A popular treatise on the warming & ventilation of buildings : showing the advantage of the improved system of heated water circulation / by Charles James Richardson.

  • Richardson, Charles James.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A popular treatise on the warming & ventilation of buildings : showing the advantage of the improved system of heated water circulation / by Charles James Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    29/162 (page 17)
    V VENTILATION OF BUILDINGS. 17 about a gallon every minute. Air is likewise the principal supporter of combustion, by which bodies burn; a fact which is proved by the increased brilliancy with which fires burn in fine, frosty weather, when the atmosphere contains a greater quantity of oxygen. If a glass jar is placed over a lighted candle, that candle will' only burn until the oxygen contained in the air within it is consumed; when that ceases, the flame will immediately expire. The important end the oxygen, or vivifying spirit, is destined to fill in the animal economy, as the means of respiration, renders the necessity of our being supplied with this support of life in its due and uniform proportion, very apparent. Its deterioration, by flame, causes us to feel a sense of great oppression and suffocation, and we could not survive in an atmosphere deprived of it. The exhilaration of our spirits on a fine frosty day, when the air is cool, fresh, pure, and invigorating, over one that is humid and moist, proves that there exists a greater quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere of the first than that of the other. Our health is generally most perfect by the sea-side, where the oxygen abounds in the greatest purity. Thus, however desirable it may be, that we should be surrounded by a warm temperature in our apartments, it is, at least, equally necessary that the air so heated should be pure and whole- c