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ShciY ^XiQ 
 
 Toronto Pi 
 
 Reference 
 
 THIS BOOK MUST NOT SE 
 
 ., > 
 
V- 
 
 ^^•>e! n/ ji) \/ r 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 YEN TIL ATT OK; 
 
 PELIVERKI) ItCFORS TUB 
 
 COBOURG 
 
 tt^wm/ ln\Mh 
 
 ON 
 
 MONDAY EVF.NING, FEB'Y 22, 1858. || 
 
 »Y 
 
 HENRY RUTTAN, 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 »---x--^"^-^-«'"<«"^ 
 
 C OBOURO : 
 
 I'RINTKD AT ThiB •'« CoBOURG SUN " OFFJCt. 
 
 1858* 
 
 :/M; 
 
 '9«i4 ««>«««#) 
 
 >wjj*«'2r3j*Mf»»j*tj 
 
s 
 
 fl '' 
 
 Si; 
 
 -.< 
 
 
LECTURE 
 
 ; 
 
 • 
 
 OH 
 
 VENTILATIOl^; 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 COBOURG 
 
 Mttimu' inlikk. 
 
 ON 
 
 MONDAY EVENING, FEB'Y 22, 1858. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY RUTTAN. 
 
 <l^ l^a'^^^V^^^^^t^t^^l^t^*^^ % 
 
 
 C B U R G « 
 
 PRINTED AT THE « COBOURO SWi '' OFFICE. 
 
 1858^ 
 
 / 
 
 y.^- 
 
i^- rf- 
 
 
 r ' 
 
 H?^^'--^ I 
 
 / 
 
 ||iUN22 1923 
 
 t 
 
 
 • * . 
 
 •^ :. 
 
 
 s? 
 
 if 
 
 I 
 
L E C T IT R E 1 
 
 t' 
 
 ■•"f 
 
 4 
 
 Some twenty years ago circumstan- 
 ces of a melancholy nature occurred 
 in this neighborhood, no less than the 
 death by consumption of five young 
 women of one family within the space 
 of two years. These beWg connex- 
 ions of my own I was of course much 
 alarmed, and instituting enquiry into 
 the cause, 1 discovered that notwith- 
 standing it was as well kept a house 
 as in the country, foul air was the 
 cause. 
 
 In addition to a damp cellar under' 
 the house in which the family lived, 
 the floors both up and down stairs 
 were covered with woolen carpets. 
 
 I have been, ever since this period, 
 unremitting in my endeavours to de- 
 vise means by which we may avoid 
 living as we have done and are now 
 doing, surrounded day and night by 
 this pestiforous fluid — and by which 
 means our children at least may e»? 
 cape its ravages. 
 
In the prosecution of rny labours, 
 
 which 1 have carrisd on to the very 
 
 utmost of my power an.I abilities, 
 
 weak and poor as they have been, in 
 
 the face of every discouragement short 
 
 ofopposit,on,Ihave, after the lapse 
 
 of about thirteen years, placed upon 
 
 a firm, and, I trust, a ikiiing foun^ 
 
 tioBf, a system of ventilation by which 
 
 our houses and schools, as well as oth- 
 
 „L I 'fu"°"^'' "'^y ^' "^e ^ame time, 
 and by the same process, bo rendered 
 comhrlably warm in winter, and 
 copiously supplied with pure air, to 
 the entire exclusion of the filthy at- 
 mosphere, in which we have been 
 obliged to live, and which has been 
 so prolific of disease. 
 
 i}.FA°'^° "?^ P^r** °^ "^^'""^ I speak, 
 the discussion of this subject of Ven- 
 tilation was confined chiefly to books 
 and treatises, and, therefore, not gen- 
 erally accessib:e »o the public, but as 
 wealth, luxury, and indolence have 
 brought in their train their natural 
 consequences disease and death so 
 providentially have ways been open- 
 ed by means of devoted men, and the 
 
 p^ss,tliat_i„formationof the actual 
 state of things has become accessible 
 to the masses, and, consequently^ a 
 
 1 
 
 ■"'•"""^'—iTrii ail 
 
labours, 
 the very 
 
 abilities, 
 been, in 
 lent short 
 he lapse 
 >cl upon 
 
 founda- 
 >y which 
 11 asotli- 
 ne time, 
 endered 
 er, and 
 
 air, to 
 Ithy at- 
 'e been 
 s been 
 
 ' speak, 
 3f Ven- 
 > books 
 ot gen- 
 hut as 
 have 
 latural 
 ith, so 
 open- 
 id the 
 actual 
 ssible 
 
 } 
 
 ' 
 
 desire for knowledge upon the sub* 
 ject promoted. 
 
 In awakening this desire, I have 
 the satisfaction of believing that I 
 have contributed my share, and trust 
 that with the blessing of providence I 
 may yet be permitted to see the day 
 when our Architects and Mechanics 
 will be compelled so toconstruct our 
 dwellings, and school houses at least, 
 as to arrest the further progress of this 
 awful disease, which is so increasing 
 in frequency and virulence, that un 
 less checked, itwill, ere long, become 
 absolutely epidemic in its charac- 
 ter. 
 
 It would, indeed be a libel upon any 
 intelligent community to suppose that 
 being once convinced that a remedy 
 for this great scourge may be had, its 
 members would not immediately take 
 measures to escape it ; and my en- 
 deavour to-night will be to persuade 
 you that the prevention, at least, of 
 this disease is possible, and in order 
 to do this, as it is a professional ques- 
 tion as well as a practical one, and, 
 moreover, as a prophet hath no hon- 
 our in his own country, I shall make 
 no apology for drawing largely upon 
 professional men, in order to prove to 
 
i 
 
 you by competent \vitnes8e«» ih^ 
 
 aJl w?o have nn ,°"^'' know (which 
 deeply felnhlf V "''^'^e should 
 
 tyffo^di;e'd"a;tT;ssiir?- 
 
 sustenance here i«<hn, r.» °"'" 
 
 >vhichcanSr':'-':'iY?r'^ 
 that we onnnr^f o • ^"^ further 
 
 icaiTh^rirrsr'iSf '''r 
 
 vene His laws whhfmp^^n^ '"p"""" 
 ishment will a« r^^w, • T j- ?^' *^""- 
 contravendon L f, '^'"^^ ^°"°^^ ""is 
 
 day's observati-on hit fh^' ^-""^ "^"^^ 
 
 FoofrTa/tTbr^bifht &'''' 
 
 the understand I nrf P^^^^^^ home to 
 
 knowre'd"Sj'!'h'-'"''^'"?^'^^'^-« ^- 
 the mSrefin hand' ',h " ^'•°t«hat in 
 imoure «;, , .f "d— the breathing of 
 
 S s, ^^e Tre no? " ^^"-g^ -d 
 laws offfim V.K °V'^°"''^^'''^'"& the 
 
 supplied u^'a^^^Xr'r-^'r!'^ 
 
 ont sustenance— bv^fi! material for 
 i"ue wajis this ocean of at- 
 
 L 
 
•«> the po- 
 
 't only rxe- 
 >w (which 
 ^gJy read 
 ^ve should 
 ' Ahriigh- 
 ^ ior our 
 Ma/ only 
 d further 
 the phys- 
 I contra- 
 Y' Pun- 
 low this 
 ^e as in 
 m every 
 true as 
 -e, and I 
 trongest 
 ome to 
 ^e truth 
 
 we ac- 
 that in 
 ling of 
 fgs and 
 ng the 
 itifully 
 rial for 
 mt by 
 i of at- 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 mosphere provided expressly for this 
 purpose — I admit that it is neces- 
 sary that we should have houses to 
 dwell in, but then, inasmuch as we 
 have been endowed with reasoning 
 faculties, by which, notwithstanding 
 these walls, we may have a full sup- 
 ply of this precious material, and 
 have made no use of these faculties, 
 we are virtually "guilty of the law." 
 Until we so construct or adapt our 
 dwellings as to make them breathe — 
 that is inhale pure, and exhale foul 
 air, we can never expect health. 
 
 It may seem strange to you that not- 
 withstanding all my labours and ex- 
 ertions, there are yet only 5 or 6 Ar- 
 chitects in the Province, and, I may 
 add, in the world, who can be en- 
 trusted with building for Ventilation, 
 and I am happy to say that one of 
 these is a resident of a neighbouring; 
 Town. 
 
 Having made these necessary pre- 
 liminary observations, and feeling 
 that, notwithstanding my desire to 
 avoid becoming tedious to you, I 
 shall be obliged to draw largely up- 
 on your patience, I proceed at once to 
 the subject. 
 
Ventilation is of twn lr;«^ n* 
 
 any ordin«r,.;l r^y^^a the means of 
 
 ri™o„ by „.,„„,„„»•» "»• cr. 
 
 >.neou, „, „,„., vSlill 1 if "• 
 lied m. Thi, ivoald „ViS ^ "" 
 
 PV the timo ^/- ,V' ^^*^^i occu- 
 
 Chan cs and nrnnt/^ i "^^^"^ ^o me- 
 fore whom, ^a? somi r^f ° ""'j^' Ke- 
 shan have much tZuTTn 1^^' ^ 
 fiingit. i^»ea3ure m discus- 
 
i /■i$^'k 
 
 ^inds, Me- 
 
 or natural. 
 
 carried on 
 
 as that in 
 
 ons,andin 
 oth in Eu, 
 
 leVentiJa- 
 i^eans of 
 ^lachinery 
 le Steam 
 
 while to 
 ' minute 
 ?ntilation 
 ^g its op- 
 means of 
 
 that its 
 ^e ques- 
 ^, it is, 
 hat car- 
 
 •esent to 
 h spon- 
 t is car- 
 ^ occu- 
 le .iture, 
 sting to 
 to me- 
 »Jy, be- 
 ime, I 
 
 liscus- 
 
 9 
 
 There are three general heads, un- 
 der whrch the whole subject of Ven- 
 tilation may be arranged for consid- 
 eration. 
 
 1st. The necessity of Ventilation. 
 
 2nd. 1 he reason why we do not ven- 
 tilate. 
 
 3rd. The modus operandi, or man- 
 ner and means by which Ventila- 
 tion may be carried out. 
 That which I have deemed the most 
 useful for this occasion is the first 
 head, viz : The necessity ol Venti- 
 lation. 
 
