Lectures on Ventilation/Lecture I
LECTURES ON VENTILATION.
LECTURE I.
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, (the per centage from that cause is not so great as in New York,) 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.[1]
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.
Consumption is almost entirely the result of breathing impure air,—it is as preventable by the exclusive use of pure air as maniaa potuor drunkenness is by the exclusive use of pure water. And see, too, what slaughter among the innocents over twenty-five per cent, of the whole deaths were under one year of age.
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 analysis of air, which accompany a report to Congress, on "Warming and Ventilating the Capitol," prepared by Thomas U. Walter, Professor Henry and Dr. Wetherill. These tables were made by men of various nations, giving the results of their analysis of air taken from all manner of places, from great elevations on the mountains and in balloons, from the valleys, from the centre of the ocean, and from the middle of the continent, in cities and in the country, in winter and in summer, at night and in the day, and also the comparative analysis of the air out of doors and in houses. Believing that these would be of much interest and assistance to us in the investigation of the subject under consideration, I have had copies made of some of the most interesting.
These give the per centage of carbonic acid in the air as the test of the amount of impurities in it.
This is not an infallible test by any means—there are various other causes of deterioration. There is the exhaustion of the oxygen constantly occurring to support combustion and animal life ; there are various other deleterious products of combustion and respiration besides carbonic acid. But, as carbonic acid is always found in certain known proportions in pure air, and is always formed in certain known quantities by respiration or combustion, it is considered by many to give a very fair indication of the condition of the atmosphere with reference to its influence on animal life or combustion.
I think one of the most valuable lessons to be learned by the study of these tables is the uniform purity of the external atmosphere all over the world, even in large cities.
This is strikingly illustrated in the case of the analysis of the air in the city of Manchester.
We have nothing in this country like that city, where two millions of tons of coal are burned annually, the smoke from which fills the air and stretches like a black cloud far into the country.
Thus, added to the five hundred tons of carbonic acid thrown from the lungs of its animal life every day, are many times that amount, (some two thousand tons,) daily, pouring out from its forest of factory chimneys.
To this city were the labors of the "Health of Towns Commission" first directed, to see if they could not find in the air of its streets that mysterious influence that has caused such alarm throughout the civilized world, as the thoughtful and intelligent sanitarian sees one-half of all his fellow-citizens hurried to untimely graves.
They were disappointed, and well might Dr. Smith exclaim, after the most thorough and careful investigations, "How insignificant are the works of art in contaminating that vast ocean of air that is constantly sweeping over the surface of the earth!" But do not be discouraged: more recent investigations have discovered the whereabouts of this pestilential breath.
I have placed the table of Dr. Angus Smith's analysis of the air of Manchester at the head of the list, and have copied it complete, because it is the only table that I have examined of the analysis of the air of towns in Europe or North America, in which there occurs an amount of carbonic acid exceeding ten parts in ten thousand.
Here we see three such cases in the twenty-eight experiments, one ten, one twelve and one fifteen.
The average of the whole is also greater than in any other similar tables, being about seven and a half parts in ten thousand. This is certainly quite a perceptible contamination, pure air containing four or four and a half parts in ten thousand. Yet considerable as this appears in this view, the additional amount of carbonic acid is only the proportion that would be added to the air, if unchanged, of a room fifteen feet square and ten feet high, by a father, mother and three children, with a gas-light, in seven minutes.
And this, probably, is the highest average contamination that is produced by artificial means upon the air of any city in the world.
There are, of course, great natural causes which affect the air of whole countries, such as the decomposition of great masses of vegetable matter similar to that occurring on the low flat lands along rivers, especially where they overflow their banks, like the Ohio and Mississippi. The best system of ventilation, as applicable to this kind of foul air, is to keep as far out of its reach as possible.
The other tables giving the analysis of the air of London, Paris, Madrid, Geneva, Bolton, England, at different elevations on the mountains, on the Atlantic Ocean, Washington City and various other places, are interesting only because they show so great a uniformity in the carbonic acid, seldom exceeding six parts to the ten thousand, and seldom under four.
