Per contrà. How difficult it is to learn any facts by hearsay we know. Other persons who ought to be good judges think the male side apt to be too warm in winter, especially at night, and consider the temperature on the female side quite sufficient.
Both sides are ventilated both by the windows and by the machinery by day in summer. Both sides are ventilated, each by its own different machinery, by night in summer, except that, exceptionally on hot summer nights, a window is opened two or three times in the night, or five minutes every hour.
Both sides are considered to be ventilated in winter mainly by the machinery by day; and both sides are entirely ventilated in winter by the machinery by night.
As far as can be made out from conflicting accounts, (conflicting from the very simple reason that one person will consider a ward, or drawing room, for that matter, airy which another will consider close; one, pleasantly warm, another too hot or too cold), it is practically found impossible to freshen the ward of a morning without opening some windows, and to keep it fresh during the day without now and then doing the same; and it is easier to open the windows on the male side in winter than on the female side.
The ventilation on both sides is considered to work with equal efficiency during the whole of the day.
Of the eighteen wards, the ventilation on entering the wards at five a.m., when the ward nightwatch has generally not opened a single window, is certainly surprisingly good; i.e. the air is surprisingly little bad. But neither here, any more than anywhere else, are the wards effectually freshened, until the windows are, of course with proper caution, opened.
In both these particulars, no difference is to be observed between the male and female side.
In repeating that the Director, and other persons who ought to be good judges, consider the machinery of the male side the most expensive and the best, I add these things:
First. Since this machinery was erected, so far as concerns the steam engine, it is said that equally efficient and much less expensive engines have been erected in other Hospitals, among others, Necker and Beaujon. In both Hospitals, the plans of Duvoir and Van Heecke are in use, one on either side. But certainly, the system of outlets at Beaujon for the foul air is by no means so good as at the Lariboisière.
Secondly. If an accident happened to the machinery of the male side, which is in communication with the steam engine, the results might be very serious. Twice a stove has burst on that side, happily without damaging anything else than furniture near it; had patients been near it, they must have been hurt or killed: and an accident on a large scale might blow up not a small part of the Hospital.