WHAT WE BREATHE 53 



following conclusions : " That, as we pass from 

 four-roomed to three-, two-, and one-roomed 

 houses, not only does the air become more and 

 more impure, as indicated by the increase in 

 the carbonic acid and organic matter, and more 

 especially of the micro-organisms, but there is a 

 corresponding and similar increase in the death- 

 rate, together with a marked lowering of the 

 mean age at death."* 



Mention may also here be made of the in- 

 vestigations made by these gentlemen on the air 

 of Board schools, which showed that in those 

 buildings where mechanical ventilation was used 

 the carbonic acid gas was three-fifths, the organic 

 matter one-seventh, and the micro-organisms less 

 than one-ninth of what was found in schools 

 ventilated by the ordinary methods. In com- 

 menting upon this series of investigations, the 

 authors write : " When we come to consider that 



* It is, of course, obvious that other circumstances besides 

 overcrowding have to be reckoned with in considering these 

 statistics. In the one-roomed houses the wages earned by the 

 occupants must have been small, and the amount available for even 

 the bare necessaries of life very limited, that, in fact, they were 

 to be reckoned amongst the class defined by Mr. Rowntree as 

 living in "primary poverty," whose earnings are insufficient to 

 keep the body in a properly nourished condition. Mr. Rowntree 

 has shown by statistics that the height, weight, and general con- 

 dition of the poor are very much below those of the well-to-do 

 labouring classes. 



