j '1 V ? ' fl A \ -V 
Hartshorne RE-ISSUED IN AN IMPROVED FORM. 
Handsomely Bound in Hed Cloth. 
The American Health Primers. 
EDITED BY W. W. KEEN, M.D., 
Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 
This series of American Health Primers is prepared to diffuse as widely and 
cheaply as possible, among all classes, a knowledge of the elementary facts of 
Preventive Medicine, and the bearings and applications of the latest and best re- 
searches in every branch of Medical and Hygienic Science. They are intended to 
teach people the principles of Health, and how to take care of themselves, their 
children, pupils, employes, etc. 
Handsome Cloth Binding, 50 cents, each. 
Sent, postpaid, upon receipt of price, or may be obtained from any bookstore. 
HEARING, AND HOW TO KEEP IT. With Illustrations. By Chas. H. 
Burnett, m. d., Aurist to the Presbyterian Hospital, Professor in the Phila- 
delphia Polyclinic. 
LONG LIFE, AND HOW TO REACH IT. By J. G. Richardson, m. d.. 
Professor of Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania. 
THE SUMMER AND ITS DISEASES. By James C. Wilson, m.d., 
Lecturer on Physical Diagnosis in Jefferson Medical College. 
EYESIGHT, AND HOW TO CARE FOR IT. With Illustrations. By 
Geo. C. Harlan, m.d., Surgeon to the Wills (Eye) Hospital, and to the Eye and 
Ear Department, Pennsylvania Hospital. 
THE THROAT AND THE VOICE. With Illustrations. By J. Solis 
Cohen, m d., Lecturer on Diseases of the Throat in Jefferson Medical College, 
Philadelphia, etc. 
THE WINTER AND ITS DANGERS. By Hamilton Osgood, m.d., 
of Boston, Editorial Staff Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 
THE MOUTH AND THE TEETH. With Illustrations. By J. W. White, 
m.d , d.d.s., of Philadelphia, Editor of the Dental Cosmos. 
BRAIN WORK AND OVERWORK. By H. C. Wood, Jr., m.d., Clinical 
Professor of Nervous Diseases in the University of Pennsylvania. 
OUR HOMES. With Illustrations. By Henry Hartshorne, m.d , of Phila- 
delphia, formerly Professor of Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania. 
THE SKIN IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. By L. D. Bulkley, m.d., of 
New York. Physician to the Skin Department of the Demilt Dispensary and of 
the New York Hospital. 
SEA AIR AND SEA BATHING. By John H. Packard, m.d., of Phila- 
delphia, Surgeon to the Pennsylvania and to St. Joseph's Hospitals. 
SCHOOL AND INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE. By D. F. Lincoln, m.d., of 
Boston, Chairman Department of Health, American Social Science Association. 
" Each volume of the 'American Health Primers' The Inter-Ocean has had the 
pleasure to commend. In their practical teachings, learning and sound sense, 
these volumes are worthy of all the compliments they have received. They teach 
what every man and woman should know, and yet what nine-tenths of the intelligent 
classes are ignorant of, or at best, have but a smattering knowledge of."-Chicago 
Inter-Ocean. 
" The series of American Health Primers deserves hearty commendation. These 
handbooks of practical suggestion are prepared by men whose professional compe- 
tence is beyond question, and. for the most part, by those who have made the subject 
treated the specific study of their lives." OUR HOMES; 
THIER 
SITUATION, CONSTRUCTION, VENTILA- 
TION, DRAINAGE, Etc. 
BY 
HENRY HARTSHORNE, A.M., M.D., 
Formerly Professor of Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania, etc. 
PHILADELPHIA : 
P. BLAKISTON, SON & CO., 
1012 Walnut Street. 
1885. Copyright. 
PRESLEY BLAKISTON 
1880. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
PAGE 
Introduction 9 
CHAPTER II. 
Situation - . . . .13 
CHAPTER III. 
Construction 20 
CHAPTER IV. 
Light 29 
CHAPTER V. 
Warmth 33 
CHAPTER VI. 
Ventilation 49 
CHAPTER VII. 
Water Supply 74 
V VI 
CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
PAGE 
Drainage ioi 
CHAPTER IX. 
Disinfection 130 
CHAPTER X. 
Population 137 
CHAPTER XI. 
Workingmen's Homes 144 A time there was 
When every rood of ground maintained its man: 
For him, light labor spread her useful store - 
Just gave what life required, but gave no more; 
His best companions, innocence and health. 
Goldsmith. 
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam; 
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. 
Wordsworth. 
VIII OUR HOMES. 
CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
WE should need no Darwin to teach us that man 
is a part of Nature. Though sovereign in the 
creation, his is but a limited monarchy, with an un- 
written but inexorable constitution, which he must 
obey, or suffer the penalty. Apart from human in- 
terference, there is in nature a balance of formation 
and destruction, of life and death, food and waste, 
making a perfect natural economy everywhere. Man 
comes in with his artificial constructions, and sweeps 
away much of this economy of nature. Under his 
tread the green earth grows bare. His habitations 
exclude multitudes of the lower and lesser creatures, 
whose ordained functions as natural scavengers are 
thus impaired or annulled. 
Hence comes foulness of the earth, water and air; 
stench, miasma, pestilence. A guerilla warfare seems 
to be waged all around the invader of Nature; yet 
9 10 
OUE HOMES. 
man's conquest of the world is legitimate. What is 
wanting? Simply that our reason should be used in 
counting the true cost of civilization, and meeting all 
its conditions as they exist, wisely. We must main- 
tain or restore the original balance of primeval na 
ture, by providing for the reappropriation of the 
products of life and the results of death and decay 
around us. 
Chiefly, the evils to be guarded against belong to 
the deterioration of the atmosphere and of drinking- 
water, under the influence of decaying matter. Every 
human- being gives out constantly from his lungs, 
skin, and otherwise, about as much as is from day to 
day received by him as food, drink, and air of res- 
piration. We take air and water, and grains, fruits, 
roots, flesh, etc., into our systems; we organize or 
consume them, and then throw them out again to be 
rapidly decomposed. The higher the life they have 
attained in us, the deadlier poisons they become in 
their effete molecular death. Thus crowd-poison breeds 
typhus fever, and promotes typhoid fever, diphtheria, 
cholera infantum, yellow fever, and malignant chol- 
era; nay, gives special aid and sustenance to all con- 
tagious and epidemic disease-causes, - such as those 
of small-pox, scarlet fever, and the rest, and contrib- 
utes greatly to the mortality from pulmonary con- 
sumption, pneumonia, and nervous affections, espe- 
cially those of children. INTRODUCTION. 
11 
How we are to live, then, not as wanderers of the 
forest, nor yet as hermits, but in society, without 
abridging our lives and multiplying the " ills that 
flesh is heir to," is the question. The imperfection 
of the manner in which this question has been, so 
far, generally answered, may be judged of by a late 
account given by the eminent statistician, Dr. Farr, 
of the proportion between population-density and 
mortality, in the six hundred and nineteen districts 
of England and Wales, from 1861 to 1870. In seven 
groups of those districts (excluding London), the 
number of persons to a square mile is, respectively, 
thus: - 166, 186, 379, 1178, 4499, 12,351, 63,823. 
The annual mortality for each 1000 inhabitants in 
the same districts is, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28, 32, and 39. 
In other words, according to these results, the nearer 
people live to each other, the shorter their lives. In 
fifty-three districts, the average proximity of residents 
is 147 yards, and the mean duration of life is 51 
years; in 345 districts <the proximity is 139 yards, 
and the mean length of life 45 years; in 137 districts 
the proximity is 97 yards, and the length of life 40 
years; in forty-seven districts the proximity is 46 
yards, and life-duration 35 years; in nine districts, with 
an average proximity of 28 yards, the mean duration of 
life is 32 years. In Manchester, the proximity is 17 
yards, and the mean length of life 29 years; in Liv- 
erpool, the proximity reaches the maximum of seven 12 
OUR HOMES. 
yards, and the duration of life its minimum average, 
26 years.* This brevity of human life was exceeded, 
it is true, a hundred years ago, in many places,- 
an important improvement having, in our own time, 
begun, which needs yet to be very greatly extended 
almost everywhere. 
Our question, " How shall we have Healthy 
Homes?" may be best considered in view of the fol- 
lowing topics concerning human habitations: I. Situ- 
ation; II. Construction; III. Light; IV. Warmth; 
V. Ventilation; VI. Water Supply; VII. Drainage; 
VIII. Disinfection; IX. Population; X. Working- 
Men's Homes. 
* Popular Science Monthly, March, 1879. CHAPTER IL 
SITUATION. 
GOD made the country, and man made the town." 
So wrote the poet Cowper. With more philoso- 
phy, he might have seen that it was meant that man 
should build towns; only, in this, as in everything 
else, he should obey the laws of his creation. We 
ought not to make our towns so different from the 
country as they are. 
No doubt, for healthfulness of situation, a rural 
locality is usually the best; yet not always, for, near a 
malarious swamp, or a shallow, sluggish stream, causes 
of disease exist, from whose influence the densely 
built city may be free. Charleston city is, in most 
seasons, more safe from injury to health than the rice 
plantations of South Carolina. Near Philadelphia, 
many now living remember how the region liable to 
autumnal fevers has been li crowded out " by the ex- 
tension of the city, until now it can scarcely be said 
to exist within its large extent. 
Suppose a person with unlimited means to desire to 
choose a salubrious site for a residence. He will 
13 14 
OUR HOMES. 
reasonably leave the city. He will then be especially 
careful to avoid a malarious locality. Such will gen- 
erally be found on low grounds of alluvial* formation, 
and in the vicinity of marshes or sluggish rivers, 
where moist earth is exposed from time to time to the 
rays of the sun. Apart from specific "malaria," 
also, the soil has considerable importance. It acts 
by its absorption and radiation of heat, by the reflec- 
tion of light, absorption of water, and movement of 
water through and under it; formation of dust, and 
its chemical character, affecting the air about it. 
Pettenkofer has shown that a cubic foot of soil may 
contain one-third of a cubic foot of air; and Bous- 
singault has found in this "ground-air" a great deal 
of carbonic acid gas.f While in the ordinary atmos- 
phere out -of doors the amount of this gas is from three 
to five parts in 10,000, in the air of a field recently 
manured there existed 221 parts in 10,000; in forest 
land, 86; loamy subsoil, 82 ; sandy subsoil, 24 parts. 
Worse gases than carbonic acid may permeate the 
soil under some circumstances. Graveyard air, as 
interments are generally managed, is known to be 
unwholesome in its influence. This results from the 
gases of decomposition which escape through the 
* That is, not hard rock, but such as is made by the washing 
of rivers, etc., in past times. 
f The same gas which is produced by breathing and burn- 
ing fuel in the air. SITUATION. 
15 
soil. Drains, cess-pools, and sewers, when allowed to 
leak or pour their contents upon or into the ground, 
pollute it so that it may, when saturated, give off very 
injurious effluvia. Prof. Pettenkofer mentions an in- 
stance of illuminating gas, from a leaky pipe, pene- 
trating through the earth to a distance of twenty feet, 
and so saturating the basement of a house as to cause 
the death of one of its inmates. 
It is wonderful, however, how much is done by the 
earth to purify the foulness which, by necessity or 
from neglect, is allowed to enter into it. This may 
well be regarded as one of the providential means of 
adaptation of the world we live in to the needs of its 
inhabitants. 
But ground-water, near the surface, injures the 
healthfulness of a situation more frequently and 
largely than ground-air. Sometimes the very efforts 
made to please the eye by picturesque effects may 
almost ruin a locality as to salubrity. Prof. R. Bar- 
tholow has shown* how this has been done in some 
of the suburbs of Cincinnati, not only by streets and 
roadways obstructing the surface drainage, but by 
artificial lakes, whose beauty to the eye is but a dis- 
guise for the accumulation of causes of malaria. 
Dampness of soil, even if not specially contam- 
inated, is unwholesome. It has been shown, both in 
Great Britain and in this country, to promote con- 
* Lecture on the Hygiene of Suburban Life, 1878. 16 
OUR HOMES. 
sumption of the lungs, besides the known liability of 
persons living in damp places to rheumatism and 
"colds." A certain relaxing effect, also, is felt by 
many people where the locality is damp, most of all 
in warm weather,-the very opposite of the bracing, 
tonic influence of a high and dry situation. 
Of different kinds of soil, sand absorbs and retains 
very little water ; clay ten or twenty times more; and 
" humus," or rich arable earth, forty or fifty times as 
much as sand. Hard sandstone rock, and the harder 
limestones, as well as the solid granite and trap rocks, 
allow very little movement of water through them. 
Very frequently, too, these rocks slope so as to let 
the water run over them and drain away. Clay is 
more likely to lie flat, so as to have water accumulate 
upon it; hence clayey soils are apt to make damp 
situations. The worst soil of all for building is what 
is called made ground, composed of the refuse from 
various places, filth of houses, decaying vegetables, 
etc., carried and deposited to fill up low spots in the 
suburbs of towns. Observation shows that at least 
three years will be required for such earth to undergo 
the changes necessary to make it innocent of un- 
wholesome emanations; and even after a longer 
period, it is impossible to be sure of its healthfulness. 
Just as a question of health, we may, because of their 
porosity, prefer sand, gravel, or loose limestone, to 
anything else, upon which to build a house; although SITUA TION. 
17 
even upon such ground a right construction is need- 
ful for this kind of security as well as for perma- 
nence. 
Our ideal site may be, in order to combine the 
greatest sum of advantages, upon a gentle slope, or 
the side of a hill not too steep, looking, in our part 
of the world, towards the south or south-west. It 
must not, even though upon a height, be near a marsh 
or sluggish river bank, as the vapors lifted by the 
morning sun and settling again with the decline of 
day, may be wafted by the winds hundreds of yards 
up the sides of the most beautiful lawn-covered hills. 
A grove of trees will, it is true, afford a very consid- 
erable protection from malaria, by intervening be- 
tween a house and a source of its emanation. But, 
then, the inhabitants of such a locality must be very 
careful in their excursions, especially near sunset and 
sunrise, in the spring and autumn. 
How many thousands of men are unable to make 
any such choice as we have mentioned, of a rural 
home ! In the cities, also, there is much room for 
selection, on the part of those who are not limited 
by want of means. Elevation, in some cities, as 
Cincinnati, Baltimore, and even Philadelphia, varies 
sufficiently to make quite an important difference. 
We should always, of course, when possible, choose 
the higher part of the town for a dwelling. A wide 
street will be the best. No street should be allowed 18 
OUR HOMES. 
anywhere of less width than twice the height of the 
houses upon it; although so stringent a rule is prob- 
ably nowhere, as yet, enforced. The least width at 
ail tolerable, in the poorest part of a town, should be 
fixed at the height of the highest dwelling upon the 
street. 
A street with trees lining it is made thereby more 
healthy. There is no doubt at all that the leaves of 
all ordinary plants and trees improve the air for our 
breathing, by taking from it carbonic acid gas and 
returning to it fresh oxygen. On the sunny side of 
the street, too, it is advantageous to have the glare 
of an American noonday mitigated by a moderate, 
but not excessive, shade. A corner of two streets 
will afford the best circulation of air. 
Houses erected back to back are always to be 
avoided. Squares built upon two (or even four) 
sides, with their gardens meeting each other, and 
also with at least small side lots between them, and 
each standing back twelve or fifteen feet from the 
sidewalk, with grass and shrubbery in front, will meet 
all the most desirable conditions for a city residence. 
Such can be, at present, obtained in our large cities 
only by the rich. But, if common understanding or 
law should make it usual to lay out and build upon 
only such lots in all new and growing towns, except 
in their strictly business portions, it would not be 
difficult for breathing-spaces to be perpetually main- SITU A TION. 
19 
tained. How beautiful an effect may result in a city 
from such an open plan of construction, may be seen 
in East Avenue, and some other streets, in Rochester, 
N. Y. Yet that this is only one of the necessary 
conditions of the salubrity of towns, is shown by the 
reports of mortality in that city, from preventable 
diseases, owing to defective drainage and sewerage.* 
On the subject of tenement-houses and working- 
men's homes, their situation and construction, we 
shall remark hereafter. 
* See the Sanitarian, October, 1879, Page 477* CHAPTER III. 
CONSTRUCTION. 
OUR purpose here is not to consider the architec- 
ture of houses with regard to ornamental effect, 
but only the conditions requisite for healthy dwell- 
ings. Under this view, of the materials commonly 
employed, either wood, brick, or stone may be made 
to answer. A frame house allows the most air to 
penetrate its walls, unless they are specially protected ; 
and, in a climate with severe winters, this is trying to 
delicate people. Those who begin with good health 
usually find an airy mode of living agree with them 
better than the pent-up atmosphere of most furnace- 
heated houses. Moreover, a frame house having 
double walls, with stone or brick foundations, good 
plastering, and tightly-jointed timbers, may be made 
as little permeable by air as it is desirable for any 
house to be. 
•Brick is porous, and allows more atmosphere and 
vapor to pass through it than many people are aware 
of. So do sandstone, mortar, and cement. Marcker 
and Berthold, in Paris, lately found that these sub- 
20 CONSTRUCTION. 
21 
stances allow gases to pass freely through them, 
while granite, slate, limestone, and marble are im- 
pervious. Prof. Pettenkofer, of Munich, has exhib- 
ited this permeability very well by a simple experi- 
ment. A cylindrical piece of mortar, half lime and 
half sand, is covered with melted wax (making it im- 
penetrable by air), except at the two ends. A funnel is 
then fixed upon each end. By blowing through one 
of these funnels, a candle-flame opposite the other end 
may be blown out. If water be drawn into the mor- 
tar by suction through the funnels, so as to fill its 
pores, air can no longer be blown through it. This 
represents the condition of damp walls of houses. 
Another experiment of the same observer is made 
with compact brown sandstone. A block of this sub- 
Fig. i. 
stance (A, Fig. i), fifteen inches long, twelve wide, 
and four and three-quarters thick, has on each side 
a depression (B, Fig. i) one-fourth of an inch in 
depth. In each of these depressions is placed an 22 
OUR HOMES. 
iron plate (C, Fig. i), in which is inserted an iron 
tube (c, Fig. i). Melted resin is then poured around 
the edges of the plates, and the stone is thickly cov- 
ered with asphalt, so that it is made impervious, ex- 
cept through the tubes. 
When one of these tubes is connected with a 
burner of a chandelier, and the gas is turned on, 
the pressure is sufficient to force the gas through the 
block of stone and the other tube, so that it can be 
ignited beyond the latter. 
This permeability of the walls of houses Prof. 
Pettenkofer believes, no doubt correctly, to be ad- 
vantageous. If we were sealed up tightly, except so 
far as intentional openings afford access to the air, 
some people's fear of draughts and cold, if it did 
not endanger suffocation, might at least aggravate 
seriously the evils of defective ventilation. Here 
may be mentioned the unsuitableness (in a sanitary 
sense) of wall-papers in any unless the largest and 
best-aired apartments. Not only green wall-papers, 
but those of several other colors, have been shown 
not unfrequently to contain arsenic in sufficient quan- 
tity to produce poisonous effects upon those long 
confined in their rooms. Moreover, papers absorb 
organic matter in considerable amount, and they are 
therefore particularly objectionable in sick-rooms, 
and, indeed, in any chambers in which persons 
sleep. Whitewashed, calcimined, or painted walls CONSTR UCTION. 
23 
are more wholesome than those covered with any 
kind of paper.* Even paint interferes somewhat 
with the permeability of walls. 
