Chapter 8

By means of these exercises the chest is gently but effectively expanded in every direction and the elasticity of its walls promoted, the air cells are expanded, and the lungs are rendered more permeable to the respired air, and the strength of the respiratory muscles is developed.

Fig. 3 illustrates an exercise for the chest that is taken without any apparatus other than an ordinary doorway. The exerciser should stand in the position indicated in the engraving, and then step forward with each foot alternately as far as possible without stretching the chest too severely. The longer the step the more vigorous the exercise will be.

Fig. 4 shows an exercise taken between two chairs; the position indicated in the cut having been assumed, the chest is then slowly lowered and raised three to six times. This exercise is adapted to strong persons only.

THE EFFECTS OF ADEQUATE RESPIRATION IN SPECIAL CASES.

When the nutrition of the body is promoted by effective respiration, and waste matters are promptly removed, the chances that tubercle will be developed in persons who are predisposed thereto are reduced to a minimum.

Better materials are furnished by the nutritive processes to renew the tissues, so that the occurrence of those degenerations that result in various fatal affections, peculiar to the decline of life, are rendered much less probable or are prevented altogether, and the chances that death shall take place by old age is increased. The system possesses much greater resisting power against the influence of malaria and the poisons that give rise to typhoid fever, scarlatina, diphtheria, measles, etc.

When the motions of a woman's respiratory organs are normal and are properly communicated to the pelvic organs, she enjoys the greatest possible immunity attainable against the development of any diseases peculiar to the sex.

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VITAL DISCOVERIES IN OBSTRUCTED AIR AND VENTILATION.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read by Wm. C. Conant before the Polytechnic Association of the American Institute, New York, May 10, 1883.]

I suppose that we all consider ourselves to be sufficiently impressed with the importance of ventilation. If I should stop here to declaim against foul exhalations, or to dwell upon the virtues of fresh air, you might feel inclined to interrupt me by saying, "Oh, we know all about that! If you have anything practical to advance, come to the point." Gentlemen, I beg your pardon, but I must say that the great fact concerning ventilation, as yet, is that its strongest advocates are not conscious of one-half the seriousness of the subject; and the second fact is that the supposed means of ventilation prescribed by science _fail to secure it_.

This, then, is my point to-night--the supreme necessity, still urgent, and _universally_ urgent, for a reformation of the breath of life. I believe in a promised time when the days of a man's life shall again be as the days of a tree. And next to the abolition of vice and sin, I believe that the very grandest factor of such result must be an entire disuse of obstructed air for the lungs. I propose to bring forward some evidence of the necessity, and likewise of the possibility, of a reform so radical and sweeping as this. The subject is too wide for the occasion. I shall be able to read only extracts from what I have prepared, in the few minutes that you can give with patience to my unpracticed lecturing.

The best prescription that doctors have to give (when we are not too far gone to take it) is to live out of doors. Why is this? Why is life out of doors proverbially synonymous with robust health? Why is it that a superior vitality, and a singular exemption from disease, notoriously distinguish dwellers in the open air, by land or sea? Without disparaging the virtues of exercise or of bracing temperature, indispensable as these are for the recuperation of enfeebled constitutions, we must admit that among the native and settled inhabitants of the open air high health is the rule in warm climates as well as in cold, and with the very laziest mortals that bask in the sun, or loaf in the woods. The fact is that simple vegetative health seems to be nearly independent of all other external conditions but that of a pure natural diet for the lungs. Man in nature seems to thrive as spontaneously as plants, by the free grace of air, earth, and sun. On the other hand, the very diseases from which houses are supposed to defend us--that most numerous class resulting from colds--are the special scourge of the lives that are most carefully shielded from their commonly supposed cause--exposure to the open air. Those diseases diminish, and entirely disappear, just so far as exposure in the pure and freely moving air becomes complete and habitual. Soldiers, inured to camp life, catch cold if they once sleep in a house; and, generally speaking, the inhabitants of the free air contract colds _only_ by exposure to confined exhalations from their own or other bodies, within the walls of houses. The explanation of this is plain and simple: Carbonic acid detained within four walls accumulates in place of the breath of life--oxygen--and narcotizes the excretory function of the skin. The moment that this great and continual vent of waste and impurity from the system is obstructed, internal derangement ensues in every direction. All hands, so to speak, are strained to extra duty to discharge the noxious accumulation. The lungs labor to discharge the load thrown back upon them, with hastened respiration, increased combustion, and feverish heat. The pores of the mucous membrane in the nose, throat, alimentary canal, or bronchial passages, are forced by an aggravated discharge (or catarrh), and this congestive and inflammatory pressure is a fever also. There is nothing of "cold" about it except as an auxiliary and antecedent, in cases where an external chill has struck upon nerves already half paralyzed by the universal narcotic--carbonic acid--which house dwellers may be said to "smoke" perpetually.

