# Lectures on Ventilation/Letters

The subjoined are a few of the Letters received from prominent Sanitarians and others.
Office of the Superintendent of Health,
Providence, August 5, 1867.
Friend Leeds.
Your Lectures on Ventilation have been received. I am much interested in them, and think the views given are correct. I hope they will be widely circulated. Too mach cannot be said to the people upon the subject.
Ventilation is all-important. Indeed, I think that if the air could be constantly kept in motion, the worst sources of impure air in our cities would be rendered almost free from danger.
In seasons of epidemic cholera, the most oppressive feature of danger is the stagnation which exists in the atmosphere. There was good sense and true philosophy in the old custom of burning bonfires to keep off disease. I must close, wishing you much success in your efforts to awaken the people to the importance of this subject.
Truly yours,
EDWIN M. SNOW, M. D.,
Superintendent of Health.
Bangor, Maine, August 23, 1867.
My Dear Leeds.
Your pamphlet was duly received. I have read it with much interest, and believe it to be worthy of extended circulation. It is the clearest paper on the subject I have yet road.
Yours, in haste,
A. C. HAMLIN, M. D.
64 Madison Avenue, New York, Aug. 23, 1867.
My Dear Friend.
I have just read your Lectures on "Ventilation," and I am very much obliged to you for the entertainment and instruction they have given me. You have very happily hit upon a style which is neither flippant nor dry. I am sure the lectures will be read, and if read, they will do a great deal of good.
I have all my life been talking and writing in this direction, imploring the people to take less medicine and more pure air ; and I feel truly grateful for the help your strong shoulders have given me in what has thus far proved to be a labor of Hercules.
Your particular method of ventilating buildings I had many opportunities of proving while I was Medical Inspector U. S. A., and I assure you that no plan was ever more simple and inexpensive—none could have been more effective. Indeed, I may say that I never knew it to fail.
To you, therefore, I fully believe the country is indebted for the lives of many thousands of men.
With sentiments of esteem,
I remain yours truly,
FRANK II. HAMILTON, M. D.,
Prof. Principles of Surgery, Military Surgery, Hygiene, &c.,
Bellevue Hospital Medical College, N. Y.
Author of Work on Fractures and Dislocations, Treatise on Military Surgery, &c.
    L. W. Leeds, Esq.
Office of the Metropolitan Board of Health,
No. 301 Mott Street,
New York, August 26th, 1867.
Friend Leeds.
Your Lectures on Ventilation have given me much pleasure, and have renewed my confidence in the utility of popular instruction upon the subject. I heartily thank you for the thoughtful care with which you have set forth all the essential principles of ventilation, in language so free from technical words, and so full of plain and homely illustration, that even an uneducated reader can fully understand all you have written. The good Dr. D. Boswell Reid, Dr. Wyman and myself had each attempted to use such a style of explanation and instruction ; but you have far excelled us all.
The first want of every living being is fresh air, and unless the human lungs are supplied with such air constantly at the rate of from ten to thirty cubic feet every minute, by night as well as by day, perfect health and vigor cannot be preserved. Then, too, there are exhaled from the surface of the body and from the lungs, such quantities of waste organic matter, which tend to immediate putridity, that it, together with the carbonic acid, would keep the human body immersed in a deadly vapor of these exhalations, were not fresh air supplied. The illustrations by which you have made these truths easily understood, are admirably given in your lectures, and the method, by which you would best insure success in removing the foul and supplying the pure fresh air in every place where persons live or sleep, are, as I believe, from my own careful studies of this subject, most correct and trustworthy. indeed, I am able to say that, in my examinations of the vast number of hospitals and buildings which you ventilated during the late war, under authority from the intelligent and humane Quartermaster-General of the army, the proof of entire success in your work was everywhere witnessed. Simplicity, invariable certainty and a liberal sufficiency characterizes these admirable methods of yours.
I wish every family in the land had a copy of these lectures.
Sincerely yours,
ELISHA HARRIS, M. D.,
Corresponding Secretary Metropolitan Board of Health,
To Lewis W. Leeds, Esq.
Vaux, Withers & Co., Architects,
No. 110 Broadway, New York, August 27th, 1807.
Dear Mr. Leeds.
I am glad to receive your Lectures in printed form, and trust that they may be widely read throughout the community.
Having been in the habit for several years past, of consulting with you professionally in regard to the arrangements to be made fur heating and ventilation in plans for public and private buildings, I take this opportunity to acknowledge the value of the aid thus given ; and as I feel assured, from a lengthened personal experience, that your thorough knowledge of the subject, both theoretically and practically, is calculated to render your assistance particularly valuable in the adjustment of complex and intricate plans, I trust that one result of the circulation of your interesting pamphlet may be to introduce you more widely to members of the architectural profession.
I remain, Dear Mr. Leeds,
Yours faithfully,
CALVERT VAUX.5
Lewis W. Leeds,
    Heating and Ventilating Engineer.
110 Broadway, NEW York, Aug. 80th, 1867.
Mr. Lewis W. Leeds was employed early in the war of the rebellion by the Sanitary Commission, as an agent to urge the necessity to the health and strength of the army, of the thorough ventilation of tents and quarters, and to devise and suggest to the proper officers the adoption of the best means for this purpose.
At a later period of the war, at the suggestion of the Commission, the Quartermaster's Department engaged his services, and gave him large discretionary powers for the ventilation of hospitals. He was thus employed during all of the war, with great advantage, and the improvements which he brought about were unquestionably the means of saving thousands of lives.
Mr. Leeds has a special talent for making improvements in houses of ordinary construction, by means which may be readily adopted, and with materials which may be anywhere procured without difficulty or great expense.
Mr. Leeds' course of lectures on Ventilation is calculated to supply instructions of great practical utility. An invaluable addition to the health, happiness and wealth of the nation would result, if they could be delivered before every school in the country.
FRED. LAW OLMSTED,
First General Secretary of the Sanitary Commission
Treasury Department,
Office of the Supervising Architect, Sept. 11th, 1867.
My Dear Friend.
Your valuable Lectures on Ventilation have been received, and have been read with much pleasure, more especially as you are about the only person I have ever met, who, after making the ventilation and heating of buildings a specialty, has condescended to follow the laws of nature, and provide the means of adapting them to our artificial modes of life. Your lectures show a thorough study and knowledge of the principles involved, which are, like all natural principles, very simple if once understood. I have recieved from you on many occasions, and to express a hope that you will not despair, but relying on the adage that "truth is mighty" &c., go on with your exposures of the absurdities of the complicated and costly humbugs that are so fashionable at present, and trust you will succeed not only in your missionary labors, but find them pecuniarily profitable.
Very respectfully,
A. B. MULLETT
Supervising Architect.
    Lewis W. Leeds, Esq.,
Engineer Ventilation and Heating,
          Germantown, Penn'a.