1P1 
 
 fr'PM&iui* *, jaj: 
 
Received. 
 
 1 87 ^ 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 DANIEL C. OILMAN. 
 
This day is published by Wiley & Hoisted, 
 
 AMERICAN DWELLINGS. 
 
 With One Hundred Diagrams, 
 
 Presenting a Series of Examples in different Classes of Habitations, by 
 
 DE. D. B. REID. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE OF THE PROGRESS OF 
 IMPROVEMENT IN VENTILATION, 
 
 BY DR. ELISHA HARRIS. 
 
 1 vol. 8vo., full cloth, $2 00. 
 
 The above volume is an original work, having been prepared by Dr. REID during 
 his residence in this country. 
 
 "While the principles and practice of Ventilation, in all parts of the world, are 
 founded essentially on the same truths, viz. the relation of the external world to the 
 human frame, the extent to which they ought to be applied in practice in individual 
 climates and nations, must depend on peculiarities connected with local meteorology, 
 architectural construction, the general hygienic rules applied and enforced in large 
 cities and populous districts, and the habits and occupations of the individual inha- 
 bitants. 
 
 In the present volume, Dr. REID, having, during a two years' residence in the 
 United States, had many opportunities of witnessing the effects of extreme tempera- 
 tures, and of the sanitary condition of cities, on personal health, and of noticing the 
 extreme effects of the atmosphere in special hotels and other places, has given the 
 result of his experience, placing it in the form of a series of examples, extended to 
 all classes of habitations, from the log hut, the temporary shanty, and the counting 
 house, to the tenement house, as well as to first-class dwellings in American cities. 
 
 The diagrams explain the resources adapted to meet the wants and peculiarities 
 that occur in existing buildings and new structures ; and assist the non-professional 
 reader in selecting the system that may be especially applicable to his own wants, 
 and the circumstances of individual rooms and large habitations. 
 
 Fifty of the diagrams are colored with red, purple, and blue, to indicate respect- 
 ively a pure, a mixed, and a vitiated atmosphere a system introduced by Dr. REID, 
 that conveys at a single view a great body of information, and points in marked cha- 
 racters the course of those aerial currents which are, under ordinary circumstances, 
 entirely invisible. ' 
 

 Dr. BUD'S FEINTED WORKS, Exclusive of Official Reports, &c., &c. 
 
 The Text Book 
 
 for Students of Chemistry, of which three editions were published at Edinburgh, by 
 Messrs. Maclachlan & Stewart, during Dr. Reid's residence there, contains extended 
 illustrations of the System of Diagrams introduced for facilitating the study of 
 Chemical Action, and a view of his Lecture Rooms at Edinburgh. 
 
 The Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chemistry, 
 
 of which three editions were published at Edinburgh, by Messrs. Maclachlan & 
 Stewart during the same peritid, includes illustrations of the first course of Experi- 
 ments performed by the Junior Students of Practical Chemistry, and of apparatus 
 forwarded for the Schools at Alexandroski, St. Petersburgh, under the Russian Govern- 
 ment, and for schools in Sidney, New South Wales. 
 
 The Rudiments of Chemistry, 4th edition, 
 
 Published by M. Bailliere, London and New York, gives an outline of the course 
 introduced as an elementary branch of education in numerous Schools and Aca- 
 demies, and given also to a thousand teachers in London, under the sanction of the 
 Committee of the Privy Council on Education. 
 
 The Study of Chemistry, 
 
 is a small pamphlet advocating the universal introduction of the Chemistry of 
 Daily Life. Until the population of cities and populous districts shall be more 
 widely instructed in the Chemistry of Daily Life, it is not considered possible for 
 society or individuals to reap the many benefits that would then ensue from the 
 progress of Architecture, Arts, and Manufacturers, and the increased attention to 
 public measures for Hygiene. 
 
 Illustrations of Ventilation, 
 
 Published at London, by Messrs. Longman & Co. This work contains an account of 
 the principal views advocated by the author in respect to Architecture and Ventila- 
 tion, and of many of the experiments on which they were founded, with numerous 
 illustrations from executed works in Banks, Ships, Manufactories, Law Courts, 
 Churches, Prisons, Schools, Hospitals, and other public as well as private buildings. 
 The experiments are specially described that were made at the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, and formed the basis of all the principal works executed there and at the 
 New Houses of Parliament under the author's direction (till he ceased to act there, 
 except under protest) and of the works executed at St. George's Hall, and the New 
 Assize Courts of Liverpool. 
 
 A chapter is added on the acoustic arrangements made by the author at the late 
 House of Commons, and special illustrations are also given of the Ventilation of 
 Dr. Reid's Chemical Class Room and Experimental Laboratories. 
 
 The article " Ventilation," i& the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 Narrative of Facts as to the New Houses of Parliament. 
 
 This work, of which a new edition will be published, contains an exposition of 
 the progress of Ventilation at the Houses of Parliament, of the course pursued by 
 the Government from 1835 to 1846, of the unanimous support given to the continu- 
 ance of that course by a committee of the House of Commons in that year, after 
 the most deliberate investigation, of the manner in which it was interrupted by the 
 proceedings of the Marquis of Clanricarde in the House of Peers, of the verdict of a 
 Jury, and subsequently of Arbiters, in reference to the steps taken by the author, 
 and a reprint from Parliamentary papers of his statements made at the Bar of the 
 House of Commons when, six years afterwards, he was permitted by the House to 
 point out publicly his opposition to the course pursued on the works at the New 
 Houses. 
 
 A College of Architecture 
 
 advocates the importance of establishing extended systematic arrangements for 
 facilitating the education of Students of Architecture, and is reprinted from the 
 Educational Magazine conducted by the Hon. H. Barnard of Hartford, Connecticut. 
 In the REPORTS of the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION at WASHINGTON, 
 for 1856-7, a brief outline is given of some of Dr. Reid's lectures in reference to 
 the progress of Architecture, and an outline of the arrangements proposed for im- 
 proving Quarantine, and lessening the undue detention of ships at Quarantine 
 Stations. 
 
VENTILATION 
 
 IN 
 
 AMERICAN DWELLINGS; 
 
 WITH 
 
 A SERIES OF DIAGRAMS, 
 
 PRESENTING EXAMPLES IN DIFFERENT 
 CLASSES OF HABITATIONS. 
 
 BY DAVID BOSWELL^EID, M.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH; HONORARY MEMBER 
 
 OF THE IMPERIAL MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY OF ST. PETERSBURGH ; 
 
 FORMERLY DIRECTOR OF THE VENTILATION AT THE HOUSES 
 
 OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON; ETC., ETC. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE OF THE PROGRESS OF 
 IMPROVEMENT IN VENTILATION, 
 
 BY ELISHA HARRIS, M.D., 
 
 LATE PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF OF THE N. Y. QUARANTINE HOSPITALS; FELLOW OF THE COLLEGE OF 
 PHYSICIANS AND SUEGEONS OF THE STATE OF N. Y. ; FELLOW OF THE N. Y. ACADEMY 
 OF MEDICINE ; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION ; ETC., ETC. 
 
 WILEY & HALSTED, 
 351 BROADWAY. 
 
 1858. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 
 WILEY & HALSTED, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
 
 New York. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 '' 
 
 
 THE object of the following pages is to present a series of examples of ventilation 
 applied to American habitations, and to assist in the introduction of more extended 
 measures for meeting cases of extreme temperature, whether of heat or cold. 
 
 Some apology may, perhaps, be required on the part of the author, in entering on 
 this subject. There is no practical question, probably, where the experience of differ- 
 ent nations can prove more mutually advantageous than in those departments 
 of Art and Science that minister to the wants of daily life. He has not hesitated, 
 therefore, to give, in accordance with the views of Mr. Wiley, the following 
 examples and explanations. They refer to those points connected with the state of 
 ventilation that have most forcibly arrested his attention in the United States, and are 
 arranged in a form that will enable those not professionally acquainted with the sub- 
 ject, to trace their bearings on the condition of their own habitations. 
 
 Observations made at the Academy of Medicine by Dr. Francis and other mem- 
 bers of the profession, an address by Dr. Stevens, printed in the State papers at 
 Albany, and the very able works on Ventilation published in the United States 
 by Dr. Wyman, Dr. Griscom, and Dr. Bell, as well as publications and papers 
 by Dr. Jarvia of Dorchester, Dr. Stone of Washington, and Dr. Bartoa of New 
 Orleans, have convinced the author that the importance of this subject is widely 
 acknowledged and supported with great energy, ability, and zeal on this, as well as 
 on the other side of the Atlantic, however imperfect the ideas and practice of the 
 great masses of the population may still be in respect to it both in the old and the 
 new world. On the subject of quarantine, that concentrates more ventilating 
 questions than any other department of sanitary improvement, he was fortunate 
 enough to be introduced, by the Board of Health of the City of New York, 
 to Dr. Harris, whose practice with such resources as were within his power, was 
 full of interest, while nothing could be more significant than the desertion of the 
 principal building intended for hospital accommodation, in consequence of its imperfect 
 and unsatisfactory ventilation. His important and elaborate report on yellow fever 
 and other infectious diseases, presented to the Legislature during the last year, 
 shows how attentively and practically the various phenomena and causes of such 
 

 4b PREFACE. 
 
 diseases have been studied by him, and points emphatically to the course that should 
 be pursued on this great and interesting question. 
 
 The limits and nature of a volume intended more for the general than the profes- 
 sional reader, do not allow the opportunity of acknowledging all the varied, inter- 
 esting, and valuable facts that have been brought under notice in the works pub- 
 lished or in the inventions seen here. But it may at least be remarked, that what- 
 ever advantages may be claimed in Europe, in systematic ventilation, mild heating 
 surfaces, and hot water apparatus, greater perfection has been attained here in some 
 varieties of steam apparatus, blowers, and arrangements for the use of Anthracite 
 coal, than are met with in other places. In reference to the latter, in some parts of 
 England, and still more in many places in "Wales and Ireland, were some of the 
 many ingenious stoves introduced that are in daily use in this country, in small 
 apartments, they would be a great improvement to some of the arrangements at pre- 
 sent resorted to in the use of this coal, if combined with due ventilation. 
 
 Public works, now in progress, or lately completed, more especially at Washing- 
 ton, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, equally attest the attention that is at pre- 
 sent given to ventilation in the United States ; and public proceedings at numerous 
 medical associations, at the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, under the direc- 
 tion of Professor Henry, at the Lowell Institute at Boston, and at the Boards of 
 Health in New York and other cities, show the interest taken in this subject. The 
 works on education, and the Educational Journal of the Hon. Henry Barnard of 
 Hartford, and the report of the Committee of the Academy of Medicine on the 
 National Hotel disease, at Washington, afford some of the most recent proofs and 
 expositions of the magnitude and importance of the practical questions it involves. 
 
 But no one can have examined the state of ventilation, either in the old or in the 
 new world, without being satisfied that, whatever may have been done in particular 
 places, good ventilation, combined with systematic arrangements both for heating 
 and cooling, is the exception, and not the rule hi all classes of buildings. The testi- 
 mony of Dr. Griscom, of the Hon. Henry Barnard, and of the Inspector of Schools 
 in Brooklyn, presents striking and important evidence on this point as to one class 
 of buildings that demands the most scrupulous consideration, particularly where the 
 capacity and energy of the lungs are apt to fall below the proper standard, in early 
 youth, from the want of due facilities for daily exercise and appropriate play-ground. 
 
 To the city inspector in New York, and in other cities, as well as many official 
 authorities, particularly in connexion with the Board of Emigration and quarantine 
 establishments, special acknowledgments are due by the author for the opportunities 
 afforded him in inquiries as to the condition of public health. 
 
 The essential element of all ventilation consisting in the ingress and egress of air, it 
 appears to be an extremely simple subject to those who take no further thought of it. 
 But modes and details of action require to be studied and multiplied, according to 
 the peculiarities in the structure of different buildings, the wants and occupations of 
 individual constitutions, and the number crowded on a given space. In some 
 
PEEFAOE. 5 
 
 places a simple aperture satisfies every want, if there be sufficient skill and know- 
 ledge to use it judiciously. In others, the extremes of heat and cold, dryness and 
 moisture, malaria and mosquitoes render precautions and resources desirable, that 
 can be made to contribute largely to the security of health and to the improvement 
 of comfort in all classes of dwellings. * 
 
 But a great work is still to be done. The practice of ventilation requires to / 
 be brought home to the habitations of masses of the population, and their sympa- 
 thies enlisted in its principles, and extended to all classes of buildings and sanitary 
 improvements. An extended and united co-operation among all classes of society* 
 and between the medical, the architectural, the engineering, and the agricultural 
 professions, in forwarding the cause of public health, is still a desideratum. "Without 
 their combined efforts it is impossible for town and country to reciprocate all the 
 mutual advantages they can confer on each other, and to develope a complete sys- 
 tem of architecture, where beauty, utility, and economy shall each have their legiti- 
 mate influence, while oppressive atmospheres and accidents by fire shall no longer 
 be of such frequent occurrence in any class of buildings. It is confessed, however, 
 that without the general introduction of instruction in the leading truths of practical 
 science in connexion with the- chemistry and physiology of daily life, in all schools 
 and academies, and suitable experimental illustrations, there can be no great 
 expectation that all classes will share, as they might do, in the fruits of the progress 
 of discovery. Nor can the sanitary question subserve those great religious, moral, and 
 economic results that would tend most materially to increase the duration of human 
 life, and enable man to participate more largely in all the blessings and bounties 
 which a beneficent and omnipotent Providence has placed within his stewardship 
 and control during his transitory existence in this world, if the seed be not sown that 
 shall give the key of the material world freely to the rising generation, and enable 
 it to weave the principles and practice of science with the wants of humanity 
 in the affairs of daily life. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE OP THE PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT, iii 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION, 1 
 
 II EXPLANATORY REMARKS, 9 
 
 IIL VENTILATION OP A KOOM LIGHTED BY GAS. PREVENTION OF 
 
 COLD CURRENTS ON THE FLOOR, 19 
 
 IV. SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE, 21 
 
 V. EXTERNAL INGRESS AND EGRESS OP AIR, 33 
 
 VL THE WINDOW. INTERNAL WINDOW, . . . . .35 
 
 VII. VENTILATION BY THB CEILING, 38 
 
 VIII. SUPPLY OF Am AT AND IMMEDIATELY ABOVE THE FIREPLACE, . 40 
 IX. PREVENTION OF THE RAPID ESCAPE OF FRESH WARM AIR, . 42 
 X. VENTILATION OP BED ROOMS IN CASES OP YELLOW FEVER, . 43 
 XI. VENTILATION THROUGH THE MOSQUITO NET IN CASES OF SICK- 
 NESS AND GREAT IRRITABILITY, 45 
 
 XIL ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERE IN THE SICK CHAMBER, ... 46 
 XIIL SMALL CHAMBER FOR ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERES. VENTILATED 
 
 AIR, STEAM AND SHOWER BATH, 47 
 
 XIV. DRY AND MOIST AIR, 49 
 
 XV. EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. MEANS OF 
 
 VENTILATION NOT PREVIOUSLY INDICATED, .... 52 
 
 XVI. COMPOUND MOVEMENT OF AIR FOR AN ASTHMATIC INVALID, . 56 
 
 XVII. A DESCENDING CURRENT, 57 
 
 XVHL COOLING ROOM, 58 
 
 XIX. ENTRANCES, STAIRS, AND PASSAGES, 68 
 
 XX. THE HEATER, . . . 68 
 
 XXI. STEAM APPARATUS, . .;.;. *70 
 
 XXH. THE LOG HUT, . . . 's*^ 74 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 'CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 XXni. VENTILATION or A COTTAGE WITH FOUR BOOMS AND ONE CEN- 
 TRAL FLUE, . . .76 
 
 XXIV. COTTAGE WITH EIGHT BOOMS AND A CENTRAL HOT WATER 
 
 APPARATUS, 79 
 
 XXV. VENTILATION OP A LARGER HOUSE, 80 
 
 XXVI. VENTILATION OF A COUNTRY HOUSE, .'.... 82 
 XXVH. VENTILATION or THE PRINCIPAL APARTMENTS IN A HOUSE 
 
 WHERE LARGE PARTIES ARE GIVEN, . '. .- . . .. . 86 
 XXVIH. TEMPORARY VENTILATION OF LARGE BOOMS IN AN OLD HOUSE, 
 WHERE NUMBERS ARE CROWDED, FOR A SHORT PERIOD, 
 
 DURING SEVERE WEATHER, 88 
 
 TTTT. VENTILATION OF HOTELS. NOTES IN REFERENCE TO THE NA- 
 TIONAL HOTEL DISEASE AT "WASHINGTON, .... 90 
 
 XXX. TENEMENT HOUSES, 98 
 
 XXXL IMPROVEMENT OF BUILDINGS IN DENSELY POPULATED DISTRICTS, 106 
 
 XXXTL EXTERNAL VENTILATION, Ill 
 
 XXXm. DRAINS AND CLOSETS, ..... . . . .115 
 
 XXXIV. DECOMPOSITION OF Noxious GASES FROM MANUFACTORIES IN 
 
 POPULOUS DISTRICTS, 121 
 
DIAGRAMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIG. 1. A very general form of defective ventilation, caused by the recoil of 
 vitiated air from the ceiling of an apartment having no discharge above 
 the level of a low fire-place, and from a large amount of fresh air passing 
 to it in a cold curr.ent along the floor 19 
 
 FIG. 2 indicates one of the numerous modes of remedying the defects pointed 
 
 out in Fig. 1 19 
 
 Where a supply of cold or warm air is not available by a special flue, the 
 figures that indicate a supply of air by internal windows, external win- 
 dows, the ceiling, internal porous doors, or laterally by the walls, should 
 be consulted. 
 
 Any obstruction to the direct ingress of air from a small channel is valuable, 
 where extended diffusion at the wall or base-board is not given, its utility 
 depending on the amount of diffusion it secures, and the numbers crowded 
 on a given space. 
 
 FIG. 3. Ventilating apertures in an ordinary chimney or fire flue 29 
 
 FIG. 4. A fire flue in one room ventilating powerfully another room in the floor 
 below. 29 
 
 FIG. 5. A fire flue ventilating an adjoining apartment in summer, the contigu- 
 ous chimney flue being opened near the ceiling, intercepted above, as indi- 
 cated, the open fire-place closed, and an opening made between the two 
 apartments under the level of the grate. In this manner a powerful ven- 
 tilation may be secured without heating the apartment ventilated. This 
 diagram is the type of numerous arrangements that are made for temporary 
 purposes in old houses, especially in severe cases of infectious disease. .... 29 
 
10 DIAGRAMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIG. 6. A fire-place made air-tight except where it communicates with a tube 
 that draws vitiated air directly from a high level near the ceiling of any 
 apartment, and discharges it by the smoke flue. 29 
 
 FiG. 7. A central flue warmed by a stove or by a gas lamp, m, and ventilating 
 
 an apartment on either side by flues descending from the ceiling 29 
 
 FiG. 8. A central ventilating turret, heated at all times when power is required 
 by a gas-burner at a;, and receiving vitiated ah* from ten different branches 
 or minor ventilating flues on each floor, every one of these discharging 
 vitiated air from two or more compartments 31 
 
 FiG. 9. A ventilating turret similar to that indicated in Fig. 8, receiving vitiated 
 air from four ascending branches, into which it passes from individual 
 rooms, closets, &c., in its progress to this turret 31 
 
 FIG. 10. The form of ventilating flue recommended in the constructing of new 
 habitations, where power, security from fire, facility of regulation, and cer- 
 tainty of action are prized, whatever may be the state of the external at- 
 mosphere 31 
 
 FiG. 11. This figure points out a provision that may be made hi a flue such as 
 FiG. 10 shows, by the introduction of a fire-proof valve at w, which can be 
 placed in the position indicated in FIG. 11, at all times when the warmth of 
 the house and the coldness of the external atmosphere give sufficient ven- 
 tilating power without the use of the fire below. The fire is most valuable 
 in sultry warm weather, when there is little or no ventilation secured with- 
 out special power 31 
 
 FIG. 12 indicates a variety of FIG. 10, hi which two descending shafts are used 
 instead of one 31 
 
 FiGS. 13-21, inclusive, indicate some of the many varied forms given to external 
 
 apertures to facilitate the ingress of fresh or the egress of 'vitiated air 33 
 
 FiGS. 22-26, inclusive. Diagrams showing special arrangements at an external 
 window, and the movement of air in an apartment ventilated by an internal 
 window or louvre formed in a pannel immediately above the door 35 
 
 FIG. 27. Ventilation by a porous ceiling, an arrangement exceedingly grateful 
 to many constitutions ; and specially adapted to small rooms, offices, and 
 other places where currents at doors and windows are very objectionable . . 39 
 
 FiGS. 28, 29, 30, give an example of a fire-place in an apartment in which no fresh 
 air is permitted to enter except in the immediate vicinity of the fire, where 
 it is necessarily warmed before it can pass further 39 
 
 FIG. 31. Ventilation sustained by a supply of air from a porous surface extend- 
 ing from the ceiling to the chimney-piece 39 
 
 FiG. 32. A current of fresh warm air escaping from the ceiling of an apartment, 
 
 and of little benefit to those by whom it is occupied 42 
 
 FIG. 33. The escape indicated in FIG. 32 prevented, but the air of the apart- 
 
DIAGRAMS. 11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ment contaminated largely with products of respiration, and of the com- 
 bustion of gas 42 
 
 FIG. 34. The faults indicated in the two previous figures corrected by diffusive 
 
 ventilation .* 42 
 
 FiGS. 35, 36, 37. Diagrams explanatory of the manner in which ventilation is 
 secured in any apartments, in cases of infectious disease, where the house 
 has not been, originally provided with a special ventilating shaft 43 
 
 FIG. 38. Special ventilation applied in a case of extreme sickness, where a mos- 
 quito net is indispensable 45 
 
 FIG. 39. Diagram of one of the modes by which a patient can have the benefit 
 
 of an artificial atmosphere without removing from his bed 45 
 
 FIGS. 40, 41. Diagram of a small chamber fitted up for artificial atmospheres, 
 
 and for giving a ventilated steam bath with a warm shower bath 47 
 
 FIG. 42. The hygrometer in general use for indicating the dryness or humidity 
 of the atmosphere, as important to some constitutions as the thermometer 
 in regulating the temperature of the air 4*7 
 
 FIGS. 43-52, inclusive. Diagrams explanatory of the more important arrange- 
 ments available for the ventilation of gas lamps, or for the removal of air 
 charged with their products. FIG. 48 indicates an arrangement by which, 
 in cold weather, the heat of the gas lamp is made to warm the entering 
 fresh air without contaminating it 53 
 
 FIG. 53 gives an example of a compound movement of air, where one portion is 
 drawn down through the floor while another escapes by the ceiling, the 
 supply being given laterally 56 
 
 FIG. 54 gives an example of a descending atmosphere, where the amount of air 
 supplied is so large in proportion to the number present, that the products 
 of respiration are too much diluted to become objectionable 56 
 
 FIG. 55. A special apartment fitted up with means for cooling air 56 
 
 FIG. 56. A powerful heater, provided with two small apertures only, for the dis- 
 charge of very hot air to flues supplying different apartments 68 
 
 FIG. 57. The same heater supplied much more largely with air, and arranged for 
 warming the entrance hall and passages, and for conveying a milder atmo- 
 sphere to the apartments previously supplied with very hot ah* 68 
 
 FiGS. 59-62, inclusive. Diagrams of the arrangements by which a heating power 
 may be conveyed from a single boiler to any part of a house, the heating 
 surface being made to assume any form, and being placed at any level that 
 
 may be required 72 
 
 (Hot water, like steam apparatus, can be made to distribute warmth in 
 different localities from a single boiler.) 
 
 FiGS. 63, 64, 65. Diagrams of currents of air in a log hut 74 
 
 FIGS. 66, 67, 68. Diagrams explanatory of the movements of air in a small cot- 
 
12 DIAGRAMS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 tage or cabin, erected with a very small amount of materials, for a tempo- 
 rary purpose 76 
 
 FIGS. 69, 70, 71. Diagrams of a cottage with eight rooms 79 
 
 PIGS. 72, 73. Diagrams of a house ventilated by a central turret and flues from 
 every room, and having a mild heating apparatus under a central staircase, 
 with which it communicates freely through a perforated floor 80 
 
 PIGS. 74, 75, 76. Diagrams of a house constructed with a special ventilating 
 shaft acting on all or any of the apartments, as well as on the kitchen, 
 closets, baths, and drains 82 
 
 FIG. 77. Diagram giving an example of a house constructed originally without 
 any provision for ventilation, and to which a small ventilating' shaft has 
 been subsequently applied 86 
 
 FIG. 78. Ventilation of large rooms used temporarily as a shelter for numbers 
 
 during severe weather 86 
 
 FIG. 79. Ventilation of crowded rooms and individual apartments in a large 
 hotel 90 
 
 FIGS. 80, 81, 82. Diagrams explanatory of the movements of air where a fanner 
 is employed to assist in the ventilation of a hotel 96 
 
 FIGS. 83-87, inclusive. Diagrams indicating resources available for the improve- 
 ment of ventilation in tenement houses, and of the simplest modes of indi- 
 cating currents, and testing the presence in an undue proportion of carbonic 
 acid in the air 98 
 
 FIGS. 88, 89, 90. Diagrams of arrangements for crowded lodging houses, where 
 the whole suite of apartments can be placed under one control 107 
 
 FIGS. 91-94, inclusive. Diagrams explaining special points connected with the 
 ventilation of drains, where then- construction, and the condition of the 
 building, or of the vicinity, renders this important 115 
 
 FIGS. 95-100, inclusive. Diagrams explanatory of the means of decomposing or 
 condensing and removing noxious vapors in cities and populous districts. . 121 
 
Library* 
 
 Of California- 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 THE Homes of the people, or the conditions of domiciliary life, 
 furnish most reliable indices of the state of intellectual and moral 
 advancement in any community. Though it cannot be assumed that 
 the improvement of man's physical condition will alone secure his 
 moral elevation, it is unquestionably true that it contributes essentially 
 to that important end, and that neither intellectual progress nor moral 
 and social refinement can be long maintained where the requisite con- 
 ditions for physical health and comfort are not suitably provided. 
 
 Our bodily senses, or the faculties by which we are enabled to appre- 
 ciate the real qualities of the material world, were manifestly given by 
 our beneficent Creator for the purpose of guiding to that which is 
 desirable and good, and for our protection from all that is physically 
 disagreeable, and injurious. Poisonous gases, noxious emanations, and 
 the oppressive sensations produced by stagnant air and mephitic odors 
 give timely warning of the danger, disease, and death, that are incurred 
 by continued exposure to such unwholesome agencies. And while 
 the olfactory sense is thus ever active and indispensably serviceable in 
 guarding against evils unseen, the eye is continually revealing to the 
 mind all those relations of forms and colors, which by their beauty 
 and fitness afford satisfaction, or by deformity and unfitness produce 
 dissatisfaction or disgust. So the ear, which ministers to the human 
 soul some of its richest pleasures, may also transmit irritating sounds 
 and produce distracting sensations ; and by a wonderful development 
 
IV PEOGEESS OF SANITAEY IMPKOVEMENT. 
 
 and provision of the nervous system, the human body is enabled to 
 feel its relations to the material world, experiencing comfort and 
 delight, or irritation and pain. 
 
 That the means for promoting personal comfort and physical health 
 are within the reach, and measurably under the control of man, is no 
 less true than that the love of happiness and the principle of self- 
 preservation are instinctive in the human race. 
 
 It is too true that ignorance, poverty, want, and disease, exclude from 
 large classes the means of enjoying some of the most important requi- 
 sites for their temporal welfare ; but it is also true, that in accordance 
 with the great laws of unity in human interests, whatever improve- 
 ments may be necessary to secure the general health and welfare of the 
 ignorant and the poor, constitute, at the same time, truly essential con- 
 ditions for the protection and well-being of the more favored classes. 
 Especially is this unity of interests made manifest in the hygienic con- 
 ditions of populous towns and cities. The close, uncleansed, unventi- 
 lated residences of the poor become the homes of disease and pauper- 
 ism ; the crowded narrow tenements to which avarice drives poverty, in 
 filthy streets and noisome courts, become perennial sources of deadly 
 miasmata that may be wafted to the neighboring mansions of wealth 
 and refinement, to cause sickness and mourning there ; and when once 
 the breath of pestilence becomes epidemic in any city, commerce and 
 trade are driven to more salubrious marts. 
 
 The promotion of personal and public hygiene, and a proper provi- 
 sion for the physical necessities and moral interests of our fellow men, 
 seem, therefore, to be alike demanded by the soundest principles of poli- 
 tical economy and the precepts of Christian duty. 
 
 We hail with pleasure such a work as this of Dr. Reid's, which is designed 
 to reach the homes and the wants of all classes of our population ; in a 
 plain and practical manner, giving instruction in regard to that most 
 essential requisite for universal health and comfort, a pure atmosphere 
 in every human habitation ; a theme that occupied the mind of How- 
 ard in his visits to the abodes of disease and woe, and one which made 
 the name of Count Rumford known in every hamlet and workshop in 
 Europe, though the grand desideratum was not attained in the days of 
 
VENTILATION, V 
 
 those great men, nor yet, except as regards temperature, even by the 
 ingenuity of our own Dr. Franklin and Dr. Nott. 
 
 Having been requested by the publishers of this treatise, to furnish an 
 outline of the progress of improvement in ventilation, and also a sketch 
 of the public labors of Dr. Reid, we propose briefly to notice some of 
 the more important steps of such progress, and to present those principles 
 and facts relating to this department of hygienic improvement which 
 need to be more generally understood and appreciated. 
 
 In pastoral life, and among the more barbarous tribes of our race, 
 man has usually enjoyed the invigorating influences of the natural atmo- 
 sphere during his wakeful hours ; but from the earliest history of archi- 
 tectural structures and of civilization, in his attempts to provide against 
 the inclemency of the elements, and to secure the means of domestic com- 
 fort and luxury, he has too often shut out from his habitation the 
 fresh air of heaven, and confined a deleterious atmosphere within the 
 choicest apartments of his dwelling. The styles of building adopted by 
 the earlier nations of antiquity, as far as they are at present known to us, 
 made very imperfect provisions for warming, light, or ventilation. The 
 Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and after them the Hebrews in Palestine, 
 the Babylonians, and the Greeks, made great improvements in architec- 
 ture and the provisions for domestic comfort ; yet the dwellings of 
 those people were very imperfectly supplied with a ' comfortable and 
 healthy atmosphere during the more inclement period of the year. 
 Artificial warmth was imparted to the air of the apartments solely by 
 open fires without a chimney, and the offensive, stagnant atmo- 
 sphere of unventilated apartments was deodorized by pungent or 
 agreeable perfumes ; yet it is true, that upon the roofs and in the open 
 courts of ancient oriental dwellings, a pure atmosphere could be en- 
 joyed. 
 
 Though the Greeks and Romans, in their highest state of civilization 
 and refinement, developed styles of general architecture which must 
 forever excite the admiration of the world, yet neither in their public 
 nor their private edifices, were there such provisions and appliances for 
 controlling the temperature and securing ventilation as to provide an 
 agreeable atmosphere during the cold season. 
 
VI PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 That the importance of thorough ventilation was appreciated, how- 
 ever, in its relation to the preservation of health, would seem evident 
 from several sources. We are informed, for example, by Varro, that 
 several cities in Greece were preserved by Hippocrates from an 
 epidemic pestilence, by a proper adjustment of the windows or aper- 
 tures of the dwellings in those cities, thus securing a constant through- 
 draft. Celsus, also, recommends a large room for a person ill of fever ; 
 or a small fire to be made in it to clear the air. But it would appear 
 that the great deficiency in the structure of all habitations in ancient 
 days consisted, as in more modern times, in a lack of suitable means 
 for warming the air without vitiating it. To avoid this difficulty, we 
 find the younger Pliny so arranging and constructing his delightful 
 Laurentine villa, as to secure the greatest possible advantages from 
 that natural source of heat, the sun, added to most ingenious archi- 
 tectural devices for protection from wintry winds. Similar architec- 
 tural arrangements have been observed, in some instances, in the struc- 
 ture of the disentombed palaces of Pompeii. 
 
 A simple but cumbersome apparatus for heating, known as the 
 hypocaust, was in common use for warming apartments and baths 
 among the Komans ; and though it must have been very expensive on 
 account of the great amount of fuel required, it appears to have 
 answered many desirable purposes, and was esteemed a source of great 
 luxury in the cold season. This contrivance for artificial warming 
 was introduced by the Romans into the various northern countries 
 conquered by them; but it never came into general use except among 
 the wealthy classes. In its most highly perfected form, the hypocaust 
 might have been used as an aid to the ventilation of apartments, as 
 in its structure it somewhat resembled a modern house furnace, having 
 pipes or flues communicating from the great oven or fire-chamber, to 
 the several apartments above, the tubes or flues being closed until 
 the fire had ceased to glow, and then opened at pleasure, like a hot-air 
 register in a modern house. In several costly villas, erected by the 
 Roman conquerors in Great Britain, traces of the hypocaust have been 
 found. In the remains of a villa at Woodchester, supposed to have 
 been erected by order of the Emperor Adrian, and containing sixty- 
 
VENTILATION. Vll 
 
 five apartments, the works for warming were carried to a high degree 
 of perfection, all the main passages and apartments being supplied 
 with hypocausts, or hot-air flues therefrom. 
 
 But, whatever may have been the condition of the atmosphere in 
 the more costly residences of early times, in various countries, it is 
 known that the common people in Great Britain dwelt in structures of 
 the rudest kind, and spent most of their time, and sought all their 
 sports, in the open air. Human habitations were almost universally 
 close, dingy, and damp ; and until the chimney and its fire-place came 
 into use, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, all dwellings were 
 rendered unendurable by smoke and its deleterious constituents. 
 
 It is said that the use of chimneys originated in Italy, in the early 
 part of the fourteenth century ; and they were common in Venice at a 
 little later period. This important appendage to the human dwelling, 
 constituting as it does a grand ventilating shaft, as well as a flue for 
 the escape of smoke and offensive gases, has long been an indispen- 
 sable source of comfort and health to mankind; and until plans for 
 systematic ventilation can be applied in every modern dwelling, we 
 are bound to protest against the practice, now so common, of closing 
 those flues, which so cheaply, though, it may be, very imperfectly, per- 
 form the function of natural ventilators. 
 
