The Necessity of Pure Air for Health. 259 



jailors, court officials and barristers suffered alike from 

 " Jail fever" with a mortality that was awful. Jail fever 

 has quite gone from prisons now ; the name has almost 

 gone and only a few cases of this fever are found 

 annually at home now. These of course occurring in 

 the dirty ill-ventilated parts of large towns as Dublin, 

 Glasgow and Manchester. There is little doubt that 

 this disease, Typhus fever, will, sooner or later, like the 

 Black Death and Plague become a thing of the past, and 

 one more conquest over disease, one more step in the 

 glorious march to relieve human suffering will have been 

 made by sanitarians. 



If we breathe air for any period vitiated by animals to 

 the extent of containing more than '06 of carbonic acid 

 gas and the proportionate amount of organic matter, 

 often distin6l febrile symptoms will be produced, lasting 

 some hours perhaps. This is beyond doubt, though when 

 Dr. Wallbridge read a paper on ventilation some few 

 years ago, his statement, from his experience, that coolies 

 sleeping in ill ventilated ranges came to hospital with 

 fever, was ridiculed. All of us have had the experience 

 of breathing foul air, at a play or concert for instance, 

 and we have all suffered more or less the next day from 

 headache, have not felt quite so well as usual, not quite 

 so ready to go to our work. Many of us have perhaps 

 not known why it was, but there is no doubt that it was 

 due to breathing air laden with more than '06 per cent, 

 of carbonic acid gas and a proportionate amount of 

 organic matter. If a few hours will produce such dis- 

 comfort, what must be the result of a continued 

 exposure? 



Formerly some 50 years ago all authorities were agreed 



KK 