 How wonderful is the order of Pro- 
 vidence that that material, which is 
 the most necessary and precious to 
 the animal and vegetable creation, 
 should be supplied in the greatest 
 abundance ! It has been well said 
 that whilst one can live several days, 
 som'^times weeks— without food, no 
 one can live three minutes without air. 
 Mr. Jackson of Edinburgh says. — 
 " The atmosphere is an invisible, ae- 
 riform fluid, which Avraps the whole 
 earth round to an elevation of about 
 forty-five miles above the highest 
 mountains. This great ocean of air, 
 as we may call it. is far frnm 
 
 VkO i 11 Of 
 
ff I 
 
 ill 
 
 ■ 
 
 10 
 
 «ea it is m^st dense t' ^'^"^ °^ 'h« 
 °f the pressure above ''°»^''^q"ence 
 
 tfiw is it at the he! Jhf r ^^^ ' ^"^ so 
 
 as for instance atVh^ °^ ""'^^ """es, 
 
 Blanc one of the Alt T'^i* "^^fonl 
 
 as there performed wft'h''' ^'^^'^ing 
 
 ty. Beyond tW i^ ^ ^?'"^ clifficul! 
 
 density ^ofXSreiX^ '^^^''^^ 'he 
 ^«ii, and at the eJev./- "^^. ^^ ^in^in- 
 ty-five miles is bl wT, "^ ^^ont for- 
 " So dense are the f *«™inate. 
 portion to the hio^her i! • '''^'' '"^ P'o- 
 one half of th" tnr 'T°''^' 'hat the 
 below t.he he St of :? ''°^^ ^^ ^« i« 
 other half bein^ exLn^'^ •'"'^'«' *he 
 "7 of upwarls ofCf''j'«,f vol- 
 I have thought ;, ^ lilies.'' 
 
 before you in fh! "f"^"««^ 'o brin^ 
 t"de of this ocean T^ """^SnU 
 «f'ength, in which wel- ^'^'"^ ^°d 
 ^^ny in the middle of h'' '"^ ^'^^ 
 century, are i^noram nf .^ "'"^'^^"th 
 ^hieh we maf rv^?, ^^ the means by 
 advantages ^ ^"^ ourselves of iti 
 
 th«t i' ^^ ^"''^ '''ear" says n^ o • , 
 ■♦^«'«oc.etyiseo„struc,Ton'':-if 
 
'onghont its 
 ^vel of the 
 ^nsequence 
 
 ^S) or in any 
 ^y the air 
 se ; and so 
 ifee miJes, 
 ^it of Mont 
 breathing 
 le difficul! 
 
 eights the 
 to dimin- 
 abont for- 
 -rminate. 
 J in pro- 
 that the 
 ^^ air is 
 i^es, the 
 
 o a vol" 
 
 s." 
 
 to bring 
 magni- 
 h and 
 ^fi yet, 
 ^teenth 
 ans by 
 ' of its 
 
 Reid 
 rrone- 
 
 U 
 
 ous principles, as erroneous, indeed, 
 as the architectural arrangements and 
 structure of the houses of its mem- 
 bers. Both are built up without refer- 
 ence to health. It is also clear that its 
 
 Bacred destiny must yet be fulfilled, 
 although it is now on the wane, and 
 tending to what would seem its final 
 extinction. It must therefore be in 
 its destiny to be regenerated, and this 
 is now evidently practicable. Many 
 causes of degeneracy have been point- 
 ed out by late writers. Plans have 
 been suggested for the removal of 
 these causes, and many of them have 
 been removed. This is cheering, 
 but still, men, women, and children, 
 and even the loweranimals, are year-, 
 ly dying by millions for want of fresh 
 air, and many other causes ; but the 
 increase of those cause?* has hitherto 
 more than counterbalanced the suc- 
 cess of any attempts that have been 
 made to remove them. Though the 
 thread of human life is nearly as ex- 
 tended as /ormerly, it has become 
 alarmingly more tiny and delicate; 
 and more easily snapped ; and 
 though the human species have rapr 
 icjly increased in numbers, their phys- 
 

 12 
 
 and the great hu\ Z ^^' 'g^orant, 
 tic ; but itTs a, h "^.'"^'^'y apathe- 
 
 ing that a Ve^oTution /" '^''^' ''^^^'- 
 
 exertions, ho^^e4 w.Tk"'°"^' '^'^'^ 
 
 ail legal ^naS; inliltiT'''''^ 
 iess the neonlp n^/ "'enective, un- 
 
 will notdo „nl ""u^"'- This they 
 the benefit ofloT "^'^ "''derstanj 
 tfJese thev w^l Measures, and 
 ""•il they^ am .7* ""derstand 
 cated physicaHv /,''"''ated— edu- 
 educat^dTn e£„:J"^t*^'J '"^^aJly, 
 ligiously, or in fh^! ^', ''"''^'^d «- 
 
 ed to appreciate pure JtT ^''P'^*" 
 until they have feame 1 ' '*""I^«™Ple, 
 
 stood its value P Th 'fi !"^ '""^'''■ 
 secured, the v^nff '"' ''"i^ *« be 
 
 pined.isli^reir/bylTelr''^ 
 
 S^'aJ^t^';.?^^^!!!'^ Jhe e„4y 
 
 ' '•-• '-'^^ iiivincibie for- 
 
i;Mi#tl'; 
 
 ^e almost as 
 
 ^n of socie- 
 ^t of all its 
 their exer- 
 ^ ignorant, 
 ty apathe- 
 '^id, cheer- 
 ^mQ,nt has 
 ^tions, and 
 3 useless, 
 -tive, iin- 
 This \hey 
 
 nderstand 
 ^rcs, and 
 
 nderstand 
 [ edu- 
 
 niorally, 
 'ated re- 
 3d physi- 
 e expect- 
 'X:ample, 
 under- 
 ep to be 
 d to be 
 feet sys- 
 'anatory 
 d mind, 
 ten per- 
 
 energy 
 >le for- 
 
 13 
 
 titude, warlike spirit, and chivalry of 
 the olden time : to attain to this en- 
 ergy without the wickedness and 
 vanity, to which, when perverted, it 
 gives rise. Then would we have 
 gained the material out of which to 
 elaborate a structure of society, of 
 body and mind as perfect as is pos- 
 sible in our temporal state. Then 
 would we be in the fair way of achiev- 
 ing the sanatory regeneration of the 
 human race. Then our bodies, our 
 minds, our houses, our cities, our 
 communities, our whole social fabric 
 would be, in the course of being, re- 
 built on a sure foundation. 
 
 " it has pleased the Author of 
 nature so to constitute man that his 
 body is dependent on the materials 
 with which he is surrounded for 
 nourishment and support, and in- 
 fluenced by a number of agents, 
 which never cease to modify the tone 
 of his constitution throughout the 
 whole period of his existence. They 
 not only affect his animal frame, but, 
 from the manner in which the living 
 spirit is associated with the corporeal 
 tenement in which it dwells, they 
 equally influence his mental faculties. 
 ^I'i^^eir just operation is essential to 
 
I 
 
 14 
 
 all the functions of life; but their 
 undue, or unequal action, though not 
 so exfreme as to cause death, may 
 Jay the foundation of bad health and 
 give rise to morbid impressions unfa- 
 vourable tothe developementof pow- 
 er, activity, and accuracy of thought 
 
 Zi ^IT , '^'"""S *''=«<'' heat, 
 iight, and electricity in all their 
 
 changeful and fluctuating movements 
 are ever modifying his sfnsations, at 
 times communicating a buoyancy. 
 elast,city,and gaiety of feeling,Vhich 
 he can scarcely repress : while on 
 other occasions he becomes the vic- 
 tim of the fatal influence which they 
 produce upon his system. 
 
 But no agent exerts a more con- 
 tinuous power on man than the at- 
 mosphere by which he is surrounded. 
 There is nothing, perhaps, that pre- 
 sents a more wonderful combination 
 of properties than is manifested in 
 he endless variety of purposes which 
 1 leaves, ,n respect to*^ his own 
 frame as well as in reference to the 
 general economy of nature. He de- 
 pends upon it for the breath of life -- 
 It lorms the great 'onh„u,,» ..,•*„... 
 Which all other nourishment ]::^ 
 
15 
 
 - y 
 
 but their 
 fi, though not 
 death, may 
 health, and 
 3ssions unfa- 
 nent of pow- 
 Y of thought 
 those, heat, 
 all their 
 : movements 
 nsations, at 
 L buoyancy, 
 eling, which 
 ■ while on 
 es the vic- 
 vvhich they 
 
 more con - 
 lan ihe at- 
 urrounded. 
 , that pre- 
 >mbination 
 lifested in 
 )ses which 
 his own 
 nee to the 
 • He de- 
 i of life.— 
 
 it issubori* 
 
 dinate, and without which death im- 
 mediately ensues. 
 
 Noi only does the air act continu- 
 ally whenever it presses on the sur- 
 face of the body ; it is even brought 
 into contact with the blood within 
 the innermost recesses of the lungs, 
 where its renovating action purifies 
 the vital fluid before it returns to the 
 heart from which it circulates in a 
 living stream to every part of the bo- 
 dy; producing a never ceasing circle 
 of chemical changes, so longas there 
 is life to sustain its movements. And 
 if we count the number of respira- 
 tions made in a minute, they will be 
 found in general to amount to twenty, 
 so that, upon an average, we draw 
 upon this great magazine the atmos- 
 pliere for nourishment and support no 
 less than twelve hundred times every 
 hour during the w^hole period of our 
 existence. 
 
 Nor has nature been more profuse 
 in the supply of that aerial fluid 
 with which we are surrounded, than 
 careful in the means adopted for its 
 efficient application. The interior 
 surface of the minute cells of the 
 lungs iittS been calculated to present 
 an area about twenty times greater 
 
(I I' I 
 
 1!! 
 
 16 
 
 than the surface of the body • •orhiU 
 the sanguiferous system ince'ssln Iv 
 
 of the frame to the heart as uniformTv 
 as It IS propelled, that it may Sn 
 be renovated by the free drauK 
 
 fh^'S^t^^^^^-'^^y-hS'b;' 
 
 The external surface of the bodv 
 
 tC£ to'tr"°"°°^ «^ great import 
 tance to tha mamtenance of a sound 
 aud s rong constitution, thou|h they 
 
 tent^o, «T""P!f ^ to a grefter ex^ 
 tent, ior a time, than the function of 
 
 Secttg^^^^^'S Z 'T^'T^y 
 
 sensih,%Spirrttrtre''stt- 
 ou ceasing its invisible agency 
 unless when urged by extreme^hea^' 
 or other cause, into inordinate action 
 or suppressed by some in/uriou in-' 
 fluence that tells speedily uronthl 
 
 rS""-- "^^^^.-holf sEJS 
 multhn-i V" '■^^"'y penetrated by a 
 multitude of pores, through which 
 
 whi^ii^XVds^S?^''^^^'^^ 
 in the lung^ ^'''^'^' ^""^'Sy 
 
 po-Jndt:'±!',7?,^-3"'--.-m- 
 "ital air and-;^.g- 1 '^^ZTucl 
 
17 
 
 body ; while 
 1 incessantly 
 m every part 
 as uniformly 
 
 n^ay again 
 3 draught of 
 
 inhaled by 
 
 of the body 
 reat impor- 
 
 of a sound 
 hough they 
 
 fifreater ex- 
 function of 
 nimedately 
 ation of in- 
 inues with- 
 ■e agency, 
 reme heat, 
 late action, 
 jurious in- 
 
 np^n thfe 
 
 surface of 
 rated by a 
 gh which 
 icy to that 
 er energy 
 
 ■ is a com- 
 ^ygtJu, or 
 a» which 
 
 will not support life. It is the oxy- 
 gen which vitalizes the blood, and re- 
 moves all its impurities by contact 
 with it in the lungs. The use of the 
 nitrogen is mainly to dilute it, as, if 
 oxygen alon • weie breathed, the vi- 
 tal force would be so much accelerat- 
 ed that the system wouM speedily 
 give way, and death would soon fol- 
 low. 
 
 The lungs, as has been said, are 
 that principal apparatus by which the 
 air is brought in contact with our 
 blood. In each of our lungs there 
 are one hundred and twenty millions 
 of air-cells, and every time breath is 
 drawn in, the air passes down and 
 fills these little air-cells. On the 
 other hand, the blood is always going 
 and returning to and from these air- 
 cells which compose the lungs ; and 
 in the short space of time that it re- 
 mams there only a moment — it is en- 
 tirely changed in its appearance and 
 character. That is, it comes into 
 these air-cells of the lungs impure, 
 and of a purple colour fron the veins 
 and alter having been submittpd to 
 the action of the air, goes oat cf ttie 
 lungs red, pure, and brigiit through 
 
 the arteries. The arteries immedi- 
 2 
 
1 !' 
 
 ately distribute again to all partis of 
 the system the purified blood, which 
 as It goes through the system, im' 
 parts warmth, strength, and life ; and 
 DV the time it is poured into the veins 
 on Its return course, it becomes quite 
 dark femd impure again, 
 ' The substance which makes th6 
 blood dark and impure, and which it 
 IS the btismess of the oxygen to re- 
 move, is carbon, known in a more 
 lamihar form as charcoal. The pro- 
 cess of breathing or respiration is, 
 then, nothmg more, in simple Ian- 
 guage, than exposing this carbon to 
 the oxygen, and burning ft, as we 
 burn charcoal, in a furnace; and 
 Professor Liebig has estimated that 
 m the process of respiration, carbon 
 equivalent to fourteen ounces of char' 
 coal, is burned within a man daily 
 whicn is the source of animal life 
 Now It must be remembered that 
 ivhen we bum charcoal, the gas 
 thrown off in its combustion is car- 
 bonic acid gas, a very deleterious air; 
 and this IS precisely the gas, which, 
 produced m a like manner, is thrown 
 off from the lungs. 
 
