A short essay written for the service of the proprietors of cotton mills.

  • Bill, John (Surgeon)
Date:
1784
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short essay written for the service of the proprietors of cotton mills. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    1 ( 8 ) i i ‘ a free ventilation, when it may -pojfihly be ac-j i companied by other difadvantageons circiim-1 fiances. But the propofition I have laid down ' goes much farther, affirming (and the idea is founded upon experiment) that the niceft cleanlinefs, and moft perfe6l health, though] they may poflpone, cannot finally prevent, the bad effects of a ftagnant air. Many accurate experiments which have been made upon air refpired from the lungs of healthy perfons, prove it to be a poifon ex- tremely deftrudtive to the lives of animals. One man in health pollutes a gallon of air in a minute; and animals, even the moft tena- cious of life, fooner expire in air thus made foul, than from the total want of it. From thefe well-known fa6ls, which are ' founded upon indifputable evidence, it miifl appear very plain, that if air made foul by re- fpiration in any given degree produces death, the various other degrees of it, muft be pro- ductive of various, proportionably, pernicious confequences; and amongft others, as all thofe acquainted with medical fubjeCls will allow, of contagious fevers. It might, indeed, as has been before inti- mated, be no eafy matter to produce particu- lar inftances which will abfolutely prove, that ill effects have arifen Jolely from the circum- ftance of confining a number of healthy people in places not properly ventilated, becaufe in fuch cafes it muft always be impoffible to fay