Ventilation | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 19, 1871

Ventilation.

DR. ARNOTT states that many animals were killed at the Zoological Gardens, in London, by putting them into houses that had only an opening a few inches from the floor; it was like putting them under an extinguisher. Canary birds have been found dead in their cages in the morning after having passed the night hung up at the top of a large curtained bedstead, in which the foul exhalations from the sleepers below were retained. Bees take good care to have their hives well supplied with pure air, notwithstanding that the construction of hives is not favorable to ventilation, by a peculiar method of producing currents of air with their wings—one current to carry out the foul air and one to bring in the fresh. Their plan of operating is said to be highly interesting; they adapt the power of their ventilating apparatus to the existing circumstances of the case, as regards the number of active bees in the hive, the heat of the weather, &c. Bees thus show themselves to be better physiologists than are many of our large manufacturers, most of whose workshops are hardly better than hotbeds of disease on account of the noisome atmosphere within them.