Lecture on sanitary reform / by Alexander Thomson.

  • Alexander Thomson
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lecture on sanitary reform / by Alexander Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    adjust the two openings to each other. This depends on the size of the room and the number of its inmates. A man who sleeps in a well aired room rises in the morn¬ ing fresh and vigorous, ready for his work, when he who has spent the hours of repose in a close foul atmosphere gets up weak and languid, and disinclined to exertion, and, if not restrained by prudence or by principle, is very apt to fly to a morning dram, for that stimulus for which he feels a craving produced by the want of a supply of pure air to his system. If a room be occupied by too many persons, be it a work¬ room, a bed-room, or a school-room, no ordinary means of ventilation can keep that room pure and healthful. On this subject much information has been obtained from experience in the construction of cells of prisons, dormitories of poors’ houses, wards in hospitals, and barrack rooms for troops. The result is that to keep a healthy man in perfect vigour, he ought to have a room about 10 feet long, by 6 wide, and 8 or 10 high. Such a room contains from 400 to 500 cubic feet of air, and the dimensions ought to increase in proportion for each additional inmate. The ventilation ought to be so managed as to cause the removal and renewal of the contents about once an hour, and this process ought to be in ceaseless action so as to be altogether imperceptible except in its results. This statement and calculation can be easily applied to rooms of any size and form. Let it be deeply impressed on our minds that nothing can compensate to us for the want of a sufficient supply of fresh air in our rooms, and if the same room be used for every purpose, for work and for sleep, by day and by night, then it becomes doubly important. The next great Sanitary element is Pure Water} and it is very little less necessary to the human frame than pure air. Pure cold water has long been dreaded by many persons as an unpleasant, if not dangerous, application. We are become
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