Health of Towns Commission : minutes of evidence given by Joseph Toynbee ... on scrofulous affections and their causes.

  • Toynbee, Joseph, 1815-1866.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health of Towns Commission : minutes of evidence given by Joseph Toynbee ... on scrofulous affections and their causes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    13/28 (page 11)
    Description of a Ventilator for the Poor. that the outer orifice should be flush with the wall of the ^irtment, and tlie inner one enter chimney. These tubes are kaally from 4 to 6 inches in jth. At the orifice entering the Jim there is either a plate of per- BJted zinc or a piece of fine wire- Irrk ; from the upper and back part Ivwhich hangs a piece of ORlinaiy or oiled silk, which acts as a Jwe so as to allow the warm and vitiated air to pass up the jrmney and prevent any smoke from entering the room. lave you considered that the apparatus you have introduced fight be further improved, to attain the desideratum of a cheap B'f-acting ventilator with air that is warm as well as fresh ?- lave certainly considered that it might be improved, and that it 1 be improved when attention commensurate with tlie great rtance of the subject is given to it, and a certain amount of ther experience is had upon it. iWhat is the expense of the ventiiarors now successfully used ? For each window-ventilator, and the expense of fixing it, is for each chimney-ventilator, and the expense of fitting it, 3s. ae expense would be less if the houses did not lie so far apart, 11 if more were put in at one time. llf a neighbourhood of several hundred houses were ventilated oonce, what do yon conceive would be the exj^ense? 1 expect tt one-half of the present expense. \Wliat have you observed of the effects produced by these means ventilation? 'The effect on the health of the patient, I have ^served, is to accelerate the cure and to alleviate the symptoms sas to give great comfort to the patient. The general observa- nn of the inhabitants, as well as the patients, is, that the room is much more comfortable and airy the smells from the abscesses } very disagreeable, anrl in close rooms sometimes insupportable, le people remark that the ventilation has carried away the smells II purified the place. They have frequently said that they have ten in so much better spirits since they have had these ven- ators, and have always been most grateful for them ; they have een been more thankful for the ventilators than for the flannel (Id bread and milk. I am now continually applied to by the 'ends of those whose rooms have been ventilated to bestow upon em a similar boon. In one at No. 8, Duke-street, Grosvenor- luare, I commenced with one ventilator to a room, and, on the qierience of this one, and the praises given of it by the patients, i inmates of the other rooms applied to me for ventilators. I ' ve put ten ventilators there on the stairs and landing, and the tole of the people there express a very high sense of the comfort ey have expcriencetl. In the first room the smell was so bad 'St I could not enter into or remain in it, unless the windows were J. Toynl)eo