Chapter XII: Cleanliness and Sanitation--Water Supply and Sewage

Filth and disease have gone hand in hand from the beginning of the world; but only during the last quarter-century have we known the true cause of infection, and why it is so closely associated with dirt. The danger of uncleanliness lies in the existence of certain microscopic organisms belonging to the vegetable kingdom, known popularly as microbes or germs, but more properly as bacteria. Bacteria, like the plants with which we are more familiar, thrive in moisture and moderate heat, but differ from them in many respects. Some of the more striking differences are structure and method of reproduction, many of them possessing the faculty of growing without sunlight. Bacteria are composed of minute masses of vegetable matter which vary from one ten-thousandth to one-thirty thousandth of an inch in length, and they reproduce by simple division. This process of multiplication may occur as often as once in half an hour; thus immense numbers may develop in a very short time. Under conditions unfavorable for growth, some species may form within their interior dense masses which are called spores. These resemble the seeds of higher plants in their function of distributing the species and in preserving life through intervals of time unfavorable for continuous multiplication.

Bacteria may be classified in several ways, but for the discussion of cleanliness and sanitation, the simplest division is into the harmless and the injurious. The harmless forms live mostly on dead organic matter, causing nitrification, fermentation, and putrefaction; they break down the more complex organic compounds into simpler ones, so that they can be used again as food for plants. Familiar examples of this are seen in the decay of meat and vegetables. This class is more numerous, much hardier than the other, and comprises an overwhelmingly large proportion of the bacteria in nature.

Bacteria are found almost constantly in water, in soil, and in air. Consequently they are present in all our food, except that which has been heated to kill them. Certain bacteria are normal inhabitants of the mouth, throat and intestines, while others find suitable conditions for growth on the skin and in the accumulation of substances excreted in the perspiration.

Owing to the short time which has been devoted to the study of bacteria and their functions, closer attention has been paid to the harmful or pathogenic bacteria because of their relation to human health. This one-sided study of bacteriology has blinded us to the beneficent action of many bacteria, and has caused us much unnecessary fear of their presence in food.

The harmful bacteria cause disease either indirectly through poisons which they excrete in food products, or directly by poisons or toxins which they form when living within the body. Although harmless bacteria are everywhere present, the pathogenic or harmful varieties are ordinarily much less numerous. It should be understood, however, that many of the so-called harmless bacteria are the cause of certain decompositions of vegetable and animal matter with the formation of substances which are detrimental to health. This is illustrated by the occasional cases of meat, fish, and oyster poisoning. The pathogenic bacteria, such as those of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and the like, constitute, as has been already stated, a small number of species. These are disseminated through various channels, such as the milk and the water supply, and by persons directly. When they are introduced into dirty and unwholesome homes, they find in the filth suitable conditions for their multiplication, with the usual consequence of causing more or less disease in the family. The human body possesses more or less power of resistance to bacteria, but if these natural forces cannot overcome their invasion, they in turn will be successful and produce disease.

Once infected with disease-producing bacteria, a house should be renovated from attic to cellar, and subjected to the action of agents possessing the power of destroying the pathogenic organisms. Numerous means are employed to kill bacteria, among them being the use of disinfectants in the form of liquids or gases, and the application of heat. The list of chemical disinfectants is long, but owing to their cost, a relatively small number are available for the disinfection of houses. The use of carbolic acid, copperas, whitewash, and the fumes of burning sulfur are familiar disinfectants used for this purpose. Among the disinfectants which can be applied directly to wounds, to prevent suppuration, are weak solutions of corrosive sublimate and of carbolic acid.

