Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-06-02

ltcntltdted rooms.
1t is essential to the health of the lung
that the air should not only be received il
sufficient quantity, but Of proper purity. IT.
purity depends on its free circulation and
| frequent reaelraE. The air of the largest
cot,Htulg-houSe speedily becomes FOUL unles:
q constant stream of fresh ali. is made tc
pass through it. Even the air of yard
| open to the heavens, when surrounded by
buildings in such manner as TO exclude
currents, becomes stagnant and unwhele-
some. The back part of long room open
ing on the public street is always filled with
impure air, even though the whole front be
left open. Merchants and book keepers are
in this way continually exposed to its en-
ervating influence, and rendered liable to
Consumption. All this is absurdly wrong,
since, by a simple system Of ventilation,
the smallest rooms can be kept perfectly
pure, while without it the largest rooms,
even with doors aud windows open, become
unfit for human habitatiOn. Every room
occupied by human beings, or even by
| brutes whose lives are valuable, should
| breathe, that is to say, should throw out a
| steady stream of foul air, and take in
| steady stream of pure air. Where this is
not attended to, the occupants soon become
feeble, their cheeks lose their freshness,
their blood becomes thick, dark, md car
bonaceous, and, ere long, their disregard Of
the laws of health is punished by prema-
t9re decline.
III. All trades rhicb crpose the hsngs TO
direct Irritation.
We have explained how irritation Of the
mucous membrane produced by colds, leads
on TO Consumption, and now propose TO
show that an irritation produced in the nose,
throat, and bronchial tubes, by constantly
breathing an atmosphere filled with dust
produces the same effects upon the health,
undermines the strongest constitutions, and
engenders Consumption in the same way as
colds.
1t has long been known that stone
masons, miners and coal-heayers, fax, cot
ton and wool l-dressers, dressers Of feathers
and hair, brass and steel-polishers, metal
grinders and needle-pointers, grain heav-
ers and rice-dressers, are all particularly
liable TO Consumption. Why are they so
Because these callings are all carried on in
a dusty atmosphere. DR.. Allimason, of Ed
inburg, tells us that there is hardly an in
stance Of a mason, regularly engaged in
cutting stones in that city, free from Con-
sumption at the age of fifty years. Ex-
posed to the inhalation of fine particles of
sand, dust, and powdered stone, they gen.
orally die before they reach forty. An i'm
mense proportion of the miners OF Cornwall,
England, are destroyed at an early age by
chronic Bronchitis and Consumption. Sir
John Forbes, editor of the British and For
eign Medico- Chilurgical Review, in his re-
port, attributes this frightful mortality TO |
the inhalation of dust. The miners engaged |
in cutting millstones in the great quarries |
at Waldschat, on the Rhine, we have the |
authority of Wepfer for saying, all become |
consumptive. The quarrymen at ST. Roch, |
in France, are so liable to Consumption, that |
among them the disease is known by the |
name !" La Naladic dc st. ROch." Chateau |
neuf tells US that the mortality from Con- |
sumption has frightfully increased among |
the people of the Commune of Meusnes |
since they engaged in the manufacture of |
gun-hints.
There are few persons who have not read |
accounts of the injurious effects of dry |
fliHg" and "dTy grinding" Those engaged. |
in tnis kind of work are all short lived |
Sir James Clark assures US that in the two |
principal machine factories at Leeds there |
were to be found only too tilers who had |
reached the age of forty-eight, The exper-
ence of the grinders is still worse. DR.. |
X night found "about two thousand five |
hundred grinders in Sheffield, England. |
q OF these, eighty men and seventy boys are |
fse,L a-rir, dars -lJcLs-s,-,-ir1t 5'ro esis-hSi
age, The razor grinders grind both ioet |
and dry, and they die from forty to forty
FIVE years. The tabic-kHte grinders work |
on loct stones, and they live to between forty |
and fifty years. To prove that grindlag Is
more injurious than other trades, Or. |
Knight made a comparison of all the work |
men, and found that Of two hundred and
fifty grinders, no less than one hundred
and fifty four labored under disease OF the
lungs, while of the same number engaged
in other work, only .ffty-sir were consump-
tive.
Now, as the habits of the different classes
of mechanics engaged in the same work
shops are precisely alike, it is clear that the
greater liability Of some of them to Con-
sumption is entirely due to the injurious
character of their employment, and hence
that employment is cause OF the dlsease.
Dressers of fax and hair are generally un-
healthy. Thockrack, speaking OF the lnJu-
rious effects of the dust of mills, says; In
proportion to the degree and continuance OF
this deleterious influence, is the head effec-
ted, the appetite reduced, respiration i'm
paired, cough, and finally bronchitis or tHber-
cular Consumption produced"
We might.go on citing additionarevidence
in proof of the local origin of Consumption
in the great majority of cases, and in proof
of our theory, that it is generally acquired,
and seldom inherited; !; but the above are
amply sufficient for our purpose.
It will BIS seen that a small chest, SCcefe
cold, cramped position Of the body, impure
air, and a dusty toorkSh9P, all produce Con
sumption in precisely the same way-by
preventing the admission of the Oxygen OF
the air to tho lungs in sufficient quantity to
remove the carbon of the blood. In every
case the blood must be impure from the pres
ence of this carbon, before the tubercles
can be deposited, and whatever tends 70 en-
crease the carbon, or TO diminish the OTyge",
is the cause of tubercles.
In our letter next Saturday we shall show
that while none of the lower animals have
ever been known 10 inherit Consumption, we
can vet produce this disease IN any animal
aokich breatheS, BY simply exposing ~ to the
operation Of any one Of the causes 'ohieh pro
duce Il IN man. And if this be true, is it not
Iamentable that people still ignorantly cling
to the delusion that Consumption IS hered1-
tary, and that they can not have it unless,
perchauce they can discover it among the
disease of their progenitors We do not
hesitate TO denounce the existence OF such
ideas among the people as disgrace to the
profession of medicine, unworthy the intel
| iigence of the age in which we live, and as
false and fatal as the idol worship OF the
pagan.
NorE.-Dr. Ramsay can DO consulted elth-
er personally or by letter at his othce' "a
Il O.