Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.Giles, George Michael James
Science
Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.
Giles, George Michael James
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medical climatology; Tropical medicine
Houses of this type are well suited to climates usually blessed with a
good breeze, and in which the heat during the day does not reach such a
degree as to necessitate shutting it out, and are specially adapted to
places where, from scarcity of labour, there is a difficulty about the
pulling of punkahs. When, however, the midday heat reaches into the
nineties, such a plan of building becomes unsuitable, and it is
necessary to adopt the thick-walled type of house, with comparatively
few floor level openings; the object being to keep imprisoned the cooler
night air, so that the interior may never approach the maximum shade
temperature of the day. It is obvious that the adoption of this
principle quite precludes all proper ventilation, and that unless the
rooms are exceptionally large and lofty it must be positively unhealthy.
At the same time, heat beyond a certain degree induces such severe
nervous and physical prostration that the adoption of this course is
almost unavoidable during the worst hours of the day in such climates as
the Punjab; but the shorter the period the better, and as the same
reasons that render the house cooler than the outer air in the day, make
it hotter at night; it is always well to compensate for the lack of
ventilation during the day by sleeping absolutely in the open at night.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Rough ground plan of an European Bungalow in
Persia.]
Too often, not only the air, but the light is shut out, a course of
action which is as pernicious as it is futile, for unless the sun be
shining directly into the room its temperature will be in no way raised
by admitting an ample amount of light.
There can be no doubt that this baneful practice of keeping children
shut up in darkened rooms is one of the principal causes of the blanched
and enfeebled little ones so often met with in India; for they suffer
promptly from deprivation of light, though they are wonderfully tolerant
of heat, and if unchecked by their anxious mothers, will follow their
own wholesome instincts, and be found romping and tumbling about with
the servants and orderlies in the verandah, at temperatures that make
their parents devote anxious consideration to the question of crossing a
room.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Sketch of bungalow with terraced roof, of a type
very common in the Punjab and United Provinces in India. Speaking
generally, this bungalow is well planned. Its faults are that the
verandah is too low-pitched, leaving a needlessly large proportion of
the external walls exposed to the full power of the sun. The dormer or
ventilating windows also are too low down, as they leave several feet of
confined “dead” air at the top of the rooms. They should have been
placed close up to the cornice.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account