BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 99 



mense quantities of oxygen and develop immense activity. Each 

 animal has, as Prof. Foster believes (page 812), its own peculiar 

 quantity, its coefficient, so to speak, of oxygen, which it consumes 

 an amount which, judging from the few instances he gives, seems 

 to vary with intelligence ; thus the dog consumes more than the 

 rabbit per pound of its weight, and a man more than a dog. In 

 the same way, a waking man consumes more oxygen than a 

 sleeping man, a man at work than a sedentary man, a young man 

 than an old man, a young child more than the young man. The 

 restless activity of children marks both their great consumption 

 of oxygen and their pressing need for it by being allowed to 

 breathe abundance of pure air. Rapid and extensive waste is 

 going on in every child's body. Tissue of every kind, including 

 bone, is being constantly broken down in order that it may be built 

 up anew on a larger scale, and it is therefore the greatest cruelty 

 in their case not to provide them in fullest measure with the 

 purest air. Unhappily, very little thought is given to this mat- 

 ter ; and with quite young children whose need is the greatest 

 of all our nurseries are only too often mere slaughter-houses. 

 Mothers of all classes should try to see the meaning of the fact * 

 that out of four deaths of infants one takes place from lung col- 

 lapse, a state that often follows bronchial inflammation (see R. D. 

 Powell, Lungs; Quain,page 861), and probably of ten indicates the 

 source of the mischief. Dr. Douglas Powell significantly says, 

 " All causes that interfere with respiratory efficiency favor the 

 occurrence of the condition named." 



It is now right for us to look at the subject of these waste- 

 poisons in special reference to the skin. Without referring here 

 to the different calculations made on this subject, it is enough to 

 say that much less carbonic acid escapes from the skin than from 

 the lungs; more water (if we are to follow Prof. Foster who 

 differs from other authorities, who again differ among them- 

 selves we may say roughly, 1*5 pound from lungs, and 2'5 pounds 

 from the skin per day), and a larger amount of solid matter The 

 solid matter is put at one or two per cent of the whole 2*5 pounds 

 and two thirds of this one or two per cent is organic matter con- 

 taining the poisons in question. \ We can see the importance of 

 the skin, as an organ of excretion, in various ways. In the first 

 place, the provision of an enormous number of sweat-glands un- 



* So it has been stated. It is also interesting to quote the statement from the Regis- 

 trar-General's Report for 1889, that there were in that year 71,056 deaths of male infants 

 (not over twelve months) in England, and out of this number, 13,805 (roughly speaking, 

 about one in five) died of diseases connected with the respiratory system. It is right to 

 add that lung collapse may follow many different kinds of illness. 



f Thus we should have from 118 - 3 to 236'6 grains of organic matter excreted by the 

 skin in twenty-four hours. 



