488 The Public Health. [ Oct., 
greater natural advantages of situation, and a much superior class 
of population, the increase of epidemic fever has kept pace with the 
overcrowding of the ticketed houses which has been permitted. 
Glasgow is provided with water-closets to an extent that is 
quite unusual in large towns. In houses built within the last fifteen 
or twenty years, it is a very common thing to find one to each 
family inhabiting a house of three or even two apartments. As 
these all communicate with the Clyde by means of the sewerage, a 
large proportion of the foecal matter finds its way into the river, no 
small part of which has actually to mix with the water of the 
harbour. The condition of the harbour for some years has, in 
consequence, been foul and noxious in the extreme. 
Besides the water-closets, there are in Glasgow 122 public 
and 3,181 private conveniences. The first named are large iron 
structures, situated in various parts of the town, especially in the 
vicinity of the harbour, and in places of great public resort, as the 
Glasgow Green and the Parks. The private conveniences, to each 
of which twelve families, on an average, claim access (!) are situated 
in the back courts attached to the houses in the less respectable 
parts of the town. They communicate with the ash-pits or middens. 
Under ordinary circumstances, these privies and middens are 
said to be emptied frequently, always before they become incon- 
veniently filled, and always at the depth of night. The contents 
are carted to one or other of several large public manure depots on 
the outskirts of the city, either close to, or m the vicinity of, some 
railway line. From these depots the manure is removed, at the 
expense of farmers who purchase it, by carts or railway waggons, 
into the country. When any particular spot is the seat of epidemic 
disease, the middens are immediately cleaned out, and the dung- 
steads are disinfected by chloride of lime, or chloride of zine (Sir 
Wm. Burnett’s disinfecting fluid). Carbolic acid and Condy’s fluid 
are being tried just now. As far as it is possible to do so, the 
Glasgow authorities guard against the ill-effects of old-fashioned 
public and private conveniences and manure depots, within or near 
the limits of boroughs ; but they are infamous relics of a barbarous 
age; they are a disgrace to civilization; and no reasoning, no 
ameliorating action justifies their continuance. 
The courts are thoroughly washed with water delivered by a 
hose, and it may be that the common stair is whitewashed with 
caustic lime. If the subjects of the epidemic disease, as fever or 
diarrhoea, be poor, it is very probable that the medical officer will 
order admission to the hospital lately erected, im a case of emer- 
gency, by the Police Board, because of the difficulty of obtaining 
admission for such patients into the fever hospital at the Royal 
Infirmary, The house where the disease existed is then taken 
possession of by the sanitary department ; the bed and body clothes 
