DANGEROUS BREATHING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8082, 24 September 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANGEROUS BREATHING.

Professor Preyer, one of the moat distinguished physiolgists of Germany, and specially noted for his experiments on the process of respiration, remarks in a recent article on hygiene:—"lt is one of the many inconsistencies of civilised men and women that whereas neglect of cleanliness in clothing or food is considered unpardonable, they do not hesitate to breathe air which reeks with filth of the worst description." What is the source of these atmospherio impurities. There are several sources. " One is the devitalised air, charged with carbonic acid gas, that is constantly exhaled from every pair of lungs. Professor Huxley say 3 that "to be supplied with respiratory air in a fair state of purity, every man ought to have at least SOO cubic feet of space to himself, and that space ought to be freely accessible, by direct or indirect channels, to the atmosphere." Now, if we consider that " a cubical room 9 feet high, wide, and long, contains only 729 cubic feet of air," we understand how shamefully moat human beings are oxygen-starved in their small, crowded, unventilated rooms. But the most objectionable impurities in the air we breathe in our rooms are the millions of particles of dust which float about in it. Those people who breathe through the mouth draw dust constantly into their lungs, where it remainspermanently ; for Professor has shown that the exhaled air is absolutely free from dust particles. Professor P«,eclaru asserts that city people at the age of thirty usually have in their lungs a whole gramme of calcareous dust which they can never again get rid of, and which may engender dangerous disease. Few people know that their skins as well as their lungs need a constant supply of oxygen. The skin, as well as the lungs, breathes and purifies the blood, as is shown by the fact that the arterial blood which goes to the skin does not turn venous and dark elsewhere, but remains red and pure.—Epoch (U.S.).