But now let us look upon the other side of the room. Here we have tables giving the "carbonic acid in houses." Here we will find very different results. Bat the first is a green-house; in that there is no trace of carbonic acid in the evening and scarcely a trace in the morning. Plants, you know, absorb the carbonic acid, and give off oxygen, while animals absorb the oxygen and give off carbonic acid, thus keeping up the equilibrium in nature, as is so beautifully shown in the aquarium. Plants are generally supposed to give off carbonic acid at night, but it must be in very small quantities.
I consider them very conducive to health in a living-room, morally and physically.
But this want of carbonic acid does not last long.
The next is M. Dumas' lecture-room. At commencement of lecture 42.5, and at close of lecture 67 parts in ten thousand.
Now, I think we are on the right track for discovering that mysterious poison that has carried so many of our friends to their graves, even in the very prime of life.
Here we have dormitories, 52; do., 37; asylum, 17; school-room, 30; do., 56; Chamber of Deputies, 16; Opera Comique, parterre, 15; do., ceiling, 28; stable, 7; do., 14; hospital, Madrid, 30; do., do., 43; air of bed-room on rising in the morning, 48; the same after being ventilated two hours, 16; railroad car, 34; workshop, Munich, 19; full room, do., 22; lecture-room, 32; beer-saloon, 40; and worst of all is a well-filled school-room, 72 parts of carbonic acid in 10,000.
That, I think, is enough. Here we have the solution of the whole mystery.
It is not in the external atmosphere that we must look for the greatest impurities, but it is in our own houses that the blighting, withering curse of foul air is to be found. We are thus led to the conclusion that our own breath is our greatest enemy.
The "Health of Towns Commission," in their investigations, after examining various trades, where the employees were confined mostly in houses, and having left the scavengers to the last, expecting to find a rich harvest of mortality among them, were much surprised to find them more healthy than many very clean occupations, but which were conducted in houses instead of in the open air. I have not the statistics before me, but I should not be surprised to learn that that singular race of beings that live in the sewers of Paris were as healthy, if not even more so, than the operatives of some of those exquisitely beautiful, clean, air-tight factories of New England.
There was quite an account made a few years ago of the wonderful cures of consumption that had been performed by the patient being removed to the stable where he could be in close proximity to the cow, and I have no doubt many consumptive patients would find great benefit by such a course of treatment, not that there is any virtue in the smell of the cow, but that the air of the cow-stable would be nearer pure than that of their own chamber.
Many go or send their families to the country in summer to get fresh air. Some go to the sea-side, others to the mountains; but there ensues a greater change in a few minutes in a close bed-room by being occupied by a family than there is difference between the external air of any city and that of the country.
The reason why cities are so much more unhealthy than the country, is not because the air in the street is so much more impure, but because the houses are so built together that this vast ocean of air cannot got at and through them to purify them as it does in the houses in the country, and the reason why Philadelphia is so much more healthy than its neighbor, New York, is because the houses here are built more like those of the country, so that the air can sweep all around them, and sometimes through them.
I therefore believe, that a family living in the filthiest street in our city, if they were careful to have a constant current of air from that street, filihy as it was, passing through the house at all times, night and day, would be more healthy, other things being equal, than a family spending their winters in the finest house, if kept air-tight, in the healthiest location in the city, and their summer in the country, especially if they were always careful to exclude the night air from their bed-rooms.
I say "night air;"—there is, unfortunately, an unnecessary prejudice against what is termed night air, which means, I suppose, fresh external air from the dark.
To show that this is not a new idea, I will read a few lines from the writings of a very accurate reasoner and an eminently practical mechanic and philosopher, one whom I consider even now one of the very best authorities upon the subject of heating and ventilation. I mean the illustrious man after whom this Institute was named, Benjamin Franklin.
