A rudimentary treatise on warming and ventilation : being a concise exposition of the general principles of the art of warming and ventilating domestic and public buildings, mines, lighthouses, ships, etc / by Charles Tomlinson.

  • Charles Tomlinson
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A rudimentary treatise on warming and ventilation : being a concise exposition of the general principles of the art of warming and ventilating domestic and public buildings, mines, lighthouses, ships, etc / by Charles Tomlinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is called animal heat (98^ Fahr.), is in fact the heat of com. Inistion, and the object of the domestic processes of warming and ventilation is to enable the animal to maintain this heat, and to convey away the gaseous products of combustion as fast as they are formed. The soluble and insoluble products of combustion are conveyed avray by other natural means above referred to ; and it will be our duty hereafter to show, that it is as unwise to neglect the means for clearing off our gaseous excretions, as it would be insane and unnatural to attempt to retain those of anotlicr kind. Another proof of the identity of the two processes, is that nature disposes of the ]n-oducts of combustion in precisely the same manner, whether derived from ordinary combustion or animal respiration. The vegetable kingdom is the grand laboratory wherein these products of combustion are decom- posed and elaborated into new combinations. Plants inhale or absorb carbonic acid, decompose it, retain the carbon as materials for growth, and return the oxygen to the atmos- phere ; plants absorb water or aqueous vapour, decom- pose it, retain its hydrogen, and also return tlie oxygen to the atmosphere ; plants, it is imagined, sometimes take nitrogen directly from the air; they certainly take it in- directly from ammonia or its salts, including nitrates. Thus it will be seen that the chemical function of plants is directly the reverse of that of animals—the animal kingdom consti- tuting an immense apparatus for combustion; the vegetable kingdom an equally grand apparatus for reduction, in which reduced carbonic acid yields carbon, reduced water its hydro- gen, and in which also reduced ammonia and nitric acid yield their nitrogen, which is built up with the other elements into more complex organic products. The organic matter which constitutes the food of animals is destroyed by them, and rendered for the most part inorganic; this, in its turn, becomes the aliment of plants, the materials with which plants elaborate organic compounds, the atmosphere serving as the means of communication between the two kingdoms. Organic vegetable substances pass ready formed into herbivorous animals, which destroy a portion of them, and appropriate the remainder as materials for growth. From herbivorous
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