“Of what important use to human kind, To what great ends subservient is the wind! Where’er the aerial active vapour flies, It drives the clouds, and ventilates the skies; Sweeps from the earth Infection’s noxious train, And swells to wholesome rage the sluggish main. For, should the sea unagitated stand, Death, with huge strides, would desolate the land; The scorching sun, with unpropitious beam, Would give to grief an everlasting theme; And baneful vapours, lurking in the veins, Would fiercely burn with unabating pains. Such were the plagues that spread o’er Egypt’s land, When Moses, taught by God, stretch’d forth his hand; From animated dust fell myriads rose, And vengeance shed o’er Israel’s harden’d foes.” Signal benefit from ventilation was observed some years ago in the Savoy and Newgate prisons, in both of which the jail fever was, as it had always been, frequent and very fatal. It was tried on the recommendation of the great and good Dr. Hales, whose studies and experiments were constantly directed to the benefit of mankind. The good effects exceeded even the Doctor’s most sanguine expectations, for the numbers attacked were greatly decreased, and the fever became less fatal, after due ventilation had been established, and the supposed contagion had been thereby arrested. On a reference to the writings of the benevolent Howard, we shall perceive that he found the prisons on the Continent perfectly free from pestilential fever, owing to the apartments in which the prisoners were confined being spacious and well-aired. “Leaves, lungs, and gills the vital ether breathes, On earth’s green surface, or the waves beneath.”