Air and moisture on shipboard : a fragment of applied physiology / by Th. J. Turner.
- Turner, Thomas J., 1815-1901
- Date:
- [1877?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Air and moisture on shipboard : a fragment of applied physiology / by Th. J. Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![might be supposed, has not yet been determined. Future registrations may develop the law governing its periodicity. It may be well here to allude to the point of comfort of the external tem- perature. This varies, but the range assigned by numerous observers is from 58° to 68° F. All writers on etiology are agreed upon the disease'engendering effects of humidity of the air. In 1792, ('lark, in writing upon the diseases of long voyages, remarks: ''The diseases occasioned at sea by heat united with moisture are fevers and duxes; and when treating of the means of obviating the ill effects of heat, coldness, ami moisture, says, in the conclusion of Ins article, to dry up all moisture by placing stoves in various parts between decks. Welch, assistant professor of pathology at Xctlcy in the Alexander prize-essay says: The main deleterious property of the general atmo- sphere is moisture.'1 Again, speaking of the excess of watery vapor in the aii : According as it approaches saturation, it (/. <?., the air) tends to impede the exhalation from the lungs and favors congestion. Beyond this, also, the intimate connection between organic matter and hygro- metric bodies must not be forgotten. Simon, speaking of filth ferments, states that they show no power of diffusion in dry air, but, as moisture is their normal medium, currents of humid air can doubtless lift them in their full effectiveness. C. B. Pox remarks in his late book (1878) as follows: Aqueous vapor possesses a powerful affinity for organic matter, and serves both to pre- serve and diffuse it. Again: An excess of aqueous vapor has not only a depressing effect upon the nervous system, but it interferes with the pulmonary and cutaneous exhalations. Humidity, says Pringle, is one of the most frequent causes of the derangement of health. Ponssagrives, the authority on naval hygiene, asserts that a damp ship is an unhealthy ship. The researches of Rouppe, Kerauden, Raoul, Bourel-Eonciere, and others, all tend to exhibit the disease-producing influence of this aerial condition. Wagner, in his Manual of General Pathology, thus alludes to the moisture of the air: Warm and dam]) air most impedes the radiation of heat from the body through the skin and lungs, causes exhaustion of the muscular and nervous systems, restrains respiration, diminishes the appetite, impairs the digestion, and increases the perspiration. Sir Alexander Armstrong, the present head of the medical depart- ment of the English navy, says: There can be no more fertile source of disease among seamen, or indeed other persons, than the constant inhala- tion of a moist at sphere, whether sleeping or waking; but particularly is this influence injurious when the moisture exists between a ship's decks, where it may be at the same time more or less impure, and hot or cold according to circumstances. It is hardly deemed necessary here to exhibit the influence of humidity in the production of the miasmata.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21160624_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