Nothing is more important in the construction of a 
house than that its foundations shall.be protected 
from dampness. A wet cellar is a fatal fault, from 
the hygienic standpoint. Under-drainage may cor- 
rect this when it exists. A good under-layer of con- 
crete j will be of great service, whatever the soil on 
which the house is built. If it be still suspected of 
dampness, an asphalt flooring for the cellar may be 
used, supplemented, if need be, by one of zinc for 
the first floor over it. A cheap material for making 
cellar floors practically water-proof is made by mixing 
together two parts of coal tar with one part of pitch, 
and adding to each bucketful three handfuls of 
quicklime. Eassie,J an excellent authority, recom- 
mends vitrified stoneware tile as furnishing the best 
"damp-proof course,'' made in thicknesses from an 
inch to an inch and a half, and perforated, so as to 
ventilate the space between the ground and the joists 
of the floor, and to prevent dry rot in the timbers. 
* Worst of all is the really nasty practice of covering old 
papers again and again with new ones, sometimes three or four 
times in succession. They should always be scraped off before 
renewal. 
f A compound of broken stone, pebbles and mortar, much 
used for such purposes. 
J Sanitary Arrangements for Dwellings, London, 1874. 24 
OUR HOMES. 
Dr. B. W. Richardson, of London, in his " Hy- 
geia, a City of Health," recommends that every 
house should be built upon -arches of solid brick- 
work, so as to allow air to pass freely and constantly 
beneath its foundations. Undoubtedly, this is a rea- 
sonable suggestion, and no more Utopian than many 
other of his proposals for the construction of his 
ideal city. 
No flooring of wood, at all events, should be laid 
directly upon the surface of the ground, but the joists 
of the " ground floor " should be raised at least two 
or three feet by stone or brick foundations. 
Double walls are better than thick walls. Even as 
a protection against changes of heat and cold, the 
layer of air between the outer and inner wall will be 
a slower conductor than the solid wall would be. 
The occasional omission of a brick near the lower 
part of the house, or the insertion of perforated 
bricks at regular intervals under the basement floor- 
ing, will allow of a movement of air through the 
interspaces which will contribute to dryness as well 
as to ventilation. The distance between the outer 
and inner wall may be two or three inches, the open 
space commencing above the foundations. 
Roofing must, of all things, be made and kept 
tight, free from leakage. Some slope is necessary for 
drainage of rainfall, but it need not be great. Man- 
sard roofs, now so common, do not seem to be at- CONSTRUCTION. 
25 
tended by any inconvenience. Dr. B. W. Richardson 
advises that roofs shall be covered either with asphalt 
or flat tile; but tin, zinc, or slate, well placed and 
kept in repair, will do. If rain-water is to be col- 
lected for use, slate will make the best roof. 
Other points in the construction of a healthy house 
yet remain to be mentioned. Every room for day or 
night use should be as large as its owner can afford, 
and with an abundance of windows and doors, for 
air and light. Each room should have, if possible, 
at least one window on each of two of its sides. 
With opposite windows, a small room with a low 
ceiling may be well ventilated ; but this involves more 
draught than many people wish ; and a large room 
may always be aired with less perceptible movement 
of the air than a small one. Windows should be 
high, reaching almost to the ceiling, and opening 
both at the bottom and at the top, unless the case- 
ment or " folding-door " arrangement of the sash be 
preferred, which answers very well. Every room in 
the house intended to be occupied should have in it 
an open fireplace. This is left out, to a great disad- 
vantage, in building a great many modern houses. 
Especially is it important for an open fireplace to be 
in every sleeping chamber. For a hick person, the 
difference between a wood-fire on the hearth, or even 
a wood-burning stove, and the usual heated air, or 
coal-stove in the room, is immense. It may, in crit- 26 
OUR HOMES. 
ical cases, make the turning-point between death and 
recovery. Besides this, an open chimney, without a 
fire, is an excellent aid to ventilation. Even a stove- 
pipe hole, left open, in a sheet-iron or other cover for 
the fireplace, will have a considerable influence in 
changing the air of a room. 
All fireplaces and furnace-heaters may, to advan- 
tage, be placed near the centre of the bouse. Water- 
closets should be located always on the outside, so as 
to have a window or windows opening to the air. 
An extra and excellent precaution is to have a small 
wing or annex, expressly for water-closets, which are 
placed over each other on different stories; each being 
separated from the house by a vestibule with double 
doors. 
Richardson, in his Hygeia, places the kitchen in 
the uppermost story of the house. For this the prin- 
cipal argument seems to be, that thus all smells may 
be kept out of the house itself. A kitchen-wing, at 
the rear of the dwelling, may be made to answer 
this purpose. While coal is used for fuel, its weight 
will be a serious obstacle to its elevation to a third 
or fourth story kitchen. When gas comes to be used 
generally for cooking (as may shortly be the case), 
this objection will be removed. This is, however, 
rather a question of convenience than of health, as 
kitchen smells, when proper care is taken of refuse, 
are not specially injurious, although often unpleasant. CONSTRUCTION 
27 
If a basement, below the ground level, is used for a 
kitchen or otherwise, an area several feet in width 
should be kept around it, to preserve it from damp- 
ness. Our remarks concerning drainage are reserved 
for another place. 
What has been so far said upon the construction 
of houses for health has been meant to apply mainly 
to those whose owners can afford to make them what 
they wish. But the same principles, exactly, apply 
essentially to all dwellings, from the palace of the 
emperor down to the hut of the laborer, or the cabin 
of the forest pioneer. In all, the great requisites are 
dryness, air, sunshine, and sufficient protection from 
the cold. Some of these, at least, as air and sun- 
shine, are most readily excluded from parts of the 
largest houses. What experience has shown to be 
necessary in these, most of all when inhabited by a 
number of persons, may be understood by referring 
to some recent sanitary legislation in New York. 
The new Tenement-House Act, 1879, gives the 
Board of Health of that city important power over 
these structures. The plans of all new buildings 
must be submitted for its approval, and it is required 
to secure the following conditions : 
1. At the rear of every house there shall be a clear, 
open space of not less than ten feet. 
2. No one continuous building shall occupy more 
than 65 per cent, of the lot. 28 
OUR HOMES. 
3. The total area of window space in every room 
communicating with the open air shall be one-tenth 
of its superficial area, and the upper half shall be so 
made as to open full width. 
4. Air-shafts must communicate with every room 
having neither external windows nor fireplace. 
That "shutting up," even in the variable and ex- 
treme climate of the northern United States, is not, 
as some persons think, the great necessity for health, 
is amply proved by the fact that, during the Civil 
War, tent hospitals (i. e., hospital tents) were found 
to give better results in the treatment of wounded 
and sick soldiers than the very best constructed and 
managed large hospital buildings. Not a few con- 
sumptives have owed the prolongation of their lives 
for years, and some, complete recovery, to their re- 
sorting, for months together, to camp life in the midst 
of the primeval forest, where the Eden-like atmos- 
phere, breath of the pine woods, untainted mountain 
water, and simple food and habits of life restore the 
strength exhausted by artificial living. In short, the 
greatest fault of the personal hygiene of our civilized 
habits' may be summed up by saying, we live too far 
from Nature. CHAPTER IV. 
LIGHT. 
ALTHOUGH we are not, like plants, absolutely 
dependent for our growth upon the rays of the 
sun, yet we share with all nature their benign influ- 
ence ; and if they are withdrawn constantly, health 
suffers. Miners, passing all their days underground, 
as in some of the mines of Europe, are usually short- 
lived, and prone to diseases of debility. A physician 
in New Orleans, during one of its epidemic years, re- 
ported that there were more than six times as many 
cases of yellow fever on the shady as there were on 
the sunny sides of the streets; and a similar account 
was given of the prevalence of cholera at Buffalo, in 
1849. Barracks for soldiers, so built that no sun- 
light enters them, have proved extremely unhealthy. 
For the sick, especially, who cannot leave their rooms, 
it is of great consequence to have the sun's rays pene- 
trate their rooms freely a part of every day. Scarcely 
any exception exists to the benefit of sunshine in the 
sick-room, besides cases of acute inflammation of the 
eyes or brain. In chronic inflammation of the eyes, 
29 30 
OUR HOMES. 
the practice, once common, of shutting the patient up 
for weeks in a dark room, has been almost entirely- 
abandoned ; it being found that the depressing effect 
upon the general health of the body more than coun- 
terbalances the good results in treatment of the eyes. 
Of all rooms in the house, the nursery should be the 
brightest and sunniest. Therefore, a house is best 
placed so as to front north or south (preferably, in 
northern latitudes, the latter), in order that the 
rooms on each side may be shone upon during some 
part of the sun's course every day. If a house be 
built diagonally, there is an unequal distribution - 
some rooms are very sunny, and others never have 
any sunshine at all. Fronting east or west, particu- 
larly in cities the latter, will do well enough in many 
situations. 
The ancient Romans are said to have had terraces 
on their houses, called solaria, upon which to bask in 
the sun and air. Sun-bathing is sometimes remedial 
in sickness. I have known a severe attack of neu- 
ralgia to be relieved by the patient's sitting or lying 
in the direct light of the sun. All convalescents 
from illness gain most rapidly when they can get out 
into the full light every day. 
Dr. Arthur Downes and F. P. Blount, on the basis 
of experimentation, reported in a communication to 
the English Royal Society, assert that light prevents 
or retards the development of bacteria, and of the mi- LIGHT. 
31 
croscopic fungi associated with putrefaction and de- 
cay. This preservative quality is most powerfully 
shown by the direct solar .rays; although it is pos- 
sessed, in a less degree, by ordinary diffused day- 
light. 
Yet there is such a thing, not only in the tropics, 
but in temperate regions, as too much sunshine. 
Heat-stroke, it is true, very frequently occurs in the 
shade, in people predisposed to it, from the oppres- 
sive effect of a heated atmosphere. But our mid- 
summer sun may well be tempered by the cool shade 
of trees not far from our dwellings. American trav- 
ellers in England notice, at first with surprise, how 
little shaded are the rural homes, even of the wealthy, 
as compared with those of the United States. But 
a season spent under the veil of mist and cloud 
which so often hides or dims the sun in that country, 
makes it intelligible that too little rather than too 
much sunshine is the danger there. No more unrea- 
sonable impost than the English window-tax (pro- 
portioned to the number and size of windows in 
dwellings), was ever invented. But we may, in 
America, have our houses too densely shaded. This 
is a not uncommon mistake. The effect of it is, not 
only exclusion of sunlight as such, but dampness 
of the roof, walls, and interior of the house. While 
sentiment and association may plead with us to 
"spare that tree," whose venerable trunk and spread- 32 
OUR HOMES. 
ing branches we have loved all our lives, yet we must 
not allow too deep a shadow to chill the space be- 
neath it. A safe rule is, never to have trees so thick 
near a house that every part of it, which, from posi- 
tion, is accessible to the sun, may not receive its di- 
rect rays during a part of every day. We need not be 
forgetful of the bleaching and fading power of those 
rays, which lead the careful housekeeper to be afraid 
of them for her carpets. But, whatever compromise 
in the way of shades, blinds, or curtains, may be 
allowed, we should at least forbid, unless in the 
height of our American midsummer noon, the prison- 
like gloom of tightly-closed shutters. Even after a 
death in a house, it is a wrong to encourage gloom 
and invite disease by keeping the shutters closed, as 
some do, for many days together. Soon after the 
funeral they ought to be opened again. No child 
can grow strong and ruddy with the bloom of health, 
no invalid can respond favorably to the best of tonic 
treatment, in a constantly darkened house. Let the 
sun come in ! CHAPTER V. 
HARDLY anything has changed so much with the 
progress of artificial living as have the modes 
of warming habitations. Those of the ancients 
whose usages are best known, the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, suffered from no such extremes of climate as 
compel protective arrangements in northern Europe 
and in the United States. A wealthy Roman might 
warm his banqueting-hall sufficiently with a focus or 
central fire, or a clibanium or brazier; something like 
which is now, or was, not long since, used for the 
Pope's apartments in the Vatican. In Spain, King 
Alphonso was once nearly suffocated by charcoal 
fumes from a brazier. Anticipation of our furnace- 
heaters was, however, evinced in the hypocaust, with 
which some of the Roman emperors warmed their 
palaces. This was a furnace with flues to distribute 
heat, but without a chimney, smoke escaping by a 
hole in the outer wall. It was subject to leakage; one 
emperor, Julian, was nearly, and another, Jovian, ac- 
tually, suffocated in this way. In England, during 
WARMTH. 
33 34 
OW? HOMES. 
the middle ages, the fire, in the castles of noblemen, 
was moved to a deep recess against the wall, the smoke 
finding vent at a loop-hole in the roof, or by an open 
turret, or a louvre window at the side. Chimneys 
first came into use in Italy in the fourteenth century. 
Water-stoves, it seems probable, were employed by 
the ancient Egyptians for hatching eggs; a process 
now common in that country. In modern Europe, 
they were introduced in France by the Marquis de 
Chavannes, during the last century. Hans Egede, a 
missionary writer, is said to have known of their use 
in a Dominican convent in Greenland, in the four- 
teenth century. Hot-water pipes were employed to 
heat a conservatory for plants, by Martin Triewald, a 
Swede, in 1716. For dwellings, these were brought 
into use in England about a century later. 
Steam apparatus for warming began as an applica- 
tion of the boiler of the steam-engine. Watt so 
warmed his office, and his partner, Boulton, extended 
its employment in Birmingham. 
Among the first inventors of stoves, properly so 
called, were Cardinal Polignac, Swedenborg, the 
visionary philosopher, and Doctor Benjamin Franklin. 
The stove of the latter was an open fireplace, brought 
out into the middle of the room, and having a supply 
of fresh air from beneath. It is approximated by 
the "Franklin stove" of to-day. Another celebrated 
American, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, in- WARMTH. 
35 
troduced a fireplace system which is still much ap- 
proved in England. 
One of the remarkable modes of warming apart- 
ments, little known in this country, is the kakelung 
of Sweden. It is described as "a great stove of 
masonry, covered with porcelain plates, having usually 
five flues, through which the gases of combustion must 
pass up and down, a distance of thirty to fifty or even 
sixty feet, before escaping into the air." The prin- 
ciple of its operation is, to provide enough material 
to absorb all the heat from the fire; the gases being 
conducted through the long flues until they give up 
all their heat. If ventilation be well supplied by 
other means, this arrangement must be extremely 
economical, at least. In Germany and Russia, por- 
celain or brick stoves of a similar kind are still used, 
and are extremely comfortable. 
The primitive blazing wood-fire, with logs heaped 
in the chimney-place, has everything in its favor 
in regard to beauty of appearance and freshness 
of the air. A backwoodsman's hut, with a fire on 
one side or in the middle, and a door wide open, 
will warm at least one side of each of its inmates at 
a time. The other side, exposed to the outer air, 
may be cold ; so it may be needful to turn around, 
like a piece of meat on the spit, before the fire. 
This illustrates one, and the quickest and most effect- 
ive, of the different modes of receiving communicated 36 
OUR HOMES. 
heat, viz., by radiation. Nothing is equal to direct 
radiated heat in comfort and restorative power, when 
one has been chilled with winter's cold. But it is 
the least economical of all methods, as but little effect 
is felt in those parts of the room which are not in 
front of the fire, or nearly so. Moreover, according 
to the physical law of radiation, the heat diminishes 
in proportion to the square of the distance; so that 
at the distance of ten feet from the fire it is one hun- 
dred times less than at the distance of one foot. 
Conduction through solid bodies, a very frequent 
mode of distribution of heat in Nature, has been 
made purposely available to only a small degree in 
warming rooms. By the walls of the house, however, 
heated by smoke, gas, and warm air passing up through 
chimneys and flues, rooms are considerably warmed. 
It is probable that the best way of all (scarcely any- 
where as yet tried) may be hereafter found to be, to 
heat steadily all the floors and walls of apartments by 
warmed air circulating beneath and around or through 
them. This will give an evenly warm climate, so to 
speak, to the house; imitating the plan of Nature, ac- 
cording to which almost all the heat of the atmos- 
phere of a region is given to it by the sun's rays heat- 
ing the earth, which then communicates its warmth 
to the air. The Chinese have something like this, at 
least so far as providing warmth for their floors by 
slow fires underneath. WARMTH. 
37 
This last kind of conveyance of heat, by conduc- 
tion, we follow, in part, in the use of stoves; which 
give their temperature to the air in contact with 
them. By expansion, warm air is made lighter, 
and so is displaced and forced upwards by the 
heavier cold air. Rising currents are thus caused, 
and a circulation of air results, as one can see by the 
curious undulating appearance of objects looked at 
over the top of a stove, as well as by the upward 
movement of light, floating particles above the heated 
surface. Convection is the technical term applied to 
this manner of diffusing heat. 
When the fire by which air is warmed is in a cellar, 
basement, or hall, so that the warm air may be dis- 
tributed, by flues and registers, into several apart- 
ments, we have the now common furnace-heater. It 
saves trouble and dirt - making one fire, out of sight, 
answer the purpose of as many as there are rooms 
to be warmed. But it is often unequal in the share 
of warmth given to the different apartments. If this 
difficulty be overcome by skilful and careful use of 
valves, dampers, etc., an important fact, often for- 
gotten, remains, that while the cellar-heater furnishes 
warm air to enter the rooms, it affords, of itself, no 
outlet for its escape. There may thus be produced a 
pressure within a parlor or other room, so long as 
the doors and windows are shut, which is sometimes 
unpleasant and unwholesome. Again, when a door 38 
OUR HOMES. 
is open, if there be no heat supplied in the entry or 
hall, a cold current creeps along the floor of the 
room, chilling the feet of those who are in it. In 
an apartment so warmed, there is often a difference 
of 12° to 20° Fah. in temperature between the floor 
and the height to which a man can reach. This is 
the reverse of what ought to be the case; since to 
keep the head cool and the feet warm is one of the 
most approved maxims of health. A room is only 
properly warmed when there is no considerable, if 
any, difference by the thermometer between the floor 
and the height of an ordinary mantelpiece. 
What should the temperature be, say at the latter 
height, for health? Authors differ somewhat upon 
this point. A bright wood, or glowing anthracite or 
bituminous coal fire, will allow of a lower tempera- 
ture of the air of a room than will suffice when there 
is no direct radiation of heat. Even the rays of 
the sun pass through the atmosphere without warm- 
ing it, unless it contains floating vapors or solid par- 
ticles. Yet we feel their warmth, often intensely, 
when they reach our bodies. A difference exists, 
moreover, according to whether we are sitting still, 
or moving about or working in any way. A work- 
shop, gymnasium, or skating-rink may safely have a 
temperature many degrees lower than a drawing- 
room, sitting-room, lecture-room, or school-room. 
Only, when those who have been exercising actively WARMTH. 
39 
in a cool or cold apartment sit down to rest, they are 
in great danger of catching cold, unless they pro- 
tect themselves immediately by some increase of 
clothing. 
For a sitting-room of any kind, my own conviction 
is, that 700 Fah. at the height of a mantelpiece is 
the best temperature. Some writers, in England es- 
pecially, have put it down at 68°, or even 65°. I 
believe such to be suitable only when open, radiating 
fires are employed. For a sick-chamber, 720 may 
sometimes be better, if the air can, by good ventila- 
tion, be kept fresh as well as warm. There is no 
necessary (although there is unhappily a frequent) 
connection between warmth and closeness of the at- 
mosphere in a room. Of the harm done or endan- 
gered by over-heated rooms, an account is given in 
another volume of this series.* 
Returning to the furnace-method of warming 
houses, a few conditions may be named as essential 
to its compatibility with health. 
1. The furnace should be large in proportion to 
the house; so that with a moderate fire, not pushed, 
it may warm a sufficient supply of air to give a good 
temperature to the rooms depending upon iti A very 
hot furnace bakes the air, as it were, producing an 
unpleasant odor and an uncomfortable feeling through 
* See Winter and its Dangers, by Hamilton Osgood, M. D., 
No. 5 of this Series. 40 
OUR HOMES. 
the house. If the furnace be too small, it will not 
furnish enough heat, without driving the fire hard, in 
cold weather. 