So much for nerve-poison; but blood-poisoning is a still more terrible characteristic of house-protected existence. It is now the almost universal opinion of the medical profession that the whole class of malarial and zymotic diseases that make such frightful progress and havoc in the most civilized communities, are due to living germs with which the exhalations of organic waste and decay are everywhere loaded in inconceivable numbers. They are known to multiply themselves many times over, every two or three hours. They swarm into the blood by millions, through all the absorbents, especially those of the lungs, that drink the atmosphere in which they are suffered to linger and propagate. Mr. Dancer, the eminent microscopist, counted in a sample from such an atmosphere a number of organized germs equivalent to 3,700,000 in the volume of air hourly inhaled by one person. That is over 60,000 germs per minute, and about 2,000 in every breath. In the blood, they still propagate, and feed, and grow, consuming its oxygen, thus defeating its purification, and turning that stream of otherwise healthful and invigorating nutrition into a stream of effete and corrupt matter--a sewer rather than a river of life--or at best an impoverished and impure supply for the support of existence.

The same pestilential but invisible hosts of bacteria, mustered and bred in the close filthiness of Oriental cities, and jungles, swarm out as Asiatic cholera on the wings of the wind, sweeping the wide world with havoc. Settled on the tropical shores of the Eastern Atlantic, they lie in wait for their victims in the sluggish and terrible coast fever. On the western coast of the same ocean, perhaps from some cause connected with oceanic or atmospheric currents, they make devastating irruptions inland, as yellow fever, in every direction where the walls of their enclosure are low enough to be freely passed. These, let us remember, are all essentially the same organic poison that is engendered _wherever_ life and death are plying their perpetual game; and this, like Cleopatra's "worm, will do its kind" in the veins of man, wherever obstructions, natural or artificial, temporary or permanent, interfere with its prompt diffusion in the vastness of the general atmosphere. Our "house of life" stands generously open, for every "inmate bad" to come and go through the absorbent, unquestioned, except in the stomach, where the tangible poisons have to go by the act of swallowing and where they are often challenged and ejected. It seems at first thought very strange that we are not so well protected by natural instinct or sensibility from the subtle poisons of the atmosphere as from those that can affect us only by the voluntary act of swallowing. The obvious explanation, however, of this apparent neglect is that Nature protects us in general from gaseous poisons by her own system of ventilation; and if, when we devise houses, necessarily excluding that system, we fail to devise also a sufficient substitute for it, the consequences of such negligence are as fairly due as when we swallow tangible poison.

I have hitherto referred only to the _dispersion_ of poisonous exhalations, as if the best and most necessary thing the atmosphere can do for us were to dilute the dose to a comparatively harmless potency. But this is now known to be not the true remedial process with respect to the zymotic germs. The most wonderful achievement of recent investigation reveals a philosophy of both bane and antidote that astonishes us with its simplicity as much as with its efficiency. At the moment when humanity stands aghast at the announcement that germs are not destroyed by disinfectants, comes the counter discovery that they are rendered harmless by oxygen. It seems that it makes no difference, really, of what sort or from what source are the bacteria that we take into the blood. The only material difference to us depends on _the sort of atmosphere_ in which their hourly generations are bred. For example, the bacteria _developed in confined air_, from a simple infusion of hay, are found by experiment to be as capable of generating that most terrible of blood poisoners, the malignant pustule, as are the bacteria taken from the pustule itself.

On the other hand, the bacteria from the malignant pustule itself, after propagating for a few hours in pure and free air, become a perfectly harmless race, and are actually injected into the blood with impunity. The explanation of the strange discovery is this--note its extreme simplicity--bacteria bred in copious oxygen perish for want of it as soon as they enter the blood vessels; whereas those inured to an unventilated atmosphere for a few generations, which means only a few hours, are prepared to thrive and propagate infinitely within our veins; and that is the whole mystery of blood poisoning and zymotic diseases. Taken in connection with the narcotic or _nerve-poisoning_ power of carbonic acid (to which all the classes of diseases resulting from colds are due), we have also in this simple but grand discovery the whole mystery of the question with which we set out--why free air is health, and why sickness is a purely domestic product. The restitution of natural health to mankind demands only, but demands absolutely, the constant diffusion in copious and continuous floods of atmospheric oxygen, of the nerve-poisoning carbonic acid of combustion (organic and inorganic), and of the blood-poisoning bacteria of organic decomposition.