The greater number of bacteria, pathogenic or harmless, which do not form spores, are destroyed by a temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit for twenty minutes. Very few resist the boiling point; thus water may be made safe by boiling, and milk by Pasteurizing at 155 degrees for twenty minutes. Cold merely checks the growth of bacteria, but, ordinarily, does not destroy them. Sunlight and fresh air are especially unfavorable to them; therefore the house should be sunny, and beds, bedrooms and living rooms thoroughly aired. If there be no organic matter to serve as nutriment for them, they cannot multiply; therefore the body, the clothing, and the dwelling should be kept as clean as possible. For this reason the first test of good sanitation is the immediate removal of all waste matter from the house, and the first preventive of disease is personal cleanliness.

In Chapter VI suggestions have been made concerning the site, location, and drainage of the farm house. The kind, number, and convenience of the sanitary appliances, such as hot water boilers, closets, lavatories, and baths, are chiefly dependent upon the water-supply. If there be an abundance from a town water-main, or from a windmill or house-tank which will give some pressure, the problem of plumbing is comparatively easy; but if there be no such supply, it becomes far more difficult. A good water supply _in the house_ is of the first importance; therefore, for several reasons, plumbing conveniences lessen the work of the housewife by half, they encourage the practice of that virtue which is “next to godliness,” and if properly arranged they do away with many sanitary dangers. Personal cleanliness is irksome enough with every convenience for washing and bathing. When there is no convenience except a wash basin and a quart or two of hot water, habitual cleanliness is practically impossible. In this respect town and city life have an immense advantage over rural life. A woman who had moved from town to country for the sake of her husband’s health, was asked how she liked it: she said, “It is delightful, but I sometimes think I cannot endure it on account of this nasty privy and no bath-room.” Cleanliness of the skin is hygienically far more important than cleanliness of clothing. In athletics and gymnastics, the bath following the exercise is considered an essential part of their hygienic value; how much more necessary, then, is opportunity for frequent bathing, where the family, both in and out of doors, do daily manual labor which causes much perspiration, and which is often very dirty! The recent movement in cities to provide public bath-houses for the poor in tenements should not outstrip the farmer’s effort to obtain equally good facilities.

If there be a sufficient water supply available, there should be in every house a hot water boiler of at least twenty gallons capacity, attached to the kitchen range, to supply hot water for laundry work and bathing; a kitchen sink and a bath-tub, each with hot and cold water faucets and waste pipe to sewer or cesspool; and a water-closet. These are the essentials; but, if possible, a stationary wash stand and two laundry tubs, with hot and cold water pipes, should also be provided. In the farm house it will save expense and many steps for the housewife, and will encourage frequent use, if all these be located on the first floor; the boiler in a cupboard in the wall of the kitchen, which may be shut in summer and opened in winter; the sink in the kitchen, or if preferred, in a pantry between the dining room and kitchen; the bath-room and stationary washstand in a room either opening out of the kitchen or out of the family bedroom, or out of a rear passage; the water-closet should be in some well ventilated space, on an outside wall, where the noise of the fixture will be as little heard as possible. It should have an outside as well as an inside entrance. It is customary to place the closet in the bath-room, but this often interferes with the general use of the washstand and bath-tub by the family, and should be avoided. The nearer all plumbing fixtures are to each other, the less expensive they are to put in; therefore in planning the first floor, this point should receive special consideration.

Certain general principles apply to all plumbing, and may serve to test the various kinds of fixtures offered for sale. All foul and effete matter should be immediately and completely removed from the house; any back current of foul air into the house should be prevented, and any communication between the sewer or the cesspool and the water supply should be made impossible. Fixtures should be as simple in construction as possible and easily accessible. Pipes were formerly enclosed in the walls, but in the finest new buildings in cities, are now placed altogether in sight, and painted the color of the walls, or of the woodwork. The sewer pipe, on reaching the level of the ground, should pass directly out of the house, and should never be carried along under the first floor of the house. In the southern states and on the Pacific coast, pipes may run on the outside of the house, thus fulfilling ideally the principle that waste matter should be removed from the house as soon as possible. A few years ago there was much controversy over the placing of vent pipes in traps and in branches. Gerhard and the older sanitarians advise a complicated and elaborate use of them, but Putnam and the more recent authorities consider thorough ventilation of the soil pipe at top and bottom quite sufficient. The material of fixtures should be good (not extravagant), and the workmanship should be of the very best. The efficiency of any sanitary convenience depends almost as much upon the care with which it is put in as upon its material and style. But of all the principles of sanitary plumbing, probably the most important is frequent and thorough flushing, if possible with hot water. Any fixture will become foul and dangerous if there is not water enough and under sufficient force to scour it out thoroughly.