2. Air should be supplied to the air-chamber di- 
rectly from out of doors. A cellar atmosphere, at 
the best, cannot be equal in quality to the open air, 
and at its worst may be very bad indeed. In another 
place we may farther allude to its evil possibilities. 
3. Water should always be placed in the air-cham- 
ber, so as to evaporate constantly, and prevent undue 
dryness in the air of the house. 
A certain amount of moisture in the atmosphere is 
essential to life itself. Every one is familiar with 
the destructive effects of the Simoom, Khamseen, and 
Harmattan winds of Arabia and Africa, which carry 
the scorching aridity of the desert with them, blast- 
ing everything that has life in their course. While 
excess of dampness is a very frequent promoter of dis- 
ease, it is equally true that artificial heat, such as that 
of stoves and furnaces, tends to create the opposite 
extreme. Warming the air increases its capacity for 
retaining moisture without saturation. The term 
relative humidity is employed to indicate the condi- 
tion of the air at any time and place, as compared 
with saturation. Calling saturation 100, for exam- 
ple, the relative humidity of the air may vary, in our 
climate, all the way down to 12 or less. Dr. Weth- 
erill, some time since, found the mean of several WARMTH. 
41 
years at Washington to be a little over 68. At Halle, 
Germany, Muller found the mean to be 75. In Phil- 
adelphia, in twelve years, it was 68.5. Roscoe, in 
the House of Lords, in London, ascertained the range 
of agreeable humidity to be between 55 and 82 ; the 
mean between which extremes is 68.5. Best of all, 
no doubt, for health and comfort, is from 67 to 69. 
Now, by raising the temperature of the air in any 
apartment from 500 to 700 Fah., its relative humid- 
ity may be reduced from 100 to 25 ; that is, from con- 
taining moisture enough for saturation down to one- 
fourth of that amount. Of course, then, there is 
reason for adding a sufficient quantity of vapor to 
bring it up to twice as much or more, say to 68. 
Dr. Wetherill estimated that the halls of Congress 
ought to have nearly eight gallons of water evap- 
orated every hour for the proper hydration of their 
atmosphere. Prof. Joseph Henry, so long the ad- 
mirable head of the Smithsonian Institution, intro- 
duced into its building an arrangement for adding 
steam to the air of the air-chamber of the furnace by 
which it is warmed. 
From these examples, we may understand how im- 
portant it must be to have an evaporator in every fur- 
nace air-chamber, and a shallow pan of water upon 
every stove used for warming our rooms. 
4. Sedulous care must be taken that no leakage of 
gas occurs from any flue or pipe into the air-chamber. 42 
OUR HOMES. 
Coal-gas is poisonous when concentrated. Not un- 
frequently, death has been produced by its insidious 
entrance into the air of occupied rooms. A telling 
instance was narrated, a few years ago, of what hap- 
pened in a public school in one of our cities. The 
lady teacher, sitting at her desk on a raised platform, 
observed that some of her youngest pupils were 
nodding, and shortly several of them fell over on 
the floor. Bench after bench they were overcome, 
when her presence of mind sufficed to get the win- 
dows open, and to have the children carried to 
another room, where they revived. The cause of the 
trouble was, an obstructed and leaky stove-pipe, 
through which gas had been slowly escaping into the 
room and stealing their lives away, first acting upon 
the smaller scholars, breathing the air nearest to the 
floor. Many a time, without any such alarming im- 
mediate effects, gas from imperfect furnace flues in 
our city houses produces headaches, general discom- 
fort, and debility, often ascribed to some other, im- 
aginary cause. It is quite necessary that the box or 
tube which admits air into the air-chamber shall be 
so tight that gas cannot be drawn into it when the 
upper door of the furnace is open. If the draught 
be imperfect, there may be, especially when fresh 
,coal is put on, an escape of gas into the cellar. This 
possibility adds emphasis to the reasons for having WARMTH. 
43 
not the cellar, but the open air, to give the supply to 
the air-chamber for the house. 
5. Warm air should be supplied to the main hall 
or entry with which parlors or sitting-rooms are con- 
nected ; so that the doors of the latter may be open 
without causing currents of cold air along the floor. 
6. Since, as above said, no outlet belongs to the 
warm-air system of itself, the needful air-movement 
must be maintained by some method of ventilation. 
Barker's arrangement of flues and registers for intro- 
duction and exit of air, so as to warm and ventilate 
at the same time, will be referred to on another page, 
under the head of Ventilation. Open doors, at all 
events, into the entry or hall, or open window cracks, 
must be insisted on, if nothing better can be ob- 
tained. Best of all, however, it will be, to combine 
the two modes of warming ; by having an open-fire, 
for instance a "low-down " grate, in one part of a 
large room, or in one of two communicating rooms. 
The open fire gives the glowing, comforting, radi- 
ant heat, and supplies ventilation by its upward 
draught into the chimney ; while the air from the 
furnace air-chamber, if properly arranged, makes sure 
the diffusion of an equable and sufficient warmth 
through the house. Open-grate fires, burning either 
bituminous or anthracite coal or coke, are cheerful, 
and give out a great deal of heat. When the air for 
their draught is supplied from out of doors, entering 44 
OUR HOMES. 
from the back or below, fire-ward currents along the 
floor are not produced. What is called, in England, 
the Galton system, has been found to work well also 
in this country - having fresh air introduced through 
a grating at the back into an air-chamber, and thence 
into the apartment above (or at the sides of) the fire- 
place. There is thus obtained a considerable econ- 
omy of fuel. Ventilating stoves, upon a similar prin- 
ciple, are also employed. Among the arrangements 
which appear to have succeeded is the Ruttan "Air- 
Warmer; " and the editor of the Popular Science 
Monthly* speaks in praise of what is called the " fire 
on the hearth." 
Objectionable, beyond other means of warming 
living-rooms, is the "air-tight" coal-stove. Yet, 
from their economy and convenience, stoves more or 
less nearly air-tight are very largely employed. If 
air is introduced into the room in good amount, and 
water is kept constantly evaporating upon the stove, 
an ordinary stove can be managed without necessary 
injury to health. 
Cast-iron stoves are somewhat more permeable to 
gas than those made of wrought- or sheet-iron. Care- 
ful experimentation has shown, however, that no ap- 
preciable penetration of the metal (in the absence 
of cracks allowing leakage) by carbonic oxide or 
other gases takes place, unless at, or near, a red heat. 
* November, 1879. WARMTH. 
45 
According to chemical authorities, cast-iron contains 
in itself more or less carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, 
and sometimes even arsenic; products of whose com- 
bustion may be given out at a very high temperature. 
No stove ought ever to be heated red hot in an occu- 
pied room. A stove large for the apartment is always 
the best, on account of its giving off sufficient heat 
with a moderate fire, instead of needing, from defi- 
cient size, to be constantly urged to a high heat. 
In the homes of the poor, in large cities, from want 
of means to rent more than one, two, or three rooms 
for a family, a great evil in midsummer is, sometimes, 
the excessive heat of the cooking-stove. Near this, 
in a small room, often in a narrow, crowded court, 
the mother is obliged to lay her babe, and to watch 
the older children, while she cooks their meals or 
heats water to wash their clothing. No wonder that 
the "summer-complaint" attacks infants in such 
places; and no wonder that, when they are so at- 
tacked, medical skill often fails to bring relief, unless 
the little sufferers can be taken away to the open hill- 
sides of the country, or to the sea-shore. What a 
blessing of blessings to these is the sea-side " sanita- 
rium " or the "country week" ! 
Large houses, even private dwellings, are not un- 
frequently warmed by pipes containing hot water or 
steam. Theoretically, hot water ought to be the best, 
from the hygienic standpoint; because the tempera- 46 
OUR HOMES. 
ture produced by it, under ordinary pressure, is never 
very excessive, as that of steam may be.* Still, the 
positive and comparative usefulness and general ad- 
vantages of both methods depend very much on the 
skill and care with which the apparatus is constructed 
and managed. It has happened to me to become well 
acquainted, during two years, with the disadvantages 
of an ill-constructed apparatus for steam-heat. Yet 
in many buildings it appears to give fair satisfaction. 
It is of consequence to remember, at all events, that 
all pipe systems, yet more than warm-air furnaces, are 
absolutely without any arrangements for ventilation, 
which must therefore be otherwise supplied. Many 
authorities agree in recommending that, instead of 
having coils or lines of pipe as "radiators" in the 
different rooms to be warmed, the heatTff pipes should 
be utilized by means of air-chambers, through which 
fresh air is passed in contact with them, and, after 
being warmed, is distributed through the house by 
means of flues. 
Warming, as well as cooking, by means of gas, 
seems not unlikely to become common in our houses. 
It offers extreme convenience as its great attraction. 
Many years ago, I proposed, in a communication to 
* It is a singular mistake, made by some persons, to suppose 
that the heat furnished by steam- or hot-water pipes is moist. As 
tiie pipes are always (if rightly made) entirely tight, water for 
evaporation is needed just as much with them as with ordi- 
nary warm-air furnaces. WARMTH. 
47 
the Franklin Institute, warming and cooking by 
means of pure hydrogen gas, conveyed through pipes 
separate from those of the gas used for illumination. 
It has the advantage of giving off much heat in pro- 
portion to its volume, and, what is more important, 
the product of its combustion is simple water; while 
ordinary burning gas produces also carbonic acid, 
carbonic oxide, and sulphurous acid, besides other 
deleterious substances contained in it before burning, 
which may escape through leakage. My proposition 
was set aside at the time, on account of the expense 
of the manufacture of hydrogen, compared with the 
cost of coal as fuel. Should coal become much more 
dear, or a very cheap process for making pure hy- 
drogen be invented, the hydrogen stove may perhaps 
yet come into use. When common gas is burned, 
unless a special arrangement is made to carry away the 
results of its combustion, it vitiates the air consider- 
ably. A gas-stove needs a chimney, or at least an 
escape-pipe communicating with one, as truly, and for 
the same reason, as does a kitchen range or other stove. 
It is, however, more easy to provide this in connec- 
tion with a gas fire, on account of its being less bulky 
than one of coal; and the gas-burner's escape-tube 
or pipe may be made an excellent means of ventila- 
tion. Eassie* describes a plan for a gas-stove, in which 
fresh air is introduced by a pipe from the exterior into 
* In his work on Sanitary Arrangements, etc., before men- 
tioned. 48 
OUR HOMES. 
a cylinder which surrounds the burner; the latter being 
enclosed in, and receiving air through, a tube commu- 
nicating with the outer atmosphere ; the results of the 
combustion of the gas being carried off by the tube pass- 
ing out above the stove. Thus there is no possibility 
of the air of the apartment being contaminated, and 
a good ventilation, as well as warming, is obtained. 
The necessity of removing the products of the com- 
bustion of gas, as well as those from that of candles 
or oil, is very pressing. Prof. Pettenkofer ascertained 
that a man exhales every hour from six- to seven- 
tenths of a cubic foot of carbonic acid gas ; saturation 
of the air of an apartment with which gas is fatal, and 
even four per cent, of it is dangerous to life. Angus 
Smith and Hartley assert that a good oil " modera- 
tor " lamp produces a little more than half a cubic 
foot, and a good candle three-tenths of a cubic foot 
of carbonic acid gas in an hour. 
A common gas-burner, consuming three cubic feet 
of gas per hour, gives off about as much carbonic acid 
gas as three men would do in the same time.* Of 
course the larger size of the burners employed for 
warming or cooking purposes than for illumination 
must involve occasion for a proportionately increased 
supply of air in ventilation. Of this, however, we 
shall speak presently. 
* Lange's estimate is, that a gas-burner giving a light equal 
to that of eight candles, produces nearly as much carbonic acid 
as six men. CHAPTER VI. 
VENTILATION. 
ANCIENT Egypt, the site of the earliest civiliza- 
tion whose remains have been spared by time, 
appears to have been somewhat acquainted with the 
needs of ventilation. In the Pyramid of Cheops, 
probably older than Abraham, a passage exists, seem- 
ing to have had the purpose of conveying air into and 
out from the chamber in the interior of the structure. 
Acron, a Greek philosopher and physician, in the 
century before Hippocrates, is said to have arrested 
an epidemic at Athens by lighting fires in several 
places in the city to change the air. Celsus, the 
great Roman physician, alludes in his writings to the 
beneficial action of fire, the sun's heat, and elevated 
exposure, in purifying the air of sick-rooms. The 
ancient Romans sometimes employed great bellows 
for ventilation. In Germany, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, bellows, and also rotary fans, were used to inject 
fresh air into, and force foul air out of, mines. De- 
saguliers imitated this in England in the eighteenth 
century; and also contrived a revolving fan to venti- 
49 50 
OUR HOMES. 
late the House of Commons, by drawing foul air out 
at the top of the building. This arrangement was in 
use for nearly eighty-four years. Dr. Hale, of Lon- 
don, during the same century, invented what he called 
" ships' lungs," for airing, by a kind of bellows, the 
holds and other parts of vessels at sea. Sutton, a 
London brewer, near the same time, attained a simi- 
lar result by utilizing the cooking-fire on the ship's 
deck. Hospital ventilation, through aspiration by 
heated flues, was introduced into England by Sir 
George Paul, in 1820. Dr. Arnott, a little later, did 
a great deal to stimulate attention in Great Britain to 
ventilation. His chimney-place valve is still a good 
deal used. A curious but sensible proposal, made by 
Sir Humphrey Davy for the House of Lords, and 
afterwards carried out by Dr. Reid, was, to make a 
great number of "gimlet-hole" apertures for the 
removal of foul air. 
No educated person denies the importance of ven- 
tilation ; but scarcely one in a hundred of the best- 
educated people gives enough practical attention to 
it. It is proper, in this place, to go down to the 
elements of the subject. Why do we need to " ven- 
tilate" at all? Because we have to breathe; and, in 
breathing, we use up and spoil the air. Everybody 
knows what happens in drowning; air is, for a minute 
or two, kept out from the lungs by water, and the 
submerged person dies. So when a man goes into a VENTILA TION. 
51 
beer-vat, lately emptied of its liquid, but leaving 
some of the gas of fermentation, carbonic acid, be- 
hind, he falls over, and, unless at once rescued, loses 
his life. Sleeping in a room in which charcoal is 
burning, away from an open chimney, has, likewise, 
often been fatal. In these cases, it may be said, the 
air is poisoned. This is true; but it is not more cer- 
tainly, nor even so badly poisoned, as it is by human 
breaths and the exhalations of our bodies. Charcoal 
gas is carbonic acid ; we exhale that, and besides, 
with every breath, and from all the pores of the sur- 
face of the body, deleterious organic matter. This 
combination, when concentrated, will kill more 
quickly than the gas produced by simple combustion 
alone. In the famous instance of the "Black Hole 
of Calcutta," always cited in connection with this 
subject, one of the survivors of the night-long impris- 
onment (of one hundred and forty-six men in a room 
eighteen feet square) mentions, that although the room 
had in it two small windows, all but twenty-three 
men died; several of them with different symptoms 
from those produced by breathing carbonic-acid gas 
alone. Another example of the same thing is the 
following : A steamer (the Londonderry) was over- 
taken in the Irish Sea by a storm. The passengers, 
about two hundred, having been ordered below, the 
captain, to prevent water from getting in, battened 
down the hatches. Before their suffering and alarm 52 
OUR HOMES. 
compelled him to set them at liberty, seventy-two 
had died of suffocation. There is, then, immediate 
danger from want of ventilation. But this is far from 
all. An impure air may poison us slowly. Typhus 
fever (jail fever, camp fever, ship fever, of different 
places) may, I am well convinced, be engendered by 
this cause alone, as well as by contagion. Typhoid 
fever and diphtheria are, at least, much promoted by 
it; and, without any such diseases, a low state of 
health, with increased liability to scarlet-fever, mea- 
sles, etc., and a greater probability of death when 
they occur, is a constant effect of close living. Pul- 
monary consumption, and other affections of the 
chest, as pneumonia and bronchitis, are much more 
common and more fatal with those who live all the 
time in ill-ventilated rooms, than in those who, with 
an active, out-of-doors life, are exposed to the vicissi- 
tudes and inclemencies of the weather. This is a fact 
which, if it were generally appreciated, might make 
a great difference in the manner of living of many 
people. 
Air consists chiefly of two gases mixed together. 
Referring to larger works for more precise details, we 
may say that these are, about four-fifths of nitrogen 
and one-fifth oxygen. The latter is the vitalizing, 
indispensable principle; the nitrogen merely dilutes 
it. Also, the air contains a variable amount of watery 
vapor, which we cannot do without, but which may VENTILA TION. 
53 
be more or less disadvantageous by excess; a quantity 
of carbonic acid, averaging, in the open air, three 
or four parts only in 10,000; and other ingredients, 
gaseous, vaporous, and even solid (dust, etc.), present 
or absent, according to locality and circumstances. 
Of these non-essentials of the atmosphere, the organic 
matter derived from human beings, other animals, 
and plants, living or dead, is the most important, be- 
cause capable of doing the most harm by its decom- 
position and poisonous action. 
A man, by his breath, will spoil, in twenty-four 
hours, about three hundred and fifty cubic feet of air; 
as much, that is, as would be contained in a room 
a little more than seven feet square, with a ceiling 
seven feet high. Could all the carbonic acid gas ex- 
haled by a man in that number of hours be collected, 
and its carbon, extracted from it, the latter would be 
equal to half a pound or more of charcoal, besides the 
organic matter given off, whose amount is not easily 
estimated. 
When people sleep in small rooms with closed win- 
dows and doors, or collect in numbers in church con- 
gregations, theatres, etc., with lights burning, and, 
in cold weather, with windows and doors shut to keep 
up warmth, foulness of the air is soon produced. Of 
this, an excess of carbonic acid is a part, and a sign of 
other impurity. If air contains more than six or seven 
parts of carbonic acid in 10,000, it must be counted 54 
OUR HOMES. 
impure. Yet the following are amounts of that gas 
actually found by examination in certain localities: 
Parts in io,ooo. 
London school-room (Roscoe) 29. 
Munich school-room (Pettenkofer) 72. 
Munich beer-saloon (Pettenkofer) 49. 
Hospital, Madrid (Luna) 43. 
Bedroom, Madrid (Luna) 48. 
Lecture-room, Paris (Leblanc) 67. 
Diminution of the oxygen of the air occurs, also, 
from breathing and burning of fires and lights. If this 
goes so far as a loss of two or three parts of oxygen in 
a hundred, life is endangered from this cause, as well 
as from the negative or obstructive effect of excess of 
carbonic acid gas. This latter gas, when pure, can- 
not be breathed into the lungs; but when dilute, it 
enters them, and produces unconsciousness and death, 
more or less rapidly according to its amount. Where 
a lighted candle goes out, as in a beer-vat or an old 
dry well, or unventilated coal-mine, etc., it is known 
to be unsafe for a human being to go. Four per cent, 
of carbonic acid renders the air dangerous to life; 
ten per cent, will overcome any one almost imme- 
diately. 
Considering, then, the propensity of many people 
for shutting everything up, the porosity of our walls, 
and the unintended cracks in doors and windows of 
most houses, must be regarded as fortunate and pre- 
servative. A movement of the air goes on by diffu- VENT1LA TION. 
55 
sion, as well as by the winds and currents perceived 
by our senses. Pettenkofer devised a curious experi- 
ment to show how air penetrates through gravel. He 
half filled a glass cylinder with gravel, over which a 
wire netting was placed ; on this a canary bird was 
put; over him another wire netting, and above that 
the cylinder was filled to the top with gravel. So 
the bird lives all day, without 
seeming to be incommoded for 
want of air. The warmth of 
its body induces a gentle as- 
cending and descending cur- 
rent of air around it through 
the two layers of gravel, the 
upper one communicating with 
the atmosphere. Without such 
a movement to renew the air 
for it to breathe, it would be 
fatally poisoned in a very few 
hours. Although birds consume 
and require more air in propor- 
tion to their bulk than we do, 
yet our larger size involves a demand for atmospheric 
movement much greater than, without investigation, 
most people would suppose. 
