Our homes and how to make them healthy / by R. Brudenell Carter [and others] ; edited by Shirley Forster Murphy.
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Our homes and how to make them healthy / by R. Brudenell Carter [and others] ; edited by Shirley Forster Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
34/972 (page 16)
![OUR HOMES. II sea- timber, Avood that has been brought across the sea and has been saturated will water is sometimes employed. When these errors of construction are introduced m the building of a house, damp is a necessary result. In wet weather the building materials are easily saturated with water, and the fires within bring out a free diffusion of water vapour. During the dryer seasons, while the house is drying, the warmth that is external causes stUl a diffusion of vapour; and if the house be for a short time left dry, it is ready upon a return of rain to absorb again, and, like a sponge, take up so much liquid to create damp as before. In houses of the kind named the evidence of damp is at almost all times present. The walls are seen to be damp ; or paper upon the walls is observed to be pee]iug off or to be loose in places; or there is a patch here and there of saline encrustation; or there is moisture on bright objects, such as the mirrors, and rust on steel grates, and other polished metallic surfaces. I have met with houses of this faulty construction so often, I fear they must be more general than is commonly supposed. In a large and fine hotel where I was recently destined to sleep, I found the bed-room so charged with damp that the large looking-glass over the mantel-shelf was dimmed with moisture, and though it was late in the night, I would not sleep until I had kindled a large fire, and produced some degree of dryness in the air. In hotel establishments, it is these damp rooms, much more frequently than damp sheets, that provoke cold, fever, and rheumatism. Into our small and, to the eye, pretty suburban dwelling-houses, off the large towns, the same errors creep, and perform a deadly mischief. I once visited a new and pretty row of houses in a London suburb to see a young lady there who was suffering from pulmonary consumption. The house was literally saturated with moisture. This patient died from the disease that had been lighted up into activity there. On making further inquiries, I found that in the same row of houses, twenty in number, there occurred within the first two years of their occupation six other instances of pulmonary consumption and fourteen instances of acute rheumatic fever. A patient who was once under my care, and who was a confirmed cripple from rheumatic disease following upon acute rheumatic fever, gave me^ in language as simple as it was truthful, the history of her case at its origin. Newly married, she and her husband bought a new house, which, in their desire to settle quickly, they inhabited while the walls were still bedewed -with moisture. She sickened with acute rheumatic fever, and never fully recovered from its effects. Worse than all, eveiy one of her children—and she gave birth to seven after her attack—were affected with rheumatic disease, three dying from heart affection dependent upon the rheumatic constitution. A lesser degree of moisture in a dwelling than is sufficient to produce the above- named acute and serious diseases may be sufficient to cause much painful suffering. In a large number of instances neuralgia and sciatica are either induced directly, or are greatly promoted by residence in a damp house. Dampness in a dwelling may be due, not to a fault in the materials of which the house is built, but to the position of the house itself. The fine old mansion built in the stagnant valley, or on the margin of a piece of ornamental water or](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21958300_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
