A handbook of house sanitation : for the use of all persons seeking a healthy home ; a reprint of those portions of Mr. Bailey-Denton's lectures on sanitary engineering given before the school of military engineering, Chatham, which related to the "dwelling."

  • Denton, J. Bailey (John Bailey), 1814-1893.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of house sanitation : for the use of all persons seeking a healthy home ; a reprint of those portions of Mr. Bailey-Denton's lectures on sanitary engineering given before the school of military engineering, Chatham, which related to the "dwelling.". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    As the benefits of house sanitation become more fully recognised, the rentmg value of dwellings will necessarily depend upon the arrangements made to secure a healthy condition. Thus it will become a matter of increasing importance to architects, surveyors, and builders, when designing and constructing dwellings, and in a greater degree to owners and lessees, who have to let them, that they should possess such appliances as will render them acceptable to tenants, who will become more and more alive every day to what their landords are bound to supply. II. Constituents of Normal Air.—Air in its normal con- dition consists of about four-fifths by volume of nitrogen and one-fifth of oxygen mixed with a very small proportion of car- bonic acid.* Speaking more precisely, it has been ascertained by the valuable researches of Dr. Angus Smith, that very pure air contains not less than 20*99 per cent, of oxygen, and not more than '03 of carbonic acid. [Weight of Air. 100 cubic inches weigh (Prout) .. 3iii7 grains. (Bist and Arago) ... 3i*074 ,, (Dumas and Bousingault) 31'086 (Regnault) 33935 „ Mean of four observations... 31'053 Taking the mean of these experiments, i cubic foot weighs 536-6 grains. Air is therefore 14*45 heavier than hydrogen, and 816 times lighter than water. The average pressure of the air on the surface of the earth and at the level of the ocean is equal to 15 lbs. on the square inch, that is, the air is capable of supporting a column of mercury of 30 inches, or a column of water of 34 feet.—Meymott Tidy.] III. Of Foreign Polluting Matters.—Excluding from consideration the watery vapour that exists to the extent of 40 per * Nitrogen is a gas devoid of either colour, taste, or smell. It acts chiefly in diluting the oxygen. In pure nitrogen animals cease to live. Its weight is a thirty-sixth part less than common air. Oxygen is without either taste or smell. Of all elements it is most abundant, forming eight-ninths by weight of the water, one-fifth by volume of the air, and one-third of the solid matter of the globe. Though absolutely necessary to the life of man and animals it is too strong to be breathed for any length of time in a pure condition without fatal results. Oxygen is one-ninth part heavier than common air. Carbonic acid is a gas which, unlike oxygen and hydrogen, possesses a perceptibly sour taste. It is described as a compound of carbon and oxygen, and is the result of the combustion of carbon. It was called fixed air by our older chemists, and to coal-miners and well-sinkers it is known as choke damp. For plants it is essential, being the source from which the carbon of their tissues is derived.