This demand i^, too often, very imperfectly met. 
Look, for example, at the following figures, taken 
from good authorities. First, we must premise, that, 
as an adult consumes three hundred and fifty cubic 
Fig. 2. 56 
OUR HOMES. 
feet of air in respiration in twenty-four hours, at least 
twice that amount of space ought to be allotted to 
every person in a living apartment, whether awake 
or asleep. In a hospital, it ought not to be less than 
1000 cubic feet for each patient. 
Cubic feet per head, 
allowed by regulation. 
English Poor-Law Board, dormitories 300. 
London Metropolitan Lodging-Houses 240. 
London School Board, per scholar 130. 
English Wooden Hut Barracks ' 400. 
Prussian Barracks 495. 
English Wooden Barrack Hospitals 600. 
But cubic space does not settle the whole question, 
at all. Granting to each person in an unoccupied 
room 1000 cubic feet, the air in that space ought, for 
health, to be all changed about four times in an hour. 
Let us contrast, with the table above given, another, 
slightly modified from one calculated by Morin, an 
eminent French sanitarian.* It states the require- 
ments which are now considered not too great, in- 
deed quite moderate, for health : 
Air per head, per hour, 
cubic feet. 
Hospitals for ordinary patients 2000 to 2500. 
Hospitals for wounded or lying-in 3500. 
Hospitals for epidemics 5000. 
Workshops 2000 to 3500. 
Public assembly rooms 2000. 
School-rooms 1000. 
* For the exact table, see Buck's Hygiene and Public Health. 
New York, 1879. Vol. I., p. 705. VENTILA TION. 
57 
But, say some of our readers, this is alarming. 
How can any ordinary house be provided with such 
a movement of air? It is, in fact, an easier matter 
than would, at first thought, be supposed. A good 
ordinary fire will cause from 6000 to 10,000 cubic feet 
of air per hour to enter and leave a room.* How are 
the winds caused, which sweep over everything on 
the surface of our earth ? By differences of tempera- 
ture, making the air heavier and lighter in different 
localities; the colder and heavier air moving so as to 
displace upwards the lighter warm air, and thus mak- 
ing currents in the atmosphere. The same cause is 
constantly acting in our houses, more or less power- 
fully. But it needs arrangement and encouragement 
to give it full effect. 
Before saying more about this, it will be well to 
dwell upon another very important fact in Nature. It 
is remarkable that the proportion of the two gases, 
oxygen and nitrogen, of which the air is chiefly com- 
posed, is almost exactly the same everywhere, although 
they are only mixed, not chemically combined. From 
the "difficult air of the iced mountain top" to that 
which is filled with spray by the breakers at the mar- 
gin of the sea, the same air is breathed by all, except 
where it is spoiled in or near human habitations or 
other artificial constructions. The " law," or general 
fact, of which this is an example, is the law of the 
* Healthy Houses, by F. Jenkin, F. R. S. 58 
OUR HOMES. 
mutual diffusion of gases. Every gas tends to ex- 
pand and occupy all the space to which it has access; 
and different gases do not interfere with each other's 
liberty in this respect. Carbonic acid gas is so heavy 
that, when quite pure, it can be poured like water, 
from vessel to vessel; and yet, if a vessel of it is left 
open to the air, it will soon pass off and disappear. 
This is very important to us, as, otherwise, the amount 
of this heavy gas produced by all the respiration of 
men and animals, and the combustion of fuel, in our 
cities, would make the continuance of life impossible.* 
This constant diffusion of air-constituents is not 
fully appreciated by all, even of those who have given 
attention to sanitary science. Some writers upon 
hospitals assert that the ceiling of a ward may be 
too high for good ventilation. I am sure this is a 
mistake. Familiarity with hospitals for several years, 
and comparison of them by visitation in Europe as 
well as in this country, besides what every traveller 
knows of the great cathedrals abroad, has confirmed 
to my judgment practically what should be expected 
according to theory, namely, that the ceiling of no 
living-room, for the sick or the well, can be too high 
for health. Of course, it requires more consumption 
* A beneficent aid in the removal of carbonic acid from the 
air is provided by the action of the leaves of trees and other 
plants, which, during the daytime, absorb this gas, and give out 
oxygen in return. But this would not suffice without diffusion. VENTILA TION. 
59 
of fuel to warm sufficiently a room with a high ceil- 
ing than one with a low one; but this is an economi- 
cal rather than a sanitary question. 
It is a maxim of pre-eminent importance, in regard 
both to breathing air and drinking water when ex- 
posed to causes of contamination, that confinement 
and concentration intensify, while dilution and diffu- 
sion make innocent, most organic poisons. To put the- 
case strongly: I would rather, with a view to the 
safety of health, have a water-closet ventilated, even 
through a house, by open doors and windows com- 
municating with it, than have it not ventilated at all, 
while used constantly. Indeed, the most terribly 
killing of all poisons of the kind now referred to is 
produced by shutting up old cesspools. Take, for 
example, such a case as this: 
Not very long since, at Cleveland, Ohio, four deaths 
were caused by opening a cesspool, which had not 
been used for a number of months, and had been cov- 
ered with planking, over which were eight inches of 
dirt. One of the men descended, in order to open 
it, into an adjoining privy vault, which was in use 
and ventilated. As soon as he made a communica- 
tion with the cesspool, so as to allow its gas to escape, 
he fell over unconscious. Three others, who entered 
after him, experienced the same fate, and all died.* 
* Report of Health Department, Cleveland, Ohio. 60 
OUR HOMES. 
The question of drainage and "conservancy" will 
be considered later in this book; but I wish to place 
here large emphasis upon this most vital difference 
between concentrated and diffused organic poisons of 
air or water. 
It would be easy to bring together many instances 
of different kinds to illustrate the close relation of 
air-space and ventilation to health. I will here add 
but two, which are rather curious. The proprietor 
of a large factory in Manchester, England, having a 
working-room too small for those engaged in it, and 
not well ventilated, enlarged it. He was, soon after, 
obliged to increase the wages of his employees, be- 
cause, with better air to breathe, their appetites be- 
came larger, and it cost them a good deal more to 
live. A dining-club, in Edinburgh, concluded that 
the ceiling of their dining-room was too low. They 
had it raised, and, in consequence, the amount of 
viands consumed at their prandial gatherings was 
found to be notably and expensively increased. 
Yet, to show how singularly such simple sanitary 
principles may be misapprehended, a printed circular 
was distributed in Philadelphia by its Board of Health, 
in 1866, prior to an expected visitation of cholera, 
in which the families of the city were advi;?ed to shut 
up all their windows at four o'clock every afternoon, 
and keep them closed until ten o'clock the next 
morning ! This august body has, undoubtedly, gained VENTILA TION. 
61 
in wisdom by a dozen years of experience, or, with 
such ideas, it would not be a very safe guardian of the 
public welfare. 
We may see, from what has been said, how obvious 
and simple are the objects to be aimed at in ventila- 
tion, however complicated and difficult sometimes 
may be their attainment from the interference of cir- 
cumstances. These objects are : 
i. To move uniformly through a building the re- 
quired amount of pure, fresh air. 
2. Duly to distribute this air to the different apart- 
ments in the house. 
3. Properly to diffuse it in each room. 
4. To remove the vitiated air from every room in 
the building. 
5. To warm the air sufficiently in winter. 
6. To supply it with an appropriate amount of 
moisture. 
Most of the year, and for the majority of persons, 
it is necessary that the movement of the air through 
apartments in which they live should be gentle as 
well as uniform. That is, we must avoid draughts, 
unless in the warmest and driest of summer weather, 
when we court every breath of a zephyr, whose com- 
ings are " few and far between."* Yet there must 
* At 6o° Fah., air-movement is not felt as a draught unless it 
has a velocity of 2^ feet in a second. 62 
OUR HOMES. 
be a movement through every room, not merely one 
opening into it; outlets as well as inlets must be pro- 
vided.* A chamber with but one window, with the 
door shut, and without either an open transom or a 
fireplace, is often insufficiently ventilated, except in 
windy weather. The best chance for such a room is 
to have the window open both at the top and at the 
bottom. The cold air will then enter below (being 
heavier), and the lighter warm air will escape at the 
upper opening. In order to get the most uniform air- 
movement through a room with the least draught, 
several inlets and outlets are always better than one 
or two. If there be two or more windows in a room, 
it is best to open each a little, both at the bottom and 
at the top. Thus the total of inlets and outlets may 
be greater than would be borne if a single window 
afforded it all, either at the top or at the bottom. It 
is wonderful how small the cracks may be which sev- 
eral windows will need to have as openings, in order 
to keep the atmosphere of a room sweet and pure. 
Natural and artificial ventilation are often spoken 
of as two different and contrasted things. But, 
since all human constructions, houses included, are 
artificial, spontaneous or accidental would be a better 
* In a private conservatory at Germantown, Philadelphia, last 
Winter, every plant was killed in a single cold night, because, 
through oversight, although a warm-air flue opened into it, no 
outlet was left for the maintenance of air-movement through it. VENTILATION. 
63 
term than natural. The other term, artificial, may 
as well be retained ; meaning the use of apparatus or 
special arrangements expressly for ventilation. By 
spontaneous or accidental ventilation, then, we mean, 
that of open fireplaces, doors, and windows. Of the 
fireplace, so serviceable even without a fire, a good 
deal has been said already. Windows and doors an- 
swer very well in a warm climate and in fair weather ; 
but they are uncertain and variable, and so liable to 
excess of draught, as to induce with many persons a 
constant dread of catching cold. Yet they may be 
managed, with care, so as to maintain a pure atmos- 
phere within doors, even in mid-winter, so long as 
sufficient heat is afforded, by warming-apparatus, for 
comfort and health. They answer best, perhaps, with 
open fires. Many English sanitarians prefer "nat- 
ural" ventilation to any other kind, for dwellings and 
hospitals. Among these, Florence Nightingale, one 
of the highest recent authorities on hospitals, exclaims 
against the "abominable artificial ventilation" of 
some European institutions. 
Next to the purely spontaneous or accidental meth- 
ods come those which, in a simple manner, add to 
or modify these. One such is the plan ascribed to 
Hinkes-Bird, which is described and figured in Dr. 
H. Osgood's Winter and its Dangers. It consists in 
the insertion of a piece of wood, made to fit under 
the lower sash of the window, raised a few inches. 64 
OUR HOMES. 
Air then enters upwards, between the two sashes, at 
their place of junction. Still simpler, and equally 
effectual, is Dr. W. W. Keen's arrangement - placing, 
with tacks or pins 
(preferably the former, 
using loops of tape, 
which can be taken 
off and replaced, as 
wanted), a piece of 
cloth or paper across 
the lower ten or twelve 
inches of the window 
frame, and then rais- 
ing the lower sash more 
or less, according to 
the weather. 
Still another way of getting an upward-directed 
draught is by means of the Sherringham valve. For 
this, an opening is made through the wall, near the 
ceiling; and inside the room is 
a small shoot, or sloping board, 
closed in at the sides. A lid 
or valve, above this, may be used 
to lift or close, so as to regulate 
the amount of air admitted. 
The same effect, however, 
almost exactly, can be obtained by fixing an upward- 
sloping board about six or eight inches below the top 
Fig. 3- 
„ 
Fig. 4. VENTILA TJON. 
65 
of the window, and then letting down the upper sash 
a few inches. 
An excellent method was in use, some years ago, 
in the temporary building occupied by the Episcopal 
Hospital of Philadelphia. A pane was removed from 
each of the windows in a ward, and in its place was 
introduced a piece of zinc, perforated with a number 
of small holes. Wire gauze will do about as well. 
This allows the air to come in slowly, without 
draught; and, moreover, it tempers it, by the conduct- 
ing power of the metal, warmed by the heat of the 
room. The principle here is the same, essentially, as 
that of the Davy safety lamp for miners ; viz., the 
rapid effect of short metallic tubes, or pores, com- 
municating their own temperature to gas or air pass- 
ing through them. 
Nothing has pleased me more, after actual trial 
for a considerable time, than 
Maine's elbow-tube ventilator. 
This consists of a board (made 
in two parts, sliding on each 
other, so as to be adjusted 
to different windows), to be 
placed under a raised sash, 
as in Hinkes-Bird's plan, but 
having passed through it two pipes or tubes, about 
six inches in diameter, each bent upward in an elbow; 
Fig- 5- 66 
OUR HOMES. 
the top of each tube being open above, and supplied 
with a regulating valve. 
By means of this arrangement, the cool air from 
out of doors is directed upwards altogether, and is 
not felt as a draught, even by those who sit quite near 
to the open ends of the tubes. 
Inlets and outlets are both, as already said, neces- 
sary for due circulation of the air.* When they are 
made, expressly for ventilation, the question occurs, 
Where shall they be? An opening in the wall, ceil- 
ing, or floor of a room may be either an inlet or an 
outlet, or both, according to circumstances. If it be 
connected with a flue from the air-chamber of a fur- 
nace, it will, of course, be, ordinarily, an inlet for 
warm air. If it communicate directly with the open 
air, it may be either an outlet for warm air, or an 
inlet for cold air. When there is an open fireplace 
in the room, it will generally be a cold-air inlet. In 
the absence of a fire-place, if there be a single open- 
ing, only, besides the warm-air register,- this open- 
* Dr. Parkes, in his Treatise on Practical Hygiene, says, that 
in a hospital, the sum of inlets and outlets should be not less 
than forty eight square inches for each patient. Morin advises 
that the fresh-air inlet should equal fourteen square inches for 
every one hundred cubic feet of space. Whether inlets or out- 
lets should be largest, sanitary authorities are not agreed. I am 
tempted to coin the word throughlet for an opening which may 
allow air either to enter or leave the room by it, according to 
the circumstances of temperature, pressure, etc. VENTILA TION. 
67 
ing will usually be an outlet, relieving the pressure 
caused by the furnace air-chamber flue. 
A fireplace with a wide-throated chimney, and either 
a coal-grate or a wood fire burning in it, seldom needs 
any inlets or outlets for ventilation, besides the cracks 
which, unintentionally, exist in windows and door- 
ways. The chief problem concerns rooms warmed 
by heated air, or by steam or hot-water pipes. First, 
then, as to the warm-air arrangement. Several pos- 
sibilities may be considered. Our diagrams may 
facilitate the comparison of them together. 
In Fig. 6, warm air is represented as entering at I, 
near the floor, on one side of the room, and escaping 
immediately above this, near the ceiling, on the same 
side. A great waste of heat must result, with, no 
doubt, some, but far from perfect, ventilation. 
Fig. 7 shows what will happen if warm air is ad- 
mitted at the top of the room on one side, and allowed 
to escape also near the, ceiling on the opposite side. 
Being lighter than the cold air of the room, the warm 
air will float over it, like oil over water, without affect- 
ing the room sensibly. 
In Fig. 8 we have the inlet at the middle of the 
floor, and an outlet directly over this (above a gas 
chandelier, for example), in the midst of the ceiling. 
This will ventilate, but with too much loss of heat. 
Better, decidedly, indeed quite good, will be the ar- 
rangement shown in Fig. 9, in which two warm-air 68 
OUR HOMES. 
Fig. 6. 
Fig. 7- 
Fig. 8. 
Fig. 9. 
Fig. 10. 
Fig. 11. 
Fig. 1 a. 
Fig. 13. VENTILATION. 
69 
registers are placed, one on each side of the room, at 
the floor, the outlet being at the centre of the ceiling. 
Fig. io illustrates the air-movement when the warm- 
air flue opens at the floor on one side, and the outlet 
is at the ceiling on the opposite side. This will give 
a good distribution of the air introduced before its 
escape through the outlet. In Fig. n this arrange- 
ment is reversed, warm air coming in at the ceiling 
on one side and going (or intended to go) out at the 
floor on the other side. 
In Fig. 12 the inlet is at the floor on one side, and 
the outlet also at the floor on 
the opposite side. For this 
plan, or that of Fig. n to 
succeed well, there must be 
a compulsory out-draught to 
compel the warm air to de- 
scend from the ceiling to the 
floor and escape at the outlet. 
This compulsory draught can 
be afforded only in either of 
two ways : by an upward cur- 
rent determined by heat, or 
by mechanical aspiration, 
that is, the use of an exhaust- 
ing pump or fan. 
Figs. 13 and 14 are designed to represent the prin 
ciple of G. R. Barker's warming and ventilating flue. 
Inlet. 
Outlet. 
Fig. 14- 70 
OUR HOMES. 
In it the warm air is introduced through a cowl- 
shaped inlet or register, elevated about a foot above 
the floor, while immediately beneath it is the outlet 
register, whose upward current is caused by the 
warmth of the metallic pipe through which the warm 
air is brought up from the air-chamber of the furnace 
in the cellar. Above this pipe and its cowl-like cover 
or top, and at its sides, the flue is open to the chimney. 
The course of air-movement, then, is this: warm air, 
entering by the upper register, rises, on account of its 
comparative lightness, and is distributed through the 
room; descending as it cools, it finds its way gradu- 
ally to the floor, and then is drawn out by the lower 
register, where, being warmed by the exterior of the 
air-chamber pipe, it ascends to the chimney and passes 
out. This arrangement for warming and ventilation 
has been introduced successfully into the hospital of 
the University of Pennsylvania, in West Philadelphia. 
It appears to me the best, as it is one of the sim- 
plest, methods of ventilating apartments warmed by a 
furnace-heater. 
Where an out-draught can be conveniently secured 
at an outlet near the floor, as in Fig. 12, the warm air 
entering on the opposite side of the room, also near 
the floor, an excellent effect is produced. But with- 
out such a provision for an upward current beyond the 
outlet (as by a pipe passing up through a chimney 
heated by a kitchen or other fire), cold air would often VENTILA TION. 
71 
enter instead, and the ventilation would be uncertain 
and imperfect. 
For private houses, simplicity and convenience will 
usually decide in favor of an arrangement such as 
is represented above in Figures 9 and 10; the lat- 
ter, particularly, in rooms not very large, where a 
warm-air register, at the floor on one side, or at one 
end of the apartment, and a ventilating outlet, near 
the ceiling, on the other side, or at the other end, 
will give a very good distribution of air. When the 
door of the room is open, instead of warmed air es- 
caping, cold air may enter the room at the opening 
near the ceiling ; but that, if moderate in amount, is 
not objectionable; as a circulation of air,with sufficient 
warmth, is what is always wanted in ventilation. 
How much air can be safely admitted into a sleep- 
ing- or living-room, is a common question. Rather, 
it should be considered, how rapidly air can be ad- 
mitted, without injury or risk, and at how low a tem- 
perature. We cannot have too much fresh air, so 
long as we are warm enough, and are not exposed to 
draughts. What is a draught ? It is a swift current 
of air, at a temperature lower than the body, which 
robs either the whole body, or an exposed part, of its 
heat, so rapidly as to disturb the equilibrium of our 
circulation, and give us cold. Young and healthy 
persons can habituate themselves to sleeping in even 
a strong draught, as from an open window, if they 72 
OUR HOMES. 
cover themselves, in cold weather, with an abundance 
of bedclothes. But those who have been long accus- 
tomed to being sheltered from the outer air by sleep- 
ing in warmed and nearly or quite shut-up rooms, are 
too susceptible to cold to bear a direct draught of 
cold air. Persons over seventy years of age, more- 
over, with lower vitality than in their youth, will not 
bear a low temperature, even in the air they breathe. 
