The new air world : $b The science of meteorology simplifiedMoore, Willis L. (Willis Luther)
Science
The new air world : $b The science of meteorology simplified
Moore, Willis L. (Willis Luther)
Meteorology
A relative humidity of between sixty-five and seventy per cent.
should be maintained in all living and sleeping rooms, if one is to
escape colds, catarrh, and possibly pneumonia. Some nervous disorders
are aggravated if not actually caused by the dryness of the air in
steam and other heated apartments during the time that the windows
are closed in cold weather. The vanity of the female sex is appealed
to with the statement that nothing is more essential to securing
and preserving a good complexion than the maintaining of a proper
humidity in one’s own room. Efficient and simple and inexpensive
humidifiers are now coming on the market. They are almost as
necessary to the health of a household as stoves and furnaces. Often
a right degree of moisture can be created by leaving clean water in
the bathtub and in all wash basins and sinks. One may be surprised
on taking humidity observations to find how quickly it increases in
rooms two or three removed from the bathroom after water is run into
the tub, and especially if the shower spray is turned on and allowed
to operate for a few minutes.
In cold weather we maintain the aridity of the Sahara Desert in
our hot, steam-heated apartments, with a relative humidity of less
than thirty per cent. Is it any wonder that when we step from this
atmosphere into the cold outside air, with a humidity of seventy per
cent., the violent change is productive of harm, particularly to the
delicate mucous membranes of the upper air passages, which have been
irritated and their powers of resistance weakened by the dryness
within? The period of pneumonia is the season of artificial heat in
living rooms—or, more properly speaking, the period of indoor desert
aridity.
=Save Fuel by Moistening Air.= If a room at 68° is not warm enough
for any healthy person it is because the humidity is too low, and
water should be evaporated to bring the moisture up to sixty-five or
seventy per cent. of saturation. Water instead of coal should be used
to make rooms comfortable when the temperature has reached 68°. Ten
to fifteen per cent. of fuel could be saved in the heating of places
of habitation if the air were properly and healthfully humidified.
The reason for this is that if the air is dry the heat passes through
it and warms it but little. Moisture stops the radiated heat that
would be lost, absorbs it, and holds it at the place where it is
needed. It has precisely the same effect as a soft wool blanket
wrapped about the body of each person. The dry air permits such a
rapid evaporation from the human body that one may actually feel
colder with a dry air heated to 75° than in a moist air at 66°
or 68°. Water is cheaper than coal, and in this matter much more
healthful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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