1859.3 on Houses in Relation to Health. 135 



air with the Inngs, and of pure water with the skin, creates an appetite 

 for food which he has no means of satisfying. 



Further researches on the composition of house air are to be 

 desired. It is evident that the amount of carbonic acid represents that 

 of the most volatile, and probably that of the most innoxious product 

 of the presence of living beings, and consequently the minimum of 

 atmospheric impurity. The speaker had made several determinations 

 which showed how rapidly the quantity fluctuated according to the 

 amount of ventilation and the state of the wind. For example, in a 

 small room in May's Buildings, Brick-street, inhabited by two adults 

 and three children — 



Volumes of Carbonic Acid 

 ia 10,000 vols, of air. 



April 20th, Noon ; femily dining . . . , 13-74 



»» 2ist. ,, „ ^y • . . • 9*19 



„ 24th. Room empty, door open . , . . 3 '34 



„ 20th. All night 15-97 



„ 21st. „ 15-10 



„ 22iid. „ 12-27 



la the Infant School-room, Curzon Schools, Mayfair, room 



crowded, with a window open at each end . . . 9*46 



In a bedroom, unoccupied, but with the doore and windows 

 closed all day, the quantity fluctuated between 5 and 7 

 volumes per 10,000 



The list of maladies arising from cold, damp, airless and sunless 

 dwellings, is a long one, and is identical with the maladies caused by 

 hunger, depraved nutrition, solitude, and grief; moreover, the effects 

 of dark, monotonous, and decayed dwellings upon the mind must not 

 be overlooked, inasmuch as they produce a direct temptation to indulge 

 in spirituous liquors. 



Under the second head, the speaker alluded to the great number 

 of modes in which a house may receive poisonous vapours from 

 sewers. If the house drainage has not been revised during the last 

 ten years, there may probably be every variety of imperfect and dilapi- 

 dated drainage ; wells that once supplied a family with water, may 

 have been converted into dead wells and receptacles of filth ; and even 

 when a house possesses a perfect drainage system of its own, it may be 

 invaded by its neighbours : or the remains of old drainage systems 

 may have been left by the carelessness or ignorance of workmen. 

 Every pipe, too, of whatever sort, may be a means of bringing foul 

 air from sewers ; every such apparatus should, therefore, be examined 

 from time to time, and be regulated with philosophical precision. The 

 possibilities were described of the entrance of air from the public 

 sewers into houses ; either from stagnation and decomposition, or 

 through the wind which at certain times penetrates the great sewers 

 from the river ; then, wherever a sewer ends abruptly, the gases are 

 sure to be driven out of it, through the apertures in the streets made 

 for ventilating purposes. 



The effects of bad house drainage, and of sewer poison, are found in 

 the prevalence of typhoid fever and choleraic maladies. 



l2 



