Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume Ii Part 207

4. _Tub_ (Tonneau). The excremental matters coming down the descent pipe fall into a tub of from 2 to 3 hectolitres (44 to 66 gallons), in a hole in the top of which the lower part of the pipe fits tightly. A cover fitted with a spring serves to shut and lute the tub when it is full.

Placed on a stand furnished with wheels, the tub is easily managed.

When filled it is immediately replaced by another similar contrivance. If the tub is underground, the rails (on which the stand moves) should be placed on an incline, so that the removal and replacement may be easily effected. The underground chamber must be isolated, and the entrance to it placed outside the building. The thorough tarring of the interior of the tub not only preserves the staves, but also partly neutralises the effect of the mephitic gases which the excremental matters discharge.

_Ventilation pipe._ To prevent the smells and gases which are given off from the mouth of the tub from spreading themselves (in the house) by means of the opening in the privy seat, at the upper extremity of the descent pipe, is fixed a ventilation pipe, which rises above the coping of the roof, and the action of which is increased by means of a vane, or any other contrivance producing the same effect.[156]

[Footnote 156: Corfield.]

It is said that in the working of any of the above processes, little or no nuisance ensues, if only ordinary care and intelligence are used. In many cases the excreta collected by the methods above specified is conveyed to manufactories and then converted into manure.

It does not appear that in England the health of the workmen employed in a manure manufactory or of those who live in the neighbourhood of it suffers in consequence.

_Removal of the excreta after treatment with deodorising and antiputrescent substances._ This is the method usually adopted when the dry process is followed; the excreta mixed with the deodorising substance when removed from the house being at once applied to the land.

_a._ _Coal and wood ashes._ It is a common practice in the north of England to throw coal ashes on the excreta, which fall into closets made with hinged flaps or seats for the purpose of admitting the ashes, as at Manchester and Salford. Wood ashes are far more effective deodorisers than coal ashes, but they are seldom procurable. "In some towns there are receptacles called 'middens,' intended both for excreta and ashes; sometimes these are cemented, and there may be a pipe leading into a sewer so as to dry them. The midden system is a bad one; even with every care, the vast heaps of putrefying material which acc.u.mulate in some of our towns must have a very serious influence on the health, and the sooner the middens are abolished the better."[157]

[Footnote 157: Parkes.]

_b._ _Deodorising powders._ At some of the Indian stations deodorants, such as M'Dougall's, or Calvert's carbolic acid powders, have been successfully employed, a comparatively small quant.i.ty being mixed with the excreta.

In Germany a mixture of lime, chloride of magnesium, and tar is largely used for the same purpose, and is known as Suverns' deodoriser."

Another deodoriser (the Muller Schur), also used in the dry method, is composed of lime, 100 lbs.; powdered wood charcoal 20 lbs.; peat powder or sawdust, 10 lbs.; and carbolic acid (containing 60 to 70 per cent. of real acid) 1 lb. After having been mixed, the ma.s.s is placed under cover for a night to avoid any chance of spontaneous ignition, and when dry it is packed in barrels.

_c._ _Charcoal._ The powerfully deodorising properties of charcoal obviously adapt it for the removal of excreta in the dry state, after the admixture with them. But the comparatively high price of animal charcoal, although nearly six times the value of dry earth as a deodorant, prohibits its being extensively used. Peat is, however, cheaper than animal charcoal. To obviate the objection of cost, Mr Stanford, in 1872, proposed to make charcoal for this purpose from seaweed. The charcoal obtained from this source is said to be cheap and of great service as an excretal deodoriser. The mixed charcoal and sewage is sufficiently odourless to be stored for some months in a convenient receptacle outside a dwelling-house.

After the seaweed charcoal has become thoroughly impregnated with faeces and urine, the mixture is recarbonised in a retort, and the carbon can be again used; the distilled products (ammoniacal liquor, containing acetate of lime, tar, and gas) are sufficient to pay the cost, and it is said even to yield a profit.[158]

[Footnote 158: About the same time carbonisation of sewage in retorts, with or without previous admixture with charcoal, was proposed by Mr Hickey, of Darjeeling. There can be little doubt that, regarded in a purely sanitary point of view, carbonisation of sewage matter is an excellent plan. Mr Hickey proposed the utilisation of the ammoniacal products resulting from his process.]

_d._ _Dried earth._ The Rev. Mr Moule was the first to direct attention to the value of dried earth as a deodorant of excreta.

