Dust and its dangers / by Mitchell Prudden.

Prudden, T. Mitchell (Theophil Mitchell), 1849-1924.

Date:: [1890], ©1890

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dust and its dangers / by Mitchell Prudden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

23/146 (page 5)

or woollen-dust or tobacco-dust, etc., are apt to become victims of more or less well marked pulmonary affections, which are to be found fully described in systematic treatises among the so-called diseases of occupation. It is not with these exceptional places nor with the special conditions which belong to them that we are now concerned, but with the conditions under which both well and sick peo- ple of all classes are placed, especially in cities, and more particularly when in-doors. Nor shall we occupy ourselves here to any consid- erable extent with the inorganic ingredients of dust, but more especially with those living components called micro-organisms, be they either bacteria or moulds. I purpose, in the first place, drawing upon the results of various old and recent studies, to indicate the sources of the living germs which form such an important part of the dust of in- habited regions, the ways in which they get disseminated in the air, and their general de- portment as they are driven hither and thither by the winds, sway poised in the still air of quiet places, or settle slowly to the ground.