The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

336

IMPORTANCE OF VENTILATION.

which changed the air of the closest house every few
minutes, rendered all attention to the subject unnecessary; but the introduction of stoves, and the necessity
of economy in fuel, brought an entire change, and
made it necessary to institute some plan fOr artificial
ventilation.
In 1830, some scientific men instituted a new system
of ventilation in the Foundling Hospital, in London,
and also in the Zoological Garden of that city, and
the result was astonishing, and awakened the attention of scientific men of the whole civilized world to
the subject. In two years the average length of life
of infants had increased more than one hundred per
cent., and the average length of life of monkeys had
increased in about the same proportion; and it is remarkable that infants and monkeys in these institutions
had, before this change, both died of nearly the same
diseases, both children and monkeys having generally
developed tubercles of the lungs or bowels; and this
fact to me is a strong intimation that scrofulous diseases are developed, if not induced, either directly by
carbonic acid, or by the absence of oxygen, as it is
well known that the air of a room in which is going on
the process of combustion, or the process of breathing,
until ventilated comes to contain too much carbonic
acid and too little oxygen.
There are undoubtedly other causes of consumption,
as I have before intimated, but I think the influence
of soil, and climate, and temperature, have very little
responsibility directly for the disease which carries off