2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 60 



Everyone thinks that he suffers in an ill-ventilated room owing to 

 some change in the chemical quality of the air, be it want of oxygen, 

 or excess of carbon dioxide, the addition of some exhaled organic 

 poison, or the destruction of some subtle property of the air by its 

 passage over steam coils, or other heating or 'conducting apparatus. 

 We hear of " devitalized " or " dead " air and " tinned " or " pot- 

 ted " air of the battleship. The good effects of open-air treatment, 

 of sea and mountain air, are no less generally ascribed to the chemi- 

 cal purity of the air. We maintain that the health-giving properties 

 are primarily those of temperature, light, movement, and relative 

 moisture of the circumambient atmosphere, and, leaving on one side 

 those gross chemical impurities which arise in mines and in some 

 manufacturing processes, that the alterations in chemical composi- 

 tion of the air in buildings where people crowd together and suffer 

 from the effects of ill ventilation, have nothing to do with the causa- 

 tion of these effects. 



Satisfied with the maintenance of a specious standard of chemical 

 purity, the public has acquiesced in the elevation of sky-scrapers 

 and the sinking of cavernous places of business. Many have thus 

 become cave-dwellers, confined for most of their waking and sleep- 

 ing hours in Avindless places, artificially lighted, monotonously 

 warmed. The sun is cut off by the shadow of tall buildings and by 

 smoke — the sun, the energizer of the world, the giver of all things 

 which bring joy to the heart of man, the fitting object of worship 

 of our forefathers. 



The ventilating and heating engineer hitherto has followed a 

 great illusion in thinking that the main objects to be attained in our 

 dwellings and places of business are chemical purity of the air and a 

 uniform, draughtless, summer temperature. 



Life is the reaction of the living substance to< the ceaseless play 

 of the environment. Biotic energy arises from the transformation 

 of those other forms of energy — heat, light, sound, etc. — which beat 

 upon the transformer, the living substance. Thus, when all the 

 avenues of sense are closed, the central nervous system is no longer 

 aroused and consciousness lapses. Laura Bridgeman, paralyzed in 

 almost all her avenues of sense, fell asleep whenever her remaining 

 eye was closed. The patient who lost one labyrinth by disease and, 

 to escape unendurable vertigo, had the other removed by operation, 

 was quite unable to guide his movement or realize his position in 

 the dark. Rising from bed one night, he collapsed on the floor and 

 remained there helpless till succor arrived. 



