Philadelphia is one of the healthiest cities in the United States, and,
in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, few more healthy cities
exist in the world.
This is not owing especially to its more salubrious situation, but
should be attributed, in a great measure, to the accidental superiority
of the ventilation of a large proportion of its dwelling-houses.
Notwithstanding this comparative excellence, the theory of ventilation
is not so thoroughly understood, nor is the practice so perfect, even
in this city, that no advantage can be gained by further knowledge upon
the subject.
Far from it. From the very best information we can command, and with
the most accurate statistics at our disposal, we are forced to the
conclusion that about forty per cent. of all the deaths that are
constantly occurring are due to the influence of foul air.
The Registrar of Records of New York gives nearly half the deaths in
that city as resulting from this cause.
The deaths in this city for 1865, according to the report of the Board
of Health, were seventeen thousand one hundred and sixty-nine; the
average age of those who died was between twenty-three and twenty-four
years. It ought to have been twice that, as shown by some districts in
the city and also in the country, where the houses are so arranged that
they frequently have good ventilation.
Taking the deaths caused by foul air at a very low estimate, say forty
per cent. of the whole, (the per centage from that cause is not so great
as in New York,) we have six thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight
deaths in this city, caused alone by impure air, in one year.
It is estimated by physicians that there are from twenty-five to thirty
days of sickness to every death occurring; there would therefore be
something like two hundred thousand days of sickness annually as an
effect of foul air.
We all know how very expensive sickness is, but few persons realize
the enormous aggregate expense of unnecessary sickness in a city like
Philadelphia.[1]
This subject has awakened much interest in Europe of late years, and
has led to the expenditure of immense sums of money, for the purpose
of improving the sanitary condition of its cities.
Dr. Hutchinson estimated the loss to the city of London, growing out of
preventable deaths and sickness, at twenty millions of dollars annually,
and Mr. Mansfield estimates the loss from this cause to the United
Kingdom at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
In the single State of Massachusetts, an estimate exhibits an annual
loss of over sixty millions of dollars by the premature death of persons
over fifteen years of age.
It is estimated that a few only of the principal items of expense
incurred by preventable sickness in the city of New York amount to
over five millions of dollars annually.
And if it is thought that Philadelphia is exempt from such enormous
unnecessary expense, just glance at the report of the Board of Health
for last year, and see how the deaths from disease of the lungs largely
exceed those from any other disease.
Consumption is almost entirely the result of breathing impure air,--it
is as preventable by the exclusive use of pure air as _maniaa potuor_
drunkenness is by the exclusive use of pure water. And see, too, what
slaughter among the innocents--over twenty-five per cent. of the whole
deaths were under one year of age.
The infantile mortality is by many considered the most delicate sanitary
test. But why does such an intelligent community as this so neglect
its own interest?
They have listened to and satisfied the first imperative demands of
nature--shelter from the elements and warmth,--and in doing this they
have not brought into use that much higher order of intellect which can
alone teach them how to supply, in connection with an agreeable warmth,
an abundance of pure air in their otherwise air-tight houses.
I have been much interested in examining a large collection of tables
of the analysis of air, which accompany a report to Congress, on
"Warming and Ventilating the Capitol," prepared by Thomas U. Walter,
Professor Henry and Dr. Wetherill. These tables were made by men of
various nations, giving the results of their analysis of air taken
from all manner of places, from great elevations on the mountains and in
balloons, from the valleys, from the centre of the ocean, and from the
middle of the continent, in cities and in the country, in winter and in
summer, at night and in the day, and also the comparative analysis of the
air _out of doors and in houses_. Believing that these would be of much
interest and assistance to us in the investigation of the subject under
consideration, I have had copies made of some of the most interesting.
These give the per centage of carbonic acid in the air as the test of
the amount of impurities in it.
This is not an infallible test by any means--there are various other
causes of deterioration. There is the exhaustion of the oxygen constantly
occurring to support combustion and animal life; there are various other
deleterious products of combustion and respiration besides carbonic
acid. But, as carbonic acid is always found in certain known proportions
in pure air, and is always formed in certain known quantities by
respiration or combustion, it is considered by many to give a very fair
indication of the condition of the atmosphere with reference to its
influence on animal life or combustion.
I think one of the most valuable lessons to be learned by the study of
these tables is the uniform purity of the external atmosphere all over
the world, even in large cities.
This is strikingly illustrated in the case of the analysis of the air
in the city of Manchester.
We have nothing in this country like that city, where two millions of
tons of coal are burned annually, the smoke from which fills the air
and stretches like a black cloud far into the country.
