A Practical Physiology: A Text-Book for Higher SchoolsBlaisdell, Albert F. (Albert Franklin)
Science
A Practical Physiology: A Text-Book for Higher Schools
Blaisdell, Albert F. (Albert Franklin)
Human physiology; Physiology
The necessity of having a proper supply of fresh air in enclosed
places, and the need of removal of impure air are thus evident. If a
man were shut up in a tightly sealed room containing 425 cubic feet of
air, he would be found dead or nearly so at the end of twenty-four
hours. Long before this time he would have suffered from nausea,
headache, dizziness, and other proofs of blood-poisoning. These
symptoms are often felt by those who are confined for an hour or more
in a room where the atmosphere has been polluted by a crowd of people.
The unpleasant effects rapidly disappear on breathing fresh air.
219. The Effect on the Health of Breathing Foul Air. People are often
compelled to remain indoors for many hours, day after day, in shops,
factories, or offices, breathing air perhaps only slightly vitiated,
but still recognized as “stuffy.” Such persons often suffer from ill
health. The exact form of the disturbance of health depends much upon
the hereditary proclivity and physical make-up of the individual. Loss
of appetite, dull headache, fretfulness, persistent weariness,
despondency, followed by a general weakness and an impoverished state
of blood, often result.
Persons in this lowered state of health are much more prone to surfer
from colds, catarrhs, bronchitis, and pneumonia than if they were
living in the open air, or breathing only pure air. Thus, in the
Crimean War, the soldiers who lived in tents in the coldest weather
were far more free from colds and lung troubles than those who lived in
tight and ill-ventilated huts. In the early fall when typhoid fever is
prevalent, the grounds of large hospitals are dotted with canvas tents,
in which patients suffering from this fever do much better than in the
wards.
This tendency to inflammatory diseases of the air passages is
aggravated by the overheated and overdried condition of the air in the
room occupied. This may result from burning gas, from overheated
furnaces and stoves, hot-water pipes, and other causes. Serious lung
diseases, such as consumption, are more common among those who live in
damp, overcrowded, or poorly ventilated homes.
220. The Danger from Pulmonary Infection. The germ of pulmonary
consumption, known as the bacillus tuberculosis, is contained in the
breath and the sputa from the lungs of its victims. It is not difficult
to understand how these bacilli may be conveyed through the air from
the lungs of the sick to those of apparently healthy people. Such
persons may, however, be predisposed, either constitutionally or by
defective hygienic surroundings, to fall victims to this dreaded
disease. Overcrowding, poor ventilation, and dampness all tend to
increase the risk of pulmonary infection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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