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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    [ Some people will probably inquire why we should give so much attention to such minute quantities—between 20-980 and 20-999—thinking these small differences can in no way affect us. A little more or less oxygen might not effect us : but supposing its place occupied by hurtful matter, we must not look on the amount as too small. Subtracting 0*980 from 0*999, we have a difference of 190 in a million. In a gallon of water there are 70,000 grains ; let us put into it an impurity at the rate of 190 in 1,000,000, it amounts to 13-3 grains in a gallon, or 0-19 grammes in a litre. This amount would be considered enormous if it con- s.'sted of putrifying matter, or any organic matter usually found in waters ; but we 'drink only a comparatively small quantity of water, and the whole 13 grains would not be swallowed in a day, whereas we take into our lungs from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of air daily. The detection of impurities in the air is therefore of the utmost importance, and it is only by the finest methods that they can be ascertained in small quantities of air, even when present in such quantity as to prove deleterious to health.—Angus Smith.'] It is needless to point out that the amount of carbonic acid associated with contaminating foreign matters wijl necessarily be found to increase, and the amount of oxygen to decrease in a greater degree in confined spaces than in the open country. I am not at this moment treating of the air of rooms within dwellings, with which the architect has more to do than the engineer, but of the outside atmosphere upon which the inmates of all dwellings depend as a source from which to dilute the inner air when it has become polluted by the respiration and com- bustion constantly going on in all human habitations, mills, factories, &c., and in the stables, outbuildings, &c., occupied by domestic animals. With this outside atmosphere the engineer has everything to do. That we may, however, appreciate the differences between the attainable standard of pure air, which I have quoted, and the fairly good atmosphere of open spaces, and compare both with the air of confined inner spaces, I will give the quantity of -carbonic acid as it is found to exist in the air of a variety of places. Carbonic Acid.—Standard '04 Per Cent. Open Spaces {Manchester). . More or less than Ji-er cent, g^andard, per cent. Fields in Green Leys 0383 -0017 less. OldTrafford '0432 -0032 more. -0291 -0109 less. Churchyard, All Saints . '0323 •oo77 Smithfield ^larket '0446 '0046 more.