A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont.

Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    136/820 (page 94)
    AIR. It might be inferred from the physiological evidence of the paramount import- ance of proper aeration of the blood, that the breathing of air rendered impure from any cause is hurtful, and that the highest degree of health is only pos- sible when to the other conditions is added that of a proper supply of pure air. Experience strengthens this inference. Statistical inquiries on mortality prove beyond a doubt that of the causes of death which usually are in action, impurity of the air is the most important. Individual observations confirm this. ]STo one who has paid any attention to the condition of health, and the recovery from disease of those persons who fall under his observation, can doubt that impurity of the air marvellously affects the first, and influences, and sometimes even regulates, the second. The average mortality in this country increases tolerably regularly with density of population. Density of population usually implies poverty and insufficient food, and unhealthy work; but its main concomitant condition is impurity of air from overcrowding, deficiency of cleanliness, and imperfect removal of excreta, and when this condition is removed, a very dense and poor population may be perfectly healthy. The same evidence of the effect of pure and impure air on health and mortality is still more strikingly shown by horses ; for in that case the question is more simple on account of the absolute similarity in different periods or places of food, water, exercise, and treatment. Formerly, in the French army, the mortality among the horses was enormous. Rossignol* states that, previous to 1836, the mortality of the French cavalry horses varied from 180 to 197 per 1000 per annum. The enlargement of the stables, and the increased quantity of the ration of air, reduced the loss in the next ten years to 68 per lOOO.f In the Italian warof 1859, M. Moulin, the chief veteriuary surgeon, kept 10,000 horses many months in barracks open to the external air in place of closed stables. Scarcely any horses were sick, and only one case of glanders occurred. J In the English cavalry (and in English racing stables) the same facts are well known. Wilkinson § informs us that the annual mortality of cavalry horses (which was formerly great) is now reduced to 20 per 1000, of which one-half is from accidents and incurable diseases. Glanders and farcy have i almost disappeared, and if a case occurs, it is considered evidence of neglect The food, exercise, and general treatment being tbe same, this result has i been obtained by cleanliness, dryness, and the freest ventilation. The ven- - tilation is threefold—ground ventilation, for drying the floors ; ceiling ventila- tion, for discharge of foul air; and supply of air beneath the horses' noses, to dilute at once the products of respiration. * Traits d'Hygiene Militaire. Paris, 1857. + Wilkinson, Journal of tho Royal Agricultural Society, No. 50, p. 91, el seq. X Larrey, Hygiene des Hop. Mil. 1862, p. 63. § Op .cU.