Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In the stage building we often find four or five actors placed in
one small, overheated, unventilated dressing room, located in the
basement of the building, without outside windows, and fitted with
three or four gas jets, for actors require a good light in "making
up." More attention should be paid to the comfort and health of the
players, more space and a better location should be given to their
rooms. Every dressing room should have a window to the outer air, also
a special ventilating flue. Properly trapped wash basins should be
fitted up in each room. In the dressing rooms and in the corridors and
stairs leading from them to the stage all draughts must be avoided,
as the performers often become overheated from the excitement of the
acting, and dancers in particular leave the heated stage bathed in
perspiration. Sanitation, ventilation, and cleanliness are quite as
necessary for this part of the stage building as for the auditorium and
foyers.
It will suffice to mention that defects in the drainage and sewerage
of a theater building must be avoided. The well-known requirements
of house drainage should be observed in theaters as much as in other
public buildings.[8]
[8] The reader will find the subject discussed and illustrated in the
author's work, Sanitary Engineering of Buildings, vol. i, 1899.
The removal of ashes, litter, sweepings, oily waste, and other refuse
should be attended to with promptness and regularity. It is only by
constant attention to properly carried out cleaning methods that such
a building for the public can be kept in a proper sanitary condition.
Floating air impurities, like dust and dirt, can not be removed or
rendered innocuous by the most perfect ventilating scheme. Mingled with
the dust floating in the auditorium or lodging in the stage scenery
are numbers of bacteria or germs. Among the pathogenic germs will be
those of tuberculosis, contained in the sputum discharged in coughing
or expectorating. When this dries on the carpeted floor, the germs
become readily detached, are inhaled by the playgoers, and thus become
a prolific source of danger. It is for this reason principally that the
processes of cleaning, sweeping, and dusting should in a theater be
under intelligent management.
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