DUST AND DAMPNESS. Ill 



while in schools opened before 1885, there were only 380, in 

 those opened before 1880, there were 1,500, and in those opened 

 before 1866, there were 3,110. This showed that the number 

 depended partly on the age of the room, and that the increase 

 was due largely to propagation in cracks, etc., where the dust was 

 not easily dislodged. Architects should consider this point in 

 constructing buildings. The lodgment of these fine dust particles 

 has not been heretofore taken into consideration. They are 

 composed largely of spores, which when moist will begin to 

 multiply rapidl}'. Our uncomfortable feelings in a room are due 

 largely to these, and not merely to carbonic acid gas. Decay 

 always gives off gases, which are not as good to breathe as pure 

 air. As much dust from the top of a dining-room door as could 

 be taken on the point of a pin contained 3,000 living organisms, 

 which is not pleasant to think of, for among so many germs we 

 may get some harmful ones. 



It becomes important to find under what conditions we can 

 have fewer of these germs. At the City Hospital, Boston, a large 

 number of experiments have been carried on to determine this 

 point. (See the Twentieth Annual Report of the State Board of 

 Health of Massachusetts, page 161.) The rooms are swept 

 three times and wiped over twice daily, and the average number 

 of organisms in two gallons of air averages ten, but one who tests 

 the air can tell whether a patient has been lateh" taken up and his 

 bed been shaken, for in that case the number rises to forty or 

 fifty. In a school in Scotland where the number was ten, the 

 boys were told to get up and stamp on the floor, which increased 

 the number to 150. Experiments in Scotland showed that these 

 micro-organisms do not come from the breath or the pei'son, but 

 from the building. 



The great lesson in domestic economy to be learned from the 

 facts which have been mentioned is that dust cannot be wholly 

 got rid of, but it should be removed as thoroughly as possible. 

 A feather duster will not do this. Bacteria settle more rapidly 

 than moulds, and if, after two hours had been allowed for them 

 to settle, all surfaces could be wiped off with a damp cloth, it 

 would be a good way to remove them. Modern rooms with car- 

 pets and upholstery furnish fine resting places for dust. Anything 

 from which a footfall will raise dust favors the propagation of 

 bacteria. The lecturer did not see how to get rid of dust as long 

 as we keep carpets nailed down. 



