THE THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 SANITATION 
 IN COUNTRY PLACES 
 
 Including the 
 
 BACTERIOLYTIC 
 TANK SYSTEM 
 
 BY 
 
 RAMSAY SMITH, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S. (Edin.), 
 
 Permanent Head of the Department of Public Health of South Australia ; Fellow 
 of the Royal Institute of Public Health of Great Britain; Chairman of the Board of 
 Examin'ers for South Australia of the Royal Sanitary Institute ; Fellow of the 
 Royal Society of Arts, London; Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Army Medical Corps 
 (Temp.) ; Member of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States ; 
 formerly Examiner to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, &c. 
 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 dtrclaftrc : 
 R. E. E. ROGERS, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, NORTH TERRACE. 
 
 1920. 
 
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 SANITATION 
 IN COUNTRY PLACES 
 
 Including the 
 
 BACTERIOLYTIC 
 TANK SYSTEM 
 
 RY 
 
 With Compliments 
 
 FROM 
 
 The Board of Governors 
 
 OF THB 
 
 Public Library, Museum, & Art Gallery 
 of South Australia, 
 
 ADKI.AIDK, 
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
 
 R.S. (Edin.), 
 
 stralia ; Fellow 
 of the Board of 
 Fellow of the 
 Medical Corps 
 United States ; 
 
 iburgh, &c. 
 
 TERRACE. 
 
 1920. 
 
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 SANITATION 
 . IN COUNTRY PLACES 
 
 Including the 
 
 BACTERIOLYTIC 
 TANK SYSTEM 
 
 BY 
 
 W. RAMSAY SMITH, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S. (Edin.), 
 
 Permanent Head of the Department of Public Health of South Australia ; Fellow 
 of the Royal Institute of Public Health of Great Britain; Chairman of the Board of 
 Examiners t for South Australia of the Royal Sanitary Institute ; Fellow of the 
 Royal Society of Arts, London ; Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Army Medical Corps 
 (Temp.) ; Member of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States ; 
 formerly Examiner to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, &c. 
 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 ftfcelatoe : 
 
 R. E. E. ROGERS, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, NORTH TERRACE. 
 
 1920. 
 
Si 
 
 Mi 
 
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SANITATION 
 IN COUNTRY PLACES, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 THE BACTERIOLYTIC TANK SYSTEM. 
 
 Everyone is familiar with, the changes produced in the dry 
 arid land by a week of soaking rain and genial warmth. What 
 was formerly a desert of bare barren sand is now a field of 
 living green. Trees, dreary and leafless since last autumn, have 
 burst their buds and donned their leafy mantles. The whole 
 earth is covered with varied forms of beauty and wondrous 
 varieties of color, and is redolent with sweet odors. By-and-by 
 field and vineyard and garden will be full of rich fruits, and 
 the forests will be heavier with timber. 
 
 But these visible changes are not the only results of plant 
 growth. There are others less obvious but not less wonderful. 
 The living substance contained in innumerable plant cells has 
 been employed in converting certain constituents of the soil into 
 hundreds of * ' principles ' ' which, though apparently of no direct 
 use to the plants themselves, are nevertheless of unspeakable 
 benefit to mankind. When one considers that from cinchona 
 bark over 60 distinct substances have been separated, and from 
 opium about 40, many of which are of great chemical complexity, 
 one realises something of the enormous extent and variety of the 
 processes going on in the plant and depending upon the relations 
 betAveen the soil and plant life. 
 
 Apart from fresh waters and the sea and man shall 110 more 
 live by fish aldne than by bread we depend upon the soil, 
 directly or indirectly, for all our food and clothing, our 
 sustenance and our comfort. The necessaries, the luxuries, 
 and the adornments of existence are found in the country. All 
 theories of the origin of the race place the first of mankind in 
 rural surroundings. "God Almiglitie" says Bacon, "first 
 Planted a Garden. And indeed, it is the purest of Humane 
 pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirits of Man ; 
 Without which, Buildings and Pallaces are but Grosse Handy- 
 works. ' ' 
 
 ' ' God made the country, and man made the town : 
 What wonder, then, that health and virtue, gifts 
 That can alone make sweet the bitter draught 
 That life holds out to all, should most abound 
 And least be threatened in the fields and groves? " 
 
 / i* r" "^ 
 
 o 57*o . 
 
We are not now concerned with the mental or moral 
 advantages that a garden or a country life confers; our subject 
 is the more restricted one of health alone. The only light that 
 will illumine it will be the dry light of Science. 
 
 ' ' God the first Garden made, and the first City, Cain. " Cain is 
 the patron saint, or patron sinner, of all such as build cities. 
 They have no thought for their neighbor. They are not their 
 brother's keeper. Towns are after-thoughts the requirements 
 of an artificial civilisation. The huddling together of human 
 beings within a city was doubtless due at first to the necessities 
 of defence. When man discovered that he could enlist 
 gravitation in the propulsion of his missiles, he built forts and 
 cities 011 the hill-tops or hill-sides. Later on, towns arose at the 
 seat of mines because of the advantages connected with 
 manufacture, and around seaports for the convenience of 
 commerce. Social life and health have never received so much 
 consideration as defence and commerce. Towns always had 
 their drawbacks and disadvantages. Architects and health 
 authorities have ever been concerned about open spaces and 
 vegetation between houses, about fresh air and sunlight in and 
 around dwellings, about food and water, and the removal of 
 refuse. Dwellers in cities have often to pay dearly for their 
 so-called privileges, not only in the tale of lives they furnish to 
 epidemics of preventable diseases, but in the shortening 
 of the average human life and in the general low standard of 
 health that characterises them. 
 
 It is notorious how city customs and fashions have influenced 
 social life in the country. The same is true of the adjuncts of 
 social life. What in the town is a necessary evil is not only 
 tolerated in the coujitry, but is looked upon as "the correct 
 thing. 7 ' In the country one cannot unbend one's self from the 
 town twist. A builder finds it impossible to cast away his 
 town-bred ideas, and so he builds underground kitchens and 
 coal cellars in his country mansion, being so long accustomed 
 to build houses on a minimum of superficial area that, when he 
 has unlimited space at his disposal, he fails to appreciate the 
 advantages of the boon. It is doubtful if the invention of the 
 telephone and the electric car, which ought to obviate the 
 necessity of the crowding* together of men for commercial 
 purposes, will be able to break down habits that have become 
 part of our being. Customs unfortunately persist after their 
 necessity or utility has ceased. 
 
 On this subject Professor Alfred Kirchhoff wrote: "It is not 
 true to say that the progress of civilisation liberates man from 
 the influence of mother earth: 011 the contrary, it is always 
 knitting him with it more and more intimately and 
 comprehensively. We feel ourselves ever more and more at home 
 upon the earth, more and more fortunate in being able to turn 
 
5 
 
 to account its gifts and its forces, and yet it remains the 
 fundamental basis of human activity. ' ' 
 
 Unfortunately we rarely recognise that this is so. The 
 circumstances of our life and living and the conditions of our 
 work and amusements have become so artificial, so unnatural, 
 so complicated and interdependent, so out of touch with nature, 
 that when we find that anything has gone wrong we have great 
 difficulty in finding where or in what the real fault lies. For 
 example, it is only within the present decade that we have 
 learned something of the meaning of the term "fresh air" in 
 matters relating to our living and working. Careful 
 observations and experiments have completely changed our ideas 
 about ventilation and the characters of foul air. It has now 
 been found that what really counts is not so much the air we 
 breathe as the air in which our skin is living. The recognition 
 of this has made a vast difference in hygiene and economics 
 alike. Its influence has extended from battleships to lace 
 stockings. 
 
 We have come to see that it is our by-products that first 
 inhibit our energy and then extinguish our bodily life. Just 
 as fermentation comes to a point where the organism is killed 
 by. the increase of its waste products of growth, e.g., in 
 alcoholic fermentation of wines, so also if human beings were as 
 limited in their means of expansion and as unable to get rid 
 of their waste products the race would become extinct. As it 
 is, our unnatural modes of living give rise to bad health, 
 malnutrition, stunted development, a high death rate, and the 
 propagation of the less fit, to the great detriment of the race and 
 national welfare. 
 
 The intimate connection between bodily conditions and 
 mental states has been noted in time past by some thinkers. 
 James Hinton, surgeon and moralist, wrote in 1866 in a 
 philosophical discussion what has now been proved to be more 
 than a mere analogy on the subject of the treatment of the by- 
 products of life. He said: ''How is the hurtful thing to be 
 rendered harmless, the mischief to be neutralised? Our whole 
 knowledge of nature and of life concur in giving one answer : 
 it must be turned to use. Things cease to hurt us then, and 
 then only permanently, when they are made to serve our good. 
 Nor can it be -otherwise, for nothing can be annihilated, nothing 
 hindered from having, in some form or other, its full effect. 
 The mere putting away or putting down evils has never 
 succeeded. They return with a violence increased by the delay. 
 The one condition upon which we can really avoid suffering 
 by hurtful things is, that we should use them and make them 
 serve us. A striking instance though it is but an instance of 
 a universal law is given by the problem with which every large- 
 body of persons has to strive, of disposing of the waste materials. 
 
of their life. Hurtful to a high degree, these waste materials 
 are the source of inevitable disease if they are not put utterly 
 away. But how thus utterly put them away ? There is but one 
 method that is truly efficient, and that is, to make them 
 subservient to the increase of the means of life, to render them 
 the fertilisers of our lands, the source of food. The drainage 
 of towns will either poison or be an enormous tax, or it will 
 feed. The condition of its ceasing to be an evil is, that it shall 
 become a good. Necessarily it is so: its effects cannot be made 
 null ; our only choice is, shall thev work our mischief or our 
 benefit?" 
 
 Perhaps man 's most profitable study nowadays is how to enlist 
 the whole of the energies of matter and mind as his helpers in life 
 and action, instead of having some of them as constant wastages, 
 embarrassments, and hindrances in figurative language, how to 
 economise time and energy by utilising the recoil of the gun to 
 bring the piece back automatically to its former position or con- 
 dition, ready to fire the next round. 
 
 The problems of health in cities are complex and difficult. 
 All systems of city sanitation are expensive and unsatisfactory. 
 Scientific hygiene, i.e., sanitation by the employment of the 
 ordinary processes of nature, can be carried out only in the 
 country, or in places where each house has its garden or small 
 plot of land surrounding or adjoining it. Dr. Poore, a writer to 
 whom reference will again be made, says "Sanitation is 
 purely an agricultural question, and in the country, where 
 every cottage has, or should have, its patch of garden, there 
 ought to be no difficulty in the daily removal of refuse from the 
 house, and in applying it to agricultural purposes, without 
 any risk of contaminating the water supply. Given the patch 
 of garden, the only thing necessary to bring about this, the only 
 complete form of sanitation, is the will to do it the will, that 
 is, to do a profit to one 's self, without the possibility of damaging 
 one's neighbor. This, unfortunately, is rarely forthcoming, in 
 spite of the Christian religion and the Education Act, and we 
 goron, even in country places, polluting our streams and wells, 
 with our minds agitated, as well they may be, as to when our 
 water will become too poisonous to drink, and where we' shall 
 turn for a pure supply in the future. Sanitation is a purely 
 agricultural and biological question. It is not an engineering 
 question, and it is not a chemical question, and the more of 
 engineering and chemistry we apply to sanitation the more 
 difficult is the purifying agriculture. This, at least, has been 
 the practical result in this country." 
 
