28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 60 



health of the fisherman proves that this effect is nervous in origin, 

 and not due to a chemical organic poison in the air. 



Studying the ventilation of sleeping-cars, T. R. Crowder 1 finds 

 that in those cars called " close " or ''stuffy " the temperature in- 

 variably is high. There has sometimes been an unpleasant odor. 

 A high temperature renders this more noticeable. The most marked 

 offensiveness noticed was in a day coach, where " the air was of 

 such a degree of chemical purity as to indicate ideal ventilation by 

 any standard that has ever been proposed. The car was hot and 

 had many filthy people in it." Perfect comfort has been found asso- 

 ciated with the highest chemical impurity in other cars. 



Ventilation cannot get rid of the source of a smell, while it may 

 easily distribute the evil smell through a house. 



As Pettenkofer said, " if there is a dungheap in a room, it must be 

 removed. It is no good trying to blow away the smell." Houses 

 and people and their clothes and bodies must be made clean, and 

 latrines and kitchens must be placed on the top of houses, or outside 

 them, and on the least windy side. 



The right way of dealing with an offensive smell is to remove its 

 cause. By opening the window and letting the wind blow in we 

 may only drive the smell elsewhere. In schools, hospitals, or houses 

 an open window in a latrine may cause the impulsion of the smell 

 into the house. Aspiration by fans may be employed or deodoriza- 

 tion by ozone ; the latter is one of the simplest methods of dealing 

 with an offensive trade odor. Schoolrooms may be cleared at short 

 intervals, and all the windows and doors thrown open for five minutes, 

 while the children take a " breather " in the form of active exercise 

 in the open air. 



Flugge and his school, Beu, Lehmann, Jessen, Paul, and 

 Efcklentz controvert the supposition that there is an organic poison, 

 and bring convincing evidence to show that a stuffy atmosphere is 

 stuffy owing to heat stagnation, and that the smell has nothing to do 

 with the origin of the discomfort felt by those who endure it. 



Flugge points out that the inhabitants of reeking hovels in the 

 country do not suffer from chronic ill health, unless want of nourish- 

 ment, open-air exercise, or sleep come into play. Town workers are 

 pale, anaemic, listless, who take no exercise in the fresh air. Shel- 

 tered by houses they are far less exposed to winds, and live day and 

 night in a warm, confined atmosphere. 



1 Arch, of Internal Medicine, 1911, Vol. 7, pp. 85-133. 