In his letter to Dr. Ingenhaus, physician to the Emperor, at Vienna, he says: * * * * "for some are as much afraid of fresh air as persons in the hydrophobia are of fresh water. I myself had formerly this prejudice this aerophobia, as I now account it, and dreading the supposed dangerous effects of cool air, I considered it an enemy, and closed with extreme care every crevice in the rooms I inhabited. Experience has convinced me of my error. I now look upon fresh air as a friend : I even sleep with an open window. I am persuaded that no common air from without is so unwholesome as the air within a close room that has been often breathed and not changed. Moist air, too, which I formerly thought pernicious, gives me now no apprehensions; for considering that no dampness of air applied to the outside of my skin can be equal to what is applied to and touches it within, my whole body being full of moisture, and finding I can lie two hours in a bath twice a week, covered with water, which certainly is much damper than any air can be, and this for years together, without catching cold, or being in any other manner disordered by it, I no longer dread mere moisture, either in air, or in sheets or shirts; and I find it of importance to the happiness of life, the being freed from vain terrors, especially of objects that we are every day exposed inevitably to meet with.
"You physicians have of late happily discovered, after a contrary opinion had prevailed some ages, that fresh and cool air does good to persons in the small-pox and other fevers. It is to be hoped, that in another century or two we may all find out that it is not bad even for people in health. And as to moist air, here I am at this present writing in a ship with above forty persons, who have had no other but moist air to breathe for six weeks past; everything we touch is damp, and nothing dries, yet we are all as healthy as we should be on the mountains of Switzerland, whose inhabitants are not more so than those of Bermuda or St. Helena, islands on whose rocks the waves are dashed into millions of particles, which fill the air with damp, but produce no diseases, the moisture being pure, unmixed with the poisonous vapors arising from putrid marshes and stagnant pools, in which many insects die and corrupt the water. These places only, in my opinion, (which, however, I submit to yours,) afford unwholesome air; and that it is not the mere water contained in damp air, but the volatile particles of corrupted animal matter mixed with that water, which renders such air pernicious to those who breathe it; and I imagine it a cause of the same kind that renders the air in close rooms, where the perspirable matter is breathed over and over again by a number of assembled people, so hurtful to health.
"After being in such a situation many people find themselves affected by that febricula, which the English alone call a cold, and, perhaps, from that name, imagine they have caught the malady by going out of the room, when it was, in fact, by being in it."
Now, to show that his hopes have not yet been fully realized, although one century has nearly closed since he wrote what I have just read, and this unnecessary and unfortunate prejudice against night air still prevails extensively, I will read a few lines from the highest public medical authority in this city. It is the instructions of the Board of Health for the prevention of cholera for 1866:
ARTICLE—"VENTILATION."
"Your premises, particularly sleeping apartments and cellars, should be thoroughly ventilated. Ventilation is no less a purifier than water.
"It cleanses by oxidizing and drying. Keep your houses open and your windows hoisted during the day in good weather, and from ten o'clock until four in the afternoon, that they may have the full benefit of sunlight and free circulation of pure air. During the remaining hours of the day, and through the night, keep the windows closed. When the weather is cool or rainy, be sure to keep a fire in the house, in order to prevent dampness, or in sparsely settled neighborhoods, or in the suburbs of the city, have a fire in the house the entire season."
On page 9 we read: "Be careful to dress comfortably for the season, avoid the night air as much as possible, and when thus exposed, put on an extra garment and do not go into the night air when in a state of perspiration."
Thus, while recognizing the great value and importance of ventilation in a general way, they give the most definite instructions for thoroughly and most effectually preventing it, because it is at night, especially when we are asleep and cannot move from the air, that the air ought to be moved from us.
The frequent recommendations to avoid "night air" are simply recommendations to smother ourselves to death, because the foul, poisonous exhalations from our lungs cannot be removed from our chambers without being replaced by night air ; there is no other fresh air at night but night air.
The recommendation to build a fire in the house on cool days, and in low marshy districts every day in the year, is an excellent one.
The recommendations to dress warmly and to avoid checking a perspiration suddenly, are valuable suggestions and too much attention cannot be paid to them.
But they are of equally great importance in reference to day air as to night air.
To shelter oneself from the sudden change of temperature after sundown is an animal instinct, and a very necessary one, which is strongly implanted in man and beast alike.