Mr Moule's 'earth closet' consists of a box with a receptacle below for the excreta. By pulling a plug dried earth, which is placed in a hopper above, enters the closet and falls upon the excreta, thus disinfecting and deodorising it. The consumption of earth averages from 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 lb.

a day. The slop water should not be thrown into the closet, but disposed of in some other way. In another plan, as in Taylor's improved closet, the urine is carried off without mixing at all with the faeces.

Clay, marl, and vegetable humus form the best kind of earths. When dried the clay may be easily reduced to powder. Chalk and sand are comparatively useless. The receptacle is emptied from time to time, the contents forming a valuable manure.

The earth closet is more particularly adapted for small villages and isolated mansions. One difficulty of its application by cottagers consists in the necessity of collecting, drying, and storing the earth; the cottager's mostly limited s.p.a.ce in his dwelling not permitting this. One great obstacle to the effective carrying out of this system amongst extensive communities is the difficulty of procuring the large supply of earth that its adoption necessitates. With proper supervision and care the 'earth system' answers admirably; but if these are not bestowed on it, it as signally fails. It has been adopted with great success in many schools, barracks, and other large buildings.

"It is coming into great use in India, and is carried out with great attention to detail. In those European stations where water is not procurable Mr Moule's invention has been a boon of great value, and medical officers say that nothing has been done in India of late years which has contributed so much to the health and comfort of the men. The plan of separating the urine from the faeces has been strongly advocated by Dr Cornish, of Madras, and would, no doubt, be attended with great advantages in India if there are means of disposal of the urine. The chief difficulty in the European barracks in India is felt during the rainy season, when the mixed excreta and earth cannot be kept sufficiently dry.

In the case of natives of India, however, a serious difficulty arises in the use of the earth system, in consequence of the universal use of water for ablution after using the closet. Every native takes with him a small vessel holding ten to twenty ounces of water, so that a large amount of fluid has to be disposed of. The usual earth closet does not suffice for this. Mr Charles Turner, C.E., of Southampton, has contrived a closet suitable for the native family; it is unfortunately too costly, and possibly a simple iron box, with a pipe to carry off the urine and ablution water, would be better suited for the poorer cla.s.ses."[159]

[Footnote 159: Parkes.]

_e._ _Captain Lieurnur's pneumatic plan._ This process, the invention of a Dutch engineer, is in use at Amsterdam, Leyden, Drodrecht, and a few other Continental towns. It is also known as the 'aspiration plan.' Its outlines are as follows:--"The pipes and, tubes leading from the various water-closets and privies peculiar to the system are connected with street mains, which mains again communicate with underground horizontal cast-iron cylinders or tanks, these tanks being directly connected with a powerful air-pump worked by steam. Communication between the main and the tanks, as well as between the tanks and the pump, can be made or broken by means of stopc.o.c.ks. Hence it follows that when access is allowed between one of the tanks and the air-pump, this latter will, when put into action, produce a vacuum in the tank, and if the stopc.o.c.k of the main leading to the tank be then opened, the contents of all the privies and water-closets, the pipes of which run into the main, will be removed by being swept into the tank by pneumatic force. In this manner each tank is treated in succession.

Similarly the sewage is carried to the large reservoirs of a manure manufactory. It is here mixed with a little sulphuric acid to prevent the formation of ammonia, and being evaporated down _in vacuo_ becomes converted, when sufficiently dry, into poudrette. In Lieurnur's process all deodorants are dispensed with, and its mixture with water is prevented by means of porous drain pipes laid above the sewers, by which contrivance the subsoil water is kept out of the sewers.

=Sewage, Utilisation of.= "Mr Peregrine Birch read before the Inst.i.tution of Surveyors a paper on 'The Use of Sewage by Farmers,' which embodied some facts that deserve to be noticed, as bearing on a question we have repeatedly discussed. It appears that there are at the present time 'upwards of one hundred owners and occupiers of land in Great Britain who use sewage for the sake alone of what they can get out of it by agricultural means.' Of these 'more than sixty are tenant farmers, who continue to use it although they have, annually at least, the option of ceasing to do so,' It seems five out of six of the tenant farmers purchase the sewage they employ, so that their adhesion to the method proves conclusively that it _pays_. Nearly four thousand acres of land are under regular cultivation with sewage. Mr Birch is of opinion that 'advocates of sewage precipitation processes should not regard sewage farmers as their rivals, for a chemical process might be very largely used with advantage when farmers are being persuaded or taught to use sewage. But this should be the distinct aim of all cultivation, for there is no chemical process that could not be worked to greater advantage during two months of the year than twelve, or applied to a small quant.i.ty of sewage at less cost than to a large.' Our primary interest is to see the utilisation of sewage generally adopted; the method employed must be determined by experience on the grounds of cheapness and expediency."--_Lancet._

=SHAD'DOCK.= A large species of orange, the fruit of _Citrus Dec.u.mana_ (Linn.).

