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Read Ebook: The Romance of Dollard by Catherwood Mary Hartwell
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Philadelphia a healthy city--Owing to the superior ventilation of its houses--But the theory of ventilation still imperfectly understood--About forty per cent. of all deaths due to foul air--The death rate for 1865--Expense of unnecessary sickness--In London--In Massachusetts--In New York--In Philadelphia--Consumption the result of breathing impure air--Entirely preventable--Infantile mortality--Report on warming and ventilating the Capitol--Copies of various tables therefrom--Carbonic acid taken as the test, but not infallible--The uniform purity of the external atmosphere--Illustrated by the city of Manchester--Overflowed lands unhealthy--Air of Paris, London and other cities--Carbonic acid in houses--Here we find the curse of foul air--Our own breath is our greatest enemy--Scavengers more healthy than factory operatives--Wonderful cures of consumption by placing the patients in cow stables--City buildings prevent ventilation, consequently are unhealthy--The air from the filthiest street more wholesome than close bed-room air--Unfortunate prejudice against night air--Dr. Franklin's opinion of night air--Compared with the instructions of the Board of Health, 1866--Sleeping with open windows--Fire not objectionable--A small room ventilated is better than a large room not ventilated--Illustration--Fresh air at night prevents cholera--Illustrated by New York workhouse--Dr. Hamilton's report--Night air just as healthy as day air--Candle extinguished by the breath--The breath falls instead of rises--Children near the floor killed first--Physicians' certificates do not state "killed by foul air"--Open fire-places are excellent ventilators--All fire-boards should be used for kindling wood--Illustration showing when ceiling ventilation is necessary.
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The effect produced by heat upon the movements of air--Air a real substance--Exerts a pressure of fifteen tons on an ordinary sized man--It cannot be moved without the expenditure of power--The sun's rays the great moving power--They pass through the forty-five miles of atmosphere without heating it, and heat the solid substances of the earth's surface--Experiments showing the effect of radiant heat and reflected heat--The air of the room not pure and dry--The ordinary moisture absorbs from fifty to seventy times as much as the air--Many gases absorb much more--The moisture in the air the great regulator of heat--Air is heated by coming in immediate contact with hotter substances--Impossibility of any air remaining at rest--The practical application of these principles--The open fire acts like the sun, heating by radiation only--Probable electric or ozonic change in furnace-heated air--The stove heats both by radiation and circulation--The stove nor the open fire not suitable for large crowded rooms--Circulating warmed air best--Erroneous views in regard to ventilation--Experiments with liquids of different densities--When warming and ventilating by circulating air, the escape for the used air should be from the bottom of the room--But when ventilating with cooler air the escape should be from the top of the room--Windows should lower from the top and flues open at the bottom of the room--The fashionable system of heating by direct radiation, without any fresh air, very objectionable.
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Article relating to the Grand Prize awarded to Hospital Ventilation and other Sanitary arrangements, Paris Exhibition.
PAGE 51
LECTURES ON VENTILATION.
Philadelphia is one of the healthiest cities in the United States, and, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, few more healthy cities exist in the world.
This is not owing especially to its more salubrious situation, but should be attributed, in a great measure, to the accidental superiority of the ventilation of a large proportion of its dwelling-houses.
Notwithstanding this comparative excellence, the theory of ventilation is not so thoroughly understood, nor is the practice so perfect, even in this city, that no advantage can be gained by further knowledge upon the subject.
Far from it. From the very best information we can command, and with the most accurate statistics at our disposal, we are forced to the conclusion that about forty per cent. of all the deaths that are constantly occurring are due to the influence of foul air.
The Registrar of Records of New York gives nearly half the deaths in that city as resulting from this cause.
The deaths in this city for 1865, according to the report of the Board of Health, were seventeen thousand one hundred and sixty-nine; the average age of those who died was between twenty-three and twenty-four years. It ought to have been twice that, as shown by some districts in the city and also in the country, where the houses are so arranged that they frequently have good ventilation.
Taking the deaths caused by foul air at a very low estimate, say forty per cent. of the whole, we have six thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight deaths in this city, caused alone by impure air, in one year.
It is estimated by physicians that there are from twenty-five to thirty days of sickness to every death occurring; there would therefore be something like two hundred thousand days of sickness annually as an effect of foul air.
We all know how very expensive sickness is, but few persons realize the enormous aggregate expense of unnecessary sickness in a city like Philadelphia.
This subject has awakened much interest in Europe of late years, and has led to the expenditure of immense sums of money, for the purpose of improving the sanitary condition of its cities.
Dr. Hutchinson estimated the loss to the city of London, growing out of preventable deaths and sickness, at twenty millions of dollars annually, and Mr. Mansfield estimates the loss from this cause to the United Kingdom at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
In the single State of Massachusetts, an estimate exhibits an annual loss of over sixty millions of dollars by the premature death of persons over fifteen years of age.
It is estimated that a few only of the principal items of expense incurred by preventable sickness in the city of New York amount to over five millions of dollars annually.
And if it is thought that Philadelphia is exempt from such enormous unnecessary expense, just glance at the report of the Board of Health for last year, and see how the deaths from disease of the lungs largely exceed those from any other disease.
The infantile mortality is by many considered the most delicate sanitary test. But why does such an intelligent community as this so neglect its own interest?
They have listened to and satisfied the first imperative demands of nature--shelter from the elements and warmth,--and in doing this they have not brought into use that much higher order of intellect which can alone teach them how to supply, in connection with an agreeable warmth, an abundance of pure air in their otherwise air-tight houses.
I have been much interested in examining a large collection of tables of the analys
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