The harm comes from the fact of so intelligent and intellectual a body as the Board of Health of Philadelphia encouraging the accomplishment of this very desirable object, by thwarting that great universal law of our Creator, the ceaseless agitation of the air by which it purifies itself, (and by which perversion of nature's laws millions are already being killed unnecessarily every year,) instead of their encouraging its accomplishment in that much more healthy and rational way by adding more clothing or more fuel to the fire, and still continuing to breathe the pure air at night as well as in the day-time.
I have practised for many years sleeping with my windows open every night, summer and winter, allowing the unobstructed breeze to flow across my bed, to the great improvement of my health and strength.
There is no objection in a well ventilated room to having a fire if desired. A small room with a hot stove or open fire and the windows open, is much more wholesome than a large air-tight room freezing cold.
Let us illustrate this by a simple experiment.
Here we have another glass chamber, much handsomer and twenty times as large ; we also place a similar candle in it, that burns with equal brightness, but watch them both for a few moments—see how rapidly this light in the large chamber diminishes in size.
That represents, in a beautiful manner, the diminished force of your life in an air-tight room. There it goes—entirely extinguished by foul air in so short a time, but the other continues to burn just as brightly as when first lighted. The smaller one had the window open, so to speak; we will imagine the candle in the large chamber to be a consumptive patient who thought the room so large he did not need the windows open. Remember, therefore, that no matter how small your room is, if there is a constant circulation of fresh air through it, the lamp of your life will burn brightly; but if ever so large and air-tight, your life will soon be extinguished.
Instead of averting the cholera by avoiding fresh air at night, the experience of the last summer seems to have taught us just the contrary; for whilst most physicians admit that they are still unable to explain satisfactorily, the cause or remedy for this most mysterious disease, that has within a lifetime carried its fifty millions of victims from time to eternity, they almost universally believe it is a foul air poison, and they have as yet found no surer prevention than pure air.
One of the most striking illustrations of this, and perhaps one of the most wonderful cures of cholera on record, was that of the New York Workhouse on Blackwell's Island. It lasted only nine days, but in that brief period one hundred and twenty-three out of eight hundred inmates died. I visited the building with Dr. Hamilton, on the third day after its appearance, but the hospital then contained sixty or seventy patients, and some twenty-five or thirty had died within twenty-four hours.
Dr. Hamilton attributed the rapid propagation and fatality of the disease, after it once had gained admission, mainly to confinement and crowding. It was observed that the cholera was confined, for several days, among the women; the women had the smallest apartments, were most crowded in their cells, and with few exceptions, were employed within the building, in close contact with each other during the day. The men were employed mostly in the quarries and out of doors.
The doctor's prescription on that occasion is worth studying. It is very short and simple, however.
A slight change was made in the diet; disinfectants were used; fifteen drops of the tincture of capsicum with an ounce of whisky, as a stimulant at night, was all the medicine given to each individual. But the great means the doctor relied upon for success, was pure air all the time. They were kept out of doors from morning until night, and all the windows were kept open night and day; and although in the hot weather of summer, fire was made in the wards, to insure more perfect ventilation. In six days after the initiation of these simple hygienic measures, the epidemic entirely disappeared.
The disorders and sickness caused by the too rapid chilling of the unprotected body after sundown, have given rise, I have no doubt, to that erroneous popular prejudice so common among all classes, even those of education and ordinarily good common sense, who imagine there is some peculiar poison or source of unhealthiness in the air at night, that is not contained in the air in the day-time. It will no doubt greatly relieve the minds of these from such "vain terrors," and prove most conclusively the entire fallacy of such reasoning, to examine these tables again. In the copies I have made, I have not classified the results given by day and by night, but a careful examination in detail, fails to show any appreciable difference in the aggregate, by day or by night.
Méné's numerous experiments on the air in Paris, gave less carbonic acid at night than in the day-time.
Lewey's analysis on the Atlantic ocean, one thousand miles from the coast, gave a decided excess in the day over that of the night. He attributes this to the action of the sunlight upon the ocean liberating the gases which it holds in solution.
In cities there is a much larger quantity given off from burning coals of factories in the day-time than at night.
