And baneful vapours, lurking in the veins,
Would fiercely burn with unabating pains.
Such were the plagues that spread o’er Egypt’s land,
When Moses, taught by God, stretch’d forth his hand;
From animated dust fell myriads rose,
And vengeance shed o’er Israel’s harden’d foes.”
Signal benefit from ventilation was observed some years ago in the Savoy and Newgate prisons, in both of which the jail fever was, as it had always been, frequent and very fatal. It was tried on the recommendation of the great and good Dr. Hales, whose studies and experiments were constantly directed to the benefit of mankind. The good effects exceeded even the Doctor’s most sanguine expectations, for the numbers attacked were greatly decreased, and the fever became less fatal, after due ventilation had been established, and the supposed contagion had been thereby arrested. On a reference to the writings of the benevolent Howard, we shall perceive that he found the prisons on the Continent perfectly free from pestilential fever, owing to the apartments in which the prisoners were confined being spacious and well-aired.
“Leaves, lungs, and gills the vital ether breathes,
On earth’s green surface, or the waves beneath.”
Dr. Thomas Bateman, writing on the low fevers of London occurring among the poor, observes that he has often been surprised, after having seen a patient in the low muttering delirium of fever while in his own habitation, to find him with clear intellect and invigorated system after passing a night in the House of Recovery, although no medicine whatever had been given. We have ourselves observed the remarkable and decided effects on the pulse, caused by the removal of patients suffering from low typhus and other fevers;—their improvement has been general and decided, merely from the removal from a lower to an upper ward, where the ventilation has been more perfect. Of the many striking illustrations of the benefit resulting from the free access of pure air, the remarkable decrease of disease and death among the carnivora in the Zoological Gardens, as reported in 1845, since the improvement of the ventilation, may be instanced. The following statement, taken from the history of the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, shows in an extraordinary degree the advantages resulting from free ventilation. In this hospital, 2944 infants out of 7650 died in the years 1782–83–84 and 1785, within the first fortnight after their birth,—that is to say, nearly one child out of every six died of convulsions, which were called nine days’ convulsions by the nurses. These children foamed at the mouth, the jaws became locked, the face swelled, and looked blue, as though they were choking. This last circumstance led the physician in attendance to attribute the disease and great mortality to the close and crowded state of the hospital, causing a deficiency of good air. Air-pipes, with other openings, were contrived,—the rooms were kept sweet and fresh by means of ventilation,—and the consequences observed were, that in the year