=s.h.a.gREEN'.= This is prepared from the skins of the horse, wild a.s.s, and camel, as follows:--The skin, freed from epidermis and hair by soaking in water, and, after dressing with the currier's fles.h.i.+ng-knife, is sprinkled over, whilst still wet and stretched, with the seeds of a species of chenopodium, which are imbedded in it by strong pressure, and in this state it is dried; the seeds are then shaken off, and the surface rubbed or shaved down, nearly to the bottom of the seed-pits or indentations; it is next soaked in water, by which the skin swells, and the recently depressed surface rises into a number of minute prominences; it is, lastly, dyed and smoothed off. Black is given to it with galls and copperas; blue, with a solution of indigo; green, with copper filings and sal ammoniac; and red, with cochineal and alum. s.h.a.green was formerly very extensively used for covering the cases of watches, spectacles, surgical instruments, &c.

=SHALLOT'.= _Syn._ ESCHALOT. The _Allium ascalonic.u.m_ (Linn.), a plant allied to the onion, the bulb of which is much used as a sauce or pot-herb.

=SHAMPOO'ING.= A practice common in the East, having for its object the increase or restoration of the tone and vigour of the body, or the mitigation of pain. It is applied either in the bath or immediately after quitting it, generally the latter, and consists in pressing and kneading the flesh, stretching and relaxing the knee-joints, and laboriously brus.h.i.+ng and scrubbing the skin.

=SHARPS.= See FLOUR.

=SHA'VING.= The following are Mr Mechi's instructions for this, to many persons, troublesome operation:--Never fail to well wash your beard with soap and cold water, and to rub it dry, immediately before you apply the lather, of which the more you use the easier you will shave. Never use warm water, which makes a tender face. Place the razor (closed, of course) in your pocket, or under your arm, to warm it. The moment you leave your bed is the best time to shave. Always put your shaving-brush away with the lather on it.

The razor (being only a very fine saw) should be moved in a sloping or sawing direction, holding it nearly flat to your face, care being taken to draw the skin as tight as possible with the left hand, so as to present an even surface and throw out the beard. The practice of pressing on the edge of a razor in stropping generally rounds it; the pressure should be directed to the back, which must never be raised from the strop. If you shave from heel to point of the razor, strop it from point to heel; but if you begin with the point, then strop from heel to point. If you only once put away your razor without stropping or otherwise cleaning the edge, you must no longer expect to shave well, the soap and damp so soon rust the fine teeth or edge. A piece of plate leather should always be kept with the razors.

=SHAVING FLUID.= See ESSENCE OF SOAP.

=SHAWLS, To Scour.= Sc.r.a.pe one pound of soap into thin shavings, and let it be boiled with as much water as will convert into a thin jelly. When cold, beat it with the hand, and mix with it three tablespoonfuls of oil of turpentine, and one of hartshorn. Let the shawl be well washed in this mixture, and afterwards rinsed in cold water, so as to get rid of all the soap.

Next let the shawl be rinsed in salt and water, then wring out the water from it, and fold it between two sheets, being careful not to allow two folds of the shawl to lie together; finally mangle, and iron with a cool iron.

=SHEEP.= _Syn._ OVIS, L. The _Ovis aries_, an animal domesticated almost everywhere. Its flesh supplies us with food, its skin with leather, its fleece with wool, and its intestines with catgut. Its fat (sevum) is officinal. See MUTTON, SUET, &c.

=Sheep Washes.= 1. a.r.s.enious acid in powder, carbonate of potash, of each 6 oz.; water, 14 gall. Boil together for half an hour.