Thus, added to the five hundred tons of carbonic acid thrown from the
lungs of its animal life every day, are many times that amount, (some two
thousand tons,) daily, pouring out from its forest of factory chimneys.
To this city were the labors of the "Health of Towns Commission" first
directed, to see if they could not find in the air of its streets that
mysterious influence that has caused such alarm throughout the civilized
world, as the thoughtful and intelligent sanitarian sees one-half of
all his fellow-citizens hurried to untimely graves.
They were disappointed, and well might Dr. Smith exclaim, after the
most thorough and careful investigations, "How insignificant are the
works of art in contaminating that vast ocean of air that is constantly
sweeping over the surface of the earth!" But do not be discouraged:
more recent investigations have discovered the whereabouts of this
pestilential breath.
I have placed the table of Dr. Angus Smith's analysis of the air of
Manchester at the head of the list, and have copied it complete, because
it is the only table that I have examined of the analysis of the air of
towns in Europe or North America, in which there occurs an amount of
carbonic acid exceeding ten parts in ten thousand.
Here we see three such cases in the twenty-eight experiments, one ten,
one twelve and one fifteen.
The average of the whole is also greater than in any other similar
tables, being about seven and a half parts in ten thousand. This is
certainly quite a perceptible contamination, pure air containing four
or four and a half parts in ten thousand. Yet considerable as this
appears in this view, the additional amount of carbonic acid is only
the proportion that would be added to the air, if unchanged, of a room
fifteen feet square and ten feet high, by a father, mother and three
children, with a gas-light, in seven minutes.
And this, probably, is the highest average contamination that is produced
by artificial means upon the air of any city in the world.
There are, of course, great natural causes which affect the air of
whole countries, such as the decomposition of great masses of vegetable
matter similar to that occurring on the low flat lands along rivers,
especially where they overflow their banks, like the Ohio and Mississippi.
The best system of ventilation, as applicable to this kind of foul air,
is to keep as far out of its reach as possible.
The other tables giving the analysis of the air of London, Paris, Madrid,
Geneva, Bolton, England, at different elevations on the mountains, on the
Atlantic Ocean, Washington City and various other places, are interesting
only because they show so great a uniformity in the carbonic acid, seldom
exceeding six parts to the ten thousand, and seldom under four.
But now let us look upon the other side of the room. Here we have tables
giving the "carbonic acid in houses." Here we will find very different
results. But the first is a green-house; in that there is no trace
of carbonic acid in the evening and scarcely a trace in the morning.
Plants, you know, absorb the carbonic acid, and give off oxygen, while
animals absorb the oxygen and give off carbonic acid, thus keeping up
the equilibrium in nature, as is so beautifully shown in the aquarium.
Plants are generally supposed to give off carbonic acid at night, but
it must be in very small quantities.
I consider them very conducive to health in a living-room, morally and
physically.
But this want of carbonic acid does not last long.
The next is M. Dumas' lecture-room. At commencement of lecture 42.5,
and at close of lecture 67 parts in ten thousand.
Now, I think we are on the right track for discovering that mysterious
poison that has carried so many of our friends to their graves, even
in the very prime of life.
Here we have dormitories, 52; do., 37; asylum, 17; school-room, 30;
do., 56; Chamber of Deputies, 16; Opera Comique, parterre, 15; do.,
ceiling, 28; stable, 7; do., 14; hospital, Madrid, 30; do., do., 43;
air of bed-room on rising in the morning, 48; the same after being
ventilated two hours, 16; railroad car, 34; workshop, Munich, 19; full
room, do., 22; lecture-room, 32; beer-saloon, 49; and worst of all is
a well-filled school-room, 72 parts of carbonic acid in 10,000.
That, I think, is enough. Here we have the solution of the whole mystery.
It is not in the external atmosphere that we must look for the greatest
impurities, but it is in our own houses that the blighting, withering
curse of foul air is to be found. We are thus led to the conclusion
that _our own breath is our greatest enemy_.
The "Health of Towns Commission," in their investigations, after
examining various trades, where the employees were confined mostly in
houses, and having left the scavengers to the last, expecting to find a
rich harvest of mortality among them, were much surprised to find them
more healthy than many very clean occupations, but which were conducted
in houses instead of in the open air. I have not the statistics before
me, but I should not be surprised to learn that that singular race of
beings that live in the sewers of Paris were as healthy, if not even
more so, than the operatives of some of those exquisitely beautiful,
clean, air-tight factories of New England.