 Over 30 years ago a Commission reported to the Municipal 
 Authority of Turin that chemical methods of treating sewage 
 had proved ineffective, costly and dangerous unless followed up 
 by some method of oxidation; and that the only method of 
 
sewage purification to date that had proved efficacious was 
 irrigation in a proper way on suitable soil. About the same time 
 it appears that irrigation was looked upon in Germany as being 
 satisfactory and non-offensive. 
 
 Dr. Poore spoke of England. Shall we find the conditions 
 different in other countries? Let us inquire into the facts and 
 factors of natural or biological sanitation that is, purification 
 by means of plants and animals, as distinguished from chemical 
 purification and try to answer the question. 
 
 Reference has been made to the growth of plants. As a rule 
 plants by their roots, take up water with certain substances in 
 solution in it. This sap, passing to the leaves, comes into contact 
 with the oxygen of carbon dioxide that has been taken in by the 
 leaves. The result, under the influence of sunlight, is the 
 formation of starch. This in turn is converted into a soluble 
 substance from which the wood, bast, cork, and all the tissues 
 composing the plant are derived. The total effect of these 
 processes on the earth and air is (1) to increase the amount of 
 oxygen and decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the air; 
 (2) to lessen the amount of animal and mineral substances in 
 the soil. The first process is called purifying the atmosphere, 
 because^ it restores the balance of oxygen which has been 
 disturbed by the breathing of animals; the- second process is 
 spoken of as a purifying of the soil, because the emanations from 
 decaying animal material would prove harmful to living animals 
 if the products of decomposition were not utilised by plants. 
 When we speak of purification it will be noted that we speak from 
 the point of view of the requirements of animals, not of plants. 
 
 The obvious or evident plant-growth, however, is, as has been 
 said, only a small part of the processes that go on ; and the plants 
 we see form but a small part of the whole as regards number 
 and variety. Every cubic inch of mould teems with myriads 
 of minute plants known as germs, microbes, micro-organisms, 
 or bacteria. These are concerned in the processes of breaking up 
 organic matter that is, material derived from plants and 
 animals and making it available as food for the green plants 
 referred to. Besides these there are other microbes, not long 
 known, that are employed in making the free nitrogen in the 
 soil available as the direct food for certain kinds of plants. It 
 has been found that the roots of some kinds of plants 
 especially leguminous plants like peas, clover, and vetches have 
 swellings on them which are found to be made up of tissues 
 containing numerous bacteria. The process of planting these 
 collections of bacteria in soil in which they are not naturally 
 present is known as "inoculating the soil." Finally, there are 
 plants known as saprophytes, on account of their feeding directly 
 upon decaying organic matter. As examples of these we may 
 mention fungi. 
 
8 
 
 Thus the soil, as the abode* of all these plants, is fitted to deal 
 with all sorts of organic refuse. . Plants die. Animal eats plant 
 or other animal ; the refuse, dung, or undigested food, is composed 
 of animal and vegetable matter. The animal itself dies, falls 
 on the soil and is decomposed. Thus garbage, the dung of 
 animals, animals themselves, and human excreta are all 
 transformed by decomposition, a process which is essentially 
 a fermentation; and the products of this decomposition in the 
 soil are utilised by plants for their life and growth. We have 
 sooi that the process of transformation into plant substance 
 provides us with food and purifies the atmosphere. 
 
 This, however, is not all. This same soil protects our water 
 supplies. For it has been found that only mould, or the 
 superficial soil, possesses the transforming power referred to. 
 The subsoil, which contains little if any of the sort of germ life 
 mentioned, is ineffective as a biological purifier, though, by 
 retaining particles of refuse, it acts to a certain extent as a 
 mechanical filter. The result is that if organic matter is buried 
 deeply, by which we mean below the mould or surface soil, 
 it may remain unchanged for months or even years. Privy 
 pits dug deep in the subsoil have been covered up, and after 
 many years they have been reopened, and ,their contents have 
 been found fresh looking, as offensive, and as dangerous as when 
 they were buried. The same thing is true of dead bodies. 
 Hamlet asked, "How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he 
 rot?" ; and the gravedigger said, "He will last you some eight 
 year or nine year. ' ' This obviously refers to the long-established 
 practice of deep burial. A body buried in mould 3ft. deep or 
 thereby will in 12 months' time show nothing but bones. On 
 the other hand, one buried deeply in the subsoil may remain 
 in such a fresh condition as to give origin, many years later, to 
 tales of miraculous preservation against corruption. When 
 organic matter is buried deeply it may, instead of remaining 
 unchanged where it was buried, be carried by water either 
 mechanically or in solution to great distances, even miles, 
 underground, and may thus contaminate wells in the neighbor- 
 hood or at a distance. Herein is found the explanation of how- 
 cesspools become dangerous to a community. Their contents 
 soak into the surrounding subsoil. 
 
 To the mechanical and biological actions of the superficial 
 soil or mould as a filter we must look for the protection of our 
 water supplies. So long as dead animal and vegetable matter 
 decomposes on or in the mould, so long will the decomposition 
 be complete and the resulting products harmless. . There need 
 be no fear of applying too much dung to the mould or of 
 exhausting its powers. The more it is given to do the more it 
 does, and the more it becomes capable of doing, so long as it is 
 1 ' cropped. ' ' 
 
Animal matter and other nitrogenous material in contact with 
 the soil undergoes decomposition without offending our sense of 
 smell or injuring our health. Such decomposition, we have seen, 
 is effected by the visible and invisible plants of the mould. 
 The conditions under which this takes place are as follows: 
 (1) A certain amount of air in the soil is necessary, i.e., the- 
 soil should be porous, and not waterlogged portions of a field 
 that have been waterlogged show as bare patches in the midst of 
 an abundant crop; (2) a certain amount of moisture is 
 essential, preferably about 33 per cent. ; (3) the active processes 
 are best carried 011 at a temperature of 50-55 C. (122-131 F.). 
 It will be seen that the conditions in this country are much 
 more favorable to complete and speedy decomposition than they 
 are in England. 
 
 Certain details require to be noted. No disinfectants should 
 be used ; they sterilise the soil by killing the active microbes. 
 Perfect decomposition is shown by the absence of offensiveness. 
 Smell, whether from large fermenting heaps of manure or small 
 quantities of excreta or urine, means waste of useful material. 
 It does nojt necessarily mean danger. The ammonia from a dung 
 heap is the same substance that we buy in bottles for domestic 
 purposes. On the other hand, absence of smell does not 
 necessarily imply safety. Some conditions that are extremely 
 dangerous to health are associated with no offensiveness. 
 
 As has been said, the power of the soil to decompose manure, 
 excreta, and garbage increases by use. One cannot state a limit, 
 but it has been found that it is possible to put as much as 200 
 tons of stable manure per annum on an acre of market garden 
 land near London the average being from 60 tons to 80 tons. 
 The soil in this country could take that quantity and even more. 
 All this is utilised by the crops grown on the land. 
 
 As regards excreta, it has no doubt often been observed that 
 when these are deposited on or in the mould, decomposition takes 
 place rapidly and without offensiveness. One has only to study 
 the sanitary methods and results of that most cleanly of domestic 
 animals, the cat, in order to be convinced of this. Other 
 conditions being similar, it makes no difference whether the 
 excreta are taken to the earth, or the earth taken to the excreta. 
 The immediate treatment can be begun in an earth closet. 
 
 THE DRY EARTH CLOSET SYSTEM, 
 
 In 1874 the State Board of Health of Massachusetts pub- 
 lished a report on the subject of the health of farmers and 
 farmers' families in that State. It was the outcome of a series 
 of very extensive investigations made by country doctors in 
 response to questions asked by the Board. The following 
 
f 10 
 
 quotation from the report refers to a state of affairs that is, 
 unfortunately, not confined to Massachusetts: "As to country 
 privies, one of our correspondents has well said that they are ' a 
 disgrace to civilisation. 7 The common country privy, unven- 
 tilated, except by the door, standing over a reeking mass of 
 'corruption, either contained in a vault or lying upon the surface 
 of the ground, a place foul and pestilential beyond description, 
 this must be the daily resort of every member of the farmer's 
 family. If it adjoins the house, its poisonous odors penetrate 
 to the living rooms; if standing several rods away, as it 
 frequently does, an exposure to the weather is involved in 
 reaching it. In either case, in winter it is frightfully cold, and 
 its use involves a chill, which, to women and children especially, 
 coming from the warm rooms, is a potent cause of disease. 
 Undoubtedly, the constipation which is so general among country 
 women is, in great part, due to the dread of going to this 
 abominable place." 
 
 Something requires to be said about school closets. The 
 Parliament of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1893 passed 
 an Act "For the better protection of the health and jnorals t)f 
 school children." This law requires the board of directors of 
 the school to provide suitable and convenient closets, separate 
 for boys and girls, and unless placed at a remote distance from 
 each other the approaches shall be separated by a close fence 
 not less than 7ft. high ; and it imposes on the directors the duty 
 of keeping the closets clean, comfortable, and healthful. 
 Neglect of these duties makes the directors liable to be removed 
 fronr their office by the Court of Quarter Sessions. The State 
 Board of Health calls attention to this Act in a circular to school 
 directors, and in that communication says some very plain 
 things regarding school privies. "A shameless disregard of the 
 proprieties of life and the allowance of the vilest accumulations 
 of filth, coupled with inconvenience and rudeness of accommo- 
 dations, characterise the conveniences provided by too many 
 school boards. It must not be supposed that in the opinion of 
 this Board school directors and controllers are in any 
 considerable degree more negligent than their constituents in 
 this matter. The condition of the sanitary, or unsanitary, more 
 strictly, arrangements for the school is simply too often a repro- 
 duction of those which exist at the home. ' ' 
 
 The Board says the privies should be absolutely distinct for 
 each sex "out of sight and out of mind" each from the other; 
 and they recommend the adoption of the earth closet in 
 preference to the dangerous privy vault, The Board also calls 
 special attention of the school boards to the fact that they cannot 
 draw their annual grants from the State until the President of 
 the School Board has certified that the requirements of the Act 
 for the thorough disinfection and cleaning of the outhouses have 
 been duly complied with. 
 
11 
 
 The condition of affairs in the State of New York is thus 
 referred to by a well-known sanitarian and former member of 
 the New York Board of Health: "In addition to the well- 
 known dangers attending the neglected accumulations in 
 privy-vaults, few things are more destructive to health and 
 comfort than dependence 011 one of these dreadful outbuildings. 
 A visit to one of them involves an amount of exposure in cold 
 weather which even strong men have reason to dread. In the 
 case of women, children, and invalids, what can be worse than 
 a plunge out of doors in cold or stormy weather, usually without 
 the precaution of extra clothing or overshoes, for a visit to the 
 foul shrine of cloacina? The neglect of regular attention to 
 the calls of nature, which the dread of this exposure induces, 
 tends to encourage women and children in disregarding them 
 as long as possible, until the evils inevitably attendant upon 
 the habit of constipation, much too prevalent in this country, 
 are induced and confirmee}. The head of a family who makes 
 no better provision for the needs of his household, neglects the 
 most obvious of his sanitary duties." 
 
