MOTOR EXHAUST DANGERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 79, 3 April 1926, Page 19

MOTOR EXHAUST DANGERS

The possibility of motor traffic in j towns becoming a danger to the health of the community in a new and unexpected way is emphasised by Dr. Yandell Henderson, of Yale University, in the current number of the "British Medical Journal." Dr. Henderson," whose work on the effect of gases on the blood is well known to scientists, has estimated the concentration of carbon monoxide, a constituent of the exhaust gases of motors, in New York City. It is 1 per cent., a figure which is "on the verge of being definitely in- | jurious." Carbon monoxide is an inI visible gas whose presence in coal gas makes it poisonous and whoso inhalation in mines causes the deaths from "after-damp." It combines with the blood, and prevents oxygen so combining. Recently ,an English scientist startled smokers by stating that they inhaled very nearly enough of the gas in one cigar to poison a normal man. There have recently been several deaths in England from the habit of starting cars in garages, and so causing a dangerous concentration of the gas, says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." The effect on sensitive persons of a day in the crowded streets of big cities is well known; headaches, sickness, and semi-collapse are often seen among visitors and occasional shoppers. These symptoms are those of carbon-monox-ide poisoning, and Dr. Henderson's warning deserves Berious consideration. As he says, the gases from the exhaust of a motor are much more dangerous, though they are invisible, than the disfiguring smoke from chimneys and railway engines. : Dr. Henderson'siremedy is the introduction of vertical exhauat pipes on cars, and it is noteworthy that these were attached to British ambulances during the war, though probably from other reasons. There is little risk of any serious damage to human life, since (though Dr. Henderson does not mention it) the presence of dogs amongst us will always serve, like the canary among the miners, as a sure indication of a dangerous percentage of the gas. They are very easily killed by it, and it tenda to sink, so that they would first suffer. '' The new Mersey tunnel provides a much more serious problem with regard to the same gas. Special ventilation methods will be necessary, and those actually chosen, on the advice of Professor Haldane, are based on the researches of Dr. Henderson on the Hudson River tunnel.