The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-12-15
Pulmonary Diseases in Prisons

Pulmonary Diseases in Prisons
1t has often been remarked that the
changes in the moral standards of
nation are reflected in the tendency of
it's educational methods, and similar
test might be derived from the varying
principles of remedial education. ap-
piled to the management of our penal
institutions.
Our cOnvicts are carefully trained in
the habits of industry, but the preser-
walton of their health is apparently
still entrusted to the care of miracle
working providence. Nothing but
miracle can prevent the development
of pulmanory diseases in crowded
buildings constructed Oh the plan of
nine out of ten of our American state
prisons, not to mention village jails and
the man-pens of our southern convict
camps. In the penitentiaries modelled
on the Clerkenwell plan there are from
three to five tiers, each containing
about twenty cells and facing wall
with less than dozen barred windows.
The cells are eight by ten feet (sOme-
times only six by ten and eight feet
high. and have no windows, but receive
their supply of fresh air through a
grated door. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT venti-
latiOn is in that way made not only diff
ficult but impossible, and direct cur
rent of fresh air can enter cell only
in case the wind is from the direction
of the windOw-wall, though in many
cases that chance is lessened by the OBJ
structiOn of higher outside wall or a
factory building of two or three stories.
The health commissioners of BruS-
sells, and afterward of Paris, adopted
rule requiring the owners of buildings
intended for tenements to provide six
square feet of window front for each
thousand cubic feet of room space-a
proportion which is many times ex-
ceeded in the airy villas of our Amer
lean summer resorts. But a tier-cell
prison provides only about forty square
inches of window front to each thou
sand cubic feet of cell space: in other
words. the minimum of the tenement
regulation exceeds the average of our
prison buildings as twenty-five to one
The school law Of Michigan author
ICES teachers to exclude children afflict-
ed with troublesome cough, but in
our state prisons scores of such patients
saturate the atmosphere with the germs
of their complaint, and consumptives
continue to occupy their cells till the
progress of their disease units them
for even such light work as wool-pick-
ing or chairmaking.
. The cOntagiOuSneSS of pulmonary
diseases has been practically recognized
in the management of military barracks,
where consumptive soldiers are prompt
ly discharged, though their comrades
pass considerable part of their time in
outdoor exercise. What must be the
effect of the disease germs on cOnvicts
who have to breathe the same infected
atmosphere day and night, since many
of them have to pass their working
hours under circumstances constantly
assOciating them with lung sick fellow
labOrers. Many county jailS of the
rural districts have only. a single dor
mitOry, and in the Southern convict
camps as many as fifty prisoners are
often obliged to sleep in all i'll ventilated
cabOose, Il box car with two small Will
dOWs. and fitted with double row of
hunks. In the report on the cause of
the Tennessee labor troubles one of the
IllCIlUlOllS UllC CdSC VI Il
young mulattO who offered to renOunce
the compensation of his over time work
if they would excuse him from sleeping
or rather sitting in the wooden Bas-
tile; but his prayers went unheeded.
a few days after, he was in fever
delirium indicating all attack of malig
nant influenza. Exceptional circum-
stances may now and then involve such,
contingencies, but where they can be
avoided we have no more right to in
feet our prisoners with the germs of
lung diseases than to inOculate them
with hydrOphObia virus. -FeIia l.. Os-
lcOld. IN Summary.
The Century Dictionary is authority
at Chautauqua. The state department
will supply the Behring Sea commits
sioners with copies of it and it will be
L. l.. IL I y