VOL. XL VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SIQ 



crouded jails, might in a great measure, if not wholly, be prevented in 

 Newgate. 



One of the wards allotted for the women had a small room adjoining to it, in 

 which they usually slept. Both places seemed at that time well aired, though 

 the latter was close, and, he thinks, without either window or chimney. The 

 prisoners informed them, that before this ward received the tube, this sleeping- 

 place had been very offensive, but that soon after it became sweet ; and though 

 on the first working of the ventilator they had been more sickly than before, 

 they soon recovered their health, and had preserved it ever since. Now from 

 this account it must not be inferred that any danger will arise from a sudden 

 change of bad air for good ; since this accident may be better accounted for 

 from another circumstance, which they were then likewise told of; viz. that 

 this ward of the women had been supplied by a ventilating tube before those in the 

 lower story, where the air being in a more corrupted state, it had passed from 

 thence through the seams of the floor, and other passages, to replace that, which 

 was drawn off by the tube in the ward above : but that after the bad air was 

 exhausted, the benefit of the fresh air soon appeared, by the better health of the 

 prisoners. 



But as it was not his design in this paper to set forth all the advantages that 

 might be expected from the ventilator, he would leave that subject to be treated 

 of by the ingenious inventor of it ; and would only take notice, that the tubes 

 from the several wards, uniting in one great trunk, convey all the putrid steams 

 by that channel into the atmosphere, through a vent made for that purpose in 

 the leads of Newgate ; and that though the wind was moderate during the time 

 they staid in the jail, yet they observed, that the ventilator threw out a consi- 

 derable stream of air, of a most offensive smell. Before they parted, Mr. Stibbs 

 informed them, that Clayton Hand, one of his journeymen, while he was em- 

 ployed in setting up the tubes, was seized with a fever, and carried to St. Tho- 

 mas's Hospital, after lying some days ill at his own house. Apprehending that 

 this man's sickness might be owing to the air of the jail. Dr. Knight and he 

 having the curiosity a few days after to go to St. Thomas's to make the inquiry, 

 they found the patient sitting in one of the courts, recovered of his fever, though 

 still weak, and he gave this account : that on first finding himself indisposed, he 

 had left off work for some days ; but on growing better he had returned to New- 

 gate. That soon after happening to open one of the tubes of the old ventilator, 

 which had stood there for 3 or ^ years, such an offensive smell issued from it, 

 that being immediately seized with a nausea and sickness at his stomach, he was 

 obliged to go home, and that the night after he fell into a fever, in which he 

 lay about 8 days before his friends carried him to the hospital. That becoming 

 soon delirious, he recollected no other symptom, succeeding these mentioned. 