It is not improbable, however, that the more rapid evaporation of moisture towards evening may carry with it the volatile particles of corrupted animal and vegetable matter to an extent slightly in excess of that which occurs in the morning, but it is believed these would not equal the greater contamination from burning coals, and the usually greater stillness of the air, producing partial stagnation, so that the air would be a little nearer pure at night than in the day-time. And how unmistakably do all these investigations prove what we ought to have known and accepted without a moment's hesitation, that the Creator, who has made such vast and such minute provisions for supplying every living creature with a constant and copious supply of fresh air, and has made it so important for their existence that they cannot live a moment without it, has made the air at night just as pure and wholesome as in the day-time.
We have thus traced the scourge of foul air to our houses, and much of it to our bed-rooms. The next question is, how to get clear of it.
We want to know, however, what poisons the air, so as to know in what part of the room it is to be found.
We will try a very simple experiment, to show you what a deadly poison the breath is,—to the flame of a candle, at any rate.
Here is a simple glass tube, open at both ends—an ordinary lamp chimney—a candle burns freely as you see, and would burn so all night, if it did not burn out.
Animals are killed suddenly or after a more prolonged struggle, by the exhaled breath, according to the activity or sluggishness with which the blood circulates—a bird would be killed very soon—some partially torpid animals would live a long time. Man has great endurance—struggles long and hard; but if closely confined, will be poisoned to death in one night, as in the case of those confined in the celebrated Black Hole of Calcutta, and on board of vessels where they have been confined below decks in time of a storm. Others will struggle on longer, as in the case of the two thousand and twenty-six who died of consumption last year, in Philadelphia.
And now let us see in which part of the room this deadly poison of our breath is mostly found.
It is the popular idea, that because the body, and consequently the breath, is warmer than the ordinary temperature of a room, it rises and accumulates at the ceiling.
Upon this theory most of our buildings have been ventilated whenever any attention whatever has been given to the subject; but that theory is incorrect; consequently, all practice based thereon is also wrong.
This subject of the direction taken by the breath upon leaving the body, has been warmly discussed within a few years. It has been a very difficult matter to prove conclusively and satisfactorily, but I think we have devised some very simple experiments that will prove to you very clearly what we have stated.
I have here a simple glass tube two feet long and one and a half inch interior diameter; one end is closed with a rubber diaphragm, through which is passed a small rubber tube—
Now, by raising the closed end of the pipe, you see we can pour it all out, and by filling it again and raising the other end, it falls back.
Thus you see that, notwithstanding the extra warmth in the breath, it is heavier than the atmosphere, and falls to the floor of an ordinary room like this, say, when the temperature is from 60° to 70°. This is owing to the carbonic acid and moisture contained in it.
I have varied this experiment in a number of ways, by passing it through smaller tubes and discharging it into the air in one or two seconds after leaving the lungs, and by passing it through water of various temperatures, and discharging it into rooms of different temperatures, with the same general results. As the temperature of the air diminishes, the tendency of the discharged breath to rise increases. Much care is required in conducting these experiments, to avoid as much as possible, the local currents which are always present in a room.
This is a very important fact to be borne in mind; yet notwithstanding this, there are times, under certain circumstances,
For the further examination of this subject, we have here a little glass-house with glass chimneys and fire-place in the first and second stories.
As the flame of a candle is such a beautiful emblem of human life, we will remove the roof and part of the floor of the second story, and place four candles in our house. They are all of different heights, you see. We will call them a father, mother and two children.
As carbonie acid is that much dreaded poison in our breath, and the heavy portion of it which causes it to fall to the floor, we will make a little by placing a few scraps of common marble in this glass vessel, and pouring over it some sulphuric acid.
It is now forming, and will fall and flow across the floor the same as carbonic acid does when it pours into a basement from the gutters on the street or filthy yards where it is formed, and before it is absorbed or diluted by the current of pure air sweeping over them. It first kills the smallest child, because it is nearest the floor. You remember the excessive infantile mortality in this city in 1865. This is partially owing to their breathing more of this foul air near the floor, and partially owing to the great fear of their mothers and nurses, of letting the little innocents get a breath of fresh air for fear it will give them colic, and consequently they smother them to death.
