AIR IN CROWDED ROOMS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XXIV, 12 June 1897, Page 760

AIR IN CROWDED ROOMS.

A writer in the Nineteenth Century says :—• Within doors we find that the number of micro organisms suspended in the air depends, as we should have expected, upon the number of people present, and the amount of disturbance of the air which is taking place. In illustration of this the following experiments, made at one of the Royal Society’s conversaziones, held at Burlington House last year, may be mentioned. At the commencement of the evening, when a number of persons were already present, and the temperature was at oydeg. Fahr., the two gallons of air examined yielded 326 organisms; later on, as the rooms became densely crowded, as indicated by the temperature rising to 72deg. Fahr., the number reached 432. The next morning, on the other hand, when the room was empty, the air yielded only 130, but even this is doubtless in excess of the number which would be present in the room in question under normal conditions, in which, judging from experience. I should expect to find about 40 to 60 in the same volume of air.’