 ^ « =.-.^ «..x«^.«^ii^ -- viiicn we ureatiie 
 IS healthy,then - it is compo^ 
 
 S^3 
 
to all part« of 
 blood, which, 
 ! system, inl- 
 and life ; and 
 into the veins 
 3ecomes quite 
 
 h makes th6 
 and which it 
 oxygen to re- 
 fi in a more 
 li. The pro- 
 Jspiration is, 
 simple Ian- 
 is carbon to 
 g it, as we 
 rnace ; and 
 imafed that, 
 ion, carbon, 
 nces of char- 
 L man daily, 
 mimal life, 
 nbered that 
 )al, the gas 
 tion is car- 
 leterious air; 
 3^as, which, 
 sr, is thrown 
 
 vve breathe 
 is compo- 
 
 Id 
 
 ed of oxygen,or vital air,diluted with 
 a sufficiency of nitrogen, or unwhole- 
 some air, to reader it salutary. But 
 as the oxygen, after having been 
 through the lungs, has been taken up 
 J and combined with the carbon of the 
 I blood; what remains must be nitro- 
 gen and carbonic acid gas. And 
 such, actually, is the air thrown off 
 continually from the lungs — a mix- 
 ture of two unwholesome and poison- 
 ous gases. 
 
 We may hence learn the vital ne- 
 cessity of having a continuous supply 
 of fresh air for sustaining the healthy 
 action of the human system ; but to 
 illustrate this point still further, let us 
 trace the respective operations of air 
 and food in sustaining life. 
 The time occupied in preparing food 
 for nutrition, by means of the process 
 termed digestion, varies with differ- 
 ent articles of diet, but probably is 
 never less than two, and in many in- 
 s ances extends to six or eight hours. 
 For this purpose a long and manifold 
 process is necessary, having several 
 distinct steps, and employing a num- 
 ber of separate and complicated or- 
 gans ; and even then the'food is not 
 completely changed into blood, but 
 
r^\ i 
 
 VI I 
 
 m 
 
 S3 yet only chyle. Again, fresif sup- 
 plies oi food are required not more 
 than three times, and frequently only 
 twice a day. But how different is 
 It with the atmosphere in these par- 
 ticulars ! Air is no sooner inhaled 
 than its work is begun ; and so rapid 
 IS Its agency on the blord, that tha 
 inhalation of pure air is followed 
 almoBt immediatelyby the exhalation 
 ol the same air degenerated, and 
 twenty times in a minute, the blood 
 requires an additional supply of oxy- 
 gen, without which the body suffers. 
 Secondly-~We observe that the di 
 gestive apparatus possesses the high- 
 ly valuable, and very necessary,pow- 
 er of separating the /latritious from 
 the innutritious part o^ :7ig food. 
 
 This is one of its most strikino- 
 peculiarities. No such power of dis^ 
 crimination, however, is given to the 
 process of respiration. The action 
 ol the gases inhaled upon the blood 
 circulating through the lungs is di- 
 rect, immediate, and positive. If an 
 innocuous gas is taken in with the 
 air, the lungs have no power of sep- 
 arating them; nor, if it be a poison- 
 ous gas, is there any power to deprive 
 it cf its injurious properties. ^ ^ ^ " 
 
 iNf 
 
fain, fresif sup* 
 ired not more 
 frequently only 
 »w different is 
 J in these par- 
 Booner inhaled 
 
 ; and so rapid 
 >lord, that tha 
 r is followed, 
 the exhalation 
 eneraled, and 
 w/c, the blood 
 supply of oxy- 
 
 body suffers, 
 ve that the di 
 ?sses the high- 
 ecessary,pow- 
 itritious from 
 -''K food, 
 most striking 
 power of dis- 
 s given to the 
 
 The action 
 on the blood 
 lungs is di- 
 ►sitive. If an 
 
 in with the 
 >ower of sep- 
 be a poison- 
 
 ties» 
 
 21 
 
 Thirdly, as regards the length of 
 lime that a person may exist without 
 any additional food, it is believed to 
 be about three weeks at the longest. 
 Recovery at the end of this time may 
 not be possible ; but still, life may be 
 continued this length of time, at the 
 last, burning more and more feebly 
 in its socket. On the other hand, 
 exclusion of atmospheric air from the 
 lungs for the space of three minutes^ 
 will generally cause the death of the 
 individual. 
 
 But another, and perhaps a still 
 more important, circumstance is here 
 to be noted. 
 
 1 he food v/hich we take into the 
 stomach undergoes several changes, 
 before it is prepared to enter the cir- 
 culation. These changes effected, it 
 is finally poured directly into the 
 'current of blood, as the latter is about 
 entering the right side of the heart 
 'prior to its being transmitted through 
 the lungs. It is not yet blood : it has 
 neither the colour, nor the chemical 
 properties of that important fluid. It 
 has yet to be sanguified, and for this 
 final step the air is necessary. For 
 this purpose the chyle is brought, in 
 the lungs, in contact with, and is 
 
m 
 
 acted upon by the air in these organs. 
 Without contact with the air and 
 denying a vital principle from it, it 
 would still be unfitted to nourish the 
 the body. U^ therefore, we consider 
 digestion to comprehend every step 
 which the food undergoes, I'rom mas- 
 tication to Its conversion into blood 
 we must consider lespiration as the 
 last acto/ digestion, and essential to 
 It. Without the former, the latter 
 lunction would be useless; for our 
 lood, unable to undergo the final 
 change necessary to sustain lilo, and 
 lo replace the worn out material of 
 the body, would become a burden- 
 without the atmosphere the food 
 would be useless. 
 
 One more fact will complete the 
 contrasts of these two sources of an- 
 imation. Rare are the circumstances, 
 ejcce^ among the destitute, in which 
 a sufficiency of food cannot be ob- 
 tained ; the danger with most persons 
 IS on the other hand. Repletion and 
 surteiting are far more frequent, and 
 productive of great danger. But we 
 cannot inhale the air in too great a 
 quantity, or of too pure a quality, 
 ifte lungs, as well as the stomach, 
 ^re ft digestive aDDamtno T^k« ^ 
 
i 
 
 «u 
 
 I these organs, 
 the air and 
 >le from it, it 
 o nourish the 
 , we consider 
 nd every step 
 esy j'rom mas- 
 •n into blood, 
 ration as the 
 i essentia] to 
 5r, the latter 
 It'ss; for our 
 go the final 
 tain lilo, and 
 t material of 
 e a burden J 
 •e the food 
 
 complete the 
 lurces of an- 
 cumstances, 
 ite, in which 
 nnot be ob- 
 uost persons 
 epletion and 
 equent, and 
 3r. But we 
 too great a 
 '' a quality, 
 le stomach, 
 
 I 
 
 digests food, the other air, but heu 
 the analogy terminates, and one of 
 their principal distinguishing charac- 
 teristics is, that while the stomach 
 may possibly admit a quantity of food 
 sufficient to paralyze its powers, and 
 even suspend digestion altogether, 
 such is the construction of the lungs, 
 that by their own self-adjusting power 
 they under no circumstances will 
 admit a greater quantity of air than is 
 required for the due ventilation of the 
 blood, the sanguification of the food, 
 and for the performance of the other 
 numerous and important processes to 
 which resoiration is made subser- 
 yient. 
 
 When pure, air can do no harm in 
 the greatest amount than can possibly 
 be inhaled. On the contrary, the 
 greater the amount of food eaten, the 
 greater is the amount of air required 
 to sanguify it ; and, whether much or 
 little is eaten, the more thoroughly 
 and rapidly it is aerated, the better. 
 
 With a knowledge of these differ- 
 ences between food and air ; of the 
 vast personal, social and economical 
 benefits derivable from the inhalation 
 of the latter in uniform purity ; of its 
 
ill 
 
 24 
 
 altainment ; and the ease with which 
 its impurities may be avoided ; is it 
 not oat; of the most surprisin:^ facts 
 in the history of civilization, tliat so 
 much di^c)^l^()rt and ill-health, so 
 premature and so great mortality, as 
 are directly attributable to them 
 should be permitted ? 
 
 We are now prepared to compre- 
 hend with some degree of clearness 
 the vital nature of the relationship 
 which animals sustain to' the atmos- 
 phere. We proceed, therefore, to 
 direct our attention to the necessity 
 of a sufficient supply of it. We 
 dwell at the bottom of an immense 
 ocean of air, which presses on all 
 sides of us with the weight of tons. 
 It accompanies us into all places, 
 unless by special arrangements we 
 contrive to bar it out. All that the 
 infinitely wise Creator can do He 
 has done to supply us with this first 
 and highest of earthly necessities. 
 The birds of the air, the beasts of 
 the field, and even the savages of the 
 Igrest, in their open wigwams, enjoy 
 the blessing in all its b6unty and ful- 
 
 ^^r* a- ^*^*^*^^<^ ^«^ alone cuts hira- 
 se,i off from the beneficent and all 
 invigorating atmosphere by retiring 
 
25 
 
 tse with which 
 voided ; is it 
 irprisin:^ fads 
 :!ition, that so 
 ill-Iieahh, so 
 t mortality, as 
 ^le to them 
 
 id to compre- 
 ; of clearness 
 i relationship 
 o the atmos- 
 therefore, to 
 the necessity 
 
 of it. We 
 an immense 
 resses on all 
 ight of tons. 
 5 all places, 
 gements we 
 All that the 
 
 can do He 
 ith this first 
 
 necessities, 
 le beasts of 
 Lvages of the 
 warns, enjoy 
 mty and ful- 
 )ne cuts him- 
 ient and all 
 
 by retiring 
 
 into air-tight chambers, and using 
 the same gases over and over again, 
 as if they were a taxed commodity, 
 and he a miser. The volume of the 
 atmosphere is so vast that its com- 
 position is not sensibly disturbed by 
 the breathing of animals : the pro- 
 portion of oxygen remains unchanged 
 if respiration is performed in the open 
 air, while the carbonic acid expired, 
 instead of accumulating about the in- 
 dividual, is dissolved away by the 
 great law of gaseous diifusion. But 
 when a person enters a house, or an 
 apartment surrounded on all sides by 
 solid walls, impenetrable to the air, 
 the case is totally changed ; the im- 
 mense expanse of the atmosphere is 
 suddenly reduced to the dimensions 
 of a few hundred cubic feet ; the al- 
 terations now produced by breathing 
 are rapidly communicated to the 
 whole mass of air ; and the person 
 occupies towards it an entirely new 
 relation ; one, however, over which 
 he has absolute control. 
 
