Ventilation as a dynamical problem : a paper read before the Annual Meeting of the Medical Officers of Schools Association, on February 6th, 1902 / by W.N. Shaw ; with the subsequent discussion.

Napier Shaw

Date:: 1902

Credit: Ventilation as a dynamical problem : a paper read before the Annual Meeting of the Medical Officers of Schools Association, on February 6th, 1902 / by W.N. Shaw ; with the subsequent discussion. 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.

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$therefore to avoid draught let them keep the air of rooms fresh. But directly we confined the air by walls we changed the conditions of outside ventilation and no longer had open air: and might not that be the ex- planation of the draughts in the garden, to which Mr. Shaw had referred, where the confining of air by means of high hedges and garden walls caused the sensation of draught, and produced the difficulty of keeping plants which had been referred to'? Besides, was it not a little dangerous to say the perception of cold air formed a draught because what we needed was to get rid of the personal thermometer in these matters as much as possible, and to establish some health law that might be acted upon by those who had no time to go into the question thoroughly, and this in order to save many school children from the consequences of the lack of appreciation of what ventilation really meant. In the reaction from the close confined air of the vitiated atmosphere of crowded classrooms and in the desire to keep the air pure and fresh, teachers—even those who have undergone some sort of training—were apt to run away with the idea that to ventilate a classroom properly one has only to admit the largest possible amount of fresh air regardless of rain or fog and regardless of the temperature of the room in which the children were sitting, or the direction of the incoming air upon their bodies. The consequence had been, within her own experience, that many children suffered keenly from pleurisy and from neuralgia, and the cold air enter- ing at too low a level caused inward chills which affected the glandular system, and Avere productiA e of great harm. She Avould be very glad if teachers could get some definite instructions from medical officers upon what should be the minimum temperature of classrooms, and hoAV a fair sized classroom for fifteen or sixteen children rniglit be provided with fresh air other than by mechanical ventilation or open windoAVS. Dr. Shella said that, in his excellent paper, Mr. ShaAV had brushed aside mere trivialities, and frankly shoAved them the exceedingly complex character of the prol)lem they have to face, the difficulties they have to contend Avith, the manifold Avay in Avhicli those difficulties interlace ; and also, if he might use a word coined to represent a compound of futile and puerile, the putile fashion in Avhich it has often been attempted to deal Avith one of the most important problems connected with the erection of buildings of all kinds. It AA^as not too much to say, for instance, that the Aery last thing considered in the arrangement, erection, and management of such buildings as churches, chapels, and the like, is the bodil,y health of the congregation. With regard to classrooms, studies, and similar rooms apt to be occupied during the evening hours, they Avere confronted very often Avith this problem. There Avas a considerable number of human beings in an enclosed space, lieated by artificial light, generally by gas or paraffin ; and if they used ]\lr. ShaAv’s steps and ascended, they would find the air near the ceiling top so foul that they would be glad to come doAvn again. Heated and irrespirable air accumulated under the ceiling, and the question was Avhat became of it I Noav a very large proportion of that vitiated air finds its way through the porous plaster of the ceiling into the room aboAe. If they analysed the air of a bedroom over a sitting-room Avith two or three gas burners in it, and compared the analysis with that of the air of a bedroom over an empty room.$