 These words have acquired a new meaning and an added 
 force from the scientific interest that has been awakened in the 
 interval since they were written. The whole psychology of work 
 and well-being is becoming established on a basis of careful 
 observation and scientific experiment; and the interdependence 
 of body and mind is being recognised as of the utmost account 
 in life and well-being. Robert Louis Stevenson said : ' ' To wash 
 in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me a sort of 
 cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble 
 among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make clean the body, 
 but the imagination takes no share in such a cleansing." 
 
 Indecency, humiliation, degradation, wrong doing, are usually 
 associated with secrecy; and by some "conversion of pro- 
 positions," or by the repeated conscious or unconscious 
 association of ideas and feelings, people had come to imagine 
 that all actions of a private and personal character nlust 
 necessarily be inherently indecent, humiliating, degrading, or 
 morally wrong. This is a remnant of the times when mistaken 
 teaching compelled or encouraged people to regard natural acts 
 as necessary but sinful, and not those acts alone that ministered 
 to the well-being of the individual, but also those that were 
 essential to the life of the race. A saner science and a better 
 biology have taught us that all actions necessary for the 
 requirements* of good health are naturally associated in the 
 individual with feelings of active cleanliness, goodness, and joy. 
 This truth should be inculcated in the young from birth. True 
 cleanliness consists in being clean, looking clean, and feeling 
 clean. 
 
12 
 
 In some matters we can point to progress. Our bath 
 establishments are no longer hidden in out of the way or dark 
 places. Our closets are improving as regards position and 
 structure. They are becoming more open, more simply yet more 
 tastefully fitted, more pleasing in external appearance and less 
 " distinctive ? ' in their architecture. The standard of civilization 
 in a community is evidenced by its public sanitary conveniences. 
 Family refinement is gauged by the back yards, not by the front 
 lawns. 
 
 The closet may be at some distance from the house, with which 
 it may be connected by a trellised way covered with creepers. 
 The path to it should be so constructed as to ensure its being 
 dry in all seasons and at all times. In general structure it may 
 resemble a water-closet. If not concealed, its features should be 
 such as bring it into something approaching harmony with the 
 ordinary architectural features of our houses and their surround- 
 ings. Figure 1 shows a shelter shed with lavatories and closets 
 connected with a bacteriolytic tank, for children attending a 
 Montessori Garden House of Childhood. Figure 2 shows a 
 typical old-time privy at a great distance from the dwelling-house 
 of a farmer. It was built partly over a creek, into which it dis- 
 charged -directly. It was condemned and removed by order. 
 These two figures show a marked contrast, and might illustrate 
 the commendable and condemnable in sanitary appliances. 
 
 The closet requisites are a pail under the seat, a box to hold 
 the earth, and a small scoop to spread the earth over the excreta. 
 The seat should not be more than 14in. high : the opening should 
 be oval.t It has been found that constipation and other evils 
 are induced or aggravated by high closet seats. It is unnatural 
 that the feet should be off the ground, and the squatting position, 
 with the body bent slightly forward, has been found to be the 
 most hygienic. In some countries, such as France, ordinary 
 closets have no seats or pedestals. There, as in the East, the 
 closet, \i la Turque, is common. 
 
 The Pail should be light and manageable, and so shaped as to 
 be easily kept clean. A convenient form used here (see Fig. 3) is 
 a cylindrical pail of galvanised or enamelled iron, 13in. in 
 diameter and 12iii. high, with a handle attached at some 
 distance below the rim to allow a lid to be used, if desired, when 
 carrying it away. The pail should fit as closely as possible under 
 the seat, between guiding runners or by some other contrivance. 
 
 t Dr. Groff, of the Pennsylvania State Board of Health, says: < 'The hole 
 in the seat should be long from front to back, but narrow fr,om side. to side, 
 never^ made circular, with a pair of dividers, as a country carpenter will 
 invariably make it unless otherwise instructed. The proper dimensions are 
 llin. x 4in. The edges should be moderately bevelled. This shape will 
 make the act of relief much easier, and tend greatly to prevent that 
 painful disease, hemorrhoids. " 
 
13 
 
 The simplest arrangement in the closet is to have a movable 
 seat, which can be placed directly on top of the pail. This allows 
 of seats with various sizes of apertures to be used if so desired. 
 The next simplest method is to place the pail in a corner, and 
 to have a seat so hinged to one side of the closet that it rests, 
 when level, on a bracket on the adjacent side. This obviates 
 the necessity of a "box" a structure that is objectionable for 
 several reasons. It also does away with the necessity of having 
 an opening at the back of the closet through which to remove 
 the pail. Should the seat be considered too low for infirm people, 
 handles may be attached to the walls to assist in rising up. 
 
 Toilet paper should be used. In the first place it costs 
 something, and this is a check on using an unnecessarily large 
 quantity, which is an untidy and objectionable custom ; secondly, 
 it is preferable 011 the grounds of health, since printing ink has 
 been found to be harmful by causing or aggravating local 
 unhealthy bodily conditions. 
 
 It should be part of every child's education at home and at 
 school to use the closet in the proper way, and to keep it 
 scrupulously clean. If people only spent one-tenth of the time 
 attending to the excretory functions that they do to procuring 
 and preparing their food they would be very much healthier. 
 
 The Earth for use in the closet should consist of dry garden 
 mould, dry clay, brick earth, road dust, or soil in which grass or 
 other vegetable life has existed. Sand and gravel are bad ; chalk 
 is not good. Wood ashes and coal ashes not cinders may be 
 used. The amount of earth required is surprisingly small. 
 Half a ton a year has been found ample for a family of seven 
 or' eight persons. The earth is sifted and stored under cover in 
 quantity. Every time the closet is used a thin layer of earth is 
 scattered over the excreta. The agricultural value of the product 
 is lessened if much earth is used. The pail may be attended to 
 daily or less frequently. If there is a garden belonging to the 
 house, the contents may be buried in a shallow trench and covered 
 in at once. If not; they may be put in some place under cover, 
 turned over once or twice, and used again after a few weeks, 
 even several times in succession. On the other hand, the sanitary 
 authority of the district may collect the contents and take them 
 to a piece of ground to be dealt with as a private individual 
 would deal with them. 
 
 Under the Health Act of 1898,, section 78. a local board of 
 health in this State has power to undertake or contract for the 
 removal of nightsoil, and can make regulations requiring the 
 occupiers of premises to provide receptacles in convenient places, 
 and forbidding anyone to deposit refuse or nightsoil in any other 
 than the places they specify. Recent legislation empowers a 
 local board to rate part of its district, say a seaside resort in a 
 large country area, and to expend the money so raised in - 
 
14 
 
 carrying out the sanitary administration of such a part. It 
 may be said in fact it is often said that some people will not 
 take the trouble to use the earth closet as it ought to be used. 
 That is quite true. Some people will not take the trouble to pull 
 the chain of the water-closet cistern. That, however, is no 
 reason why they should be allowed to have their closet in an 
 offensive condition; and any person who permits such a place 
 to become offensive and offensiveness means neglect is liable 
 to a penalty of 20 under section 76 of the same Act. 
 
 If it should be found inconvenient, to empty the pails of the 
 earth closet as frequently as has been recommended, then a ' ' dry 
 catch" may be employed (see Fig. 4). In this the pail is 
 dispensed with ; the floor of the closet, which should be of smooth 
 concrete, is made to slope slightly towards the ground outside; 
 a trench is made to carry away or retain urine, and the contents 
 need not be removed for weeks or even months. When removed 
 they are treated in the same manner as in the earth closet system. 
 
 The burying of the contents of the pails or the "catch" should 
 be done systematically in 1 1 garden ground. ' ' A trench is. dug the 
 width of an ordinary spade blade, and as deep as the blade is 
 long. In this the contents of the pail are placed and are 
 completely covered at once with earth so dug ' as to form a 
 parallel trench at the distance of a spade's width from the first. 
 The ground where the excreta have been buried should be 
 planted with cabbages, onions, lettuce, spinach, or other such 
 vegetables. The amount of land required for this sort of 
 sanitation is not great; half an acre would be sufficient for a 
 thousand people for a year. 
 
 Any ordinary form of cart is sufficient for the removal of the 
 contents of the closet pans, and there is no objection to such 
 removal being effected during the day. 
 
 It must be noted that this dry earth system of treating excreta 
 is very different from a pail system in which no earth is used. 
 In such a system commonly known as the sealed pan or double 
 pan system the excreta very soon become offensive from 
 decomposition, and cannot be utilised at once in the same fashion 
 as when mixed immediately with dry earth. The nightsoil is 
 generally buried deeply at a considerable distance from the 
 township. The system is cumbersome, offensive, and wasteful; 
 but in certain circumstances it is, unfortunately, the only system 
 applicable. There is not, however, in this State any city or 
 township or country place in which it need be adopted. There 
 exist everywhere throughout our State conditions that make 
 the employment of the dry earth closet system quite practicable. 
 
 The earth closet costs less at first than the privy pit. The 
 material removed can all be utilised without offensiveness, and 
 at a profit to the farmer or gardener; hence there can be no 
 excuse for not adopting the closet system. If it be said that it 
 
15 
 
 costs a great deal to fill up a privy pit and buy a pail, the reply 
 is that it costs a great deal more not to do it. This is what Dr. 
 Billings, a well-known American writer, says about a system of 
 sanitation that is too common : ' ' The cesspool is still the chief 
 reliance of the world at large. There is nothing to be said in its 
 favor save what may be based 011 the old adage that 'what is 
 out of sight is out of mind.' There is everything to be said in 
 its condemnation, whether we regard its contents as a great 
 mass of putrefying and infecting filth, as the source of oozings 
 which travel through crevices of rocks, through layers of gravel, 
 through seams in clay, or through lighter soils into and under 
 cellars and into drinking water wells and defectively-constructed 
 cisterns, or as an ever-active gas-retort supplying the pipes of 
 the house with the foulest products of putrefaction. It is in all 
 respects and under all circumstances a curse, unless placed far 
 away from the possibility of tainting the air AVC breathe or the 
 soil over which we live, or from which we or others take our 
 drinking water, and even then it had better be abandoned." 
 
 Urine. The treatment of this requires some notice. In the 
 earth closet urine may be separated from the excreta by a simple 
 arrangement. In ordinary circumstances the quantity passed 
 into the pail does not interfere with the proper treatment of 
 the excreta. For larger quantities of urine, however, it is well to 
 make separate provision. A "dry urinal" may be made of a 
 receptacle containing sawdust or "chaff." The sawdust or chaff 
 should be stirred up once a day. When this begins to be 
 offensive, which may be in some months, it is ready to be used 
 as manure. In this respect it differs from fresh sawdust, which 
 makes bad manure. The urine in such urinals should never be 
 diluted with water ; and it should be remembered that a mixture 
 of urine and soapy water, when, allowed to stagnate, stinks vilely. 
 Further, pure urine is too strong to be used continuously on a 
 small piece of ground. 
 