 The first effect of respiration on the 
 air is the withdrawal of its oxygen ; 
 and as the proportion of this life-sus- 
 taining element decreases, the bodily 
 powers become less and less active, 
 
J 
 
 I 
 
 
 i f 
 i 
 
 \i\ 
 
 
 i i 
 
 -4a 
 
 26 
 
 sirnply from want of their propt 
 stimulus. The natural proportion o^ 
 oxygen in pure air being adapted to 
 the most perfect performance of the 
 animal machinery, a reduction in this 
 amount, however slight, must be at- 
 tended by a corresponding depression 
 of the vital energies. We have seen 
 enough of what takes place within 
 the bodily organism to understand 
 that the condition of health depends 
 upon the harmonious and balanced 
 play of opposing forces. If the 
 equilibrium of these forces is disturb- 
 ed, the vital machine goes wrong ; it 
 is an unnatural, a diseased state. A 
 slight diminution in the proportion of 
 respired oxygen does not produce any 
 immediate or palpable malady, but it 
 certainlydisorders the natural healthful 
 operations of the system to a greate) 
 or less extent, and thus lays it open tc 
 the assaults of disease. It undoubt- 
 edly prepares the soil, and sows the 
 seed, which in due time, springs up 
 into that luxuriant harvest of ail- 
 ments and complaints, which is reap- 
 ed by the victims of modern refine- 
 ment and civilization. 
 
 But it is not alone deficiency of • 
 oxygen which renders air irrespirable; 
 
27 
 
 their propt 
 proportion o^ 
 g adapted to 
 mance of the 
 luction in this 
 , must be at- 
 ng depression 
 *Ve have seen 
 place withiij 
 
 understand 
 ilth depends 
 md balanced 
 es. If the 
 3es is disturb- 
 )es wrong ; it 
 5ed state. A 
 
 proportion of 
 t produce any 
 lalady, but it 
 ural healthful 
 
 1 to a greate) 
 ays it open tc 
 
 It undoubt- 
 ad sows the 
 , springs up 
 •vest of ail- 
 rhich is reap- 
 Ddern refine- 
 
 leficiency of 
 irrespirable; 
 
 the presence of an undue quantity of 
 carbonic acid is a still more potent 
 cause of mischief. It has been 
 shewn by experiment that an animal 
 may be kept alive in a limited quan- 
 tity of air until a very considerable 
 exhaustion of oxygen takes place, 
 proi'ided the carbonic acid be re- 
 moved as fast as it is formed ; but if 
 it is suffered to accumulate, death 
 ensues much more speedily. In con- 
 firmation of the general statement 
 made in the preceding paragraph it 
 has been found that the baneful 
 effects of carbonic acid upon the sys- 
 tem increase with the deficiency of 
 oxygen. From experiments on in- 
 ferior animals it has been concluded 
 that three per cent, of carbonic acid, 
 if formed from the oxygen of the air, 
 would prove fatai to man, while, 
 with the natural quantity of oxygen, 
 twice or even thrice the proportion of 
 carbonic acid might not produce 
 death. 
 
 The proportion of carbonic acid in 
 
 expired air is from four to eight per 
 cent : and it is assumed by different 
 experimenters, that this, together 
 Wtb the other exhalations of the 
 

 28 
 
 body, contaminates from seven to ten 
 cubic feet of air per minute. 
 
 The excretion of carbonic acid from 
 the lungs is less complete in propor- 
 tion as the external air is already- 
 charged with this gas ; and, in like 
 manner, as the amount of oxygen in 
 the inspired air diminishes, it exhibits 
 less and less tendency to diffuse 
 through the cell membranes into the 
 blood. Watery vapour, too, which is 
 excreted both by the lungs and skin, 
 evaporates sluggishly, if the air is 
 loaded with moisture, so that the 
 moment the normal condition of the 
 air is disturbed, there arises a ten- 
 dency in the air itself to augment the 
 evil Not only is there an excess of 
 carbonic acid in the air, which is in- 
 jurious to the system, but it operates 
 to prevent the escape of what is con- 
 tinually produced. Not only is there 
 a deficiency of oxygen in the inhaled 
 air, but what there is enters the body, 
 as it were, with reluctance. 
 
 The stupefying eifect of dark venous 
 blood poured through the brain is, 
 unhappily, most apparent where there 
 is expected to be the highest degree of 
 mental activity. Churches, public 
 assembly rooms, and schools are but 
 
 ^•■. 
 
m seven to ten 
 nute. 
 
 3onic acid from 
 ete in propor- 
 air is already 
 ; and, in like 
 t of oxygen in 
 hes, it exhibits 
 cy to diffuse 
 ranes into the 
 ', too, which is 
 mgs and skin, 
 
 if the air is 
 , so that the 
 ndition of the 
 
 arises a ten- 
 o augment the 
 > an excess of 
 ', which is in- 
 ut it operates 
 f what is cou- 
 rt only is there 
 in the inhaled 
 Iters the body, 
 Qce. 
 of dark venous 
 
 the brain is, 
 nt where there 
 ;hest degree of 
 irches, public 
 ihools are but 
 
 i 
 
 29 
 
 rarely provided with due means of 
 ventilation, by which a constant sup- 
 ply of pure air may be maintained ; 
 and the inatlentioii, dulness, and 
 sleepiness of both auditors and pupils 
 are but the natural and inevitable 
 consequences of taking into the system 
 a vitiated and poisonous atmosphere. 
 It would be wise for preachers who 
 are annoyed with drowsy congrega- 
 tions, and teachers who are afflicted 
 with pupils of dull and stupid intellect 
 to inquire how far the stimulus of 
 pure air might be advantageously 
 substituted for scolding in the one 
 case, and flogging in the other. 
 
 " The tender, sensitive child, that 
 ffits, and reads, and learns its lesson^ 
 and perhaps cannot learn its lesson, 
 and stupefies, and pines, and droops, 
 and, may be, has scarce a smile to 
 expect when its task is done, yields, 
 day by day, to its atmospheric foes. 
 Day by day, and as it loses the first 
 start of life, its lungs play less freely, 
 its blood circulates more slowly, its 
 chest contracts, its limbs pine away, 
 its digestion is disordered, and before 
 long it is delivered to the tender care 
 of the man, who gallops in every other 
 day, sends whole bales of pills ana 
 
I 
 
 draughts, and soon settles, either the 
 We, Of the constitution of his unfor- 
 tunate patient." 
 
 . \i ^t needless to urge that danger 
 to the health and life of the child is 
 so remote and trifling as to be unwor- 
 thy of consideration. The reverse is 
 ine case. Instances are constantly 
 occurring m which the seeds of dis- 
 ease are gathered in the close and 
 polluted air of the schoolroom, to 
 ripen into premature decay and an 
 
 to'^inP^- f ^^"^ parents can call 
 Ih ^ un^}^ frequent complaints of 
 their children, whohave returned from 
 school nervous, feverish, and pale, 
 labouring under a depression of spirit^ 
 and lassitude of body. A passing 
 emotion (,f compassion may have at- 
 tributed their appearance to confine- 
 ment and study, neither of which is 
 productive of evil effects, unless ac- 
 companied by an atmosphere rank 
 with impurity, habits opposed to 
 cleanliness and health, a loss of com- 
 lort and necessary recreation. 
 
 In a schoolroom with a low- oe jling 
 contracted in size, with no means ff 
 ventilation, and containing from fifty 
 to one hundred f^rhcU^. ♦!,„ ..•_ "./ 
 
 haled by each differemp^i;' of lungt 
 
 ^4iu; 
 
Jttles, either the 
 ►n of his unfor- 
 
 rge that danger 
 of the child is 
 as to be unwor- 
 
 The reverse is 
 are constantly 
 le seeds of dis- 
 
 the close and 
 schoolroom, to 
 
 decay and an 
 arentscan call 
 complaints of 
 5 returned from 
 sh, and pale, 
 ssion of spirits 
 A passing 
 
 may have at- 
 3e to confine- 
 r of which is 
 its, unless ac- 
 osphere rank 
 
 opposed to 
 1 loss of com- 
 Ltion. 
 
 a low ceiling, 
 
 no means of 
 
 ng from fifty 
 
 ^i tfic uir, ia- 
 
 air of lungs, 
 
 I 
 
 31 
 
 loses its vital properties, and becontes 
 loaded with the impurities and in- 
 fections thrown off from numerous 
 systems. To contend that there is in 
 this no danger to the health of the 
 child is folly. The temporary 
 symptoms of suffering may disappear 
 with the habits which occasioned 
 them, but the tendencies to disease 
 linger in the system, awaiting some 
 predisposing cause to develope their 
 active strength, and hurry their victim 
 to an untimely grave. 
 
 These statements are no exaggera- 
 tion of the evil, for exaggeration is im- 
 possible. Still, the evil is allowed to 
 exist, because its first manifestations 
 are not in a form that appals and terri- 
 fies. Its approach is slow and insidu* 
 ous J the operation proceeds in secret. 
 At length, a frame racked with pain, 
 -ya mind debilitated, unbalanced, or 
 diseased,-powers of usefulness or en- 
 joyment destroyed,are the fatal results 
 of a few years spent in a crowded 
 and heated schoolroom. For all these 
 consequences the prevention is of the 
 simplest character. The most ordin- 
 ary mechanical contrivance will 
 ensure pure air to the child, and the 
 natural result, health and happinesi 
 
33 
 
 to the man. That is a cosily econ- 
 omy, which sacrifices sound health, 
 and disregards tlie danger of dis- 
 ease, to save a trifling expense. 
 
 To those inducements to thorough 
 ventilation, which spring from its 
 relation to health, ought to be added 
 an abhorrence of the very idea of 
 drinking into our systems, over and 
 over again, the foul and disgusting 
 emanations of putrescence and dis- 
 ease, which often load the air in 
 crowded rooms. To a mind really 
 refined there is little pleasure in the 
 reflection that each breath inhaled 
 has mad« the tour of a large assem- 
 bly, forming an acquaintance with 
 every rotten tooth and ulcerated lung 
 that it contains. We instinctively 
 shun the approach of the dirty, the 
 squalid, and the diseased, and use 
 no garment that may have been worn 
 by another. We open sewers for 
 matters that offend the sight or the 
 smell, and contaminate the air ; we 
 carefully remove impurities from 
 what we eat and drink, filter turbid 
 water, and fastidiously avoid drink- 
 ing from a cup that may have been 
 Pjessed to the^ lips of a friend. O^i 
 wAc Qtiier hand, we resort to place* oi 
 
 mm I 
 
! a cosily ccon- 
 s sound health, 
 danger of dis- 
 g expense. 
 nl8 to thorough 
 spring from its 
 jht to be added 
 Q very idea of 
 5tems, over and 
 and disgusting 
 cence and dis- 
 )ad the air in 
 
 a mind really 
 pleasure in the 
 breath inhaled 
 a large assem- 
 aaintance with 
 
 ulcerated lung 
 e instinctively 
 
 the dirty, the 
 Based, and use 
 lave been worn 
 3n sewers for 
 B sight or the 
 e the air ; we 
 ipurities from 
 ik, filter turbid 
 ly avoid drink- 
 nay have been 
 a friend. On 
 onto place* gf 
 
 33 
 
 assembly, and draw in'o our mouths 
 air loaded with effluvia from the lung«, 
 skin, and clothing of every individual 
 in the promiscuous crowd — exhala- 
 tions offensive, to a certain extent, 
 irom the most healthy individuals : 
 but when arising from a living mass 
 of skin and lungs in all stages of 
 evaporation, disease, and putridity — 
 prevented by the walls and ceiling 
 from escaping, they are, when thus 
 concentrated, in the highest degree 
 deleterious and loathsome.'* 
 
 It has been estimated that the lungs 
 of an adult will exhaust about 800 
 cubic inches of air per minute. — 
 Well, think how fastidious most per- 
 sons are about drinking from the same 
 vessel used by another person — or 
 partaking of food from the same dish, 
 or with the same knife and fork. 
 Nay, it is looked upon with absolute 
 disgust. Yet all this is cleanliness 
 itself compared to the air we breathe 
 in many of the churches, and court- 
 houses, lecture and concert rooms, 
 and even dwellings ; but especially, 
 and above all, in railway cais. Con- 
 sider the number of decayed and dis- 
 eased lungs, the reservoirs of rum and 
 
 tobacco juice, the innumerable labor- 
 3 
 
i ( 
 I t 
 
 3i 
 
 atorie::;oi' mercury, ipucuL', &c., to bcr 
 tound in a crowdod promiscuous as- 
 sembly, and tlirou<i:li which channels 
 the air you breathe must have passed 
 once, if noi half a dozen times ; take 
 Jnto account, also, the vast quantity 
 of insensible perspiration passing from 
 the body of each person present, (in- 
 cUuling, like enough, legions of the 
 great unwashed,") and then wonder 
 how you can reconcile yourself to in- 
 haling such life-destroying, soul-sick- 
 ening impurities; and if, after sub- 
 mitting yourself a voluntary victim to 
 this, you do not consider it the most 
 lackadaisical of qualms to iK^siiate 
 about eating and drinking from the 
 same dish as your neighbor? 
 