 During the sixteenth century, the population of large towns in Great 
 Britain suffered much from fatal fevers, known as the sweating sickness, 
 the pestilence, etc. Populous districts were decimated from time to 
 time, and the people justly regarded these deadly maladies with great 
 horror. It was during that interesting period of British history, also, 
 that the memorable pestilence of jail fever, repeatedly and suddenly 
 broke forth, at the opening of the overcrowded and unventilated prisons 
 at the assizes. At the time of the celebrated Black Assize at Oxford, in 
 the year 1577, it is stated that six hundred persons sickened in a single 
 night, and that five hundred and ten persons died of the fever in the 
 course of a few days. The fatal outbursts of fever that have occurred 
 at the Old Bailey, in London, in later years, were of similar character, 
 and their history is better known to us. Those terrible visitations, as 
 well as most of the great epidemics of fever, which repeatedly desolated 
 
Vlll PKOGEESS OF SANITAKY IMPKOVEMENT. 
 
 the rapidly-growing cities of England, appear to have arisen from the 
 gross neglect of domiciliary and public hygiene. In a Royal Procla- 
 mation issued in 1602, it is stated by the Queen, "that heretofore, in 
 her princelie wisdom and providence, she had foreseen the great and 
 manifold inconveniences and mischiefs which did then grow by the 
 accesse and confluence of the people ; and that such great multitudes 
 being brought to inhabit in such small rooms, whereof a great part 
 being very poor, and being heaped up together, and in a sort smo- 
 thered with many families of children and servants in one house, or 
 small tenement, it must needs follow that if ane plague, or other uni- 
 versal sickness should, by God's permission, enter among these multi- 
 tudes, the same would spread itself, out of which neither her Majestie's 
 own person, but by God's special providence, nor any other what- 
 soever, could be exempted." 
 
 " This prophetic warning," says an eloquent writer, " was fearfully 
 realized about seven months afterwards, when the plague swept off 
 thirty-seven thousand citizens between April and November." 
 
 What was true of London and other cities of England, was equally 
 true respecting the causes and prevalence of disease in all European 
 cities, habitual neglect of public cleanliness, neglect of proper drainage 
 and sewerage, and inattention to domestic ventilation and purity, were 
 continual sources of pestilential maladies, which more than equalled 
 war and religious persecution in the desolations they caused. 
 
 The great plague that prevailed in London during the year 1665, 
 and the sanitary effects of the great fire, which took place in 1666, 
 sweeping over the densely-built streets and unventilated quarters, where 
 the pestilence had originated, did much to awaken public attention 
 to the domestic causes of disease. In the brief period of about four 
 months, upwards of one hundred thousand persons perished in London 
 from the plague. Four thousand were known to have expired in a 
 single night, and during the months of July and August fifty thousand 
 dead bodies were cast from the dead carts into the common pits ; the 
 victims being chiefly of the lowest sort of people, who lived in circum- 
 stances of great filth and foul air. 
 
 An historian of that period states, that during the prevalence of 
 
VENTILATION. IX 
 
 this pestilence, there was an uninterrupted calm, so that there was not 
 air sufficient to turn a vane ; and a distinguished modern writer, in 
 giving an account of the terrible visitation, remarks that " the want of 
 ventilation in the houses concurred with the moist, warm, calm air out 
 of doors, or, in other words, with the want of wind, the great venti- 
 lator of nature, every squalid inmate of an ill-ventilated apartment 
 became a reeking sphere of pestilence, impregnating the motionless 
 air of his dwelling and neighborhood with the fatal elements of a 
 loathsome death." He adds, also " One cannot contemplate without 
 astonishment, the delusive and futile means that were followed to arrest 
 and mitigate the dire contagion ; nor think without humiliation, that 
 opinions prevented reliance on the promptings of nature, to keep them- 
 selves clean, or to admit fresh air into their habitations, the only 
 rational and effectual means of escape from danger ; and by following 
 which, modern physicians not only prevent infection and make it harm- 
 less, but have eradicated the epidemical plague itself from England." 
 
 The city which rose phoenix-like from the ashes of the fire, was 
 indeed a new town, and the regenerating influences of that unparal- 
 lelled conflagration continue to the present day. The immediate 
 effects of the rebuilding and improvements were most marked. An his- 
 torian of that day, says " the inhabitants moved in a large sphere of pure 
 aii*, and seeing and feeling everything sweet and new around them, 
 they perhaps wished to keep them so. A man of moderate fortune 
 saw his house superior in its fittings and comforts, to the palatial rooms 
 built in the time of his grandfather. When he paced the streets, he 
 felt the genial western breeze pass him rich with the perfume of the 
 country, and looking upward he beheld the beautiful azure sky varie- 
 gated with fleecy clouds in place of projecting beams, black windows, 
 stories, and spouts, obscured and blackened with smoke and dirt." 
 
 Great improvements were made in domestic architecture during the 
 latter part of the seventeenth century, not only in Great Britain, but 
 throughout Europe. The houses were better ventilated by improved 
 arrangements of their various passages, apartments, and openings. 
 More abundant provision was made for the admission of light, that 
 indispensable requisite for health ; window sashes were made to be 
 
X PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 movable, so as to secure at pleasure greater supplies of fresh air ; and as 
 early as the beginning of the last century, 'w find ingenious men call- 
 ing attention to the importance of more perfect ventilation in public 
 buildings. Sir Christopher Wren, the renowned architect, gave his at- 
 tention to this important subject, and endeavored, though unsuccessfully, 
 to provide suitable ventilation for the Houses of Parliament. In 1723, 
 an ingenious Frenchman, named Desaguliers, was called upon to remedy 
 the defective atmosphere of those houses, and he is said to have suc- 
 ceeded in a tolerable degree without disturbing the architecture as left 
 by Sir Christopher ; the improvement adopted at that period in the 
 House of Commons was essentially upon the principle of thermo- 
 ventilation, or ventilation by heated air shafts ; and some years after- 
 wards, the same gentleman proposed to introduce into private dwellings, 
 hospitals, and prisons, appliances for renovating the atmosphere without 
 opening the doors or windows. This he designed to accomplish mainly 
 by the use of a, fanner or bio wing- wheel. 
 
 Dr. Hales, soon after this time, devoted himself with remarkable en- 
 thusiasm and intelligence to the work of improving the ventilation of 
 all classes of buildings, and he made many ingenious experiments and 
 original investigations relating to the physical properties of the atmo- 
 spheric air, which, together with the great discoveries in its chemistry, 
 gave a decided impulse to efforts for sanitary improvement. 
 
 The occurrence of a terribly fatal pestilence at the opening of the 
 Spring Assizes at the Old Bailey, in London, in 1750, startled the 
 public mind, as did, also, many sad disasters which about that period be- 
 fell large companies of British troops in overcrowded vessels at sea, and 
 in unventilated barracks on land. The horrors of the middle passage in 
 the slave trade had also become widely known, and its causes of morta- 
 lity understood. In his benevolent efforts to alleviate the untold suffer- 
 ings that filled the prisons and lazarettos at that day, the philanthropic 
 Howard made praiseworthy attempts to improve the unhealthy atmo- 
 sphere of such establishments by causing openings to be made near the 
 ceiling of each department, and by hanging the window sashes on 
 pivots so as to secure, when open, a current of fresh air with a slanting 
 direction upwards towards the ceiling. But his noble efforts, and his 
 
VENTILATION. XI 
 
 methods for improving the condition of the ventilation proved very 
 uncertain and unsatisfactory. That great philanthropist made very 
 important practical suggestions, however, respecting plans for a more 
 complete system of ventilation in all new prisons and asylums. As 
 another good result of Howard's suggestions respecting the causes of 
 disease in prisons, we find an act in 1775 empowering magistrates to 
 order the ceilings and walls of such buildings to be " scraped and white- 
 washed once a year at least, and supplied with fresh air by hand-venti- 
 lators or otherwise." 
 
 During the year previous to the ingenious invention made by Dr. 
 FRANKLIN for improvement in the mode of warming apartments, in 
 1784, St. Thomas' Hospital, in London, was greatly improved in its 
 ventilation, by cutting away a small portion from the lower panes in 
 the upper sash of each window. The result to the patients was highly 
 beneficial. 
 
 With the labors of Desaguliers, Sutton, Hales, and Howard, valu- 
 able improvements were introduced, and a host of inventors and scien- 
 tific men contributed to the good work already so well begun. Count 
 Rumford devoted his energies to improvements in warming, and the 
 perfection of the chimney; and so satisfactory and extensively useful 
 were his labors, that the people justly recognised him as a great bene- 
 factor, and whole cities were ready to do him homage. And our own 
 Franklin shared with him the enviable distinction of patron of fireside 
 comfort. 
 
 In the United States, we have adopted, in rapid succession, all the 
 improvements that have been made in Great Britain and Europe, and in 
 many departments of domestic economy and hygiene, our people have 
 made great advances. The styles of our architecture, both in our cities 
 and our rural districts, bear the impress of American progress. Most 
 of our cities and large towns are furnished with an ample supply of 
 pure water, an element almost as indispensabje to personal health and 
 happiness, as sunlight and the air we breathe. The claims of the poor 
 and the ignorant upon wealth, knowledge, and power, are perhaps 
 more attentively and justly regarded here than in any other country ; 
 and neither health, life, property, nor civil institutions can long be 
 
Xll PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 secure among any people, where such claims and necessities of the 
 lower classes of society are not scrupulously regarded. 
 
 But our cities and towns, and all our rural homes, have great hygi- 
 enic wants, which loudly demand the attention of the physician, the 
 philanthropist, and the public-spirited citizen. In most of our large 
 towns and cities, a general disregard of suitable architectural provisions 
 for a proper supply of sunlight and fresh air, with great inattention to 
 cleanliness and drainage, are continually acting causes of disease and 
 general deterioration of the public health ; while, in the dwellings of 
 our rural population, we too often find, even where great general intelli- 
 gence prevails, that the most essential conditions of domestic health and 
 comfort are sadly lost sight of, in the attempt to amass wealth, or to 
 practise an economy of means and space that does not contemplate the 
 requirements of the laws of life and health, nor provide in a proper 
 manner for a suitable supply of fresh air, pure water, and good external 
 ventilation. Too frequently, even in the most pleasant courtry districts, 
 are building sites selected without a proper reference to those external 
 hygienic conditions which are most essential to the continued enjoy- 
 ment of health. 
 
 In malarious districts, and wherever there exists any local nuisance, 
 or any natural or artificial obstruction to complete natural ventilation 
 from the prevailing or the dryest winds, it is of primary importance that 
 the location of the site for a dweJUing be carefully selected with refer- 
 ence to all these hygienic considerations. We are happy to see that 
 Dr. Reid has devoted a chapter especially to this subject. (See Chap, 
 xxxii.) A timely suggestion on these topics, or in regard to domestic 
 cleanliness, disinfection, ventilation, or drainage, might have saved 
 many interesting families we have known, from painful sicknesses and 
 untimely mourning. 
 
 The sanitary condition and hygienic protection of large cities have 
 engaged the attention of physicians and statesmen from the earliest 
 ages of civic life ; it is but recently, however, that much anxiety or 
 interest has been felt on this subject in our American cities. 
 
 Our great marts of commerce have at length become so densely 
 populated, and so compactly built; while relatively, as well as numeri- 
 
VENTILATION. Xlll 
 
 cally, there lias been a vast increase in the proportion of poverty and 
 ignorance among the masses of the people in our midst, arriving as 
 most of them have from foreign lands, that the plainest principles of 
 self-protection, as well as the conservation of the public health and 
 morals, demand a scrutinizing investigation not only of the sanitary con- 
 ditions of domiciliary life in these crowded cities, but likewise a strict 
 municipal and scientific surveillance of all removable causes of disease, 
 whether in tenement houses or hotels, in private squares or public insti- 
 tutions, or in the drainage and sewerage, the supply of water, and the 
 provisions for universal cleanliness and disinfection. 
 
 The sanitary condition of the city of New York may be taken as a 
 fair example of the hygienic wants of most of our large towns ; and we 
 need only refer to a few facts to illustrate the imperative necessity of 
 giving prompt and efficient attention to the removable sources of 
 danger and disease which exist in our communities. 
 
 First, We would refer to the fact that more than one-half the entire 
 population of the city of Ne*v York reside in crowded tenement houses, 
 and that there is no statute or municipal law regulating the construc- 
 tion, ventilation, or the space allowed to specified numbers of residents 
 therein. Hence crowding such structures to their utmost capacity has 
 become the rule rather than the exception. And it may here be stated, 
 that our cily ha an underground or cellar, population of more than 
 twenty-five thousand persons. , .. 
 
 In the 17th ward alone, there are l,2.5jLtenement houses, having 20,91*7 
 rooms, which are occupied by 10,123 families, embracing a .total number 
 of 51,172 persons; thus giving an average of about four persons to 
 each suite of two apartments, one only of which is usually occupied as a 
 dormitory, and that one often a dark close room, of a capacity only -of 
 from 500 to 800 cubic feet. Now, in a close apartment of only 600 
 cubic feet, a single person cannot spend six consecutive hours, in air of 
 ordinary temperature, without impairment of health. 
 
 Dr. Reid's estimate of ten cubic feet of pure air per minute, for the 
 respiration of an adult person, is certainly quite low enough for an 
 average of comfort and safety, and with such an allowance, the air in 
 such an apartment would become too much vitiated for healthy respi- 
 
XIV PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 ration at the expiration of sixty minutes or one hour ; and allowing 
 that the air is partially replenished during that brief period, the atmo- 
 sphere would be decidedly unwholesome at the expiration of two or 
 three hours. Or, taking the lowest estimate within the limits of safety, 
 as given by Dr. Neill Arnott, viz., about three cubic feet per minute, 
 such an apartment could not be considered a healthy sleeping-room for 
 a single person, much less, a safe dormitory for a whole family. 
 
 In some of the lower wards of the city the tenement houses are much 
 more densely crowded than in those just mentioned. In one of them, 
 containing from 120 to 150 families of three to ten persons each, there 
 are but about forty feet of frontage and sunlight. In two of the smallest 
 of those apartments eight cases of malignant typhus have been seen at 
 one time. And at the last visitation of cholera, the first cases of that 
 malady occurred in that pent up and overcrowded locality. 
 
 Second, Small-pox, typhus fever, and every other pestilence, find a 
 genial and prolific soil in such crowded unventilated structures as the 
 habitations of the poor in our city, and from them the germs of fatal 
 diseases are continually conveyed to the dwellings of the more favored 
 classes. 
 
 Third, The fashionable and gregarious custom of crowding our 
 hotels and boarding-houses is becoming a hazardous practice, unless 
 more attention is given to the hygienic condition and wants of such 
 establishments very few of which have hitherto been provided with 
 anything like systematic and efficient ventilation, or perfect drainage. 
 The recent fearful endemic at the National Hotel, in the city of Wash- 
 ington, should teach an important practical lesson on this subject. 
 
 Fourth, The drainage or sewerage, and the necessary measures for 
 securing general cleanliness and a pure atmosphere, are not yet suitably 
 provided for by law. 
 
 Fifth, Architecture, in its application to private residences as well 
 as to public edifices, has not yet had primary or suitable reference to 
 man's hygienic interests. Adaptations for a sufficient supply of pure 
 air and sunlight have been sacrificed to architectural effect on the one 
 hand, and to a mistaken economy on the other. 
 
 The vital importance of a correct understanding and estimation of 
 
VENTILATION. XV 
 
 such considerations as the foregoing, must be manifest to all who 
 intelligently investigate such subjects ; and to the political economist, 
 the merchant, and the moralist, these topics are invested with relations 
 quite as interesting as those that lead the physician and the philanthro- 
 pist to study them. 
 
 Frequently have eminent statesmen been forced to investigate the 
 causes of diseases and consequent commercial decay in cities. The 
 great plague at Athens, which occurred in the time of Pericles, was so 
 obviously the result of overcrowding and civic uncleanliness, that the 
 Athenians were enraged against him for having caused the deadly 
 distemper, by inviting the people of Attica, during the Peloponnesian 
 war, to flock in vast multitudes into Athens, until the city became 
 excessively crowded. Plutarch informs us that the enemies of Pericles 
 boldly attempted to ruin him by reiterating the fact, which was, alas, 
 too true, that the sanitary interests of the city had not been properly 
 regarded by its Great Archon. 
 
 In Great Britain, from the days of Henry the VIII. and Queen Eliza- 
 beth, to the present time, the sanitary question has excited the interest, and 
 enlisted the services of the ablest men. The most important effort ever 
 undertaken in any country for general sanitary improvement and reform, 
 was the " Health of Towns Commission," which was organized by the 
 reigning Queen in the year 1843, under the title of " The Commission 
 for Inquiring into the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts" 
 
 This Board of Commissioners was composed of thirteen distinguished 
 scientific and philanthropic gentlemen, among whom was the Duke of 
 Buccleugh, the Earl of Lincoln, Sir Thomas de la Beche, Dr. David 
 Boswell Reid, Dr. Lyon Playfair, and Richard Owen. The stupendous 
 results of their investigations and labors may be judged of by their final 
 Reports, which are comprised in three huge folios, every page of which 
 is full of most instructive facts. Probably no other attempt at Sanitary 
 reform has produced results at all comparable with this. 
 
 "We would here quote the following suggestive remarks from the con- 
 cluding paragraphs of that remarkable Report, as very correctly illus- 
 trating the relations of the Sanitary question in our own country, as 
 well as in Great Britain. After stating their views and giving their 
 
XVI PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 advice upon all the various questions assigned for their investigation, the 
 Commissioners in closing the Report to their Sovereign, say, 
 
 " In submitting to your Majesty the measures we recommend for 
 ameliorating the physical condition of the population, inhabiting large 
 towns and populous districts, by improvements in drainage, cleansing, 
 ventilation, and the supply of water, we must again express our deep 
 conviction of the extent, importance, and difficulty of the subject a 
 conviction strengthened by the continuance of our investigations. The 
 most important evils affecting the public health throughout England 
 and Wales, are characterized by little variety, and it is only in the 
 degree of their intensity, that the towns exhibit the worst examples of such 
 evils. Villages and clusters of houses inhabited by the poor, are often 
 under the influence of the same causes of disease, though their effect in 
 such situations may be rendered comparatively slight from the more free 
 circulation of the external air. The vitiation of the atmosphere from 
 over-crowding, and the absence of proper ventilation in individual apart- 
 ments, produces in the rural districts the same diseases that arise from 
 the same causes in a town population." 
 
 Under our republican form of government, it may not be practicable 
 to carry out all great sanitary reforms by the aid of special legislation, 
 yet it is evident that our state and municipal authorities can do much 
 to urge forward any measures that may be required for the preservation 
 of the public health ; and still more certainly, would all the great objects 
 of improvement in personal and public hygiene be attained, by means 
 of the universal diffusion of knowledge on the subjects of chemistry, 
 human physiology, and the laws of life. 
 
 Those who understand and appreciate the relations which these 
 departments of knowledge sustain to human welfare, and the improve- 
 ment of society, should heartily engage in efforts for its general diffusion 
 among the people; and to this end, the most persevering personal 
 efforts are requisite. In our primary schools, our academies, and uni- 
 versities, greater attention should be given to these highly practical and 
 universally important departments of learning ; books, periodicals, and 
 illustrated works on these subjects, adapted to the common wants of all 
 classes, should be found in every library and every household in the 
 
VENTILATION. XV11 
 
 land ; and special lectures with practical demonstrations on these inte- 
 resting topics, should occasionally be given in all our villages and school 
 districts. 
 
 Architecture must be studied and practised as an art upon which the 
 principles of vital chemistry, and human physiology, have claims, no less 
 important than the laws of mechanics, and the strength of materials, 
 and in which the laws of health and the claims of personal comfort 
 should ever be paramount to architectural embellishment and artistic 
 effect 
 
 The architect should be as thoroughly educated for his important 
 profession, as the physician or the jurist is instructed for his. 
 
 Several of our American citizens have made most praiseworthy 
 efforts to awaken public attention to the vast importance of proper 
 ventilation, and an improved architecture for American dwellings and 
 public edifices. A few persons have also written and labored with 
 intelligence and earnestness on topics connected with the practical 
 applications of chemistry and physiology to the concerns and interests 
 of daily life. Among these gentlemen, may be mentioned the names of 
 Dr. John H. Griscom, Mr. Edward L. Youmans, Mr. Wyman and Hon. 
 Henry Barnard; while among recent writers in Europe, as well as 
 in our own country, stands more prominently perhaps than any other, 
 the name of Dr. D. B. Reid. 
 
 Without any discredit to others, it may justly be said that in syste- 
 matic efforts for the improvement of domestic as well as public archi- 
 tecture, with reference to the demands of the laws of life and health ; 
 in the varied applications of chemistry to the wants of daily life, and 
 in plans and works for the general diffusion of knowledge on these 
 subjects, Dr. Reid has not only been a pioneer, but he remains a most 
 practical and untiring advocate. The relations which he has held, 
 and still continues to sustain, to the most important plans and works for 
 sanitary reform, and hygienic and educational improvements, will 
 justify, in this place, a brief sketch of some of his more important labors 
 connected with improvements in ventilation. 
 
 The actual state of all the practically important questions and prin- 
 ciples relating to ventilation, and a proper supply of air in all classes 
 
XV111 PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 of buildings, previous to Dr. Reid's investigations and public labors, 
 may be correctly estimated from the testimony that was given before 
 a Select Committee of the British Parliament in the year 1835. We 
 quote the following from the evidence of Dr. Birkbeck, a scientific 
 gentleman who had given much attention to the subject of venti- 
 lation : 
 
 " I have never seen a room ventilated, with strict reference to the 
 whole purposes of ventilation ; where it has been done at all systema- 
 tically, it has consisted in making a certain number of openings in the 
 lower part of the room, and a certain number of openings in the upper 
 part of the room, often without any correspondence to their areas, and 
 often without any supply of air to the lower openings, or any suitable 
 means of escape for the air from the upper." Speaking of the venti- 
 lation of the Houses of Parliament at that period, he says emphatically, 
 " The smothering system adopted at present is terrible ; I am sure, I for 
 one, would not endure it for the service of the public." 
 
 Similar statements may truthfully be made respecting most of the 
 public buildings, churches, and private residences, in the United States 
 at the present day ; proper arrangements for a suitable supply of pure 
 fresh air being rarely provided for in architectural designs. 
 
 We hail with pleasure, therefore, the distinguished Author of the fol- 
 lowing chapters, who is widely known as an enlightened and enthusiastic 
 pioneer and laborer, in plans and works for the improvement of the 
 physical and moral condition of the people. For more than a quarter 
 of a century, in addition to important public services, he has, in pro- 
 moting improved ventilation, been an earnest advocate and projector 
 of measures for the more universal diffusion of scientific knowledge, 
 and its application to the arts and affairs of daily life. 
 
 Preceded in this class of philosophic efforts by such men as Count 
 Rumford, Dr. Franklin, Tredgold, and Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Reid's 
 labors have not been less important nor less practical than were the 
 w.orks of those great friends of humanity and science. Indeed, in 
 his special department, he has, perhaps, more fully than any other man, 
 entered into and carried forward the spirit of their labors, in the 
 application of science to the wants of common life. 
 
VENTILATION. XIX 
 
 Though Dr. Reid's name has become especially associated with the 
 progress of ventilation, as applied to public buildings, a great portion 
 of his life has been devoted to works for the general improvement of 
 society. In attempting to sketch the progress of ideas relating to 
 domiciliary improvement, and the ventilation of dwellings and public 
 buildings, we are compelled to refer to certain leading events in the 
 history of Dr. Reid's personal labors and public services. 
 
 Thoroughly educated ^is a physician, and in his early professional 
 services in the Medical Charities of his native city, made familiar with 
 the great causes of disease, and with the hygienic wants of domestic 
 life, Dr. Reid very naturally turned his attention to the study of those 
 physical causes and conditions, which are most widely extended and 
 active in the production of ill health among the people. His position 
 as a lecturer on Chemistry afforded opportunities for arousing public 
 attention to the removable causes of disease / and he faithfully labored 
 to enlighten the public mind on this subject. 
 
 Though the chemical properties of atmospheric air and the gases had 
 been carefully investigated and learnedly discussed by Lavoisier, Scheele, 
 Priestley, Black, and their successors; and although from Hippocrates to 
 Hales and Beddoes, the causative and the curative relations of air to 
 disease had been observed; while Davy, Menzies, Dalton, Edwards, 
 Graham, and a crowd of experimenters had fully investigated the 
 Chemistry of the atmosphere and of respiration, and had studied the 
 laws governing the diffusion of gases, it remained for Dr. Reid to 
 determine by practical experiments made on living men, by means of 
 apparatus, and in rooms constructed specially for this purpose, the precise 
 amount of air required for health and comfort ; the circumstances under 
 which it can be supplied effectually in accordance with the ever-varying 
 demands of the human frame ; and with due allowance for all the pecu- 
 liarities of climates, constitutions, and the different classes of habitations, 
 ships, and buildings. In addition to his varied experiments and analyses 
 in his laboratory, he devised great practical illustrations of the true 
 principles of ventilation, combining at once simplicity, economy, and ; 
 efficiency. 
 
 In 1833, Dr. Reid completed a new lecture-room and also a practical 
 
XX . PEOGEESS OF SANITAEY IMPEOVEMENT. 
 
 class-room, both of which were appropriated entirely to experimental pur- 
 poses. They were provided with special means for warming, lighting, and 
 ventilation, and also with peculiar flues for directly removing the vitiated 
 gases and vapors evolved in the experiments made either by himself or 
 his pupils. The ground enclosed at first was eighty feet square, to which 
 additions were afterwards made, and on which five rooms were built, 
 that were devoted to investigations and illustrations of his views in 
 reference to sanitary and architectural objects.* The experiments 
 made in this building laid the foundation of plans that were afterwards 
 executed by Dr. Reid. 
 
 The following is a brief outline of the leading points that were advo- 
 cated in the introduction of his system of ventilation. 
 
 1. A much larger allowance of air than that which had been previ- 
 ously given in estimates ; and the foundation of all such estimates in 
 unison with the number of persons to be supplied in a given time, and 
 not on the cubic contents of the apartments to be ventilated. 
 
 2. The introduction of means for applying power at all times when 
 
 * The following is a brief description of the building. The principal part of the 
 roof was supported by fourteen pillars, which, being arranged in two rows, formed a 
 great central colonnade. Each of those pillars being hollow, constituted a fire and 
 ventilating flue that could command four or more furnaces at its base ; while the 
 upper portion of each was perforated with a series of apertures provided with valves 
 which afforded a ventilating power at any required level. 
 
 Below the floor, flues traversed the ground in every direction, the action of 
 many of which could be combined, whenever increased local ventilation was 
 desired. Larger shafts or chimneys with a cupola, a steam engine, a forge, with 
 metallurgic furnaces, and ventilated sand baths, were added to all the peculiar 
 apparatus used in chemical experiments, and to the experimental tables provided for 
 students. 
 
 The Lecture table was forty feet long : it was furnished with furnaces at the 
 centre, and in the wall at each end. Steam, gas, a red heat, and ventilating power 
 with descending currents, could be secured whenever they were wanted. Behind 
 the Lecturer, on a more elevated platform, another range of furnaces and apparatus, 
 forty feet in length, was also provided, which illustrated all the principal operations 
 in the chemical arts, and gave great power and resources in chemical investigations. 
 These works contributed materially to the greatly increased attention that was soon 
 afterwards paid to ventilation and sanitary improvement. 
 
VENTILATION. XXI 
 
 requisite for the ventilation of buildings, and the sustaining of a 
 plenum* vacuum, or an equalized movement of air, according to the per- 
 fection required in the ventilating arrangements. 
 
 3. The more extended arrangements by valves, or other means for 
 varying with facility, the supply of air given in different conditions of 
 the atmosphere at assemblies, subject to long sittings, and to great and 
 sudden fluctuations in the number attending. 
 
 4. The importance in all public buildings, of providing channels for 
 the supply and discharge of air, entirely separate and apart from doors 
 and windows ; and the introduction of double glazing, or other means to 
 prevent the cooling or heating influence of ordinary windows, when 
 subjected to extreme heat or cold. 
 
 5. The more uniform supply of fresh air by diffusion, regulated with 
 regard to quantity, by the number of persons present, and the magni- 
 tude of the building. 
 
 6. The formation of extended arrangements for supplying air from 
 the purest accessible source; for excluding or covering local impu- 
 rities ; for cooling, drying, and moistening air ; and for the entire and 
 absolute isolation of the warming and ventilating power, so as to per- 
 mit the latter to be used in full force' in warm weather. 
 
 7. The introduction of exclusive lighting, or ventilated lamps, 
 wherever the currents do not certainly remove the products of com- 
 bustion from the lights in use. 
 
 8. The determination of ascending, descending, or compound move- 
 ments of air, and of the circumstances which should regulate their 
 adoption. 
 
 * A Plenum movement, or plenum ventilation, is that in which there is an excess 
 of air within, and an escape accordingly from doors or crevices, the air lloioing out- 
 wards. In Vacuum ventilation, on the other hand, leakage at doors and crevices 
 moves inwards ; the air within not being able to resist the pressure from without 
 In the third variety, which may be termed, The equalized method of ventilation, tlw 
 pressure caused ty the entering of fresh air from without is made to equalize as far as 
 possible the draught of the escaping vitiated air, so that there is little or no ten- 
 dency to draughts of air at doors and crevices. The air moves in and out, solely 
 by its appropriate channels. 
 
XX11 PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 9. The formation of ventilated rooms or chambers for artificial atmo- 
 spheres, and their application in the cure of diseases. 
 
 10. The development of a more uniform and homogeneous architec- 
 ture, in which acoustics, lighting, warming, cooling, ventilating, and 
 fire-proofing, should enter more largely into the original design, and 
 be made a primary instead of a secondary object in determining the 
 various details, &c., of the construction. 
 
 11. The improvement of external ventilation, and of effective sani- 
 tary measures necessary to secure that object. 
 
 12. The decomposition, absorption, or condensation of noxious gases 
 from manufactories or from other sources. 
 
 The means of accomplishing the various objects enumerated, have 
 been so fully attained by Dr. Reid, in the varied combinations he has 
 introduced, that but little remains to be desired, so far as relates to 
 principles and practice; though the details present an inexhaustible 
 field of improvement in the means, materials, and artistic arrangements 
 best suited to different designs or modes of construction. The great 
 desideratum, viz. power or force to control at pleasure the quality and 
 greatly increased supply and displacement of air, as well as its intro- 
 duction by large channels and corresponding valves, its diffusion, gentle 
 equalization, humidity, purity, and temperature, have been so largely 
 extended and so fully systematized by him, that we may properly con- 
 sider them as constituting the prominent characteristics of his system 
 of ventilation. 
 
 These improvements are justly regarded as the most important in 
 the progress of ventilation, and their Author has given much time and 
 labor to make them available in hospitals, ships, public buildings, pri- 
 vate dwellings, coaches, mines, workshops, and every class of human 
 habitations. In proportion as the public mind becomes enlightened 
 on the subject, will these essential means of health and comfort be 
 sought and enjoyed. The foregoing principles, which Dr. Reid so suc- 
 cessfully attempted to illustrate in his own establishment at Edinburgh, 
 were daily discussed and explained before his pupils, many of whom 
 have since done good service in the great work of sanitary reform. 
 
 Few men have labored as assiduously to present to the people, the 
 
VENTILATION. XX111 
 
 great practical conclusions and applications of science to the affairs 
 of daily life. All Dr. Reid's efforts in public instruction, as well as 
 his publications, have been pre-eminently practical and replete with 
 common sense. Without enumerating them, we need only refer to his 
 voluminous publications in his favorite department, Chemistry one 
 of which, issued by Messrs. Bailliere, is significantly entitled the "Che- 
 mistry of Daily Life." 
 
 Dr. Reid's experiments and observations to ascertain the amount and 
 proportions of fresh atmospheric air required for personal comfort and 
 the preservation of health, were not confined to Great Britain ; they 
 were also conducted in numerous investigations in many of the cities 
 of continental Europe ; particularly Paris, Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, 
 'and St. Petersburg. They were extended to the air of crowded assem- 
 blies in churches, school-rooms, and workshops ; and aided by his 
 pupils at Edinburgh, he obtained specimens of vitiated air from such 
 places, and subjected them to careful chemical analyses. 
 
 On the 16th of October, 1834, a destructive conflagration occurred 
 at the Houses of Parliament, in London; and as new accommodations 
 for the sessions of the British Legislature were thereby rendered neces- 
 sary, many public men and members of Parliament felt great interest 
 in improving the temporary halls of legislation, and in securing for the 
 new houses a more perfect system of ventilation, warming, and acous- 
 tics, than had been enjoyed in the old Houses of Parliament. 
 
 During the month preceding the conflagration at the old Parliament 
 Houses, the British Association had been convened at Edinburgh, in 
 which city Dr. Reid had, for many years, been a distinguished and a 
 successful instructor in chemistry and its applications. His vast labo- 
 ratory and class-rooms were thronged with pupils from every quarter 
 of the kingdom, and from various foreign nations ; and those halls, 
 erected from his designs and by his own direction, were themselves 
 regarded as objects of great curiosity and interest, practically illus- 
 trating the laws of ventilation and acoustics. 
 
 Members of the Association, and many Members of Parliament, 
 having personally inspected this great practical school, which had been 
 established by Dr. Reid, his ingenuity and scientific skill were at once 
 
XXIV PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 sought in improving the temporary House of Commons, as a means of 
 immediate relief there, and as the best mode of obtaining accurate 
 information that might serve as a guide in the construction of the new 
 buildings. The works in the former were speedily completed at a 
 comparatively small expense, and they continued in use until the new 
 houses were made ready for occupation a period of some fifteen years 
 affording a remarkable degree of comfort and satisfaction to the 
 members. 
 
 These plans, executed in three months, constituted the first syste- 
 matic and thoroughly efficient works for ventilation ever carried out 
 in any public building. 
 
 More than a century previously, somewhat similar labors had been 
 undertaken at the old Houses of Parliament by Desaguliers, in improve- 
 ment upon the works of Sir Christopher Wren ; and still later, similar 
 labors were undertaken by Sir Humphrey Davy, whose apparatus and 
 provisions for ventilation, like those of his predecessors, had the great 
 fault of insufficiency and lack of power for efficient and uniform venti- 
 lation. 
 