 Kitchen and Pantry Slops. These consist of water containing 
 grease and suspended matter, bits of food, tea leaves, and such 
 like .materials. The method adopted by Dr. Poore, following 
 recommendations by the Rev. Henry Moule, about 1866, for 
 dealing with these slops, is as follows: From the sink (which 
 should not be made of lead, but of enamelled iron or earthen- 
 ware) a pipe passes through and projects beyond the wall of the 
 house to a distance of about 18in., and at a height of 30in. above 
 the ground. The slops run into a basket containing paper or a 
 wisp of hay or grass,' which acts as a rough but efficient strainer 
 for fatty matter. Under this basket is a filter in duplicate, 
 consisting of a box filled with broken clinker or gravel varying 
 from the size of peas at the bottom to walnuts at the top. The 
 outlet leads to a perforated iron gutter, which is flush with the 
 surface; of the ground and is supported at intervals by bricks in 
 a trench filled with loose rubble, clinker, or such like material. 
 The bottom of this trench slopes so that the slops may not flow 
 
16 
 
 towards the house. The surface of the gutter lias a very slight 
 fall. The perforations increase in diameter from the upper to the 
 lower surface. Twelve feet of guttering should prove ample. 
 The flow from the basket is so arranged that after one 
 compartment of the box has been utilised as a filter for a few 
 weeks the slops are directed into the other. The only attention 
 the ^system requires is the renewal of the paper in the basket 
 about once a fortnight, and keeping the gutter clear of leaves 
 and other materials that would choke it. The filter-box may be 
 considered a luxury ; if so, it may be replaced by an old pail 
 with a hole in the bottom. Details of the scheme may be gathered 
 from the drawing in Fig. 5. 
 
 Bedroom Slops. These consist of urine and soapy water from 
 the wash-basin. The water from the bath may also be included. 
 Such slops may be run directly, without any straining or 
 filtering, into a gutter scooped out with a garden hoe and 
 conducted to a few square yards of garden bed or planted 
 ground. The amount of land required for dealing with all slops 
 is very small. It has been estimated at an acre for 7,000 persons, 
 or little more than 6 sq. ft. for each. At Maniium, on the River 
 Murray, great difficulty was experienced in some cases on account 
 of the houses being situated on a narrow strip between the cliffs 
 and the main street, which was parallel to the river. Fig. 6 
 shows how part of a narrow lane between two houses was tilled 
 and planted with greenery. "This little strip proved sufficient 
 for the needs of a household. In other cases a small patch of 
 back or front garden proved ample. We are apt to forget how 
 much greater vegetable transpiration is than mere evaporation of 
 water from the soil. 
 
 Water from the bath should always be utilised for the garden 
 or for similar purposes. The domestic waste of this water is 
 very great. In a climate like ours a shower bath, which means 
 a bucketful of water, is preferable to a plunge bath, which takes 
 many gallons. When water is scarce even the shower bath may 
 be dispensed with in favor of a towel-bath, made by dipping a 
 bath towel in a basin of cold water, wringing it out, and rubbing 
 the body all over with it. The action on the system is as good 
 as, and in many cases better than, either the plunge bath or the 
 shower. People waste water very thoughtlessly, and then when 
 a drought comes they ask the clergy to pray for rain. Canon 
 Kingsley answered such thus : "Ere you ask for more rain, make 
 places wherein you can keep it when you have it." The rebuke 
 of a Bishop of Melbourne was, perhaps, more Australian in 
 character. He is reported to have said : "What you people want 
 is to pray less and dam more." 
 
 Garbage. Under this term may be included all the refuse of 
 the house and garden, such as remains of food, bones, rags, horn, 
 leather, parings and waste pieces of vegetables, leaves, weeds, 
 mowings of the lawn and sweepings of the walks. Whatever is 
 useful for pig-feeding is placed in the pig bucket, which ought 
 
17 
 
 to be covered with a tight lid, in order not to attract flies. Other 
 materials may be placed in a receptacle in the garden or else- 
 where formed by a piece of rabbit netting and two or three 
 uprights. Should the heap thus formed 'and accumulating begin 
 to be offensive, a little earth scattered over it will put an end 
 to the offensiveness. Pieces of glass and crockery, if broken up, 
 form a good foundation for roads and garden paths; so also 
 do coal cinders. "Green bones," either whole or broken down, 
 if not too fatty, form good manure for the garden, arid 
 especially for orange trees, and give the trees a healthy, luxuriant 
 appearance and improve the quality of the fruit. On the other 
 hand, dry bones check the growth, and in some places owners 
 have had to dig them up and remove them, with considerable 
 trouble and at a good deal of cost. Bones do best on sandy and 
 clayey soils and grass lands. On humid and calcareous soils 
 they are of little use. Old tins may be utilised as flowerpots, 
 or pounded down for foundations of roads or garden walks, or 
 buried deeply. They should never be allowed to stand about, 
 since they collect water, and thus form the breeding-grounds of 
 numberless moscaritoes. Dry bones and shells of oysters and 
 other shellfish should be burned, and the ashes used for manure. 
 All these materials should be sorted out, and the receptacles of 
 them kept tidy. Yards and gardens may be clean and yet far 
 from clean-looking just on account of untidiness. 
 
 The sanitary apparatus required for use in the country is 
 summed up in two words fire and soil; the methods are strong 
 burning and light burying/ 
 
 Much has been written on the results of the dry earth system 
 since it was first brought into prominence by the Rev. Henry 
 Moule. A very extensive report was made to the Privy Council 
 in England, in 1869, by Dr. Buchanan, the Medical Officer, 
 regarding the practical working of the system irf isolated 
 cottages, public institutions, and . villages. Dr. Corfield has 
 discussed the pros and cons of the method in his book on "The 
 Treatment and Utilisation of Sewage." The subject is also 
 referred to in nearly all standard works on hygiene, and there 
 is a great deal of literature bearing ugon it in reports of health 
 authorities in the United States and elsewhere. Dr. Vivian 
 Poore, an ardent sanitarian, who was Professor of Medicine in 
 University College, London, and for many years honorary secre- 
 tary to the Parkes Museum of Hygiene, discusses the subject at 
 length in three books*, in which he sets forth his practical 
 experience as a sanitary reformer and property-owner in the 
 country ; He says : 
 
 "I have studied somewhat closely for the past 18 years the 
 result of applying human faeces to a well-tilled humus, and I 
 
 *." Essays on Rural Hygiene," 3rd edition, 1903; "The Earth in Relation 
 to the Preservation and Destruction of Cpntagia, " 1902; "The Dwellino- 
 House, ) > 1898. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 feel convinced that many who write upon the subject have taken 
 hut little pains to inform themselves as to the real facts. 
 
 "It will not be uninteresting, perhaps, if I give some of the 
 results of my small experiment at Andover, which is now in its 
 fourteenth year of trial. In this experiment the ordure and 
 house refuse of about 100 persons have been removed and applied 
 daily for gardening purposes. The amount now under the spade 
 is exactly 1 acre 1 rood 7 poles, and I should like to say that the 
 quantity of faecal matter at the disposal of my gardener by no 
 means satisfies him. I am also convinced that the garden might 
 take with advantage at least double the quantity if not more. 
 There is no evidence, after a long experience, that the soil is 
 overdone. On the contrary, its ' condition' has steadily improved. 
 
 "In the middle of my garden is a well, which affords evidence 
 that no fse-cal matters are washed downwards to the subsoil water. 
 This well, which was made mainly for experimental purposes, 
 is very shallow, little more than a dip-hole. The bottom is 5ft. 
 from the surface of the ground ; the sides are lined with concrete 
 pipes to the very bottom, and around these 4in. of concrete have 
 been run in in order to give additional protection. There is 
 a good parapet and a movable cover. The well was made in 
 1891, and the bottom and sides look as clean to-day as when 
 they were made. No water can possibly enter this well except 
 through the bottom, and I drink the water without any hesitation 
 or misgiving, because I know there are no leaking sewers or 
 cesspools in the immediate vicinity. 
 
 "I have said that this garden of 1| acre was manured with 
 the refuse of about 100 persons for some years, and it may be 
 stated that, proceeding methodically, it took four years to go 
 completely over the whole of the ground in cultivation. The 
 observer, was usually astonished at the small amount of 
 excremental material which has "to be dealt with, not more, 
 usually, than will lie in a furrow 10ft. or 12ft. in length made 
 in the ground with a spade. Directly it is deposited in the 
 furrow it is lightly covered, and there is an end for ever of any 
 offence or any danger. The first crop taken off the land is 
 always a succulent green crop of the cabbage tribe, and the plants 
 are dibbled in on the third day after the deposit. No other 
 crops except cabbages seem to flourish in the fresh material, 
 but the cabbages may be followed by potatoes, these by celery 
 (planted between the rows), the celery by peas or beans, and 
 these again by parsnips or carrots, without any fresh manuring, 
 and with a most abundant yield. There is no doubt that this 
 excremental refuse confers a fertility upon the soil which is not 
 exhausted for years. I have been urged by some practical 
 gardeners not to apply the material to the ground at once, but 
 to store it in a heap with earth and ashes to allow it* to 'ripen' 
 before applying it. Those who give this advice have derived 
 their experience from 'nightsoil' from privy pits which has 
 
19 
 
 undergone a certain amount of desiccation by the draining away 
 of the fluid matter, and which is undoubtedly a most potent and 
 dangerous manure when applied pure without previous 
 admixture with earth and exposure to the air. By immediate 
 burial before ammoniacal decomposition sets in there is no 
 danger of this kind, and one is sure that nothing is lost. Further, 
 if excrement be left above the ground, blowflies and other insects 
 will deposit eggs in it, and then the gardener will complain that 
 'closet-earth brings grubs,' but by immediate burial this 
 drawback is avoided. Many practical gardeners who have seen 
 the results of the plan of operations which has been described 
 have admitted that the results could scarcely be better than 
 they are. Not only vegetables, but all the ordinary garden fruits 
 are produced in high perfection." 
 
 Dr. George Keith, a shrewd practical Scottish physician, who 
 travelled much of the world, saw a great deal, and lived to be 
 over 90 years old, had much the same experience as Dr. Vivian 
 Poore. After describing the simple earth closet, he says 
 
 ' ' In Algiers, where I followed the same plan for nearly a year 
 and a half, during one summer and two winters, the whole mass 
 was left quite near the house, exposed to sun and rain, and I 
 often said that one ttiight at any time have smoothed the surface, 
 put a table cloth over it, and eaten his dinner without being 
 aware of any odor whatever. This is not, I acknowledge, a 
 nice statement to make, but it certainly disposes of any possible 
 objection that could be made on the score of health, or even of 
 amenity. In India the dry earth system has long been in use; 
 in the jails it has been universally adopted. Colonel Cadell, 
 late Governor of the Andaman Islands, where are the great 
 penal settlements of the Indian Government, tells me it is used 
 there with perfect success, and with great advantage in the 
 raising of vegetable foods. On one occasion he was showing 
 Admiral Fremantle over his command, and on Viper Island he 
 took him into a large long erection, and asked him for what 
 purpose he would suppose it was used. The Admiral looked 
 round, and seeing nothing but that on both sides all along the 
 apartment the space near the wall was divided into narrow 
 sections by wooden partitions 3ft. high, he said that perhaps 
 some of the convicts got their food there. He was amused to 
 . hear that the apartment had been used that morning by 500 
 convicts as an earth closet, 
 
 "From a sanitary point of view the dry earth system is 
 perfect, and has found to be so both in cold and in hot climates 
 It is surely Worth something to those who adopt it to know that 
 their own families run no risks from foul gases, and that they 
 cannot contaminate their neighbors." 
 
