SCIENCE 



Friday, April 30, 1915 



CONTENTS 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



Standards of Ventilation in the Light of 

 Eecent Besearch: Peofessoe C.-E. A. 

 WiNSLOW 625 



Some Engineering Froilems in Ventilation: 



D. D. Kimball 632 



Conditions at the University of Utah 637 



The Pacific Association of Scientific Societies: 

 Peofessoe W. W. Campbell 637 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: Dk. L. O. Howaed 63S 



Scientiflo Notes and News 640 



and Educational Neivs 644 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Preservation of the Fundamental Con- 

 ceptions of Mechanics: De. Gordon S. 

 FuLCHEE. Get the Units Sight: Peofessoe 

 Alexander McAdie. A Spurious Case of 

 Multiple Ruman Births: Peofessoe G. H. 

 Paeker 644 



Scientific BooTcs: — ■ 



Kelly on Some American Medical Botanists: 

 Dr. p. H. Gaeeison. Best on the Deaf: 

 John D. Weight. Dr. Gifford's Natural 

 Sines: Peofessoe David Eugene Smith. 

 Tower, Smith and Turton's Principles of 

 Physics: Professor G. W. Stewart 649 



Special Articles: — 



Antagonism and Balanced Solutions: Dr. 

 EoDNET H. True. On the Osmotic Pressure 

 of the Juices of Desert Plants: De. J. Ae- 

 THUE Haeeis, John V. Laweence, De. 

 Eoss Aitken Goetnee. On the Genus 

 Trachodon: Charles W. Gilmoee 653 



The Society of American Bacteriologists: 

 Dr. a. Parker Kitchens 660 



Societies and Academies : — 



The Biological Society of Washington: M. 

 W. Lyon, Jr. The New Orleans Academy 

 of Sciences : Peofessoe R. S. Cocks 664 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 reyiew should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garriaon- 

 on-Hudson. N. Y. 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE^ 



STANDARDS OF VENTILATION IN THE 



LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH 



The fact that the stagnant air of an 

 occupied room becomes uncomfortable and 

 makes those who are exposed to it listless 

 and inert is a matter of common experi- 

 ence. "When overcrowding in a close un- 

 ventilated space reaches a certain point 

 the results may even be fatal within a few 

 hours, as in the Black Hole of Calcutta, the 

 underground prison at Austerlitz and the 

 hold of the ship Londonderry. Conversely 

 the value of fresh air in the treatment of 

 tuberculosis and other diseases is one of 

 the fundamentals of medical and hygienic 

 practise. 



For the sanitarian it is necessary, how- 

 ever, to know something more than this 

 general fact that bad air is bad. He must 

 not only have some workable conception as 

 to its operation, but also a more or less defi- 

 nite standard of permissible deviation from 

 absolute purity. 



In the earlier days of ventilation this 

 was an easy task. It was natural to assume 

 that the evil effects of the air of occupied 

 rooms was due, either to lack of oxygen or 

 excess of carbon dioxide, or to the presence 

 of some specific organic poison of human 

 origin — morbific matter or anthropotoxin, 

 as this hypothetical substance was called. 

 Of either of these changes the amount of 

 carbon dioxide should serve as a fair 

 measure, and a carbon dioxide standard 

 was therefore confidently advanced by the 

 older sanitarians as a practically all-suifi- 



1 Papers presented at a Symposium on Ventila- 

 tion at the Philadelphia meeting. 



