WHAT IS BAD AIR? by Dr. C. W. Lyman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 43.

WHAT IS BAD AIR?

By Dr. C. W. Lyman

BY DR. C. W. LYMAN.

LAST week we explained the constant process of devitalization of the air of living rooms.

We also need to remember that the air of our habitations and of large cities becomes constantly loaded with gases from combustion and decomposition, with exhalations from the lungs and skins of the inhabitants, and with bacteria that are multiplying on all hands. These germs are growing in our clothing and carpets, under beds and bureaus, in pantries, in the dust in the cracks of the floor, in the dirt of the streets and cellars. Whenever bad air and dirt are shut in together, the growth of germs becomes very rapid, and the germs themselves become more noxious in character. Now, these germs that grow in everything filthy not only add to the pollution of the air about, but are largely inhaled with that air, and use up a certain amount of our vitality in killing off such as become lodged in our air passages. Another liability is illustrated in the experiment of a physician affected at the time with bronchitis. If he examined his sputa while staying in a close, warm room, he found it presenting under the microscope myriads of noxious microorganisms. If he then went out into the fresh air, for half an hour, the microbes nearly disappeared from the secretions in his throat. But they reappeared and began to multiply when he returned to the air of an unventilated room.

It is now easy to see why absolute cleanliness in all our belongings and surroundings is so profitable. One more experiment is worth mention, for the light it throws on what bad air is, and why it is actively poisonous, as well as deficient in oxygen. Someone took a quantity of air exhaled directly from the lungs and condensed and cooled it till the contained moisture was precipitated in drops. The liquid so formed was found to be a virulent poison, promptly killing animals into which a little was injected. Air containing an extra amount of carbonic acid gas, if it also contains plenty of fresh oxygen, supports respiration well enough. It is air charged with the poison thrown off with previous exhalations that sickens one so, not to mention that its oxygen still present is largely "devitalized" in the manner previously described.—N. Y. Voice.