 In India the superficial burying of nightsoil is now sanctioned 
 by official regulation. Major A. C. "Williams and Major D. J. 
 Meagher have given a full account of the method as employed 
 
20 
 
 at Allahabad and elsewhere. They say that wherever the method 
 is practised correctly it is sure to give every satisfaction, and 
 where it is not working satisfactorily it is certain that the 
 system has not been followed. Before the system was pronounced 
 safe on sanitary grounds, many successful experiments w r ere 
 made by Surgeon- Colonel Martin, who was Principal Medical 
 Officer of the Allahabad District at that time. The depositing 
 grounds have been inspected by most of the medical, sanitary, 
 and other scientific authorities in India, including the Principal 
 Medical Officer of His Majesty's forces, all of whom have 
 expressed their unqualified approval of the system. 
 
 The authorities there find from experience that this is the 
 best known system for both wet and dry seasons. It has been 
 carried out at Allahabad for 14 years without any hitch, and on 
 various descriptions of soil, including stiff clay, black cotton, and 
 even sand. Crops can be successfully grown immediately after 
 burying, and even in the cultivation of grass the first crop is 
 greedily eaten by cattle. Such land should be put down to 
 grass without ploughing. Regulation compels the sowing of a 
 sorghum or other crop on the land. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the earth closet system is 
 effective in all climates, and especially serviceable in warm 
 countries where houses are surrounded each by its open space or 
 garden plot, or where the conditions are such that a local 
 authority can supply earth of the proper quality in necessary 
 quantity, and arrange for the removal and disposal of the 
 compost. In carrying out the system, and in judging of its 
 success or deficiencies, it is necessary to remember what the 
 system is: "It consists in the application, with the greatest 
 procurable detail, of dry earth to fresh human excrement, and 
 in the subsequent removal and use of Hie mixture for agricultural 
 purposes. In so far as detailed application is not made, or the 
 earth is not dry, or the excrement not fresh, the dry earth system 
 is departed from. 7 '' 
 
 THE BACTERIOLYTIC TANK SYSTEM. 
 
 In discussing the subject of the natural decomposition of dung 
 and garbage, it was stated that the process was not a chemical,* 
 but a biological one, being due to the action of bacteria and other 
 plants in the soil. The question naturally arises: Is the decom- 
 position and consequent purification of sewage (i.e., excreta, 
 urine, &c., in water and not in contact with the soil) due to the 
 same or a similar cause ? Experiment has shown that it is. Not 
 only so, but it has been found that various stages in the decom- 
 position are associated with different kinds of bacteria, following 
 each other in a fairly regular, succession, though possibly over- 
 lapping to a considerable extent. 
 
21 
 
 The proposal to utilise these bacteria in the treatment of sewage 
 was received at first with ridicule, and was characterised as Satan 
 casting out Satan ! Nevertheless, some people who combine the 
 practical with the scientific in their inquiries, and keep their 
 minds open to facts for and against, persevered in their endeavors 
 to take nature into company instead of subjecting her to 
 banishment. 
 
 It Avould be interesting, but not of much practical use for our 
 present purpose, to review the many experiments that were made 
 in sewage purification before a simple method was discovered of 
 employing bacteria as natural scavengers. Investigations are 
 still in progress, and much information is being gained in various 
 quarters with the view of determining the best methods of 
 utilising the many varieties of bacteria, some of which do their 
 work best when abundantly supplied with air, others when more 
 or less completely deprived of it. Experience has shown that 
 systems of sewage treatment can be very expensive without being 
 correspondingly useful, and that simple methods may be success- 
 fully employed under a variety of conditions as to climate and 
 composition of sewage. It will be best to give some selected 
 examples of what has been done in South Australia in connection 
 with this method of purifying sewage by bacteria, and to point 
 out briefly the relation of these to the general theory and practice 
 of what is commonly known as the Septic Tank System.* Be 
 it understood, however, that the remarks apply primarily, not to 
 towns possessing systems of sewerage on a large scale, nor to what 
 is the best form of bacteriolytic tank system in any particular 
 class of case, nor to the science of bacteriolytic tanks in general, 
 but that they are meant to convey an idea of what has been done 
 cheaply and effectively in this State in places where there is a 
 limited quantity of sewage to be dealt with, a sufficient water 
 supply, and where a water-closet is preferred to a dry earth 
 closet. 
 
 In 1902 complaints were made regarding the sanitary con- 
 ditions at Gawler Railway Station. The water-closets, urinals, 
 and sinks drained into a cesspool, 10ft. in diameter and 10ft. deep, 
 situated in a much-used yard immediately behind the station. 
 This cesspool proved to be offensive to the residents of the station- 
 house, and several of them suffered at various times from illnesses 
 that were ascribed to insanitary conditions. The problem was 
 how to put an end to the offensiveness, and to obviate the 
 periodical nuisance and expense of having the cesspool emptied 
 as frequently and in such a manner as the local authorities 
 required. 
 
 * The word ' ' septic ' ' means pertaining to the decomposition of dead 
 organic matter, with production of an unpleasant odor, due to various forms 
 of bacteria. It has also become specially associated with the idea of disease. 
 For these two reasons it is inapplicable and misleading in connection with 
 sewage purification, and should be abandoned, even if something might be 
 said in favor of calling the first compartment a septic tank. The tanks are 
 properly described as "bacteriolytic," which means breaking up materials 
 by the action of bacteria. 
 
22 
 
 The Engineer-in-Chief, Mr. A. B. Moncrieff, consulted me on 
 the subject. It involved such important questions of principles 
 and practice in administration of the Health Acts and the satis- 
 factory and economical management of the railways, that it 
 required to be settled definitely. After visiting the locality and 
 discussing possibilities, we determined that one of the large cess- 
 pools should be converted into a bacteriolytic tank system of two 
 compartments, the old effluent being utilised to carry away the 
 final products. This was done. (See Fig. 7.) 
 
 The tank was slightly offensive at times till a proper scum 
 formed, which took about three months. Thereafter it was 
 left absolutely untouched for over three years. In December. 
 1905, it was opened and inspected. There was no offensive 
 smell. The scum in the first compartment was several inches 
 thick and consisted of bluish-black, soft, homogeneous material, 
 with a leathery-like upper surface. There was no scum on the 
 surface of the liquid in the second compartment. 
 
 At Kapunda Railway Station a similar cesspool was converted 
 into a bacteriolytic tank system in 1903. It also was left un- 
 touched until December, .1905, when the tank was opened and 
 inspected. It was found to be working well, and it was quite free 
 from offensive smell. The effluent was clear. 
 
 These two cases, it will be observed, were makeshifts. The form 
 of the tanks and the relation of depth to surface were fixed to 
 a certain extent by the necessities of the situation. This was not 
 the case with an installation at the Glenelg Railway Station. 
 There the tank was erected as a bacteriolytic tank from the 
 beginning. It worked for years automatically and without 
 offensiveness. In 1905 the installation of a general bacteriolytic 
 tank system on a large scale for the town made its employment 
 no longer necessary. The formation of a scum on the new bac- 
 teriolytic tank was unusually rapid, the old tank furnishing the 
 material for setting the process agoing. 
 
 An example on a smaller scale, one might say on a domestic 
 scale, may now be given. At Prospect, near Adelaide, Mr. A. W. 
 Dunstone installed at his house a bacteriolytic tank system 
 modified from a description published in the Scientific American 
 supplement of October 17th, 1903. Two stout hardwood casks 
 were used. (See Fig. 8.) One was buried on end in the ground. 
 This received the contents from the water closet, the inlet being, 
 as will be seen, about midway between its ends. It was ventilated 
 at its upper end by a lin. pipe. The second barrel was buried 
 sidewise. The sewage passed from the first compartment into 
 this through a short connection, which had a communication with 
 the exterior for the purpose of inspection or removing the con- 
 tents, if necessary, by pumping, in the event of the use of the 
 apparatus being discontinued for a time. This cask had a grating 
 of sticks which supported the filtering material and allowed the 
 incoming fluid to circulate freely below. The filtering material 
 consisted of broken stones, tiles, or gravel, about the size of hens' 
 eggs, covered by rough gravel, about the size of chestnuts. The 
 
23 
 
 outlet from this cask led to an old well 8ft. or 10ft. deep, from 
 which the liquid soaked into the surrounding soil. In the original 
 American design the liquid enters a flush tank, from which it is 
 automatically discharged 'into a drain. This installation was in 
 use for several years, until it was superseded by a general sewerage 
 system. The only attention it required was an occasional clearing 
 of the inlet pipe from paper at the entrance into the first com- 
 partment by a rod passed through the plugged opening. 
 
 It may be well to mention other facts in connection with the 
 use of these tanks in this State, and to set forth some of our 
 experiences. The earliest tank about which I have been able to 
 obtain any information in this State was installed by the late Mr. 
 Robert Barr Smith about 18 years ago, on the recommendation 
 and with the expert advice of Mr. William Boath, Chief Inspector 
 of the Central Board of Health. A good deal of time and 
 trouble was spent in endeavors to understand the structure and 
 action of tanks from descriptions in various pamphlets by Bideal, 
 Clowes, and others, since these dealt with principles rather than 
 with details of structure. Before this time, Mr. Boath had dis- 
 covered that a single-chambered cesspool, which had been 
 offensive and troublesome, could be altered so as to work inoffen- 
 sively and automatically as a single-chambered septic tank by 
 introducing the inflow below the level of the surface scum. 
 
 When the first edition of this pamphlet was written in 1905 
 the literature on the subject was scanty and scattered. Certain 
 principles seemed to have been established on observations and 
 experiments ; but there was little or no evidence to show whether 
 the experience and practice of other countries, differing so much 
 from ours in climatic and other physical and biological conditions, 
 would prove a trustworthy guide here. 
 
 A good deal of well-digested up-to-date information, on the 
 general subject of the bacterial treatment of sewage, was found 
 in Dibdin's "The Purification of Sewage and Water," third 
 edition. This proved valuable as an indication of the problems 
 to be investigated. From the same source much information was 
 also gained regarding the bacteriolytic tank system of treating 
 sewage on a large scale, and the various adjuncts and auxiliaries 
 employed in different installations. Some hints were also gleaned 
 from various text-books on General Sanitation and Sewage 
 Disposal, incidental papers in scientific journals and proceedings, 
 and annual reports of Boards of Health in America. 
 