 Up to that period, the great object sought by the scientific directors 
 of works for improvement in the ventilation and warming of those legis- 
 lative halls, as well as of all other public buildings, seemed to have 
 been too exclusively confined to measures for effectually warming the 
 apartments, the provisions for the escape of the vitiated atmosphere, 
 and for the introduction of fresh air, being exceedingly meagre and 
 unsatisfactory. As an example, we may refer to the old House of Peers, 
 in which Sir Humphrey Davy used, for the discharge of the vitiated air 
 of that hall, one or two tubes having a sectional area of only one foot. 
 But in reconstructing the same hall for the temporary use of the House 
 of Commons, Dr. Reid provided an aggregate area of fifty feet for the 
 discharge of vitiated air. He had, in addition, a powerful shaft to 
 determine any amount of movement, that a crowded attendance and 
 the most sultry and oppressive atmosphere could require. 
 
 As might have been anticipated, the headaches, lethargy, somnolence, 
 loss of appetite, and frequent ill health, so much complained of in the 
 old house, with its indifferent and unequal ventilation, were never expe- 
 
VENTILATION. XXV 
 
 rienced in the reconstructed edifice when provided with an abundant sup- 
 ply of fresh air under the control of Dr. Reid's ingenious apparatus.* 
 
 * "We have alluded to the condition of the ventilation in the old Houses of Par- 
 liament, previously to the introduction of Dr. Reid's plans. We are fully aware of 
 the severe criticisms and sweeping denunciations those plans called forth from cer- 
 tain parties ; and it is not difficult to understand the origin and the animus of such 
 denunciations. Without referring to the personal and party interests and feel- 
 ings involved, we need only mention the fact, that the peculiar importance and real 
 blessings of pure fresh air are as often unappreciated by the great and the learned, 
 as by the poor and the ignorant, and like the blessings of temperance and virtue, 
 they are too often scorned. 
 
 But that Dr. Keid's improvements in the ventilation of the temporary House of 
 Commons were eminently successful, and to gentlemen capable of judging and 
 appreciating such improvements, perfectly satisfactory, we have incontrovertible 
 proofs. In justice to the principles involved in such questions, we cannot forbear 
 some allusion to the evidence on this subject. 
 
 Lord Sudeley, whose judgment cannot be questioned, said in his place in 
 the House of Peers : " The ventilation of the House of Commons was complete >/ 
 and perfect and the first plan of systematic ventilation ever carried out in 
 this or any other country." He also stated, in another document already 
 quoted, that " To the skill, zeal, and determination of Dr. Reid, it is owing that the 
 members of the House of Commons can now pursue their senatorial duties without 
 a sacrifice of either health or comfort. To him we owe the solution of the problem, 
 that, by a proper system, ventilation may be obtained in the most trying and diffi- 
 cult circumstances." Lord Sudeley, also, as Chairman of the Commissioners who 
 selected the design for the new Houses of Parliament, had the best means of 
 knowing the realities of Dr. Reid's plans, especially as he voluntarily acted as the 
 architect when these plans were executed at the temporary House of Com- 
 mons. The House of Commons' Committee in 1846, ten years after they had 
 tested Dr. Reid's plans, reported, that ; " The great improvement which Dr. Reid has 
 effected in the atmosphere of the existing House of Commons, can be appreciated 
 by every member of the House ; and your Committee entirely concur in what they 
 consider to be the general opinion in its favour." Extract from the Report of the 
 Committee of the House of Commons, presented on the 5th of August, 1846. 
 
 The Chairman of the Committee on Acoustics and Ventilation, Sir Benjamin 
 Hawes, in 1835, used the following language, after the House had fully tried the plans, 
 viz., " You have facilitated public business, and prolonged the lives of public men." 
 
 The Queen's Physician, Sir James Clarke, stated in 1843, that " Dr. Reid's suc- 
 cess in the ventilation of the Houses of Parliament, and similar efforts in the same 
 
XXVI PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT, 
 
 f 
 
 In the plans applied at the temporary House of Commons, the utmost 
 care was taken in selecting a supply of fresh air from the least objec- 
 tionable source. It was even washed, screened, and treated with 
 chemicals, when loaded with the dense soot of a November atmosphere 
 in London, or with noxious emanations from neighboring manufactories ; 
 while the drains and sewers in the immediate vicinity, were subjected to 
 a special power that withdrew all offensive gases and vapors. Further, 
 the whole ground in the vicinity was treated with caustic lime or other 
 chemicals, wherever it exhaled an offensive smell. In the House itself 
 the temperature, moisture, and movement of the air were adapted to the 
 ever-varying attendance, and the state of the weather, with a power that 
 would give one foot or 50,000 cubic feet of air, at pleasure, per minute, 
 or any intermediate proportion, according to the necessities of the case. 
 The whole arrangements for previous preparation, management, and 
 control, were placed on a systematic footing that had never before been 
 contemplated. The windows were not opened, even for a single occa- 
 sion, during the fifteen years it was in operation, from 3836 to 1851, 
 and the surface of diffusion given to the entering air exceeded, in the 
 body of the House alone, 4,000 feet. The air, vitiated in the lower part 
 of the House, was never permitted to contaminate the separate supply 
 given to the galleries. The products of combustion from lamps and 
 candles, as well as respiration, were all removed as they were formed, 
 and never permitted to return within the zone of respiration. 
 
 Three years after the introduction of Dr. Reid's plans in the House 
 of Commons, the House of Peers, in a public debate, pressed upon 
 Government the importance of some measures being taken for the relief 
 of their House, referring to the comfort of the House of Commons ; but 
 
 direction, would do more to improve the public health than any measure witli 
 which he was acquainted." 
 
 In his evidence before the House of Commons' Committee of 1852, Dr. Neil 
 Arnott stated : " Until the late House of Commons existed as ventilated by Dr. 
 Reid, there never was in the world a room in which 500 persons or more could sit 
 for ten hours in the day, and day after day, for long periods, not only with perfect 
 security to health, but with singular comfort. I think," says Dr. Arnott', "an im- 
 portant novelty was therein achieved." 
 
VENTILATION. XXV11 
 
 they did not vote one-fifth of the means which had been applied to the 
 former House. The measures introduced were consequently of a much 
 more limited nature ; but such as they were, the satisfaction they gave 
 was equally admitted by the separate administrations under Lord Mel- 
 bourne and Sir Robert Peel ; the former presenting to Parliament, in 
 1841, on the occasion of the introduction of Dr. Reid's plans for the 
 new Houses, .a document written by the Earl of Besborough, a member 
 of the preceding Cabinet, in which he referred to the general satisfac- 
 tion which these partial improvements had given. 
 
 The plans for the new Houses of Parliament were projected on a 
 magnificent scale, and were afterwards combined with an improved 
 system of warming, lighting, and ventilating, founded on Dr. Reid's 
 experiments at Edinburgh and other places, in unison with the recom- 
 mendation of Government and of Parliamentary Committees. The plans 
 of Mr. Barry (afterwards Sir Charles Barry), were selected from the 
 numerous designs presented for the new buildings, and Mr. Barry was 
 appointed architect under the authority of the Commissioners of her 
 Majesty's Woods and Forests, of whom Lord Besborough was chief. 
 The services of Dr. Reid being demanded by his government, he was 
 called to London to superintend the ventilation of the new Houses, 
 and required to reside permanently at the capital until the completion 
 of the works. This being an honorable and an important service, 
 affording, as it did, a most favorable opportunity for illustrating highly 
 important principles in ventilation and the laws of domiciliary health, 
 Dr. Reid accepted the call, relinquished his varied labors at Edinburgh, 
 removed to London, and entered upon the duties of his appointment. 
 
 But Dr. Reid's experience at the new Houses of Parliament affords 
 a memorable example of the difficulties attending the introduction of 
 improvements, even when their practicability and success have been 
 sufficiently demonstrated, when an inventor has to co-operate with 
 another, who has the power of construction in his hands, and who has 
 also the means of opposition, and of sheltering such opposition under 
 the undefinable limits of taste and decoration.* 
 
 * Not only were the original plans altered from time to time, in numerous 
 respects, by proper authority ; but Dr. Eeid has given testimony that the central 
 
XXV111 PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 As the new edifice progressed, it became evident that without a fair 
 spirit of co-operation on the part of the architect, every essential pro- 
 vision in Dr. Reid's plans for ventilation might be seriously embarrassed 
 or utterly frustrated. We do not propose to enter upon an examina- 
 tion of the merits of questions and dissensions so long at issue between 
 Sir Charles Barry, the Commissioners, and Dr. Reid. Those who will 
 investigate the subject can find ample documentary evidence of the fact 
 that while, in the temporary House of Common's, where Dr. Reid had 
 unrestricted authority in executing the works for the ventilation, remark- 
 ably satisfactory results were secured, even during the most crowded 
 sessions ; at the new Houses, the plans and works for the ventilation 
 were so unreasonably thwarted by the architect, that it became the 
 duty of Dr. Reid to protest against the injurious interference to which 
 the more essential provisions and features of his plans were continually, 
 unnecessarily, and capriciously subjected. 
 
 It should be mentioned to their honor, that the House of Commons 
 continued to sustain Dr. Reid's position and plans. Powerful as were 
 the efforts made, by interested parties, against the plans for ventilation, 
 and vacillating as was the policy pursued in the works of construction ; 
 the public investigation, which Dr. Reid at last obtained, of the history 
 of his relations to those works, and the final results of the arbitration, 
 most triumphantly sustained him,* and gave a release from duties, 
 
 ventilating tower, the flues in connection and the chamber below it, the chambers 
 under the House of Peers and the House of Commons, the flues in the roof, and 
 many other places, were so altered by the architect, without authority, that Dr. 
 Reid resolved at last to lay the matter before the Commissioners ; having deter- 
 mined to cast off all responsibility unless proper arrangements were made in future 
 for controlling the proceedings of the architect. 
 
 * Seven years previous to this arbitration the architect attacked Dr. Reid with 
 counter charges, which he utterly rejected and opposed. Inquiries were then insti- 
 tuted, and in the following year a Committee of the House of Commons, of which 
 Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston were members, took up the question, and 
 after examining both the architect and Dr. Reid, as well as the Commissioners and 
 the referee of the preceding year, recommended unanimously to the House a resolu- 
 tion that met the difficulties of the case, and gave both Dr. Reid and Sir Charles Barry 
 the power to nominate arbiters for deciding on every point on which they differed. 
 
VENTILATION. XXIX 
 
 which, for several years, had partially diverted him from the grand 
 purpose of his life, viz. the instruction of the people in the science and 
 arts of daily life, based on the principles and practice of Chemistry. 
 
 But the labors of that Committee were rendered nugatory by the proceedings of the 
 Marquis of Clanricarde, who succeeded in persuading the Peers to isolate their House 
 from the plans that had been carried on for six years on the works, though the 
 chairman of the Commissioners who selected the design for the new Houses, the 
 Duke of Wellington, and the present Lord Chief- Justice of the Queen's Bench (Lord 
 Campbell}, opposed this measure, and pointed out the importance of the two Houses 
 Peers and Commons coming to some mutual understanding on the subject, 
 instead of taking opposite courses, and thus doing an act of injustice to Dr. Reid. 
 The Government, perplexed by the novelty and peculiarities of the case, threw 
 themselves into the hands of the architect. 
 
 Many weeks had not elapsed, however, before they appear to have repented of 
 this step, for they restored the most important part of the building to Dr. Reid, 
 viz. the House of Commons, and requested from him a special plan to suit the 
 altered circumstances of the case. 
 
 But Dr. Reid had so deep a sense of the injustice done to him in the House of 
 Peers, by the Marquis of Clanricarde, and of the impossibility of his plan having 
 any fair play unless the architect was controlled as the House of Commons had 
 specified, that he never acted again at the Houses of Parliament except under pro- 
 test. He constantly demanded investigation ; and six years afterwards he obtained 
 a majority of more than two to one against the Government, in a vote that called 
 him to the bar ; where he pointed out, before the whole House, the utter impossibi- 
 lity of their having any comfortable atmosphere in their new House till the unne- 
 cessary injuries done to his plans by the architect were remedied. No man could 
 deny what was thus brought so publicly before the House. Dr. Reid's evidence 
 was printed and distributed next morning, with the printed official proceedings, to 
 all the members. The Government and the House, by a Committee, immediately 
 supported him in an entire change of the system of lighting ; and empowered him, 
 in addition to other works adopted during its sitting, to execute no less than thirty- 
 five recommendations which he afterwards made. In the same year, Lord Derby's 
 Government, which had in the meantime come into power, gave him an arbitration, 
 that necessarily secured the investigation he had so long in vain demanded, not as 
 a favor but as a right. At this arbitration, Dr. Reid insisted on his right to cross- 
 examine the architect, and such was the force and character of the evidence 
 elicited, that the arbiters sustained Dr. Reid for seven successive days in pursuing 
 this cross-examination; and they took evidence altogether on thirty different days. 
 Their decision awarded Dr. Reid 3250 in addition to the sum of 4400, paid to 
 
XXX PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 The magnificent pile of buildings, stretching for nearly the fifth of a 
 mile on the banks of the Thames, though yet remaining unfinished, 
 even after an incessant draft upon the national treasury for a period of 
 twenty years, and after innumerable modifications, still bears too much 
 of the impress of Dr. Reid's plans in its walls, its roof, its vaults, and 
 its finishings, ever to be severed from its association with his labors ; 
 nor can those who may now, or hereafter direct the ventilation, 
 deviate materially from the data he developed, without infringing on 
 the laws of health and misinterpreting the principles of physical 
 science. Dr. Reid's Central Ventilating Tower may indeed be trun- 
 cated and curtailed of its fair proportions, but new and minor turrets 
 make up the necessary equivalent, and corresponding alterations in the 
 interior works can readily be met by proportionate arrangements. 
 
 It was not in vain, however, that Dr. Reid relinquished his favorite 
 field of labors at Edinburgh, for such a service as that which he accepted. 
 During the period of his residence at London, he enjoyed the most 
 favorable opportunities for awakening an interest, not only on the sub- 
 ject of improved ventilation, but he was enabled also to advocate, in 
 the most practical manner, a vast number of questions connected with 
 improvements in domiciliary life and the public health. He was called 
 to execute works for improved ventilation in various public buildings, 
 and the influence of his executed works is now enjoyed throughout 
 Europe and in our own country. In hospitals, asylums, court rooms, 
 prisons, workshops, churches, and royal residences, Dr. Reid's plans 
 
 him as salary during the six years that he had constantly refused to act except 
 under protest. They refused to give him any award on claims which the state of 
 the law did not permit them to authorize. Sir John Forbes, however, one of the 
 two arbiters, subsequently gave Dr. Reid a written statement with full authority to 
 publish it, that the deed of arbitration had been so worded by the legal authorities 
 employed by the Board of Works as not to permit fairness or justice in the popular 
 sense of the term, but only such a decision as a court of law or equity could permit. 
 He states : " Had I felt myself justified by the deed of arbitration to come to a 
 decision on grounds of moral justice or fairness only, as in case of difference 
 between man and man, I would have given my voice for an award greatly beyond 
 the sum actually adjudged." 
 

 VENTILATION. XXXI 
 
 have been extensively adopted in a greater or a less degree, and with the 
 happiest results. A distinguished architect, who has introduced the 
 plans of Dr. Reid in the construction of forty-eight public and private 
 edifices, erected under his own supervision, testifies that "the continued use 
 of the scheme of ventilation proposed by Dr. Reid, gives daily increas- 
 ing satisfaction." 
 
 In 1852, Mr. Thomas Brown of Edinburgh, as member of the 
 Committee for Improvement of Prisons, when examined as to Dr. Reid's 
 plans, by a committee of the House of Commons, stated, " I find every 
 day that the more I attend to carrying out the views which he originally 
 suggested to me, when fair opportunities occur, the better I sucfcecd. 
 We introduce his system from prison to prison as we go on." 
 
 In the ventilation of hospitals, vast improvements have been ef- 
 fected, some good examples of which exist in our own country. The 
 present improyed system of ventilation and warming in the New York 
 City Hospital, is considered the best that has been put in operation in 
 any large establishment in this city, though the ventilation in that 
 institution is manifestly susceptible of vast improvements. 
 
 The beneficial results of a perfect system of ventilation in hospitals 
 have been happily illustrated in a large hospital at Copenhagen, where, 
 as mentioned by Dr. Channing of Boston, a case of fever did not occur 
 for years after Dr. Reid's system of ventilation was introduced, though 
 previously the infection of deadly fevers had been persistent. 
 
 The history of the Lambeth Hospital, London, strikingly illustrates 
 the same point. A physician stated before the Health of Towns Com- 
 mission, that, " The hospital was seldom free, for any length of time, from 
 fever, occasionally producing frightful ravages, and requiring the building 
 every now and then to be closed. After the greatest attention had 
 been paid to cleanliness in every respect, the wards left open night and 
 day for weeks, fumigated, the walls limed and painted, the beds tho- 
 roughly cleaned, fumigated, repaired, and frequently renewed, and 
 the most scrupulous attention paid to cleanliness, the fever re-appeared, 
 on some occasions, immediately on the hospital being re-opened." 
 External causes were sought for, and more than $2,500 was expended 
 in improving and covering drains, etc., in the vicinity. Dr. Rigby, the 
 
XXX11 PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 physician, states that " fever still continued to make its appearance from 
 time to time, and occasionally with great severity. * * * * The 
 air of the wards was always close, oppressive, and bedroomy, which I 
 can only attribute to want of proper ventilation. * * As soon as 
 Dr. Reid's plan of ventilation was permitted to have a fair trial, the air in 
 the wards became not merely free from effluvia, but has now a remark- 
 ably clean, clear, refreshing feel, which I can only compare to the sensa- 
 tion produced on entering an empty room which has been recently 
 whitewashed." (See First Report of the Commissioners for inquiring 
 into the State of Large Towns and Popular Districts, p. 412.) 
 
 Since this important improvement was effected in the ventilation 
 of that establishment, the fatal fevers, previously indigenous there, have 
 scarcely been experienced in the wards, except as the direct and imme- 
 diate result of suspending the use of the ventilating apparatus. The 
 latest accounts we have from that hospital, are given in a paper read by 
 Dr. Bence Jones at the Royal Institution in London, where, it is sho^vn 
 by statistical details, that the mortality there had been very greatly 
 reduced by means of the improved ventilation, and that it increased 
 whenever the ventilation was suspended. 
 
 Similar results have been experienced in all public institutions where 
 improved ventilation has been introduced, and that, in exact proportion 
 to the degree of improvement secured. 
 
 The following items, connected with miscellaneous works executed by 
 Dr. Reid, will give some idea of the want of adequate ventilation in 
 different classes of buildings, before his plans came into operation. 
 
 At the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London, the ventilation 
 was entirely recast ; the supply of air largely increased ; means of heat 
 provided ; allowing a great reduction of its intensity. A cooling chamber 
 for warm weather was also provided, together with a metallic ventilating 
 shaft about five feet in diameter, the action of which was secured by heat. 
 
 At Windsor Castle, a special ventilating shaft was constructed for the 
 dining-room most frequently in use, and minor branches from some 
 contiguous rooms were led into it. 
 
 At Buckingham Palace there was no outlet for vitiated air from seve- 
 ral of the principal state apartments, exceeding a foot in area, exclusive of 
 
VENTILATION. XXX111 
 
 doors and windows, until Dr. Reid constructed a shaft of twenty-seven 
 feet in area, within which a very powerful gas burner was introduced. 
 At the same time, many other subsidiary arrangements were made, and 
 the whole of the vitiated air from the basement, that had previously 
 inundated the state apartments, was diverted by turning a minor 
 staircase into a separate discharging shaft. 
 
 At the Old Bailey, referred to on page x, the theatre of so many 
 criminal trials in the heart of the metropolis, as well as the scene of 
 many sanitary investigations, both in the present and preceding build- 
 ings ; enormous quantities of waste materials, principally wood, in a state 
 of decomposition, were removed ; a tunnel excavated, having an area of 
 fifty feet, for the supply of air to the principal chambers and offices; 
 and a steam engine of ten-horse power erected for driving a large 
 fanner that supplied fresh air. 
 
 In numerous other Law Courts great improvements were also made. 
 At the Opera House, in London, the only discharge for vitiated air, exclu- 
 sive of doors and windows, was a tube of two feet diameter. This was 
 replaced by a discharge having seventy-five feet area. 
 
 In no other places were greater evils pointed out than in churches, 
 schools, and prisons. The galleries of some churches, although fre- 
 quently crowded with children from asylums, received no air but the 
 vitiated atmosphere that ascended from the body of the church. In 
 answer to inquiries, the reply was that they were often sick. Some school 
 rooms intended for a certain number of children, were often crowded 
 with ten times that number ; and in prisons no systematic power was 
 applied for the removal of vitiated air. In all works of this description, 
 leading channels were provided for the ingress and egress of air, and * 
 ventilating shaft, or other moving power, introduced so as to secure the 
 ventilation whatever might be the state of the weather. The area of sup- 
 ply often exceeded by fifty times or upwards that formerly provided, 
 while the power secured for extreme cases still more largely augmented 
 the supply of air. In different manufactories in towns and populous 
 districts, peculiar arrangements, as exemplified in the last six figures 
 in this volume, were adopted both for the health of the workmen and 
 for the protection of the public. Among the arrangements that had 
 
XXXIV PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 preceded Dr. Reid's labors, nothing had contributed more in many 
 establishments to the purity of the air, than the local use of fanners and 
 flues for the removal of dust. To the imperial Russian works at Alex- 
 androski, near St. Petersburgh, plans and apparatus were forwarded for 
 the Chemical Schools there, at the request of government. The Tui- 
 leries and the Palais Royal in Paris were officially examined and 
 reported on by Dr. Reid ; and as is usually the case in places of such 
 public assemblage, the supply of fresh air was found utterly inadequate 
 for health, and the escape of vitiated air so imperfectly provided for, 
 that at great receptions, the combustion of the candles and other lights 
 was frequently interfered with by the extreme impurity of the air on 
 such occasions. 
 
 At the Lambeth Maternity Hospital, the wards were for a protracted 
 period so ravaged by the fatal fevers peculiar to such institutions, that 
 it was often necessary to close the establishment ; but when Dr. Reid's 
 plans for ventilation were introduced, at Once the sanitary condition of 
 the wards was put on a new footing. The fatal miasma of fever was 
 dissipated, and health was restored to the hospital. 
 
 Finally, we may with confidence refer to the condition of the ventila- 
 tion in the British Halls of Legislation previously to the year l&SG. "We 
 will quote the language of Lord Sudeley, writing subsequently to the 
 introduction of Dr. Reid's plans : " The pestilential atmosphere of the 
 House of Commons was notorious ; its baneful effects on the health and 
 energies of the members were painfully felt and admitted : Means from 
 time to time were resorted to, to correct the evil, till scarcely a hope 
 remained, even that it could be lessened; and the most sanguine 
 never dreamt that it could be cured ; much less that the ventilation of 
 the Houses could be brought to such a degree of perfection, as to defy 
 the chills of winter and the heat of summer, or the effects of numbers, 
 however great, congregated within the walls, lessening its beneficial 
 effects." 
 
 In naval architecture, the same general deficiency existed respecting 
 ventilation, that had engaged attention on shore. Notwithstanding 
 the intense interest experienced in Great Britain, in consequence 
 of terrible mortality on board naval and prison ships ; and at a 
 
VENTILATION. XXXV 
 
 later day, the heart-sickening fatality from lack of ventilation in emi- 
 grant passenger vessels ; and though the causes of such disastrous mor- 
 tality had been investigated and strongly urged upon the attention of 
 government by Dr. Lind and Sir Gilbert Blane ; and all the ingenuity 
 of Desaguliers, Sutton, and Hales had been exercised in the device of 
 means for remedying such evils, no adequate and permanent impression 
 has yet been produced among the great mass of directors of construc- 
 tion, either in the government or mercantile marine. 
 
 Until Dr. Reid's plans were applied in the three ships of the Niger Ex- 
 pedition, and in the Queen's Yacht, "Victoria and Albert," there was no 
 example of any ship that had a system of ventilating channels constructed 
 and applied to every compartment in the ship, and capable of being made 
 to act on every portion at the same time, or on any of them indivi- 
 dually, with a power that could be rendered at all times efficient. 
 
 In the " Minden" the Hospital Ship sent by the government for the 
 relief of the troops who suffered much during the former Chinese war, 
 very ample provision was made for ventilation; and in the Yacht "Royal 
 George," a sailing vessel in which the Queen made her first trip to Scot- 
 land, Dr. Reid introduced a ventilating screw fanner, which was made 
 to operate on the principal apartments.* 
 
 * The Et. Hon. L. Corry, the Secretary of the Admiralty in 1845, in an official 
 communication to Dr. Reid, makes the following statement : 
 
 "I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acquaint you, 
 that it appears from a report made upon your ventilating apparatus fitted in the 
 Royal Yacht, that its operations were quite perfect The exhaustion of vitiated air, 
 and the supply of fresh air being easily regulated by the occupant of each apart- 
 ment, and the apparatus being sufficiently powerful to keep up the necessary change 
 in all the apartments, while at the same time the whole power of the machine can 
 be thrown upon one apartment." 
 
 The late Mr. Creuze, F.R.S., Naval Architect of H.M. Dockyard, Portsmouth, 
 Author of a Treatise on Naval Architecture, and of the Article, " Naval Architecture," 
 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, recorded his opinion in the following terms : 
 
 " I have had the pleasure of working in conjunction with Dr. Reid in the practical 
 application of your admirable system of ventilation to H.M. Navy, and I can bear 
 testimony as to the unqualified approval your proposals met with from the Com- 
 mittee which was appointed by the Admiralty to investigate them." 
 
 Dr. McWiUiam, now surgeon to H.M. Customs, at London, and senior medical offi- 
 
XXXVI PROGRESS OF SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 The improvement of ventilation in all classes of vessels employed in 
 the transportation of passengers, is manifestly of no less importance 
 than the proper ventilation of dwellings on land ; and we trust that the 
 subject will soon receive that attention which its acknowledged value 
 demands. Not only the health, but the lives also of those who tra- 
 verse the sea and our inland waters, are jeopardized in consequence of 
 the bad ventilation of ships and steam-vessels. Indeed, facts warrant 
 the assertion that a greater number of lives are annually sacrificed by 
 this easily removable cause, than by disasters at sea and the terrible 
 accidents on our lakes and rivers. In addition to this, it should be 
 stated, that were ample ventilation secured on shipboard, a vessel at sea 
 would be one of the most healthful of human habitations ; while under 
 such conditions the importation of any form of transmissible infection 
 would be rendered next to impossible. 
 
 We might multiply examples of varied character in illustration of 
 
 cer of the Niger Expedition, in his valuable work giving the history of that expedition, 
 states, "The system of ventilation adopted in the vessels of the Niger Expedition, 
 according to the plans proposed by Dr. Reid, presented the first systematic attempt 
 that had been made to place every compartment of a ship under the immediate and 
 direct control of a ventilating power." And though it did not cure the malarious 
 atmosphere, and prevent those fatal results that arose when they plunged into one 
 of the districts of Western Africa most noted for malignant fevers, there is abun- 
 dant evidence both in Dr. McWilliam's interesting account, and other reports, that 
 it must have produced beneficial results, and diminished the severity of the suffer- 
 ings which the Expedition encountered. 
 
 Dr. Wilson, another British Naval Officer, in his Medical Notes on China, states, 
 in reference to Dr. Reid's plans for the ventilation of the Minden, a seventy-four 
 gun ship at Hong Kong, and fitted up in England as an hospital ship, "The 
 machinery was simple and did its work well that, namely, of moving the air 
 briskly and diffusively in any or every part of the hospital, as was desired, the force 
 being less or more, in relation to the space to which it was applied." 
 
 Mr. Chatfield, Naval Architect, in a communication addressed to Dr. Reid, also 
 states, "The efficiency of your ventilating apparatus, as fitted on board the 'Min- 
 den' hospital ship by me, according to your views and instructions, was most per- 
 fect, and delighted every one." And he adds, "I cannot but feel anxious that you 
 should be enabled to extend your principle of ventilation to our navy generally, 
 under any circumstances hi which you may be placed." 
 
VENTILATION. XXXV11 
 
 the vast importance of complete ventilation in all apartments and edi- 
 fices where large numbers of persons are assembled, particularly in 
 hospitals, asylums, churches, schools, and manufactories; but it is not 
 the object of the present work to enter upon those topics, except as 
 they may serve to elucidate the practical utility and importance of the 
 suggestions made by Dr. Reid in this volume. We would, however, refer 
 to Dr. Reid's " Illustrations of Ventilation" published by Messrs. Long- 
 man of London, as well as to the following pages. 
 
 In conclusion, we desire to invite the public mind to an attentive 
 consideration of the principles and examples of ventilation presented 
 in this volume; their vast importance cannot fail to be generally 
 acknowledged, while they will be found capable of almost universal appli- 
 cation, and well adapted to promote personal health and the comforts 
 of domestic life. 
 
 ELISHA HARRIS, M.D. 
 
 NEW YORK, March 4, 1858. 
 
 w -^ 
 
 Library. 
 
 Of Gallfornl*- 
 
THE 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF VENTILATION 
 
 AMERICAN DWELLINGS, 
 
 CHAPTEK 1. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 FEW practical questions are more important to man than the 
 construction and condition of the habitation in which he dwells, 
 and its right adaptation to his moral, physical, and social 
 wants. 
 
 In the mansions of the opulent as well as in the abodes of 
 the poor all equally require shelter from the inclemency of the 
 weather, proper opportunities of rest, refreshment, and recrea- 
 tion, and that attention to the structure of the human frame 
 which shall prevent them from impeding its natural functions 
 and laying the foundation of disease. 
 
 It is not too much to affirm that the average duration of 
 human life might at least be largely increased with the attend- 
 ant blessings which this usually implies, were habitations more 
 generally built, and cities and villages more largely provided 
 with those resources which health and comfort equally de- 
 mand. 
 
 In proportion as the extension of civilization and the multi- 
 plication of arts and manufactures increases man's natural 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 wants, and he departs from the simplicity, habits, food, and 
 exercise which a more primitive state of society presents, the 
 more essential is it for him that his dwelling shall not interfere 
 with the free operation of those laws that regulate the functions 
 of the human frame. 
 
 The tendency to crowd in large cities, to occupations that 
 give too little bodily exercise, or that are accompanied by an 
 unequal strain on some individual organ, particularly if that 
 be the brain, and the exposure of the whole system to the con- 
 taminating impurities arising from a vitiated atmosphere, mul- 
 tiplies the danger from this source. On the other hand, im- 
 proved drainage, better supplies of water, and more comforta- 
 ble habitations diminish the tendency to disease and death. 
 
 In these pages we have to deal with special physical agents 
 that affect life, and restricting our observations accordingly, 
 let it be remembered that there is not to be seen, in all the 
 visible works of creation with which man is acquainted, one 
 more marvellously perfect, or more wonderfully adjusted in 
 its varied ramifications, than that which conveys fresh air to the 
 lungs in the living system by the process of respiration, and 
 circulates the regenerated blood to every fibre of the body in 
 a never-ceasing stream. The chest rises and falls with upwards 
 of a thousand respirations per hour during the whole period of 
 existence, while millions of air-cells purify the minutest parti- 
 cles of the blood, and the heart beats several thousand times an 
 hour in maintaining that perpetual circulation of the vital fluid 
 through an infinite number of arteries, veins, and other vessels, 
 without which we could neither see, nor hear, nor feel, nor 
 could any organ or tissue exercise its appropriate functions. 
 
 But all these provisions are more or less frustrated or im- 
 paired, whenever there is a bad external atmosphere, or a de- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fective internal supply to the habitations of the people, or in 
 any other place or building which they may frequent. 
 
 Without this purification of the blood by the air, unwhole- 
 some currents permeate the system, oppress the brain, break 
 out into disease, and terminate too often fatally by scrofula, 
 consumption, or fever that may long prey upon the system when 
 the state of the atmosphere is not so extreme as to cause imme- 
 diate death. Let this admitted fact be realized to its full extent, 
 and the misery, suffering, and loss attendant on it. Let the 
 magnitude of the provisions be fully considered by which health 
 is sustained when not counteracted by the artificial impedi- 
 ments which want of information and inattention may oppose 
 to them. 
 
 In Europe the sanitary question has assumed so much 
 importance that it has largely engaged the attention of the 
 different governments, and enlisted the co-operation of all 
 classes of society. In many examples, however, bad ventila- 
 tion is accompanied with other evils, moral, social, and physical, 
 that greatly aggravate its effects; and where they are com- 
 bined with poverty and vice, pictures of degradation and 
 misery are presented which, though long known to professional 
 men, cannot be said to have widely awakened the sympathies 
 of their more prosperous neighbors, till the progress of " Illus- 
 trated Works" and periodicals have presented scenes and 
 unfolded realities that have aroused public attention to the 
 condition of the masses of the population. 
 
 In the United States the importance is no less urgent, and 
 its professional men have equally borne testimony to the mag- 
 nitude of the question. The ordinary bills of mortality give a 
 key to the condition of the population in this as well as in other 
 respects. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The right supply of air being more continuously, if not more 
 imperiously, called for than any other provision which life 
 demands, ventilation is necessarily a question of prime necessity. 
 It is one of the most important objects of hygiene, and should 
 be deemed an essential, and not a mere secondary question in 
 all architectural structures. 
 
 If it should be asked why so much attention is directed to 
 ventilation in modern times, it is sufficient to reply that the 
 progress of art has led in these later days to the construction 
 of habitations that are much more air-tight than the dwellings 
 of former times; to the introduction of a more brilliant system 
 of internal lighting, or illumination ; to the use of powerful 
 stoves and other heating apparatus ; to the exclusion of open 
 fire-places ; to occupations affecting largely the quality of the 
 air within doors, as well as in mines, ships, and manufactories, 
 where the system is often exposed to deleterious gases and 
 vapors unknown in ancient days. All these circumstances, as 
 well as the increasing density of the population in numerous 
 cities, and the knowledge which science has unfolded of the 
 nature and relation of the air and other gases to the human 
 frame, have equally developed the sources of numerous evils 
 that prey upon human life, and pointed out the means by which 
 they may be obviated. Where superstition and want of infor- 
 mation too often attributed many sources of sickness and plague 
 to a supernatural agency, they are now more generally and 
 correctly ascribed to the neglect of those laws which a divine 
 providence has instituted, and of those warnings which are 
 given by the senses, when their perceptions are not blunted by 
 a too long and continuous exposure to noxious emanations. 
 