There was quite an account made a few years ago of the wonderful cures
of consumption that had been performed by the patient being removed to
the stable where he could be in close proximity to the cow, and I have
no doubt many consumptive patients would find great benefit by such a
course of treatment, not that there is any virtue in the smell of the
cow, but that the air of the cow-stable would be nearer pure than that
of their own chamber.
Many go or send their families to the country in summer to get fresh
air. Some go to the sea-side, others to the mountains; but there ensues
a greater change in a few minutes in a close bed-room by being occupied
by a family than there is difference between the external air of any
city and that of the country.
The reason why cities are so much more unhealthy than the country, is
not because the air in the street is so much more impure, but because
the houses are so built together that this vast ocean of air cannot
get at and through them to purify them as it does in the houses in the
country, and the reason why Philadelphia is so much more healthy than
its neighbor, New York, is because the houses here are built more like
those of the country, so that the air can sweep all around them, and
sometimes through them.
I therefore believe, that a family living in the filthiest street in
our city, if they were careful to have a constant current of air from
that street, filthy as it was, passing through the house at all times,
night and day, would be more healthy, other things being equal, than
a family spending their winters in the finest house, if kept air-tight,
in the healthiest location in the city, and their summer in the country,
especially if they were always careful to exclude the _night air_ from
their bed-rooms.
I say "night air;"--there is, unfortunately, an unnecessary prejudice
against what is termed night air, which means, I suppose, fresh external
air from the dark.
To show that this is not a new idea, I will read a few lines from the
writings of a very accurate reasoner and an eminently practical mechanic
and philosopher, one whom I consider even now one of the very best
authorities upon the subject of heating and ventilation. I mean the
illustrious man after whom this Institute was named, Benjamin Franklin.
In his letter to Dr. Ingenhaus, physician to the Emperor, at Vienna,
he says: * * * * "for some are as much afraid of fresh air as persons
in the hydrophobia are of fresh water. I myself had formerly this
prejudice--this _aerophobia_, as I now account it,--and dreading the
supposed dangerous effects of cool air, I considered it an enemy, and
closed with extreme care every crevice in the rooms I inhabited.
Experience has convinced me of my error. I now look upon fresh air as
a friend: I even sleep with an open window. I am persuaded that no common
air from without is so unwholesome as the air within a close room that
has been often breathed and not changed. Moist air, too, which I formerly
thought pernicious, gives me now no apprehensions; for considering that
no dampness of air applied to the outside of my skin can be equal to what
is applied to and touches it within, my whole body being full of moisture,
and finding I can lie two hours in a bath twice a week, covered with
water, which certainly is much damper than any air can be, and this
for years together, without catching cold, or being in any other manner
disordered by it, I no longer dread mere moisture, either in air, or in
sheets or shirts; and I find it of importance to the happiness of life,
the being freed from vain terrors, especially of objects that we are
every day exposed inevitably to meet with.
"You physicians have of late happily discovered, after a contrary opinion
had prevailed some ages, that fresh and cool air does good to persons
in the small-pox and other fevers. It is to be hoped, that in another
century or two we may all find out that it is not bad even for people in
health. And as to moist air, here I am at this present writing in a ship
with above forty persons, who have had no other but moist air to breathe
for six weeks past; everything we touch is damp, and nothing dries, yet
we are all as healthy as we should be on the mountains of Switzerland,
whose inhabitants are not more so than those of Bermuda or St. Helena,
islands on whose rocks the waves are dashed into millions of particles,
which fill the air with damp, but produce no diseases, the moisture being
pure, unmixed with the poisonous vapors arising from putrid marshes and
stagnant pools, in which many insects die and corrupt the water. These
places only, in my opinion, (which, however, I submit to yours,) afford
unwholesome air; and that it is not the mere water contained in damp
air, but the volatile particles of corrupted animal matter mixed with
that water, which renders such air pernicious to those who breathe it;
and I imagine it a cause of the same kind that renders the air in close
rooms, where the perspirable matter is breathed over and over again by
a number of assembled people, so hurtful to health.
"After being in such a situation many people find themselves affected by
that _febricula_, which the English alone call a _cold_, and, perhaps,
from that name, imagine they have caught the malady by _going out_
of the room, when it was, in fact, by being in it."
Now, to show that his hopes have not yet been fully realized, although
one century has nearly closed since he wrote what I have just read,
and this unnecessary and unfortunate prejudice against night air still
prevails extensively, I will read a few lines from the highest public
medical authority in this city. It is the instructions of the Board of
Health for the prevention of cholera for 1866: