A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon.
- MacKinnon, Kenneth
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
62/438 page 24
![Over crowding, and bad acconi- mudatiou. Effects of want of free ventila- tion. prospects, he will regard his life as worth presen'ing. 'ilie evil effect of crowding human beings together, is now being fully appreciated. In tliis respect, and in the cliaracter of tlieir ac- commodation, there is a vast difference between the Civilian and the Soldier, and on this no doubt a good deal of the mor- tality depends. “ During healthy respiration, the atmos|)lieric air that supplies the lungs is constantly changed. If this re- newal of the air is not provided for, but the same air is breath- ed over again, the circumstances attending respiration are alter- ed.” And again, “ in the same proportion, for example, as the oxygenous contents of the air diminish, and the carlnmaceous contents increase, less and less oxygen is absorbed, less and less carbonic acid is evolved, and when the air comes to have a cer- tain proportion of carbonic acid mixed with it, which, from the experiments of Allen and Pepys, ajipears to be 10 per cent, uo more carbonic acid is formed, and the elastic fluid no longer suffices for respiration, although it still contains something like 10 per cent of oxj'gen. A little oxygen indeed continues to dis- appear, but the respiration becomes laborious, and cannot be carried on without imminent risk of suffocation to any of the higher animals.”* Below' this point of approaching suffocation, much mischief may and does happen by bad ventilation; we may not aUvays be able to keep the atmosphere clear of vege- table impurities, but the vitiation, wdiich is the effect of bad ven- tilation, is within our control. In most of the barracks (those recently built are somewhat better) the men are much over- crowded, so that w'hat they gain by non-exposure is more than lost by bad ventilation.•(“ * The expansion of air by heat diminishes the actual quantity in a given space Mr. Hutchinson calculates that an individual requires a tw'enticth more air in India than in a cold climate. t The hospitals are in general fine, capacious buildings, well •uited to their purpose; but, with the usual extraordinaiy infatu- ation, they seldom have their broad face to the prevailing wind— and they are often much too far from the barracks, by which, in a]ioplexy and cholera, it ajipears to me that mortality must be in- creased. As far as I can learn from enquiry, there are no mea- sures for meeting the iuvasiou of these dreadful diseases ou the spot.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2870874x_0062.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