2. a.r.s.enious acid in powder, soft soap, and carbonate of potash, of each 6 oz.; sulphur, 4 oz.; bruised h.e.l.lebore root, 2 oz.; water, 14 gall. Boil the ingredients in a portion of the water for half an hour, or until the a.r.s.enic is dissolved, then add the remainder of the water, and strain through a coa.r.s.e sieve. Mr Youatt says:--"More care than is usually taken should be exercised in order that the fluid may penetrate to every part of the skin, and which should be ensured by a previous was.h.i.+ng in soap and water. The a.r.s.enic that necessarily remains about the wool when the water has dried away would probably destroy the acari as fast as they are produced. When a greater quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic has been used, or the sheep has been kept too long in the water, fatal consequences have occasionally ensued."

3. A sheep-dipping composition employed on the Continent is:--a.r.s.enious acid, 1 lb.; sulphate of zinc, 10 lbs.; dissolved in 25 gallons of water.

4. The Australian sheep farmers use a weak solution of b.i.+.c.hloride of mercury (1 oz. of the b.i.+.c.hloride to 4 gall. of water).

5. Water, 40 parts, at the temperature of 50 to 57 C.; to this add 1 part of soluble gla.s.s (the soluble silicates). This is recommended as a very efficient and perfectly safe sheep wash by Messrs Baerle and Co., of Worms. In was.h.i.+ng the sheep with this preparation care should be taken to cover the eyes of the animal with a bandage, to perform the was.h.i.+ng with the solution instantaneously, and to remove the surplus with tepid water.

"Yards into which newly clipped sheep are to be turned should be previously cleared of all green food, hay, and even fresh water; if perfectly empty they are still safer. When the dipping is finished they should be cleaned, washed, and swept, and any of the unused dipping solution at once poured down the drains. Dipped sheep should remain, if possible, in an open exposed place, as on a dry road, or in a large open yard. Over-crowding should be avoided, and every facility given for rapid drying, which is greatly expedited by selecting for the operation fine, clear, drying weather. On no account should sheep be returned to their grazings until they are dry, and all risk of dripping over.[160]

[Footnote 160: Finlay Dunn.]

=Sh.e.l.l-FISH.= The common name for the Crustacean and Molluscous animals that are used for food. 'Sh.e.l.l-fish' are extremely liable to disturb the functions of the stomach and bowels. The oyster (_Ostrea edulis_), and the c.o.c.kle (_Cardium edule_), are, perhaps, the least objectionable. The crab (_Cancer pagurus_), the crayfish (_Astacus fluvialis_), the lobster (_Homarus vulgaris_), the mussel (_Mytilus edulis_), the prawn (_Palaemon serratus_), the periwinkle (_Littorina littorea_), and the shrimp (_Crangon vulgaris_), with the exception of the claws of the first three, are always suspicious, particularly in hot weather, and often absolutely poisonous. We have seen the most alarming, nay, fatal symptoms, follow the use of mussels, even amongst those habitually accustomed to take them; whilst it is a well known fact that the luscious bodies of the crab and lobster have too often formed the last supper of the epicure. See OYSTER, &c.

=SHEL-LAC.= See LAC.

=Sh.e.l.lS (Prepared).= _Syn._ TESTae PRaePARATae (Ph. L. 1836), L. _Prep._ (Ph.

L. 1836.) Wash oyster-sh.e.l.ls (OSTRae--Ph. L.) with boiling water, having previously freed them from extraneous matters; then prepare them in the manner directed for chalk. The product is similar in const.i.tution and properties to prepared chalk.

=Sh.e.l.ls, To Polish.= 1. The surface of the sh.e.l.l should be first cleaned by rubbing it over with a rag dipped in hydrochloric acid, till the outer dull skin is removed. It must be then washed in warm water, dried in hot sawdust, and polished with chamois leather. Those sh.e.l.ls which are dest.i.tute of a natural polished surface, may be either varnished or rubbed with a mixture of tripoli powder and turpentine applied by means of a wash-leather, after which fine tripoli alone should be used, and, finally, a little olive oil, the surface being brought up with the chamois leather as before.

2. "The sh.e.l.ls are first boiled in a strong solution of potash, then wound on wheels, sometimes through one strata to show an underlying one, then polished with hydrochloric acid and putty powder. In this operation the hands are in great danger. Sh.e.l.l grinders are generally almost all cripples in their hands. (Spon.)

=SHER'BET.= [Pers.] A cooling drink, used in the East, prepared with the juices of fruit, and water, variously sweetened and flavoured. The word has been, of late years, commonly employed in these countries in a similar manner. See LEMONADE, ORANGEADE, and POWDERS.