We find, then, as a matter both of experience and of philosophy, that life or death, in the main and in the long run, turns on the single pivot of atmospheric movement or obstruction. The resistance of mere rising ground or dense vegetation to a free movement of the air from low-lying levels performs an obstructive office similar to that of the walls and roofs of houses, and with like effect. The invariable condition of unhealthy _seasons_ and _days_ is a state of rarefaction and stagnation of the atmosphere, when the poison-freighted vapor cannot be lifted and dispersed, and every one complains of the sultry, close, "muggy" (meaning _murky_) feeling of the air. Few reflect, when fretted by the boisterous winds of March, upon the vital office they perform in dispersing and sanitating the bacteria-laden exhalations let loose by the first warmth from the soaked soil and the macerated deposits of the former year.

The passing air, then, that we breathe so lightly, is on other business, and carries a load we little think of, and that is not to be trifled with. This grand carrier of nature, on business of life or death, must not be detained, must not be hindered! or they who interfere with the business by restraining walls and roofs will take the consequences. It is a good deal like stopping a bullet, except as to consciousness and suddenness of effect.

That men live at all in their obstructed and therefore poison-loaded atmosphere, is a proof of the wonderful efficiency of the protective economy of Nature within us; so wonderful, indeed, that few can believe the fact of living to be consistent with the real existence of such a deadly environment as science pretends to reveal. It is a common impression, therefore, that actual results fail to justify the alarm sounded by sanitarians. Hence the necessity for calling attention at the outset to an ample and manifest equivalent for the deadly dose of confined exhalations taken daily by all civilized men. We perceive that that dose is not lost, like the Humboldt River, in a "sink," but reappears, like the wide-sown grass, in a perennial and universal crop of diseases, almost numberless and ever increasing in number, peculiar to house-dwellers. The trail of these plagues stops nowhere else; it leads straight to the imprisoned atmosphere in our artificial inclosures, and there it ends. That marvelous protective economy of Nature within us, to which we have referred, is no perpetual guaranty against the consequences of our negligence; it is only a limited reprieve, to afford space for repentance; and unless we hasten to improve the day of grace, the suspended sentence comes down, upon us at last with force the more accumulated by delay.

Now, therefore, the grand problem of sanitary science (almost untouched, almost unrecognized) proves to be no other and no less than this:

What can be done to remedy the obstructive nature of an inclosure, so that its gaseous contents shall _move off_, and be replaced by pure air, as freely, as rapidly, and as incessantly, as in the open atmosphere?

It happens to be the most necessary preliminary in approaching this problem, to show how _not_ to do it, for that, respectfully be it spoken, is what we have hitherto practiced, as results abundantly prove. Fallacies, both vulgar and scientific, obstruct our way. A fundamental fallacy respects the very nature of the work, which is supposed to be _to get in fresh air_. In point of fact, this care is both unnecessary and comparatively useless. Take care of the bad air, and the fresh air will take care of itself. Only make room for it, and you cannot keep it out. On the other hand, unless you first make room for it, you cannot keep it _in_; pump it in and blow it in as you may, you only blow it _through_, as the Jordan flows comparatively uncontaminated through the Dead Sea. This is a law of fluids that must be kept in view. The pure air is quite as ready to get out as to get in; while the air loaded with poisonous vapors is as sluggish as a gorged serpent, and will not budge but on compulsion. Such compulsion the grand system of wind _suction_, actuated by the sun, supplies on the scale of the universe; and this we must imitate and adapt for our more limited purposes.

It would seem as if we need not pause to notice so shallow though common a notion as that which usually comes in right here, namely, that confined air will move off somehow of itself, if you give it liberty; being supposed to be much like a cat in a bag, wanting only a hole to make its escape. Air is ponderable matter--as much so as lead--and equally requires force of some kind to set it or keep it in motion. But applied philosophy itself relies on a fallacious, or, at best, inadequate source of motive power for ventilation. It gravely prescribes ventilating flues and even holes, and promises us that the warmed air within the house will rise through these flues and holes, carrying its impurities away with it, from the pressure of the cooler and denser air without. But we very well know that the best of flues and chimneys will draw only by favor of lively fires or clear weather. They fail us utterly when most needed, in warm and murky weather, when the barometer is low, and the thin atmosphere drops, down its damp and dirty contents, burying us to the chimney tops in a pestilent congregation of vapors.

Nevertheless, so far as I can discover, these holes and flues, at best a little fire at the bottom of the latter, are the sole and all-sufficient expedients of science and architecture for ventilation to this _day_, in spite of their total failure in experience. I can find nothing in standard treatises or examples from philosophers or architects, beyond a theoretical calculation on so much expansion of air from so many units of heat, and hence so much ascensional force _inferred_ in the ventilating flue--a result which never comes to pass, yet none the less continues to be cheerfully relied on. Unfortunately for the facts, they contradict the philosophy, and are only to be ignored with silent contempt. A French Academician's report on the ventilation of a large public building, lately reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution, states with absolute assurance and exactness the cubic feet of air changed per minute, with the precise volume and velocity of its ascension, by burning a peck of coal at the bottom of the trunk flue. No mention is made of the anemometer or any other gauge of the result asserted, and we are left to the suspicion that it is merely a matter of theoretical inference, as usual; for every one who has had any acquaintance with practical tests in these matters knows that no such movement of air ever takes place under such conditions, unless by exceptional favor of the weather.