 Out of hundreds of instances men- 
 tioned in the public prints of deaths 
 by loul air, and familiar to most of 
 the audience, I will only mention two 
 or three of recent occurrence : 
 
 "A melancholy instance of the sad 
 effects of breathing air that ha& been 
 respired over and over again occurred 
 (a few week^ago) in the New York 
 city prison. Five persons intoxicat- 
 ed were committed on Sunday even- 
 
 \r\cr curt A l^rt]r,^^l •— II ^ 
 
 A'.^j -^iivs. iv^iicu Up 111 one ceii. Ua 
 Monday morning it was found that 
 
proiniscuou'i as- 
 wliich channels 
 iiist have passed 
 •^en times ; take 
 he vast quantity 
 lian passing ironi 
 son present^ (in- 
 i> legions of the 
 md then wonder 
 le yourself to in- 
 ^y'ln^y soul-sick- 
 nd if, after sub- 
 untary victim to 
 ider it the rnost 
 ims to h(isilate 
 nking from the 
 ighbor? 
 
 instances men- 
 )rints of deaths 
 liar to most of 
 ily mention two 
 arrence : 
 ance of the sad 
 r that has been 
 again occurred 
 the New York 
 sous intoxicat- 
 i Sunday even- 
 i one ceil. On 
 as found that 
 
 '■1 
 
 35 
 
 three of the five had ceased to breathe. 
 Enduring all the tortures ol slow grad- 
 ual suffocation, they died as horrible 
 a death as those who perished in the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta. Yet the ar- 
 chitect of the prison, and the officer 
 who made the committals, are not a 
 whit more culpable than thousands of 
 other architects, and tens of thousands 
 of those who listen with a feeling of 
 holy horror at the recital of such bar- 
 barous atrocities." 
 
 "Almost as soon as a speaker in a 
 crowded assembly begins he usually 
 
 finds his head full and throbbing 
 
 bad air is at work with him. The 
 blood that is going to his brain has 
 not been purified in his lungs by con- 
 tact with good air. Jt has a dimin- 
 ished stimulating power. It is the 
 first stage of suffocation. For all 
 that is done with a man that is hung 
 is to prevent the passage of air down 
 his wind-pipe. And if you corrupt 
 the air till it ceases to perform a vital 
 function, it is the same thing in ef- 
 fect; so that a publie speaker in a 
 
 a prolonged species of atmospheric 
 hanging. 
 
3€ 
 
 Ihe peopSe, too, in^amly i*?rew 
 jjgns of cfistrL>¥».^ Women hegm to 
 Ian themselves; children grow ^Jeepv 
 and well-fed men grow red and som-* 
 nolent. How people can consent to 
 breathe eacfe ather^s breatb over and 
 over again we eottki nevei imagine. 
 1 hey would never leimn to a hotel 
 where they wwe put into a Bed be! 
 tween shejts that bad been useti bv 
 travellers b-fote them; no,tbeymu^l 
 have fresh sheets. They would ^ 
 without fooct mUrer than eat off a 
 plate used by several before them."* 
 
 We now adduce a few instances of 
 recent oceurreaee of the destructive 
 effects oi foul air. It is tme they are 
 ot an aggravated character, but thev 
 will serve, on that account, the more 
 lorcibly to present to the mind the in- 
 jurious effects of inhaling less vitiated 
 •m OI GOfsrse, air which is slightly 
 vitiated will not produce such instan- 
 taneous or pernicious effects as air 
 which is very m^ch so. Still, the 
 delicate health, and nuwierous ail- 
 ments of thousands, mav be directly 
 traced to this source. Bad air, in a 
 mitigated form or in small quantity 
 may be a comparatively slow poisonl 
 But iSj nevertbelessj sure. 
 
^orriejn begin to 
 ren grow *Jeepy» 
 )\v red and sorr>- 
 
 can coBtsent to 
 breatb over and 
 never imagine, 
 etiaija to a JioteJ, 
 
 i»to a Bed be- 
 i been nsed by 
 ; »o, they musi 
 riiey would go 
 than eat off a 
 before them.'" 
 ew instances of 
 the destructive 
 
 is tme they^are 
 aeter, but they 
 Jount, the more 
 he mind the in- 
 tng less vitiated 
 hich is slightJy 
 ce such instan- 
 
 eifects as air 
 
 so. Still, the 
 
 nunierous ail- 
 
 lay be directly 
 
 Bad air, in a 
 mall quantity,, 
 y slow poison^ 
 re. 
 
 i7 
 
 It is strange that down to tlie j^res- 
 cnt period of the woild no warning 
 fiote ha« been given as to the Upas 
 tree which we nurture within our 
 Own dwellings I never jet knew of 
 a healthy family m adwelliMg stand- 
 ing over a wet eellaa-. Wet or dry, 
 no unventilaled dwellmg should have 
 a cellar under it. Jt is always the 
 ffeceptecle of the material forming 
 the chief food of the family^—meat, 
 ifish, butter, vegetables, and various 
 other edibles, of course in a state of 
 <lecomposition, producing night and 
 day, without any intemiission, an 
 'enormous quantity of malaria. This 
 becomes combined with the carbonic 
 acid gas and anuiiomiacal substances 
 3ying around the huilding, and by 
 their gravity f^ettling into these cel- 
 lars. Thus is formed a <mass of pu- 
 tridity beyond all comprehension de^ 
 «tructivo. And whenever this mase 
 'of matter is the least xJistu^bed, which 
 is tlic case every day, it penetrates all 
 edibles, through the floors and up the 
 staircases, and thus, not only are all 
 the edibles served up saturated with 
 j>oison, but the whole building is fill- 
 ed with a deadly atmosphere. 
 
 The Galena Jefersonian gives the 
 
i 
 
 1 
 
 33 
 
 follo\ving lamentable picture of mor- 
 taJily ,n one house, Lamar'« stage sta- 
 tion fifteen miles east of that oitjr on 
 the Chicago road. It also incident- 
 aiiy touches on the cause of Dr 
 Ladd s illness and decease. Surelv 
 such cases will eniorce caution upon 
 those whose cellars are liable to foul 
 air and dampness, itsavs: 
 
 an Jt, t^, /" ^" "^''^ ^^''- Lamar 
 and four children, tv.-o servant girls 
 
 two stage drivers, the bar-keeperf and 
 
 a man employed, until yesterday ma- 
 
 kmg coffins for the deceased. ^After 
 
 nine had died in the house, which, by 
 
 and airy situations in tlie country the 
 remaining members of the family 'and 
 the friends who kad come to Said 
 removed to the barn across the s reet 
 
 Hvfnl :,,-n''-,^^'"^''' 'ind his only 
 burgh and the place is abandoned, 
 on T^. . ' °^ S'i""«b"gh, who died 
 
 aUenSn'? '^^'"°"""^' ^^«* °"^ °f 'he 
 attendmg physicians. A friend of 
 
 S in ^' ■ '^ '^°"'' *t«S:e-dri vers, who 
 ^-led m ,j g^y within ^ f^^ ^^ 
 
e picture of mor- 
 gan] ar's stage sta- 
 LSt of that city on 
 It also incident- 
 e cause of Dr. 
 decease. Surely 
 rce caution upon 
 are liable to foul 
 it says: 
 
 are Mrs. Lamar 
 ■/o servant girls, 
 [ bar-keeper, and 
 il yesterday, ma- 
 eceased. After 
 louse, which, by 
 3 most beautiful 
 the country, the 
 
 f the family, and 
 ome to their aid, 
 Lcross the street, 
 ere seized, and 
 *, and his only 
 one to Shulls- 
 s abandoned. 
 >urgh, who die^'d 
 , was one of the 
 A friend of 
 at Shullsburgh, 
 or, if not also 
 ?e-drivers, who 
 1 a few days— 
 
 _s 
 
 two at the Bradley House, and two 
 at the City Hotel— were in the habit 
 of taking >:ome of their meals, and 
 f^pending their spare time, at Lamar's 
 house. 
 
 'J his extraordinary mortality isun- 
 ^^xampled. We hear that it is ac- 
 counted for by the condition of the 
 cellar beneath the house. The bot- 
 tom, it is said, was covered with wa- 
 ter in a putrid condition, in which 
 were floating cut pieces of meat, de- 
 cayed vegetables, and other refuse 
 that will gather in such places. — 
 Over this mass the meat consumed by 
 the family was hanging, and through 
 the accumulations upon it the disease 
 — whatever it may have been— is 
 supposed to have been communicat- 
 ed to the sufTerers. Let the warning 
 take hold of all, whose prenuses con- 
 tain the seeds of disease. 
 
 A similar circumstance occurred at 
 Craydon, in England, in 1854. An 
 epidemic appeared consisting of fo- 
 yer, diarhoea and dysentery— and all 
 this after the construction of a new 
 system of sewerage intended to im- 
 prove the sanitary condition of the 
 place. The investigation shewed 
 if-hat an important jcause of the epi-^ 
 
40 
 
 system of h! '''^"'^ '» ^ defective 
 system of drainage. The drain Dines 
 
 S ^-^^ i earthenware, an^ ^e! 
 sides being of too smail capacity for 
 
 ed' ?„r,r^ °^ ''"^'^ ^'^We to'^bep^our- 
 ed into them, were frequently beset 
 
 ^c CVt "' ^"•^"'nbenf earh 
 «c. In this way numerous stonoa' 
 
 f "bS'tt ^''•'"^ '^^"-d ♦hS"l 
 
 air behind them to be driven out at 
 the entrance of the pipes when wLer 
 was poured in *^ ^ " "^^ water 
 
 wetl^lXeTXt^nr? ' '^" 
 posed to be alaTe': :!£srS" 
 onmg in the National Hotelfnto 
 
 a hlt^Zf^''\^'- B^ohanan, was 
 f»,n '•i!."'^ '" '««8 '•'an tliree days 
 
 three h"unH"5 K^"^ ''^^^"ed. «St 
 
 p^pttrurroJi 
 
 Anothf ^^'^ "^'^ "' 1««« affectea. 
 Another instance is as follows: 
 
 « appears that several deaths 
 
ag of the houses 
 to a defective 
 The drain pipes 
 nware, and be- 
 laJl capacity for 
 able to be pour- 
 •equently beset 
 ;umbent earth, 
 nerous stoppa- 
 2aused the foul 
 J driven out at 
 •es when water 
 
 'peared a few 
 t first was sup- 
 i^holesale pois- 
 iotel in Wash- 
 Buchanan, was 
 lan three days 
 serted, about 
 having been 
 nieat and ve- 
 fie means had 
 bul air of a 
 ^uvia from the 
 The Presi- 
 ame near dy^ 
 less aifected. 
 3 follows : 
 veral deaths 
 
 41 
 
 have taken place in the ^aol for the 
 city of New York, called "The 
 lombs," these being principally of 
 drunken men, ^ho had been confined 
 
 l^iiTcfrn^^^f"' unventilated eels, 
 called "The five-day cells,- and that 
 
 the coroner^s juries had returned ver- 
 
 rnf. '•'"♦•f'^i] ^^'^'^^ "^^a^l^ from 
 intoxicati6n." 
 
