574 
dered almost powerless by long sojourn in a 
close, hot, animalised and carbonised apartment, 
though only two or three individuals should be 
present, the lungs and the skin are brought to 
such a state of morbid susceptibility, that the 
invigorating and healthy action of the pure at- 
mosphere produces inflammation, often followed 
by death. It is just like suddenly giving a large 
quantity of food to a person starved: the effect 
of treatment so injudicious is death. To restore 
the body to its normal condition, the air must 
be administered as gradually as food after star- 
vation; but in both cases the germs of fatal dis- 
ease often sprout forth ere the remedy can ope- 
rate. There can be no doubt, then, of the neces- 
sity of keeping the air of every inhabited apart- 
ment in a state of constant renovation and 
purity ; and that many of the diseases now pre- 
_ valent, especially those affecting the respiratory 
| result of inadequate ventilation. 
organs, and those bearing a typhoid type, are the 
Nor must it 
be believed that these evils are confined to the 
small and crowded dwellings of the poor; they 
are common in the spacious mansions of the 
wealthy where there is no excuse for them, and 
where by double doors, green baize, gilt leather, 
list, and various other contrivances, as much 
pains are taken to exclude the vital air as would 
be taken to shut out the pestilential sirocco, or 
the simoom of the desert. The prevention of 
cold, and the preservation of a proper tempera- 
ture, are by no means incompatible with perfect 
ventilation—quite the reverse; a proper tem- 
perature may be best maintained by keeping up 
a stream of air gently undulating through the 
| apartment, instead of shutting up this so closely 
that each time the door is opened, a torrent of 
cold air rushes in, and, until the equilibrium is 
established, does considerable mischief, by giving 
colds to those susceptible of taking them,—such 
susceptibility, in healthy persons, being caused 
|| solely by ignorance and bad habits. 
There is still a question of great importance, 
—what amount of space in cubic feet ought to 
be assigned, in sleeping apartments, to each 
adult human being? Not less, we reply, than 
1,000 cubic feet. Hven more would be prefer- 
able. A room 18 feet long, 16 broad, and 9 feet 
high, with a door, a proper-sized window, and a 
free chimney—closing a chimney being highly 
injurious—should not be inhabited by more than 
two individuals. The average allowance in hos- 
pitals is from 500 to 600 cubic feet,—a space 
much too small. In union workhouses the ave- 
rage is only from 200 to 300 cubic feet,—a par- 
simony of space which greatly increases the de- 
mand for pauper medical relief, by rendering the 
sleeping apartments of the indigent inmates 
highly insalubrious. The amount of space al- 
lowed in stables and cowhouses ought, of course, 
to correspond in amplitude te the amount al- 
lowed in human bedrooms. And the ventilation 
there, as well as in all apartments occupied by 
VENTILATION. 
man, should be provided for systematically, by 
means specially applicable and so contrived as 
to maintain an equable temperature in every 
nook and at all hours, and not by make-shifts or 
by chinky walls or ricketty doors and windows. 
The fresh air should enter in constant, gentle, 
minute currents, in equal proportion to the cor- 
responding outflow of foul air, and in such direc- | 
tion or through such contrivances as to main- | | 
tain the same temperature in the most distant 
as in the nearest parts of the apartment. 
nations of fresh air and of foul, sudden vicissi- 
tudes of cold and heat, and partial currents of 
cold air through corners or sides of apartments 
elsewhere full of stagnant warm air, are almost 
as injurious to both man and beast as a general 
prevalence of carbonaceous and fetid vapours. 
The ventilation of plant-houses does not re- 
quire to make any provision for either a supply 
of oxygen to plants or the carrying away of pu- 
trefactive fetor from them,—for, during all the 
period of light, they inhale carbonic acid from 
the air, and abstract its carbon, and give back 
its oxygen, so as to reverse the result of animal 
respiration ; and such free or excessive ventila- 
tion as is practised in the great majority of hot- 
houses is more frequently injurious than advan- 
tageous, and far more suitable to animals than 
to plants. “Considering the manner in which 
glass-houses of all kinds are constructed,” says 
Dr. Lindley in his Theory of Horticulture, “the 
buoyancy of the air in all heated houses would 
enable it to escape in sufficient quantity to re- 
new itself as quickly as can be necessary for the 
maintenance of the healthy action of the organs 
of vegetable respiration. It is, therefore, impro- 
bable that the ventilation of houses in which 
plants grow is necessary to them, so far as respi- 
ration is concerned. Indeed, Mr. Ward has 
proved that many plants will grow better in 
confined air than in that which is often changed. 
By placing various kinds of plants in cases, 
made, not indeed air-tight,—for that is impossi- 
ble with such means as can be applied to the 
construction of a glass-house,—but so as to ex- 
clude as much as possible the admission of the 
external air, supplying them with a due quantity 
of water, and exposing them fully to light, he 
has shown the possibility of cultivating them 
without ventilation, with much more success 
than usually attends ordinary glass-house ma- 
nagement. In forcing-houses, in particular, ven- 
tilation, under ordinary circumstances, in the 
early spring, must be productive of injury rather 
than benefit. Many gardeners now admit air 
very sparingly to their vineries during the time 
that the leaves are tender and the fruit un- 
formed. Some excellent stoves have no provi- 
sion at all for ventilation; and we have the 
direct testimony of Mr. Knight as to the disad- 
vantage of the practice in many cases to which 
it has been commonly applied. ‘It may be ob- 
jected,’ says this great horticulturist, ‘that 
om 
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Alter- | 