 An all wise and omnipotent Creator has placed at the 
 disposal of man, for the present at least, the entire control and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 occupation of this globe, so far as he can render it amenable to 
 his wants with the abilities given to him. Every day almost, 
 in modern times, developes some new power, principle, or 
 material, which he had previously overlooked, and adds to his 
 means of occupation, direction, or enjoyment. But he has not 
 as yet, generally speaking, become sufficiently sensible of the 
 magnitude of the gift, and of the untold treasures which it still 
 contains, to lead him to support the introduction of the study 
 of the material world in his primary schools of instruction. 
 When that is done with proper experimental illustrations, it 
 will be reasonable to expect the awakening of the intelligence 
 of the whole population, to the power and wonder of Creation. 
 The medical profession will then be more thoroughly supported 
 in their attempts to improve public Hygiene, and Architects 
 will be more largely empowered to improve the ventilation of 
 public and private buildings. 
 
 It is not often practicable to estimate precisely the relative 
 amount of sickness and loss of life arising from the different 
 causes that may concur in their production, but it would require 
 a very moderate examination to demonstrate that the average 
 duration of human life might at least be doubled, when no 
 unusual circumstances occur to shorten it, by a proper and 
 extended system of Hygiene. The history and interpretation 
 by the most eminent biblical critics of the passage in the nine- 
 tieth psalm,* which has originated a prevailing popular belief 
 that the years of man have been, by a divine ordinance, 
 reduced to three-score and ten, do not bear out this opinion. 
 Statistical records have shown how often it is largely exceeded, 
 though the present average is much below this standard ; and 
 
 * Some of the most learned commentators consider that this psalm was written 
 by Moses. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that it may be more correctly translated as a lamentation, that 
 at a special period during the wandering of the Israelites, 
 human life was reduced to that period, from the suffering they 
 endured. 
 
 By placing a money value upon human life, and on the 
 losses from sickness and death arising from preventible causes, 
 this question has been placed in bold relief, and it is perhaps 
 not too much to assert that the pecuniary value of human life 
 might probably be at least doubled, by a systematic attention 
 to a right code of hygienic laws. As it is at present, how 
 many are there who appear as if they were merely born to die 
 after five or ten years of a painful and harassing childhood, to 
 say nothing of valuable lives cut off in their prime ! 
 
 Among recent examples of loss arising from a defective 
 state of the atmosphere in ships, the amount expended on 
 Quarantine last yea?, directly and indirectly in New York, 
 has been estimated at a million of dollars. Had the ships 
 detained, been ventilated previously, and more attention paid 
 in drying some cargoes before shipping them, a very small 
 part of the expense would have been incurred. 
 
 Were the details of individual cases in different classes of 
 buildings given, they would embrace every variety of effect, 
 from the slightest headache produced by an indifferent atmo- 
 sphere, to examples of hospitals where no patient ever survived 
 an operation ; and there the pestilential air, sometimes oppress- 
 ing the patient much more than the disease by which he had 
 been attacked, has led to his supposed death and removal to 
 the dead-room, where the free play of an open atmosphere re- 
 vived the apparent corpse and led to an ultimate recovery. 
 
 In the late memorable example of disease that occurred at 
 the National Hotel, at Washington, very decisive testimony 
 
INTKODIJCTION. 7 
 
 was given that the state of the atmosphere there had at least a 
 most important share in its production ; that cases of sudden 
 and severe vomiting occurred where the bad air was most 
 abundant; and that, had the representations made on this sub- 
 ject been acted upon before those extreme results arose that 
 led finally to the closing of the hotel, all complaints from this 
 source would have been avoided.* The loss to the proprietors 
 in closing a large hotel must have been very considerable ; and 
 the number of cases of illness, estimated at upwards of seven 
 hundred, if the report be correct, must have entailed a large 
 additional expense on individuals, to say nothing of loss of 
 time, or of those cases of death that have been attributed to 
 this cause. 
 
 If individual habitations be made the object of attention, it 
 will be found that there are few in which some of the inmates 
 do not experience annually some loss from evils arising from 
 the imperfect attention given to the subject of ventilation. In 
 different places in England, where many details have been 
 entered into on this subject, with the records available in vari- 
 ous cities and rural districts, it is considered that the expense 
 from preventible causes that would disappear with the intro- 
 duction of right sanitary measures, is rarely less than a pound 
 per head annually, however much it may exceed that sum. 
 This would give about five millions of dollars annually for 
 New York and the cities adjoining it, should they be esti- 
 mated by a similar standard ; and it may be affirmed that bad 
 ventilation, directly or indirectly, from imperfect drainage and 
 cleansing, is the principal item in all such calculations. Kew 
 York has numerous natural advantages from its position that 
 
 * Whether its effects may or may not have been increased by other causes and 
 their proportionate influence, is another question. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 give it a great superiority in many respects, and a supply and 
 quality of water from the Croton works that cannot be too 
 highly prized, and far beyond any that can be found in Euro- 
 pean cities with a similar population. The severity of the 
 winter's cold, however, and of the summer's heat, which, with 
 the peculiarities of its soil and rocks, render it prone to accu- 
 mulate offensive waters in many places not yet filled up nor 
 drained artificially, as well as the extent to which gas is used, 
 and imperfections in ventilation, perhaps balance its advan- 
 tages. "Were they not neutralized to a considerable extent by 
 such and similar causes, New York should show bills of mor- 
 tality with which few large cities could compare; but the 
 rapidity with which it has risen has not given time, as yet, to 
 deal with all the difficulties which its foundations present, and 
 to take advantage of all the opportunities which its site affords. 
 In no great city, probably, has so much ever been accom- 
 plished in a similar period, particularly if the provisions for 
 future extension be taken in connexion with existing arrange- 
 ments. Local drainage and a right system of cleansing are the 
 great desiderata, and the proper application of the refuse to 
 agricultural purposes, as a means of defraying the necessary 
 expenses. 
 
 Though it is in large cities that the most extreme results are 
 usually observed, they are by no means confined to such locali- 
 ties ; and accordingly in villages and in isolated habitations, 
 long continued indifference or neglect may induce parallel 
 evils. The united co-operation of Medical men, Architects, 
 Engineers, and Agriculturists, is required to place the sani- 
 tary question on a right footing in town and country, how- 
 ever much may be done to improve internal ventilation in 
 each individual habitation. 
 
EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 
 
 IN perusing the following pages, the accompanying sum- 
 mary will facilitate the examination of the varied examples 
 they present, and of the leading objects they are intended to 
 illustrate. 
 
 The actual amount of air respired by an adult is not consi- 
 dered to exceed a quarter of a cubic foot per minute, but the 
 amount necessary for satisfactory ventilation greatly exceeds 
 this estimate, as allowance must be made for the exhalations 
 from the surface of the body, the influence of furniture, 
 clothing, and the contamination of fresh air by the vitiated 
 air expired, as well as the effect of lights, stoves, fire-places, 
 and any other special cause in removing fresh air, or adding 
 to the impurities of respiration. Hence a great difference in 
 the estimates given by different authors and experimenters. 
 
 It is contended that ten cubic feet of air per minute forms 
 an average supply, that is generally agreeable, though in cold 
 weather with a dry atmosphere, and fresh air admitted and 
 discharged under favorable circumstances, an amount varying 
 from* two to five cubic feet will be found sufficient. The 
 condensation of the moisture of the breath by cold is in itself 
 a powerful assistance to* ventilation where the temperature is 
 very low, variable quantities of carbonic acid and animal 
 exhalations accompanying the moisture. On the other hand, 
 
10 EXPLANATORY KEMAKKS. 
 
 with a summer temperature, a much larger amount of venti- 
 lation is agreeable. A brisk current in the open air is 
 refreshing. With all the windows and doors open, there is 
 no complaint of too much air, till the temperature becomes 
 excessive ; and then its movement must be reduced, and 
 warm air excluded as much as possible, within certain limits, 
 as well as the direct rays of the sun, and the reflection from 
 the vicinity. 
 
 The greater the changes in the external atmosphere, the 
 more varied must the provisions for ventilation be, and hence 
 with all the resources that doors and windows afford, in every 
 climate subject to extreme temperatures, there should also be 
 arrangements for removing vitiated air, warming cold, and 
 cooling warm air, in proportion to the severity of the seasons. 
 Without such means the best systematic ventilation cannot 
 be secured. 
 
 But without attempting in the majority of cases to secure 
 the most perfect arrangements, much may be done by simple 
 means to provide for the more pressing necessities of indi- 
 vidual habitations where the ventilation is defective by the 
 following measures. 
 
 1. The adoption of measures for breaking the first and 
 harsh impulse of a cold raw atmosphere, by causing it to 
 enter with a gentle diffusion, or at a place where it necessarily 
 spreads over a much larger space before it comes in contact 
 with the person. 
 
 2. The more extended use of entrances, staircases,' and 
 passages, for the supply of air to individual rooms, so as to 
 give an interior and milder climate within the house when 
 there is severe heat or cold externally. 
 
 3. The disposition of all kinds of heating apparatus, and 
 
EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 11 
 
 flues connected with them, so that they shall warm the floor 
 of apartments as much as possible, either by the direct com- 
 munication of heat to as large a part of the floor as can be 
 conveniently appropriated for this purpose, or by the induc- 
 tion of rotatory currents and radiations that produce an 
 equivalent effect. Nothing is so common where powerful 
 heaters are employed, as great heat at the ceiling and a very 
 uncomfortable, cold atmosphere at the level of the floor. 
 
 4. The communication of more moisture to the air than is 
 usually given to it in very cold weather. 
 
 5. The reduction of the temperature at which stoves or heat- 
 ers are generally used, and the compensation of any subse- 
 quent loss of power by a larger stove surface, so as to give a 
 greater volume of air not so highly heated. This is a point to 
 which great importance is attached. The imperative necessity 
 of heat preceding the nature of the source from which it is ob- 
 tained, it must be freely admitted that in numerous cases the 
 present structure of flues and buildings will often prevent the 
 necessary alterations being made for this purpose except at 
 considerable expense. But there are few cases where much can- 
 not be done to mitigate extreme effects by warming passages 
 and a right adjustment between them and individual rooms. 
 It should be laid down as an axiom in house building that no 
 entrance, staircase, or passage, should be built so large, or in 
 such a manner, that the tenant or proprietor should ever hesi- 
 tate as to the importance of warming it, moderately at least, in 
 winter. He should, in short, find as much or more economy 
 in warming it, than in the expenditure of any of the fuel pro- 
 vided for winter use. 
 
 6. The direct removal of vitiated air from gas lamps or 
 other sources of excessive illumination, ,and from products of 
 
12 EXPLANATORY REMAKES. 
 
 respiration. This is a very large question in some respects, how- 
 ever simple it may at first appear, and involves not merely the 
 removal of the products referred to, but also the consideration 
 of the supply of air ; for in all rooms heated by flues leading in 
 warm air, and by stoves, hot water or steam pipes placed in 
 the individual rooms, the warmest air immediately ascends to 
 the ceiling, and there it will escape as in well ventilated and 
 crowded public buildings in proportion to the area of dis- 
 charge, and the amount of supply, without inducing those 
 rotatory currents on which the economy of warming such apart- 
 ments principally depends! Hence it is obvious that if air 
 could be more generally introduced over an extensive surface 
 at the ceiling in apartments in ordinary habitations, and the 
 vitiated air drawn to a central part there for escape by a ven- 
 tilating flue, air might be permitted to enter at a less elevated 
 temperature, the rotatory currents and freshness of the atmo- 
 sphere would be unimpaired, and a great economy would be 
 attained in the amount of fuel required. The colder the 
 winter the greater the facility and importance of such 
 arrangements, and of the transfer of part of the heat escap- 
 ing with the bad air to the pure air as it enters, not by 
 direct contact but by conduction and radiation between the 
 materials of which the ceiling is composed. 
 
 7. The purification of the external atmosphere in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of dwellings by improvements in cleansing, 
 drainage, closets, and the control of noxious vapors and gases 
 from manufactories. 
 
 These seven points afford perhaps the most extended fields 
 for the improvement of ventilation, the economy of heat, and 
 the adaptation of designs in the construction of new buildings. 
 To them may be added improvements in windows and in the 
 
EXPLANATORY EEMAEKS. 13 
 
 open fireplace, in the means for supplying a cool atmosphere 
 in oppressive summer weather, the construction of a special 
 ventilating flue, and the use of valves adjusted to every aper- 
 ture for the ingress or egress of air. 
 
 There is another point that requires much attention, and 
 without which no adjustments for ventilation can be expected 
 to give any satisfaction, and that is a reasonable view of all 
 that ventilation may and may not be expected to accomplish. 
 Where there is a great difference in constitution, tempera- 
 ment, and habits, different individuals can never expect to be 
 equally satisfied with the same amount of ventilation or quality 
 of atmosphere; there must be a mutual concession on such 
 points, or special provisions introduced where individuals 
 widely opposed to each other in these respects occupy the same 
 apartment. It is one of the great advantages of an open fire- 
 place, and of all radiators, that they permit such adjustments 
 to be made with great facility and satisfaction. 
 
 The very inequality of their action gives them this power of 
 accommodation in perfection. The room warmed with an 
 equal stove or other heat, however superior in many respects, 
 can boast of no such perfection, to say nothing of the cheerful 
 influence of a living fire. 
 
 In many of the diagrams used in the following pages pink 
 and blue coloring are introduced to indicate good and bad 
 air, great advantage having accrued from this system since it 
 was introduced in reports prepared by the author for the 
 British government, and freely used in some of those that 
 appear in parliamentary papers; many of them have been 
 quoted in the United States. 
 
 The following extracts are taken from one of these reports 
 that was very extensively distributed, particularly among 
 
EXPLANATORY BEMABKS. 
 
 teachers and others interested in sanitary improvements, as it 
 was considered that their services would be rendered eminently 
 useful in laying, through their pupils, a broad foundation for 
 the progress of sanitary improvement. 
 
 In old and new apartments, the ever- varying details of local structure, exclusive of 
 constitutional peculiarities among the inmates, give an equally varying influence to 
 apertures of the same size. As a general rule, however, it may be stated that, in a 
 room from 12 to 14 feet square, occupied by from six to twelve persons 
 a. An aperture of one foot area for the ingress of ah*, and one foot area for egress, 
 may be considered sufficient in moderate weather, if they are favorably dis- 
 posed for promoting the movement of ah*. 
 
 &. Apertures of three or four inches square will relieve such apartments of the 
 most extreme stagnation! If such apertures work well, passing into, or near 
 warm flues, they are as large as the majority of persons will tolerate in winter 
 weather, unless the air be warmed previously and well diffused at its 
 entrance. 
 
 c. In summer weather the opening of a window may be necessary to give the 
 
 same amount of relief which the small aperture affords hi winter. 
 
 d. The ah*, after being led into an apartment, cannot be too largely diffused, 
 
 before becoming generally distributed through it. 
 
 e. A well-constructed fire-place flue should not exceed 9 by 4 inches area, unless 
 
 a much larger fire be required than is necessary for an apartment such as has 
 been mentioned ; it is presumed that smokeless fuel alone is used, if the flue 
 be not straight ; where circular flues are introduced, they may be made still 
 smaller. 
 
 /. Valves in the chimney flue, and in the ventilating apertures, can alone secure 
 the varying adjustments which the varying state of the constitution demands. 
 
 g. Where ventilation is sustained by forced measures, or by the continuous heat 
 of a kitchen fire, or any equivalent arrangement introduced for the purpose, 
 much smaller apertures are sufficient for the ingress and egress of ah* than 
 are otherwise necessary ; the continuity and power of action compensating 
 for the smaller dimensions. 
 
 h Flues and chambers for fresh air should always be so constructed as to admit 
 of their being inspected and cleaned. 
 
EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 15 
 
 Tabular View of Circumstances affecting tlie Supply of Air necessary for different 
 Individuals in any Apartment. 
 
 I. General. 
 
 1. Climate. 
 
 2. Season. 
 
 3. Time of day. 
 
 4. Condition of the external air. 
 
 a. Temperature. 
 
 b. Hygrometric state. 
 
 c. Electric state. 
 
 d. Direction or force of the wind. 
 
 II. Local 
 
 1. Natural position of the apartment under consideration. 
 
 a. Aspect in reference to the rays of the sun. 
 6. On a mountain ridge. 
 
 c. In a valley. 
 
 d. Proximity to the sea. 
 
 e. Position in respect to any other collection of water, or moist sur- 
 
 face including the nature of the emanations from it. 
 /. Condition of the soil, and vegetation in the vicinity. 
 
 2. State of the drainage, natural and artificial, especially if unventilated 
 
 drains discharge vitiated air in the vicinity, or in the apartment 
 occupied. 
 
 3. Form of the building in which it is placed, particularly in so far as it 
 
 is favorable or unfavorable to external ventilation. 
 
 4. Influence of mechanical or chemical impurities from manufactories, or 
 
 deficient cleansing. 
 
 5. Position in towns in respect to smoke or prevailing winds. 
 
 6. State of the cleansing, particularly as affected by supplies of water. 
 
 III. Special. 
 
 1. Quality of air supplied from without 
 
 2. Mode of adjusting quantity supplied to varying circumstances requir 
 
 ing attention. 
 
16 EXPLANATORY REMAKES. " 
 
 3. Treatment to which the air is subjected. 
 
 a. Heating. 
 6. Drying. 
 e. Moistening. 
 
 d. Purifying. 
 
 e. Velocity of movement. 
 
 / Amount of diffusion at its ingress. 
 
 g. Position at which vitiated air is withdrawn. 
 
 4. Peculiarities of apartment 
 
 a. Altitude. 
 
 6. Materials of which it is built. 
 
 c. Position of door and windows. 
 
 d. Single or double windows, or glazing. 
 
 e. Influence of furniture or other materials. 
 
 /. Natural inclination of currents or eddies within the apartment 
 g. Mode of lighting. 
 
 5. Crowding. 
 
 a. Numbers on a given space. 
 
 6. Their position within or without the zone of each other's respiration. 
 
 IV. Personal 
 
 a. Condition of the system at the moment, particularly as exhaling to 
 the external atmosphere, or absorbing from it a greater ratio than 
 is compensated by exhalation. 
 
 6. Temperament 
 
 c. State of health. 
 
 d. Age. 
 
 e. Habits. 
 
 /. Nature of diet ; time that may have elapsed since any refreshment 
 
 may have been taken. 
 g. Clothing. 
 h. Exercise taken. 
 
 k. Relative amount of pulmonary or cutaneous exhalation.* 
 I Previous exposure. 
 
 * Some individuals exhale almost exclusively by their lungs, while in others the pulmonary 
 exhalation of moisture at least is altogether trifling, compared with what is discharged by the 
 
EXPLANATORY REMARKS. IT 
 
 Y. Dependent on occupation, nature and amount of labor in professional engage- 
 ments, trades, and in positions where peculiar emanations require to be 
 guarded against. 
 
 This department is so extensive that very leading considerations can alone be 
 included in the following summary. 
 
 a. Inequality of clothing, and use of non-porous clothing. 
 
 "When the professional engagements, or other circumstances, lead to inequality of 
 clothing, particularly where wigs and gowns give unusual protection to the head 
 and the body generally, while the feet may be comparatively unprotected, it is 
 impracticable, in crowded assemblies, to place the ventilation on the best footing, both 
 for individuals in this position and for others not so circumstanced, unless special 
 arrangements be made to meet both cases. 
 
 Similar considerations apply in innumerable cases in the habitations of the poor 
 and the dwellings of the rich, modified by an endless diversity of details, but all 
 agreeing hi the obstacles presented to ventilation by the imperfect protection of the 
 feet which the nature of the climate requires, where it is not obviated by the introduc- 
 tion of warm air, or the proper diffusion of cold air. Soldiers wearing brass or steel 
 helmets, large boots and gloves, and other non-porous or imperfectly porous clothing, 
 may be often seen suffused with perspiration on the face, the escape of which is so 
 much obstructed from other parts of the body. Cases of death are recorded where 
 aon-porous clothing is still more largely used. 
 
 &. Extreme and rapid transitions of temperature. 
 
 These tell more severely upon many constitutions than almost any other cause. 
 While all persons are subject to such transitions in passing between the external air 
 and ordinary apartments, it is in chemical manufactures more especially that their 
 more severe operation is experienced. Common sailors are more exposed to extreme 
 transitions than other classes of persons, being often called to leave their hammocks 
 where they are surrounded by hot and vitiated air, and to expose themselves to the 
 most chilling blasts. 
 
 c. Mechanical impurities. 
 
 These are of very great variety, according as they proceed from the general atmo- 
 sphere of any town or district, or from any special materials communicated to the air 
 in manufacturing operations. Those evolved in grinding metals and in making flour 
 mill stones present extreme cases of the fatal results that ensue where effective ven- 
 tilating arrangements are not adopted. The dust from vegetable and animal matters 
 
 2 
 
18 EXPLANATORY EEMAEK8. 
 
 is often highly offensive, but rarely so deleterious as in the examples now men- 
 tioned. 
 
 d. Chemical impurities. 
 
 These are by far the most abundant and frequent sources of impure air in ordinary 
 apartments, in public buildings, in manufactories, and mines. The following list 
 contains a notice of the more extreme cases in which suffering, special disease, or 
 general bad health, are most apt to arise from chemical impurities : 
 
 1. Mines charged excessively with variable quantities of carbonic acid, carburetted 
 hydrogen, or smoke from gunpowder used in blasting. 
 
 2. Chemical manufactories or class rooms charged with deleterious gases, mer- 
 curial vapors, &c. &c. Workmen in chlorine manufactories sometimes fall down 
 suddenly, as if they were shot, when a blast of strong chlorine overpowers them. 
 The most severe convulsions are observed in sal ammoniac manufactories, where the 
 workmen have been exposed to sulphuretted hydrogen gas in less quantities than 
 are sufficient to induce immediate death. 
 
 3. Offices, shops, workshops, and other crowded apartments, where the sole or 
 principal source of heat is derived from the products of respiration, and the combus- 
 tion of gas. 
 
 4. Bake-houses, in which carbonic acid from the fermenting sponge, air from 
 drains, heat from an underground oven, and vitiated products from gas lamps con- 
 tribute to produce an oppressive and soporific atmosphere, that would prey still more 
 heavily on the constitution were it not for the severity of the exercise which 
 the bakers undergo. 
 
 5. Printing-offices, when there is an immoderate use of gas, low ceilings, and no 
 means of heat except from the gas lamps and products of respiration. 
 
 6. Coffee-rooms in hotels, more particularly those commonly termed " The travel- 
 lers' Room," when without ventilation, and immoderately supplied with gas. 
 
 7. Lodging-houses for the humblest classes. 
 
 8. Public kitchens and private kitchens in large establishments, where non-venti- 
 lated charcoal fires, bad air from drains, and local draught, though producing much 
 disease, are rendered milder in their effects so long as ample diet does not derange 
 the digestive functions. 
 
 9. Store-houses of volatile ingredients. 
 
 10. Grave-diggers, scavengers, and persons employed in cleaning drains, more 
 especially when first engaged in such work, and before the constitution has, to a 
 certain extent, been acclimated to it, suffer much from noxious emanations. 
 

VENTILATION IN A ROOM LIGHTED BY GAS. 19 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 VENTILATION OF A BOOM LOADED WITH PRODUCTS OF COMBUSTION 
 FROM GAS, AND SUBJECT TO OFFENSIVE COLD CURRENTS ON THE 
 FLOOR. 
 
 IN a room warmed by an open fire, there are great com- 
 plaints of a current of cold air passing along the floor, while 
 the air on the line of respiration feels heavy and oppressive, 
 producing great restlessness, particularly when a series of gas- 
 burners are lighted that give a brilliant illumination. This is 
 one of the most common forms of complaint in numerous 
 apartments, and the causes will be obvious on inspecting the 
 accompanying figures. 
 
 The air admitted being very cold, and entering partly by a 
 slight leakage at the window, but principally below the door, 
 from a passage not warmed artificially, has little tendency to 
 rise, and passes along the floor to the fire-place. The gas, 
 however, induces a powerful current at #, Fig. 1, which ascends 
 with force and strikes upon the ceiling, where it is soon dif- 
 fused, and descends on every side as it cools. Part of it mixes 
 with fresh air below, and is carried off by the action of the fire ; 
 the rest ascends again by a rotatory movement towards the 
 gas-burners, where it mingles a second time in the current, 
 ascending and descending as before. The upper portion of the 
 air is accordingly largely charged with moisture and carbonic 
 acid gas, the principal products of its combustion. 
 
20 PREVENTION OF COLD CURRENTS ON THE FLOOR. 
 
 In Fig. 2, the principal arrangements necessary for removing 
 these evils are shown in one of the many modes by which this 
 can be accomplished. 
 
 A free supply of air is admitted by the flue A, being drawn 
 from a central apparatus supplying warm air. A much smaller 
 open fire is then sufficient ; with warmer air it may be ren- 
 dered unnecessary. In warm weather cold air is admitted by 
 the flue A. It is not permitted to enter abruptly at one place, 
 but diffused at the base-board by perforated zinc, or at a panel 
 from which it escapes into the apartment to be supplied. A 
 vitiated air flue, B, starting at the level of the ceiling, continu- 
 ously removes the bad air, and preserves fresh air at and 
 immediately above the zone of respiration, the great object in 
 all ventilated apartments. 
 
 A reference to the succeeding diagrams will explain many 
 modifications that may be adopted in carrying such alterations 
 into effect. 
 
 The primary objects in all ventilation are the removal of 
 vitiated air, and the introduction of fresh air in an impercepti- 
 ble stream. The diffusion of the entering air in a chamber, 
 air trunk, or channel, indicated by the deeper tint proceeding 
 from A, Fig. 2, breaks its impetus in proportion to the extent 
 of diffusion. The warmer the air supplied, and the more dis- 
 tant from A the portion of floor generally occupied, the less is 
 the amount of diffusion required. The vitiated air may be dis- 
 charged directly into the external atmosphere, or any of the 
 arrangements may be adopted that are indicated in Chapters 
 IY and Y. 
 
SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 21 
 
 CHAPTEE IY. 
 
 SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 
 
 THE introduction of a special ventilating flue being recom- 
 mended as an auxiliary to the present arrangements in 
 ordinary use for the purpose of ventilation, it will be 
 necessary to explain the principal modes in which it is used, 
 and the method of adapting it to the ever varying wants of 
 individual habitations. 
 
 A ventilating flue acting by the aid of heat is preferred to 
 any mechanical power, steam jet, or other apparatus pro- 
 ducing the movement of air, as it is simple in its construction, 
 sure in action, not liable to get out of order, economical in its 
 application, and capable of being as easily understood and 
 managed as any ordinary fire-place and chimney flue. 
 
 Let it be remembered that the object is not to supersede 
 the use of doors and windows, wherever it is desirable or 
 necessary to resort to them, but to act as an auxiliary under 
 circumstances where they cannot afford the comfort required ; 
 to control and remove special accumulations of bad air that 
 may affect injuriously a whole habitation, or even an 
 extended district comprising many buildings, and to meet 
 those specialities of climate such as occur while the tempera- 
 ture varies from 70 to 110, particularly if the air be at the 
 same time stagnant, and loaded with moisture. 
 
 If a house contain air warmer than the external atmos- 
 
22 SPECIAL VENTILATING ELITE. 
 
 phere, the colder air tends to enter the house below, and the 
 warm air within to escape above. 
 
 If the external air be warmer than the air within, the air 
 within tends to escape below like water from any vessel with 
 apertures in it, the warm external air entering above. The 
 movements in this and the preceding case are accelerated or 
 retarded according to the magnitude of the openings or com- 
 munications between the air within and that without, and the 
 difference in the external and internal temperature. 
 
 The principal cause of these movements is the perpetually 
 varying temperature of the air. Air expanding by heat and 
 contracting by cold, the expanded and lighter air can never 
 balance or remain in equilibrio with colder and denser air. 
 The latter, accordingly, sinks under it, if not there already, 
 pressing towards it on every side, and pushing it upwards. 
 Numerous little eddies and rotatory currents accompany the 
 primary movement, which is only part of a larger circle or 
 continuous chain of motions that may be traced from the 
 ascending heated air through the contiguous atmosphere to 
 the descending portion that becomes heated, expanded, and 
 elevated, as long as it is exposed to any source of warmth. 
 
 Accordingly, if by any tube, chimney flue, or shaft, as 
 larger and independent chimneys are usually termed, the 
 heated column be secured at all times of a given altitude, it 
 becomes a fixed and definite power that, in ordinary language, 
 draws to it any air, vapor, or gas, permitted to have access 
 by an aperture at the lower part of the chimney. 
 
 The current or draught that sets in does not arise from any 
 drawing of the moving air to any point or channel to which 
 it may proceed, though this is implied by the language in 
 common use, but rather to its being pushed by the pressure of 
 
SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 23 
 
 the contiguous air no longer balanced by an atmosphere of 
 equal density. 
 
 Apertures at the side of the chimney may act in a similar 
 manner if the chimney or flue be not already overloaded 
 with too large apertures below, but they have not the same 
 power as those below, and they may even discharge part of 
 an ascending column instead of drawing in air, if the moving 
 power from the heat exceed that of the upper part of the 
 flue to discharge the air that reaches it. 
 
 In the simplest form of application to an individual apart- 
 ment, it may consist of a tube or flue opening immediately 
 under the ceiling, and formed as near as possible to the 
 ordinary fire flue, receiving warmth from it when in use, and 
 capable of being heated by it at any time, or by some other 
 substitute. Such a flue, if only a few inches square, will have 
 a very powerful effect in removing the vitiated air from the 
 ceiling of any ordinary room, but it will be better if never 
 made less than eight or nine inches square, so as to give at all 
 times a clear area of large dimensions. These flues ought to 
 be lined with a thick coating of tenacious and very porous 
 plaster or pargetting, otherwise, lamps with oils or gas 
 producing much watery vapor during combustion, become 
 objectionable from the deposition of condensed moisture. 
 
 The flue explained, however useful in numerous instances, is 
 not to be considered the most desirable adjustment, either in 
 an old or a new building. On any floor, but best of all in the 
 basement or kitchen floor, a brick flue should be commenced 
 in all new houses, and carried to the top of the building. !N"o 
 lateral aperture is made in this flue above the fire-grate, except 
 one for fuel, which is placed as low down as circumstances may 
 permit, and about the same level as the kitchen fire-place, so 
 
24: SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 
 
 as to admit of being easily fed with fuel. The air plays freely 
 around and through the fires, according to the amount admit- 
 ted, and is supplied by a series of channels communicating 
 with the rooms or spaces on which it is intended that it should 
 act. Valves regulate the amount of power placed on the 
 apartments, or other areas connected with it, and thus its 
 action can be directed on any of them individually, or distri- 
 buted over all. 
 
 "When a special flue is introduced in a new building, it is. 
 desirable to give it power over the following rooms or spaces, 
 viz. the kitchen, scullery, wash-house, closets, cellars, and 
 drains (when they are imperfectly formed, or temporarily 
 opened), the dining-room, drawing-room, bed-rooms, stairs 
 and passages, and other places, according to the peculiarities 
 of individual habitations. 
 
 It will be obvious that such communications may be extend- 
 ed or reduced at pleasure. In an ordinary habitation these 
 give sufficient power to meet all the principal desiderata. 
 
 Further, when doors and windows are closed this shaft 
 causes cold air to ascend from any place where it may be pre- 
 ferred, entering the staircases and passages generally, or any 
 individual apartment, according to the channels provided for 
 this purpose. 
 
 Great attention must be paid to the construction of the fire- 
 place, so that while it shall thoroughly heat the air in the 
 flues, the free space around it shall permit a channel for the 
 passing air fully equal to the area of the flue. The valves 
 must be capable of being open or shut to any extent desirable, 
 in order that its action may be concentrated principally on one 
 or two apartments, where numbers may have assembled. 
 
 The size of the flues may be made as various as the require- 
 
SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 25 
 
 ments of individual habitations demand. One foot area 
 should in general be the minimum for such a flue, even if 
 it be intended only to control the vitiated air from the 
 kitchen, closets, drains, and wash-houses, and apply it occa- 
 sionally to other places. But if the construction of the house 
 admits it and there are few places where, with a little 
 management, this cannot be effected an area twice or even 
 four times as large will be found advantageous by those who 
 prefer ample ventilation. If it be required to sustain a con- 
 tinued ventilation of all the apartments of any house by the 
 operation of a shaft, an area of three or four feet will be 
 desirable in an ordinary house with ten to sixteen rooms. 
 
 The amount of special ventilation required in any house is 
 as various as the taste and constitution of those occupying it, 
 the temperature of the air, its hygrometric condition, the 
 climate, the numbers present, the system of lighting adopted, 
 the quality of furniture, and the purity of the air supplied. 
 The perpetual change of season adds a never ceasing variety 
 to the wants of the living frame, the power of ventilating flues, 
 and the emanations which they are required to control. The 
 great point accordingly is to construct such flues and commu- 
 nications as are most imperatively wanted, and to secure the 
 means of enabling them to act generally or locally as may be 
 necessary. 
 
 Let it be remembered, however, that a ventilating shaft may 
 be made to act in a much more effective manner than a 
 perpetual fan or punkah in hot weather. These merely move 
 the air in direct contact with the surface of the body without 
 preventing its return, but the shaft discharges utterly and 
 entirely the air that has once been loaded with exhalations 
 from the human system, and increases practically the cooKng 
 
26 SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 
 
 effect of any atmosphere, if it be at all below the temperature 
 of the body, by multiplying the quantities brought in contact 
 with it in a given time. Pneumatic instruments, as a rota- 
 tory fanner, or an air pump, may be used as a power in the 
 same manner as a shaft, if properly adjusted and sustained 
 continuously in action. 
 
 If a case should occur where it is necessary or convenient, 
 from special causes, that a flue should discharge smoke or 
 invisible products of combustion at a lower level than the fire 
 itself, this may be effected frequently by merely turning the 
 flue to the course required, after it shall have ascended suffi- 
 ciently high to have lost the sharpness of the heat it at first 
 acquires. Such an arrangement is often a great convenience 
 in removing gaseous products, as they may then be conveyed 
 from a site where they might interfere with the free use of an 
 open roof, or the quality of air taken in near it. These pro- 
 ducts may be dissipated below, or absorbed in the general 
 action of some greater ventilating flue discharging its products 
 at an unobjectionable position. 
 