Like hot-house plants, they may be killed by a winter- 
night's chill, and must be protected by warmth at all 
times. As a' rule, we may say, that, except for the 
most robust, the air which enters at night into a sleep- 
ing-chamber should, in cold weather, be admitted 
gradually only, by cracks or moderate openings; or 
should have its force broken by some interposed ob- 
stacle, as a curtain, etc., to avert its blowing immedi- 
ately upon a sleeper in his bed. The ancient fashion, 
however, of having bed-curtains, which exclude almost 
all the air, has rightly become almost obsolete. No 
wonder that people dream horrid dreams, and wake 
in the morning wearied rather than refreshed, when 
they sleep in rooms sealed up tightly on every side; 
breathing over and over again their own breaths, 
which grow more poisonous with every hour of the 
night. 
Many different systems and apparatus for ventila7 
tion of rooms and houses have been invented, more 
or less ingenious and successful in attaining their end VENTILATION. 
73 
- Muir's, McKinnell's, Tobin's, Ruttan's, Hulin's, 
and a host of others. For these, we must refer the 
reader to larger treatises. Our aim has been to set 
forth, as simply as possible, principles which may be 
applied and adapted to various circumstances. As 
already said, those who use open fires instead of 
stoves, furnace-heaters, steam- or hot-water pipes, 
may be congratulated as not requiring, usually, any 
special arrangements to supplement the action of their 
own chimney-places. If, as some estimate, so much 
as nine-tenths of the heat of an open-grate fire goes 
up the chimney and is lost, it is, at least, not wasted, 
since it does excellent work in providing what every 
one needs, but almost no one values aright: good 
ventilation. CHAPTER VII. 
WATER SUPPLY. 
THIRST is more terrible than hunger. Nearly 
three-fourths of our bodies consist of water ; and 
we part with a large amount of it, constantly, in dif- 
ferent modes, including exhalation of a pint or two, 
daily, in our breaths. We must, therefore, have a 
constant renewal of it. Half an ounce, daily, for 
each pound of our weight, is the average need of an 
adult; but some of this maybe taken in soft solid 
food, as bread, vegetables, and meat. Adding what 
is necessary for cooking and cleansing purposes, from 
fifteen to thirty gallons, daily, will not be too much 
of a supply to provide for each person in a household 
or community. As a minimum, may be mentioned 
the allotment on a man-of-war-one gallon, daily, 
for each man. If travellers' accounts are true, the 
water supply of the city of Munich is, or has been, 
even less than this. Since the natural humidity of 
our Western hemisphere is greater than that of the 
Old World, it is, in most places, easier with us than in 
Europe to obtain an ample supply of good, wholesome 
74 WATER SUPPLY. 
75 
water; so that the excuse of "bad water," for in- 
dulging in less advisable 'drinks, does not exist 
among us.* 
The quality of water is of great importance. Its 
kinds are (besides that which is artificially distilled), 
rain, melted ice or snow, spring, well, river, lake, 
marsh, and sea-water. The last named (sea-water) is 
quite undrinkable; it will not quench thirst, but 
nauseates and causes distress. Marsh-water is almost 
always decidedly unwholesome. Yet that of the 
Dismal Swamp, on the borders of Virginia and North 
Carolina, is reported to be very good, and is in de- 
mand for sea voyages, on account of its keeping so 
well. When water runs out on board of vessels at sea, 
distillation is often resorted to to make sea-water 
available for drinking and cooking. 
It might be imagined that the most desirable of 
all waters would be that which is distilled, leaving 
behind all dissolved solid ingredients. But that is 
not so; distilled water is insipid and less agreeable, 
without being more wholesome, than many natural 
waters. The fact is, that the substances contained in 
ordinary good spring- or river-water are very nearly 
* There is, it is true, a region in our Western country, that 
of the " alkali flats," where the surface water is not drinkable. 
Even there, probably, at some future time, driven or Artesian 
wells may procure a supply of good water; although this, of 
course, is uncertain before trial. 76 
OUR HOMES. 
the same as the mineral constituents of healthy human 
blood. We instinctively prefer a water which has 
some taste, and this quality is promoted even by the 
presence of absorbed air, commonly present in it. 
Rain-water is not at all identical with distilled 
water, even when it is collected directly from the air. 
It contains washings of the atmosphere, different ac- 
cording to locality. In the country, besides oxygen 
and nitrogen of the atmosphere, and carbonic acid, 
there will be in it a little of some other gases (as sul- 
phuretted hydrogen from organic decay) and dust, 
which consists of mineral, vegetable, and animal par- 
ticles of various kinds. Over a city, rain as it falls 
gathers more impurity; among other things, sulphur- 
ous and sulphuric acids from combustion of coal 
and other fuel, ammonia, and other results of the 
decay of organic matter of every kind. From the 
roofs of houses, over which it usually flows before it 
is collected, rain also washes a certain amount of the 
excrement of birds, etc. This can be avoided if the 
first portion that falls be allowed to escape; which, 
however, is not always easy to attend to in time, 
where rain-water is systematically accumulated for use. 
Rain-water is not to be preferred to other waters 
when they can be had in abundance and of good 
quality. But, under some circumstances, it is the 
best and most wholesome water that can be obtained. 
For example, the city of Venice, built upon a hun- WATER SUPPLY. 
77 
dred islands in the Adriatic Sea, has been for a very 
long period supplied by rain-water, collected in filter- 
ing cisterns underground. Filtration should always 
be employed when rain-water is used for drinking and 
cooking. It is less necessary, of course, when it is 
employed (as, on account of its softness, it very fre- 
quently is) only for washing purposes. 
At one of the New Jersey watering-places, a few 
yearsago, there occurred a number of cases of typhoid 
fever. All those attacked were residing in houses 
supplied by driven wells from the ground-water; all 
those who used rain-water for drinking and cooking 
escaped. This eminently illustrates one of the cases 
in which the clouds will furnish the only safe supply, 
the alternative being the drawing of water from a 
porous, sandy soil, into which is permeating all the 
filth of human habitations, from soil-wells, kitchen 
drains, and stables. Of this, however, more here- 
after. 
Enough rain-water can be collected in most places 
for family use, with filtration. A house forty feet by 
twenty, with a rainfall like that of the vicinity of 
Philadelphia (from forty-two to forty-five inches an- 
nually), will furnish from its roof an average through 
the year of sixty gallons daily. It may be collected 
in a tank near the roof, or in an underground cistern. 
The latter will be, on the whole, the most satisfac- 
tory. The best material for such storage is slate. 78 
OUR HOMES. 
Iron, coated with coal-tar paint to prevent rusting, will 
do; or brick-work, lined with cement. Lead, or even 
zinc, ought never to be used for a tank or cistern. 
Rain-water will dissolve enough lead to be certainly 
poisonous, and enough zinc to be at least possibly in- 
jurious. Every such cistern should be covered, to 
keep out jats, mice (in the country, squirrels), birds' 
excrements, etc. A strong but close iron wire cover 
over part of the cistern will have the advantage of 
allowing air to reach the water, while protecting it 
from contamination. Such will not be advantageous, 
however, unless the air around it be devoid of im- 
purity. Certain cellars are sources of great insalu- 
brity, having in them refuse of all sorts, decaying 
remains of vegetable and animal food, grease and 
filth of every kind; and all this without sunshine and 
fresh air from out of doors to purify them even in a 
slight degree. Water stored in such a place will be, 
however covered, in danger of generating or promot- 
ing typhoid fever, diphtheria, cholera infantum, or 
some other mortal disease. Bad air and bad water 
are the two most potent removable or preventable 
agencies concerned in inflicting these maladies upon 
humanity. 
Every cistern, moreover, should be cleaned out 
regularly, at intervals varying somewhat according to 
their size and amount of use. Once in three months 
will never be too often for this. WATER SUPPLY. 
79 
Other things being equal, flowing water will always 
be the best. Stagnation allows of the accumulation of 
the results of decomposition; movement and mingling 
with the air break up, dilute, and dissipate them. 
No beverage is better or more wholesome than good 
spring water. It is rain- or snow-water which, falling 
from the skies on some mountain or other elevated 
land, runs through earth and rocks, dissolving min- 
eral matter as it goes, until, at some lower place, it 
gushes forth, clear and sparkling, to the air. Some 
springs have their waters so charged with saline or 
gaseous constituents that they are called mineral 
springs ; carbonic acid, sulphur, and iron, with salts 
of magnesia, etc., being among their most common 
and important ingredients. 
Springs coming from a moderate depth in the earth 
are pleasantly cool. They have about the average 
temperature of their locality for the year. Yellow 
Springs, in Pennsylvania, have a temperature of about 
52° Far., which is the mean of Philadelphia for a term 
of years. Some other springs, from great depths, 
are warm or hot, even boiling; as the geysers of 
Iceland, Montana, Wyoming, and California. 
A country house is fortunate if it possesses, at a 
convenient distance, a good, cool, copious spring. 
Nothing is more attractive or more serviceable about 
a Pennsylvania farm than the spring-house; often jut- 
ting out from a bank or hillside, built low, but firmly, 80 
OUR HOMES. 
of gray stone, and shaded over by a few old trees. 
Within, you see the clear, transparent pool of water, 
in its reservoir of stone, pure as the air or sky over- 
head; and around it, or carefully placed in it, the pans 
of milk or cream, or butter, waiting for family use. 
A draught from that supply, flowing out to make a 
limpid stream through the meadow below, gives more 
refreshment, on a midsummer day, than the most 
tempting beverage of man's contrivance. It has in 
it no horrors, no mockery, only health. 
Well-water is like spring-water in many respects, 
but is not nearly always identical with it. Being de- 
tained, for a time at least, instead of flowing freely, 
it may become contaminated in many ways. Authors 
now refer constantly to the ground-water of a region 
as important in regard to water supply and influence 
upon the air. Wells are made by digging down to 
this, at a greater or less distance below the surface of 
the earth. 
Two sources of supply exist for the ground-water 
itself. One is the local rainfall, penetrating directly 
through the earth; the other is the flow or soakage from 
neighboring regions. If the soil be sandy, or in any 
way loose and porous, rain-water and melting snow will 
be diffused through it, sinking till they reach clay, 
hard rock, or some other layer of resisting material. 
Such a supply will vary with the weather and the 
season, and may be exhausted by use at any time. WATER SUPPLY. 
81 
There are shallow wells in some places which, having 
almost no other dependence, show nearly every year 
this unreliable character. Most wells, however, re- 
ceive their water from the general ground-water, 
which is continuously and slowly moving through an 
extended region towards a river or lake, which is the 
line or centre of drainage of the country. Alongside 
of a river or lake, or even but a few yards from the 
seashore, in not a few places, wells have been found to 
furnish water considerably different from that of the 
sea, lake, or river-the underground movement being 
to, not from, those great natural reservoirs. 
An important difference in the quality of well (or 
spring) water is its "hardness" or softness. Hard 
water does not easily make lather with soap. The 
reason is, that the "salts" which it contains, espec- 
ially those of lime (or its metal, calcium), yield bases 
which make, with the fatty acids of soap, insoluble 
compounds; while none such are formed with any in- 
gredients in rain or other soft waters. Two kinds of 
hardness exist - removable and permanent. The for- 
mer consists chiefly in an excess of calcium (lime) 
carbonate, dissolved by aid of carbonic acid in the 
water. The latter depends upon the presence of cal- 
cium sulphate in excess. 
Three ways are resorted to for removing the first of 
these kinds of hardness. One, the simplest, is by boil- 
ing the water. This drives off the excess of'carbonic 82 
OUR HOMES. 
acid which has kept the calcium carbonate (as a bicar- 
bonate) dissolved. It is then thrown down as adeposit, 
from which the water may be poured or strained away. 
Another method is the common use of "washing 
soda," sodium carbonate, which combines with the 
carbonic acid, making a sodium bicarbonate. This 
also causes the excess of calcium carbonate to be 
"precipitated" from the water. The third method 
is the addition of quicklime, in suitable amount, to 
the water. This, like the soda, unites with the excess 
of carbonic acid, and throws down the carbonate of 
calcium, which was dissolved by its aid, in the water. 
All these plans act alike in ridding the water of the 
carbonic acid in excess, which keeps the superfluous 
calcium carbonate in solution. Without either of 
them, an abundance of soap will overcome the ef- 
fect of hardness, although wastefully as regards ex- 
pense. 
Such, however, are questions of convenience, rather 
than of health. Is hard water more, or less, whole- 
some than soft water, as a drink? One English au- 
thority, Dr. Letheby, has endeavored to show that it 
is more favorable to health. Others dispute the in- 
ference from his facts. It is, indeed, difficult to sep- 
arate the influence of drinking-water from other 
modes of local causation. It appears to be almost 
certain that cattle pastured upon a limestone region 
grow larger-boned than those upon alluvial grounds. WATER SUPPLY. 
83 
Even men show some difference, in their average stat- 
ure, in such regions. Nevertheless, an excess of 
calcium and magnesium sulphates (the latter being 
"Epsom salt ") is sometimes present to a sufficient 
amount to produce irfitation of the bowels, and di- 
arrhoea, in persons accustomed to soft water. Travel- 
lers and new-comers often suffer this inconvenience,* 
while residents habituated to it are not at all affected 
by it. A reason why soft waters are not unfrequently 
charged with insalubrity, is, that they flow through, 
or are used in, low regions, in or near cities, where 
impurities of various kinds get access to them. On 
the whole, our preference may safely attach to a mod- 
erately hard water; although soft water, in a locality 
free from all contamination, is unobjectionable. It 
is quite supposable that those who drink rain-water 
only, may lack a sufficient supply of mineral matter 
for growth and repair of the substance of the bones. 
Yet, so much of all the mineral substances needful 
for building up our skeleton, and the other tissues of 
the body, exists in our articles of solid food, vegeta- 
ble and animal, that we can hardly regard this as 
likely to be important. At all events, for it to be so, 
there must be a general deficiency of mineral elements 
in the soil of the locality from which plants are grown, 
* For this, the best corrective is essence of ginger, five or ten 
drops in a tumblerful of hard water. 84 
OUR HOMES. 
and on which animals are fed, as well as in the 
water.* 
Wells differ much in the nature of their water, ac- 
cording to their depth. -Usually, the deeper well 
drains a larger extent of country. Much depends, 
however, on the character of the ground, its slopes, 
and elevation or depression, as compared with the 
surrounding region, as well as on the nature of the 
rocks underneath. Driven wells may be shallow or 
deep. They are made by forcing through the ground 
a wrought-iron tube, having a valved piston at its 
upper part, and at its lower end a steel point. Above 
this point, for some distance, the pipe (which is 
usually an inch and a quarter to two inches in 
diameter) is pierced with holes, for the admission 
of water. In many places where no water at all ap- 
pears upon the surface, a few feet of penetration will 
reach it and bring it up, sometimes even in abund- 
ance. Thus artificial oases have been made, as way- 
stations of refreshment for travellers, in some portions 
of the great African desert. It seems not impossible 
that, in the future, the desert may, by irrigation from 
such wells, be made actually to " blossom as the 
rose." 
Artesian wells are essentially of this character; only 
* I have often thought of the question, to solve which facts 
are wanting, whether early decay of the teeth is not most com- 
mon where only soft waters are drunk. WATER SUPPLY. 
85 
this name is applied to driven wells of great depth. 
They are said to have been used, ages ago, in China 
and Egypt. Now, many of them exist in Europe and 
America; some, one, two, or three thousand and 
more feet in depth. They are uncertain of success, 
unless the selection of locality be guided by geolog- 
ical knowledge. One at Grenelle, Paris, eighteen 
hundred feet deep, yields a large supply for local use. 
The deepest one in this country, at St. Louis (Asy- 
lum well), 3843 feet, has been a practical failure, 
after costing more than $10,000. Lately, it is stated 
that some brewers in New York city have been able to 
obtain, at one hundred and fifty feet depth, a thousand 
gallons a minute, through a pipe of six and one-half- 
inch bore.* This water is said to have a temperature 
of fifty-two degrees Fah. At greater depths, the 
water is much warmer. That of the Grenelle well 
is 80.6° Fah. One at Louisville, Kentucky, 2086 
feet in depth, has a temperature of 76-5°Fah.f This 
is a great objection, except where, as in our cities, ice 
may be employed to correct it. A considerable ex- 
cess of mineral matter is a more serious drawback 
to the use of water from very deep wells. That of 
St. Louis, above mentioned, is unavailable, chiefly 
for this reason. Yet a great advantage of very 
* Sanitary Engineer, November 15, 1879. 
j- A well recently completed near Buda-Pesth, Hungary, 3200 
feet deep, is said to yield water at 165° Fah. 86 
OUR HOMES. 
deep well-water is, its almost certain freedom from 
organic matter resulting from animal and vegetable 
decay. This kind of matter often pollutes shallow 
well water - most of all in cities. Pump-water in 
cities ought never to be drunk at all, no matter how 
clear and bright may be its appearance, or how agree- 
able its taste. Color and taste are not decisive of 
the quality of drinking-water. 
Well-water in the country is often tainted badly by 
the well for the household supply being too near the 
privy or the barn-yard. It may be seriously injured, 
e-ven, by the draining into it of kitchen waste. Thir- 
ty feet should be the least distance ever to be allowed 
between a privy and a drinking-well.* Sixty feet will 
be better ; and the slope of the ground is also import- 
ant. A privy should always be located below (if there 
be a slope) the house and its well. In choosing a site 
for a house, we should look out for the distance and 
direction of our neighbors' drainage as well as our 
own, and carefully avoid having to receive that of 
other houses on its downward course. 
* The editor of this series informs me that he knows of a case, 
in a town in New York State, where a cistern was placed with 
its wall but three feet from the privy-well, its sides only plas- 
tered, and that not on brick, but directly on the earth. Contin- 
ued sickness m the family, and one death from typhoid fever, 
caused an examination of the cistern, revealing the above facts, 
and a direct stream of drainage from the privy-well into the 
cistern. WATER SUPPLY. 
87 
Wells are sometimes liable to a less damaging, and 
yet considerable inconvenience, from the roots of 
trees.* At my residence, near Haverford College, a 
few years ago, an old willow tree sent out its roots to 
a deep well twenty feet distant from it. When dis- 
covered, the root-fibres were actually filling the well, 
so that, on looking into it, one could see only the 
roots, no water being visible at all. Elm-trees, and 
some others, have been known to do the same thing. 
The only cure for such an invasion is, to cut down 
the over-thirsty tree. 
Of the danger of injury to health from polluted wells, 
it is hardly possible to say too much. In one cholera 
season in London, six hundred deaths were traced to 
the use of a single street pump. Typhoid fever has 
been repeatedly, indeed many times, known to affect 
whole families who resorted to a well for a common 
supply, while others in the same neighborhood, using 
different water, were not attacked. Worse yet, per- 
haps, seems to be the subtlety with which organic 
poison may be conveyed, by water, through milk, in 
dairymen's supplies. Several times this has happened 
in London, and elsewhere in England. In one in- 
stance, so far as appeared, the only mode of con- 
tamination was by the milk-pans at the dairy being 
washed in water from a stream into which leakage 
* Roots are also sometimes sent into cracks of leaky drain- 
pipes or sewers, which may thus be obstructed. 88 
OUR HOMES. 
had occurred from a neighboring privy. At an- 
other time, several well-to-do families in London, 
one of them that of a physician, were affected with 
typhoid fever. It was found that they were all sup- 
plied with milk by a company which furnished milk 
from several dairies. At last it was ascertained that 
cases of fever occurred only in those families to whom 
had been sent the milk of one particular dairy; and a 
local cause of contamination of its supply was also 
traced. What exquisite cleanliness of all things is 
enjoined by this experience ! Nothing is more sensi- 
tive than milk and cream to all impurity. Even the 
water which cows drink, when marshy and bad, has 
been known to make their milk unwholesome. Butter 
can be made good only where the most scrupulous 
sweetness, cleanliness, and freshness of everything is 
maintained. This is the chief secret of good butter- 
making; and the "moral of it" may be extended and 
applied by saying, that perfect cleanliness of water, 
food, air, and person is, everywhere, absolutely neces- 
sary to perfect health. 