I have seen a tall steam boiler chimney induce through a four inch pipe a suction strong enough to exhaust the air from a large room as fast as perfect ventilation would require. But this, it is well known, requires four hundred or five hundred degrees of heat in the chimney. I never saw an ordinary domestic fire of coals produce any noticeable ventilating suction, without the use of a blower, urging the combustion to fury, and I presume nobody else ever did.

But, while nobody ever saw an active suction of air produced by the mere heat of a still or unexcited fire--unless the _quantity_ of heat were on a very large scale--everybody has seen a roaring current sucked through the narrowed throat of a chimney or a stove by a blazing handful of shavings, paper, or straw. It is very remarkable, when you come to think of it, that the burning of an insignificant piece of paper, with less heat in it, perhaps, than a pea of anthracite, will cause a rush of air that a bushel of anthracite cannot in the least degree imitate. It is not only a curious but a most important fact. In short, it is _the cardinal_ fact on which ventilation practically turns. But what is the nature of it? There are three factors in the phenomenon. In the first place, the mechanical peculiarity of flame, or gas in the moment of combustion, as compared with a gas like air merely heated, is _an almost explosive velocity of ascent._ The physical peculiarity from which this results is the intensity of its heat--commonly stated at 2,000 degrees, as to our common illuminating gas--acting instantaneously throughout its mass, just as in gunpowder. The gas goes up the flue in its own flash, like the ignited charge in the barrel of a gun: the burning coals can only _send_, and by a leisurely messenger, namely, the moderately heated gases, and contiguous air, that rise only by the gravitation or pressure of the surrounding atmosphere.

And yet it is not the small flame itself that roars in the chimney but the rush of air induced by it. The semi-explosion of flame is but for an instant, though constantly renewed, and its explosive impulse cannot carry its light products of combustion very far through stationary and resistant air. It is _the induction of air_ carried with it by such semi-explosive impulse (under proper mechanical conditions) that is strange to our observation and understanding, and is the second factor in the phenomenon we are accounting for and preparing to utilize.

The process, as it actually is, may be clearly exhibited by a very simple means. Let anyone take a tube, say an inch in diameter--a roll of paper will do as well as anything--and, applying it closely to his mouth, try the whole force of his lungs through it upon any light object. The amount of effect will be found surprisingly small; and unless the tube is a short one, it will be so far absorbed by friction and atmospheric resistance as to be almost imperceptible. Then let him hold the same tube near to the mouth, but not in contact, and repeat the experiment. With the best adjustment, the effect may be described as tenfold or fifty-fold, or almost any fold--the effect of the simple blowing being merely nominal as compared with the induced current added by blowing _into_ the tube instead of _in_ it. The blast enters the free and open orifice with all the contiguous air which its surface friction and the vacuum of its movement can involve in its rolling vortex. While the entrance is thus crowded with pressure, the exit is free; and the result at the exit is a blast of well sustained velocity and _magnified volume;_ ready itself to repeat the miracle on a still larger scale if provided with the apparatus for doing so. To test this, now place a second and larger tube in such position as to prolong the first in a straight line, but with a slight interval between the meeting ends; so that the blast, as magnified in volume in entering the first tube, may enter in like manner the second tube and be magnified again. With correct adjustments this experiment will prove more surprising than the first. Put on a third and still larger tube in the same way, and still larger surprise will meet a still larger volume and force of blast, like a stiff breeze set in motion by the puny effort of a single expiration. Of course, the prime impulse must bear a certain proportion to the result; and the inductive or tractional friction of the initial blast, of flame or breath, will be used up at length unless re-enforced. In ventilating practice, there _is_ such re-enforcement, from an excess of gravity in the cooler atmosphere outside the flue in which the flame is operating with its heat as well as its ascensional traction; so that there has been found no limit to the extensions and fresh inductions that may be added to the first or trunk flue, with increase rather than diminution of power at every point. But the terms on which such extensions must be made have been referred to in our illustration, and must be accurately ascertained and observed. They constitute what is, in effect, the third factor in the phenomenon of a roaring draught, and also, therefore, ineffective ventilation. That is, the entering or induced current of air must always find its channel of progress and exit certain correct degrees larger than the opening by which it entered. Every one knows that a stove or chimney wide open admits of but little suction in connection with even the blaze of paper or shavings.