Colds and Ventilation

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 54

Colds and Ventilation

In the Lumleian Lectures now being deliveied before the Royal College of Physicians, Dr Gee, speaking of the causes of bronchitis, draws attention to the infective noture of what' is generally spoken of as a "common cold." The doctrine that most catarrhs are due to a specific infection, spreading from man to man, has (says the Hospital) very important bearings upon medical practice. " It leads us to believe that the means by which we may prevent catarrh -are to be found in ventilation and cleanliness, if, indeed, ventilation be not a kind of cleanliness. Experience confirms this belief. When epidemic catarrh prevails, where do we find most of our patients? In those houses which are obviously the worst ventilated, even though they be the spacious mansions of the rich. And where do our patients catch their catarrh? Either in houses of the kind just mentioned, or in buildings where men most do congregate, especially in offices, shops, and churches. Large shops .and stores, public museums and libraries, are ventilated as little as possible, for fear of- their contents being spoiled by smoke and dust. Many churches, both in town and country, are never properly aired for another reason — namely, because their architecture does not admit of it. Those "rich windows which exclude the light " do worse than this, they exclude the air. The revival of Gothic architecture, says Dr Gee, has been, from the sanitary point of view, a great mistake. Our despised forefathers of the eighteenth century erected plain and simple buildings, which could at least be well aired, well lighted, and kept warm and comfortable ; nay, even the much-ridiculed churchwarden, with his brush and pail of whitewash, was a praiseworthy minister ot health. Modern dwellings are no better than the churches. In the matter of domestic sanitation people have fixed their attention too exclusively upon the drainage and the water supply ; light and air are not reckoned. Many of the large brick houses which have been built in great numbers at the West End of London and elsewhere during the last 25 years cannot be properly ventilated. The well of the staircase ought in every house to be a reservoir of fresh air, and to have an independent supply from without. But in many houses the staircase cannot be ventilated, except through the rooms, and, if fact, it never is ventilated. Nor are the rooms themselves much better off ; their heavy ~mullioned windows are designed with small -regard to the transmission of light and air. The subsidiary and merely ornamental arts, which do no more than please the eye, are studied to the neglect of that far greater art which promotes the happiness and welfare of the whole man — the art of preserving health.