Having laid down certain principles which apply to plumbing fixtures generally, we may now consider these fixtures more in detail. Pipes should be rather heavy. Waste pipes are generally too large, and therefore do not scour well; they need be only three to four inches in diameter for one or more closets in an ordinary house, and from one to one and a-half inches for washbowls, sinks, and tubs; they should always be of uniform size, i. e., “full-bore” throughout. Soil pipes should never run level, but as nearly as possible at a uniform slope of not less than one foot in fifty.

The kitchen sink may be of white porcelain, enameled iron, painted iron, or granite ware, any of which materials are serviceable and desirable; or of wood, lined with lead, zinc, copper or slate, all of which are more or less undesirable, because after some use, the water and filth is apt to get in between the wood and its covering, or because they are not durable. The sink should have as little woodwork about it as possible, since wood is porous and, therefore, collects filth. It should be set open on brackets, and not over a dark, moist, dirt-collecting, back-breaking closet. Flushing is especially important in the case of the kitchen sink because of the grease. The best plumbing provides a grease-trap outside the house, which may be easily cleaned; but whether outside or immediately beneath the sink, the trap should have a screw-plug, so that it may be frequently cleaned. It follows that the kitchen waste pipe should not be too large, should have a good incline, and if possible no abrupt curves, so that cooling grease in the water may not harden on the sides of the pipe and finally fill it up. The use of a cheap wire screen garbage basket in the sink will prevent the small particles of waste from passing down the pipe.

Bath-tubs of white earthenware or “porcelain” are the most expensive, the most durable and very heavy; of white enameled iron, are less expensive and heavy, durable if carefully used, impervious and cleanly; those of copper, tinned and planished, dent easily and the tinning wears off, but are fairly durable and still less expensive; those of wood-fiber are not very common, but are impervious, light and cleanly.

The stationary washstand bowl and top are usually of marble; the outlet of the bowl should not be smaller than the wastepipe; the trap should be near the bowl, and have a screw plug, so that obstructions may be easily removed.

There is an immense variety of water-closets; those should be especially avoided which have moveable machinery in connection with the bowl, such as the pan, valve, and plunger closets. Some of these are very inexpensive, but they are objectionable, either because they rust and accumulate filth, or because they get out of order easily. The forms of closets without movable machinery in connection with the bowl, that is, in which the machinery is connected with the flushing cistern, such as the hopper, the siphon-jet, and the washout closets, are to be preferred. Any washout or hopper closet bought from a responsible firm is likely to give satisfaction, if thoroughly flushed and kept in order.

Stationary laundry tubs are of less importance than these other plumbing fixtures, since there are several excellent washing machines the use of which does away with the necessity for them. If one must choose between the two, the washing machine will be most useful; but if one wishes to have laundry tubs also, they come in porcelain, soapstone, granite, and wood, the latter being the least desirable.

If the water supply be limited, as when a tank is supplied by pumping from a cistern, the hot water boiler, the bath-tub, and the stationary washstand may be arranged almost as easily as when there is an abundance of water; but it may be necessary to substitute the dry-closet for the water-closet.

