Ventilation and Cooling of Steam-ships. 57 



sidn may, perhaps, refer the escape which the enginemen com- 

 monly experience from fever in the West Indies tO not being 

 exposed to the night-air, as the common sailors are on this 

 station, and where, on account of the numerous islets and 

 reefs rendering the navigation anxious and difficult, it is neces- 

 sary for them to be much on the alert, and to exert themselves 

 more than is usual in the open ocean. 



As regards general health and wear and tear of the consti- 

 tution, it seems difficult to imagine that the exposure to so 

 high a temperature as the firemen are obliged to undergo, is 

 not injurious. Statistical returns of the diseases to which this 

 class of men are subject, and of the average length of years 

 they are capable of serving, may be mentioned as desiderata. 

 They will probably be found to suffer in a high ratio from dis- 

 eases of the heart and brain, and to be specially subject to 

 sudden deaths from rupture or over- distension of the blood- 

 vessels. Two days before reaching Bar badoes, it may be noticed; 

 that a man, just as his four hours' of duty in attendance on the 

 engine expired, was struck down by apoplexy of a severe kind, 

 and which, it is likely, would have proved fatal, but for the 

 active and jujjicious treatment employed by the surgeon of the 

 ship. The blood abstracted from the arm in this case, it is 

 remarkable, was reported to have coagulated almost instantly, 

 and to have become putrid in a very short time, emitting an 

 offensive smell, it was said, in less than a quarter of an hour. 



7. Of the Ventilation and Cooling of Steam-ships. 

 The steamers employed in the West Indian Packet Service, 

 as also in the Oriental, are many of them noble vessels, fitted 

 up and conducted so as to afford a very tolerable degree of 

 comfort to the passengers, especially the West Indian packets, 

 with single berths. What they seem most faulty in is venti- 

 lation, and the means essentially connected with a due supply 

 of air, and of keeping them cool. To this part of their construc- 

 tion the help of science does not appear to have been applied. 

 The means of ventilation available are only the ordinary ones of 

 ports, sky-lights, and wind- sails, — all precarious, and often not 

 admitting of use. Even in moderate weather, it was neces- 

 sary, on this voyage, to have commonly the ports in the lower 



