Evening star., 1953-01-16
Dirty Air Reduces
Life Span 10 Years
Professor Declares

rVIGS9VI VCIIdI -
NEW YORK, Jan. Is ONANA).
Persons die at least 10 years
before their time lin sections of
cities where the air is dirty and
polluted.
And they die from soot-black-
ened lungs, eaten through with
pneumonia, cancer and tuber-
culosis.
Such are the findings of a
series of studies between dirty
and clean sections of cities con-
Quoted by DR.. Clarence A. Mills,
professor of experimental medi-
cine at the University of Cincin-
natl.
DR.. Mills found that persons
who live in sections of a city
where the air is polluted with
SCOT more easily fall victims to
the various respiratory diseases,
and eventually Succumb to them,
than persons living in cleaner
neighborhoods where the air is
free of dirt.
He found in Chicago. that the
death rate from respiratory dis
eases was IS per cent higher in
the dirty sections than in the
cleaner areas.
Men Suffer Most.
Writing in the current issue
OF the American Journal of the
Medical Sciences. DR.. Mills said
that in the air-polluted sections
of a city, The very high death
rates come on a full decade
earlier" And he added that in
the dirtier areas, too, 1.-The
death rate for men is always
higher than it is for women"
Dr.. Mills found that the great
est difference between the pneu-
monia death rates for the dirty
and clean areas was in the 30
to-40-year group. And though
at this point, deaths in the soot-
laden districts far exceeded
those in the air-clean sections.
the difference leSSened steadily
on toward the old-age extreme.
Greatest significance" wrote
DR.. Mills, attaches to the fact
tnat the ratio of pneumonia
death rates for men in the dirty
district and the clean districts.
is highest in the 30-to-39 age
group and declines steadily on
toward old age.
In all Likelihood this is as
Sociated with the greater phySi- /
cal activity of men in the earlier
decades and a consequent in
halation of greater volumes of
the dirt-laden air. AS physical .
activity and volume of air |
breathed decline with advancing
age, the pneumonia death rates
of the dirty districts came down
closer to those of the clean"
Lung Cancer Also Studied.
The death rate from Iung can /
Ger also showed significant diff
ferenceS between the dirty and
clean sections. In the dirty areas
not only did lung cancer begin
earlier in life, but the male
death rate was astonishingly
high.
The evidence is becoming in
creasingly clear" added Dr..
Mills, that polluted air does, /
indeed, carry respiratory hazards /
of serious import. BY its more
acute effects in periods Of dense
smogs. it markedly increases life
hazards for those individuals al
ready handicapped by pre-exist-
ing respiratory or cardiac trou-
bles. !
Its more insidious effects
through years of lesser exposure
SHOW up in a chronic respiratory
irritation which predisposeS to
pneumonia and tuberculosis and
brings on the high old-age rates
for lung cancer a full decade
earlier in life"
Problem Recognized Abroad.
DR.. Mills added that air pol
luton and community health
has long been recognized in Eng
land and Scotland. But that even
after the Donora, Pa, disaster
in 1948, many leading health
authorities in the United States
still denied there was any rela-
tionship between air laden with
industrial smoke and SCOT and
community health.
That community health"
said DR.. Mills, ''is an important
aspect Of the air-pollution prob
lem is finally beginning to re-
ceive the attention it deserves
from industrial and public
health physicians and engineers
here in America"
DR.. Mills then added that his
studies of death from respiratory
diseases among residents of clean
and dirty air neighborhoods
definitely indicate:
Dirty air does, indeed, become
more damaging the greater the
amount inhaled and the more
thoroughly the dirty air pene-
trates deep into the lungs