Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    70/896 (page 54)
    schools for children, 400 to 500 cubic feet; and in schools for adults, 800 to 1000 cubic feet. Dr. De Chaumont says that those numbers, large as they seem, are too small, and that where ventilation can be carried out beyond those figures it should be done. The effects of lights in rendering the air impure must also be noted. Two hard sperm candles, or one oil lamp, consume as much oxygen and give out as much carbonic acid as one man; therefore, a man sitting in a room with two candles requires twice as much air as he does by day. One gas burner consumes as much oxygen, and gives out as much carbonic acid as four or five men; so that, not only have we to think of ourselves in ventilation, but also of ventilation relatively to the use of gas and other lights. What form of ventilation, last of all, can be carried out in our ordinary houses 1 Here let me remark, that in addressing you on the question of ventilation, it is needful to bear in mind that we cannot afford to pull down our houses and reconstruct them on sanitary principles. Too frequently, advice concerning ventila- tion is given on the absurd basis that everybody can rebuild his domicile in accordance with the most recent architectural and sanitary improvements. What I have to say about ventilation shall be said shortly and simply as applying to the houses of rich and poor alike, and as exhibiting easy ways of attaining, with some measure of success, an important end. Firstly, then, every room should have a fire-place to begin with ; and secondly, the damper of the grate should be continually up.- The fire-place is the natural ventilating shaft of our houses, as these houses now stand. I shall be told in all probability that if I counsel every person to sleep with their bed-room window drawn down from the top, the mort- ality from consumption will immediately rise; for there are too many people in this world abnormally afraid of draughts. In many cases I would say by all means prefer the draught and the cold, to the chances of disease from bad ventilation. Every window, then, should be pulled down (even an inch or two will suffice) from the top. Here is another plan of ventilation applicable to the houses of rich and poor alike. Eaise the lower sash of the window, say three inches, and insert a block of wood of that