When no tank supply is available, and all water must be carried from a cistern or from the well in the yard, the cost of plumbing is very small and the discomfort very great. Warm water must be supplied chiefly from a reservoir at the back of the range, thus making frequent bathing very inconvenient, even if a regular bath-tub be provided. If, however, a cesspool be built in the yard, the kitchen sink, the slop-hopper, the bath-tub, and the laundry tub may have waste pipes to it. Such waste pipes save just half the work, for the water has to be carried only to the fixture, not away from it again. It thus seems worth while to have the fixtures, even though they serve only half their purpose. A slop-hopper with pipe to the cesspool, on the same level and near the kitchen, for waste wash water, etc., from the chambers, saves many steps, and is far more sanitary than throwing slops on the ground outside the house or carrying them to the outhouse.

The chief problem is the outhouse, or privy vault. There is no more disgusting or unsanitary feature of rural life than this ill-smelling, dirty hole in the ground, from which the filth permeates the surrounding soil, and may contaminate the water supply. Much discomfort and some digestive ills arise from the necessity--especially for women--of going a considerable distance in cold weather and at night, to such places. The closet should, therefore, be as near the house as is compatible with decency, and should be reached by a covered walkway. If properly built and regularly disinfected and cleaned, it need be neither disgusting nor unsanitary. The wooden house should never be papered nor carpeted, but should be painted or whitewashed yearly and kept scrupulously clean. The habitual use of ashes or dry earth in the receptacle and an occasional application of some disinfectant, such as copperas or chloride of lime, is necessary. If drawers are used in the privy, they may be hauled out frequently by horse; and with the liberal use of road dust, no offense arises. The writer knows a country house in which dry-earth closets are under the house-roof, and yet there is no unpleasantness. Since the well is so easily contaminated by the seeping through the soil of manure and human waste matter, it is of the utmost importance that the privy vault should be below the source of water supply and as far as possible from it. In the following pages the details of construction of the privy vault are given, the relative location of it, and the water supply.

Plumbing fixtures, like all other mechanical contrivances, to be efficient, require to be kept in perfect order. Frequent, thorough flushing with hot water whenever possible, and disinfection of the closet and the sink, are especially desirable. If all fixtures be set “open” and all pipes in sight, any leakage may be easily detected and remedied. If the pipes be painted with white lead, the defect will be discovered by the discoloration of the paint.

WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE

Water in abundance for the domestic animals should be provided by means of artificial pools or lakes, situated on land higher than the barns, but if they must be placed below the level of the buildings, aermotors or windmills may be easily made to elevate it to any reasonable height. It is difficult to explain why more miniature lakes, in which to store water for all except culinary purposes, are not constructed. In Fig. 7 it is shown how easily these pools may be made without expensive stone dams, and after the fashion of those constructed in many of the southern states.

Wells, in many places, must be deep, and then often furnish but a meager supply of water, while cisterns large enough to supply all wants are expensive. In addition to artificial lakes, wells, and cisterns, there are often streams, or best of all, springs, to be drawn upon. In any case, a full and continuous supply of water should be provided before buildings are constructed if annoyance, loss, and unnecessary labor are to be obviated and the best sanitary conditions secured in the house. Unless the water is brought into the house under a constant pressure, one or more storage tanks should be provided. They should be placed at such elevations as will secure at least some pressure on the first floor above the cellar. The storage tank may have a capacity of from one to five barrels, and may be constructed of rough or planed two-inch planks and lined with galvanized iron, if the water is to be used for culinary purposes; if not, it may be lined with lead. The tank, which may be of any shape desired, may be placed on supports near the ceiling of the bath-room, or the room which contains the commode, or at one end in the upper part of the clothes-press; provided, however, that the discharge pipe is made so large that under no contingencies will the tank overflow. If the house is fairly large and the cistern capacious, sufficient water may be pumped into the tank from the cistern in a few minutes to supply all wants for the day. From the tank it will flow by gravity into the hot water boiler and to all other points desired which are not above the tank. If water be raised by means of an aermotor, a storage tank will still be necessary, as the wind may fail to operate the motor for an entire day. By whatever means water is secured, the supply should be ample at all times. Springs and wells in the middle and northern states, and cisterns in the southern states will, in most cases, serve to supply the potable water needed, but these are too often inadequate to supply the large demand for water made by the animals, and the extra demand for water in the house made by cleaner and more sanitary methods of living.

