The influence of the atmosphere on our health and comfort in confined and crowded places / by Leonard Hill [and others].

Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The influence of the atmosphere on our health and comfort in confined and crowded places / by Leonard Hill [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/110 (page 9)
    windless, warm atmospheres, it is wholly against the health and vigor of the nation. The open fire and wide chimney ensure ventila- tion, the indrawing of cold outside air, streaky air—restless currents at dift'erent temperatures, which strike the sensory nerves in the skin and prevent monotony and weariness of spirit. By the old open fires we were heated with radiant heat. Ihe air in the looms was drawn in cool and variable in temperature, i he radiator and hot- air system give us a deadly uniformly heated air the vei} condi- tions we find most unsupportable on a close summer’s day. In Labrador and Newfoundland, Dr. Wakefield tells us, the mor- tality of the fisher folk from tuberculosis is very heavy. It is gener- ally acknowledg'ed to be four per 1,000 of the population per annum, ag'ainst 1.52 for England and Wales. Some of the Labrador doctors talk of seven and even eight per 1,000 in certain districts. The gen- eral death-rate is a low one. The fishermen fish ofif shore, work for many hours a day in the fishing season, and live with their families on shore in one-roomed shanties. These shanties are built of wood, the crannies are “ stogged ” with moss, and the windows nailed up, so that ventilation is very imperfect. They are heated by stoves and kept at a very high temperature, for example, 80° F. Outside in the winter the temperature may be 30° below freezing. The women stay inside the shanties almost all their time, and the tuberculosis rate is somewhat higher in them. The main food is white bread, tea stewed in the pot till black, fish occasionally, a little marg'arine and molasses. The fish is boiled and the water thrown away. Game has become scarce in recent years; old, dark-colored flour—spoken of with disfavor—has been replaced by white flour. In consequence of this diet beri-beri has become rife to a most serious extent, and the hospitals are full of cases. We (M. F. and L. H.) have found by our feeding experiments that rats, mice, and pigeons cannot be main- tained on white bread and water, but can live on whole meal or on white bread in which we incorporate an extract of the sharps and bran in sufficient amount. Recent work has shown the vital impor- tance of certain active principles present in the outer layers of wheat, rice, etc., and in milk, meat, etc., which are destroyed by heating to 120° C. A diet of white bread or polished rice and tinned food sterilized by heat is the cause of beri-beri. The metabolism is en- dangered by the artificial methods of treating foods now in vogue. As to the prevalency of tuberculosis in Labrador, we have to con- sider the inter-marriage, the bad diet, the over-rigorous work of the fishermen, the over-heating of, and the infection in, the shanties.