76 THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OP 



The effects of impure air are more strikingly manifested in 

 infancy. A few facts will illustrate this : About a century ago, 

 the workhouses of London presented thtf awful result of twenty- 

 three deaths in every twenty-four infants under the age of one 

 year ; and this frightful devastation was allowed as beyond the 

 reach of human remedy. But finally the buildings were 

 ventilated, and a better system of management adopted, and the 

 deaths were speedily reduced from twenty-six hundred to four 

 hundred and fifty per annum. Here, then, was a total of two 

 thousand one hundred and fifty deaths occurring yearly in a 

 single institution, chargeable, not on Providence, but against the 

 ignorance, indifference and cruelty of man. At the end of the 

 last century, during the space of twenty-one years, out of ten 

 thousand two hundred and seventy-two sick children sent to 

 the Infirmary, only one thousand seven hundred and twelve 

 recovered. Deficient ventilation was not the only cause, but it 

 was one of the chief causes of the dire calamity. And even now, 

 in this country, it is said that every tenth infant perishes within 

 a month of its birth. Striking as these facts are, and others 

 which I could quote, many are still blind to the instructions of 

 experience, and the warning of outraged nature. But they go 

 on constructing churches, schools, dwelling-houses and other 

 buildings, without bestowing a thought on the physical wants 

 of man. 



Let us then hope for a better state of things — not only 

 hope, but labor to produce a refoim. This is the age of im- 

 provement. It seems that the genius of man is just emerging 

 from darkness to rejoice in the meridian brightness of perfection 

 in the arts and sciences, and while discoveries are leaping upon 

 discoveries in such rapid succession, we must not overlook so 

 important a matter as ventilation. In view of further illustrat- 

 ing the bad effects aiising from repeated respiration of a local 

 atmosphere, I quote the following paragraph selected from 

 Dr. Amot's work. He informs us that, — 



" Twenty or thirt}' young women, engaged in the manufac- 

 ture of lace, in the city of London, tried the experiment of 

 keeping themselves warm in a small room, by making it air 