Streams and rivers furnish, the world over, to the 
greater number of mankind their drinking-water. 
They have the advantages of copiousness, facility of 
access, and movement, which favors agitation with 
the air and freshness. But they are liable to contami- 
nation on account of their exposure to solid and 
liquid refuse and waste of all kinds. Worst, for this' WATER SUPPLY. 
89 
danger, are small, shallow, slow streams, running 
through or by towns or villages, or near factories, 
graveyards, slaughter-houses, etc. River-water is best 
when taken from the largest, deepest, and most 
rapidly flowing river, near its middle, and a few feet 
below its surface. 
Turbidity in river-water makes it look uninvit- 
ing, but does not always affect its wholesomeness. 
Opacity is due almost entirely to suspended mineral 
matters, and they may be quite innocent. 
With all its solid material, giving cloudiness and 
taste, the water of the Mississippi, for example, is 
drunk by very many persons, and has been found to 
keep well at sea. 
Those accustomed to such a water often consider 
common river- or well-water too insipid to be agree- 
able. Marsh-water, however, as already said, is gen- 
erally quite unwholesome, promoting especially diar- 
rhoea and dysentery. 
Lake-water taken from a large lake, far out, has all 
the good qualities of river-water, and is less often ex- 
posed to contamination. A small lake, or pond, if 
so exposed, has, on account of its actual or compar- 
ative stagnation, less opportunity of purification than 
a flowing river. 
Organic matter constitutes the really serious im- 
purity of streams and rivers. Worst of all is ex- 
cretory material, sewage, from human habitations. 90 
OUR HOMES. 
Next to this, drainage from slaughter-houses, bone- 
boiling, fat-rendering, and soap-making establish- 
ments, etc. Dye-stuffs may color water a great deal, 
without a proportionately injurious effect, unless ar- 
senic or copper be present in them. Vegetable im- 
purity of all kinds is less deleterious than that origi- 
nating in animal decomposition. One grain of organic 
matter per gallon, chemists assure us, is all that a first- 
class drinking-water ought to contain; yet some 
pleasant and apparently innocent waters contain as 
much as ten grains in a gallon. One test is, adding 
a lump of white sugar to a vial of the water, and keep- 
ing it corked for a few days. If it contain much 
organic matter, it will become, in that time, per- 
ceptibly turbid. Another sign of this kind of im- 
purity in water is its acquiring an unpleasant smell 
when corked in a bottle and kept in a tolerably 
warm place (say at 700 Fah.) for three or four days. 
Rivers have some power of self-purification, or else 
those which, near large cities, receive sewage and also 
furnish drinking-water, would be still more destructive 
to life than they are. This evil is, it is true, so great 
as to receive at present much attention from sanita- 
rians. The means of this spontaneous purification are 
chiefly deposit, oxidation, and diffusion. By deposit, 
solid particles are thrown down, making the water 
clearer. Oxidation, under exposure to the air, does 
much more than this. Oxygen acts chemically upon WATER SUPPLY. 
91 
organic impurity, breaking it up into its elements, 
and destroying all its noxiousness in course of time. 
How long this requires, it is difficult to determine 
exactly in any case. Dilution and diffusion accom- 
plish the most beneficial results in natural water puri- 
fication. With a sufficient mass of water, everything 
soluble, or capable of suspension in the form of mi- 
nute particles, will be divided so infinitesimally as to 
become utterly harmless. The magnitude of this 
effect is shown, for example, in the river Merrimac, 
Mass., which receives all the sewage of the manufac- 
turing towns, Lawrence and Lowell; and yet it has 
been computed that to increase the amount of its 
solid matter below Lawrence, so much as one grain 
per gallon, would require the addition daily of one 
hundred tons of dry material to the river.* 
Yet, since the poison-causes of human diseases are 
very subtle (whether they consist of "disease-germs" 
or not), what we know of the morbid transporting 
power of water should make us very cautious about 
using water for drinking or cooking into which any 
drainage or sewage from human habitations or es- 
tablishments can ever enter. Cities and smaller com- 
munities will never reach the ideal pointed out by 
sanitary science, until all their sewage is, in some 
* W. R. Nichols, in Buck's Hygiene and Public Health ; also. 
Report of Mass. State Board of Health, 1874. 92 
OUR HOMES. 
manner, removed, daily or constantly, and returned 
to the earth for use in fertilization. The manner in 
which this is done in China and Japan, where those 
who bring produce from the country to sell in the 
niarkets of the towns, return laden with house-soil to 
manure their gardens and fields, seems to us rough 
and not aesthetic. But their idea herein is quite cor- 
rect. It remains for our knowledge and invention to 
solve the problem in some better and more agreeable 
way. No one has written more eloquently about this 
than Victor Hugo, in his chapter on the Sewers of 
Paris, in Les Miserables. 
Some organic material on the surface of rivers and 
lakes is innocuous while in the living state. Over 
many ponds and along the edges of some rivers, may 
be seen quantities of green scum, consisting of con- 
fervoid growths, algae, minute cryptogamous (/. e., 
not flowering") plants, of various species. Probably 
the growth of these vegetations is, in itself, advan- 
tageous to the water, by using up material resulting 
from other decomposition. But when the same or- 
ganisms die and decay, a.s they will do especially 
when the margin of the pond or stream recedes with 
drought, then their decay becomes a cause of con- 
tamination. This is still by no means the worst kind 
of water-spoiling. It was, in 1876, very noticeable for 
a time in the Croton water supplied to New York city, 
giving the water an unpleasant odor and appearance. WATER SUPPLY. 
93 
Yet this was a transient occurrence, and no consider- 
able sickness was ascribed to it. A green scum on a 
water-surface may be regarded as having its principal 
importance in its being a sign of stagnation, which 
is always unfavorable to the good quality of a water 
supply. 
Melted snow and ice must be here briefly spoken 
of as sources of drinking-water. Snow, like rain, 
carries down whatever the air contains. Over towns, 
it will, therefore, contain a little ammonia and organic 
matter. Since a low temperature arrests decomposi- 
tion, there is not apt to be much injury result from the 
latter in snow. In one way, however, snow-water has 
been known to become injurious. In Finland and 
Northern Russia it has been common for people to 
throw out near their houses all the refuse of their 
daily living, and then, in the winter, to collect snow 
from the same ground and use it for drinking and 
cooking. This has been believed to aid in explaining 
the lingering of epidemic cholera, in some years, in 
those countries in the winter, while elsewhere it dis- 
appeared at or before the end of summer. 
Water, in freezing, parts with most of the ingredi- 
ents suspended or dissolved in it. Ice is therefore 
purer than the water from which it has been congealed. 
This, along with the already-mentioned influence of 
cold in arresting chemical decomposition, makes the 
risk of unwholesomeness in melted ice very small. 94 
OUR HOMES. 
Yet, a few instances are on record of injury to health 
resulting from the use of ice taken from foul water. 
This can only happen when the supply is obtained from 
a shallow, stagnant marsh or pond, where animal or 
vegetable decay has been going on. Such ice will be 
apt to exhibit its character by lack of clearness and 
transparency. The deeper the water from which ice 
is gathered for use, of course, the better. 
Much importance attaches to the mode of conveyance 
of drinking-water from wells, reservoirs, or other 
sources of supply. Lead, iron, and tin are the mate- 
rials most employed for this purpose. 
The great convenience of lead pipes causes them 
to be very largely resorted to for carrying water. Cer- 
tain facts concerning them ought to be generally 
known. Distilled water and rain-water will dissolve 
enough lead from pipes to make them poisonous; so 
also will very soft well-water, and even that of some 
streams. It requires but one-tenth of a grain of lead, 
per gallon, to affect very susceptible people with lead- 
colic, or even lead-palsy. When Louis Philippe, ex- 
king of France, was residing with his family at Clare- 
mont, England, some of them were injured by lead 
dissolved in the water of a reservoir. I have known 
of two instances in which the same thing has happened 
in this country. Even the drippings of evaporated 
water, condensing on a leaden cover over a tank, have 
sometimes contained enough lead to do harm. Cro- WATER SUPPLY. 
95 
ton water, in New York, according to Professor 
Chandler,* always has traces of lead in it, but not 
enough to produce any effect, unless when the water 
is drunk after having lain long in the pipes. Fair- 
mount water, at Philadelphia, is perfectly safe in this 
respect. 
Everybody should know that this security is due to 
a very simple action of the water on the pipes. River- 
water, and that of some, but not of all, wells, contains 
saline ingredients, which, being partially decomposed, 
make a deposit, lining the pipe with a delicate crust, 
and thus protecting it from further action. Rain-wa- 
ter, and that of certain wells, having an insufficiency 
of such constituents, dissolve the lead to a consid- 
erable extent, and thus become injurious., Hot water 
may do the same, even with Croton or Schuylkill 
water. Some cooks have a bad habit of saving them- 
selves trouble in heating water for cooking on the fire, 
by using that of the kitchen-range boiler. Besides the 
not improbable construction of the boiler with cop- 
per, of which hot water will dissolve enough to do 
harm, the action of heated water on the leaden pipes 
makes such water altogether unfit and unsafe to use. 
Lead pipes had better never be employed to carry 
rain-water, or that from wells, at least unless that of 
the last has, in every instance, been shown by chemi- 
cal analysis to be safe. If there be doubt in this 
* Sanitarian, May, 1875. 96 
OUR HOMES. 
regard, a wise precaution is always to allow the water 
to run for awhile, and empty the pipes, before using 
it for drinking or cooking. Incidentally, it may be 
mentioned that water containing carbonic acid (soda 
water, mineral water) dissolves a good deal of lead; 
and therefore pipes made of it should never be em- 
ployed for soda-water fountains. 
Iron pijjes are acted upon by hot water, their rust 
sometimes being in sufficient excess to be disagreeable. 
Cold water may be passed through either cast- or 
wrought-iron pipes without any disadvantage. Gal- 
vanized (zinced) iron has been shown to be acted 
upon to some extent, a little zinc being dissolved 
when water lies long in the pipes. Some chemists 
assert this to be enough to make the water unwhole- 
some ; but authorities differ upon this point. No 
doubt, allowing the water to run from such pipes for a 
few minutes before using it, will prevent any injurious 
effect, as the soluble compounds of zinc are much less 
poisonous to the human system than those of lead. 
Block-tin pipes are as free from objection as any 
others. Tin-lined lead pipes are good so long as the 
lining lasts; but this is not forever. Two metals, in 
contact with each other, are more easily acted upon 
(as all experiments with galvanism show) than either 
metal would be alone. Therefore the lining must be 
thick and even, to be depended upon. The same is 
true of the "enamel" lining of iron pipes - made WATER SUPPLY. 
97 
usually by dipping them in coal-tar or some form of 
cement. Glass-lined iron pipes were patented a few 
years ago, and have received approval from the editor 
of the Manufacturer and Builder, and from the con- 
sulting sanitary architect of the Board of Health of 
New York. These are so prepared as to avoid burst- 
ing from freezing, an inconvenience of which we see 
much in this country. To prevent this accident, 
care must be taken in the placing of lead pipes, as 
well as in having them made of the proper thickness 
and strength. If a pipe is necessarily exposed to 
cold, the water in it is much less likely to freeze, or 
burst if it does so, when the spigot is so turned 
that it drops a little all the time - thus providing 
space for the expansion which water always undergoes 
in freezing. Wrapping an exposed pipe with flannel 
(or strips of old carpet), through the cold weather, 
may save a great deal of trouble of this kind. 
Of all things, care must be taken not to allow a 
water supply for drinking to be exposed to impurity, 
from the overflow or waste-pipe of a cistern being con- 
nected immediately with a drain. It is very impor- 
tant, also, for the same reason, to have different res- 
ervoirs (if such are used) for drinking .and for water- 
closet use. Of these matters, more will be said in 
our next chapter. 
What can be done to purify water for drinking, 98 
OUR HOMES. 
when the use of that which is of imperfect or uncer- 
tain quality cannot be avoided? 
Nothing is more effectual in annulling the injurious 
influence of contaminated water (in the absence, that 
is, of a mineral poison, such as arsenic, copper, or 
lead) than boiling it before use. Many a time it has 
happened that, when bad water has produced a local 
"endemic" of typhoid fever, all those affected have 
been drinking the water cold, while those who only 
took it in the form of tea or coffee have escaped. 
This was the case, for example, at St. Mary's Hall, 
Burlington, N. J., in 1875, when, as related by Dr. 
Leconte, thirty cases of typhoid fever occurred within 
two weeks from contamination of the drinking reser- 
voir, by leakage from a privy vault. None of the ser- 
vants of the house, who drank only tea and coffee, 
and almost never cold water, were attacked; while the 
boarders, often thirsty, drank cold water freely be- 
tween meals, and all the cases were among them. 
Filtration is often very serviceable, upon a large as 
well as a small scale. We are here concerned only 
with the latter. Most nations have practised this 
from the earliest times. On the Nile, travellers now 
have the yellow water of the river strained clear 
through the sides of the gooleh, a jar or pitcher made 
of a porous clay peculiar to Egypt. Similar to this 
is the alcarazza, for a long time in use for the same 
purpose in Spain. A filter largely used in the British WATER SUPPLY. 
99 
navy is made of a very porous kind of Maltese rock. 
We imitate nature profitably, in filtering water through 
sand and gravel. These, with animal charcoal, make 
probably the best possible filtering materials. Sponge 
is also used; for wholesomeness it must be changed 
frequently, or at least scalded and well washed. This, 
indeed, is true of any filter. Without frequent cleans- 
ing, the pores become clogged, and instead of puri- 
fying, an accumulation of filth may make the water 
worse than it was. When charcoal is employed, it 
may be renewed by heating it strongly (short of com- 
bustion) in the open air. 
The action of charcoal and sand in filtration is of 
two kinds. Partly, it is mechanical - straining the 
water, that is, keeping back solid matters by simple 
resistance. Besides this there is a chemical influence 
exerted, chiefly by oxygen of the air brought into very 
close contact with the particles of the water and its 
contents in the fine porosities of the filtering sub- 
stance. This close contact is beautifully exemplified 
in the philosophical lamp, in which a jet of hydrogen 
is directed upon a piece of spongy platinum, within 
whose meshes it takes fire from the molecular action 
of atmospheric oxygen. 
Iron, and some of its ores, especially in the spongy 
state, exert a purifying influence upon unclean water. 
Two such preparations have of late years met with 
considerable favor; magnetic carbide, and a new arti- 100 
OUR HOMES. 
ficial mineral, recently employed in England, called 
carferal* 
Of the various patent filters on sale for household 
use, it may be said that, while several of them pro- 
duce tolerable results, none are perfectly satisfactory. 
Unless themselves carefully cleansed or renewed at 
not very long intervals, they lose their cleansing 
power. For domestic use, I would rather trust to a 
home-made filter like that proposed by Dr. Parkes.f 
Take a large common flower-pot and put into it a bit 
of zinc gauze or a clean bit of flannel, then coarse 
gravel to the depth of about three inches, over that 
the same amount of white sand washed very clean, 
and, next, four inches of charcoal in small fragments ; 
animal charcoal when it can be had. On the top of 
all, a piece of well-cleaned sponge may be placed, 
making sure that this is changed or thoroughly 
cleansed once in a week or two; more or less often, 
according to the impurity of the water. But really 
suspicious water should, before using it for drinking 
or cooking, be boiled as well as filtered. Above all, 
in regard to drinking-water, the great thing is to 
choose and provide for every household a supply 
which cannot be suspected. Here, as much as any- 
where, is the maxim true, which lies at the basis of 
all hygiene; that prevention is better than cure. 
* London Medical Times and Gazette, October II, 1879. 
f Treatise on Practical Hygiene. CHAPTER VIII. 
DRAINAGE. 
OURS," says a late writer on house construction, 
" is the Age of Plumbing." Egyptian, Greek, 
and Mediaeval architectures have, each in succession, 
had their day, and now the beautiful gives way, in a 
large degree, to the useful. Stramm, a German author, 
declares that the highest modern civilization is shown 
not so much by costly monuments and works of art 
as by the perfection of house conveniences. Yet 
these, too, have their ,dangers as well as their com- 
forts. Security does not always come with refine- 
ment. Ferocious beasts and venomous serpents are 
kept at a distance in the wilderness; but the subtle 
poison of disease may steal upon us in our beds, and, 
vampire-like, draw out the life from our veins. When 
the Prince of Wales, some years ago, fell ill with 
typhoid fever after a visit at Londesborough House, 
all the world was alarmed. It is probable, however, 
that the inquiry which this event, and its supposed 
cause, started, may have resulted in saving many lives. 
When a house is being built for occupation in a 
101 102 
OUR HOMES. 
chosen situation, its light, warmth, ventilation, and 
water-supply having all been provided for, there re- 
mains the question of conservancy; that is, the safe 
and sufficient removal of all waste. In the country, 
simple measures will answer, so far as health is con- 
cerned. On an acre of ground, there is space enough 
to place a privy at a good distance both from the 
house and from the drinking-well. If there be any 
slope, the last-named must be always above the first, 
and thirty feet at least (the more the better) must in- 
tervene between the two wells. Kitchen slops should 
have their own separate drainage, or, at least, should 
run through a channel, open for a short distance, be- 
fore they enter the privy-well. 
But it is a question, with a cottage or small farm- 
house, whether a well for necessary waste is best. The 
farther from the house it is possible to place it, the 
less need there is of a well. The common cottage 
privy above ground, the building being raised and 
open (below) at the rear for frequent.removal, needs 
only a simple precaution to make it innocent. This 
safeguard is, to throw over the deposit each time a 
small shovelful of lime or dry earth. The latter is, 
of course, the more accessible, and will deodorize and 
disinfect perfectly, if enough be used. A pint and a 
half in bulk, or two and a half pounds in weight, 
will suffice each time. A box of earth and a trowel 
may be left within reach. Frequent removal is then DRAINAGE. 
103 
important. Where there is a vegetable garden, the 
material thus accumulated makes the best possible 
manure. This has been proven not only in China, 
but in Europe and in this country also. With a small 
family, however, when dry earth is used, once in three 
or four weeks will commonly answer for its removal. 
There are two sides to the question of advantage to 
health in regard to the distance of a privy from a 
country house. Delicate persons run risks in the ex- 
posure of going out of doors in cold or rainy weather. 
A covered passage-way, with windows, or otherwise 
open at the sides for ventilation, lessens but does not 
entirely obviate this evil. For those who cannot or 
ought not to leave the house, a convenience is 
needed. Much evidence favors the earth-closet as 
here the best resort. There are different patterns of 
this, but the idea in all is the same. By a mechanical 
contrivance, each time that the closet is used, a suita- 
ble amount of dry earth or sifted ashes is thrown down 
from a receptacle in which it has been placed. Those 
who cannot afford to buy an earth-closet can substi- 
tute it by keeping within reach a small box supplied 
with earth and a trowel for its use. The disadvantage 
of this is the flying of dust into the room; which, in- 
deed, the best contrived closets do not always entirely 
prevent. Especially with the addition of a very little 
chloride of lime in powder to the earth when used, 
or even without this, an earth-closet is much more 104 
OUR HOMES. 
satisfactory than the old-fashioned chair in the sick- 
room, or elsewhere in the house, for the avoidance of 
everything unpleasant. 