In using water in the household, it becomes mixed with a great variety of organic substances which pollute it, and which tend to putrefaction and decay. As these various organic substances break down, numerous compounds are produced, many of which endanger not only health but life itself; it is therefore evident that all soiled water should be removed from the house immediately and by the shortest practical route. But what to do with the polluted water after it has been removed from the rooms, becomes one of the most difficult problems of modern civilization. The first thought is to empty this sewage into streams and lakes; but those living on the streams and in the cities must secure their water-supply from these sources. It is evident, then, that the streams should not be polluted. The next thought is to distribute the sewage over the land, but this method is usually an expensive one, and seldom can enough sandy land be secured to absorb and filter the vast quantities of sewage which modern conditions make necessary.

On the farm the same difficulties are presented, and the problem to be solved differs in degree rather than in kind. If dry-earth closets are used on the farm, there is still the kitchen and laundry sewage to be provided for. While disposing of this, provision may also be made for the night-soil, thus obviating two systems of removing waste from the house. However, the earth-closet will reduce the amount of liquid sewage and increase the temptation to discharge it into the streams which, above all things, should be avoided. If porous or sandy lands can be found within reasonable distance of the dwelling, and yet not too near to it to endanger health or pollute the water supply, a cesspool may be constructed. A hole some ten feet in circumference and ten to twelve feet deep, dug in the earth, walled with stone without mortar, may serve for catching and filtering the sewage. On top of the wall, which should not reach the surface of the ground by about two feet, lay two pieces of railroad iron, and on these place large flat stones, covering all with dirt, providing, however, for ventilation by means of a 4-inch iron pipe, which should be long enough to reach a little above the surface of the ground when all is completed.

If the soil is not as porous as is desired, lay several tile or stone drains at a depth of three to five feet, and extend them from the cesspool some distance out into the field or grounds beyond. (Fig. 87.) These drains should have free outlets, and the longer they are the better. At the outlet of the drains plant willows or some other water-loving, fast-growing trees. These will take up and utilize vast quantities of liquid and decomposed solids, and if the household is of only ordinary size no nuisance will result.

If water is limited and the dry-earth closet must be adopted, then the cesspool for the kitchen and laundry liquids need not be made so large as described, but may be built in the same manner. The dry-earth closet may be built as follows: Construct a privy of suitable size, 5 to 20 feet from the most convenient rear door, and connect it by a covered walk to the house. The small building should be placed not less than two feet above the ground, on a good, tight wall, which should extend under three sides of the building, the other side to be furnished with a hinged door. Secure a large, iron-top, dump wheelbarrow, which may serve to hold all fœcal matter. This may be emptied weekly or monthly into a nearby trench, previously prepared. A few shovelfuls of earth thrown upon the excreta will effectually arrest any offensive odors which might otherwise arise. Before the ground freezes in the fall dig a trench of sufficient length to contain the fœcal matter during the winter. In cold weather the barrow may be inverted over the trench, and by the application of a few quarts of hot water to the iron bottom the frozen material will be released. When the ground thaws, the accumulated matter may be covered. While the material is frozen there will be no danger from it. It should be said that this trench would better be dug near a row of trees or other strong-growing perennial plants. These will quickly take up the products of the night-soil which might, in rare cases, tend to contaminate the soil-water. If but little of the night-soil be deposited in one place, the earth and plants--two most efficient disinfectants--may be trusted to preserve good sanitary conditions. However, pains should be taken to discover if, by any possible means, the sewage may find its way into the well. An intelligent inspection of the soil, the stratification of it and the rocks, will reveal the direction which the soil-water takes; but if the cesspool and the drains are placed some distance from the dwelling, no contamination will take place under any circumstances, since the amount of sewage is so small and the power of plants and soil to take up the dangerous products of sewage is so great.