BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 825 



Again, we find disease attacking country districts for tlie first 

 time, where houses had been improved, and the ventilation, which 

 used to take place through porous walls and less well-fitting 

 windows, has been done away with.* So also it is stated by Mr. 

 Angell (Health Lectures, 1879-'80, page 31) that in the old 

 crowded lodging-houses people sleeping on the floor would escape 

 fever, while those sleeping on the bedsteads would be struck by 

 it. Those on the floor got ventilation from the door and fire- 

 place ; those on the bedsteads were above the line of it — the colder 



air saturated with organic effluvia which discolored permanganate of potash. The mortality 

 iimong soldiers is now greatly reduced by the better ventilation enforced by the commis- 

 sion."— (L. P.) 



* A case of this kind is reported to us by Mr. Alexander Campbell, of Auchindarroch, 

 Lochgilphead ; and we believe that the same thing was observed in a Westmoreland dis- 

 trict. In an interesting letter Mr. Campbell writes : " Some years back I was asked by a 

 medical officer of large experience in the Highlands regarding a phenomenon which had 

 puzzled him. He had exerted himself much, and with great success, to have improved cot- 

 tages built, but in proportion as the cottages grew better did the health of the people 

 grow worse. I gave him my opinion that in tho old, uncomfortable-looking cottages, 

 built may be of dry stone, and open to the roof, the people were kept healthy in spite 

 of themselves by the wind blowing through them, while the new cottages, tightly built, 

 and with well-fitting doors and windows, excluded the air, and the windows being seldom 

 or never opened, the inhabitants were poisoned. He said he fully agreed in this, and would 

 ask for no more new cottages until the people had learned how to live in them. I have 

 found a considerable amount of ill health among the paupers in the island of Tiree, which, 

 from its situation, exposed as it is to the free action of breezes from the Atlantic, should 

 be one of the healthiest islands of the Hebrides. I attribute this to the mode in which the 

 houses are built, with two walls two or three feet apart, the interval being closely packed 

 with sand. The air is thus hermetically excluded, and unless the windows are made to 

 open, and are freely opened, the inhabitants are constantly, when within their dwellings, 

 breathing vitiated air." It is also worth while quoting from a review of Major Fisher's 

 book (which book we have not read) in The Spectator, May 2, 1891, Through the Stable and 

 Saddle Room : " Everybody knows something of the importance of ventilation, both for 

 man and horse ; but it is not so widely known as it ought to be that, while horses seldom 

 or never take cold through being exposed to cold, they are often made ill by being too 

 warm. [It is not the warmth ; it is the impure air.] It is the inside, not the outside, air 

 that gives them coughs, sore throats, congestion of the lungs, and sundry other ills to which 

 horse-flesh is heir. For this reason, old ramshackle stables, full of cracks and crevices, are 

 healthier than brand-new buildings with tight doors and windows and impervious roofs. 

 Our author, who never generalizes rashly, and supports his theories with copious instances, 

 mentions one or two curious ' cases in point.' Remounts for cavalry regiments, which are 

 mostly of Irish extraction, have often to travel in severe weather part of the way in cattle- 

 trucks, with no other protection from the cold than their own coats. Nevertheless, the 

 remounts nearly always arrive at their destination in perfect health ; yet they are no sooner 

 placed in stables, however well ventilated, than they begin to suffer from coughs and colds, 

 which generally end in strangles. During the autumn manceuvres of 1875, Major Fisher's 

 regiment was encamped near Aldershot, and though it rained almost incessantly, and the 

 horses were picketed in the open, without so much as a blanket to cover them, colds and 

 coughs were unheard of, and the favorite charger of one of his brother officers, which at 

 the time she left the barrack-stable suffered from a severe cold, was made whole by a few 

 days' exposure to the elemental strife." The book should contain some valuable facts. 

 TOT.. XL. — 55* 



