RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH OF THE CITY OF WORCESTER. MASSACHUSETTS. 1884. WORCESTER,, MASS, Printed by Lucius P. Goddard, 425 Main St. 1884. Rules and Regulations. o PI {IVIES, Etc. Rule 1. Every tenement in said city, used as a dwelling house, shall be furnished with sufficient drain, underground, to ■carry off the waste water into a common sewer or reservoir; and also with suitable water closets, or with a privy, the vault of which shall be underground, built and kept in the manner prescribed in this chapter, and of sufficient capacity for the number of occupants in sucli tenement. Rile 2. Every vault or privy shall be so constructed that the inside of the same shall be at least three feet distant from the line of every adjoining lot, unless the owner of such lot shall consent or agree otherwise ; and also three feet from every street, lane, passage-way or public place; and every such vault or privy shall be built in a thorough and substantial manner, and kept water tight, and its contents shall never be within eighteen inches of the surface of the ground. And whenever any privy or vault shall become offensive the same shall be cleansed. In case the condition or construction of any vault or privy shall be different from the requirement of this section, the Board of Health, after forty-eight hours’ notice to the occupant requiring him to cleanse said vault, may have the same cleansed, repaired, altered or removed, as may be necessary, and shall charge the expense incurred in so doing to the owner or party occupying the estate in which such privy or vault may be. Rule 8. No water closet shall be maintained without a tight drain to convey the contents thereof to a proper reservoir or to the common sewer; and no such reservoir shall be estab- lished within twenty feet of any well, spring or source of water used for culinary purposes. Rule 4. No privy or vault shall be opened in any manner or at any time than at such time and in such manner as the Board of Health may direct; and no person shall remove or carry through any public street, highway or square of the city, the contents of any vault or privy, unless the person removing the same, and the cart, wagon or other conveyance in which the same is carried, shall be licensed for such purpose by the Board of Health. All such vaults shall be thoroughly cleaned out and the contents thereof removed once in each year, and oftener if the Board of Health so direct. DRAINAGE. Rule 5. No sewer drain, not water tight, shall be allowed to pass within twenty feet of any well, or other source of water used for culinary purposes, and no person shall allow any pool of stagnant water to be and remain upon his premises after notice to remove the same by the Board of Health. Rule 6. Whenever it shall appear to the Board of Health that any cellar, lot or vacant land is a nuisance, or in such condition that it may probably become dangerous to the public health, they shall cause the same to be drained, filled up, or otherwise prevented from becoming or remaining a cause of nuisance or sickness, and shall charge all reasonable expenses incurred in so doing to the owners or parties occupying such cellar, lot or land; provided, that notice shall have been first given, and forty-eight hours thereafter allowed, as provided in Rule 2. Rule 7. The owners and occupants of estates abutting on a public sewer shall cause such estates to be connected by proper drains with such public sewer. Whoever neglects or refuses to comply with such regulation within thirty days from publication hereof, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding twenty dollars for each day that such neglect or refusal continues. ANIMALS, Etc. Rule 8. No animals affected with an infections or conta- gious disease shall be brought within the limits of the city. No diseased animal or its flesh shall be sold or offered for sale; and no decayed, diseased or unwholesome meat, fish, vegetables, fruit or other article of food shall be sold, or offered for sale, in the city. Rule 9. No person shall keep any swine or goats within the limits prescribed by the Board of Health, except the keeper thereof be licensed to keep the same by the Board of Health, and, when so licensed, said animals shall be kept in a manner prescribed by the Board of Health. Rule 10. All putrid, decaying or decayed animal or vege- table matter shall be removed from the cellars and outbuildings on or before the first day of June in each year. No fish? slaughter-house offal or other decaying animal matter shall be left or permitted to remain upon the land for purposes of fer- tilization, without being ploughed in, or otherwise rendered inoffensive. HOUSE OFFAL Rule 11, Each family shall have a properly covered recep- tacle for swill and house offal, until the same is removed. Rule 12 —l. No person shall go about, in, or through the streets, squares or highways of the city collecting, carrying or removing swill or offal, unless duly authorized and licensed by the Mayor and Aldermen, or Board of Health. 2. All swill or offal collected and carried through the streets, squares or highways, as before provided, shall be put and carried in a close covered vehicle, box or other tight ves- sel, and shall be taken away and removed not less than three times in each week. Rule 13. Every occupant of any building in this city shall keep such building and the yard belonging thereto free from all filth and substances liable to produce offensive odors. 4 Hulk 14. Xo person shall burn, on premises occupied by him, any garbage, refuse woolen, silk, leather or India-rubber goods or other substances, so that the same shall evolve offensive odors and gases while burning. Rule 15. Xo person shall deposit or permit to be deposited by any one occujrying his premises, any house offal, brine,, bones, dead animals, old leather, decayed fruit or vegetables, or any other rubbish, in any streams, ponds, catch basin, street, lane, alley or public grounds of the city. Further, no person shall clean, scale or wash fish or meat upon any street, lane, alley or public grounds of the city. Rule 16. Xo person shall transport fat, bones or any decayed, putrid or vile smelling animal or vegetable sub- stances, through any of the public streets, lanes, alleys or public grounds of the city, except in water-tight, securely covered vessels, from which no odors can escape. SLAUGHTER HOUSES, Etc. Rule 17. Xo slaughter house or abattoir shall be estab- lished or used as such within the two-mile circle (the city hall being the centre), and none elsewhere within the limits of the city, unless kept free from all obnoxious smells, and all offal shall be removed daily therefrom. Xo melting or rendering house shall be established or used as such within the limits of the city, except by permission and location of this Board, Rule 18. Xo manufacturing or other business, giving rise to obnoxious or injurious odors, shall be established or contin- ued within the city limits, except'in such locations as this Board shall assign, and all persons having any control of existing manufactoi'ies, stables and fish markets, shall use all means available to render them inodorous and free from all obnoxious smells. Rule 19. All licenses granted by the Board of Health may be revoked at the pleasure of said Board. 