 If a flue be merely made to ascend directly from the source 
 or sources of vitiated air, there is no security in its acting with 
 the efficiency obtained by the aid of heat. "When, however, 
 the temperature of the external atmosphere is low, and that of 
 the air discharged considerably higher, it may operate well. 
 It is proper, therefore, to have the means of communicating 
 heat above in warm weather, to prevent any danger of the 
 current being reversed, and then its action may be secured, 
 though it will not, under parallel circumstances, have the same 
 power as a longer shaft. Wherever flues are used, the supply 
 of air to the apartment to be ventilated must meet with no 
 obstruction, otherwise the vitiated air cannot have any proper 
 
GENERAL SUPPLY OF AIE. 27 
 
 opportunity of escaping. By interrupting or diminishing the 
 source of supply, the amount of external pressure that pro- 
 duces the ventilating current may be altogether intercepted or 
 proportionally reduced. The examples are innumerable where, 
 from inadequate attention to this point, ventilation is often very 
 imperfectly sustained. Many never stop to realize the fact that 
 no air will continue to pass out of a building, under any ordi- 
 nary circumstances, unless a proportional quantity be permitted 
 to enter. 
 
 In the great majority of habitations, the amount of supply of 
 air is generally insufficient without the aid of doors and win- 
 dows, and how many are there that have no other source of 
 fresh air, except what these may afford, or cracks, fissures and 
 imperfect fittings, and cold chimney flues neither in actual use, 
 nor warmed by contiguous flues, the ordinary course of the 
 current being reversed ? 
 
 It may be laid down, accordingly, that the provision of an 
 aperture, capable of supplying the largest amount of air which 
 it may be desirable to introduce from a sheltered source during 
 the highest intensity of summer's heat, is one of the most 
 important improvements that can be introduced in a house not 
 already provided with it. It can be opened or shut at all 
 times to any extent, without being dependent on any ordinary 
 doors or windows. 
 
 In old houses, any special door or window may be adapted 
 for this purpose, that can be appropriated to it, if the air 
 channel proceeding from it can be led directly into the pas- 
 sage or staircase, and connected with such provisions as may 
 be used for general or local warmth. 
 
 In building a new house, the construction of a general supply 
 should attract very special attention, and any possible sources 
 
28 GENERAL SUPPLY OF AIR. 
 
 of vitiated air be carefully avoided. It will also be very 
 desirable in many localities, to bring down the air from some 
 altitude above the ground. This is particularly important 
 where some of the rooms may be likely to be crowded from 
 time to time with large parties or assemblies for business or 
 recreation ; and still more so, if the intended building is to be 
 erected where the ground is apt to be damp, and a moist atmo- 
 sphere to rest above it, not subject to the free play of atmo- 
 spheric currents. Even at a height of ten or twenty feet above 
 the ground, the air is of much better quality, in some districts, 
 especially at night. In others it should be taken from the 
 highest available altitudes where it is not exposed to the heat 
 of the sun ; or in danger of being contaminated by the escape 
 of smoke from contiguous chimneys. Fig. 79 indicates a sup- 
 ply of air by a shaft constructed in this manner, which can be 
 reduced in temperature on special occasions by water permit 
 ted to descend as a shower, or by the use of ice, when the con- 
 dition of the air does not render the moisture objectionable* 
 that is thus communicated. 
 
 This general supply of air distributes itself in the passages 
 and stairs so as to communicate freely from them with the 
 whole of the house. 
 
 A portion of the channel by which it is conveyed can be 
 formed so that all or any part of the air can be warmed or 
 cooled. 
 
 The right condition and movement of air in stairs and pas- 
 sages often contributes, more to health in individual habitations 
 than any other circumstances. Many are the houses in which 
 a comparatively uniform climate is thus formed within doors, 
 and a free communication sustained by open doors, or open 
 apertures such as internal windows, with all the individual 
 
K 
 
 t 
 
 * * 
 
SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 29 
 
 apartments in actual use, through the medium of the stairs 
 and passages. 
 
 When the house is not required for crowded gatherings, 
 or overloaded with inmates, and the stairs and passages not 
 over narrow, a window or other opening near the top may be 
 arranged for the general supply of air, descending, then ascend- 
 ing again, and ultimately escaping above, after supplying the 
 individual apartments. 
 
 In some houses, louvre doors made with panels constructed 
 in the same manner as the blinds in common use outside of 
 windows, or of porous wire gauze or other textures equally 
 open, have been used on all occasions when they were crowded 
 with company. In other cases the doors are entirely removed, 
 or formed so as to slide into the wall. If the warm air be per- 
 mitted to escape by a central framework made of perforated 
 zinc from the upper part of any staircase, while the fresh air 
 enters on every side around this central portion, the tempera- 
 ture lost and gained by the escaping and entering air, prepares 
 it sufficiently in many conditions of the external atmosphere. 
 
 DIAGRAMS OF SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUES OR SHAFTS. 
 
 In examining the importance of introducing a special 
 ventilating flue capable of acting on one or more rooms in 
 every habitation, it will be well in the first place to look to 
 the following details. 
 
 If an aperture be made in any chimney flue where the air 
 is heated by a common fire, as a in the flue A Fig. 3, air in 
 general will be drawn in as represented by the arrow. A 
 second aperture may often be made at ~b with a similar effect, 
 but when these apertures are increased beyond the power of 
 
30 SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 
 
 the chimney, they become inoperative, or a reverse current 
 ensues. They are not always to be depended on in sustaining 
 a ventilating current, so that valves are used to arrest the 
 return of air or smoke from the common chimney, in using an 
 aperture above. If the chimney be made air-tight at the fire- 
 place, as in the flue B Fig. 4, and a sheet iron tube d d be 
 extended from it to the ceiling of a lower room c, then 
 ventilated air from that lower room may be removed, the fire 
 acting as a ventilating power upon it. If there be two 
 contiguous spare flues in any house, one may be used as 
 shown in C, Fig. 5, being converted into a special venti- 
 lating shaft, and the fire-place receiving no supply of air 
 except from the other flue. Any room, passage, closet, 01 
 cellar, may be ventilated by it, forming an air-tight com- 
 munication between it and the place to be so ventilated, to 
 which the external air must have access. Or all of them may 
 be connected with it, and receive a proportionate ventilating 
 power by valves regulating the amount of discharge from 
 each compartment. 
 
 In any apartment the fire-place may be converted into a 
 temporary ventilating shaft acting on any part of the room in 
 which it may be placed, by rendering the front of the fire- 
 place air-tight, as in Figs. 4 and 5, and connecting the lower 
 part with a tube proceeding in the direction required. In 
 Fig. 6, D, the flue is withdrawing air from the ceiling of the 
 room in which it is used. 
 
 In cottages or other places containing a single chimney 
 heated by the smoke from a stove or a central gas lamp, 
 placed within the flue, as at ra, a ventilating power may be 
 induced on every side in the manner shown by Fig. / T, E, and 
 currents led from any contiguous rooms. 
 
s; 
 
 
 Jjl 
 
 /\ 
 
 n 
 
 ^?~~ 
 
 -S ; J 
 
 u 
 
SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 31 
 
 If a ventilating turret be erected on the roof of a house, 
 Fig. 8, F, and a staircase or any other descending channel a? 
 that may be rendered sufficiently air-tight, be connected with 
 it, then, as in the case E, minor ventilating tubes discharging 
 vitiated air can be led into it, and a series of gas lights 
 kindled above at as, when the vitiated air is not sufficiently 
 warm without them, to give the requisite ventilating power. 
 
 Fig. 9, G, indicates a similar arrangement ; a chamber in the 
 roof receiving the vitiated air from minor channels, which 
 communicate with all the places to be ventilated. 
 
 The ventilating turrets F and G having no great amount of 
 heating power, in cases where the utmost effect of a venti- 
 lating shaft is necessary and when a turret on the roof would 
 not give the necessary heat or altitude, it is requisite to make 
 a descending shaft for collecting and carrying downwards all 
 the vitiated air, and an ascending shaft for giving the moving 
 and discharging power. H, Fig. 10, points out the usual and 
 most convenient form given to such shafts, the arrow indi- 
 cating the course of the vitiated air. There is no limit to 
 their size, nor to the number of apartments upon which a 
 single shaft of this kind can be brought to bear, the amount 
 of fuel used being proportionate to the ventilating effect 
 required. The higher the chimney, the greater is the power 
 exerted. 
 
 In climates where there are great extremes of temperature, 
 the ventilating shaft is often so constructed as to be used 
 in winter without a fire, the temperature of the apartments 
 ventilated when the external air is cold giving the necessary 
 power. Fig. 11, K, shows a shaft similar to H, Fig. 10, pro- 
 vided with a valve opening at m, and permitting vitiated air 
 to escape without any previous descent. By changing the 
 
32 SPECIAL VENTILATING FLUE. 
 
 position of the valve, m is closed, and an opening again 
 restored at 2, when fire can be employed to give the requisite 
 ventilating power in warmer weather. 
 
 In many cases two descending shafts may be formed as in 
 Fig. 12, L, or they may be multiplied to any extent provided 
 the aggregate power required to put as many as are wanted 
 in effective operation at a given time shall not exceed that of 
 the ventilating shaft. 
 
 In ordinary habitations a single flue of the usual size will 
 be found very useful, but it is presumed that the time will 
 arrive when no houses containing from ten to twenty rooms 
 will be constructed without a ventilating turret, tower, or 
 shaft from three to six feet square, according to the numbers 
 it may be intended from time to time to invite, and the 
 dimensions of the principal apartments. 
 
Fiff.16. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 Fig.18. 
 
 mg.19. 
 
 Fig.20. 
 
 on 
 
 f iff. 13. 
 
 Fig.!!. 
 
 I 1 
 
 i I 
 
 
 Iig.21. 
 
EXTEENAL INGEESS AND EGRESS OF AIR. 33 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 EXTEENAL INGEESS AND EGEESS OF AIE. 
 
 IN finishing the external aperture of any ventilating shaft 
 or flue, it is of no small importance that it should be well 
 protected from wind and rain, according to the peculiarities 
 of each individual case, and the general intensity of the cur- 
 rents that may prevail in the district in which it is placed. 
 An endless variety of devices have been contrived for this 
 purpose, and few countries have not some form of discharge 
 or protection that has been tested for generations. Till mo- 
 dern times, however, they have not been the subject of much 
 specific investigation. 
 
 It is often forgotten that mere apertures of supply and 
 discharge have no moving power that is not dependent on the 
 wind, and that they are accordingly entirely inoperative in 
 calm weather, except in so far as temperature or other causes 
 may influence their action. Hence the necessity of artificial 
 heat, or mechanical power, whenever a specific effect is 
 required, whatever may be the state of the weather. Changes 
 of temperature often promote reverse currents. But when a 
 current of air more or less powerful strikes upon the top of any 
 flue or ventilating aperture, it will be obvious that the manner 
 in which it impinges may facilitate or retard the escape of air 
 from within, and that one mode may be well adapted to 
 promote the ingress of fresh air, and another to facilitate the 
 
 discharge of vitiated air. The union of both produces the 
 
 3 
 
34 EXTERNAL INGRESS AND EGEES8 OF AIR. 
 
 highest ventilating effect, as in Fig. 13, where a lateral venti- 
 lation is given by the entering current, while it is assisted by 
 the action of the external air on the discharge aperture on the 
 other side. 
 
 The form of discharge, Fig. 14, used so much in some parts of 
 the United States, and which is especially recommended by Mr. 
 Emerson, is more simple and not so liable to injury. The cor- 
 responding arrangement for the supply of air is seen in Fig. 15. 
 
 A paper placed in the author's hands by Professor Horsford, 
 of Cambridge, Mass., contains much valuable information on 
 this subject, being the result of a series of experiments of a 
 Committee of the Academy of Science, in Boston, in which he 
 was associated with Dr. Wyman, Prof. Pierce, and Prof. 
 Lovering. Fig. 16 points out the form of cap to which they 
 have given the preference. It is more powerful in its action, 
 though not quite so simple in its form. The louvre turret, 
 Fig. 17, is much used in many external finishings, whatever 
 additional provisions may or may not be made within it. 
 Reversing the position of the louvres promotes an internal 
 current. In numerous buildings the projection of some bricks 
 near the top forms the only assistance given to the flues in the 
 discharge of vitiated air, Fig. 18. In large shafts or chimneys 
 having no cap or protection above, the upper portion, Fig. 19, 
 is usually inclined at an angle of 45. Fig. 20 indicates a form 
 of protection that was found extremely useful in a site where 
 a flue was subjected to strong and sudden lateral currents from 
 an irregular surface in its vicinity. 
 
 In many places a few iron rails placed perpendicularly 
 around the top of a chimney, or crossing each other at various 
 angles, will often extinguish the action of local currents tend- 
 ing to produce down-draughts in fire or ventilating flues. 
 

 [1 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 r* 
 
 
 - 
 
 J ' J* 24 .. 
 
 Fiy.26 
 
INTERNAL WINDOWS. 35 
 
 Library, 
 
 THE WINDOW. INTERNAL WINDOWS. 
 
 IN an apartment with one window, where air cannot be 
 obtained of an agreeable quality from the passages, and where 
 the ventilation is in other respects satisfactory, the complaint 
 is that the currents are too strong, when the amount of supply 
 by the window is sufficient. 
 
 The object in this case being the reduction of the force of 
 the current, it will often be sufficient to place a porous curtain 
 in the interior which shall spread any air entering from the 
 window over a larger surface, and reduce the velocity as well 
 as extend the area of its movement. 
 
 Many arrangements have been made of late years to dimi- 
 nish the force of the entering air at windows, and to permit a 
 variable but limited ventilation to ensue. Perforated glass, 
 glass louvres in a single pane, or panes of perforated metal, 
 have been much in use. They have each a limited effect, 
 according to the extent to which they are used. They are gene- 
 rally too local in their action, and not sufficiently under con- 
 trol. 
 
 Where a more careful arraogement is necessary, and where 
 the mere opening or shutting of the windows with a gauze cur- 
 tain is not sufficient to control the current, the window may be 
 filled up in new houses as indicated in Fig. 22 and 23. 
 
 Above and below the ordinary glazing a frame extending the 
 
86 INTERNAL WINDOWS. 
 
 whole breadth of the windows is formed, and admitting, where 
 it is finished, of a slip of perforated zinc being inserted. It 
 may be left open entirely in summer, and opened or closed to 
 any extent in winter. It interferes in no way with the ordinary 
 use of the window, but is a reserve by which a limited portion 
 of air in a very divided stream may be admitted or discharged 
 above or below. 
 
 The upper portion serves as a discharge for air, and the lower 
 portion for the ingress of air, when the ordinary course of cur- 
 rents is not reversed by an excessively high temperature. 
 
 Yalves of various forms may be added, as in Fig. 24, where 
 the plan shows the valve partially open. Fig. 25, shows an 
 enlarged view of the perforated zinc, with the valve before it 
 closed. 
 
 In winter such arrangements temper the flow of air where 
 windows must be used. In summer they permit a limited ven- 
 tilation, while they exclude insects. For a temporary purpose in 
 moderate or warm weather, a gauze net is occasionally fixed 
 externally, or internally, and the windows freely thrown open 
 when a large supply of air is desired. 
 
 THE INTERNAL WINDOW. 
 
 Above the doors and below the ceiling, of individual apart- 
 ments, there is usually a considerable space not applied to any 
 special purpose. If that be opened freely and supplied with 
 a louvre, it may be used as an internal window, enabling each 
 room to draw upon the adjoining passage as a milder climate 
 in summer and winter than the external atmosphere. Many 
 apartments are already provided with such openings, but sel- 
 dom to the extent that is desirable, and principally in the case 
 
INTERNAL WINPOWS. 37 
 
 of bed-rooms. They afford a great additional resource in pro- 
 moting ventilation, and may be used for the ingress of fresh air, 
 the egress of vitiated air, or for both purposes, as in Fig. 26. 
 
 For ventilating purposes generally and assisting in the pro- 
 duction of a current of supply and discharge with an interven- 
 ing area comparatively neutral, the ordinary window with a 
 vertical guillotine movement, above and below, has many 
 advantages, particularly in regulating the admission of small 
 quantities of air. Other windows formed in the same manner 
 as doors, may give a large opening in moderate weather when 
 they are entirely thown back, but they are not so useful 
 during the extremities of severe heat and cold. 
 
 "With all the resources mentioned, the window, invaluable as 
 it may be, can never render a good ventilating power unneces- 
 sary. If it be recollected how often there are times and sea- 
 sons when the smallest aperture gives a sufficient ventilation, 
 and others when the system is uncomfortable whether it be 
 thrown open entirely or partially, the importance of indepen- 
 dent ventilation will be more readily admitted. 
 
 It must not be overlooked, however, that even where a con- 
 siderable amount of diffusion is given, it may not be prac- 
 ticable to prevent the current from a window feeling cold, 
 unless with a very unusually protective dress, and then a 
 warming apparatus must be introduced there, or the air as it 
 enters, be conveyed by tubes or otherwise to a different place. 
 Even an air-tight window, when any one may be confined to 
 a fixed position near it for a long time, is apt to induce a local 
 rheumatism, or cold, if double glazing be not introduced. 
 
VENTILATION BY THE CEILING. 
 
 OHAPTEE VII. 
 
 VENTILATION BY THE CEILING. 
 
 VENTILATION effected by external apertures solely in the roof 
 and ceiling succeeds well generally, if there be a proper 
 opportunity for the distribution of currents, except when the 
 external temperature exceeds that within, and special pro- 
 vision is not made to meet this case. The entering air can 
 be diffused over the ceiling, or permitted to descend in any 
 manner preferred, as in the case of doors, windows, or other 
 apertures. With very lofty rooms, the descent and ascent do 
 not proceed so satisfactorily. 
 
 The use of the. ceiling might be very advantageously 
 extended in many cases of ventilation, where it can not only 
 be used for diffusing air, but also be made a medium for 
 returning part of the heat of the escaping vitiated air. 
 without contaminating the entering fresh air. When a 
 single aperture is made in the ceiling of any apartment, the 
 air moves for the most part, if no other escape be provided, 
 as indicated in the internal window, Fig. 26. When there 
 are two apertures in the ceiling, the tendency is to move as 
 in Fig. 27 
 
 In many individual apartments, or other places where there 
 is much annoyance from a local draught to a fire or stove, the 
 chilling effect on one side being as objectionable as the heat 
 on the other, the evil may be removed or greatly palliated by 
 
Fiff28. 
 
 
 I 
 
 iff* 
 
 Fit/ 30. 
 
V >* 
 Library. 
 
 Of 
 
 California- 
 
Fig.27. 
 
 Mg.31. 
 
VENTILATION BY THE CEILING. 39 
 
 similar measures for diffusion more or less completely 
 introduced, as local circumstances may render necessary. 
 And where numbers do not render the air impure by 
 respiration, nor gas lamps contaminate it, this supply may 
 often be given either at the ceiling, wall, or floor, in the 
 vicinity of the fire or stove. 
 
 Ventilation by the ceiling, the supply and discharge being 
 both arranged there, is principally valuable in small and low 
 rooms where neither an ingress nor egress for air can be so 
 satisfactorily obtained in any other manner. It is also 
 important in all cases where the escaping vitiated air has to 
 impart a portion of its warmth to the entering cold air. 
 
 In large rooms not at all crowded, the ingress requires little 
 diffusion if placed where the current does not fall offensively 
 on any of the occupants. 
 
 In small rooms, instead of a few feet of surface being 
 devoted to diffusion, the whole ceiling is sometimes appro- 
 priated to this purpose. 
 
 When the external air is very warm, the roof should be 
 cooled with water, an artificial current induced by heat, or an 
 internal window or other opening made above the door to 
 facilitate the circulation of air. 
 
 -Librar 
 
 California 
 
40 SUPPLY OF AIR AT AND ABOVE THE FIRE-PLACE. 
 
 CHAPTEE YIIL. 
 
 SUPPLY OF AIR AT AND IMMEDIATELY ABOVE THE FIRE-PLACE. 
 
 AN ordinary fire-place is the subject of much complaint by 
 an invalid, who is exceedingly sensitive to any cold currents 
 of air. 
 
 On examination it is found that the chimney flue is many 
 times larger than is required for the grate. Contracting it, 
 accordingly, at the top, the evil is in a great measure 
 removed. 
 
 A further reduction in the current may be produced by 
 supplying the room with air as shown by Figs. 28, 29, and 30. 
 These indicate a supply of fresh air introduced behind the* 
 grate, where it is warmed previous to gaining access to the 
 apartment, and its distribution at &, c, <#, and e. The larger 
 the proportion of fresh air admitted near the fire, the less is 
 there to traverse the room before it is warmed, and produce a 
 disagreeable draught. 
 
 In small rooms or offices constructed subsequent to the 
 erection of the building to which they are" attached, air is 
 often advantageously introduced in this manner at the 
 chimney breast alone, Fig. 31, or at the ceiling, the whole 
 surface being made .porous by gauze steeped in a solution to 
 render it less inflammable if perforated zinc be not used. 
 
 Many buildings are provided with an excellent heating 
 apparatus, but when this is not combined with such sys- 
 
SUPPLY OF AIR AT AND ABOVE THE FIKE -PLACE. 41 
 
 tematic ventilation as the peculiarities of the circumstances 
 require, it often acts at a great disadvantage, being ill 
 supplied with fresh air, and unable, consequently, to give the 
 equal and genial temperature it might otherwise produce. 
 
 It cannot be too carefully remembered that ventilation has 
 always a cooling effect, except when the temperature of the 
 air entering the apartment to be ventilated exceeds that of the 
 living frame. The greater the amount of ventilation, accord- 
 ingly, the greater the amount of heat required in cold 
 weather to render it agreeable. Further, the more gentle and 
 the more general the approach of the air, the less the elevation 
 of temperature necessary. And lastly, the less the interference 
 of any local cooling power, as cold window glass, the greater 
 the perfection of the general result. 
 
 Double windows are perhaps less frequently used in the 
 United States than in any other countries exposed to parallel 
 extremes of heat and cold where they have similar facilities 
 for obtaining glass. Their use would be very desirable 
 in many places, and save much fuel in winter. In some 
 apartments the introduction of double windows would be 
 equally advantageous in summer and winter, where air is 
 supplied and discharged by other arrangements. 
 
42 PREVENTION OF THE RAPID ESCAPE OF FKESH WAEM AIR. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 PREVENTION OF THE RAPID ESCAPE OF FRESH WARM AIR. 
 
 A ROOM supplied with air from a heater is found to discharge 
 the air that is conveyed to it too rapidly, unless an aperture 
 connected with the ventilating flue on a level with the floor 
 be opened instead of that at the ceiling. But when this is done, 
 the air is not so fresh as is desired. What remedy should be 
 adopted ? 
 
 Let more air be supplied at a less elevated temperature by 
 a wider channel. If this mode cannot conveniently be carried 
 into effect, let the entering air be conveyed to a channel formed 
 on as many sides of the apartment as may be accessible, and 
 let it be bridled at its escape from this channel by perforated 
 zinc, or some other substitute, that permits a limited portion 
 only to escape at any individual place. 
 
 Fig. 32 indicates a hot ascending current escaping rapidly 
 when the upper ventilating aperture alone is open, the vitiated 
 air remaining in a great measure below. 
 
 Fig. 33 exhibits the course of the air when the lower flue is 
 opened. 
 
 Fig. 34 points out the alteration adverted to, and the subse- 
 quent progress of the air. 
 
Fig. 33. 
 
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 \ JF&34. 
 
 

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 ;/. ' 
 
 '/''/ //// / // 
 '////jff~ 
 
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 Fiy.37. 
 
I 
 
 VENTILATION OF BED-ROOMS IN CASES OF YELLOW FEVER. 43 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 VENTILATION OF BED-ROOMS IN CASES OF YELLOW FEVEE. 
 
 A CASE of yellow fever lias occurred in a private house ; some 
 of the inmates are anxious not to remove if there be any plan 
 by which danger of infection communicated by the atmosphere 
 from the patient can be avoided. They have some apprehen- 
 sions from this cause, but none from any other source. The 
 relations of the invalid insist on rendering personally every 
 attention in their power. The house has ample accommoda- 
 tion, and several spare rooms, but has no resources for venti- 
 lation except some flues for supplying hot air to special apart- 
 ments. An iron heater gives the required temperature in 
 cold weather. The temperature during the three preceding 
 days has not been below 70 nor above 96 in the shade. The 
 hygrometer has shown an unusual excess of moisture. 
 
 If the following course be adopted in respect to the ventila- 
 tion, all the vitiated air in the patient's room will be entirely 
 prevented from entering any other part of the house, and there- 
 fore, from the cause specified, no danger need be apprehended; 
 nor is there anything to prevent many other sources of infec- 
 tious effluvia being controlled in a similar manner. 
 
 Fig. 35 indicates an upper room, immediately above the 
 patient's room, with its fire-place arranged to act in the man- 
 ner explained under " Shafts" and " Special Flues," and sup- 
 plied solely from the patient's room, the fresh air being drawn 
 
4A VENTILATION OF BED-BOOMS IN CASES OF YELLOW FEVER. 
 
 to it from the passage or any contiguous apartment, the door 
 being rendered porous, and no larger opening allowed at any 
 time than the fire-place above can command. 
 
 Fig. 36 points out another method of effecting a similar 
 object, the two apartments in use being on the same floor. 
 
 In Fig. 37 a modification of the same arrangements is seen. 
 Every habitation being subject to sickness, these modes of 
 securing ventilation should be familiarly known. 
 
 The ventilation, wherever it is desired, may be carried still 
 more fully into operation, and a stream of air made to pass 
 continuously over the body of the patient, every portion of 
 this stream being rapidly removed. The air may be medicated 
 also, so as to become more powerful in its action in any man- 
 ner the attending physician may prescribe, but this can be 
 effected most satisfactorily in the manner adverted to in the 
 chapter on artificial 'atmospheres. 
 
 With the arrangements explained by the above figures the 
 following results can always be secured : 
 
 1. Belief of the patient by the ventilation of the sick cham- 
 ber. 
 
 2. The prevention of any air from it entering any other 
 apartments. 
 
 3. The diminution of risk or danger to those who enter the 
 sick chamber, particularly if they never do so when hungry or 
 fasting, as there is then less tendency to absorption from the 
 air. 
 
 4. The decomposition of all animal exhalations if the venti- 
 lating fire be sufficiently strong, and the consequent removal 
 of apprehension of danger in contiguous habitations. 
 
V 
 
VENTILATION THROUGH THE MOSQUITO NET. 45 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 VENTILATION THROUGH THE MOSQUITO-NET IN CASES OF SICKNESS 
 AND GREAT IRRITABILITY. 
 
 AN invalid affected with fever, and in a state of great irrita- 
 bility, is much annoyed with mosquitoes, and when he uses 
 the mosquito-net he either feels, or imagines he feels, an 
 oppressive atmosphere adding to his sufferings. What course 
 should be taken in this instance ? 
 
 If the mosquitoes cannot be kept out of the apartment in 
 question with such means as are available, and the ordinary net 
 over the bed must accordingly be used, a ventilating tube 
 (Fig. 38) about six inches in diameter should be attached to 
 the upper portion of the net,, and connected with any venti- 
 lating power that can be made to bear upon it. "With a tube 
 of the magnitude mentioned, a small ventilating power such 
 as the common lamp will be sufficient. 
 
 There are many constitutions that suffer more annoyance 
 from the mosquito than from all the variations of the atmos- 
 phere to which the district they inhabit may render them 
 liable. When there is a calm, and the temperature of the 
 surrounding air nearly coincides with that of the body, every 
 kind of gauze veil or fibre near or around the body diminishes 
 the circulation of air, and hence, great relief is afforded at 
 times by the ventilation indicated, especially if the room be 
 defective in other respects in ventilating power. 
 

 46 ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERE IN THE SICK CHAMBER. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERE IN THE SICK CHAMBER. 
 
 IT is often necessary in the sick room to produce temporary 
 artificial climates, and to submit the patient for a longer or 
 shorter period to the action of a drier or more moist atmosphere 
 than the air of the district presents. In hospitals and other 
 medical establishments special apartments should be con- 
 structed for this purpose. The dry and cold air bath and the 
 steam bath indicate suitable means on a small scale. "When it 
 is desired to make temporary arrangements for the object men- 
 tioned in a private house having no special ventilating power, 
 and where the bed-room is too large for the object in view, 
 curtains may be thrown around the patient's bed from the 
 ceiling to the floor, using porous gauze considerably closer than 
 the mosquito net for diffusing the air used, and giving within 
 these curtains an ascending or descending movement to the air 
 as may be preferred. In Fig. 39 a descending movement is 
 indicated, the diffusing gauze being placed under the roof of 
 the bed. Any ordinary fire-place may be converted into the 
 ventilating power with the use of a few bricks, or some sheet 
 iron, providing apertures for fuel and for regulating the fire. 
 
 Where etherial, oleaginous, or other heavy vapors are used 
 in this manner, a descending current is generally preferred, 
 the materials being conveyed to a tube, #, immediately above 
 a table where they are converted into vapor, passing by it as 
 the figure indicates. 
 
Library 
 
 California 
 
SMALL CHAMBER FOE ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERES. 47 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SMALL CHAMBER FOR ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERES. VENTILATED AIR, 
 
 STEAM AND SHOWER BATH. 
 
 ! <k 
 
 ARTIFICIAL atmospheres may be formed in apartments on a lar- 
 ger scale than are indicated in the preceding figure, the means 
 employed being proportionate to the magnitude required, 
 and the numbers present at a given time. They are prepared 
 most effectually by transmitting the ingredients necessary into 
 an air channel through which a regulated current of air is 
 made to pass. This current may be put in motion by a mecha- 
 nical power or by a heated flue. The latter is preferred for all 
 ordinary purposes. For one person, a small chamber lighted 
 by glazing it on one side and in front, sufficiently large to 
 admit a chair, and allow any individual to stand erect in it, and 
 having a platform or floor about four feet square, is sufficient 
 for common use. An area of two feet six inches by three feet 
 may be substituted where it is desired to economize space and 
 materials. In this chamber, supplied with one flue for the 
 admission and another for the discharge of gases and vapors, 
 hot air, cold air, moist air, dry air, or any other atmosphere 
 may be conveniently applied to the system as a means of 
 preserving health or curing disease. 
 
 The accompanying figures, 40, 41, indicate a chamber of 
 this kind which it is recommended to provide in ordinary 
 habitations, and also in hotels and lodging-houses where num- 
 bers are congregated. 
 
4:8 SMALL CHAMBER FOE ARTIFICIAL ATMOSPHERES. 
 
 Seated in the chair shown in the figure, each individual can, 
 according to his own taste, subject himself to a powerful current 
 of warm or cold, dry or moist air. Or he can have a shower 
 bath of hot or cold water, or of water at any intermediate tem- 
 perature. 
 
 But the arrangement is prized principally for the combina- 
 tion which it gives of a steam bath, in which this powerful 
 agent can be mixed with warm air in any proportion it may be 
 proper to adopt in producing a sudorific effect, while any 
 admixture of volatile ingredients can be communicated to the 
 passing air, the skin being exposed continuously at the same 
 time, or as frequently as may be desired, to ablution with a 
 warm shower bath. The hands and body are not impeded 
 from the fullest opportunity of using friction cloths. The 
 whole surface of the lungs and skin is subjected in the bath to 
 the free oxidation of the air, and warm and palatable diluents 
 being drunk copiously there to sustain the strength and pro- 
 mote perspiration, a quantity of water passes through the blood 
 in a short time which has the most wholesome and purifying 
 influence. Care must be taken to reduce the circulation of the 
 blood slowly in an adjoining warm room, after leaving this 
 bath, before exposure to the external atmosphere. 
 
 The pulls shown on either side of the chair regulate the 
 admission of air, the discharge of vitiated air, the ingress of 
 steam, and the temperature of the water used as a shower bath. 
 
 By these varied means, much additional power is given to 
 the steam bath, while the offensive atmosphere attendant on its 
 ordinary use is entirely obviated. Such a steam bath, in its 
 simplest form, should not cost more than a few cents each time 
 it is used, where it is provided for numbers. 
 
DRY AXD MOIST AIR. 49 
 
 CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 DRY AND MOIST AIR. 
 
 A CONSTANT cough attacks an invalid in frosty weather, while 
 the skin feels harsh and dry, and these effects are increased 
 when a stove in the room he occupies is in use, though an iron 
 basin containing water is placed upon it. 
 
 What remedy is available ? Let a larger surface of water 
 be exposed to heat with the view of adding more moisture to 
 the air. Let a well tinned or porcellaneous vessel be substi- 
 tuted for the iron vessel containing the water. If the com- 
 plaints mentioned are not removed, try the effect of boiling 
 water and causing a free discharge of steam into the room, till 
 it begins to condense rapidly like hoar frost on the windows. 
 
 "Where any source of pure steam is available in the vicinity 
 a small branch pipe from the boiler may be used, f8r its 
 introduction. 
 
 In hotels, lodging houses, or other crowded habitations, 
 where boilers are always available, the steam has often an 
 offensive oily odor. It can then, at all events, be used in 
 heating the porcellaneous or other vessel from which the 
 purer steam can be prepared. In large buildings, where 
 there is the opportunity, moisture conveyed to air by a steam 
 pipe should be mingled with the ventilating current of supply 
 proceeding to any apartment, being then more 'generally 
 
 diffused. 
 
 4 
 
50 DKY AND MOIST AIE. 
 
 Where the wet bulb hygrometer is used, Fig. 42, an atmo- 
 sphere that is so charged with moisture that the ordinary 
 thermometer indicates a temperature about five degrees higher 
 than the thermometer having the bulb covered with muslin, 
 and moistened, is found to be generally acceptable in England. 
 In this country the atmosphere being usually much dryer, or, 
 in other words, having a greater dissolving power, it may be 
 desirable not to give so much moisture as may be required to 
 produce a similar quality -of air in this respect. A nearer 
 approximation to it, however, would in all habitations heated 
 with little addition of moisture, produce a great improvement 
 by reducing excessive evaporation from the surface of the 
 lungs as well as from the surface of the body. 
 
 If, on the other hand, air be too moist, and the temperature 
 be not high, then nothing corrects this evil so conveniently as 
 the communication of heat. It may not actually remove the 
 moisture, but it gives the air a greater dissolving and retaining 
 power, producing, therefore, an equivalent effect. 
 
 It is rarely that measures are resorted to for the actual 
 removal of moisture, in consequence of the expense, except 
 when* this is effected by cold, or by the absorbing power of 
 quick-lime, an agent of great value for this purpose in the sick 
 chamber, in rooms that are occupied almost as soon as they 
 are plastered, and in damp cellars. 
 
EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. 51 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. MEANS OF 
 
 VENTILATION NOT PREVIOUSLY INDICATED. 
 
 A HOUSE previously comparatively comfortable has been 
 rendered intolerable since the introduction of gas, an excessive 
 brilliancy of illumination being sustained which it is not 
 agreed to reduce. An improvement in the state of the atmo- 
 sphere is desired to be effected solely by the ventilation of the 
 gas lamp, or such other measures as shall effect this object 
 with the lea"st additional alterations. 
 
 In no city where gas is extensively used are there any 
 causes more productive of vitiated air than gas lights accom- 
 panied with inadequate ventilation. 
 
 The ordinary course of the products of its combustion is to 
 strike the ceiling and recoil, descending to a greater or less 
 extent according to local currents and eddies, and the level of 
 any aperture *by which they may escape. See Figs. 1 and 2. 
 
 Where there is a large consumption of gas, and the products 
 not removed by special provisions, the whole of the atmo- 
 sphere of the houses, hotels, offices, or stores, is often tainted 
 with them to such an extent that they are palpable to the taste 
 as well as to the nostrils, and marked in their effect upon the 
 inmates, whose pallid countenances and purple lips too often 
 speak an unmistakable language as to its influence upon their 
 systems. This becomes still more expressive when dyspeptic 
 symptoms begin to indicate still further effects. 
 
52 EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. 
 
 The gas stove, so great a convenience in numerous small 
 apartments, stores, and offices, where a more economical 
 source of heat cannot be introduced, or receive the necessary 
 attention, becomes to many a slow poison when not provided 
 with a chimney in the same manner as a common fire-place. 
 
 In numerous cases, if the facility of regulation and manage- 
 ment be taken into consideration, the absence of dust and the 
 continuity of its action, a small amount of heat may be sup- 
 plied at less cost with gas than in any other manner, and 
 consequently these inducements to its still more extended use 
 should draw more attention to every improvement that can be 
 introduced in promoting the removal of the products of its 
 combustion by ventilation. 
 
 Yery simple arrangements permit the heat, as well as the 
 light of gas lamps to be rendered available in many apart- 
 ments, though the products of its combustion should be with- 
 drawn. The combustion of a small amount of good gas is not 
 more objectionable than the products of respiration. 
 
 In London, Paris, and New York, as well as in the great 
 majority of towns, many are the apartments where the winter 
 heat is moderated, not only by the radiation from gas lamps, 
 which is not injurious, except where it acts oppressively on the 
 forehead, but also by the recoil of vitiated air, without which 
 the cold in severe weather would be intolerable, a very inade- 
 quate supply of heat, or none, being given by other means. 
 
 The accompanying figures show the general arrangements 
 introduced in ventilated lamps for the direct discharge of 
 vitiated air. In others, its escape by the ceiling has already 
 been indicated. The use of ventilated lamps admits of many 
 movements of air in ventilated rooms, which are altogether 
 incompatible with the use of un ventilated gas lamps, or the 
 
Fig.43. 
 
 Fig.50. 
 
 fy.49. 
 
 Fig 46 
 
 * 
 
ill -e^r.*s. 
 
EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. 53 
 
 excessive use of oil or candles under similar circumstances. 
 "Where lamps are placed externally, the light only, and not the 
 products of combustion, being permitted to enter, the same 
 object is attained as by the ventilation of lamps, whether 
 they are arranged outside of windows, or above glass in the 
 ceiling. 
 
 Fig. 43 shows an Argand gas-burner, ventilated by a tube 
 led into a chimney flue, the products of combustion mingling 
 with the ascending currents from the fire-place. "Where there 
 is a proper opportunity the tube should discharge its products 
 by the shortest course into the external atmosphere. The tube 
 must not then be so long as to permit the external air to cool 
 it to such a degree that moisture from the products of combus- 
 tion is condensed within it, and returned upon the lamp. In 
 cases where this is not attended to, it is productive of great 
 inconvenience. When the flue into which the products are 
 discharged becomes damp, from a similar deposition in sum- 
 mer, when no fire is used, more air should be permitted to 
 enter by a separate ventilating aperture, and a fire kindled 
 occasionally for a short time to remove condensed moisture and 
 warm the flue. 
 
 Fig. 44. Here the current of the argand flame is inverted, 
 the products of combustion being at first drawn downwards. 
 In this, and similar cases, a flue having considerable venti- 
 lating power, and always equal and steady in its action, is 
 essential for satisfactory results. 
 
 Fig. 45 points out a ventilating tube withdrawing the pro- 
 ducts of combustion from four fish-tail burners, and modifying 
 the form and appearance of the flames. 
 
 Fig. 46 indicates a ring of several burners, ventilated by a 
 similar tube, and the general vitiated atmosphere of the apart- 
 
54 EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEKOUS HABITATIONS. 
 
 ment permitted to escape by a perforated metallic frame placed 
 around it. 
 
 Fig. 47 shows a very different arrangement where the larnp 
 is placed under a hollow pyramid of a dead white plaster or 
 enamelled porcelain surface ; the convex surface distributes 
 the light over the floor with great equality. 
 
 Fig. 48 illustrates this form of lamp applied to. a room sup- 
 plied with air from the roof, and warmed as it enters by the 
 outer surface of the gas ventilating tube. In summer air 
 enters at AA. In winter the valve, z, prevents the too rapid 
 escape of the warm products of combustion. 
 
 Figs. 49 and 50 indicate pillars for lamps used in special 
 positions either in rooms, halls, or stairs, where it is requisite 
 to lead the products of combustion downwards in a ventilating 
 flue, Y, leading to a shaft acting with power on them. 
 
 In many stores where manufacturing operations are carried on 
 in the upper rooms, long ranges of gas lamps are fixed on the 
 different floors, as at B in fig. 51. The large opening generally 
 left for light on all the floors where the building is deep, con- 
 nects them practically into one great room, so far as the atmos- 
 phere is considered, and much heat as well as a vitiated atmos- 
 phere predominates above, while a large portion of the vitiated 
 air cooled by the external glazing, descends to the lower floors, 
 not the less injurious, though more insidious in its influence, 
 when masked by the lower temperature thus acquired. 
 
 Even in many places where no manufacturing operations are. 
 earned on, as in some buildings with show rooms above the 
 principal floor, the same deleterious atmosphere may be 
 observed. 
 
 The most important object, wherever it is practicable, is to 
 f.rrange the lamps in such a manner that the waste heat they 
 
EXCESSIVE USE OF GAS IN NUMEROUS HABITATIONS. 55 
 
 evolve shall warm the entering fresh air and not contaminate 
 it with the products of combustion. At all events means 
 should be adopted for discharging the principal products of 
 combustion from the ceiling of each individual floor, as 
 pointed out in Fig. 52, adapting details to each particular case. 
 Let there be double glazing in the ceiling where the sky-light is 
 placed, and the individual floors isolated wherever glass can 
 be introduced for this purpose. X indicates a cornice board 
 added at each ceiling to facilitate the discharge of bad air 
 by the flue in the vicinity. A heating apparatus becomes 
 essential in many establishments whenever any ventilation is 
 introduced, if advantage cannot be taken of the heating power 
 of the gas. 
 
 A reference to the figures will show that without the cornice- 
 board, x, the stream of the products of combustion from the gas 
 burner must tend, in part at least, to overflow at the edge of 
 the great opening connecting the different floors ; but with 
 this board, the warm air spreads more largely under the ceiling 
 till it reaches the open flue, where it escapes. 
 
56 COMPOUND MOVEMENT OF AIR FOE AN ASTHMATIC INVALID. 
 
 CHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 COMPOUND MOVEMENT OF AIR FOB AN ASTHMATIC INVALID. 
 
 AN asthmatic invalid of an extremely irritable temperament 
 has an office adjoining some houses that are to be pulled down, 
 and replaced by others. He fears, from former experience 
 under similar circumstances, the effect of dust on the air that 
 he breathes, and is desirous that every possible precaution 
 shall be taken to exclude it from his office. Though small it 
 is much frequented, and the door frequently opened to a 
 crowded passage generally loaded with dust when the work- 
 men outside are pulling down houses. 
 
 Double doors should be provided in the first instance, and so 
 that one must be shut before the other can be opened. The 
 window should be made absolutely air-tight by painting or 
 pasting it, if necessary, with paper. Let openings be secured 
 for the ingress and egress of a sufficient supply of air, and let 
 it be introduced through a flue or channel where a small stream 
 of water sustains a perpetual artificial shower, Fig. 53, wher- 
 ever the surrounding atmosphere is loaded with dust. Let the 
 floor be made of an open texture by means of this space, 
 instead of flooring boards, and let the ceiling be porous, a con- 
 nection being established between the spaces above the ceiling 
 and below the floor. The currents proceed in the manner 
 indicated, the power of the ventilating flue being divided in 
 any required proportion between the ceiling and the floor by 
 the valves a and z. 
 
FtoSS. 
 
 .. 
 
 -,----' ' ^ * **--*?^ - 
 
 *>, ., -. ;' / \ *-.. .-' -- > ^ 
 
 ;-- :::: '/>; ; ;; ""< 
 
 H 
 
 
 ._ J 
 

A DESCENDING CURRENT. 57 
 
 CHAPTEE XYII. 
 
 A DESCENDING CURRENT. 
 
 IF a descending current be alone provided, such as is prefer- 
 red in some hospitals for special patients, a larger quantity of 
 air is requisite than is desirable according to the preceding 
 arrangement. 
 
 The following Fig. 54, indicates the adjustment with a 
 descending current, a ventilated gas lamp being used at night 
 so as to remove all vitiated air from this source. 
 
 In very special cases, a stream of air may be introduced in 
 such a quantity that it leaks outwards at every aperture; 
 with bellows, fanners, pumps, or any mechanical power this 
 effect can always be produced where an artificial current is 
 required without the aid of a descending shower, or of a venti- 
 lating shaft. 
 
 In extremely crowded rooms a pure descending current pro- 
 "ceeding from the ceiling to the floor is always objectionable, 
 unless the supply be so ample as to carry the vitiated air in a 
 large stream directly downwards, the products of respiration and 
 exhalation being otherwise apt to linger around the body. A 
 mixed or compound movement, such as is shown in the preced- 
 ing chapter, is preferable, where no special circumstances 
 render the direct descent important. 
 
58 COOLING ROOM. 
 
 CHAPTEK XYIII. 
 
 COOLING BOOM. 
 
 A COLD, or cooling room, provided as a retreat by day or 
 night during the extreme heat of summer, is a valuable addition 
 to any house in some climates, and in many cases of disease 
 forms one of the most important resources in the hands of the 
 physician. 
 
 Fig. 55, shows the structure of a powerful cooling room, the 
 air being supplied from chambers above in which any tempera- 
 ture can be given to it by apparatus charged with ice or water. 
 From these it descends gently on either side, vitiated air 
 escaping by a central discharge. 
 
 When there is a choice in the position that can be assigned 
 for such a room it is better to place it towards the north, where 
 it may receive the daylight by a double window on the coolest 
 side of the house, the three other sides being entirely under 
 ground when this is practicable, or at least insulated by thick* 
 and non-conducting walls from any contiguous offices, cellar, or 
 apparatus, that might otherwise tend to communicate warmth. 
 No air being permitted to enter except by the chambers above 
 or by the doors at the foot of the stairs leading to this room, any 
 special temperature may be communicated to it that may be 
 required, and ventilation sustained, by a channel proceeding 
 from the centre of the ceiling to a ventilating shaft or flue. 
 
 The value and luxury of such an apartment is scarcely to be 
 
COOLING KOOM. 59 
 
 appreciated by those who have not had the opportunity of test- 
 ing it in hot and sultry climates. The underground palaces of 
 India, the caves used for the supply of air to some Roman vil- 
 las in former ages, as well as the fountains, the protected cham- 
 bers, and the grasses used for the evaporation of water in many 
 warm climates, all suggest that this subject should receive 
 more attention in modern buildings. 
 
 Some prefer the daylight to be entirely excluded so as to 
 prevent any accession of heat whatever from external radia- 
 tion. This may be important in the more extreme cases of 
 high temperature, and where rocks, gravel, or other materials 
 surrounding the walls on every side can exert a continued cool- 
 ing power upon them. In such a case the walls and floor 
 should be made of thin and conducting materials. 
 
 But in numerous places it is important to have such a room 
 capable of being used with daylight. Many individuals can 
 proceed with their ordinary engagements in such an apartment, 
 while restlessness and fatigue attend them in all others, with 
 the higher range of temperature that the external air produces 
 in ordinary rooms. Some invalids, and especially irritable 
 temperaments and children, often regain much strength, and 
 experience great relief from oppression when they occupy a 
 cooling room even for a short time. 
 
 In some cases, the movement that can be communicated to 
 the air in the cooling room, and the exclusion of a large 
 amount of external radiation, may be sufficient to relieve the 
 system. For others, it may be necessary, from time to time, to 
 wash the walls with water ; they should be built with proper 
 materials for this purpose. Some prepare the ceiling and floor 
 also with this view. Marble, slate, or glazed tiles are all suit- 
 able, or any non-porous stone. Zinc and perforated zinc 
 
60 COOLING EOOM. 
 
 are used for the ceiling. Even when the water is far from 
 being cold, its evaporation from the surface of the walls 
 reduces the temperature considerably. If a chamber be made 
 above or contiguous to the cooling chamber, and an extensive 
 evaporating surface be provided there, by porous gauze, or 
 otherwise, a reduction of temperature from twenty to thirty 
 degrees may be effected, according to the hygrometric condi- 
 tion of the air; the drier it is, the greater the amount of evapo- 
 ration, and the lower the temperature secured. 
 
 Where abundance of cold water is available at a proper 
 level, a sufficiently low temperature has been attained by 
 making one or more of the walls of two iron plates, riveted 
 together about an inch apart, and perfectly water-tight, except- 
 ing a proper entrance and discharge for the water that is 
 allowed to flow through it. "With the use of ice this may be 
 increased to any extent desirable. 
 
 It must be remembered that a reduction of temperature by 
 evaporation is not an unmixed gain, as it adds so much mois- 
 ture to the air that it often becomes objectionable from this 
 cause. The less it is resorted to the better, accordingly, after 
 the air shall have absorbed as much water as it can take up 
 without becoming too moist. It must also be recollected that 
 there are some kinds of water abounding in vegetable matter, 
 or offensive gases, that should not be used for this purpose. 
 
 When the temperature is reduced very low, so as to make at 
 once a strong, though grateful impression on entering, none 
 should remain long in it at a time. So long as it is highly 
 grateful, and accompanied by no local disagreeable impression 
 from the cold, it is always beneficial. With a more moderate 
 range of temperature it may be occupied continuously without 
 injury. 
 
COOLING BOOM. 61 
 
 It will be obvious that the power of a cooling room may be 
 transferred to the principal channels proceeding from any heat- 
 ing apparatus, when it is not in use, and from this by the ac- 
 tion of any shaft or other power, to a central hall or individual 
 apartment in large mansions or hotels. In such buildings the 
 cooling room, when much frequented, should have two doors, 
 one for ingress and another for egress, one door alone being 
 used when not so crowded as to require both. The less the 
 doors are opened the smaller the amount of materials required 
 to maintain a proper reduction of temperature. 
 
 In the sick chamber ice should be used with caution. When 
 a sufficient reduction of temperature, or at least an adequate 
 impression of cold can be given by a gentle increase in the 
 velocity of the air or by drawing the air from any passage, 
 cavity, or contiguous apartment previously cooled to a proper 
 temperature, this is the best method of proceeding. The 
 direct action of a lower temperature is sometimes preferred, 
 using it with the greatest care, or a stream of water or shower 
 bath properly regulated. 
 
 Where a ventilating flue can be brought into action on any 
 room, in some cases of febrile action a damp sheet thrown 
 around the person will produce a powerful and continuous 
 effect, but it should be discontinued when the oppressive sense 
 of heat has gone, and before any shivering or offensive cold is 
 perceived. 
 
 Many are the habitations adorned with every mark of luxury 
 and refinement that have no provision whatever for cooling 
 air, and where a fraction of the sum expanded on one of the 
 many statues or paintings, would fit up a small room entirely 
 with marble, and provide a fountain cooling the walls, ceiling, 
 window, and floor, from time to time, to a refreshing tempera- 
 
02 COOLING KOOM. 
 
 ture. Numerous are the resources that can be brought to bear 
 in cooling any apartment by chemicals, or by the evaporation 
 of special fluids, when ice is not economical, though they have 
 not hitherto been much used in actual practice. 
 
 In tne adjustments for cooling rooms, where there are 
 several individuals to be consulted as to the extent to which 
 any cooling power should be put in action, it should never be 
 forgotten that, as in public buildings, extreme constitutions are 
 generally the most clamorous for the atmosphere that is most 
 suitable to their individual wants, so they are the last that 
 should be permitted to regulate the ventilation for the majori- 
 ty, unless where out of deference to age, or infirm health, it 
 is agreed to meet their views. 
 
 The obvious rule is that the majority should be more 
 especially consulted, and that others, by diet or clothing, should 
 endeavor, as far as possible, to render the same atmosphere 
 agreeable. 
 
 This remark necessarily applies to all differences of opinion, 
 whatever quality of atmosphere may be under consideration. 
 
63 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 ENTRANCES, STAIRS, AND PASSAGES. 
 
 IN passing from the consideration of individual rooms to 
 houses, whether in the form of the humblest cottage, or the 
 large and crowded hotel, it may be desirable to offer a few 
 observations on entrances, stairs, and passages. These afford 
 particularly an intermediate climate between that of the 
 external atmosphere and the individual apartments, and 
 nothing appears to be more likely to increase comfort in 
 ordinary dwellings than extending to them more generally 
 than has as yet been done, the means of warming that have 
 been long introduced in particular classes of buildings. 
 
 As an open fire is not generally provided for such purposes, 
 except where resources are more ample, in the larger class of 
 habitations, stoves, steam and hot water apparatus become more 
 useful, particularly when it is intended to combine the heating 
 of the entrances and passages with the means requisite for 
 communicating warmth in individual rooms. 
 
 Entrances and stair-cases should never be made so large as 
 to admit of any hesitation as to the importance of warming 
 them, and thus giving a milder climate to the whole house in 
 winter. More cases of illness often arise from the draughts 
 and currents in houses having apartments and passages at 
 different temperatures than from exposure to the external air, 
 where the person is generally defended by extra clothing froiki 
 
64: ENTRANCES, STAIRS, AND PASSAGES. 
 
 its influence, and where exercise usually contributes to the 
 power of resisting its bad effects, if the exposure be extreme. 
 
 When stoves or heaters are in use the intensity of the 
 temperature which many of them attain, however admirably 
 numbers maybe constructed, is perhaps the most objectionable 
 feature attending their use, excepting an escape of bad air. 
 
 Steam apparatus does not appear to advance so rapidly as the 
 many advantages it presents might lead us to anticipate. Hot 
 water apparatus is most desirable in all places where the levels 
 are suitable, but where it is apt at times to be exposed to 
 sudden frost, it is liable to accident to an extent that appears 
 to restrain its introduction in climates subject to severe 
 winters. 
 
 Though ventilation may be sustained without any change of 
 temperature in the air put in motion, still this is so rarely the 
 case that in the great majority of instances it is either caused 
 or accompanied by a change of temperature. Further, as the 
 same atmosphere may, within certain ranges of temperature, 
 be made practically to feel warm, temperate, or cool, according 
 to the velocity with which it is moved, it will be obvious that 
 the questions of heating, cooling, and ventilating, are too 
 intimately associated to admit of being separated to any great 
 extent in actual practice. 
 
 Perhaps nothing has ever exceeded in perfection the mild 
 and equal temperature given by the ancients to their hollow 
 floors covered by tiles and mosaic or other pavement ; but the 
 structure of these habitations, of which the most interesting 
 records are preserved, neither admitted nor required the venti- 
 lation demanded in modern times. The Russian, Prussian, and 
 Swedish porcelain stoves present a great extent of surface and 
 a very mild temperature, and the great tendency in recent 
 
ENTRANCES, STAIES, AND PASSAGES. 65 
 
 years has been to imitate them by water, steam, and other appa- 
 ratus so constructed and used as to command very mild degrees 
 of heat, generally under 212 though not so low as those at 
 which the porcelain stoves are usually worked, the great sur- 
 face of the latter making up for any deficiency of intensity. 
 
 The drum used in the United States for exhausting the waste 
 heat of stoves and fire-places, and the Arnott stoves in Eng- 
 land for economizing the use of fuel, have drawn much atten- 
 tion to this point, while the infinite variety of inventions for 
 the use of bituminous coal, coke, and anthracite, have enabled 
 fire-places and heating apparatus to be improved with a degree 
 of skill and perfection, that has extended continuously since 
 Dr. Franklin, Count Eumford, and Dr. Nott directed their 
 attention to these subjects. 
 
 In warming individual houses with a general heating appa- 
 ratus capable of conveying warm air to individual apartments 
 by special flues, the means are rarely provided of throwing its 
 whole power on the passages and stair-cases to such an extent 
 as is often advantageous, allowing all the house to acquire a 
 more uniform climate by opening the door freely and permit- 
 ting cold air, when not vitiated, to return to a certain extent 
 by the stairs to the apparatus, instead of drawing in all the 
 air that proceeds to it from the still colder atmosphere with- 
 out. 
 
 This should be effected by large double doors or valves on 
 one or more sides of the apparatus, or immediately above it, 
 capable of allowing so large a stream of air to flow from it 
 when they are open, that it never can reach the high tempera- 
 ture usually attained. These valves or doors cannot be made 
 too large, even if they expose the whole of the apparatus above 
 
 or on either side, proper materials being selected according to 
 
 5 
 
66 ENTRANCES, STATES, AND PASSAGES. 
 
 the nature of the apparatus in use, and the highest tempera- 
 ture it can produce in the surrounding air. 
 
 In addition to the usual supply of cold air to the heating 
 apparatus by a specific channel at a low level, it is often very 
 advantageous to use it only partially, and to admit a portion 
 of air through a porous perforated zinc panel or other aperture 
 at a higher level, near or at the ceiling of the stair-case. The 
 warm air is thus tempered by the entering cold air, and the 
 force of local draughts at a lower level proportionally reduced. 
 In those cases when the stair-case is used at the same time as a 
 means of discharging vitiated air, there is no objection to this 
 arrangement, if proper facilities are given for the fresh air 
 entering at one place, and the vitiated air escaping at another, 
 the amount of movement being carefully regulated by valves. 
 
 Numerous are the examples where heated air conveyed in 
 powerful streams to individual apartments ascends directly to 
 the ceiling without securing any adequate warmth at a lower 
 level, and the same remark applies to many passages and stair- 
 cases. Means should be adopted for retaining it for a time at 
 least, at the floor, or distributing it largely by metallic plates, 
 frames, or any other suitable apparatus. 
 
 In many of the arrangements made with hot water and steam 
 apparatus in individual rooms, a similar effect is observed, 
 though not to the same extent. The greater the length and 
 breadth of apparatus used, and the more horizontal its position, 
 the more general the warmth, and the more equal and gentle 
 the movement of the air induced. 
 
 Where there are objections to the horizontal position on a 
 ]evel with the floor, and space is valuable, steam pipes and 
 perpendicular cases may be substituted. These have the 
 advantage of exposing both sides to the air, and when in the 
 
ENTRANCES, STAIRS, AND PASSAGES. 67 
 
 form of steam radiators or steam pipes, can be placed along 
 the lower part of individual rooms in frames so as to harmo- 
 nize with the general structure, and increase the permanent 
 surface of radiant and conducting power retained near the 
 surface of the floor. 
 
 In hotels, offices, and other places where numbers exposed 
 at times to severe cold out of doors desire to warm themselves, 
 the upper part of a stove, hot water, or steam apparatus can be 
 made to form part of the floor of the hall, or of any other 
 apartment devoted to this or other purposes. In a large room 
 constructed at Edinburgh a circular open fire at a very low 
 level, and with a descending flue, gave more satisfaction for 
 this purpose than any other apparatus. It was placed in the 
 centre of the apartment, and allowed each according to his 
 distance to select the temperature and radiation that was most 
 suitable. The floor was made of brick, and always well 
 warmed by the fire. 
 
THE HEATER. 
 
 OHAPTEE XX. 
 
 THE HEATER. 
 
 IN a house warmed by a heater, Fig. 56, there is often considera- 
 ble headache experienced in individual rooms. It is increased 
 when gas is used ; the staircase and passages are always cold. 
 
 There are no ventilating flues to discharge air from indi- 
 vidual rooms ; the supply to the passage is small, and the hot 
 air entering these rooms has a temperature from 200 to 250. 
 
 Let flues be provided for the discharge of vitiated air, 
 gathering them together in a chamber in the ceiling, from 
 which a small ventilating turret is raised on the roof, where a 
 gas lamp can be introduced. Pursue the course indicated 
 by Fig. 9. 
 
 Fig. 56 shows the heater discharging a small quantity of 
 very warm air. Fig. 57 shows the same heater with the brick- 
 work around it altered to give abundance of air. 
 
 Large apertures less in number may be introduced at #, #, 
 0, the details above being adapted to the local peculiarities 
 of each individual case, and the valves or doors carefully con- 
 structed so as to intercept effectually the progress of hot air 
 where it is not required. 
 
 It is not to be expected that when used in this manner it can 
 transmit a stream of air of the same intensity of heat as 
 formerly to individual rooms ; but when the valves to the 
 passage are shut, and the whole power thrown upon the same 
 
Iig.56 
 
 Y? 
 
 ff|l AA|-fAff 
 
 in 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 III 
 
THE HEATER. 
 
 rooms as formerly, the temperature will not in general be so 
 reduced as to be objectionable, while the general warmth of 
 the house is so very much improved through the medium of 
 the stair-case and passages, that a less elevated temperature 
 than formerly will now produce an equivalent effect. Where 
 the utmost power .of a heater at a high temperature is essential 
 to convey the necessary warmth to a distance, it will necessa- 
 rily be impracticable to make the alteration explained by Fig. 
 57, and maintain the heat required for the distant room 
 without an addition to the stove. 
 
TO STEAM APPARATUS. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXI. 
 
 STEAM APPARATUS. 
 
 IN considering the various modes resorted to for the use of 
 steam in cold weather, wherever the quality of the vapor is 
 good and free from all offensive odor, a large amount may 
 always be thrown directly into the current of cold air as it 
 enters the lower ventilating chambers, taking care not to add 
 more than is rapidly or at least thoroughly dissolved before it 
 reaches the apartments to be ventilated. Arrangements for 
 this purpose economize largely the amount of apparatus 
 necessary during the most severe weather in very cold winters, 
 as the dryness of the atmosphere then renders it necessary to 
 add much moisture in proportion to the previous reduction of 
 temperature, and it serves the double purpose of correcting 
 the dryness of the air and of elevating its temperature. 
 
 Iron glazed with a porcellaneous surface, or covered with 
 an extremely thin coat of copal varnish, gives a more agreea- 
 ble atmosphere than plain iron ; rusting iron has a disagreeable 
 odor in general, and all apparatus covered with large quanti- 
 ties of thick oils are very objectionable, and retain an offensive 
 smell for a long time. The paint is prone indeed on all 
 occasions to absorb moisture when cold, and discharge it again 
 when heated, taking with it in solution at least as much 
 material as gives it a perceptible and heavy odor. 
 
 Again, as to the form of the steam apparatus used, there is 
 
STEAM APPARATUS. 71 
 
 considerable choice. High temperature steam pipes warmed 
 by steam from a high pressure boiler, are not considered 
 desirable for warming air for general use, however desirable 
 for special purposes of art or manufacture. 
 
 Iron tubes have for a considerable time been very largely 
 employed, sometimes as the direct source of steam heat, and on 
 other occasions as the means of conveying heat to iron plates 
 that never attain the temperature of 212. 
 
 Iron vases, statues, plates, and iron, in short, thrown into an 
 endless variety of other forms, 4iave also been used for the appli- 
 cation of steam heat, whole floors and passages being warmed 
 in this manner, through the intervention of flat boxes or cases 
 filled with steam. The lower and the more general the heat- 
 ing surface in any apartment, the less the heat required to 
 warm it, and the lower the descent of the rotatory movements 
 of air during the progress of ventilation, except where the heat 
 is transmitted very imperfectly to the floor. A given amount 
 of steam or other heat that warms a room comfortably if 
 placed near or on a level with the floor, will not produce 
 this effect if raised to a higher level, unless this room be very 
 specially constructed for radiation. A variety of steam appa- 
 ratus termed radiators, which appear to have been recently 
 introduced by Mr. Gold, presents very light and movable 
 frames, or steam cases, that have been found very efficient, 
 and are used with a boiler on which much attention has been 
 bestowed, so as to economize fuel and remove apprehensions as 
 to any danger from steam. It is highly spoken of by Professor 
 Silliman, and had evidently given much satisfaction in differ- 
 ent cities where the author had seen it used. Nor does there 
 appear to be any limit to the endless variety of improvement 
 in the details of boiler-making, valves, stop-cocks, and hot 
 
72 STEAM APPARATUS. 
 
 water and steam apparatus, on this side .of the Atlantic, of 
 which Mr. IsTason of Kew York has shown me different speci- 
 mens, any more than on the other. In the accompanying Fig. 
 58, showing a steam-boiler S, warming a house, a a a a indi- 
 cates steam pipes used in different forms for the communica- 
 tion of heat ; 5, cases, such as have often been used for steam ; 
 <?, the usual position assigned to the steam radiators, more lately 
 introduced ; and d d, iron steam tables, such as are used for 
 special purposes. 
 
 Fig. 59 shows the general appearance of one of these radia- 
 tors, made of two sheets of iron riveted together, and used by 
 opening a steam cock at one corner below, for the admission of 
 steam, and another at the opposite corner for the discharge of 
 air ; this forms a very important element in using it, the tem- 
 perature attained by the case and the amount of surface 
 brought into play being regulated by the quantity of air dis- 
 charged. 
 
 Figs. 60, 61, and 62 indicate different modes of using flat 
 iron cases, such as are warmed with steam, when they are re- 
 quired to form part of the surface of a floor, surrounded on 
 every side with air by elevating them above the floor, or 
 arranged with an open space under them, where fresh air is 
 heated as it enters. 
 
 As steam apparatus can be obtained of any form and placed 
 in any position that may be desirable, its use will probably 
 be more and more extensively introduced wherever simplicity 
 and economy are important in heating many apartments in the 
 same building. 
 
 Hot water apparatus rivals steam apparatus in all places 
 where it is not required to place it at any great altitude above 
 the boiler, the pressure of water upon the pipes increasing the 
 
Fig 61 
 
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 FigSQ 
 
STEAM APPARATUS. 73 
 
 strain upon the joints. It is particularly well adapted for 
 stair-cases and passages, wherever it can be used on a level 
 with the boiler, and where there is no risk of sudden exposure 
 to temperatures sufficient to freeze the water before it can be 
 warmed. 
 
 To the great majority of individuals the open fire is so 
 pleasing, and allows those previously exposed to cold to acquire 
 with so much facility the exact amount of heating influence 
 each may desire, that it is not likely to be superseded in great 
 entrance halls, waiting rooms, or individual apartments. But 
 as a means of economy, comfort, and convenience to those 
 who are long exposed in individual apartments and at fixed 
 places, other means of general warmth should be introduced, 
 and the open fire used only in particular rooms, or reduced 
 largely in its dimensions, wherever many rooms are contained 
 in a single building. 
 
74 THE LOG HUT. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXII. 
 
 THE LOG HUT. 
 
 FIG. 63 indicates a Log Hut of the plainest construction, where 
 in general, and particularly in cold or windy weather, there is 
 too much rather than too little ventilation. The air sweeps 
 through from crevices at the windows, doors, and other places 
 to the large open fire-place. The inmates are subject to attacks 
 of fever at particular periods of the year, when the air within, 
 in unfavorable weather, becomes as oppressive to the invalid 
 as it is offensive and dangerous to the rest of the occupants. 
 The roof transmits great heat in summer weather, and when the 
 fire is used, currents dash in on every side as in Figs. 63 and 65. 
 In winter extreme cold is the principal complaint, and offen- 
 sive cold currents strike on the back with more and more force 
 in proportion to the strength of the fire. 
 
 A ceiling, m, m, Fig. 64, should be formed that will be equally 
 useful in excluding the heat of summer and the cold of winter. 
 At the same time, a partition, p, should be introduced cutting 
 off one third of the hut to be used for a bedroom and for any 
 severe attack of infectious disease. A ventilating flue, /*, 
 should be carried from it through the roof, in which a constant 
 current can be maintained by a lamp. 
 
 If an adjoining closet, <?, be made at the same time, the par- 
 tition should be so light and movable that it can be taken 
 away with facility. 
 
Fiy.63. 
 
 X ffl 
 
 Fy.64. 
 
 w 
 
 Ficf.65. 
 
THE LOG HUT. 75 
 
 The flue should have at least one foot area, and be provided 
 with a valve, and a branch should be led into it from the 
 closet, e, above or under the ceiling, according to the mode 
 in which it is made. 
 
 At the door, Fig. 65, a screen, z, should break the current 
 of supply from this source, and diffuse it as it enters above. 
 At a?, Fig. 64, admission should be given to a narrow stream of 
 air to intercept currents from doors and windows, and in winter 
 the aperture of the chimney shaft should be reduced at w. 
 
 In summer the body of the Hut should be so amply supplied 
 with air as to make it incline to press to the sick chamber by 
 the communicating door, d, and never from the sick room to 
 the Hut. If the full influence of a cross draught from one 
 window to another should be required in the sick room, the 
 door between it and the other part of the hut should be 
 accurately closed. 
 
 By the judicious use of such means, and the careful study 
 of the action of the air-currents within doors, much may often 
 be done to alleviate suffering. 
 
 Lime in a caustic state should be used freely in removing 
 refuse, and the utmost attention paid to the cleansing and 
 drainage of surface-water from the vicinity of the hut. 
 
76 VENTILATION OF A COTTAGE. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 VENTILATION OF A COTTAGE WITH FOUE BOOMS AND ONE CENTRAL 
 
 FLUE. 
 
 THE ventilation of individual cottages and houses, and the 
 desire to introduce improvements that can be rendered 
 available at a moderate expense, attracts a daily increasing 
 attention. In estimating this expense, however, it should 
 not be forgotten that, with ventilation, there is a saving of 
 expense, both in the altitude and area of numerous classes of 
 rooms, that ought to be put down to the credit of the ventila- 
 tion. Rooms do not require to be built either so large or so 
 lofty for sustaining health when they are provided with the 
 means of systematic ventilation by the action of a heated shaft 
 or any other power. Where dependence is placed on the 
 cubic contents of a room for ventilation rather than on the 
 stream of air passing through it, the supply is in general 
 exceedingly imperfect, unless it be of very large dimensions, 
 and such rooms cannot be constructed except at a great 
 increase of cost. 
 
 Apartments are daily constructed for bed-rooms having lit- 
 tle more than twice the area of the bed itself, and these can be 
 arranged so as to be better ventilated than others much larger, 
 where this subject does not engage attention. Such substitutes 
 for bed rooms are not advocated for any human beings not on 
 board ship, when better rooms can be obtained, but if it be a 
 
Fig.68. 
 
 Fig.67. 
 
 Tig 66. 
 
VENTILATION OF A COTTAGE. 77 
 
 question whether a whole family shall occupy one or two rooms, 
 or make such arrangements as are indicated in the following 
 figures, few, if any, will hesitate as to the many advantages 
 that arise from every effort being made to insure such separate 
 accommodations. 
 
 In details the cottage may vary in every individual district 
 according to the materials of construction that are to be 
 obtained, the fuel in use, and the habits, occupations, and wants 
 of those for whom it is provided. Still a supply of air to each 
 apartment from the passage or entrance, and a discharge of 
 vitiated air from the ceiling of each separate space or compart- 
 ment, or by an internal window communicating with a venti- 
 lated passage or entrance, should always be secured. 
 
 It is also desirable, particularly in cases of sickness, that 
 there should be one closet at least within the house, whatever 
 other arrangements may be adopted without, and that it should 
 be constructed as explained in another place*, when an abun- 
 dant supply of water and a proper outlet is not to be obtained. 
 
 The cottage, Figs. 66, 67, 68, not being provided with more 
 than one flue and fire-place, though the flue is capable of 
 receiving a stove pipe from any side, the addition of a flue 
 from four or five inches to nine inches square at one of the 
 angles is sometimes useful, where it may be desired to have 
 the power of introducing an extra local fire, or a stove larger 
 than could otherwise be accommodated. In a scullery the flue 
 should be at least nine inches square, and also at any other 
 angle where it may be desired to use it for any particular trade 
 or occupation in which heat or a special stove may be necessary. 
 
 In all places the aperture for the discharge of vitiated air 
 
 * See Drainage. 
 
78 VENTILATION OF A COTTAGE. 
 
 should be ample, exclusive of the window, where they are 
 used for washing and drying. When the air is damp, during 
 long continued rainy weather, a much larger quantity is 
 required for drying, even though heated, than is usually neces- 
 sary, and it is important that no moisture should be retained 
 in the atmosphere of the cottage that can be removed by ven- 
 tilation. 
 
 The valves employed in such cottages may be of the simplest 
 description. Slides running in a groove, and capable of being 
 opened or shut with facility by a handle or rod attached to 
 them, or that can be at once applied to them, and move them 
 to the right or to the left, are quite sufficient for ordinary use, 
 and not liable to get out of order. Some prefer a valve with a 
 hinge that admits of being opened and shut like the. lid of a 
 trunk. 
 
 In winter weather, apertures (or internal windows as they 
 have been called) above the doors of the living room should be 
 freely opened at night, that it may give bed-rooms the benefit 
 of the warm air it may contain, shutting the doors and valves 
 in all unoccupied rooms. 
 
 Figs. 66, 67, and 68, a plan and two sections, indicate the 
 cottage with four apartments and one central flue. An open 
 fire-place is provided in one of these only, but stoves can be 
 placed in any of the apartments and connected with it. Two 
 external doors are so constructed as to admit on either side 
 sufficient air for ordinary use. It is diffused at the entrance, 
 and passes from the ceiling of the entrance to the rooms on 
 either side. The vitiated air escapes by vertical tubes 
 discharging into the roof or directly into the external air. 
 Heated air from the roof escapes by the windows shown at 
 both ends in Fig. 67. In winter they are closed. 
 
n 
 
A COTTAGE WITH EIGHT ROOMS. 79 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIY. 
 
 COTTAGE WITH EIGHT ROOMS AND A CENTRAL HOT WATER 
 APPARATUS. 
 
 FIGS. 69, TO and 71 show a cottage with an upper floor in 
 which there are four bed-rooms, Stoves can be introduced in 
 the bed-rooms having no fire-places. The roof is constructed 
 in the same manner as in the preceding case. The entrances 
 receive air above the external doors ; from them it passes to the 
 contiguous apartments, and by the stairs to the bed-rooms 
 above. Air is also admitted to the upper passages by a window, 
 and is available for all the rooms in the cottage, while it mode- 
 rates draughts below. The passage is warmed by a mild hot 
 water apparatus, w, and conveys heat to the whole of the cot- 
 tage. There is also a special provision for removing moist air 
 from linen or other clothes placed above this apparatus in long 
 continued damp weather, the board n, indicated in the upper 
 passage, being then raised so as to admit the damp air to escape 
 directly by the ventilator above. 
 
 The principal supply of air is by the apertures above the 
 external doors. Internal windows act as a supply and discharge 
 to individual rooms. 
 
 The central flue in the stack of three flues is appropriated to 
 the heating apparatus in the passage. It can be used as a 
 special ventilating flue, and brought to bear on any individual 
 room by connecting it with the third flue, using these two, the 
 second and third, as explained in the description of Fig. 10. 
 
80 VENTILATION OF A LARGER HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXY. 
 
 VENTILATION OF A LAEGEK HOUSE. 
 
 THIS figure, Y2, taken from one of the drawings prepared by 
 the author when engaged on the commission of health for Eng- 
 land and "Wales, and modified so as to illustrate the use of a 
 heater during a severe American winter, has perhaps been 
 more largely explained, and more frequently the subject of 
 consideration, than any other connected with public buildings. 
 It points out the great objects which it is desirable to arrange 
 in all houses, exclusive of the facilities given by doors, windows, 
 and local fire-places. 
 
 An independent supply of fresh air. 
 
 A general heating apparatus. 
 
 Special flues to and from individual rooms. 
 
 The power of heating the staircase, and of permiting rota- 
 tory currents there to warm the air generally, with a constant 
 influx of fresh and efflux of vitiated air. 
 
 The means of securing or increasing the power of the ven- 
 tilation at all times by the action of heat in the ventilating 
 turret. 
 
 The communication of moisture to the air is secured by the 
 evaporation of water, w, from a vessel placed above the heating 
 apparatus, A. 
 
 The accompanying figure, 73, gives a diagram of the move- 
 ments of air in the staircase ; it is a great object both for econo- 
 
VENTILATION OF A LAKGER HOUSE. 81 
 
 my and comfort to heat a large surface of floor at the entrance 
 of houses. This arrests the heat where it is most wanted, and 
 leads to a great but gentle movement of the whole air in the 
 stairs, which is accompanied by local eddies or branch currents 
 to and from individual rooms, according to the temperature, 
 and the extent to which doors, internal windows, or other aper- 
 tures, permit them to take place. 
 
 Wherever there is much furniture, oil paint, a library, or 
 any accumulation of materials that present an extensive surface 
 affecting the freshness of the air, a larger quantity of air ought 
 to be given than is otherwise necessary. 
 
 The amount of diffusion of the air as it enters any room is to 
 be regulated by the habits, the clothing, the peculiarities of 
 individual constitutions, the numbers likely to occupy it, and 
 other details altogether local ; a small table or screen breaks the 
 impulse of air sufficiently for some constitutions. In others the 
 diffusion that attends its progress from a distant aperture is 
 quite sufficient. 
 
82 VENTILATION OF A COUNTRY HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYI. 
 
 
 
 VENTILATION OF A COUNTRY HOUSE. 
 
 IN the case of the cottage having only one chimney flue every 
 arrangement indicated was laid down in unison with the con- 
 struction of one fire-place only for ordinary purposes, one 
 apartment being used both for a kitchen and living room, so 
 as to admit of the most limited means being advantageously 
 laid out. 
 
 In the present instance, Figs. 74, 75, 76, as in the last, there 
 are more ample resources at command. The distribution and 
 size of the various rooms, and the introduction of a hall, or 
 at least of larger passages and stairs, give greater facilities for 
 the supply of air. The separation of the kitchen forms a still 
 more important feature, and the proper provisions for closets, 
 drainage, and cleansing, give further securities for the uncon- 
 taminated supply of fresh air. 
 
 In providing a country house where a dining-room and 
 parlor, the requisite number of bed-rooms, and a kitchen, form 
 all the separate apartments desired, and where it is necessary 
 that they should be provided in the most economical manner 
 consistent with good work and comfort, it will be desirable on 
 every other account, as well as for simplifying the ventilating 
 arrangements, that the whole should be contained under one 
 roof, and the apartments placed in 'the nearest possible 
 proximity to each other. 
 
F I ( 
 
 Fig. 75. 
 
 Fig.74. 
 
 G 
 
 N 
 
 M 
 
 Ir- 
 
 E 
 
 C 
 
 c. 
 
 M 
 
VENTILATION OF A COUNTEY HOUSE. 83 
 
 In adopting this course it is not to be supposed that any 
 danger is incurred of injuring the atmosphere of the house 
 generally by drawing in vitiated air from the kitchen and 
 closets. On the contrary, where they are placed under proper 
 control, their tendency is at all times to draw in air from the 
 contiguous passages, and never to discharge any vitiated air 
 they may contain into them. 
 
 In this house, the space below the entrance and the princi- 
 pal passage being excavated to the depth of seven or eight feet, 
 so as to afford a clear area of six feet at least in height after 
 the arrangements intended there shall have been completed, 
 and it being determined to introduce a powerful heater with 
 the view of warming the passage and several of the principal 
 apartments, a supply of fresh air should be provided below as 
 indicated around the heating apparatus, a, in the basement, 
 Fig. 76. 
 
 A second general supply can be given above by one or more 
 of the windows in the upper passage when the state of the 
 external air is not objectionable. 
 
 The heater is arranged so as to admit of its being supplied 
 with air from the passage principally, as in the preceding 
 case, Fig. 73, when the introduction of a little fresh air is 
 sufficient. 
 
 For the removal of vitiated air, in addition to the usual 
 resources by doors and windows, a special flue is placed next 
 the kitchen, and the instructions being that it should have the 
 power of acting on the dining-room, the parlor, two bed-rooms 
 as well as the passages, the kitchen, cellars and closets, the 
 principal connections are indicated accordingly. 
 
 All the individual rooms being provided with internal 
 windows, when these are in operation, vitiated air from the 
 
84 VENTILATION OF A COUNTRY HOUSE. 
 
 upper part of the passage can be discharged by the ventilating 
 flues, Y and "W, or by opening the upper part of the windows 
 in this passage, on any occasion when the general ventilating 
 flue may not be in action. 
 
 The plan of the principal floor, Fig. 74, shows an entrance 
 hall or vestibule, A, communicating with the apartments on 
 either side by large sliding doors, each in two parts, that are 
 hung so as to be moved with extreme facility. "When both 
 parts are open, they afford with the parlor, B, and the dining- 
 room, (7, accommodation for a number of persons. Glazed 
 doors, freely perforated above and below, are placed at D. E 
 is a bed-room, and F the kitchen with the ventilating shaft 
 which is attended to there, and always heated by the flues 
 from the kitchen fire-place, whether the special fire-place 
 provided for it shall be in use or not. Two closets near the 
 back entrance are provided with flues proceeding to the 
 lateral ventilating shaft that is indicated in the section, along 
 with others immediately above them. 
 
 The large ingress for fresh air tinted red in a permits the 
 whole stair-case and vestibule to have the advantage of the 
 rotatory currents described under " stairs," Fig. 73, when there 
 are few persons present, or supplies fresh warm air solely by a 
 direct ascent when a crowd is in attendance. 
 
 The central apparatus below warms the whole house through 
 the stairs, besides conveying special currents on either side to 
 the dining-room, parlor, and contiguous bed-room. A small 
 steam apparatus used principally in the kitchen for cooking, 
 conveys steam to the steam bath G, on the floor above, and also 
 to steam plates or radiators in the bed-rooms H, I, K. The 
 other bed rooms, M, N", L, have fire-places, and E, on the first 
 floor, has a supply of warm air from the heater as well as a fire- 
 
VENTILATION OF A COUNTRY HOUSE. 85 
 
 place. The upper passage is warmed by the air ascending 
 from A. 
 
 The diagrammatic section indicates the shaft S, with its 
 descending supply T, and the two principal divisions Y and "W, 
 which receive air directly or by branches from all the rooms, 
 passages, and closets. The dotted blue lines indicate the pro- 
 gress of the flues from the ceiling of the different floors on 
 which they appear. 
 
 The kitchen and basement communicate directly with the 
 shaft. 
 
 In the bath room any amount of warm air and steam can be 
 given at G, and the ventilating apertures are larger, but, like 
 the rest, under the control of valves. 
 
 Though the house can be heated by the heater alone, with- 
 out steam or open fires, still in this instance a preference is 
 given to all the arrangements shown, the heater below being 
 used alone on ordinary occasions. The steam apparatus is put 
 in operation in extreme weather and when a steam bath is 
 required; and the open fires are not generally necessary, 
 though available according to the desire of those who occupy 
 the apartments in which they are placed. 
 
86 VENTILATION OF THE PRINCIPAL APARTMENTS IN A HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYII. 
 
 VENTILATION OF THE PEINCIPAL APARTMENTS IN A HOUSE WHERE 
 LAEGE PARTIES ARE GIVEN. 
 
 IN a house where large assemblies are held, and the principal 
 rooms are brilliantly illuminated with gas, the air presents the 
 usual characters at a party said to be crowded to suffocation. 
 If fresh air be given by the windows in cold weather, the 
 impression it produces on such occasions is so intolerable, when 
 the constitution has been subjected for a short time to the over 
 heated atmosphere, that it cannot be borne by those in the 
 vicinity. If warm air be admitted, its temperature is so great, 
 and quantity so small, that the result is unsatisfactory. Far- 
 ther, a damp basement and a kitchen below give abundant 
 proof in the principal apartment of the source from which they 
 are supplied with air, whenever the heating apparatus is in use. 
 The proprietor determines to correct these evils, for which the 
 following measures are requisite. 
 
 The right adjustment of the drains and the control and 
 removal of vitiated and offensive damp air from the basement, 
 a, Fig. 77. Part of the floor requires to be raised under any 
 circumstances, so as to secure the formation of a proper chan- 
 nel for the supply of air to the warming apparatus. 
 
 The enlargement and reconstruction of the channel for the 
 supply of air, J, and of the brick-work around the heater, c, in 
 the manner explained in the pages on houses, stairs, &c. 
 
^ ^N 
 
VENTILATION OF THE PRINCIPAL APARTMENTS IN A HOUSE. 87 
 
 The formation of the largest openings practicable for the 
 supply and distribution of a milder atmosphere to the principal 
 apartment, d d d, at the skirting and fire-places (not used when 
 the rooms are crowded) and wherever an ingress can be given 
 without interfering with the use of the floor, as at every part 
 of the base-board. The construction of internal windows 
 above the doors leading from the entrance to the principal 
 apartments. The direct removal of the products of the com- 
 bustion of gas from the highest part of the ceiling, by a special 
 flue, y, which, in the case under consideration, can be formed 
 solely in the position indicated, unless with great inconvenience 
 to existing arrangements. 
 
 The construction of a ventilating flue, m, and of a descending 
 branch, n, to ventilate the principal apartments, d and &, advan- 
 tage being taken at the same time of the opportunity of venti- 
 lating the apartments, w, v, 2, and the closets, x x. 
 
88 TEMPOEAEY VENTILATION OF LARGE ROOMS IN AN OLD HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 TEMPOEAEY VENTILATION OF LARGE BOOMS IN AN OLD HOUSE WHEEE 
 NUMBEES AEE CEOWDED FOE A SHOET PEEIOD DUEING SEVEEE 
 WEATHER. 
 
 AN old house, Fig. 78, is to be used temporarily for lodging as 
 grea.t a number of laborers for a few weeks as can be accom- 
 modated on straw mattresses placed on the floor ; a space not 
 more than three feet by eight can be allowed for each man. 
 There is no provision whatever for ventilation except by doors 
 and windows, and the air from the stairs and passages, except 
 in the upper floor, is too bad to be used. What course should 
 be adopted in respect to the ventilation, there being neither 
 time nor means for anything but the simplest arrangements ? 
 Cut through the upper floors and the roof so as to form the 
 three vitiated air flues that are seen terminating immediately, 
 above the roof; about the distance of two feet from the doors or 
 windows, put up a screen of gauze, or partitions made of any 
 porous cloth, so as to permit the air to pass with as gentle and 
 extended a flow as possible, and with a much less impulse than 
 might otherwise be experienced by those nearest to the win- 
 dows. Kegulate the entrance and egress of air by a valve on 
 the discharge flue, and by the ingress also, if the wind be power- 
 ful, or the current very strong and cold. If the air can by any 
 simple arrangements be received first in a proper condition in 
 the passage, it may then be permitted to enter by the doors, as 
 
TEMPOKAKY VENTILATION OF LAEGE BOOMS IN AN OLD HOUSE. 89 
 
 exemplified in the upper floor, giving a more gentle impulse in 
 severe weather by the increased diffusion thus available, and 
 by being tempered more or less in the passage. 
 
 This matter should be made the subject of careful examina- 
 tion, as sometimes the closing of an aperture connected with 
 a drain, a sewer, or some damp basement, may at once relieve 
 the air in the stairs from all objections, and admit the free use 
 of a large entrance, stair-case and passages, instead of taking air 
 solely and directly from the external atmosphere by the win- 
 dow. 
 
 There is nothing more dangerous than a strong local draught 
 of air playing continuously in the same direction upon the face 
 and throat, especially when the constitution has been so fati- 
 gued and exhausted as not to be readily aroused to its exces- 
 sive action. "Whoever ventilates should consider it a part of 
 his duty, to guard against excessive draughts. 
 
 In a large bed-room, and with the bed at a distance from the 
 window, or with appropriate curtains, there is no danger from 
 a small portion of a window being open at night. In the more 
 crowded habitations of the extreme poor, without diffusion, it 
 is often highly dangerous to those in the vicinity. 
 
90 VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 VENTILATION OP HOTELS. NOTES IN KEFERENCE TO THE NATIONAL 
 HOTEL DISEASE AT WASHINGTON. 
 
 IN the largest mansions, palatial structures and hotels, oppor- 
 tunities occur for treating them to some extent in the same 
 manner as public buildings, more especially the dining room, 
 the ball room, or any apartment appropriated for public 
 meetings or other assemblies. As it is not intended, however, 
 that these pages should include the consideration of public 
 buildings, it will be sufficient here to give an outline of some 
 points not so specially mentioned hitherto, and to state that 
 though a central ventilating power is generally the most 
 desirable in individual buildings, cases constantly occur where 
 it may not be an object to effect the most extensive centraliza- 
 tion practicable, and in which therefore a few independent 
 shafts or ventilating turrets may be advantageously introduced 
 as a substitute. 
 
 There are also many instances where an engine may be used 
 instead of shafts as a moving power for forced or systematic 
 ventilation, though apertures for discharge should always be 
 provided under any circumstances. Without these, vitiated 
 air may often be driven from one room to another and not be 
 discharged at a proper place, or it may even recoil in one por- 
 tion of an apartment, while fresh air is ascending in another. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly represented, that the greater the 
 

"V 
 
 VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 91 
 
 number of rooms, halls, and passages in any building, the 
 greater the annoyance from vitiated air or from local and 
 offensive currents, if a sufficient supply of air be not provided, 
 and a well organized escape for the vitiated air. 
 
 Further, the greatest perfection in ventilation is always 
 accompanied by an ingress and egress, or supply and discharge, 
 so balanced that there is no objectionable current at doors. 
 If an objectionable current move outwards, then the supply 
 forced in by the external air or by any instrument used for 
 this purpose, must be too great, unless the discharge of the 
 vitiated air be too small. On the other hand, if the offensive 
 current proceeds inwards, then the supply of external air must 
 be too small, or the action of the shaft or channel by which 
 the vitiated air is discharged too great. 
 
 A little reflection on these two examples will simplify 
 many cases that are apt to be very perplexing to those 
 unaccustomed to enter on such questions. Nor is it possible in 
 complicated buildings such as large hotels, always to avoid 
 such difficulties, where they have been built without regard to 
 systematic ventilation. 
 
 There are four evils, however, to which many hotels are 
 peculiarly subject, that can be entirely avoided with proper 
 attention to them. 
 
 1. The accumulation of vitiated air in the public apartments, 
 arising from the ineffective discharge of the products of respi- 
 ration, of the combustion of gas, and from the presence of 
 excessive moisture, or vitiated air in the refreshment rooms. 
 
 2. The prevalence of tobacco-smoke, an evil from which 
 many hotels are remarkably free. 
 
 For the entire and absolute control of the vitiated air from 
 smoking rooms, a ventilating flue should be made to with- 
 
92 VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 
 
 draw the smoke so that it cannot enter into any passages, 
 staii's, or other apartments where its use is not allowed. 
 
 3. Emanations from kitchens and sculleries. 
 
 Without a proper ventilating arrangement these can never 
 be entirely excluded. Even if placed in external buildings the 
 wind may drift them upon the hotel. 
 
 4. Yitiated air from closets, drains and sewers. 
 
 The control and absolute exclusion of all vitiated air from 
 these sources is equally indispensable to health and comfort. 
 
 The noted case of the National Hotel at Washington, where 
 so many hundreds suffered very lately, was not unconnected 
 with the condition of the ventilation. Whether other causes 
 contributed or not, is a question that is not entered on here ; 
 recent facts and statements that have been made on this point 
 may leave this an open question till the whole of the evidence 
 on the subject shall be published and compared, but in the 
 mean time personal observations in this Hotel at the time 
 referred to gave proof that there was, in one part of the hotel 
 at least, a dischai^e of vitiated air from drains of so intense a 
 character that it produced instantaneous vomiting on some 
 occasions, and affected tiumbers in a less degree at the moment, 
 who were nevertheless attacked at a subsequent period. 
 
 The report of the chairman of the Board of Health at Wash- 
 ington, Dr. King Stone, as well as the report of the Committee 
 of the Academy of Medicine of New York on this subject, 
 fully express the conviction of the important effect pro- 
 duced by the emanations from the drains, and attribute the 
 National Hotel Disease to this cause. No other cause has 
 as yet been proved to have been in operation, and even if it 
 were, it would in no way alter the conviction entertained, that 
 the emanations from the drains constituted an evil of great 
 
VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 93 
 
 magnitude, and capable of producing the most disastrous 
 results. 
 
 Let it be recollected that there are no deleterious gases that 
 can arise from the admixture of chemicals that may meet in 
 obstructed drains and sewers, that may not find their way into 
 hotels, houses, and other buildings, as well as the products of 
 putrefaction from animal and vegetable matters. Sewers may 
 discharge there the products found at the distance of miles, 
 particularly if they be trapped so as to exclude the access of 
 air in the streets. And who can estimate the emanations that 
 may not proceed from such sources when they arise from 
 chemicals discharged from a manufactory, an apothecary's 
 store, a paint shop, a telegraph office, or the poisoned remains 
 of animals that may have accumulated in the sewers? Further 
 the very cement or mortar may imbibe materials that dis- 
 charge sulphureted or arseniureted hydrogen from compound 
 mixtures on fermentation, or from the action of an acid ; and 
 these find their way by a retrograde current in the drains and 
 sewers to any building connected with them where the drains 
 have been injured, and the traps rendered ineffective. 
 
 Lastly, it should not be forgotten that if one or two hundred 
 thousand dollars be the probable amount of loss to the 
 individual sufferers and proprietors, the whole of this sum 
 might probably have been saved, to say nothing of loss of life, 
 and loss of occupation to numbers interested, had the hotel 
 been ventilated as had been suggested during the preceding 
 year, and again recommended before the disease there assumed 
 such a condition that the medical authorities deemed it indis- 
 pensable that it should be closed. Even one or two hundred 
 dollars would have removed the worst evils arising from the 
 drains at the moment, by discharging the gaseous products 
 
94: VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 
 
 
 
 from them by an independent channel, till the greater and 
 general evil proceeding from obstructed sewers could have 
 been removed. Can a more striking example be found of the 
 importance of Hygiene and the chemistry of daily life being 
 made subjects of elementary study in all schools public or 
 private ? Those most largely interested were not impressed 
 with the importance of the ventilation previously recom- 
 mended, till it was too late to attempt to keep the hotel open 
 longer at the period mentioned. 
 
 The improvement of numerous hotels has been very marked 
 in recent years in the great majority of modern cities, but an 
 instance such as the National Hotel at Washington has pre- 
 sented, and the results of the inquiries instituted on this subject, 
 point out emphatically how much is yet to be done in improving 
 the Hygiene of cities as well as of individual habitations. Nor 
 have such inquiries a local importance alone; it would be 
 difficult to select any cities without finding some hotels pre- 
 senting parallel evils arising from drains and sewers, however 
 inferior generally in point of intensity. 
 
 If the ordinary condition of the atmosphere at Paris be 
 examined, of the air on the banks of the Thames at London, 
 or over a large portion of Berlin, abundant evidence will be 
 obtained of the effect of causes that have been increasing for 
 ages in deteriorating the atmosphere of these capitals. The 
 most Herculean labors, as well as the expenditure of millions, 
 can alone place them in that position which, with the aid of 
 public opinion and of parliamentary and municipal authority, 
 they may at last attain. 
 
 There are few remarks in the preceding chapters that 
 do not apply to hotels as well as other buildings, particularly 
 
VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 95 
 
 those on ventilating shafts, lighting, heating, and cooling, and 
 the details as to the ingress and egress of air at entrances, 
 passages, stairs, and individual apartments. 
 
 The accompanying Fig. 79 explains the general suite of 
 arrangements which it is desirable to introduce in crowded 
 hotels. Air from the least objectionable source is conveyed by 
 one or two channels, a and 5, to general reservoirs or distri- 
 buting chambers, 0, c. Steam, stove, or hot-water apparatus, 
 d, d, d, gives heat there, particularly to the large central 
 apartments indicated by the flues on the left proceeding to 
 them. 
 
 Some of the apartments on the right, not admitting the 
 introduction of specific flues, are provided with internal 
 windows that enable each room to be supplied from the stair- 
 case, and also to discharge vitiated air into it. Two rooms 
 above them receive air by the door, and discharge vitiated air 
 directly by the ceiling. 
 
 In the large central apartments that are approached by 
 corridors looking into the interior of an open quadrangle, 
 great diffusion is given to the entering air, as they are often 
 very crowded, and it is therefore necessary that the influx of 
 the air, though well warmed, should be mild and gentle. The 
 rest of the building is ventilated by a shaft similar to that 
 shown by Fig. 10, constructed principally to control the 
 atmosphere of the basement, the kitchen, closets, and a few 
 apartments in the vicinity. 
 
 The bed-rooms generally have not received any special 
 ventilation. All are provided with fire-places. 
 
 In building a new hotel, every apartment whatsoever can 
 easily have some ventilation introduced, when the whole 
 arrangements are placed on a uniform system. In existing 
 
96 VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 
 
 hotels where the ventilation is defective, the great object is in 
 general to supply the passages with a proper atmosphere, and 
 remove the vitiated air and emanations from gas lights in these 
 passages and in individual rooms. 
 
 In hotels the introduction of machinery for the movement 
 of air is not necessary, though there are many cases where an 
 engine is maintained in action for pumping water and other 
 purposes where it could often be used advantageously. In 
 such instances, the fanner is usually made to force fresh air 
 into a larger channel as indicated on the right in Fig. 79, 
 branches from this source being distributed to passages and 
 individual apartments as illustrated in Fig. 80. 
 
 In using a fanner, the diffusion given in crowded apartments 
 should be still more carefully carried out than where a 
 ventilating shaft is used, though desirable in all cases in 
 proportion to the numbers likely to crowd upon a given area. 
 In Fig. 79, in the central portion, and on the left, various 
 modes of giving diffusion are shown; according to these 
 the air enters principally at the side, or at the ceiling, so as 
 not to encroach at all, or only as slightly as possible on the 
 floor. 
 
 Fanners may be used in the same manner as shafts for the 
 removal of vitiated air, instead of effecting this object by the 
 propulsion of fresh air. But the propelling system is usually 
 preferred, as it charges the ventilated apartment so fully with 
 air, if placed in effective operation, that the excess tends to 
 prevent local draughts at doors and windows. Nevertheless, 
 it is not considered desirable to omit the provision of a proper 
 discharge for vitiated air, a point that is sometimes omitted 
 where fanners are used, as it then is apt to recoil and produce 
 a local annoyance wherever it may incline, if not discharged 
 
g 
 
 A . 
 
 B 
 
 .1 
 
 H 
 
VENTILATION OF HOTELS. 97 
 
 at a proper level, and in such a manner as not to contaminate 
 the entering fresh air. 
 
 Fig. 81 indicates the movement of air to and from a fanner. 
 It always approaches by the sides and is discharged in a stream 
 by the blades whenever the extremities are left freely exposed. 
 Placed in a case or large chamber where the entering and the 
 discharged air are carefully kept apart, it will be obvious that 
 if the apartment to be ventilated be connected by appropriate 
 channels with A, either on one or both sides, air will be with- 
 drawn from it, the external air having free access to it, and 
 supplying fresh air to this apartment as the fanner continues 
 in operation. But if AA be placed freely in connection with 
 the open air, and J3 with the room to be ventilated, then fresh 
 air will be propelled into this apartment. 
 
 The fanner is often supplied with air on one side only, as in 
 Fig. 82, the currents produced in this manner being treated 
 as in the preceding case. 
 
 There is perhaps no class of instruments in which greater 
 improvements have been made in recent years than in these 
 for the movement of air, particularly the fanner, the screw and 
 the pump. Nevertheless, both in hotels and houses, it is recom- 
 mended that the structure should be arranged, wherever it is 
 practicable, to give adequate ventilation without them. Fur- 
 ther, where they are used, instruments of great magnitude and 
 moving with a low velocity, are preferable to those of a small 
 size propelled with great velocity. 
 
98 
 
 TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 THE landlord of a tenement house finds that there is great com- 
 plaint of cold and draught on the ground floor, of heat and bad 
 air in the upper floors, and of an offensive atmosphere from 
 the basement and cellars pervading the staircase generally, and 
 obtaining access from it to the habitations on all the different 
 floors. He knows also, that water comes in from the roof, 
 injuring the upper floor on the breaking up of every frost, 
 when snow has accumulated there, and desires to place the 
 whole building in better condition. 
 
 The drainage of the basement requires attention in the first 
 instance, where it is ascertained that it is subject to the infiltra- 
 tion of water at all times, particularly when the tide is full, and 
 that the surface of the floor is perpetually damp. Nothing so 
 effectually checks this evil as raising the level of the floor by 
 filling it in with materials that set as a cement, covering the 
 whole with some waxy, bitumnious, or asphaltic composition 
 that has no objectionable odor, making the drainage good, and 
 trapping the drain so as to exclude entirely any gaseous pro- 
 ducts from a neighboring sewer. If is better to leave a cellar 
 with an altitude of six feet only, and a dry floor, than to have 
 it damp, whatever be its height and the amount of accommo- 
 dation it may afford. 
 
 Further, from the operations carried on in the basement, 
 where there is a powerful stove and cooking apparatus acces- 
 
Section en the Line AB. Fig.84. 
 
 N 
 
 * 
 
n 
 
 Ffg.86. 
 
TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 sible to all the families on the different floors, as well as a 
 boiler, it is essential to have a special ventilating flue from the 
 basement, /, Fig. 83, and to fix a board, ra, ra, about one foot 
 deep, around the opening for the stairs, and at the level of the 
 ceiling. This gives the flue, /, full power of action in carrying 
 off bad air and vapors at the ceiling, before they descend 
 below the level of the board at my and so long as they are 
 above this level, they cannot escape by the stairs. 
 
 One of the flues in the basement should be appropriated for 
 this ventilation, or at all events an opening made into it, so that 
 it can be used for this purpose, from time to time, and to any 
 extent that circumstances may permit 
 
 To remedy the other complaints, the following arrangements, 
 or some modification of them, are desirable. The staircase has 
 no supply of air whatever, when the doors below are shut, 
 except the small amount that may enter by leakage there ; but 
 sixteen doors on the different floors, as well as the basement, 
 may all draw more or less upon the passage and stairs when 
 there are many fires kindled, and no windows opened for a sup- 
 ply in consequence of the state of the weather. The result is 
 that one or more doors are opened on every floor to derive 
 some benefit from the atmosphere in the staircase, and the 
 lower floors discharge their vitiated air, which ascends and 
 oppresses the occupants of the upper floors. Some of the chim- 
 neys overpower others, drawing down smoke which pervades 
 the staircase. The occupants are forced in self-defence to shut 
 their doors, and open their windows, till the cure becomes worse 
 than the remedy, when they again return to their previous 
 position, alternating between these opposite evils so long as 
 they do not choose to suffer quietly the inconveniences that 
 result from their unventilated dwellings. 
 
V 
 100 TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 The first step in remedying these defects should be to give 
 more air to the staircase, and were the different families to be 
 supplied with warm air in winter by a stove acting on the pas- 
 sage, and charged by the landlord on their rent, he would 
 probably do more by this act to increase the comfort of his 
 houses than by any other measure that could be mentioned. 
 Nor would it be difficult to find parties who would undertake 
 this for a small sum, and make a business of it. People in 
 general don't want ventilation when they are cold or subject to 
 shivering local currents. But there is no mode in which a 
 series of habitations can so economically expend a portion of 
 their fuel, as in warming their passages and staircases. The 
 vertical sides of the skylight, #, #, Fig. 83, afford a good oppor- 
 tunity for the supply of air ; it should enter through perforated 
 zinc, to reduce its impetus, and valves should be provided that 
 the apertures may be closed to any extent in extreme weather. 
 One or two extra openings should also be made at , J, for 
 the discharge of vitiated air in summer, if extra ventilation 
 be required ; but any apertures made above, if large enough, 
 will generally act both for the admission and discharge of air, 
 and it is not desirable to have many valves to close in winter. 
 
 Again, to enable the different floors to partake more readily 
 of the improved supply, the leakage at the doors should be 
 increased by planing the doors slightly below and above, or 
 apertures, <?, <?, c, &c., may be made above each door, and sup- 
 plied with valves or louvres, which will enable them to act in 
 the manner explained in describing " internal windows." 
 