 The subject aroused a certain amount of interest in Australia. 
 At a congress "of engineers, architects, and surveyors and others 
 interested in the building of the Federal Capital of Australia, 
 held in May, 1901, Mr. W. Parker read a paper on ''The Septic 
 Tank System of Sewage Treatment." This dealt with general 
 principles, and the results of large installations without any 
 reference to any installation on a household scale. In 1902, Mr. 
 T. Mailler Kendall read a communication before the Intercolonial 
 Medical Congress of Australasia, at Hobart, on "The Rational 
 Method of Sewage Disposal." In it he recounted certain 
 
24 
 
 experiences of treatment with the Scott-Moiicrieff installation. 
 The discussion which followed his paper dealt with such subjects 
 as the use of the tank in small communities, hospitals, and 
 abattoirs. The reports of the conventions of 1903 and 1904 of 
 the National Association of Master Plumbers of Australia contain 
 some notices of a similar sort. The proceedings of the Australian 
 Association for the Advancement of Science are singularly 
 destitute of reference to the septic tank system, the only com- 
 munication of any note being one by Dr. Edward S. Stokes in 
 1907. In it certain principles are set forth, and an exhaustive 
 account is given of several sewage installations on a large scale 
 at North Sydney. When one considers the various contrivances 
 and structural features that seemed to be essential, there appears 
 to be little encouragement in those proceedings for one to intro- 
 duce tanks for individual dwelling houses. 
 
 From time to time reference and descriptions appeared in the 
 "country editions" of newspapers, sometimes with plans; but 
 most, if not all, of these were of tanks planned on a complex 
 system of sedimentation and filtration. The possibility or 
 desirability of introducing tanks 011 an extensive scale for house- 
 hold use had apparently not been seriously considered. When 
 they began to be introduced here and there, they were regarded 
 as a luxury which only the rich could afford, or as an experiment 
 which only the "crazy" would propose and the fool would 
 carry out. As it happened, our initiation into the use of the tank 
 in one or other form was gradual, and allowed ample opportunities 
 for observation and experiment without incurring much expense 
 or much opposition, or any costly failure by the way. 
 
 Following the issue of the first edition of this pamphlet in 1906, 
 a general interest became manifest in this State in the 
 bacteriolytic tank system by architects, builders, and many of the 
 general public, who frequently asked advice regarding the pos- 
 sibilities of installations on various scales. On the 9th October, 
 1907, Mr. Boath reported that he had heard of about a dozen tanks 
 in course of construction, the publication of the pamphlet on 
 1 ' Sanitation in Country Places ' ' having given an impetus to the 
 system. He gave a list of 35 tanks which he knew of as being in 
 use in various parts of the State. 
 
 Many systems and plans of proposed installations were sub- 
 mitted by various people, and advice was given regarding 
 these, chiefly from the point of view of simplifying their structure 
 and of possibly bringing them into accord with what seemed 
 to be Nature's methods, which are not usually overburdened 
 with mechanical apparatus. It became clear that it would 
 be advisable to observe and experiment on our own account, 
 having regard to climate, materials, water supplies, and various 
 other local conditions that might influence the results. 
 
 It had also become clear that the tank system was liable to 
 abuse. Once the name of septic tank was given to any sort of 
 installation it was frequently assumed or demanded that in 
 virtue of the nomenclature alone it would work inoffensively and 
 
25 
 
 discharge a pure flow, irrespective altogether of its plan, its 
 construction, or the materials for which it was made a common 
 receptacle. Even when the installation was made under the 
 supervision of a professional architect, things sometimes went 
 wrong. One example may be selected from many, bearing on 
 the method of administration. 
 
 In September, 1906, an architect submitted a plan for a tank 
 for a large hotel. He was advised that one particular point in 
 the proposed structure might vitiate the system, and he said he 
 would alter it. In February, 1907, I inspected the tank and 
 found that the scum had spread over the whole of the two com- 
 partments, and that the advice how to prevent such a contingency 
 had not been followed. The defect previously pointed out w y as 
 then remedied. Eight months afterwards I re-inspected the tank, 
 and found that it was working properly. Samples of the effluent 
 were submitted to the Government Analyst. The result is shown 
 in a comparison with Dibdin's statistics of open and closed tanks 
 at Leeds, given in grains per gallon, thus : 
 
 Constituents. 
 Total solids 
 
 Leeds A^ 
 Open. 
 
 . 77 6 
 
 /erages. South Aus- 
 Glosed. traliau Tank. 
 77.9 23.100 
 12.8 8.800 
 1.8 3.425 
 0.437 0.148 
 4.82 0.315 
 
 Suspended matter 
 
 13 1 
 
 Free ammonia 
 Albuminoid ammonia 
 Oxygen absorbed 
 
 1.83 
 0.455 
 .. 4.18 
 
 On this I reported : * ' The first inference obviously to be drawn 
 from these figures is that the liquefaction of all solids in the 
 tank has been carried to an extent far beyond what is usual. 
 The inference from the figures regarding ammonia (free and 
 albuminoid) is that the purification of the resultant liquid has 
 been carried to a point much beyond what one finds in any 
 recorded observations. ' ' I may here note that distilled . water 
 is not to be aimed at as a standard of purity. Such a result 
 would be doubly wasteful, a waste of monej 7 to attain it, and a 
 product depreciated in value by such attainment. In the same 
 report I wrote: "It is gratifying to be able to say that a large 
 amount of interest is being taken in this method of sewage 
 purification, or rather sewage destruction, and that scarcely a 
 week passes without inquiries being made regarding the structure 
 and action of the tanks by persons who are engaged in 
 introducing them on their premises." 
 
 At this time the attitude of the Central Board of Health on 
 the subject of installations was to watch, and assist by advice 
 when consulted, but not to interfere, or impose any restrictions 
 on architects or householders in connection with any proposed 
 installation ; and not to take any action except when a complaint 
 was received of the existence of some nuisance. In such a case 
 an order would be served specifying what was required to be 
 done as a remedy. In the case of hotels, the Licensing Bench 
 at the present time and as for some time past, advises or requires 
 the introduction of these installations in a great many instances. 
 
26 
 
 in fact it has adopted them as part of the sanitary requirements 
 where the conditions for a proper water supply exist; and the 
 Central Board of Health advises in all cases referred to it, but 
 leaves 'the determination to the Licensing Bench. 
 
 A description may -now be given of a tank and its connections 
 reduced. to their lowest terms. Figs. 9 and 10 show a section 
 and a plan of a tank for a new suburban railway station, drawn 
 up by the Resident Engineer for Railways, and suitable for use 
 at a railway station. It is connected with the closets and urinals, 
 and discharges its effluent into a soakage pit 3ft. in diameter and 
 12ft. deep. These drawings represent all that is really necessary 
 in the structure of a bacteriolytic tank. It will be observed that 
 a tank constructed on this plan allows easily of extension, either 
 laterally or longitudinally ; and such extension to meet increased 
 flow from additional connections is by no means uncommon. 
 
 Fig. 11 shows the sort of "block plan" that is required to be 
 submitted under the regulations, along with the plans and sec- 
 tions of a tank, in order to give an idea of the tank and its con- 
 nections for the purpose of approval. 
 
 For reasons that are not at first sight obvious, it was found 
 necessary in the course of administration to require that the plans 
 be submitted, and the requests for approval and permits made, 
 not by the architects or contractors, but by the persons having 
 the legal responsibility for the premises. 
 
 Closets. No modification of the ordinary water closet is 
 necessary in respect to structure, fittings, or position. Regarding 
 this last matter, it is interesting to note how strongly convention 
 holds; for many people still submit plans with the closet at a 
 distance* sometimes at a great distance, from the house, because 
 in their experience of country life it has always been so placed. 
 Of course it is recognised that in the case of a closet already in 
 existence, the question of the cost entailed by a change of 
 position may arise and may determine its position ; but even 
 then, this amounts to very little in an installation which, once 
 made, costs nothing for maintenance; and the convenience 
 and comfort of an ordinary closet in or at the house may be 
 inestimable. A copy of Regulation No. 11, quoted on page 34- 
 below, is posted up inside of each closet. 
 
 The structure and arrangements of the cistern, closet pan, 
 soil pipe, trap, and ventilator differ in no way from those required 
 for an ordinary system of deep drainage. The "flush" should 
 not amount to more than two gallons, and there should be no 
 unnecessary discharge from the cistern. 
 
 The disposal of Bath water and Hot water will depend upon 
 circumstances. A relatively large amount of hot water, or of 
 soapy or greasy water, may militate against the proper action 
 of the tank; and it may be well not to connect the bath and sinks 
 with the tank installation unless some special precautions are 
 taken to remove soap, fat, c., and to cool or regulate the flow 
 of hot water. 
 
27 
 
 Position of the Tank. This may be at any spot that is 
 convenient. Distance from the house or closet makes no 
 difference. Only in one case have the plans for a tank under- 
 neath a closet been submitted for approval. On account of the 
 special circumstances and the safeguards shown in the plans, 
 approval was given. The inlet pipe ki this case discharged 
 perpendicularly and deeply in the first compartment, so that 
 there should be no breaking of the scum when the closet was 
 used. 
 
 Trapping the Drain, as shown in the plan (Fig. 9), has two ad- 
 vantages; it allows free ventilation of the drain from the trap 
 to the vent of the closet soil-pipe, and it prevents, as far as 
 possible, any access of air to the liquid in the first compartment. 
 
 Relative Size of Compartments. Sometimes the first compart- 
 ment has been ina.de the larger, sometimes the second. Provided 
 that there is no great difference in size it does not appear to 
 matter much which is the larger. For a considerable time, and 
 in the majority of installations, the two have been made equal 
 size. 
 
 Inlet. One of the most important principles to be observed 
 is that nothing connected with the structure or working should 
 break or tend to break the scum that forms on the surface of 
 the liquid in the first compartment. Hence there should be no 
 "rush of sewage." The inlet pipe should enter below the 
 surface of the scum. Many tanks at first had a perpendicular 
 pipe at right angles to the entrance pipe to receive the inflow 
 from it laterally, and direct it downwards. This, however, was 
 useless as an "inspection" pipe if the hilet did become clogged, 
 since it could not well be cleared unless there were a manhole 
 just above this pipe. The form of inlet pipe shown in Fig. 9 
 obviates all difficulties in these respects. 
 
 Height of the Partition between the two Compartments. The 
 top of the partition should be about 12in. above the "outflow 
 level" of the liquid. This is necessary because at times the 
 scum, for some seasonal or other reasons, may attain a total 
 thickness of a foot or a good deal more, and a large proportion of 
 this may be above the level of the liquid in the first compartment. 
 
 Connection between the First and Second Compartments. 
 Several contrivances are in use for the passage of the liquid 
 from the first to the second compartment at different levels, such 
 as one or more bends or half -bends, or one or more simple open- 
 ings in the partition. The most effective has been found to be a 
 ' ' syphon-bend ' ' such as is represented in Fig. 9. One precaution 
 is necessary. In some cases it was found that this bend failed 
 to give passage to the liquid on account of "air-block" at its 
 upper level. This is now obviated by boring a small hole, about 
 a quarter of an inch in diameter, on the "shoulder" of the 
 portion of the bend in the second compartment. The inlet pipe, 
 the bend between the compartments, and the outlet pipe are 
 
28 
 
 so arranged as to give the maximum movement of flow, i.e., on 
 alternate sides of the tank. 
 
 The Outlet from the Second Compartment should be by means: 
 of a bend as shown in Fig. 9. Since the effluent of a properly 
 working tank is inoffensive and innocuous, it may be disposed 
 of as circumstances permit. Usually it may be conveyed in a 
 close-jointed pipe for two or three yards, then in an open-jointed 
 pipe, allowing irrigation of a space planted with vegetation, 
 If this is not practicable, it may be conducted to a 
 "soakage well." A catchpit with a porous bottom or sides is 
 not legally, scientifically, or by any figure of speech a cesspool 
 if it receives only the effluent of a properly working bacteriolytie 
 tank. 
 
 Partition between the Compartments. This is usually raised 
 to within a couple of inches of the under surface of the cover 
 of the tank. It should not be so low as to allow the scum from 
 the first compartment to grow over into the second. 
 
 Ventilators. One ventilator in a tank system is not sufficient. 
 Two separate and independent ventilators are essential, and both 
 may be placed on the second compartment, or one on each, pro- 
 vided there is an open space at the top of the partition between 
 the compartments. It must be remembered that the function of 
 the "ventilators" of a bacteriolytie tank is to provide a supply 
 of oxygen for the second compartment, not to allow of the escape 
 of foul gases or bad odors, which should not exist. One ventilator 
 may be a sort of "inset" in the form of a small chamber, say, a 
 ' ' foot cube ' ' in extent, built out from the side of one of the com- 
 partments, its top being level -with the top of the tank and covered 
 by a grating. On the other hand, it may be an ordinary 
 ventilating tube, or a goose neck, about a foot or two in height. 
 The other ventilator should be higher. Great height, however, 
 is not required, 6ft. should be sufficient for all purposes. The 
 vent pipes should be about 4in. in diameter. Their openings 
 should be made mosquito-proof. 
 
 Manhole. In the case of a small tank this may be placed over 
 the centre of the tank, thus opening over the adjacent ends of 
 both compartments. In large tanks it is preferable to have a 
 manhole over each compartment. 
 
 Closed or Open Tanks. In practice there seems to be a pre- 
 ference for a closed system. This is not based on experiment or 
 observation, but appears to be a matter of sentiment. 
 
 Starting the Action.- Where an installation has been com- 
 pleted and inspected, and a permit issued for its use, the tank is 
 filled up with water till it overflows at the outlet, and is then ready 
 for use. A period of several weeks is usually necessary for the 
 formation of a satisfactory scum in the first compartment but 
 the time may be greatly reduced by "inoculating" the liquid 
 with materials taken from the under surface of the scum of 
 another tank. 
 
 An idea of the general outline of a tank may be gathered from 
 Fig. 12, which shows one in process of construction for a teahouse 
 
29 
 
 at the seaside. It is seen in position before the ground around it 
 was levelled up and planted. Fig. 13 shows an inspection being 
 made of a tank on a larger scale, situated behind the platform of 
 a railway passenger station. . The two iron covers of the man- 
 holes, one on the top of each compartment, are seen standing 
 erect. This tank has been in use for 16 years, and has worked 
 perfectly. 
 
 Rarely has a tank required to be cleaned out, and in every 
 instance the necessity for cleaning has been due to some defect 
 of structure or management. Some tanks have been in use for 
 18 years, working entirely automatically, and without costing one 
 single penny. There seems to be no limit to the life of a properly 
 constructed tank. The essentials in the structure of an 
 installation have all been set forth above. These are the outcome 
 of personal observation and experiment extending over a period 
 of about 18 years in this State, and a study of all the information 
 that has been collected in and from other parts of the world, 
 especially the United States and the Philippines. The things 
 that have been examined or tested and found unnecessary have 
 been many, such as alternating tanks; mechanical gear for 
 feeding, resting or discharging ; syphoning for periodic and inter- 
 mittent discharge; an ante-chamber for sedimenting or filtering 
 out solids ; baffle plates in either or both chambers ; collections of 
 stones of various sizes in the second chamber which appeared to 
 play an important part in the chemico-biological processes; the 
 employment of more than two compartments, or the subdivision 
 of either of these in any manner or to any extent whatsoever; 
 the employment of charcoal or any similar substance; the 
 'exposure of the effluent for purification in any way ; contrivances 
 in cases of the intermittent use, as at pleasure grounds, picnic 
 resorts, and camping grounds. These eliminations were made 
 mostly on the ground that tanks which possessed one or more of 
 them, and had proved offensive and incompetent, had worked 
 properly wfren the adventitious appliances had been abolished. 
 
 Since regulations were passed making compulsory the sub- 
 mission of plans to the Central Board of Health, the following 
 numbers have been approved in the various years since September 
 23rd, 1908 : 
 
 1908 '2 1915 163 
 
 1909 41 1916 101 
 
 1910 50 1917 167 
 
 1911 -73 1918 195 
 
 1912 95 1919 285 
 
 1913 125 1920 (to April 
 
 1914 167 30th) 222 
 
 These number in all 1,686. It must be noted that many tanks 
 were in use before the regulations were made in 1908. 
 
 The premises at which tanks have been installed in cities, 
 towns, and country places throughout the State are varied as 
 well as numerous. The list includes private houses; hotels; 
 
30 
 
 boarding houses ; restaurants ; banks ; business offices ; hospitals^ 
 public and private ; sanatoria ; shops and stores for food and 
 merchandise; manufacturing establishments, such as implement 
 works, bottle works, timber mills; tramway shelters; railway 
 stations ; wheat-stacking sites ; pifblic conveniences on beaches ; 
 refreshment rooms above the sea at piers ; tramwa}^ signal cabins ; 
 public pleasure grounds ; camping grounds ; race courses ; fire 
 stations; sheep stations; schools and colleges; convents; public- 
 halls ; theatres ; mines ; and all sorts of places where numbers of 
 workers are employed or where people congregate. 
 
 Many tanks having a capacity of from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons 
 or over, and sufficient for the use of 600 persons or more, have 
 been installed at schools, industrial works, and such like premises. 
 all of them being built on the simple two-compartment plan here 
 set forth. So far, we find 110 indications as to the limit of size 
 within which this type is capable of working satisfactorily. 
 
 The State Department of Irrigation has recently installed 25 
 tanks for household and other use at one Soldiers' Settlement on 
 the River Murray, one tank being used for two or sometimes for 
 three closets of dwelling-houses on adjoining, though separate, 
 blocks of land. Tanks have also been, and are being, installed 
 in large numbers at houses built by or for returned soldiers in 
 other parts of the State. Recently approval was asked for 76 
 tanks to be installed, all of one pattern, at houses to be erected in 
 a town-planned quarter in one of the suburbs, each household to 
 have a tank for its separate use. 
 
 An example may be given of how ingenuity and co-operation 
 have overcome difficulties. In November, 1917, the Resident 
 Engineer for Railways submitted for approval plans of a tank 
 for a tramways signal cabin ' ' to be constructed of reinforced con- 
 crete slabs similar to those erected at Hamley Bridge and 
 Terowie". He added : "Permission has been given by Mr. 
 Dunn for the tank to be placed in his back yard, he being allowed 
 to connect up the inlet pipe from the water closet at his house. 
 When one studies the block plan of the locality (Fig. 14), and 
 realises that the signal cabin is a structure of 9ft. by 8ft. floor 
 space, supported overhead by pillars 14ft. high, at the corner of 
 a street foot pavement, one admires the spirit and resourcefulness 
 of the promoters. 
 
 For a considerable time hospitals presented difficulties, 
 especially those in which patients suffering from infectious 
 diseases were received. The "disinfecting" of all closets had 
 become such an article of faith and such an ingrained habit that 
 it was too much to expect successful results from the tanks, even 
 when the intentions of the hospital staff were of the best. By 
 disconnecting everything from the drainage, except closets and 
 urinals, matters were simplified; but hospitals even now some- 
 times prove a difficulty. 
 
 In June, 1918, the responsible authorities of seventeen hospitals 
 and sanatoria in various parts of the State at which installations- 
 
31 
 
 'tad been in use. in some cases for many years, were asked to 
 report on how the tanks were working. In nearly every instance 
 the replies were completely satisfactory. In the few cases in 
 which any difficulty had been experienced it had arisen almost in- 
 variably from some defect in structure or management which 
 was easily remedied. It must be noted in this connection that 
 some of these tanks had been installed before the regulations came 
 into force. 
 
 Advice has been given when asked in cases where installations 
 have been proposed for such places as piggeries and cream 
 factories. It has usually been to the effect that the use of a tank 
 for such purposes must be considered experimental at the present 
 time, but that the experiment may be made if the proposers are 
 willing to carry it out, and all available information has been 
 supplied. 
 
 At the Broken Hill Central Mine, in New South Wales, the 
 company made installations, one of a tank at the manager's house 
 and another of a tank for seven closets for the use of 380 men, 
 this last having a capacity of l,887galls. This was done on the 
 basis of a former edition of this pamphlet. These mining installa- 
 tions are spoken of in terms of highest appreciation and praise. 
 
 The smallest tank I recollect having inspected was one installed 
 by a contractor for the use of his household of four persons. Each 
 compartment measured two feet in length by a, foot and a half 
 in width and a foot and a half in depth. It worked satisfactorily 
 for 10 years, and then w r as superseded by the sewerage system 
 that was introduced for the locality. 
 
 In the fourth edition of this pamphlet, issued in 1910, I sug- 
 gested that very large pipes, or complete tanks, made of rein- 
 forced concrete might prove very convenient and highly ser- 
 viceable. 
 
 When these tank structures had been simplified to the present 
 requirements, one company made tanks of a simple design in 
 one piece, a cylinder of reinforced concrete, consisting of two 
 compartments, and having openings for the entrance and exit 
 pipes, ventilators, and partition bend, all ready for the reception 
 and cementing of these adjuncts in position. These tanks and 
 their parts are easily transported by rail to any part of the 
 State. They are made in different sizes suitable for the use of 
 from 6 to 100 persons. Though introduced only a few years ago, 
 about 160 have been installed. Ten months ago the company in- 
 troduced the smallest type, a tank 3-Jft. in diameter, 4ft. long, 
 suitable for six persons, and weighing 13cwts. ; and since then 
 38 of these have been delivered. 
 
 For installations at its own stations, sidings, and sheds, the 
 Railways Department keeps in stock the various parts of tanks, 
 made of reinforced concrete slabs, with connections; and these 
 parts are forwarded to any destination ready to be assembled and 
 cemented together in position. Fig 15 shows the structural de- 
 tails of the manner in which the parts are fitted together when 
 
32 
 
 ready for use in one of these tanks.' Much of the success that has 
 characterised the evolution of the bacteriolytic tank in this State 
 is due to the accuracy of planning and the careful attention to 
 every detail of construction on the part of the Railways officials 
 in every case where the installation of these tanks was recom- 
 mended to them. 
 