 , " Last week six individuals, who 
 iiad been committed to prison on the 
 charge of drunkeune.ss, were crowd- 
 ed mto a wet, noisome cell, eleveft 
 leet square, having no means of ven- 
 tila ion but a diamond-shaped hole 
 ot two inches square, opening into 
 
 Onsl^'^' r^^^"^^ of \he p^rison. 
 On Sunday afternoon these six men, 
 neither of whom had been less than 
 two days m gaol, were put into the 
 cell at SIX o'clock. On visiting it one 
 hour after, one of them was'found 
 dead, and another in convulsions, 
 who was removed to the infirmary! 
 A ^second visit was made to the cell 
 
 fi^ -. • '^® inmates was removed 
 irom It m convulsions. These three 
 cases appear to have aflforded no 
 warning to the authorities of the pri- 
 
 son. who lockpfl nn ih^ k^l ...1^.* 
 
 "i' '"'^ iii/ic wiUi lis 
 
 %| 
 
42 
 
 remaining three vielims in jt, -who 
 were foiuicl dead npon opening it in 
 Ihe morning. A coroner's pry was 
 summoned, and returwed a verdict of 
 "died from the effects of drunk- 
 enness," in eacli ease, although the 
 deceased men had no liquor for 
 several days pr£;vious. 
 
 The Attorney General, not bein^ 
 contented with these verdicts, order- 
 ed the prisofa to be examined, and 
 Dr. Chilton, tJ.ie celebrated analyti- 
 cal chemist, was one of the commit- 
 tee of investigation. On entering the 
 cell m which the deaths took place 
 It was found to be quite wet, and filll 
 ed wjth carbonic acid gas, which was 
 streaming into the apartment through 
 a hole in the wall communicating 
 with one of the chimneys. Di\ Ch.l- 
 ^n filled several battles with the gas. 
 The Attorney General seat th« ease 
 before the Grand Jury, who have 
 made a presentation to the court set- 
 ting aside the verdicts of the Coroner's 
 Juries, and declaring the deaths of 
 the unlortunate sufferers to have tak- 
 en place from suffocation by inhalinc^ 
 carbonic acid g;>s. The Grand Jury 
 iiave also* presented thc^aol as anui- 
 
 ous U} the lives of those 
 

 as in Jt, -who 
 opening it in 
 ler's pry was 
 ed a verdict of 
 its of dmnk- 
 , although the 
 10 liquor for 
 
 al, not being 
 erdicts, order- 
 :amined, and 
 ated analyti- 
 
 the commit- 
 n entering the 
 is took plaee, 
 
 wet, and fili- 
 as, which was 
 ment through 
 mmunicating 
 's. Dr, Ch.l- 
 with the gas.. 
 §eat ihie ease 
 ^ who have 
 the court set- 
 the Coroner's 
 le deaths of 
 to have tak- 
 1 by inhaling 
 
 Grand Jury 
 raol as anui- 
 ives of those 
 
 consigned to it. As may be inia^n'n- 
 ed, these disclosures have created a 
 
 great degree of excitement in New 
 York. 
 
 u tF^^^ ,"^.^^ instance is as follows :-- 
 
 Death rom foul air in a Haiiway 
 
 carnage.'' '^ 
 
 Mr. G. Brent the deputy Coroner 
 for West Middlesex, held an inquest 
 yesterday at the Lord Wellington 
 Univorsuy Street, Tottenham Court 
 Koad, touching the death of an infant 
 aged ten months, named Thomas 
 Carr, who died in a Railway carriage 
 on the London and North Western 
 ime, under the following circumstan- 
 ce.- It appears that the grandmother 
 ol the child was travelling with it un- 
 der her charge. They were all night 
 on the road, and she never slept diir- 
 mg the whole time. Between eight 
 and nme o'clock on Sunday morning 
 the tram stopped at Camden Town 
 to collect the tickets, and, seeing the 
 child lookmg very pale and still, she 
 showed it to a medical man, who 
 happened to be in the uexS carriage, 
 when he pronounced it dying, and it 
 expired almost immediately after- 
 
 ♦ I — 
 
 wards, but so nnipthrilnof oK^ ♦.,„ 
 
 it was dozmg ofl'to sleep. In answer 
 
1., 
 
 41 
 
 ^ Ibe coToner tlie wi-tiiess stated that 
 the child was lying <tt her knees the 
 whole of the time ; one of the car- 
 nage windows was open; but it was 
 not incoHveialef^tly crowded ; there 
 were also lamps burning ^M the way; 
 tind she did not feel any inconveni- 
 ence herself. A medical gentleman, 
 who had mad« the post-mortem exami- 
 mation of tlie body, stat<ed that the 
 lungs were gorged with venous Mood 
 thereby propping suSbcatiosi irom toul 
 air. His opiuiion was that the de- 
 ceased, being m a delkate state of 
 health, the vitiated atmosphere ol the 
 •carriage, produced by the breath ot sa 
 many people, in addition to the com- 
 bustion l>y the lamps, would easily 
 «au9e death, although, probably, a 
 ^ealthierichild might have escaped. 
 
 \8 a further proof of the electa, 
 tslow, 'though sure, of this deadly poi- 
 son, carbonic a«id gas, which, being 
 heavier than the common air, is al- 
 ways lyin^ nearest the earth (and ol 
 course filling every cellar, or other 
 cavity) I have ascertained upon en- 
 tquiry, and the facts are susceptible of 
 the most irrefragable evidence, that 
 «iU our inuiau iiiucs — wmi^^i^ ..»^ 
 exception of a single individual— are 
 
45 
 
 stated that 
 knees the 
 of the ear- 
 but it was 
 led ; there 
 iMthe way; 
 mconveni- 
 gentleman, 
 rtem exami- 
 d that the 
 enoiasblood 
 m iiorn^ foTxl 
 hat the de- 
 late state of 
 sphere of the 
 i breath ofs© 
 to the cona- 
 ^oudd easily 
 probably, a 
 ^e escaped. 
 
 the €^eets, 
 g deadly poi- 
 vhieh, being 
 m air, is al- 
 iarth (and of 
 iar, or other 
 Led upon en- 
 msceptible of 
 ridenee, that 
 
 :4.u^iif fKiik 
 
 lividual — are 
 
 dl 
 
 more or lesn affected by pulmonary, 
 or cutaneous diseases, of which nine 
 out of ten ultimately die. We know 
 as a matter of fact, that these people 
 have, from tims immeiiK:>rJal, slept 
 upon, or near the surtace of the earth. 
 Now I should like to know to what 
 other cause than the inhaling the car- 
 bonic acid gas this mortality from 
 consumption can be attributed. It is 
 notorious, too, for the public papers 
 fuUydiscussedthe whole matter about 
 three or four years ago, that within 
 the Eastern Provinces there are a 
 people who are universally affected 
 with a disease which is called Ele- 
 phantiasis^ a species of Leprosy I be- 
 lieve, the details of whose misery are 
 unfit to be named before this audi- 
 ence. These people zill live or rath- 
 er burrow, under ground. 
 
 You see, therefore, that whether 
 slowly or rapidly, in one shape or 
 other, foul air taken Into the lungs 
 shortens our days, sometimes by a 
 slow process, sometimes by a quick 
 one, according to circumstances, but 
 whether slow or quick, its operation 
 is always sure and certain. 
 
 The New York Tribune^ a paper 
 whose opinions on scientific subjects 
 
16 
 
 are always entitled to great \yeiglit, 
 thus comments upon the functions oi 
 respiration. 
 
 "Our Lungs.— If v/e had an extra 
 life to live, with liberty to devote it 
 to such eftbrt as we deem most con- 
 ducive to human good, we should be- 
 gin by studying caiefully and thor- 
 oughly the chemistry of air, the econ- 
 omy of heating, ventilation, &c., and 
 thenceforward write and print tracts 
 or essays, and give lectures on the 
 general subject of air in its manifold 
 and vital relations to the life and 
 health of man. Since we cannot do 
 triis, we shall improve such opportu- 
 nities as may offer for diffusing just 
 ideas on this important subject. 
 
 ''The coroner's report of last week's 
 deaths in our city shews that seventy- 
 one of these deaths were caused by 
 consumption, thirty-two by infiama 
 tion of the lungs, twelve by conges- 
 tion of the lungs, six by whooping- 
 cough, twenty-one by croup, making 
 one hundred and forty-two deaths 
 (out of a total of four hundred and 
 thirty-six) by diseases of the organs 
 of respiration, not to speak of the 
 deaths by Typhus and Typhoid fe- 
 vers, and some others, which notori- 
 
17 
 
 ously liMve llieir source in jH\slih'iit 
 inhalations. These otiieial returns 
 I'ully justify an estimate based on re- 
 liable authority, that fuHy one-third 
 of all the deaths in this country, 
 which amount to nearly one million 
 per annum, are caused by diseases of 
 the throat and lungs. Jf we reflect 
 that no considerable proportion of the 
 deaths of infants are thus occasioned, 
 we shall realize that almost a moiety 
 of the deaths of adults among us are 
 caused by disorders of the organs >f 
 respiration. 
 
 "Is this frightful mortality inevita- 
 ble ? To affirm that it is were to im- 
 peach the wisdom and beneficence of 
 God. The lungs and their approach- 
 es are made to conserve life, and not 
 destroy it ; the atmosphere is benign- 
 ly adapted to their sustenance and 
 use ; but we, in our ignorance and 
 heedlessness, vitiate the air, and fill 
 the lungs with disease . Having done 
 this, we fly to drugs to cure evils to 
 which they bear no relation, and 
 [MDuring drugs into the stomach to cure 
 diseases of the lungs is, ordinarily, 
 just as sensible as the ancient folly 
 
 ..i- 1..: x_.-i . 1 .*' 
 
 v?i uppijiii^ uciicipiasms lo a sword m 
 
 order to heal a wound made by it on 
 
48 
 
 some individual, now, probably, sorns 
 miles distant. Having mn the round 
 of nostrums, from Sarsaparilla to Cod 
 Liver Oil, we discover that the pa- 
 tient gets no better, but is hurrying to 
 the grave; so we try quackery's last 
 shift, and pack him otT to Cuba, Ita- 
 ly, or the south of France, (in ail 
 which natives are dying of consump- 
 tion every day) where, jolted by trav- 
 el, injured hy exposure and bad 
 hours, and tortured by the absence of 
 family, friends, and home comforts, 
 he speedily dies, affordingour grand- 
 dames ' another confirmation of their 
 theory that consumption is esj-entially 
 and in'^vitably fatal." 
 
 " We have seldom met with any 
 gtatement in the w^ritings of medical 
 men on our present subject so satis- 
 factory as tha following extract from 
 a little work entitled "A practical 
 Treatise on diseases of the Throat 
 and Lungs by Robert Hunter, M. D." 
 The author says — 
 
 " The changes which take place 
 in the lungs are produced by the pre- 
 sence in them of a matter, to whicn 
 the name 'tubercle' has been given, 
 and which matter is secreted from 
 the blood. 
 
