DEATHS CAUSED BY HEAVY FOG.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19247, 8 December 1930, Page 9

DEATHS CAUSED BY HEAVY FOG.

MEDICAL MEN UNABLE TO ADVANCE REASONS.

The story from England and France of loss of life and shipping congestion brought about by an unusually heavy and prolonged fog did not evoke much comment on the part of medical and other authorities approached on the subject to-day. In some quarters the story was largely discounted while almost all who were interviewed said that the information contained in the cables was too meagre and too vague to be discussed with any degree of assurance. The members of the medical profession who were approached confessed their inability to put forward any explanation or even to discuss the various theories that have been advanced. One doctor said that as Professor Haldane, of Cambridge University, had made a statement, it was hardly pos- 1 sible for him to attempt to add anything to the opinion of such an eminent authority. The occurrence, said the doctor, had never been duplicated in this country nor had he heard of anything similar elsewhere. In those circumstances there was really nothing on which an opinion could be ventured. There were several possibilities, any one of which might account for the fatalities. Post mortems were being heldhowever. and when the result was known that would almost certainly clear the matter up. Industrial Areas. Another authority said it was well known that in the industrial towns of certain parts of England it was always difficult to breathe -when there were heavy fogs, which frequently caused the deaths of asthmatics and consumptives. In the present case deaths had been reported from the neighbourhood of Liege, a big manufacturing centre, and probably the cause was the same. ‘ There must have been very extraordinary meteorological conditions in the district affected to cause a heavy fog to last for so long,” said Mr H. F. Skey, who is in charge of the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory. F og, he said, was due to stagnation (or absence of wind) and a strongly humid condition of the air with a somewhat falling temperature. Such conditions might exist over a large area, but any places where they were accentuated would experience the fog first. Sewer Gas. Probably the fog at Home was associated with a low barometer, or, in ether words, low air pressure and consequently such things as escapes of sewer gas putting its usual quota of bacteria into the air could be looked for. The long continuance of foggy conditions might cause them to become much more harmful than usual. Long continued adverse conditions of any sort must find out the w'eaker individuals of the community. That also might account for short continuing fogs not having much effect. Mr Skey said that New Zealand was fortunate as far as fogs were concerned. Heavy fogs of anything more than a few hours’ duration w_ere very rare, and he did not think there was any likelihood of the conditions recorded on the other side of the world being repeated here. Professor E. Percival, Professor of Biology at Canterbury College, declined to comment on .the cable messages. He said that he had nothing to say on the subject, and that the information in the cables was too vague and too contradictory to give any definite idea of what had occurred. (A cable reference to this subject appears on page 1.)