562 
Notices of Books. 
[October, 
Sanitary Engineering . A Guide to the Construction of Works 
of Sewerage and House Drainage, with Tables for facili- 
tating the Calculations of the Engineer, By Baldwin 
Latham, C.E., F.G.S., F.M.S., &c. Second Edition. 
London and New York: E. and F. N. Spon. 
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in the way of the sanitary rege- 
neration of a city, a district, or an entire country, lies in the faCt 
that it requires the co-operation of a number of distinCt pro- 
fessions, none of which can be safely dispensed with. The 
chemist has to investigate the composition of polluted waters, 
to point out in what respeCt and in how far they differ from a 
natural standard, and to adjudicate on the efficiency of the means 
or processes proposed for their purification. The medical prac- 
titioner is required to trace out the effeCts upon public health of 
impure air and water, whether the latter be used in diet or merely 
allowed to exist beneath and near human habitations. The 
practical agriculturist must pronounce on value of the schemes 
put forward for the utilisation of sewage. Passing over the 
functions of the jurist and the statistician, we come to the duties 
of the engineer, which though last are assuredly not least. He 
has to devise and carry out methods both for introducing pure 
water into our cities and villages in the most efficient manner, 
and without becoming contaminated on the way, and, on the 
other hand, to remove from the vicinity of our dwellings all 
polluted liquids, so that they may have the least opportunity of 
diffusing contamination. This involves the construction of 
water-works, the laying down sewers and drains, with all their 
accessories, such as ventilators, traps, &c. There is, curiously 
enough, one engineering problem in connection with this subjeCt 
the solution of which we do not remember to have seen even 
attempted. This is — Suppose a given flow of sewage is treated 
by any precipitation process, to find the shape and size of tanks 
in which the precipitated matter shall be most quickly and com- 
pletely separated from the effluent water. 
Mr. Baldwin Latham’s work contains some very curious in- 
formation on sanitary laws and customs in antiquity. It is 
salutary, though perhaps humiliating, to learn that in this boast- 
ful nineteenth century we are scarcely more advanced in prac- 
tical hygiene than were our predecessors some three thousand 
years ago. Rome was probably better supplied with water than 
any city of the present day, and its citizens would scarcely have 
ereCted statues in honour of the inventor of monopolist water- 
companies. The author ascribes the worship paid by the 
Ancient Egyptians to the Scarabaeus, or £< Sacred dung-beetle ” 
(Ateuchns sacer), to their acquaintance with its sanitary ser- 
vices.* On the same principle it might perhaps be argued that 
* See Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. vi., p. 163. 