49 
 
 " Now if tubercle is the cause of 
 consumption, what is the cause of 
 tubercle ? Why is this substance 
 formed in the blood? These are 
 questions that have been frequently 
 asked, but never, I believe, satisfac- 
 torily answered. Yet this is the very 
 fountain of the evil. Until correct 
 views are entertained on this subject, 
 whatever success may attend the 
 treatment of consumption in individu- 
 al cases, we cannot hope to diminish 
 its prevalence. 
 
 In my opinion, there is but one 
 great cause of tubercle, and that cause 
 is a deficient supply of pure air to the 
 lungs. This deficient supply may be 
 caused by the most dissimilar influ- 
 ences. Persons employed in seden- 
 tary occupations, and those compelled 
 to keep the chest bent forward, re- 
 straining its movements, (tailors, shoe- 
 makers, and clerks,) are all particu- 
 larly obnoxious to consumption. 
 
 These, and similar occupations, not 
 only confine the chest, but they also 
 expose the system to other injurious 
 influences, to th*^ want of bodily ex- 
 
 
 CiiL'USo \>i 
 
 impure air. Exercise is necessary to 
 assimilate nutriment, and without it 
 
50 
 
 !:■ ! 
 
 there can be no vigorous health. Im- 
 pure air alone will brktg on consump- 
 tion in the soundest constitution. The 
 oxygen of the air we breathe regulates 
 our appetite, and, to the weight of a 
 grain, the nutriment that is built up 
 in the system. The chyle undergoes 
 its last vital change in the blood, and 
 that change depends on the perfect 
 performance of res|)iration, and on a 
 sufficient supply of pure r. When 
 respiration is obstructed jy disease, 
 the appetite fails, and the body wastes 
 away. When the air breathed is im- 
 pure the same thing takes place, the 
 face becomes thin and pale, the fea- 
 tures sharp, the respiration hurried, 
 and the appetite poor. Persons so 
 afflicted all die of consumption. No 
 constitution is proof against this in- 
 fluence. The strong man, who has 
 inherited a full development of the 
 chest, may, possibly, bear up under it 
 for a longer time than the feeble scion 
 of a consumptive family ; but he, too, 
 will fall in the end from the same dis- 
 ease characterised by the same stages 
 and symptoms, and ari&ing from the 
 . same cause. To those hereditarily 
 ,'*^ 'predisposed I yould say . Do not de- 
 
 kna'w V^^-k^-kniifirt ir/A1-|1> l^OfOTI 
 
 'jCLyccii, K^\y v<ClL&>^V 
 
 f «a nr hrnth- 
 
 I, £ *-«■ £ £ V Tw* ^ '^-' 
 
\ 
 
 ors, or sisters, or other kindred, on ei- 
 ther side, have falbn a prey to eon- 
 sumption. If your frame is delicate, 
 and your chest small, seek the open 
 air and regular exercise. Observe 
 what nature requires, be faithful to 
 her demands, and you may live to 
 bury half the strong men of your ac- 
 quaintance." 
 
 "We know this is the actual truth, 
 whatever may be the merits of the au- 
 thor's remedies or mode of treatment 
 for the diseases in question. Con- 
 sumption, and kindred diseases, are 
 not caused by " exposure" to the ca- 
 prices and inclemencies of out-door 
 weather, one-^enth so often as they are 
 by the infecting, debilitating, poison- 
 ous malaria of crowded assemblies, 
 and unventilated school-rooms and 
 bed-rooms. A youth «■« delicate" in 
 constitution, and deficient in stamina, 
 is quite commonly supposed to be,/or 
 that reason, fitted for a life of in-door, 
 sedentary occupation only, when, in 
 truth, his frailty of constitution, and 
 feebleness of muscle, afford the strong- 
 est possible reason for sending him 
 forth into the field, and rendering him 
 familiar— at first gradually and mod- 
 
 
 lilt 4|->J>1 r% m^ .^ , d I 1 
 
 vViiiJ liic UAU, iilV 
 
 piuiign, ana 
 
?*."X^ 
 
 / 
 
 I'i 
 
 50 
 
 all the implements of rugged, invfg^- 
 orating toil. A robust man may brave 
 for years the perils of confinement 
 within brick walls, and devotion to 
 sheer brain-work ; a feeble person is 
 almost certain to become speedily 
 their victim. But whether you are 
 Yobust or feeble, in health or sickness, 
 working with head or hands, you can-^ 
 not afford to work or play, wake or 
 sleep, sit or ride, where there is not a 
 copious supply of pure fre^h air." 
 
 The following observations by Hen- 
 jy McCorraack, M. D., a member of 
 fhe British Association for the Ad- 
 -rancement of Sciemce, will form a 
 suitable ccNocliisioii ta this part of our 
 subject t 
 
 " I desire to ptesent, in? a brief, per- 
 spicuous formi, the result of my inves- 
 tigations a» to the connexion of at- 
 mospheric imopwritie* with disease 
 Strictly speaking, there' is^ no natural 
 knpurity, except matoriMfi,, presumably 
 Ihe result of the decomposition of ve- 
 getable remains, aided by a certain 
 amount of warmth and moisture. — - 
 This it is which gives rise to the whole 
 tribe of periodic disease, from the 
 simple intermittent, or ague of tem- 
 perate climate*, to the destructive re- 
 
53 
 
 mittents of the Torrid Zone. Of these 
 4ast, Yellow Fever is a striking form. 
 The attempts made in recent, as Ir 
 iformer .year^, to ascribe it to infection, 
 have, in. my opinion, been unattended 
 with the slightest success. Putting 
 aside Typhus Fe.ver, with which we 
 must take vcare not to confound it^ 
 Yellow Fever is simjaly a setcof symp- 
 •toms induced by the resjjiration of air 
 arendered poisonous by the products of 
 vegetable decay. 
 
 We know, indeed, nothing of the 
 primary symptoms of smalUpox, mea- 
 sles, scai let-fever, plague or cholera, 
 but we do know that their severity is 
 frightfully aggravated, and their fre- 
 quency incalculably increased, by 
 crowding, want of ventilation, insuf- 
 ficient cleanliness ; m ^hort, by eve- 
 rything that renders ak impure and 
 stationary, a nur.seiy for the leaven, 
 or ferment, which, being taken into 
 the lungs, leavens the whole system,!, 
 and reproduces the complaint. 
 
 The number .©f .cases, in which 
 Typhus Fever ensues from casual 
 causes, as cold, wettings, over-effort^ 
 rather than infection, is comparative- 
 ly few. For practical purposes, m- 
 
 tflf»Pn it minrllf nlm^a*^ K^-,~«. J ^1_ 
 
'W 
 
 54 
 
 fever had no other source than infec- 
 tion. Nervous, relapsing, gastric, ty- 
 phus, typhoid continued, and essen- 
 tial fevers, so termed, are the same. 
 There is not, in fact, the specificity 
 about typhus, which has been assert- 
 ed. It is simply the result of dirt, 
 crowding, and foul air. There is, 
 however, the important distinction 
 between this malady and febrile ex- 
 anthema, that no degree of crowding 
 although it may aggravate, gives rise 
 to them,whereas the poisonous atmos- 
 phere from human contamination, car- 
 ried a certain length, is competent to 
 produce fever at any time. If per- 
 sons, not labouring under fever, by 
 reason of the impurities emanating 
 from their persons, be able so to poi- 
 son the atmosphere as to entail fever 
 ill themselves or others, it follows yet 
 more cogently that persons who do la- 
 bour under fever, shall thus reproduce 
 the complaint. In point of fact, they 
 do reproduce it, and thus it is that fe- 
 ver comes to abound. When the air, 
 however, is maintained perfectly pure 
 the fever poison either is not created, 
 or, if created, becomes so diluted, as 
 to prove insufficient to the production 
 of further mischief. If fever spread, 
 
55 
 
 then, it may fairly be taken for grant- 
 ed that there has not been a sufficient 
 observance of hygienic precautions. 
 The air has not been renewed, suffi- 
 cient purity has not been observed. 
 Such is the immensity of the mighty 
 ocean of the atmosphere, that it suffi- 
 ces lor the removal of every impurity, 
 if we only resort to the wise, yet sim- 
 ple precaution of instantly replacing 
 the portion that we consume. To 
 breathe a polluted atmosphere, when 
 we have it so completely at our dis- 
 posal to avail ourselves of that which 
 is unpolluted, is a monstrous error. — 
 It is as if one, who might have fnir 
 water from the spring, were to con- 
 sume soil and impurity instead. 
 
 The epidemics of the middle ages, 
 like the febrile and cholera epidemics 
 of recent Hmes, yield, I conceive, for- 
 cible evidence as to the truth of these 
 averments. The people in those days, 
 as much too often in these, lived with 
 little regard to the exigencies of their 
 position. There was no adequate 
 provision for personal or household 
 cleanliness—none for the introduction 
 of pure air into the dwellings. It is 
 not^ perhaps^ too much to assert that 
 these epidemics are hut another name 
 
56 
 
 Jqt a foul^ unrenewed atmosphere. 
 
 The product ion of typhus from the 
 effluvia of human beings plunged in 
 dirt and misery will not, indeed, en- 
 sue unless those effluvia be concen- 
 trated to the requisite degree of viru- 
 lence. Still these effluvia, coupled 
 with aerial impurities generally, are 
 not the less productive of other mala- 
 dies or diseased conditions, directly 
 ot indirectly calculated to shorten life. 
 And first and foremost of these condi- 
 tions are what are called phthisis and 
 scrofula. Phthisis, or ConsuHiption, 
 is merely tuberculous deposit, with 
 conditionally accruing inflamation in- 
 ternally,\vhile scrofula is tuberculous 
 deposit, with the like inflamation 
 externally. As tuberculous deposits 
 are most frequent in the lungs, it is to 
 these that the term consumption is 
 commonly applied. In other respects 
 the bowel s,brain,the bones and joints, 
 in short, the Irarae at large, are all lia- 
 ble to tuberculous disease. 
 
 Dyspepsia,or indigestion is so very 
 frequently the attendant of tubercu- 
 lous degeneration, as by many inquir- 
 ers to have been looked upon as its 
 necessary precursor. Confinemcmt, 
 a deteriorated atmosphere, want of 
 
sphere. 
 m the 
 ed in 
 5(1, en- 
 mcen- 
 
 viru- 
 )upled 
 y, are 
 mala- 
 irectly 
 ;n life, 
 condi- 
 ;is and 
 iption, 
 
 with 
 ion in- 
 culous 
 nation 
 jposits 
 t is to 
 Lion is 
 ispects 
 joints, 
 all lia- 
 
 \o very 
 bercu- 
 inquir- 
 as its 
 5m(;nt, 
 ant of 
 
 sufficient bodily effort, and more es- 
 pecially, the absence of full and free 
 respiration in the open air, together 
 with the consequent impairment of 
 appetite and digestion, are quite 
 enough, however, to account for the 
 concomitance of tubercle and dyspei>- 
 sia, without referring one to the other 
 in the order of cause and effect. 
 
 The habitual respirati(n of foul^ 
 unrenewed air, I look upon as the on- 
 ly -^al source of tubercle, including 
 urn r this designation both phthisis 
 nt scrofula. Jf an individual live 
 constantly, day and niirht, in the 
 apen air or in the air of equal purity 
 with that subsisting in the external at^ 
 mosphere^ he cannot incur consump- 
 tion. There are no consumptive 
 Gypsies or Bedouins, so long, at 
 least, as they preserve their abori- 
 ginal, out-of-door usages, or are not 
 subjected to confinement or ill-treat- 
 ment. Consumption from the re- 
 spiration of mineral dusts^' besides^ 
 its exceptional character, i»^ com- 
 paratively rare ; and even here an 
 atmosphere otherwise deteriomted is 
 among the deeiructiv^: agents* ac- 
 tively at work. As for hereditary 
 
 consnmntinn i^oiVinrK^/^iiAi »11.r^.. — . 
 
