Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1873-11-14
HOT AIR FURNACES POISONOUS.

per before tue American 1upllc healbn
association, New York, on Tuesday
He read-Dr. Mapothe says, after
medicine tie profession most concerned
in the preservation of the public health
rank those of the architect and engi-
neer" | am here to speak to you, not
on the science Of public hygiene gener-
ally, but as an architect, on the relation
which architecture has to the science OF
hygiene. This relation is important iu-
asmuch as the architect is called upon
to furnish to the human body by means
of its dwelling place the proper medium
wherewith to regulate its intercourse
with what is its chief food and necessity
air. 1t is the dwelling place-the
house more, even, than the clothing
which must bring to man in proper
condition to be digested and changed in
to nourishment his chief food. Every
adult inhales some three hundred and
sixty cubic feet of air in twenty-four
hours. What the service of his body
needs, not as direct food but to regulate
its temperature, is immensely more, and
it is the business of the architect to con-
struct the house, the dwelling place, SO
that each individual shall have the full
amount for his needs accessible every
hour of the day. This is a matter often
overlooked, for SO fixed and immutable
is this temperature of the healthy body
that the blood of negro In equatorial
Africa or of Hindoo in the heats OF
ASIA is no perceptible fraction of de-
gree warmer than the blood of healthy
esquimaux near the North Pole. The
science of hygiene demands from the
architect that he should study first the
Chronological and meteorological pheno-
mena of the place where he is to build +;
ground on which the building is to be
erected; and third, the material OF
which he is to construct the building.
How these studies had been neglected
the majority of our public halls, court
rooms, prisons, hospitals, asylums,
churches, school-houses, ETC., are me-
lancholy testimonials, not to mention
private houses, tenement-houses, and
hotels. The special subject which has
for its object this connection between
the body and the house and the atmos.
phere outside of the house, is called the
science of ventilation. There are two
ways in which air can be set and kept
moving-the first mechanical, by means
of fan or the system of propulsion !;
the second by heating chimneys and
hues, called the system of suction. In
addition to these methods much is done
by what is called natural ventilation.
but this is not to be depended upon in
all weathers. One of the first principles
OF architecture in relation to hygiene is
that all the materials of building
should be dry and porous before tho
building is inhabited, and kept so after
The very furniture of house can chill
and produce rheumatic affections if it is
damp and has been long in an unheated
room, for In that case it acts with sue
hon upon our body, drying ont its vital
heat People go to sleep in air-tight,
cold room, and believe they are doing a
wondrous thing for their health yet
all night long the air in the room stays
unmoved and gets slowly poisoned,
whilst the evaporation of the body set
ties upon the walls and makes them
more and more air-tight
There is no advantage in going to
bed in cold room, nor in sleeping in
cold room, nor in getting up and dress
ins in q cold room. Persons NAV sur
vive it, but too many have lost health
by it. To have the chill taken off the
air in going to bed or in dressing is both
comfortable and healthful. A room I'M
der forty five degrees is r cold-room for
sleeping-room, and sleeping in an
atmosphere indoors lower than that is
always hurtful, is always pc itively per-
nicious, because such temperature
causes the carbonic acid gas of a Sleep
ing room to condense and settle in the
lower part of the room, when it is
breathed into the lungs Cold, free,
fresh air outside of the house is differ
emit thing from cold, putrid air inside
the house.
After giving table estimating the
amount of air necessary for each person
the speaker continued
1t is sometimes argued that ventila-
ton is expensive, and that the cost is
such as to preclude the general intro
duction of extended arrangements to
secure suitable degree of salubrity at
a higher expense. Permit me to de-
scribe how this has been done. Flues
have been made in all the rooms to
conduct air and heat, and the conbus-
ticn of gas and gas-burners have been
placed within the fues and the chimney
iiues to create strong current open
ings have also been made into the par
titions communicating with the halls,
and these are ventilated by sky lights
having ventilating cowls. In case it
should be desirable to close all windows
and doors OF the rooms, perforated iron
blocks have been built into the stairway
walls, upon level with the flooring
beams, and the space between the beams
is used as conduit for the fresh air,
and the outlet is placed when desirable
under the bed, by having a piece of
Dashboard hung ON hinges within the
opening behind it to admit the air. All
the closets are likewise ventilated and
the place beneath the wash basins. At
the same time this exhaust of the SUPER
fiuous heat into the yentilating fiues
gradually facilitates the through draft,
and the stairway also forms great ven
tilating shaft over which is formed a
glass dome resting upon cornicas of
stucco. The face of this cornice is
formed of perforated woodwork, and
through the perforations of this orna-
mental work the foul air passes into the
space between the dome and the outer
skylights and forces this exhaust through
the ventilating cowl. A noticeable fea-
ture of the ventilation of rooms is the
placing of the register in the ceilings
49,. \ - L. I