Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The atmosphere in relation to human life and health. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![VAPOR AND ORGANIC MATTER FROM LIVING BODIES, The lungs and skin together give off about 30 ounces of vapor in the day, or about 550 grains an hour, enough to saturate about 90 cubic feet of air at 63° F. Estimates naturally differ as to average amounts, but Professor Foster states that the water given off from the luugs in the day is about 1.5 pounds and from the skin 2.5 pounds. Vapor in a room ought not to exceed 4.7 grains per cubic foot at 63° F., or 5 grains at 65°. This vapor is ijractically not pure, for it is associated with minute portions of organic gases and solids, and condenses with them upon the walls, ceiling, and furniture, whence it emerges again with organic dust when these are warmer than the air of the room. Organic matter is given off from the lungs and skin, of which neither the exact amount nor the composition lias been hitherto ascertained. The quantity is certainly very small, but of its importance there can be no doubt. It darkens sulphuric acid, decolorizes permanganate of XDotash, and makes pure water offensive when drawn through it. Col- lected from the air by condensation of vapor in a hospital, it is found to blacken platinum and to yield ammonia; it is therefore nitrogenous and oxidizable. It has a very fetid smell and is only slowly oxidized by fresh air. It is molecular or particulate; it contains epithelium and fattj^ matter from the mouth and pharynx, sometimes effluvia from the stomach. Damj) walls, moist paper, wool, and feathers are capable of largely attracting or absorbing it. Experiment shows that it bears a nearly constant proportion to the carbon dioxide in inhabited rooms, so that this gas is conveniently taken as an indicator of the amount of the organic matter in the air. Since this organic matter has been proved to be highly poisonous,^ even apart from carbon dioxide and vapor, we may safely infer that much of the mischief resulting from the inspira- tion of rebreathed air is due to the special poisons exhaled from the body, their fatal effect being accelerated by the depression of vitality caused by the gaseous products of respiration and by the want of oxygen. Air thus organically vitiated and confined in places long inhabited, which are subject to continual condensation on their sur- faces, without proper cleansing, appears to play a very large part in the ])ropagation of disease in man and animals. The quantity of i)articulate organic matter given off has been esti- mated at 30 to 40 grains for each adult. This is certainly sufficient for the nutriment and sustenance of a very large number of micro- organisms, wljich may grow, in the presence of moisture, upon it and upon other dust deposited upon the walls, floor, and ceiling. Water through which breath has been passed, and kept at rather a high temperature, gives off an unpleasant smell, and putrefaction is set up.'^ It does not appear to be definitely ascertained whether the breath and ' Dr. A. Ransome and others. * Carpenter; Douglas Galton.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21208724_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