1 ) 
 
 58 
 
 fur the few Individaals born tubercu- 
 lous, and for the greater proneness, 
 under like circumstances, of those 
 sprung from diseased progenitors to 
 disease, there is no such malady. ^ 
 In-door pursuits are very nmcti 
 more frequently attended by consump- 
 tion than out-door ones. And were 
 it not for the atmosphere of the pesti- 
 ferous bed-room, crowded with occu- 
 pants, and destitute of every provis- 
 ion for the healthy renewal ot air, 
 those of the workina; classes, who lol- 
 low out-door occupations, would es- 
 cape very much better than they do.— 
 it may readily be imagined, then, that 
 when in-door pursuits are coupled 
 with foul air in sleeping-rooms, the 
 results must be doubly disastrous.— 
 la fact, they are so. 
 
 Short of atmospheric purity, con- 
 smmption is not less frequent in warm 
 climates than in cold. Intercurrent 
 pneumonia and pleuritis will be less 
 frequent, not so phthisis. Those ^yarm 
 climates, in which consumption is re- 
 ally less frequent than in cold, derive 
 llieir comparative immunity simply 
 from the people being forced by the 
 great heats to live more in an unpol- 
 luted atmx;sphere. If the inhabitants 
 
 ii 
 
59 
 
 of Great Britain and Ireland would 
 but consent, day and night, to live in 
 a pure untainted atmosphere, it would 
 put a total close to the ravages of con- 
 sumption. It is not sending people 
 to warm climates that averts or cures 
 
 consumption. 
 
 It is sending them to 
 
 pure air, in proportion as they are so 
 sent, that does so, and this only. To 
 confine consumptive persons in close, 
 heated apartments, is but to hasten 
 th« ravages of their disease. On the 
 contrary, they should live as much as 
 possible in the open air. Let us keep 
 the consumptive in pure, fresh air, 
 and we shall at once realise a Pau, 
 a Nice, a Madeira, better than any 
 Pau, or Nice, or Madeira, without 
 fresh air. And belter still, let us live 
 in a pure, unadulterated atmosphere, 
 or in air equally pure as the open, un- 
 adulterated atmosphere, and we shall 
 have no consumption whatever . It is 
 quite illusory to think of curing the 
 consumption by means of food, or even 
 medicine, without the amplest access 
 to the free, fresh air. An ounce of 
 oxygen is worth tons of fish oil, or 
 iodine, or any amount of wire air- 
 sieves for mouth or nostril, without 
 oxygen ! 
 
60 
 
 The dirt and sordes, amid whicfh 
 ithe poor so habitually live, bespeak 
 •sufficient condemnation . The senses 
 take alarm, and sympathy and horror 
 are in unison with our best judgments. 
 These monitors, however, are at fault 
 in the dwellings of the rich. Therc^., 
 jperfumes regale the nostrils, rich 
 •hangings solace the eye, Neverthe^ 
 iless, it is undoubted that atmospheric 
 impurity in the dwellitigs of the rich, 
 however it may fail to obtrude itself 
 ron the senses, is only inferior in viru- 
 ilence and destructiV^ness to what it 
 proves in the dwellings of the poor* 
 That it is so, let the dreary catalogue 
 rof person's of alLclassesxyearly swept 
 .away in these islands by consumption 
 •declare s" 
 
 Thus far Dr. McCormack ; extracts 
 rof whose opinions upoc consumptioa 
 I have just given you. 
 
 To guard you, however, against a 
 imisapprehension of him, I must re- 
 ?mind you that when he warns us 
 against hf*nfted rooms, and urges his 
 rconsumptively inclined patients to 
 keep out in the open air, he is speak- 
 ing of the English climate, not of a 
 
 jposterous to order any invalid out in- 
 
 h \ 
 
fa- the open air at that season in suclii 
 » climate as this. Here the air must 
 be brought to the individual, not the* 
 individual to the air. 
 
 Dr. McCormack, who read this pa- 
 per before the Association of whiclr 
 he is a prominent member, about five* 
 years ago, is the ftrst medical man- 
 who has ever had the boldness to at- 
 tribute consumption directly lo the ef- 
 fects of foul air^ confirming, in the 
 most ample manner, my own obser- 
 vations made, and without any medi- 
 cal knowledge, more than twenty 
 years ago. Not a shadow of doubt 
 need remain on the mind of any man- 
 that xoul air, cmd foul mr alone^ is^ 
 immediately or ren>otely the cause of 
 consumption',^ 
 
 But it is not malaria alone whiiih 
 causes consumption. Those recepta- 
 cles of d\x9t and filth, woolen carpets^ 
 are the chief cause. Every step we 
 take upott a woolen carpet, in the 
 best kept dHvelling house, sends a fog; 
 of dust to the very ceiling of the room, 
 and not on4y dust but myriads upon 
 Biyriads of particles of wool. So thatt 
 if our ordinary sight were equal to it, 
 
 Wft shnnlH r<»nrr»vi-l n nn^^^*^Jl 
 
 with perfect horror. A woolen carpet 
 
62 
 
 v/ill last about a dozen yoars, and 
 within that time our lungs will have 
 taken iii about three-fourths ot its ori- 
 ginal weight. What a pity that so 
 beautiful an article of furniture should 
 come to so ignominious an end. 
 
 Woolen carpets, brooms and dust- 
 incr brushes, should be banished Irom 
 every family. They produce and en- 
 tail upon every succeeding generation 
 greater mcrlality tb.an war or pesti- 
 lence ever did. No family can be a 
 healthy one where they are to crated. 
 Oil cloth coverings for cur floors, it 
 they must be covered, how much more 
 becoming in every respect. 
 
 They may, at first, cost a trifle more, 
 but they last longer, and the saving m 
 doctor's bills will much more than 
 balance that. But when we reflect 
 upon the amount of misery they will 
 prevent for generations unborn, who 
 that values health can hesitate to 
 choose between the two? A mop 
 and a pail of water every morning wi I 
 do in five minutes what with a wool- 
 en carpet will take Betty with broom 
 and dusting brush an hour; to say 
 
 .t • 1 A ^«« n>^rl foor nTin the 
 
 noiiiing aooLiL wcai aixv* i^.^^., • — 
 discomfort of the family. 
 
 Having now according to the best 
 
 
 I 
 
G3 
 
 mop 
 
 
 I 
 
 best 
 
 of my abilily, and llio lime at my 
 disposal, discharged my duty, it re- 
 mains for you, who are parents, to 
 discharge yours. Whether you will 
 hear, or whether yor will forbear, I 
 »hall feel that I stand acquitted. If 
 the testimony of the wisest and most 
 experienced men, both in Great Brit- 
 ain, and on this continent; if your 
 own experience, and every day's obser- 
 vation, will not convince you ;that the 
 breathing of an impure atmosphere is 
 the chief cause of the declension in 
 health of our children — of those, es- 
 pecially, who spend six or eight hours 
 every day within the soul-sickening 
 atmosphere of our schoolrooms, lay- 
 ing the foundation of ailments and 
 diseases, by which is entailed upon 
 the next generation a miserable, but 
 happily for them a short, existence — 
 J say,if you are not convinced of this, 
 then is your case a deplorable one in- 
 deed, and at least another generation 
 of your families must pass away be- 
 fore an amelioration of your condition 
 can be expected. 
 
 Consumption, it is said, is heredi- 
 tary ; this is not true in the full sense 
 of the word. A predisposition to 
 consumption isjbeyond all doubt,like 
 
>5^ 
 
 er4 
 
 many other ailments arising from a 
 derangements of the blood, transmis- 
 sible, but is easily prevented. Un- 
 ices, however, preventatives are em- 
 ployed, the result is much the same 
 as il the actnal disease were transmit- 
 ted. What nature cannot perfect she 
 will never begin, but then you must 
 let her alone, you must not bar her 
 out. You must submit to her laws, 
 not she to yours. Nature's laws car- 
 ry within themselves their own pow- 
 ers of renovation, and if let alone, 
 that predisposition to disease inherit- 
 ed from our parents will speedily be 
 diminished and effectually warded oft'. 
 So, on the other hand, if we, like our 
 parents, conti ue to live in an unheal- 
 thy atmosphere, nature being unable 
 to resist oiir protracted lebellion, our 
 diseases become aggravated till they 
 extinguish whole families, vnd thus 
 their very name and race are blotted 
 out among men. 
 
 Take consolation, then, all who are 
 hereditarily tainted with this disease. 
 Your case is not desperate. Only se- 
 cond, do not thwart nature, whose 
 whole power is being constantly ex- 
 erted in your behalf, and your chil- 
 dren, 'hough liable to diseases, can 
 
65 
 
 II 
 
 both escape from it, and may natural- 
 ly hope for and attain a long and hap- 
 py life. 
 
 Fathers and mothers— are the health 
 and sickness, life and d . h, of your 
 dearly beloved offspring matter of 
 no mohient to you ? Would the w-alth 
 of India compensate for the perpetual 
 sicJaiess, and premature death, of 
 one child ? Gold cannot measure the 
 worth of a healthy family. Every ]>a- 
 rent of a healthy and well organised 
 family is infinitely richer than Crtiesus 
 in all the essentials of riches — the 
 means of enjoyment. 
 
 But I must close — your patience 
 demands it. 
 
 ^ If the dreadful malady, v/hich car- 
 ries sorrow and desolation into thou- 
 sands of families, spring not from con- 
 tamination of the blood by the breath- 
 ing of an impure atmosphere, either 
 remotely or directly, why has it, for 
 so many hundreds of years, defied the 
 skill of the whole medical world ? If 
 it do spring from that cause, let us 
 make an effort at least to rescue our 
 children from its awful ravages. The 
 disease once developed, we know, is 
 incurable ; our only hope, therefore, 
 as I have before stated, lies in preven- 
 
 caii 
 
I 
 
 G6 
 
 T vl 
 
 ■'l 
 
 TiON. To this end, then, let us turn 
 our most serious attention and earnest 
 endeavors — exertions which we owe 
 alike to ourselves, our counti y, and our 
 children — by adopting such means as 
 will be most likely to strike at the root 
 ot tlie evil, and lay a foundation, by, 
 which, ultimately, under the blessing 
 of the Almighty, we may expect el- 
 fectaally to extirpate this predisposi- 
 tion to a disease the most awfully ap- 
 palling to which the human family is 
 subject; a disease, which (in the 
 Vv-ords of an eloquent writer) " so pre- 
 pares its victims, as it were, for death; 
 which so refines it of its grosser aspect, 
 and throws around familiar looks un- 
 earthly indications of the^ coming 
 change— a dread disease, in which 
 tlie struggle between the soul and bo- 
 dy is so gradual, quiet and solemn, 
 and the result so sure, that day by 
 day, and grain by grain, the mortal 
 part wastes and withers away, so that 
 • the spirit grqws light and sanguine 
 with its lingering load, and feeling 
 the immortality at hand, deems it but 
 a nev/ term of mortal life-a disease, in 
 which life ond death are so strangely 
 blended that death takes the hue and 
 glow 01 life, and life the gaunt and 
 
67 
 
 grisly form of death — a disease that 
 medicine never cured, weahh warded 
 off, or poverty could boast exemption 
 from — which sometimes moves in gi- 
 ant strides, and sometimes at a tardy, 
 sluggish pace, but, slow or quick, is 
 ever sure and certain." 
 
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