Earth for this purpose must contain some (but not 
too much) clay and some humus, or soil such as is 
fitted for cultivation. Common garden earth, or that 
of the average farm ground, will do very well. Sand 
will not answer. Sifted coal-ashes will, almost as well 
as earth. On a small scale, earth may be dried in 
any convenient receptacle over or near the kitchen 
fire. For a large family, a quantity of earth may be 
placed to dry gradually under a shed, with boards 
under it to keep it from the dampness of the ground. 
The earth-closet system has been introduced into 
several towns in Europe with success. But the re- 
quirement of bringing a great weight of earth into a 
city, and economically disposing of it after use, will 
make it slow to take the place of the water system in 
cities. Household employment of the latter system, 
therefore, must next receive our attention. 
Every kitchen should have its drain, as it is against 
all laws of health, as well as of appearance and com- 
fort, to throw slops out of doors on the ground. Gar- 
bage in cities is, or ought to be, removed daily in 
covered carts from all houses. In the country, a good 
plan is to dry hard materials (potato-skins, etc.) under 
the kitchen fire, and then burn them upon it. Other- 
wise, such things may be given to hogs, or dried at a DRAINAGE. 
105 
distance from the house and burned. Dust swept 
from floors may be thrown into the fire. Liquids 
from the kitchen must not be poured upon the ground 
near a well, or they will run or soak down into it and 
spoil the water. I remember once seeing, upon drink- 
ing-water, taken from an excellent well, a film, which 
broke easily into pearly particles, the origin of which 
nobody knew. The drainage was supposed to be all 
right. Chemical examination proved the fiim to con- 
sist of soap ; and close inspection showed that an un- 
noticed obstruction had caused the kitchen drain to 
send a good portion of its contents right down into 
the well. This could be soon corrected. But some- 
times a foul kitchen-drain taints a drinking-well for a 
long time without suspicion, doing very serious harm. 
Sanitarians aver that kitchen drainage may become 
almost as bad as sewage from house and street waste. 
Every kitchen-drain, therefore, should have a trap* 
Since this is true, also, of every water-closet, we may 
now at once consider what traps are, and what is their 
use. They are intended to prevent foul air from get- 
ting back to a house from sewage or drainage, after 
the latter has been discharged. 
A water-seal is afforded, as shown in the figures 
(Figs. 15 and 16), by the portion of water detained 
* A grease-trap, arranged for easy and frequent cleansing, is 
an important addition, at least in a large establishment. 106 
OUR HOMES. 
after a quantity has passed through the pipe. Con- 
ditions necessary for the security of every trap are: 
that it be large enough; the "drown" or dip of 
Fig. 15. 
Fig. 16. 
water above the upper line of depression, at the mid- 
dle, sufficient; that this dip be not lost by distortion 
of the pipe (see Fig. 17, correct, and Fig. 18, dis- 
Fig. 17. 
Fig. iS 
torted); that it be of material thick enough not to be 
soon corroded and perforated by sewer air or water; 
that it be not clogged by solid and insoluble things DRAINAGE. 
107 
thrown into it; that it be furnished with an abundance 
of water for "flushing," orcleaning it out frequently; 
that it be ventilated; and that, when not used, it be not 
allowed to become dry from evaporation. All these 
conditions are frequently violated or neglected ; and 
hence some people have come to regard all traps as 
entitled to their name in a contrary sense, as snares or 
delusions. But when properly made and used, they are 
very serviceable ; and, whatever farther advance sani- 
tary science and invention may hereafter furnish, we 
cannot, so long as we employ the " water system," do 
without them now. 
Cast-lead traps are generally used, of good weight, 
seven or eight pounds of lead for each square foot of 
surface. A trap for a soil-pipe four inches in diam- 
eter should have the same diameter, and should 
weigh twenty pounds. The "drown" or depth of 
water above the upper bend should be, for such a trap, 
at least an inch and a half. To prevent swagging 
down out of shape, every pipe, through its whole 
length, trap and all, must be securely fastened and 
supported. Nothing should ever be thrown into a 
water-closet or sink which cannot be soon softened 
and dissolved away, so as not to produce obstruction. 
Every trap should have its own water-cistern, distinct 
from any cistern supplying drinking-water ; and the 
flow through it when used should be free and abun- 
dant. Its overflow-pipe should discharge apart from 108 
OUR HOMES. 
any sewage drain. The time when evaporation is 
likely to dry up traps, so as to permit the entrance 
of air from the drain or sewer below, is when families 
are absent from their homes, as during the summer 
season, or when a house is for any reason unoccupied 
for weeks or months together. 
Bell-traps (see Fig. 19), according to the best au- 
thorities, ought never to be used, on account of their 
clogging more easily than 
other traps, and always al- 
lowing only a sluggish flow 
through them. Since all 
traps necessarily delay the 
movement of the contents 
of pipes, and stagnation 
makes everything worse, 
it may be asked, Why is it 
not better to avoid all such interruptions, and merely 
provide such abundant flushing as will sweep all im- 
purity rapidly away? The answer is, that if such 
thorough and constant flushing were secure in the 
whole length of every drain and sewer of a connected 
system, no traps would be needful. As such thorough- 
ness is not usually, if anywhere, obtainable, " water- 
seals " limit, to great advantage, the amount of ex- 
posure of the air above them to contamination. 
It has been proved by experiment that sewer-gas 
is absorbed by the water of a trap, if it remains long 
Fig- 19- DRAINAGE. 
109 
there at rest, and then the gas is given out above and 
beyond the water-seal. Therefore, frequent changing 
of the water is indispensable; and, also, measures for 
making sewer-air itself as innocuous as possible.* 
Ventilation of traps is of much importance. In 
considering it, we must look at the general arrange- 
ment needed for good house drainage, taking a some- 
what summary view of the whole matter. 
A house with "modern conveniences" has occasion 
for pipes (besides gas-pipes for light and warm-air 
flues) for the following purposes: i. To introduce 
water for drinking, cooking, washing, bathing, and 
water-closet uses; 2. to carry off the overflow from 
drinking- and washing hydrants, and from cisterns for 
water-closet supply ; 3. removal of kitchen and other 
slops; 4. water-closet drainage; 5. ventilation, so far 
as required, of the above arrangements. 
Of reservoirs and pipes for water supply, it needs 
only to be repeated here that the same tank or cistern 
ought never (even if divided by a partition) to be 
used to furnish water both for drinking and for water- 
closet use. Moreover, the overflow pipe of a drink- 
ing-tank or cistern must be carefully kept clear of the 
soil-pipe drain and sewer. It is best for such over- 
flow, as well as that from every " lavatory " or wash- 
* All sanitarians agree that fresh sewage is nearly harmless 
to the atmosphere. It becomes more and more deleterious, ac- 
cording to the time of its concentration and stagnation. 110 
OUR HOMES. 
basin, to discharge by itself. In the country this may 
fall into a surface or sub-surface drain, at any con- 
venient place at the rear or side of the house. If, in 
a city, all drainage has to be united at last, effort 
should be made to have drinking and washing over- 
flows to fall upon an open (or at least well ventilated) 
catchpit or gully, leaving an interval, which if open 
may be covered by a grating, before it enters the 
common drain. Bath-water may take the same course 
as the above, leaving, when possible, some interval 
between the places of discharge. 
Kitchen drainage is subject to greater foulness than 
water from drinking-hydrants, lavatories, or baths. 
In a perfect system, it must be kept apart from them 
in its conduction and discharge. It ought much more 
urgently to be separated from the water-closet drain- 
age. This last needs, for really good sanitation, to 
be entirely apart from all the other drainage of the 
house. 
We have, in this scheme, at least three desirably 
separate systems of discharge: A, that of drinking 
and other cistern or basin overflows, and bath water; 
B, that of the kitchen sink and other slop-wastes of 
no worse character; and C, that of the water-closets. 
The more completely these three can be maintained 
in separation from each other the better. Next best 
to their entire mutual isolation, will be the junction of 
A and B, with their conduction and discharge distinct 
from C. DRAINAGE. 
111 
When this last exclusion cannot^ effected, we must 
look to traps and ventilation for the best practical 
means of protection. A plan of the plumbing of a 
house so guarded has a formidable appearance; and 
yet the dangers are so real, that we cannot easily esti- 
mate the expense and trouble which are worth while, 
in order to guard ourselves, our families, and our 
neighbors against them. 
If, then, the overflow-pipe under a 
drinking-hydrant, lavatory, or bath- 
tub must, in any case, discharge into a 
drain which receives also the kitchen 
slops, or worse, the contents of the 
soil-pipe from water-closets, a trap 
must be interposed to prevent the 
ascent of foul air into the apartments 
concerned. For lavatories, Bower's 
trap (Fig. 20) has been found to an- 
swer well; best when it is all made 
of zinc or lead, instead of partly 
glass.* B, in the figure, represents a 
floating ball of rubber, which, being buoyed up by the 
water in the trap, makes a doubly efficient seal against 
the ascent of impure air to the lavatory from the drain 
below. 
pjg. 2O- 
* The unequal expansion and contraction of glass and metal 
under changes of heat and cold (especially when hot water is 
used) make their connections somewhat insecure against leak- 
age. 112 
OUR HOMES. 
In passing, it may be observed that every house which 
has Iwo or more rooms on a floor ought to have a bath. 
Hellyer proposes that in humble houses it should be 
placed in the kitchen. Although this seems odd at first 
thought, yet it is not unreasonable. It secures warmth 
for both the water and the air without trouble, and the 
bath-tub can be covered with a hinged board, making 
it a convenient bench at ordinary times. 
Fig. 21. 
Every bath waste-pipe, also, when it connects with 
a soil-pipe, house-drain, or sewer, should have a trap; 
such, for example, as is shown in Fig. 15 or Fig. 16. 
So, also, must every kitchen-sink, and slop-sink of DRAINAGE. 
113 
any kind, have the same protection. Otherwise, there 
is opportunity for bad air to rise through those pipes, 
and to contaminate the air, food, and water in the 
kitchen or elsewhere through the house. How this 
may happen is easily seen by looking at Fig. 21. 
There the water-closet has been trapped, but not the 
kitchen-sink, and both communicate with a sewer. 
Not only the sink itself, or lavatory, or both, but 
in each instance, 
as already said, the 
overflow also must 
be protected by the 
trap. Figs. 22 and 
23 (borrowed from 
Teale's Dangers to 
Health} exhibit, 
respectively, the 
fault here indicat- 
ed, and its reme- 
dies. These reme- 
dies (Fig. 23) are : 
first, making the 
overflow-pipe enter 
that of the sink 
above the trap; and 
secondly, having 
the lavatory escape- 
pipe to- discharge over an open channel, instead of 
Fig. 22. 114 
OUR HOMES. 
connecting directly with a soil-pipe or sewer. The 
first of these measures of protection can always be 
had; the second should be, whenever it is practicable. 
Fig. 23. 
Now, for the most serious part of the problem be- 
fore us, we must consider water-closet and soil-pipe 
arrangements. 
The water-closets most in use are of two kinds, pan 
and valve closets. The former has an iron "con- DRAINAGE. 
115 
tainer " below the basin or receiver. This iron vessel 
is hard to keep clean. In the valve-closet, a portion 
of water is detained above the valve, which is quite 
an advantage; and there is no large container. The 
valve-closet is decidedly the best, but also the most 
expensive. Simplicity is so desirable in such fixtures 
(as, indeed, in everything else) that good authorities 
are inclining towards a return to the oldest form of 
the "hopper" immediately over the trap. Waring, 
the most esteemed American authority, has lately* 
asserted his preference for such a plan. Fig. 24 gives- 
a view of Rhoads' Cistern 
and Hopper Closet, which 
carries out this idea very 
well. So also does Hellyer's 
Short Artisan Hopper (Fig. 
25). Of other closets, more 
complicated, I believe Hell- 
yer's valve-closet to be one 
of the best. 
Whatever form or plan 
of water-closet be used, it is 
of great importance to pro- 
vide an abundance of water 
for flushing it. Mere drib- 
bling will not suffice. Neg- 
lected water-closets left to 
Fig. 24. 
* Atlantic Monthly, July, 1879. 116 
OUR HOMES. 
accumulate obstructive materials of any kind, will, 
in time, grow very foul, sometimes even worse than 
the average open privy. 
Soil-pipes are now mostly made of iron.* Enameled 
iron is the best material, 
with caulked lead joints. 
Four inches will be not 
too large for a house of 
moderate size ; four and 
a half or five inches di- 
ameter will be enough 
for the largest mansion 
or hotel. All sanitary engineers now agree that it is 
a serious mistake to make drain-pipes too large. A 
drain six inches in diameter will suffice for more than 
a hundred houses. In a large pipe, but partially 
filled, the flow must be sluggish. The same amount 
of material in a smaller pipe nearly full, will move 
rapidly through it, and thus avoid stagnation. For 
changes of direction, and entrance of branches, right 
angles must be avoided, and as few inclined joints 
should be made as possible. Figs. 26 (right) and 
27 (wrong)f will illustrate this principle. 
Every soil-pipe should have a trap at or near its 
Fig- 25. 
* Among good authorities, Hellyer is almost the only one who 
still prefers thick cast-lead for soil-pipes. See his Dulce Dornum, 
London, 1877, p. 29. 
j- From Ough's Hints on House Drainage, London, 1879. DRAINAGE. 
117 
Fig. 26. 
Fig. 27. 
junction with the drain or sewer into which it dis- 
charges. It is well also for this to be aided by a 
flap-valve, to assist mechanically in the exclusion of 
sewer-air.* Some late authors recommend two traps 
in this position. Such a trap, or traps, should, when 
possible, be outside of the house, and accessible for 
inspection. This accessibility, it may be here re- 
marked, should be provided for in the construction 
* Waring, in a late article {Atlantic Monthly, July, 1879) 
advises the addition of mechanical arrangements to all water- 
seals. Such, however, are very apt to get out of order and dis- 
appoint expectations. Where storm-water is excluded from 
sewers, and they are ventilated, Waring {Sanitarian, Decem- 
ber, 1879, p. 533) approves of the omission of the trap ^t the 
foot of the soil-pipe. This principle is now carried out in the 
drainage system at West Point; but it does not appear to be 
safe with ordinary city sewers. 118 
OUR HOMES. 
of all drains and drainage-pipes whatever. A plan 
of the house-plumbing and drainage should be made 
when it is built, and kept for reference at any time. 
The absence of such a plan may sometimes cause 
great inconvenience and damage. In a house known 
to me, rented out by an owner who was absent in 
Europe, the need of such a plan was strikingly shown. 
An odor near the centre of the house gave rise to re- 
Fig. 28. 
peated investigations without much result, until a car- 
penter, led by other similar experiences, took up part 
of a chamber floor, under which was found a pipe 
designed to ventilate a privy just at the rear of the 
house. This pipe passed into the kitchen chimney; 
one of its joints had become leaky, and gave out DRAINAGE. 
119 
foul air immediately under the floor of the chamber, 
making it uninhabitable until the fault was reme- 
died. 
House-drains running under or upon the ground 
should be made of salt-glazed earthenware. It is 
better for them to be made of iron, and suspended 
from the lowest floor. If on the ground, they should 
be laid with great care, upon a bed of concrete, or 
at least with good "clay puddling,'' and the joints 
secured with the best cement. Sinking of the ground 
under a drain, unless effectually provided against, may 
result in broken joints, with leaking of sewage under 
or near the house, saturating the ground in the most 
injurious manner. No drain should ever run under a 
house when this can at all be avoided. 
Next, ventilation must be supplied for all the house- 
drainage system. This is needed, first, for each trap ; 
secondly, for the soil-pipe; thirdly, for the drain or 
sewer into which all the house-drains empty. 
Every trap should be ventilated from the top of its 
outer bend. Its vent should not go into the soil-pipe 
or its ventilating-pipe, but should have a separate air- 
pipe. All the traps of the house, however, belonging 
to baths, lavatories, and cistern overflows, may be 
vented by branches connected with the same pipe, if 
this be quite disconnected with the water-closet sys- 
tem. The only satisfactory way to ventilate a soil- 
pipe is to continue it all the way up above the roof; 120 
OUR HOMES. 
best, to a height of ten or twelve feet above the eaves, 
and always in a direction clear of all windows. Rain- 
water pipes must not be used to ventilate soil-pipes or 
drains. When connected with these, they are of no 
use in this way during storms, and, at other times, 
opening just at the eaves, they may, when so connected, 
take bad air into upper windows. 
Some have recommended an open trap (covered by 
a grating) for ventilation at 
the foot of the soil-pipe. (See 
Fig. 29.) Better than this is 
an air-pipe, which need not be 
more than two inches in di- 
ameter, ascending from the 
trap at the foot of the soil- 
pipe to or above the highest part of the roof. This 
U-shaped arrangement of soil-pipe and foot-ventilat- 
ing-pipe together has been found to work extremely 
well. The foot-pipe may answer for receiving all the 
water-closet trap-ventilators of the house. A patent 
has lately been taken out for the use of a ventilating- 
pipe for water-closets apart from the soil-pipe; but 
there is excellent reason for believing this patent to 
be invalid.* 
For additional air-protection, a small vent may pass 
Fig. 2j. 
* Hellyer's Dulce Dornum advised this plan very clearly in 
1877. See the Sanitary Engineer, Nov. 15, 1879. DRAINAGE. 
121 
from the water-closet immediately under the seat. 
This must not enter the soil-pipe 
or its ventilator, but it may quite 
safely be led into and carried up 
through the flue of the kitchen 
chimney. Ventilation of a soil- 
pipe directly into the kitchen chim- 
ney is sometimes arranged for, but 
it is not advisable. Downward 
draughts (particularly when, for a 
time, the fire is out) may mingle 
impure air from the soil-pipe with 
that of the kitchen. If the venti- 
lating-pipe goes through the flue and 
up the whole height of the chimney, 
there is no considerable risk of 
harm. As a rule, however, no pipe containing foul 
air should be allowed to go through a house when it 
is possible for it to ascend or descend outside of the 
house. The chance of leaky joints within a house is 
too serious to be permitted when avoidable. If there 
be such a pipe carried through a house, it ought to be 
of metal (preferably enameled iron), not of earthen- 
ware, or worst of all, of wood. Arrangements in- 
tended to promote a healthy state of things may some- 
times, through unskilfulness or negligence, have the 
very opposite effect. At Sandringham Palace, a resi- 
dence of the Prince of Wales, a mistake was com- 
F 122 
OUR HOMES. 
mitted of this sort. The vent of a water-closet, un- 
der the seat, above the trap, was made to enter the 
soil-pipe, thus giving full opportunity for the air from 
the latter to return into the open basin of the closet 
and the room around it. This error is shown in Fig. 
31. The plan exhibited in Fig. 30, of ventilating a 
bath-escape trap and a water-closet trap by the same 
pipe, is not perfect; although it is much better than 
some methods in common use. 
Experience shows it to be unwise ever to have a 
water-closet immediately commu- 
nicating with a bed-chamber. The 
length of time spent in sleep, 
often without much renewal of 
the air, and, it seems probable, a 
greater susceptibility than in the 
waking state to depressing causes, 
makes the danger of blood poi- 
soning greater under such than 
under any other circumstances, if 
contamination of the air exists. 
When a water-closet is not well 
supplied with window-ventilation, this may be sup- 
plemented, or in part substituted, by a pipe going 
upward through the roof, under whose expanded lower 
opening a small jet of gas is kept constantly burning.* 
Fig- 3i- 
* The topic of downzuard ventilation of water-closets and la- 
trines, by adjoining heated air-shafts, belongs to Hospital Hygiene. DRAINAGE. 
123 
So far, we have considered the ventilation of traps 
and soil-pipes only in view of their air-purification. 
