Hospital plans : Five essays relating to the construction, organization & management of hospitals / contributed by their authors for the use of the Johns Hopkins hospital of Baltimore.

  • Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hospital plans : Five essays relating to the construction, organization & management of hospitals / contributed by their authors for the use of the Johns Hopkins hospital of Baltimore. 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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    my experience goes, give satisfactory results in very cold weather, and they will vary in action with the direction and force of the wind. Other objections to them in point of view of construction, arc given by General Morin, and will be familiar to the Architect. To rely entire]}' upon fireplaces placed in the corners of the ward as means of ventilation, will not, I think, be satisfactory, and so far as regards ventilation, I should prefer to have them in the centre and to use heating coils instead of open fire. But if a satisfactory aspirating shaft can be constructed which will take the air from the sides and corners of tlie room near or through the floor directly downwards to a horizontal duct beneath the ward, and thence to an aspirating chimney, I should prefer it to any other mode of effecting ventilation on the second plan. Whatever be the plan adopted for heating and ventilating in cold weather, if a satisfactory temperature and amount of air supply be attained it must be at a comparatively large expense, and the amount of fuel consumed will appear excessive. This is a universal complaint as regards hospitals, and the surprise and disapproval which are usually expressed by those who have to pay the bills are due to the fact that they compare the cost with that for heating other buildings of about the same size. In this Hospital, when completed, the fuel consumed must not only heat the buildings, but must do mechanical work to the ex- tent of lifting more than one ton weight of air per minute, to a height of from 50 to 100 feet. So long as proper ventilation is secured, no matter by what means nor what form of heating apparatus is employed, it will take between two and three times as much fuel to keep the wards comfortable in cold weather, as would be required for the same rooms furnished with only the ordinary amount of window space and used I'm- ordinary purposes. To secure proper ventilation of a ward in warm weather, by what is called the natural system of ventilation, it is desirable that the ceiling shall not be flat, and it is owing to the fact that an arched or peaked ceiling can be so much more readily obtained * A cubic foot of air at temp. GO' and 30' Bar. weighs about 532 grains if perfectly dry, and 528.G grains if saturated with moisture. In the first case, 13,157.9 cubic feet will weigh about 1,000 lbs., and in the second, 13,242.5; or a6 a mean result, one pound of air measures 13.2 eft., and a ton of 2,000 lbs., 20,400 eft.