﻿90 ATMOSPHERE IN RELATION TO HUMAN LIFE AND HEALTH. 



The mean daily range at 128 feet approaclies closely that of the 

 English seacoastj and at 69 feet is about midway between that of coast 

 and inland stations. 



Mean humidity is more than 1° less at 69 and 128 feet than at 10 

 feet surrounded by trees. Humidity by day is a little greater, by 

 night much less, 2^ or 3°. 



Places on hills or slopes from 150 to 700 feet above a plain or valley, 

 especially with a southern aspect, have a much smaller annual rauge, 

 and also a smaller daily range than places on the flat. At 545 feet a 

 superiority of 12° or 13° in the extreme minimum has been registered. 

 Thus we find that at a height about equal to that of the upper rooms 

 of a high house a more equable and drier climate prevails than near 

 the ground, and that conditions on sloping or well-chosen natural 

 elevations are on the whole similar. 



The importance to delicate persons, and indeed to the majority of 

 people, of living at some height above the ground, especially in places 

 which are damp, subject to fog, or to unwholesome emanations from 

 the ground, has yet to be appreciated. 



EFFECT OF IMPURITIES IN THE AIR OF TOWNS ON MENTAL AND 



BODILY HEALTH. 



A dense population in manufacturing and other large towns is accus- 

 tomed to breathe a compound mixture in the air which in course of 

 time j)rofoundly affects the health of the race. The oxygen is deficient, 

 the ozone absent, carbon dioxide in excess, hydrocarbons, animal and 

 mineral dust, sulphurous acid, chlorides, ammonia, and microorganisms 

 in pernicious abundance. 



The small tenements or crowded rooms produce the high death rate, 

 an enormous proportion of deaths in childhood, and of diseases of the 

 lungs at all ages. The best model dwellings, on the contrary, have a 

 lower death rate than the mean of the town, although the population to 

 the acre is dense.^ In 'New York, about twenty-five years ago, 495,000 

 persons lived in tenement houses and cellars, most of them dark, damp, 

 and unventilated. By hygienic measures, largely by ventilation, the 

 death rate was reduced in twelve years from 1 in 33 to 1 in 38. 



Townspeople spend much more of their lives indoors than the peas- 

 antry. At their work and in their rooms they breathe dust of many 

 sorts, particles of skin, organic poisons, and often many i^athogenic 

 germs which would develop in their bodies if they had not already 

 passed through the specific disorder. The air being deprived of its 

 exhilarating power, they seek stimulants in food and drink, and go to 

 mischievous excess in the consumption of animal flesh and alcohol. 

 Hence many internal diseases. Children are never seen of the right 

 sturdiness and color which is common in the country. Most children 



1 The corrected deatli rate of infants in the dwellin.i^s, chiefly blocks, of the Metro- 

 politan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes in Lon- 

 don, has been for some years past much below the average. 