 Entering now the individual habitations on the separate 
 floors which are arranged on a plan very common in some parts 
 of the United States, it will be found that they have no supply 
 of air, except by doors or windows, nor any means of discharge 
 
TENEMENT HOUSES. 101 
 
 except by these or the fire-place at d and e, Fig. 84, while two 
 rooms, p, ^, out of four have no fire-places, and one bed closet, w, 
 has neither fire-place nor window, though provided with two 
 doors. Two still smaller closets, a?, 2, or presses, are interposed 
 between part of the principal rooms, one of which contains a 
 water pipe and sink, the other being devoted to stores. 
 
 All rooms having fire-places, should, if the flues are suitable 
 for this purpose, be pierced immediately under the ceiling, and 
 an aperture, v 9 made square or circular and from four to six 
 inches in diameter, or as near that as the structure and size of 
 the bricks may render most desirable. This can be used on all 
 occasions for the discharge of vitiated air from the ceiling, 
 when the state of the fire and the external weather permits, 
 and every facility should be given to promote its action by a. 
 proper top or cap where it communicates with the external air, 
 so that it may be used as frequently as possible when wanted,, 
 even if no fire be in use. Further, an adjusting valve should 
 be adapted to it, so as to regulate the amount of discharge most 
 suitable at any particular period, or one of the Arnott balance 
 valves usually sold by stove dealers, may be used, where there 
 is a tendency to the return of smoke. 
 
 None of these arrangements, however, give the power to 
 each tenement to secure the active ventilation of a single room 
 in sultry and oppressive summer weather, when an ordinary 
 fire cannot be used, or in a case of fever or other infectious dis- 
 ease, that causes apprehension to the families on every floor. 
 
 Even if no resources for these purposes be provided, the 
 tenement house will be greatly improved by the measures 
 mentioned. But a further improvement is still desirable, the 
 introduction of a special ventilating flue, or the modification 
 of one of the fire-places so as to admit of its being used on all 
 
102 TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 or any of the individual apartments on which it may be deemed 
 right to give it the power of operating. 
 
 Many are deterred from entertaining such a proposition in 
 consequence of the presumed difficulties, but an examination 
 of the examples given in respect to such rooms, will show that 
 this object may be secured at any time for a temporary pur- 
 pose by the use of the fire-places d or e. 
 
 In constructing a new house, however, or altering that under 
 consideration, it would be advisable to remove entirely the par- 
 tition that is indicated at one of the presses x (by dotted lines), 
 and to construct there a special ventilating flue, in every tene- 
 ment, carrying from it two tubes, from four to six inches in 
 diameter, according to the course indicated, and by these a 
 ventilating power could be brought to bear on any of the rooms, 
 bed-rooms, or closets. 
 
 This flue might be constructed in such a manner as to be 
 available for many minor operations, where a very small fire, 
 a lamp, or a gas burner would give all the requisite heat, 
 though the fire-place provided for actual ventilation should be 
 as powerful, to meet extreme cases, as can be safely used with 
 the ventilating flue. 
 
 During warm and sultry weather, the defective ventilation of 
 tenement houses is often greatly aggravated by the want of 
 some small and inclosed fire that can give the little heat required 
 from time to time, at such periods, by numerous families, where 
 the whole habitation is incommoded by the use of the winter 
 stove, if it be resorted to, or much time and fuel lost in using a 
 small portable open fire-place by the currents of air that dash 
 over it, and cool anything that is placed upon it, sometimes 
 almost as rapidly as it is heated. It is a great convenience in 
 such instances, to have the chimney-piece of the apartment 
 
TENEMENT HOUSES. 103 
 
 used as a kitchen, made of iron, and placed as low as the open- 
 ing required at the fire-place will permit, and to have a small 
 portable grate made with light iron, and fitting the interior of 
 the flue at the part indicated at &, Fig. 83. A close-fitting 
 iron door is provided in front at s, Fig. 85, and a valve above 
 at w. With such a resource many minor culinary operations 
 can be conducted, warm air kept in contact with anything 
 placed above the fuel, and all cooling or heating currents regu- 
 lated by the valve on damper w, while from the position of 
 the fires little heat, comparatively, escapes into the apartment ; 
 any amount of protection can be given by non-conductors 
 within the door 8. 
 
 In all such tenements, a small space should be cut off some 
 of the apartments for a closet, whatever other arrangements 
 may be made outside for general use. Without this, trifling 
 cases of disease often become serious, and perhaps few circum- 
 stances give rise more frequently to disease than the want of 
 proper attention to this subject in the construction of the hum- 
 bler class of dwellings. The general remarks accordingly 
 made in reference to drains and closets should form a very 
 special subject of study among the proprietors and occupiers 
 of tenement houses. 
 
 As to the periodical injury to the roof whenever a frost 
 breaks up, it is in general greatly aggravated by the rain pipe 
 being filled with water in many places and frozen so that there 
 is no regular escape for water as the snow begins to melt. The 
 water accordingly accumulates above and often depresses, by 
 its great weight, the centre of the roof, which is never 
 thoroughly drained again till the levels are altered. 
 
 An iron pipe introduced in the rain water pipe, through 
 which steam can be made to pass from a boiler or kettle put 
 
104: TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 on a fire-place in the upper floor, whenever there is an indica- 
 tion of an approaching thaw, will always keep the channel 
 clear, and save much expense and annoyance. 
 
 Few circumstances contribute more to the improvement of 
 the condition of the atmosphere in tenements and other places 
 where it has at last produced effects that have been severely 
 felt, than the introduction of simple tests for indicating the 
 progress of currents of air, and the quality of air that has been 
 greatly deteriorated. For these purposes, a thread, or a small 
 cylinder of paper suspended by a thread, Fig. 86, may be placed 
 before a ventilating aperture as an " indicator " to point out the 
 progress of a current, and whether a back draught does not 
 take place from time to time introducing noxious gases. 
 
 Again, if a phial be filled with lime water, and nine tenths 
 of it be poured out while it is held in such a position that 
 expired air from the operator does not gain direct access to it, 
 then on corking it, and agitating freely the remaining tenth 
 with the air that has entered, there will be a white precipitate 
 of carbonate of lime, in proportion to the amount of carbonic 
 acid in the air. A few trials will teach the operator the 
 appearance he may expect with good air, which contains only 
 a very minute amount of carbonic acid, and with air too largely 
 charged with it. For more precise action instruments termed 
 carbonometers are used, that give the effect of a measured quan- 
 tity of air on the lime water. 
 
 A tubular phial, Fig. 87, having a stopple at either end is 
 more convenient than an ordinary phial for common use. 
 Holding it in an inclined position with the upper stopple out, 
 the lime water is allowed to escape by the lower aperture, till 
 a sufficient quantity has been removed. Both stopples are then 
 restored and the phial agitated to show the result. 
 
TENEMENT HOUSES. 105 
 
 ft 
 
 The phial is cleaned by water and a few drops of acid for a 
 new experiment, washing away the acid completely by the free 
 use of water. 
 
 It would be a great mistake were it supposed that air is 
 always good where it gives no indication of any excess of car- 
 bonic acid. It is true that in the great majority of cases within 
 doors its presence in undue proportion indicates generally the 
 presence of other sources of a vitiated atmosphere, particularly 
 excessive moisture, smoke, and animal exhalations. The test 
 for carbonic acid gives no indications of the whole tribe of ma- 
 larious impurities that are so powerful in the production of 
 disease, nor of many other deleterious gases and vapors. 
 
106 IMPROVEMENT OF BUILDINGS. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXI. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF BUILDINGS IN DENSELY POPULATED DISTRICTS. 
 
 IN carrying out a series of improvements in the construction of 
 buildings in the most densely populated part of a large city, it 
 is desired to replace very inferior and dilapidated tenements by 
 large and well built dwelling-houses for a class of society where 
 each family cannot afford to occupy more than a few rooms, to give 
 the same facilities as are at present available for miscellaneous 
 trades and occupations, and to introduce all improvements that 
 will render these dwellings acceptable among those for whom 
 they are intended, without adding to the rents. It is also 
 desired to give ample space for free and airy streets, and, if 
 possible, to secure a small open plot for the exercise and recrea- 
 tion of children, and for a school, the additional accommodation 
 provided by the more elevated buildings to be erected, giving 
 an opportunity of carrying all these objects into effect. 
 
 Few questions attract more attention on both sides of the 
 Atlantic than those involved in such enterprises, and many are 
 the details of improvement that have been suggested and car- 
 ried into execution. Among these, warming, lighting and 
 ventilating have generally been included, with increased facili- 
 ties for the supply of water, drainage and cleansing. The sub- 
 stitution of incombustible materials for wood as largely as possi- 
 ble, and the charging of the latter with chemicals, to render it 
 less combustible and less subject to dry rot, or the harboring of 
 
r 
 
 d 
 
IMPROVEMENT OF BUILDINGS. 107 
 
 insects, has boon another field of improvement. Stairs, win- 
 dow Bashes, shelving, and beams or joists, all made of iron and 
 combined witli brick arches, now replace much of the inflam- 
 mable material that has so long been in the ascendant. Glass, 
 porcelain and glazed bricks, for the exclusion of moisture, are 
 much employed in many places. And even tables, chairs and 
 bods, long formed with groat advantage of metal for some 
 establishments, are in general use. 
 
 The great object is to combine the opportunities of economy 
 which such an association of habitations necessarily presents 
 with those improved arrangements in structure that have been 
 developed in recent limes, retaining all the individuality and 
 privacy required in every separate dwelling. 
 
 These desiderata are attained with the greatest facility by 
 the continental European system of living in flats or floors, 
 where a very few rooms only are occupied by each family, one 
 that has been long prevalent in Scotland also, from its more 
 especial association with France in former times, though till 
 lately more rarely introduced into England. All the later 
 experiments, both in the United States and in Europe on this 
 subject, appear to hold out this as one of the greatest sources 
 of economy and improvement that can be introduced in popu- 
 lous cities pressed for space, and altogether overcrowded in 
 many particular districts. 
 
 In the supply of pure air, 
 
 The removal of vitiated air, 
 
 The general communication of heat, 
 
 Tho attendance and management of the entrance door, stairs, 
 and passages, 
 
 The supply of steam to every habitation, 
 
 Tho supply of gas, 
 
108 IMPEOVEMENT OF BUILDINGS. 
 
 The construction of closets, 
 
 The right adjustment of drains, 
 
 The provision of flues for the descent of dry ashes, sweepings, 
 and all similar refuse, and in many other improvements, 
 buildings such as those contemplated can largely participate, 
 while individual dwellings constructed without reference to 
 others cannot have the same advantages except at a greatly 
 increased expense. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that there is any intention to under- 
 value the many advantages that attend the construction of 
 habitations where the proprietor or tenant claims everything 
 above and below his dwelling as his own, as far as ever he can 
 reach or penetrate. That is not the question. But how many 
 are the tenements in which there are at least numerous defi- 
 ciencies accompanied often by great discomfort, loss of health, 
 and death, where the system advocated may bring ultimately, 
 within the reach of all, habitations greatly superior to those at 
 present in occupation, and which the inmates cannot expect 
 to attain in any other way ? 
 
 Let the accompanying Figs. 88, 89, exemplify the disposition 
 of the leading chambers and flues for heating, cooling, and ven- 
 tilating, and it will be seen with how much simplicity and 
 economy a series of habitations might be supplied with warm 
 or cool air from a common source, discharge vitiated air indi- 
 vidually into a ventilating chamber provided for all, receive a 
 steam pipe that would give them in an instant any heating sur- 
 face they might require, and a boiling temperature to any 
 liquid they might desire to heat, while windows and open fire- 
 places are as available to them as in any ordinary habitation. 
 Further, if desired, all fire-places may be conveyed into a sin- 
 gle ventilating turret, or into the vitiated air shaft, and the 
 
IMPKOVEMENT OF BUILDINGS. 109 
 
 whole of the roof be left available for use, or planked as a gene- 
 ral resort in the cool of the evening, where the view, the 
 climate, and the time of year render such opportunities grate- 
 ful and agreeable, without being subject every moment to 
 offensive products of combustion from a kitchen or any other 
 fire-place. 
 
 Fig. 90 illustrates an arrangement of fire-flues that has been 
 executed, a large horizontal flue receiving a series of flues from 
 different floors, and discharging the products that pass through 
 them by a single shaft. It is not recommended, however, that 
 such flues should be introduced except where the system 
 adopted can be properly sustained and controlled under one 
 direction, and the draught of the shaft started or assisted by a 
 fire at/*, on all necessary occasions. 
 
 The diagrams, 88, 89 and 90, illustrate plans accordingly 
 that cannot be completely and satisfactorily carried out unless 
 they are controlled and managed in the same manner, to some 
 extent at least, as public buildings similarly constructed. 
 Much must depend on the details in individual buildings. 
 Where a shaft can always be maintained at a moderate elevation 
 of temperature sufficient to command a draught by the waste 
 heat from any kitchen, boiler, or other fire-place, a concentra- 
 tion or union of flues effected with the view of leaving a roof 
 entirely free from smoke is in many places so highly prized 
 that it will always be viewed as an object of importance. 
 
 In the transverse section, Fig. 89, to which the same figures 
 apply as in the general section, Fig. 88 a, is the fresh air and 
 heating chamber supplied with air from some altitude, the qua- 
 lity of the air at a lower level being indifferent ; 5, the vitiated 
 air chamber in the roof ; <?, <?, <?, &c., individual rooms or spaces 
 that can be converted into a series of rooms ; d, open corridors 
 
110 IMPROVEMENT OF BUILDINGS. 
 
 and a large window at the end of each corridor or passage ; w, 
 w, the walls by which tempered warm air is given to flues in each 
 room according to the season of the year, the vitiated air flues 
 being placed in the upper part of the same walls. /", the fur- 
 nace, to be used when requisite for the ventilation. 
 
 ra, w, the boiler room, and other places used as cellars, 
 closets, and store rooms appropriated to the difierent habita- 
 tions. 
 
 Every individual crowded locality should be carefully stu- 
 died in reference to the sanitary improvements of which it 
 appears to be most susceptible, or to stand in the greatest want. 
 In some places cleansing is the great desideratum ; in others, 
 better drainage, closets, and a good supply of water. In ano- 
 ther series of habitations no fair prospect of any permanent 
 improvement can be held out till causes of a moral and social 
 complexion shall have been the subject of attention. 
 
EXTERNAL VENTILATION. Ill 
 
 OHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 EXTERNAL VENTILATION. 
 
 THE question of external ventilation that is, the preservation 
 of a pure atmosphere without a building, from which it may 
 obtain an unobjectionable supply of air is no less important 
 than ventilation within, doors. It may not be to the same 
 extent under control, but external air often exerts an extreme 
 influence, capable of producing the worst eifects. Many cir- 
 cumstances connected with the condition of the air may be as 
 entirely beyond the control of man as the quarter from which 
 the wind blows. Others again are as much within his power 
 as the system of ventilation adopted in individual dwellings. 
 If the surface drainage and external cleansing be indifferent, 
 impurities may arise indefinitely from such sources. If the 
 house drainage and sewerage be imperfect, evils of equal mag- 
 nitude may ensue. All collections of stagnant water loaded 
 with animal and vegetable debris are deleterious. The vege- 
 tation of special plants, as some water-lilies, and the presence 
 of fish, contribute to purify many waters. In some valleys 
 without any natural opening, the atmosphere would become 
 pestilential were it not for the purifying influence of vegetation. 
 Again, the materials used in different manufactories, the 
 processes conducted there, and even the amount of smoke dis- 
 charged in some cases, produce a most injurious effect upon the 
 atmosphere of many habitations. 
 
112 EXTERNAL VENTILATION. 
 
 The system of building adopted may in itself be prejudicial 
 and require alteration. A block of land, surrounded on every 
 side by lofty buildings, has, in a stagnant atmosphere, a very 
 indifferent supply of air; and if there should be any sources 
 of nuisance within the block, the air from them, particularly 
 when the barometer falls, is apt to pervade the whole area. 
 Many places also, even though not surrounded on every side, 
 have no sufficient openings from side to side, or end to end, to 
 admit of an adequate circulation of air. 
 
 Lastly, the position of the district in respect to hill and dale, 
 land and water, and the soil or foundation on which the build- 
 ing rests, and all circumstances connected with any local, geo- 
 logical peculiarity, or variety of climate, should be taken into 
 consideration. In a valley where the prevailing winds sweep 
 across the top of the rising ground on either side, buildings 
 below are often subject to excessive heat and moisture. On 
 isolated hills the air is scarcely ever in equilibrio; perpetual 
 changes ensue; air is constantly drifting from side to side; 
 heavy gases and vapors descend, while those that are light 
 escape upwards. In the valley, the great object is to excite 
 ventilation and remove stagnant, vitiated air. On the hill 
 to secure protection from its natural but excessive operation. 
 
 Again, if two houses exactly similar to each other be built, 
 and the one be founded on gravel, and the other on a bed of 
 granite, surrounded on every side by materials of the same 
 kind, it will be obvious that rain and moisture will be removed 
 rapidly by the gravel, while, without artificial drainage very 
 carefully provided, it will stagnate on the granite foundation. 
 The same is observed in districts abounding in clay, and in all 
 places below any water line in the vicinity. 
 
 Further, even in open porous ground, where 'gravel may 
 
EXTERNAL VENTILATION. 113 
 
 predominate, if the overflow or waste from any large cesspool 
 shall not be sufficiently washed away and diluted by the natu- 
 ral waters of the district and the artificial supply by which 
 they are assisted, the whole ground near it will become satu- 
 rated to an extent that must injuriously affect the atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 Cesspools should, accordingly, be very cautiously extended, 
 lest they should eventually be the source of malaria, and ulti- 
 mately contaminate streams of water which it may be import- 
 ant to preserve from such impurities. 
 
 All collections of stagnant water, in the immediate vicinity 
 of houses, that cannot be directly removed by drainage, 
 should be treated with quicklime, added from time to time till 
 they lose their noxious qualities. 
 
 From these observations, the more prominent points will 
 become apparent, that should engage attention in examining 
 the locality in which it may be intended to build or select a 
 house. Nothing, however, should be examined more carefully 
 than the influence of the prevailing winds in conveying vitiated 
 air from any marsh or manufactory, and the power which the 
 proprietor may have in preventing any noxious works from 
 being established in the vicinity, or enforcing them at least to 
 be so conducted as to prevent any annoyance to those without, 
 by processes similar to those explained in reference to the 
 decomposition of noxious emanations. 
 
 Tn offices or individual apartments hemmed in on every side 
 by tall buildings, the air is sometimes very good, at other times 
 loaded with emanations from cellars and drains below or chim- 
 neys above. Products of combustion, visible or invisible, are 
 sometimes blown down on one side of a court, affecting all air 
 
 supplied by the windows on that side, and giving rise to long 
 
 8 
 
EXTERNAL VENTILATION. 
 
 continued headache or dyspeptic symptoms that give way with 
 a change of dwelling. 
 
 The influence of stagnant pools and marshes on the atmos- 
 phere is well known, but the insidious effects of manufactories 
 discharging vitiated air among a dense population, have not 
 received a proportionate attention ; nor are the manufacturers 
 themselves always aware of it, as the fumes, gases and vapors 
 are often less concentrated upon the workmen, however dense 
 in chemical chambers and chimneys, than upon any house in 
 the vicinity. It is vain for them in such cases to appeal to the 
 health of the workmen. In other instances, those engaged in 
 the factory are the first to suffer from the atmosphere developed 
 in it. 
 
 The effect of vitiated air from graveyards does not require 
 so much attention as in former times, as the almost universal 
 recognition of the principle that intra-mural interments ought 
 no longer to be permitted, has reduced one of the greatest evils 
 that often preyed with extreme severity on populous cities. 
 There appears still, however, to be a necessity for improve- 
 ment in many individual localities. Old burial grounds 
 within populous districts, though no longer used for new inter- 
 ments, should be freely and repeatedly sprinkled with quick- 
 lime, wherever offensive emanations are manifest on a fall of 
 the barometer. In some new burial grounds, the use of a few 
 lime shells at every burial, is desirable. In all, the most 
 vigorous and active vegetation should be sustained on the sur- 
 face, as the most pleasing and available means of absorbing 
 noxious gases and vapors, and preventing the formation of a 
 malarious district, prone to convey its evil influence even to 
 the distance of miles, in particular conditions of the atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
DEATHS AND CLOSETS. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 
 
 i 
 
 No arrangements conduce more to comfort and health in indi- 
 vidual habitations, than the right construction of the closets, 
 drains, and sewers connected with them. The drains at the 
 National Hotel at Washington, during the prevalence of the 
 severe illness that recently took place there, presented a marked 
 example of evils that are common both to town and country, 
 to one side of the Atlantic and the other, and in all places 
 where the warnings of the nostrils are habitually disregarded, 
 and inadequate provision made for the effective removal of 
 decomposing refuse. In London, after the experience of a 
 thousand years, the magnitude of the evils arising from the 
 pollution of the Thames has attracted so much attention that 
 millions of pounds are to be expended in improving its condi- 
 tion, and counteracting the effects that have arisen from the 
 unrestricted discharge of the contents of the sewers into its 
 waters. But the condition of Paris, Berlin, and other large 
 cities not provided with means of discharge by water, without 
 rendering what is available still more intolerable than the 
 Thames at London, a preeminence which the Seine, at least, 
 has not attained, equally presents an important problem for 
 adjustment. Further, the innumerable habitations in the sub- 
 urbs of all large cities, and in country places, where extended 
 drainage and sewerage, if it ever be introduced, cannot, at 
 
116 DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 
 
 least for one or more generations, be expected to assume a sys- 
 tematic form, demand the most careful attention. 
 
 When the supply of water is adequate, and a proper system 
 of drainage and sewerage in operation, the great desiderata in 
 each habitation are the entire exclusion of air proceeding from 
 drains and sewers, and the ventilation of individual closets. 
 
 If a leakage of bad air be manifest from any drain, which is 
 not removed on flushing it with a copious stream of water, it 
 should be carefully examined, repaired if any local defect be 
 observed, and above all, its gaseous contents should be discon- 
 nected by a proper trap, from the sewer into which it leads. 
 A sewer may discharge vitiated air into a drain that may pass 
 into the house from which it proceeds, and the whole contents 
 of the gaseous products from miles of sewerage may in certain 
 cases be conveyed to an individual building. 
 
 When there is a leakage from any considerable portion of a 
 drain, that cannot for some time be put in proper order, it is 
 often desirable to place a ventilating power upon every portion 
 within the habitation affected by it. Fig. 91 indicates a 
 portion of a drain, a a, trapped at both extremities, and a ven- 
 tilating flue, /, discharging vitiated air from it. By this flue 
 it may be led to any fire-place where the products can be 
 decomposed or rendered innocuous. Fresh air enters at all 
 cracks, crevices, and other openings, & ~k &, that previously 
 discharged vitiated air. Such a remedy applied at any hotel 
 or other building gives immediate relief, the water traps, I 5, 
 permitting the free flow of the ordinary drainage, while they 
 cut off on both sides all gaseous emanations, either from drains 
 or sewers \mmmm indicate the various openings from the 
 lesser drains proceeding from the building to that portion of 
 the drain which is ventilated. Wire gauze is introduced at w, 
 
DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 117 
 
 where the presence of combustible or explosive gases may be 
 apprehended. 
 
 Fig. 92 shows a ventilating flue worked by steam which can 
 be made to act on the drain in the same manner as the fire in 
 Fig. 91. It has the disadvantage of not consuming the pro- 
 ducts, but does not require wire gauze where inflammable 
 gases are evolved. 
 
 Large sewers should always be ventilated at special places, 
 selected for the purpose, and shafts built for this object, when 
 it is desirable to remove the vitiated air in them, and to prevent 
 that extreme intensity of bad air being developed that is 
 formed; in an absolutely air-tight sewer. When frozen or other- 
 wise obstructed, and not ventilated, deleterious gas may be 
 forced through the water and under the traps, as in Fig. 93, 
 rendering them entirely useless. 
 
 Again, in individual closets, within habitations, the usual 
 mode of ventilating consists in opening a window. The result, 
 however, is that vitiated air is often blown from the closet to 
 the contiguous passage, and from that to the house, instead of 
 being discharged externally. 
 
 Fig. 94 illustrates the removal of a dangerous atmosphere 
 from a portion of a sewer by the action of a fanner previous to 
 the workmen entering with the view of repairing it ; mm, 
 are temporary obstructions to the further ingress of bad air. 
 
 In any house having a special ventilating flue or shaft, one 
 branch should be led to it from the closet ; and then, on all 
 occasions when the window is shut, vitiated air from the closet 
 will be discharged by the ventilating flue. Air may pass from 
 the passage to the closet, but none return from the closet to the 
 passage, unless the window or door be too widely opened, and 
 the draught to the passage strong. 
 
118 DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 
 
 The same practice ought to be adopted in reference to all 
 cellars, individual apartments, cavities, or other spaces where 
 vitiated air may be apt to accumulate. 
 
 Another point connected with this subject, of great practical 
 importance, involves the whole question of the right adjust- 
 ments for refuse in all places where there are no proper facili- 
 ties for an extended system of drainage and sewerage, and 
 where it is an object not to allow the material to run to waste. 
 
 The usual practice is the formation of large cesspools that 
 are periodically cleansed, once or twice a year, and leave a 
 mass of decomposing materials in a state of putrefactive fermen- 
 tation throughout the whole year, except when frozen by the 
 extreme cold of winter, as offensive to the nostrils as they are 
 injurious to health, and prone too often to contaminate the 
 ground in the vicinity with a perpetual malaria. 
 
 Every possible effort should be made to abate and alter such 
 sources of nuisance and disease, and in many places of the 
 indefinite multiplication of insects. 
 
 This subject assumes still greater importance when it is taken 
 in conjunction with the fact that in many districts the pollution 
 of the springs and streams is becoming so great, from the ordi- 
 nary drainage and sewerage, that it has led to the inquiry for a 
 remedy, equally applicable to the cesspool and to the common 
 sewer. 
 
 How far new improvements may be realized, it is difficult 
 to predict, but one point at least is manifest, that by draining 
 off the liquid contents of such cesspools, by rendering them 
 much smaller, by more frequent cleansing, and by the addition 
 of various chemicals or other materials capable of absorbing 
 moisture, the present system may be entirely altered, deprived 
 of all its worst features, and the refuse converted into a dry, 
 
DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 119 
 
 inodorous manure, the sale of which would at least compensate 
 for the arrangement by which it is effected. 
 
 The number of trials that have been made of the system 
 adverted to render it desirable that it should receive much 
 more general attention, and that the agriculturist and the archi- 
 tect should lend their cooperation in carrying out an improve- 
 ment that has been BO warmly advocated, and which has 
 already been partially carried into operation in many places. 
 The removal, condensation, and absorption of moisture, forms 
 the great feature of this plan. The materials then do not lose 
 by fermentation ; they become dry and inodorous ; they are 
 removed with little offence or objection ; they become much 
 more valuable as manures. 
 
 For such an object, accordingly, an iron tank, or other 
 receptacle, should be so constructed as to be freely accessible on 
 one side for the removal of refuse. This side, also made mov- 
 able, should be next a door that can be opened so as to admit of 
 a small cart being brought immediately under it whenever it is 
 to be emptied. There should also be prepared a proper store 
 of dried earth, burnt clay, ashes, turf, charcoal, powdered gyp- 
 sum, green vitriol, or any other absorbents of moisture and of 
 ammoniacal gas, such as can be conveniently obtained in each 
 particular locality. 
 
 It is not presumed that arrangements for such purposes can 
 be extensively introduced without some previous care and pre- 
 paration in all populous districts where they may be most 
 urgently required. But whenever the air is largely conta- 
 minated with the offensive cesspool, too much importance can- 
 not be attached to the substitution of the dry closet, raised to a 
 proper altitude, to admit of its being attended to with facility 
 and economy. In numerous country places where it forms no 
 
120 DRAINS AND CLOSETS. 
 
 part of the system adopted to convert such refuse entirely into 
 fluid manure, the plan may in general be at once adopted. 
 
 But let it not be supposed that the very partial measure of 
 merely connecting a cesspool with a drain or sewer can do 
 much good. On the contrary, whatever advantages it may 
 have in removing fluid contents, it is often accompanied by a 
 still more intolerable atmosphere than before ; the materials 
 being more, though not sufficiently accessible to the air, 
 become still more putrescent, if the drain or sewer be not 
 carefully trapped. Further, vitiated air may now be added 
 from an indefinite extent of drains or sewers. Such are too 
 frequently the results of attempts at drainage without an ade- 
 quate supply of water, and where the provisions are too imper- 
 fect either for a proper system of liquid drainage, or for the 
 construction of dry closets by the means explained. 
 

 1 
 
 V 
 
 
DECOMPOSITION OF NOXIOUS GASES. 121 
 
 OHAPTEE XXXIY. 
 
 DECOMPOSITION OF NOXIOUS GASES FROM MANUFACTORIES IN POPU- 
 LOUS DISTRICTS. 
 
 A MANUFACTORY in the midst of a dense and populous district 
 discharges offensive and deleterious gases and vapors. "What 
 resources are available for the prevention of just complaints, 
 without resorting to the extreme measure of removing the 
 manufactory from a site where numerous interests desire to 
 retain it ? 
 
 In crowded cities and populous districts, few causes are more 
 frequently the source of great oppression than the discharge of 
 vitiated air from manufactories where noxious products arise 
 directly from the materials used, and the chemical agents 
 mixed with them, or are formed during their decomposition 
 by heat. The higher the temperature of the climate, the 
 greater in general is the annoyance they give. 
 
 In some cases, it is attempted to remove the evil by lofty 
 chimneys discharging the vitiated air at a considerable altitude. 
 It is seldom, however, that the factory is so arranged as to pre- 
 vent all noxious emanations escaping, except by such chim- 
 neys. And even when this is the case, they are prone to 
 descend upon individual places with various winds and cur- 
 rents, so that there is no certainty of their removal. 
 
 The desire not to interfere with trade often induces many to 
 submit to the offensive atmospheres thus produced, in the 
 belief that no remedy but removal is available. 
 
122 DECOMPOSITION OF NOXIOUS GASES. 
 
 Difficulties often increase in dealing with such questions 
 where the distinction is not made between those cases where a 
 population rises around the factory, and others in which the 
 factory is introduced among numbers in a locality previously 
 free from such causes of offence. In the first case, the manu- 
 facturer has a claim to compensation, or to assistance from the 
 neighboring district, if compelled to remove, or to alter his 
 processes so as to remedy the subject of complaint. 
 
 In doing this it will greatly facilitate numerous adjustments 
 if it be recollected that all emanations from animal and vegeta- 
 ble materials may be entirely consumed and decomposed by 
 the combined action of heat and air, so as to be resolved into 
 products of the same nature, and consequently not more objec- 
 tionable, than those that proceed from the combustion of ordi- 
 nary fuel. Further, all noxious gases and vapors, not altered 
 in this manner by heat, may be decomposed, or absorbed by 
 the action of chemicals, such as chlorine, lime, alkalies, acids, 
 and other substances, according to the nature of the offensive 
 products formed. 
 
 Fig. 95 points out the general arrangement of flues in a 
 factory where many operations are carried on that evolve 
 offensive products, decomposable by heat, but requiring differ- 
 ent treatment, according to their several peculiarities, and the 
 amount formed in a given time, a indicates a boiler evolving 
 such products ; 5, a small fire acting on them in a shaft, when 
 it is sufficient for the purpose ; d d, the course they are made to 
 take when the most powerful mode of decomposition by heat 
 is necessary to give satisfaction : /, the furnace used on such 
 occasions ; A and B are valves regulating the course taken by 
 different products, according as they merely discharge them 
 into the shaft S, or force them previously through the decom- 
 
DECOMPOSITION OF NOXIOUS GASES. 123 
 
 posing furnace ; f x x a?, are apertures in various descending 
 flues or channels, by which the vitiated air from other pro- 
 cesses, or apartments with stoves, may be conveyed to the shaft 
 with or without the use of the decomposing furnace. 
 
 Figs. 96 and 97 show more particularly a plan and section 
 of the decomposing furnace. The large supply of fuel not 
 resting on the furnace bars gives an abundance of red hot 
 cinders at all times, and the fresh air passages, tinted red on 
 either side of the furnace bars, permit a sufficiency of fresh air 
 to maintain constantly all the bright fire requisite, when the 
 transmitted vapors or gases are otherwise apt to extinguish the 
 fire of the decomposing furnace. 
 
 When inflammable gases or vapors are disengaged, they 
 are usually diluted largely with air before they are conveyed 
 to the decomposing furnace, so as to diminish or avoid all risk 
 of explosion, and made, as an additional security against the 
 return of flame, to pass through several leaves or frames of 
 wire gauze, very carefully fitted. Further special adaptations 
 must be made to meet the peculiarities of individual cases. 
 
 In the three following Figs., 98, 99, 100, different modes are 
 shown of subjecting the passing currents to the action of mate- 
 rials that absorb, condense, or decompose the impurities which 
 it is desired to correct or remove.* 
 
 Fig. 98 indicates a ventilating shaft put in action by a fire, 
 and drawing vitiated air through a condensing chamber, where 
 masses of chalk and other chemicals absorb all the acid ema- 
 nations evolved. 
 
 In Fig. 99 the ventilating power is a fanner, worked by a 
 
 * These and the three preceding figures are taken (slightly modified) from one of 
 the reports drawn up by Dr. Reid, when engaged as one of the Commissioners for 
 the health of towns in populous districts in England and Wales. 
 
124: ABSORPTION OF NOXIOUS GASES. 
 
 small engine which pumps at the same time the absorbing 
 fluid and returns it constantly in the form of a shower of rain, 
 till its action ceases, when a fresh charge is used. 
 
 The shower of artificial rain is often used as a moving power 
 in the manner indicated in Fig. 100, where the counteracting 
 agents are gaseous chemicals evolved from materials disen- 
 gaged in broad plates, with upturned edges, like basins. 
 Steam from a boiler aids the moving power, and may be 
 used alone for this purpose. 
 
 Of these varied resources, none is so generally useful, or so 
 easily available as the decomposing influence of heat. Cases 
 can be pointed cut where a single furnace has relieved a whole 
 population from the most nauseous and offensive vapors, mani- 
 fest, at times, at the distance of two or three miles, but totally 
 imperceptible, even, in contiguous habitations, when subjected 
 to the action of an effective decomposing furnace. 
 
 THE END.- 
 

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