5 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.. Rule 20. Every person, in whose dwelling there shall break out a case of cholera, yellow fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, small-pox or varioloid, shall immediately notify the Board of Health of the same, and, until instructions are re- ceived from the Board, shall not permit any clothing or other property that may have been exposed to infection to be removed from the house, nor shall any occupant take up a resi- dence elsewhere without consent of the Board. Rule 21. Any physician who may know of or be called to a case of either of the diseases specified in the foregoing regu- lations, shall at once report such case to the Board of Health, and receive their instructions in regard thereto; and whenever there shall come under the observation of any physician such number of cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever,, dysentery or spotted fever, so called, as in his opinion to jus- tify the belief that any considerable epidemic thereof exists, he shall at once report the same to the Board, with such sug- gestions in regard thereto as may seem to him expedient. Rule 22. All persons affected with either of the diseases specified in Rule 20, and all articles infected by the same, shall be immediately separated from all persons liable to contract or communicate the disease, and none but nurses and physicians shall be allowed access to persons sick with said diseases; and no person sick with any of said diseases shall be removed at any time, except by permission and under direction of the Board of Health, but all persons infected with either of said diseases who cannot be properly quarantined, may be removed, according to law, to such hospital or other place as the Board of Health direct, and no persons shall obstruct, hinder or oppose such removal, and when any person dies of either of said diseases, the body shall be buried under direction of the Board of Health, and no person shall obstruct, hinder or oppose such burial. Rule 23. All bedding and personal clothing or other per- sonal property, affected with contagion or infection, shall be disposed of or treated as the Board of Health may direct. 6 Rule 24. All bedding or other personal property, liable to propagate any of the diseases mentioned in Rule 21, shall be at once properly cleansed and fumigated, or destroyed, and the Board of Health, if they deem it expedient, may cause the same to be so cleansed or destroyed. Rule 25. No person or article liable to propagate a dan- gerous disease shall be brought within the limits of the city without the special consent and direction of the Board; and whenever it shall appear to any person that such person or article has been brought into the city, immediate notice thereof shall be given to the Board, specifying its location. Rule 26. No person or persons shall deposit ashes or rub- bish in any place within the city limits except in such places as shall be designated by the Board of Health. DRAINAGE, Etc. Every tenement house where a public sewer abuts the estate shall be supplied with a water closet for every fifteen persons, conveniently located, and constantly supplied with water. It shall in all cases be connected directly with the general or common drain pipe of the house. The common drain pipe shall be separately and independently connected with the pub- lic sewer, wherever such sewer is provided, and if there is no such sewer, with a properly constructed cesspool, of a capacity approved by this Boai’d. This cesspool shall, if possible, be at a distance of twenty feet from the building, and propeidy covered. Drains and soil pipes, through which sewage is carried, shall be of iron, shall be round, and of a diameter of at least four inches. They shall be in sight within the walls of the building, attached to the foundation walls, or hung to the frame by stout iron hooks or hangers, and shall extend out through the walls to a distance of five feet. They shall be provided with a suitable trap and cleanout before they pass out from the building. Such traps shall be ventilated by an iron stand pipe of the same diameter as the trap, which shall be carried out through the roof of the building to a distance of at least two feet. The inner end of soil pipes shall be ventilated through the roof in like manner. Soil pipes shall be made with leaded joints and properly caulked, and all changes of direction with curved elbows. It is advised that they be coated outside and in with pitch or coal tar, applied hot, or with good paint. Service pipes shall be of iron, or good lead pipe, with tight joints, and all connec- tions to the main soil pipe shall be made with brass ferules, properly soldered and caulked to the iron. Every fixture having a waste pipe shall be furnished with a trap, placed as near as possible to said fixture, and if the S trap is used, it must be provided with a special air pipe, to prevent siphonage, to be connected with a ventilating pipe above the upper fixtures, or with a warm flue. The round or bottle trap, except in the main drain pipe, need not be ventilated. Air pipes to water closets shall be two inches at least in diameter, and connected with ventilating shaft, or warm tine, above upper fixtures. Drip or overflow pipes from refrigerators, cisterns, or safes under water closets, shall be run to some place in open sight, and in no case shall they enter a drain or soil pipe. Plumbing work must be so placed as to be easily got at for inspection and repair, and must be tested before it is put into use. A grease trap shall be placed under the sink of every hotel, restaurant, eating house, or other public cooking establishment. RUFUS WOODWARD, M. D. HENRY GRIFFIN, JAMES C. COFFEY, July, 1884. Board of Health. PUBLIC STATUTES. Chap. 80 Sec. 12. Such Boards (of Health) may prepare and enforce in their respective cities such regulations as they may deem necessary for the safety and health of the people, with reference to house drainage and its connection with public sewers, where a public sewer abuts the estate to be drained. , Sec. 18. The Board of Health of a town shall make such regulations as it judges necessary for the public health and safety, respecting nuisances, sources of filth, and causes' of sickness, within its town, or on board of vessels within the harbor of such town, and respecting articles which are capable of containing or conveying infection or contagion, or of cre- ating sickness, brought into or conveyed from its town, or into or from any vessel. Whoever violates any such regula- tion shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars.