NO. I AIR AND TUBERCULOSIS — HINSDALE 97 



reducing it; so that two hours were consumed in its application 

 therapeutically. 



A practical difficulty was encountered in keeping the compressed 

 air sufficiently cool to be comfortable, owing to the fact that air invari- 

 ably rises in temperature during compression and cools during rare- 

 faction ; so that in warm days ice had to be used about the reservoir. 



Von Vivenot, in a careful series of experiments, showed that the 

 influence of compressed air on the respiratory capacity was to per- 

 manently raise it. When used for two hours every day it is found 

 to increase daily from 20 ccm. to 30 ccm. above the previous day's 

 record. Von Vivenot took 122 compressed air baths during 143 days 

 and his respiratory capacity was raised from 3051 ccm. to 3794 ccm. 

 and, in compressed air, to 3981 ccm. This increased capacity was 

 reached in three and a half months, after 91 baths and was after- 

 ward maintained at practically the same level." 



An increase in respiratory capacity has been noted by other ob- 

 servers, but the respiration rate is always lowered and in almost all 

 cases there is a similar lowering of the pulse rate. 



PNEUMATIC CABINET 



These experimental results naturally appealed to phthisiologists 

 and patients were treated at Brompton, as we have mentioned, and 

 in the United States by means of Ketchum's pneumatic cabinet or 

 similar devices. There is no doubt but that the method was given 

 a fair trial, but it has been found wanting. The pneumatic cabinets 

 installed at considerable expense at the Loomis Sanitarium at Liberty, 

 at the Rush Hospital in Philadelphia and at Saranac, are rusting 

 away or consigned to the scrap heap. The simpler and more natural 

 method of outdoor life is found much more safe, rational and effect- 

 ive.'' 



See J. Solis Cohen: The Use of Compressed and Rarefied Air as a 

 Substitute for Change of Climate in the Treatment of Pulmonary Phthisis. 

 (Trans. Amer. Climat. Ass., Vol. i, 1885). 



V. Y. Bowditch : 1 en Months Experience with Pneumatic Differentiation, 

 ibid., 1886, 47. 



A. S. Houghton, Journ. Amer. Med. Ass., Nov. 7, 1885. 



C. E. Quimby, Trans. Amer. Climat. Ass., Vol. 9, p. 33- 



Isaac Hull Piatt, Trans. Amer. Climat. Ass., Vol. 3, P- 76. 



' Paul Bert, op. cit., p. 439. 



Huggard, W. R. : Handbook of Climatic Treatment, p. 109. 

 ' At Sharon Sanatorium it is still used in some cases as a means of calis- 

 thenics for the chest and is thought to be of value 



