BLAMING THE AIR .

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17804, 31 August 1929, Page 13 (Supplement)

BLAMING THE AIR .

WHEN in doubt" blame the air seems to have been the precept followed by such of mankind as tried to get at the origin of certain things. Not once or twice in the course of the history of discovery the air has been blamed for ill effects when the source of the trouble was something quite different There are at least four outstanding examples of this curious mistake: the first when the idea got abroad that malaria was caused by the air or vapours from marshes, the second when night air was thought to be injurious, the third when the oxygen of the air was believed to he the source of the origin of living “germs”; the. last when the air was blamed for the “going had of wounds.

The belief that malaria was, as the name indicates, due to “bad air” (Italian, mal aria), is a very old one. But we can easily see how it arose, for the Source of the Scourge seemed to be in the neighbourhood of marshes and damp places. The invariable association of damp air and malaria seemed too obvious to be weakened by the question: How can air, damp or dry, he in itself the source of any disease, seeing that air is the very breath of life? So firmly was the malign influence of marshes believed in that the term “paludism” (from the Latin palus, a marsh) was given to it. We now know that all that marshes have to do with malaria (ague) is to be the places where the mosquitoes .breed that carry the parasites of that disease.

Before the discovery' of the microscopic causes of a vast number of diseases —most of them made within living memory—it was so very easy to mistake one thing for another as the source of some particular kind of mischief. The search for causes, which is science, is notoriously difficult; and before one has got a clue, It is

Very Easy to be Misled.

Damp air seemed always associated with ague; therefore as vapours and nothing else could be seen, the damp air was credited with the mischief. It was entirely false; damp air may predispose to illness,, but neither vapour nor air of itself is the specific origin of any disease.

The next example is the notion that night air is bad. Until quite recently this was firmly believed. As in most errors, there is a germ of truth in it. During the night living vegetation exhales carbonic acid gas, and this same substance is one of the waste products of animal breathing. Carbonic acid gas has long been regarded as poisonous to animals. It is the old story of calling a tiling a poison, and then regarding it as such in all dilutions.

Alcohol is a “poison”; above a certain concentration it is thoroughly injurious; below a certain dilution it is anything from a stimulant to a negligible quantity. The idea that night air is bad arose from an injudicious and, indeed, erroneous remark of the Dutchman, Ingenhouz, who in 1779 discovered the fact that during the hours of darkness plants exhale carbonic acid gas. So they do, but not in such a concentration so as to harm either men or animals.

The third example of supposing that the air was the source of some particular thing when 'that was something totally different is in connection with the

Origin of Life Itself,

It is not so very long ago that the great controversy whether life can arise from the non-living was closed. The dispute in its Anal stages became narrowed down

OLD TIME FALLACIES.

(By Professor D. Fraser-Harris, M.D., D.Sc.)

to the problem whence arose the living things that undoubtedly were found growing in carefully sealed-up flasks of organic material put aside for a day or two in a warm place. Before the microscope was applied to the problem, it. could not be known that “the life in these flasks consisted in myriads of extremely minute organisms—the micro-organisms of putrefaction—having gained access to the putrescible matter and continued to live in it.

It all looked as though the air was to blame, for if the flask of broth was left open to the air, life appeared in the broth; and even if the air in the flask was corked up there were still Evidences of Vitality. in the organic contents. The air seemed to have been the cause of the living things. But in reality it was not so; after a long and bitter controversy it was shown that air from which everything had been filtered off through cotton-wool, or which had been passed through a red-hot tube, would not give rise to life in the flask.

It was the mistaking of one thing for another —mistaking the carrier of the living things for the things themselves. The oxygen of the air does indeed support life, but it can no more give rise to life than can any other gas or mixture of gases.

The fourth determination to blame the air was in connection with the introduction of antiseptic surgery. It had for long been a familiar observation that wounds exposed to the air—and more particularly to indoor air—“went bad." This exposure to the air—especially hospital air—as we now know, meant exposure to dust and the invisible microbes; but before Lister applied the microscope to this problem, the true cause of wounds “going bad” was not suspected.

The air as usual was blamed for the frequently disastrous condition of open sores.

With infinite patience Lister showed that it was not the air but what it held that was to be blamed; not what it was hut what, it carried that was objectionable. Under the microscope Lister beheld the minute cellular forms which were causing the pus to putrefy; and so once again the air was exonerated.

We now know that pure air is very beneficial to wounds; like all living things, wounds are the

Eetter of Fresh Air,

On high mountains and in the germ-free air of the ocean, surgeons know well that wounds heal rapidly. Lastly, fresh outside air was at one time actually supposed to be detrimental to people suffering from consumption of the lungs; so these unfortunate ones were shut up in hot. rooms from which fresh air was excluded. To leave phthisical people silting out-of-doors, as is done to-day, was not so very many years ago regarded as a species of murder.

As far back as 1840, Dr. George Bodington, of Sutton Coldfield, published his “Essay oil the Treatment of Pulmonary Consumption,” in which he pointed out the advantages of dry, cool air for Closing and Healing Cavities and Ulcers of the lung. But like all new things it was resisted: Dr. Garrison, in his “History of Medicine,” tells us that “Bodington’s theory was so roughly handled by the medical critics of his day that he was discouraged from carrying it into practice to any extent."

The pioneer painfully smooths a path which others who follow him tread in comparative comfort.