HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTION AND LAY MANAGEMENT, 989 
The usual firing battery having been damaged, the charges 
were exploded by sympathy, as follows, viz. :—A heavily-weighted 
canister, containing 3 lb. of dynamite, with two lengths of water- 
proof fuse, each about 3 feet long, was employed, the fuses lit in 
a boat, and the charge run down the guideline among those pre- 
viously set by the diver. All charges exploded simultaneously, 
with no misfire. 
This sympathetic action of higher explosives, though well known 
and often taken advantage of in military torpedo practice, would 
seem to be less widely known and made use of by civil engineers 
than it ought to be. 
In the case in question no charge was more than 6 feet distant 
from the next, but much longer ranges would be effective. 
No. 6.—SOME REMARKS ON DETAILS OF HOSPITAL 
CONSTRUCTION AND LAY MANAGEMENT. 
By C. E. Owen Smuyru, Superintendent of Public Buildings, 
Adelaide. 
(Read Monday, 10 January, 1898.) 
| Abstract. | 
Tue author, after a reference to a paper on “ Hospital Construe- 
tion” read by him at the Adelaide meeting in 1893, and to his 
being the Officer-in-charge of Hospital Construction in South 
Australia, dealt first with the questions of drainage and sewerage. 
He emphasised the necessity for the absolute separation by 
trapping and ventilation from the main sewer, and in larger 
hospitals of the separation of each section of the drainage system 
from its neighbour. 
Failing a good water pressure, however, he would never allow 
in a modern hospital a drain-pipe to be used, but treat everything 
on the surface, and apply daily cleansing. 
He stated that there was a vast difference between sewer gas 
and sewer air—a fact not generally recognised. 
Treating next upon the use of disinfectants, he referred to the 
frequent want of knowledge as to their proper application, and the 
necessity for intelligent direction in this matter to young nurses 
and hospital attendants. 
He spoke upon pedestal closet pans, baths, lavatories and sinks, 
which in addition to having every part as far as possible visible 
to the eye, and unencumbered by casings, should receive much 
greater attention in regard to cleansing than he feared was 
generally paid to them. 
