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.

    781/896 (page 93)
    if the air blowing at 2 miles an hour, it will pass 2700 cubic feet per hour. Now remember, I am not advocating the benefit of draughts of air, and am not recommending people to sit in draughty rooms, but I am indicating various modes in which the air of a room, when it is occupied, may be rendered less foul by animal gases and vapours, and may be kept more sweet and more healthy. The application of any one of those methods in each particular case must be left to the intelligent judgment of the occupants of the rooms ; and it is sufficient for my purpose that I impress upon all the necessity for the recognition of ventilating principles, and to the benefits to be derived from the practical application of such. Where a room can have ready access to the outer air, then the insertion of Tobin's tubes, which communicate with the outer air near the floor of the apartment, and pass up the side of the room for about 6 feet, so that the entrance air may be thrown into the upper part of the room, will be found very beneficial. In large halls, such tubes or shafts for the entrance of pure and fresh air work exceedingly well, and lessen much the stifling atmosphere, without giving rise to draughts of air. Any system of ventilating an apartment is most materially aided by a fire in the room, and the great safety in the occupancy of many of our small houses lies in the fact that the living and sleeping rooms are one and the same, and that the fire required for daily wants does triple service in the cooking of food, the warming of the apartment, and the ventilation of the home. Whatever difficulties there may be in the ventilation of our rooms when they are occupied by sitters and sleepers, there can be none when morning time comes, and the husband goes to his work and the children to school. Then the intelligent housewife should see that the windows are thrown open, and if convenient the doors too, and let the fresh air flow in abundantly, not only to chase out the foul air, but to dry up the animal moisture, and burn up and oxidise the animal organic matters which have con- densed on walls and furniture during the evening. Beds should be well aired, the blankets and sheets being turned over. In- attention to such aeration of rooms and to the proper daily clean- ing of apartments and furniture leads to the encrusting of the walls, doors, and furniture, as well as bedding and carpets or rugs,