin Walker
18 February 2018
