Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical notes on China / By John Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![Dr. ReicI, so distinguished in that branch of practical science, was employed by the Lords of the Admiralty to devise, and direct the construction of a ventilating ap- paratus in the Minden. The machinery was simple, and did its work well—that, namely, of moving the air briskly and diffusively in any or every part of the hospital, as was desired, the force being less or more, in relation to the space to which it was applied. It was fitted for double and opposite action ; drawing off the contaminated air of the interior, and supplying its place by pure air, impelled from the exterior atmosphere. The two pro- cesses were occasionally employed in succession, that of exhausting preceding the filling method ; but the first Avas generally thought sufficient, inasmuch as the foul air, which had been artificially removed from within, was in- stantly replaced, naturally, by purer air from without. The apparatus was erected in the winter of 1842, at Devonport; and when the writer left Hong-Kong, more than three years afterwards, its machinery continued per- fect, some slight injuries which it now and then sustained having been easily and effectually repaired by the ships armourer; and having been worked two or three hours daily during that period. The amount of benefit conferred by the contrivance cannot, of course, be determined, or even estimated, as there was no opportunity of bringing it to proof, by comparison or otherwise. But, as free circulation of air is essential to healthy bodies, and a fortiori, to diseased persons, during hot weather, and brought together in masses, it may fairly be ]3resumed to have done good service. « LIBRARY](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21363742_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
