SMOKE AND FUMES

Evening Star, Issue 22687, 29 June 1937, Page 12

SMOKE AND FUMES

MENACE TO PARISIANS LUNGS ENCRUSTED WITH GRIME To-day an insidious danger is undermining the health of the population of the great cities, writes Pierre Devaux, in ‘ Gringoire,’ Paris: the chemical poisoning of the atmosphere by industrial smoke and fumes, which threatens to assume the proportion of a national peril, Paris particularly is surrounded by a “ girdle ” of factories ■which continually disgorge into the atmosphere their clouds of smoke and gas. “ When I perform an autopsy,” said a celebrated Parisian specialist, “ I can recognise a Parisian immediately by his ‘ black lungs,’ encrusted with grime accumulated by years of breathing impure air!” Now, during times of peace, Paris is the victim of a “ gas attack ” which is so much more pernicious because the population is deprived of means of defence. In addition to this dross which' injures our lungs, let us take into consideration the tiny particles of, tar winch, it is claimed, may cause cancer; and above that, an abuhdant sulphuric poisoning; in other words, we are continually inhaling small quantities of vitriol! A few months ago, the sculptor Bartholome unveiled his celebrated monument “To the dead.” Soon afterwards, it was noticed that the sculpture was the victim of a strange “sickness ” —the reclining figures were corroded as if by an acid! A scandal followed upon this discovery. It was charged that the stone used in the sculpture was of an inferior quality. Fragment's were analysed by scientists and discovered to contain important quantities of sulphuric acid. Bartholome claimed that his work had been destroyed by vitriol. Another startling discovery followed; all the monuments of Paris, from the lacy towers of Notre Dame to the airy spires of the Sainte-Chapelle were dissolving like sugar in the Parisian rain, a rain laden with the noxious acids and fumes of modern industry. The guilty party was none other than the coal dust, heavily laden with sulphuric content, which, after dissolving in the rain, impregnated the porous layer of soot which covers our monuments, was transformed by oxidation into sulphuric acid, and corroded the stono like a canker.

The remedy does not seem easy to find. The impermeable coatings that have been tried have only aggravated the ill by preventing the stone from “ breathing. The only remedy appears to consist in prohibiting the use of coal in industry and substituting coke, gas, pr electricity. ' > Calmette, discoverer of the vaccine which bears his name made a curious experiment on an unfortunate guinea pig. Having ligatured the oesophagus in order to prevent it from communicating with the throat, he nourished the animal by introducing directly into the stomach food adulterated by soot or smoko. He declared that the coally particles traversed the partition of the intestine, invaded the blood, and fixed themselves in the lungs. Thus the coally deposits which wo absorb in eating food polluted by the atmosphere are going into our lungs to join the dust deposited directly by respiration. In this lies the cause ot indirect pulmonary intoxication, particularly to be dreaded for children. Furthermore, the immense cloud formed by the union of all fumes and smoke emitted from factories acts as a shield in arresting the healthful, mi-crobe-killing ultra-violet rays of the sun, and in diminishing the natural content of ozone, a gas that is at the same time purifying and exhilarating. This insufficient ventilation, besides acting as agent in the propagation of epidemics, has as a consequence that the vicinity of the soil, polluted as it is by exhaust fumes of automobiles, and by dust, is the most dangerous spot: that is why children, on account of their short stature, are more liable than adults to the harmful effects of such fumes.

On the other hand, the happiest results have been obtained by the new skyscraper hospital at Clichy, where tubercular patients are lodged in the exhilarating breeze of the west winds, which have not yet been polluted by the poisonous smoko of factories and cities.

What are the means at the disposal of the State in counteracting this terrible concomitant of modern industry? Obviously, of course, to encourage tho erection of factories at healthful distanqes from largo population centres. Also, to limit the use of sulphurous and smoke-bearing fuels; to superintend the installation of smoke-purifiers, and to prohibit the issue of chemical fumes. Such are the measures by which wo may fight against this scourge which menaces, not only the treasures of the past, hut also the existence of generations to come. ■ p-