 What happens in these tanks? After the tank lias been in 
 action for some time, if the first compartment be examined there 
 will be found on top of the liquid a scum which goes on- 
 increasing in thickness to a certain limit, and at the bottom of the 
 compartment a quantity of sludge. The sludge and the under 
 surface of the scum are the abode of multitudes of bacteria, which 
 attack the solid parts of the sewage entering the tank and dissolve 
 them. This disintegration and subsequent solution of the sewage 
 is supposed to be carried on principally by bacteria that act 
 without oxygen and in darkness, conditions that exist under 
 the scum in the first compartment which is opaque and 
 impenetrable to air. When the sewage is thus broken down 
 and liquefied it passes into the second compartment, where 
 further decomposition, involving oxidation and nitrification, 
 occurs. This is supposed to be effected by bacteria working in 
 a plentiful supply of oxygen and light. The final product is 
 a liquid that is inoffensive to smell and even harmless to drink. 
 Between these kinds of bacteria (called anaerobic) that work 
 best in total darkness and without air and those (called aerobic) 
 that work best with an abundance of both light and air there 
 are supposed to be many intermediate kinds; but it has not 
 been proved that there are any sharp lines dividing bacteria 
 into aerobic and anaerobic. In the system of tanks, one stage 
 of decomposition overlaps another, and several species of bacteria 
 will work simultaneously, though with varying degrees of 
 activity. Many contrivances have been introduced to take, 
 advantage of the full working powers of the different species, 
 such as passing the sewage over or through a succession of filters, 
 or cultivation beds, each of which, on account of the kind of 
 microbes growing in it, is supposed to be particularly fitted to 
 deal with a particular condition of liquid. 
 
 Into the scientific details of these processes it is not necessary 
 to enter. Probably if an abstract were made of all that is 
 definitely known 011 the subject the statements would be 
 considerably short of the truth. The aim in view in all 
 variations is to purify sewage by natural means by using 
 apparatus simple in construction and entirely automatic in 
 action. As far as present knowledge goes, the results of 
 experience may, for practical purposes, be summarised thus : 
 
 1. The bacteriolytic tank should be lined with concrete and 
 be capable of containing as nearly as possible 24 hours' 
 sewage. 
 
33 
 
 2. It is unnecessary to filter or otherwise separate the 
 
 constituents of the sewage before it passes into the tank. 
 
 3. The compartments may be open or closed; if closed they 
 
 should be so ventilated as to allow a constant supply of air 
 to the second compartment. 
 
 4. The bend between the compartments and all other pipes in 
 
 contact with the liquid contents should be made of earthen- 
 ware or concrete. Copper, zinc, lead, and iron, unless 
 coated with tar, are all quickly decomposed. 
 
 5. The inlets and outlets should be so arranged as to allow the 
 
 maximum of distribution with the minimum of movement 
 of the fluid, and not to interfere with the surface scum. 
 
 6. Filtration materials have been proved to be unnecessary, 
 
 and sometimes they are a source of trouble. 
 
 7. The resulting liquid may be passed on to the soil by 
 
 gravitation or pumping, or allowed to soak into the sub- 
 soil by means of catch wells or drains. 
 
 8. Chemicals and , disinfectants tend to destroy the bacteria 
 
 in the tanks and allow putrefaction to take place. 
 
 9. There is evidence to show r that these tanks favor the destruc- 
 
 tion rather than the growth of the germs of typhoid fever 
 and other diseases. 
 
 On account of difficulties in connection with the working of 
 certain kinds of tanks, and the failures and nuisances consequent 
 on the neglect of some principles and details, it was found 
 necessary to make regulations dealing with the structure and 
 use of bacteriolytic tanks. The following are the regulations in 
 force in this State: 
 
 1. Plans and sections of all proposed tanks, with the 
 
 connections .thereof, shall be submitted to the Central 
 Board of Health for approval before the tanks are 
 constructed. 
 
 2. No person shall use any tank until a permit authorising 
 
 him to do so has been issued by the Central Board of 
 Health, nor shall he use any tank after such permit shall 
 have been withdrawn or cancelled. 
 
 3. As far as possible, only the service of water-closets and 
 
 urinals shall be connected with any tank. 
 
 4. No person shall allow any storm water or surface drainage 
 
 to enter any tank. 
 
 5. All inlet pipes to a tank shall be properly trapped and 
 
 ventilated. 
 
 6. Every tank shall be constructed of brick, lined with cement, 
 
 or of some impervious material approved by the Central 
 
 Board of Health. 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 7. Every tank shall be sufficiently covered to the satisfaction 
 
 of the Central Board of Health. 
 
 8. Every tank shall be provided with a trapdoor of iron or 
 
 slate or other stone, so disposed as to allow of ready 
 inspection, and the connections between the trapdoor and 
 the tank shall be airtight. 
 
 9. The aerobic portion of every tank shall be provided with 
 
 an inlet and an outlet shaft of not less than 4in. in 
 diameter for the purpose of ventilation. 
 
 10. All bends and connections of the tank shall be made of 
 
 earthenware or of wood or other, material suitably tarred. 
 
 11. No person shall allow any rubbish or insoluble matter to 
 
 enter any tank, or to be deposited in the pan of any water- 
 closet or urinal connected with the tank. 
 
 12. The effluent of every tank shall be so placed as to be easily 
 accessible for inspection. 
 
 13. The permit to use any tank may be withdrawn by the 
 Central Board of Health in its uncontrolled discretion. 
 
 14. Penalty for breach of any of these regulations, not 
 
 exceeding 20; or, in the case of a continued breach, 2 
 for each day that the breach is continued. 
 
 The success of the tank system in this State is largely 
 attributable to the enforcement of these regulations. 
 
 This system has proved economical and efficient within the 
 limits to which it has been tested. This is all that is claimed 
 for it. It differs as much from the magnificent system installed 
 at Baltimore (Figs. 16, 17), which I had the pleasure of examin- 
 ing under the guidance of Dr. William H. Welch, as a tea kettle 
 differs from a liner 's engines ; yet each is good, or the best I know, 
 for its purpose, and neither could do the work expected of t the 
 other. 
 
 Interest in this matter has not been confined to this State. 
 I have drawn up, by request, plans and descriptions of tanks on 
 the same principle for installations in India, Central Africa, 
 Japan, and New Caledonia and other places in the South seas.* 
 
 It may be well to say something regarding conditions in South 
 Australia that bear on sanitary or sewage problems. The State 
 has an area of nearly 310,000 square miles. Concentration of 
 population in the metropolitan area is probably more intense here 
 than in any country in the world 52.89 per cent, of the popula- 
 tion is massed in three cities and several towns on the Adelaide 
 
 * After this paragraph was in type I received a letter from a medical man 
 in Manila, P.I., in which he asks for a reprint of this pamphlet. He says 
 he constructed a tank at his own residence some years ago, following the plan 
 set forth in a- former edition which Dr. Heiser, then Director of Health^ for 
 the Philippines, lent him. He adds : ' ' It worked perfectly. " He is building 
 a new residence, and wishes advice on some points connected with its 
 drainage system and tanks. 
 
35 
 
 Plains within a radius of 10 miles from the Adelaide Town Hall r 
 forming what might be regarded for many purposes as one large 
 municipality with a population of over a quarter of a million. 
 
 Most of this area is well provided for by a most perfect sewer- 
 age system, which has its outlet at a "sewage farm." In the 
 country part of the State 10 towns have between 1,000 and 3,000 
 of population ; two have between 3,000 and 4,000 ; and one has 
 13,000. The rest of the population is spread over places of a few 
 dozen houses or isolated dwellings. Outside of the metropolitan 
 area no locality has a drainage system for sewage. 
 
 The water supplies for the various towns and country places 
 are derived some from rivers or streams, some from wells or bores 
 varying greatly in depth, some from rain water collected from 
 roofs or in a catchment ground. There are thus many different 
 varieties of sewage in the closets which supply the bacteriolytic 
 tanks in different localities. Variations in the temperature of 
 the atmosphere and soil in any given locality are often very rapid 
 and very extensive. Besides all this, one has to take into account 
 the general differences of temperature due to latitude and eleva- 
 tion. The conditions of working in the tanks vary greatly on 
 account of the number of persons using the closets. The methods 
 of disposing of the effluent are many ; and where the effluent is 
 used for irrigation the soils and vegetation show great differences 
 in character. 
 
 Considering that all the& matters are liable to affect the work- 
 ing of bacteriolytic tanks, it is somewhat surprising that it has 
 been found possible to employ a single simple pattern, capable 
 of any necessary modification to meet special local conditions, 
 suitable for all the varying circumstances in the State, and work- 
 ing for years in such fashion that not one per cent, of these tanks 
 has required attention for other than a trivial detail since they 
 were installed. 
 
 In this State these tanks are now taken for granted, being re- 
 garded very much as normal appurtenances, a part of the con- 
 tract, or matters of course, where new houses are erected, or 
 where premises are extended, or where the introduction of water 
 has made water closets possible. And the possibility or advisa- 
 bility of using a tank has often instigated people to the procuring 
 of water for this purpose and for general household use in addi- 
 tion. A well, a stream, an underground tank for surface water 
 or roof water, a windmill or small pumping plant or a hand pump 
 to fill a gravitation tank or cistern on the roof or on a high plat- 
 form these are found readily when once the desire becomes felt, 
 or when a neighbor or an acquaintance leads the way. The 
 amount of business and pleasure travelling and friendly visiting 
 in Australia diffuses information readily and widely regarding 
 the necessaries and comforts and pleasures of living; and the 
 people are receiving benefits accordingly. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
 
 Fig. 1 A modern detached school closet. 
 
 Fig. 2 An old-time privy. 
 
 Fig. 3 A dry-earth closet pail. 
 
 Fig. 4 A dry catch.' 
 
 Fig. 5 Moule's drainage system. 
 
 Fig. 6 Vegetation patch for waste water disposal. 
 
 Fig. 7_Taiik at Gawler Railway Station: a conversion of a 
 cesspool. 
 
 Fig. 8 A household installation extemporised. 
 
 Fig 9_ A medium-sized tank: typical form. Section. 
 
 Fig. 10 A medium-sized tank: typical form. Plan. 
 
 Fig. 11 Block-plan of a tank and its connections. 
 
 Fig. 12 A tank in process of construction. 
 
 Fig. 13 Inspection of a tank with manholes opened. 
 
 Fig. 14 Ground-plari of a signal-cabin installation. 
 
 Fig. 15 Method of jointing reinforced concrete slabs for tank. 
 
 Fi-g. 16 Baltimore installation Sewage beds. 
 
 Fig. 1 7 Baltimore installation Automatic distributing sprink- 
 lers. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 I owe the drawings fpr figures 7 and 8 to the kindness of Mr. 
 A. B. Moncrieff and Mr. A. W. Dunstone respectively. To the 
 courtesy of Mr. A. E. Welbourne (the Resident Engineer for 
 Railways) and the skill of Mr. H. S. Blondel (the Chief Drafts- 
 man) I am indebted for the drawings of figures 9, 10, 11, 14 r 
 and 15. The artistic merit shown in the lithographic reproduction 
 of all these is due to Mr. A. Vaughan (Government Photolitho- 
 grapher). The process blocks are from my own photographs. 
 
 For the speed and accuracy of work that made possible the 
 rapid issue of this edition to meet numerous urgent requests, I 
 would pay my sincere thanks to Mr. R. E. E. Rogers (Government 
 Printer). 
 
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