THE BREATH OE LIFE. 
97 
dred martyrs died at the stake in the reign of the bigot Mary. 
But how insignificant appear the number and sufferings of these 
victims of regal fanaticism when compared with the tortures 
of suffocation and death from stench, that were endured by 
thousands of persons in this and succeeding reigns, when every 
prison was a legal sepulchre. 
Equally striking are the good results which have followed a 
judicious application of ventilation where it was formerly absent. 
It is scarcely possible to conceive a more repulsive and abom- 
inable state than that hi which our ships of war were during the 
latter part of the last century, owing to the disregard, or rather 
the studied opposition, with which those then in authority treated 
all proposalsto improve their ventilation. We regard othernations 
with whom we happen to be at war as our enemies, but a few 
figures, eloquent in their simplicity, will convince any one that 
incapacity, narrow-mindedness, or obstinacy in high places, are 
vastly more fatal in their results to our gallant sailors than the 
most formidable enemy they ever faced. In the year 1779 
there were 70,000 seamen and marines voted by Parliament ; of 
these 28,592 were sent sick to the hospitals, or 1 in 2.4. In 
1784, of 85,000 men afloat, 21,371 were sent ashore sick within 
the year, or 1 in 4. But in 1804, when ventilation was partially, 
if not thoroughly, carried out in every ship, of the 100,000 men 
of which the navy that year consisted, 11,978 passed through 
the hospital, or only one in 8'3. 
The evils of inefficient ventilation have been strikingly shown 
in the case of the Custom House, where the difficulty of venti- 
lating- a large public room has been very manifest. There the 
atmosphere in some of the apartments was so defective, as to 
produce general symptoms of ill-health among- the officers 
whose official seats were placed in it. The functionaries were 
described to have had “ a sense of tension or fulness of the 
head, with occasional flushings of the countenance, throbbings 
of the temples and vertigo, followed not unfrequently by con- 
fusion of ideas,” that must be very disagreeable to persons occu- 
pied with important and sometimes intricate calculations. A few 
were affected with unpleasant perspiration at their sides. The 
whole of them complained of a remarkable coldness and languor 
at their extremities, more especially the legs and feet, which 
became habitual. The pulse in many cases was more feeble, 
frequent and sharp, and irritable, than it ought to have been. 
The sensations in the head occasionally rose to such a height, 
notwithstanding the most temperate regimen of life, as to render 
cupping requisite, and at other times depletory remedies ; and 
costiveness, though not a uniform, was yet a prevailing symptom. 
The identity between the combustion of a candle and that 
living kind of combustion which is ever going on within us has 
NO. I. H 
