The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-12-04 00:00:00

AIR AND LIFE.

TIIERE are many penalties which men must pay
for living in a state of civilization. Nomadic
tribes, living mainly out of doors, or covering
themselves in from the rain and wind in canvas
tents, take and require but little care in regard
to ventilation, since their habits do not interfere
with atmospheric laws. But it was impossible
that the condition of the ancient Britons, at the
time of the Roman invasion, could be a perman-
ent one. The conquerors brought with them
the seeds of a civilizing influence, and as century
alter century wore on, the people began to erect
stone walls, to hedge themselves in frmn thQ
atmosphere. Gradually the principle of ventila-
tion was introduced; although in the early days
of architecture the necessity for any special
attention to this subject was not apparent. In
those days, when light was admitted into the
building by means of large open casements, the
air went in with the light, and was as freely,
diffused. In the old Roman house, with its uu-
barricaded windows, the ventilation must have
been perfect and simple. But when it became
the fashion to let in the light alone, and thus to
cut off the sir from the same entrance, the evil
effects of a confined atmosphere in houses be-
came a necessity, in the absence of some new
means or its admission and after removal. This
inconvenience was felt the more in places where
great numbers of people were placed together in
one limited place, as on board ship, in the wards
of a hospital, the compartments of a prison, or
even in the closely-built streets of a city. What
amount of disease and of death must have ensued
for many centuries from absence of pure air, and
whilst men were ignorant of the actual value of
air in its relation to life and health, it is impos-
sible to say, or even in an adequate degree to
conjecture.
Even in our present advanced state of civil-
ization, the purification of the attno phere of
great cities does not receive the tice which the
subject unquestionably deserves. In the early
days of gas companies it was very fashionable
for the advocates of the new method of lighting
to quote the old satirist, whose line, when trans-
lated, runs—" He strikes out light from smoke;
not smoke from light." At the present time,
however, this satisfactory antithesis is pretty
well reversed. In every great town where the
air is heavy with the smoke that ascends from
the factory, the complaint is that no operation
can be carried on involving the use of fire with-
out the production of an inordinate quantity of
smoke. The evil penetrates down to the very
kitchen itself, and the problem presses itself up-
on all sides how we may bring about a return to
the good old times, when light and heat were
possible without accompanying smoke. With
the scientific knowledge of the present day it
ought not to be difficult to prevent the pollution
of the atmosphere 1.5 the dense volumes of smoke
which from private houses as well as from public
works poison the air of large towns. We pro-
tect the fish in our rivers from the noxious
streams which once flowed into them without lot
or hindrance,. and destroyed a valuable and
nutritious article of food; but year after year we
allow the air itself, the purity of which is the
very life of a people, to be vitiated by coal
smoke. Whether in: the consumption of bitu-
minous fuel, it is practicable to fit every fireplace
with a smoke-consuming prooess,;or whether an-
thracite coal if genera,ly used, would remove
the difficulty, is a question on which experts may
differ. But that there ought to be no trouble in
preventing the pollution of the air at this time
of day, is su-fficiently obvious to all.
For many ages after the days of the old
Roman literature, little of worth is met with on
the vital properties of air and the importance
of a free air current. For sound instruction on
these points the world had to wait for one whose
physiological labours are amongst the most re-
markable records of natural science in the begin-
ning of the last century. With respect more
especially now to ventilation, we may date all
our knowledge of it from the time of a distin-
guished rector of Teddington, Stephen Hales by
name, that is to say from 1738, when Hales's
treatise appeared, in which the ventilation of
houses was first scientifically considered. Even
now we can scarcely over estimate the richness
of the labours of this remarkable scientific
scholar, or the change of sentiment, opinion, and
knowledge that came from them. They lie at
the foundation of much of our sanitary work,
and have led to studies which, though at the
present time seemingly too remote to hold con-
nection, are, when traced back with careful mind,
markedly and sensitively connected with his par.
ticular discoveries. Ino value of. pure air in
occupied buildings became known a century ago,
when it was cleariy demonstrated that the vege-
table world, while purifying the air by the ab-
sorption of delecterions gases, gave man back
vitalised oxygen in return. But while progress
has been made with the ventilation of our dwel-
hngs, we are still a long way from preventing
the fouling of the atmosphere, more especially
amid the homes of crowded populations.,