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Today I learned about the dissemination of sanitary knowledge
These are plans for the construction of a dry earth closet, or, outhouse. By 1913 typhoid fever was considered to be the most inexcusable public health problem. An American city of 100,000 people spent on average 1/2 million dollars per year to treat the disease, which they knew could have been completely solved with the radically new, but simple infrastructural solution of bathroom sanitation. "Our cities have continued to poison themselves..." says Edward Rich, a sanitary engineer for the state of Michigan. "All germs of intestinal diseases, in order to produce infection, must reach us through the stomach and therefore pass in with the food and drink we swallow. The journey of the germ from the privy to the stomach may be made by one of two routes: First, through porous ground to the water supply and, second, on the body of the fly to unprotected food."
The innovations in the plan above are: screen sides and closing seat lids to keep out the flies; iron buckets at least 17 inches below the seat; and piles of dry loamy soil infused with lime chloride to pour on top of the contents of the bucket upon leaving the closet.
If this seems crude, don't bother going to one of the world's top-rated eco turismo hostels in Ecuador, named the Black Sheep Inn. Last September I stayed here and had the opportunity to use their composting bathrooms, as pictured here below.
from
These are plans for the construction of a dry earth closet, or, outhouse. By 1913 typhoid fever was considered to be the most inexcusable public health problem. An American city of 100,000 people spent on average 1/2 million dollars per year to treat the disease, which they knew could have been completely solved with the radically new, but simple infrastructural solution of bathroom sanitation. "Our cities have continued to poison themselves..." says Edward Rich, a sanitary engineer for the state of Michigan. "All germs of intestinal diseases, in order to produce infection, must reach us through the stomach and therefore pass in with the food and drink we swallow. The journey of the germ from the privy to the stomach may be made by one of two routes: First, through porous ground to the water supply and, second, on the body of the fly to unprotected food."
The innovations in the plan above are: screen sides and closing seat lids to keep out the flies; iron buckets at least 17 inches below the seat; and piles of dry loamy soil infused with lime chloride to pour on top of the contents of the bucket upon leaving the closet.
If this seems crude, don't bother going to one of the world's top-rated eco turismo hostels in Ecuador, named the Black Sheep Inn. Last September I stayed here and had the opportunity to use their composting bathrooms, as pictured here below.
posted by Nick at
2:25 PM
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