The other child dies next, and then the mother, and lastly the father.
Thousands are thus poisoned to death by their own breath every year. But did you ever see a physician's certificate that gave you any such idea? Why do not the doctors tell the living, in such language as they can understand, what killed their friends, so they may avoid it in their own case, instead of giving it in some Latin terms which I fear many interpret to mean some special dispensation of Divine Providence instead of the true cause—their utter disregard of the laws their Creator made for the preservation of their health?
Had this family known enough about ventilation to have kept the fire-place open, with a little fire in it now and then, they would not have been thus killed.
Let us see—we will take out the fire-board which has been put in to make the room look a little neater, and with a very small light there to create a draft in the chimney.
We will again light the candles, and pour in the poisonous breath. Ah! there goes the little one—he is hardly high enough to keep out of that deadly current flowing across the floor.
We shall have to let it in a little slower, or we will set him on a platform, as many persons who have carefully studied this subject, consider it judicious to do. Now, by the smoke from this taper, you can see the air is flowing across the floor and up the chimney.
There has been a steady current flowing in long enough to have filled the house, but the lights are all burning brightly, and you thus see the value of an open fine-place for ventilation. Thousands of lives are thus saved, and many more would be if all fire-places were kept open. I have recommended hundreds of fire-boards to be cut up for kindling-wood, as I consider this is the best use that can be made of all fire-boards.
Never stop up a fire-place in winter or summer, where any living being stays night or day. It would be about as absurd to take a piece of elegantly tinted court-plaster and stop up the nose, trusting to the accidental opening and shutting of the mouth for fresh air, because you thought it spoiled the looks of your face so to have two such great ugly-looking holes in it, as it is to stop your fire-place with elegantly tinted paper because you think it looks better.
If you are so fortunate as to have a fire-place in your room, paint it when not in use; put a bouquet of fresh flowers in every morning, if you please, or do anything to make it attractive; but never close it.
Now, there are other conditions in which a fire-place or an opening near the floor, will not answer for ventilation. This occurs in rooms where the air is made impure by burning lamps or gas, and where the fresh air entering the room is cooler than the temperature of the room itself.
To illustrate this, we will put the roof on and take the entire floor away, or as it will be a little more convenient, we will represent it by this glass-house, using this shade for that purpose.
This is supported some six inches from the floor, and has no bottom.
The tallest one is effected first, this time. You see that is a perfectly formed light, but it gives but about half the light the one does on the outside this is the way with many of us who are obliged to, or rather do, breathe foul air half the time.
We often think, by comparing ourselves with others around us, that we are pretty fair specimens of humanity, while really we do not give more than half the light in the world that we ought to do, and kill ourselves before our work is half done.
You see the two tallest are dead already, and the others will soon follow—there they go. Here is the bottom of the house removed, and yet these candles all went out for want, of fresh air.
Therefore, when we see the air is made impure by burning candles or gas lights, owing to its exceeding heat, the foul air is mostly at the top of the room, and especially when the fresh air enters cooler than the air in the room. We will find, however, that in a very few minutes the candles will relight long before the contained air or the glass shade cools down to the temperature of the room.
The products of combustion, like those of respiration, are heavier than the ordinary atmosphere, and consequently fall to the floor very soon if not removed while very hot, by special openings immediately over them in the ceiling; after it has thus fallen, provision must be made for its removal from the level of the floor, in connection with the foul air from the breath.
I hope that by these few simple experiments, and the statistics presented here this evening, we have strengthened your previous convictions of the importance of fresh air, because we are well aware that you will find, as you proceed in your investigations of this subject, that it is frequently surrounded with complications; yet the laws governing the circulation of air of different temperatures, are as fixed and immovable as the laws governing the rising and setting of the sun, and with a very little careful investigation, can be easily understood.
And we believe no similar amount of money or thought, will produce a greater amount of satisfaction than the increased health, strength and happiness thus secured.
- ↑ I mean merely pecuniarily in dollars and cents; the cost in physical pain and mental anxiety, of course, cannot be computed in dollars and cents.