Conservation by sanitation ; air and water supply, disposal of waste, including a laboratory guide for sanitary engineers.

  • Ellen Swallow Richards
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Conservation by sanitation ; air and water supply, disposal of waste, including a laboratory guide for sanitary engineers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    foothold. It is generally understood to-day by investigators that no one or several substances found in bad air act as an external poison, but that the danger lies in the interference with the normal body metabolism. Thus no one would think of calling heat a poison, and yet it affects the mechanism which regulates body temperature, the most important constant of living tissue. Humidity acts indirectly in preventing that loss of heat which regulates body te nperature. It has been esti- mated that 22.9 per cent of the loss of body heat is by water evaporated. This loss is increased by exercise twice or even three times, — from 935 grams H20 in twenty-four hours to 284S grams when working. Man cannot control the temperature of outside air, the amount of water it contains, or its pressure; to some extent the amount of impurity it contains may be controlled. Oiled streets and dustless pavements may be insisted on. The city should carry out its duty towards its citizens in the matter of clean air by keeping its streets free from dust and dirt — such as the grit from abrasions of the surface, ground-up droppings, iron dust from wheels and carts, bacteria from dried sputum, etc. — which would otherwise be lifted by the wind. For example, the State might be visualized as immersed in a great sea. Here and there a city is sending up great clouds of dust, smoke, and foreign gases which may be likened to city sewage rising from points at the bottom of the clear sea. Be- tween these great sources of pollution run connecting roads, boulevards, railways, each sending out all along its sinuous course dense currents of waste and contaminated air. Along these lines of pollution appear houses and factories, often emit- ting foul air themselves and completely surrounded by dense clouds of air sewage, only appearing to the view as sudden gusts blow the mass away. This sort of visualization will lead to the conclusion that even outside air is bad in the vicinity of cities. It is, but it is better for the most part than indoor air. A man living all his life in the open is said to be able to smell the bad air of a city the moment he steps inside its gates.
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