But there is another occasion for it. When two or 
more traps, one over another, connect with the same 
soil-pipe, the discharge from an upper one may, in 
passing downwards, suck (or "syphon") out the 
water which seals a lower one, and thus leave it 
empty. This, of course, allows the ascent of foul air, 
passing the lower trap; and such a possibility is not at 
all a matter of theory merely, but of frequent, actual 
occurrence. When air is admitted not only through 
the open end of the soil-pipe, but also by a vent 
above each trap, such a syphoning and unsealing 
cannot occur. 
Supposing, then, that we have arranged to convey 
safely out of a house all its drainage: what are we to 
do with it ? 
First, in towns. Privy-wells ought never to be 
considered allowable, even in closely built villages, 
much less in populous cities. They cannot often - 
certainly they cannot generally- reach to flowing wa- 
ter, or to an entirely pervious sandy bottom. There- 
fore they will gradually saturate the earth, contami- 
nating the "ground-water," and, in consequence, 
more and more, the ground-air. One fact in regard 
to air-movement we have not yet alluded to ; namely, 
that, in all but the warmest months of the year, the 
whole of an inhabited house, and, through the year, 124 
OUR HOMES. 
that part heated by the kitchen fire, is, on account 
of its warmth being greater than that of out-of-doors 
air, drawing, sucking in air from the surface of the 
ground, and from the ground itself, around it. 
Thus "sewer-air" (which, properly speaking, means 
all air spoiled by human waste) finds access to houses 
whose interior arrangements are, in themselves, with- 
out fault. 
If this be true, so long as the earth-closet system, 
or nightly removal by a pail system (both very good, 
but not yet made convenient for large communities in 
this country) cannot be maintained, we have no resort 
but connection with the common sewer. Opposition 
to this has grown out of numerous cases of harm done 
by the escape of sewer-air into houses through defect- 
ive plumbing. But no bad plumbing should be al- 
lowed ; * and the air of the largest sewers may be kept 
innocuous by proper construction, good slope, ample 
water supply, and ventilation. We cannot enter, in 
this volume, upon the topic of city sewerage; but it 
may be said, at least, that the old style of immense 
square-built, brick sewers is an abomination which 
ought now nowhere to be tolerated. If made round, 
* Municipal inspection of all houses when built, and after- 
wards when reasonable complaint occurs, is one of the needs 
of our great cities. Tenement houses in New York are now 
subject to it; and surely the rich ought to have at least as much 
protection as the poor. DRAINAGE. 
125 
or egg-shaped (with the small end downward), of a 
size not large enough for stagnation, and of imperme- 
able material, properly cemented at the joints, they 
will need then only abundant flushing and numerous 
air-vents to make them safe throughout. In Croydon, 
England, the first construction of sewers was followed 
by an increase of typhoid fever; but after the sewers 
were well ventilated, the disease disappeared almost 
altogether. Yet the connection of house-drains with 
town-sewers must be very carefully guarded: the 
Fig- 32* 
double trap (Fig. 32) with screw-plates for inspec- 
tion, and a ventilating-pipe, being the now most ap- 
proved arrangement.* 
* Of course the slope of every drain, after it reaches the 
ground, is of great importance. One inch to the yard will af- 
ford a sufficient descent under ordinary circumstances. Very 
many drains have a good deal less than this; and not a few have 
been found, under careful inspection, to slope the wrong wav. 
See Teale's Dangers to Health; and Report of Massachusetts 
Board of Health, 1879, p. 94. 126 
OUR HOMES. 
In country houses, whose owners can afford careful- 
ness for health's sake (and who, that lives in a house 
of his own, can not and ought not ?) the same essen- 
tial principles are applicable as in city residences. 
The most common method of rural house-drainage is, 
to convey waste underground to a cesspool, at a va- 
riable distance, the greater the better, from the house. 
By a cesspool * is generally meant a large and mod- 
erately deep well, which, if used, ought to have a 
removable cover for examination and emptying when 
needful. It is, with advantage, divided into two parts 
by a grating, separating solid from liquid waste. A 
good way of preparing the former, at proper intervals of 
time, for cleaning out, is, to throw over it a quantity 
of earth. This makes its removal less unpleasant, and 
affords by the mixture a very serviceable manure. The 
liquid portion may be directly applied to the ground ; 
best by irrigation through sub-surface tile-pipes, open 
at a portion of their joints to allow of the escape of 
the drainage into the earth. For this use, Waring 
speaks very highly of Field's flushing-tank, as answer- 
ing, under experience, admirably, for fertilizing a 
garden or cultivated field. 
There are some situations which do not admit of 
any such distribution of waste material; for instance, 
at the sea-shore; where hundreds of cottages, as well 
* In Scotland, this word is said to mean simply a trap. DRAINAGE. 
127 
as boarding-houses for summer occupation, sometimes 
spring up in a single season. At Ocean Grove, New 
Jersey, during the first two or three years of its sei 
tlement, driven wells for drinking-water, and other 
wells for house-wastes, were dug side by side, on 
small lots, not many feet apart. The sandy ground 
Fig. 33. - How People Drink Sewage. (Teale.) 
permitted an easy mingling of waste and water sup- 
ply in the common ground-water of the place. As a 
consequence, almost every person who visited the lo- 
cality went through a seasoning, or acclimating, diar- 
rhoea, which, especially with young children, involved 
sometimes quite a serious illness. Fortunately, the 128 
OUR HOMES. 
Ocean Grove Association, becoming aware of the in- 
creasing contamination of their ground, took judicious 
measures for its protection. All waste-wells were 
made (as nearly as possible) water-tight; and, under 
strict regulation, they were all periodically cleaned out 
at sufficiently short intervals to avoid atmospheric 
contamination. A resident of the place informed me 
that the local diarrhoea at once disappeared under 
these appropriate improvements. Other watering- 
places have been known to suffer great disadvantage 
from analogous defects, not always ascertained until 
after they have cost some lives of visitors who had 
sought them as sanctuaries of health. 
For the evacuation of waste-wells and cesspools in 
town or country, but especially in cities, the "odor- 
less pneumatic system," most largely carried out in 
Amsterdam by Captain Liernur, is undoubtedly a 
great improvement.* 
After all, however, the ideal method is, the return 
of all human waste, as soon and conveniently as pos- 
sible, to the ground. Nature's own disinfectants are 
the earth and growing plants. Together, these are 
perfect in their action ; and they admit, satisfactorily, 
of no substitution. Nor need any one be afraid of 
this effective transforming process, this alchemy of 
nature, when sewage passes through (not lying stag- 
* See Waring on Sanitary Drainage of Houses and downs, 
N. Y., 1878; p. 284. DRAINAGE. 
129 
nant upon) the soil on which there is abundant vege- 
tation. The Craigentinny meadows, near Edinburgh, 
derive their luxuriance from sewage irrigation. At 
Clichy, near Paris, five thousand acres of barren sand 
were, by the sewage of Paris, converted into fertile 
fields and gardens. A manufacturer of perfumes 
chose this favored spot for the culture of his aromatic 
herbs. The finest mignonette of Covent Garden 
market, London, has long been grown upon sewage- 
watered soil. Among the Alpes Maritimes, ground 
fertilized chiefly with waste of human habitations pro- 
duces, for the uses of the perfumers, an abundance of 
roses and violets. CHAPTER IX. 
DISINFECTION. 
rT'HE very best of all disinfectants, outside of the 
1 ground itself, are fresh air and pure water. 
Thorough cleanliness prevents all occasion for pro- 
cesses of correction; and such prevention is infinitely 
to be preferred to any and all such processes, for, in- 
deed, perfect disinfection is, in regard to the causes 
of some of the most dangerous diseases, hardly possi- 
ble, except by the powerful influence of heat. 
Almost every one now knows that odorous sub- 
stances, such as cologne, do not disinfect, or even 
improve the air, as to healthfulness; they only con- 
ceal or disguise the evil. If any beneficial agency 
can be obtained by such materials, it is to be had by 
burning aromatics, as myrrh, cloves, etc., or coffee. 
The latter will at least remove the unpleasant smell 
from a room in which the air is unavoidably affected 
by a bodily disorder of a person confined within it. 
F equent changing of the clothing or covering of 
such a one, and burning or boiling every article that 
is soiled, are very important. No absorbent material 
130 DISINFECTION. 
131 
should, when it can be helped, be kept in a sick- 
room, for the same reason. Bed-curtains, window- 
curtains, wall-papers, and even carpets, are subject to 
this objection. Especially, also, everything passed 
from the body should be covered at once, and re- 
moved as soon as possible.* 
Agents called disinfectants may act in several ways : 
i. Those called antiseptics prevent or arrest putre- 
factive decay in animal and vegetable matter. Sul- 
phate of iron and chloride of zinc are examples of 
this kind of action. 
2. Some substances, as charcoal and lime, absorb 
gaseous emanations from decomposing bodies. 
3. Others act chemically upon the results of decay, 
so as to make them harmless. One of the most com- 
mon, unpleasant, and injurious of these resultant 
products is sulphuretted hydrogen, whose odor is that 
of rotten eggs. Against this, chlorine (in the form 
of chloride of lime or solution of chlorinated soda) 
is very effectual; and so, also, when applied to quan- 
tities of liquids, is solution of nitrate of lead. 
4. Most important, but most difficult, is the de- 
struction of those special and subtle causes of disease, 
to which, because many facts make it probable that 
they are minute living organisms, the term " disease 
germs" is commonly applied. 
* An uncovered chamber-vessel under a bed is an intolerable 
barbarism at all times. 132 
OUR HOMES. 
Air is much improved in healthfulness by taking out 
of it sulphuretted hydrogen and other odorous prod- 
ucts of mere decay. It may, however, still have left 
in it the contagion of small-pox or scarlet fever; the 
local infection of yellow fever; the miasm of autumnal 
remittent; or the migrating cause of epidemic chol- 
era. To annihilate these, requires a total change of 
the atmosphere, as well as of the surfaces exposed to 
it,- such as can be effected only on a comparatively 
small scale; as, within a house, a railroad-car, a 
steamboat, or a ship. 
Without dwelling longer on these generalities, we 
may briefly enumerate the most serviceable of disin- 
fectants. 
The cheapest (besides dry earth, referred to in our 
last chapter) are quicklime, charcoal, and tar* These 
"are all very effectual,- in privies, for example. All 
of them, however, make some deposit, which must be 
remembered in regard to traps, etc., where it will not 
do to allow accumulation. But such things have very 
little action on the air, except, it is true, when quick- 
lime or charcoal is spread or suspended in different 
places within apartments. Whitewashing walls, as in 
cellars and kitchens, is an excellent means of " sweet- 
ening " them, which ought to be repeated often. We 
want, however, not unfrequently, to purify the al- 
* A pint of tar, used once in a week or two, will deodorize 
(except with a slight odor of its own) a large privy-well. DISINFECTION. 
133 
ready contaminated air of a house. For this, the 
two most powerful agents are chlorine and sulphurous- 
acid gas. The first of these was once regarded as the 
only valuable disinfectant; now, under a sort of re- 
action, it has come to be, with many persons, under- 
rated. Not only will chlorine decompose sulphuretted 
hydrogen gas, but it will, when enough is used, also 
destroy bacteria * (the best known of minute organ- 
isms present in decaying matter); whence it may be 
expected to aid in the destruction of all disease-germs. 
But, to secure this effect, a great deal of it must be 
used. In a very bad state of the atmosphere, the 
affected rooms had better, instead, be cleared of all 
human beings, and fumigated with burning sulphur. 
For every thousand cubic feet of space, a pound and 
a half of sulphur should be burned,- best over a pan 
of water, or a vessel containing sand, to avoid the 
danger of fire. No one can breathe sulphurous fumes 
with safety. The doors and windows of rooms to be 
so disinfected must be closed for several hours, and 
then thoroughly aired before being again occupied. 
Cold arrests putrefaction, and so lessens the activ- 
ity of contagions and infections; but it does not 
destroy them. Heat (from. 200 ° to 250° Fah.) is the 
most effectual of all disinfectant agencies-the only 
* See the Dublin Journal of Medical Science, September, 
1879, for an account of recent experimental proof of this by 
Dr. Nolter. 134 
OUR HOMES. 
perfect one. It will destroy all " disease-germs," and 
break up or drive off all unwholesome emanations 
from whatever source. It is not, however, easy or 
convenient to apply high heat continuously to private 
houses, and it has been mostly, so far, reserved for 
especial emergencies. Clothing exposed to any in- 
fection or contamination ought (if not bad enough to 
be burned) to be well boiled before being used again. 
The disinfectants most commonly approved for 
practical use are the following: 
For privy-wells or water-closets, a solution of cop- 
peras or green vitriol (sulphate of iron) may be made 
by diffusing ten pounds in a bucketful of water. Of 
this, the whole, or more, will be required to disinfect 
thoroughly a bad privy-well. For a bed-pan or 
chamber-vessel, a teacupful of the same solution will 
suffice each time the vessel is used. Or, for the last- 
named purpose, a solution of chlorinated soda may 
be employed, a fluidounce to a quart of water ; or, 
crude permanganate of potassium, ten grains to the 
quart of water. 
Carbolic acid, not long since, was lauded and 
trusted above almost all other disinfectants. Careful 
experiments have shown that it is merely an anti- 
septic of moderate value, with very little power to 
destroy bacteria or other minute organisms. This 
being the case, its extreme disagreeableness may well 
justify its being generally disused in private houses. DISINFECTION. 
135 
Chloride of lime may be safely and advantageously 
employed in cellars or other places where the air is 
not good, being placed in shallow vessels to give off 
chlorine gas. Vinegar, added to it, will increase its 
efficacy, which will not, in any case, last long. A 
solution of fresh chloride of lime in water will answer 
well to deodorize and disinfect privy-wells. Its action 
on metals makes it unsuitable for water-closets, 
kitchen-sinks, etc. Chloride of zinc has similar anti- 
septic properties, but does not (unless with some 
other chemical agent added), like chloride of lime, 
give off free chlorine gas. 
Burnet's liquid is a solution of chloride of zinc. 
Labarraque's liquid is a solution of chlorinated soda. 
Bleaching salt is chloride of lime. Condy's liquid 
is solution of permanganate of potassium ; Ledoyen's 
liquid, solution of nitrate of lead; chloralum (a 
very good disinfectant), solution of chloride of alu- 
minium. Of less certainly known value are a number 
of recently-advertised preparations, many of them 
patenfed, which are extremely unlikely to do so much 
good as those above mentioned. 
Above all things, however, it is to be remembered 
that non-infection is a thousand times better than dis- 
infection, and absolute, universal cleanliness would 
insure this. The time will no doubt come, under the 
advance of knowledge and true civilization, when no 
cholera will traverse the globe from the rising to 136 
OUR HOMES. 
the setting of the sun, and no yellow fever will put 
whole cities in mourning for their dead. As the 
plague has, even in the East, became a rare instead 
of a frequent visitant, not now, as once, invading 
European cities, so other terrible scourges of man- 
kind may, and no doubt will, in time be overcome 
by sanitary prevention. In order for this to happen, 
every man must be the guardian of his own threshold ; 
not only for his own advantage and safety, but also 
for the "common weal." CHAPTER X. 
POPULATION. 
ALREADY, in the early part of this book, some 
. facts have been given, showing a close rela- 
tion between the mortality of places and the num- 
ber of people aggregated together. Other facts of a 
similar kind abound. With more space, I might de- 
scribe (were they not too horrible) the unwholesome 
conditions under which some thousands of people 
live, not only in China, India, and Egypt, but in 
Europe and America. We might dwell on the habits 
of the Icelanders, of whose children the greater part 
die during infancy; or, on the crowding in the con- 
tinental cities of Europe; or, on that of London, 
where, says the British Quarterly Review* at least 
one-half of the houses are unfit for human beings to 
reside in ; or, nearer home, on those dreadful evils 
still existing in New Orleans, Memphis, and some 
other American cities, which make it remarkable not 
that yellow fever visits them, but rather that it ever 
* April ist, 1879. 
137 138 
OUR HOMES. 
spares them at all. Enough for our purpose to glance 
at two or three very sad but instructive examples. 
One of these may be a town on the naturally health- 
ful island of Malta. 
Plimpsoll, the well-known English philanthropist, 
has been recently investigating the sanitary condition 
of Valetta, where the poor population live cheifly in 
cellars. He says of these cellars or pits: 
"They have no fireplace, and therefore no chim- 
neys, and serve singly for a whole family,- man, 
wife, and children. They have no windows, and some 
have no other aperture of any kind than the door; 
and when you have reached the bottom of the well 
you find the floor, the solid rock, wet with urine and 
foul with the odor of the children. So little air 
reaches the bottom that the floor of the yard or well 
never dries, and so little light that when you are 
asked to enter and stand in the doorway, it is dark 
as pitch, and you have to light a wax match to avoid 
falling down the two or three steps within the door- 
way. . . . The excrement in many of them is put 
into a box over the sewer, about twenty inches square 
and high. It goes right down into the untrapped 
sewer, and there accumulates in the dry season, un- 
mixed with ashes or dry dust of any kind." 
In one of these filthy dens, under a handsome 
housfe in the Strada Maza Muscetto, were found, in 
an area of sixteen hundred and ninety-two feet, three POPULA TION. 
139 
stories or tiers of six cellars in each, and in the low- 
est of all above thirty people were living, thirty-nine 
feet below the level of the street. 
With such sanitary arrangements, the death-rate in 
1874 was 49.24 per 1000 of population. It ought to 
be not more than 15 or 17 per 1000. 
Another case has been long familiar to readers 
of Carpenter's standard treatise on Physiology * The 
island of St. Kilda, one of the Western Hebrides, 
when visited in 1838, had an enormous mortality of 
infants, four out of every five dying. This was ex- 
plained by the way of living of the people. " Their 
huts were small, low-roofed, and without windows, 
and were used during the winter as stores for the col- 
lection of manure, which was carefully laid out upon 
the floor, and trodden under foot to the depth of 
several feet. On the other hand, the clergyman, 
who lived exactly as did those around him, except 
as to the condition of his house, brought up a family 
of four children in perfect health; whereas, accord- 
ing to the average mortality, at least three out of 
the four would have been dead within the first fort- 
night." 
But we need not go farther than the lately much dis- 
cussed tenement-houses of New York, for an exemplifi- 
cation of over-crowding and its destructive effects. 
Half the population of that great city live in 21,000 
* Chapter on " Respiration," p. 545. 140 
OUR HOMES. 
tenement-houses, and two-thirds of the deaths of the 
whole city occur annually among that population, 
mostly during childhood. Nearly half a million of 
people have allotted to them an average of less than 
seven square yards to each person. The tenement- 
houses are large, and often closely packed together, 
many rooms having no direct communication with 
the open air, and being never reached by a ray of 
sunshine from one end of the year to the other! So 
late as 1877, one such building (98 Mott Street) con- 
tained ninety-nine families, making in all nearly five 
hundred persons. Several families sometimes occupy 
a single room. It is not needful for us to say more 
in description of these dens of misery; upon which 
the blaze of modern sanitary inquiry has now been 
fully turned, so that philanthropy and civic prudence 
have united to abate their evils. 
An extraordinary fact is, that the poorer portion 
of those brought up amid such circumstances are often 
unwilling to have them improved. They must be 
helped and taught gradually; they seem almost like 
owls or bats brought out into daylight, when any one 
attempts to better their condition. Says Dr. Stephen 
Smith {Sanitarian, July, 1875, P- 155): "The family 
reared in a cellar resists every effort to induce it to 
take rooms on the first floor. The struggle of the 
Board of Health to vacate cellars and compel the un- 
derground population to live above ground, has been POPULA TION. 
141 
carried on with varying success for many years. 
Again, we find a family always accustomed to a rear 
tenement will never take the front, and one always 
occupying a single room will be found averse to oc- 
cupying two rooms." 
Yet, when once an improvement has been made, 
they become aware of its benefits, and are brought to 
assist in their extension. In 1866 a reform was be- 
gun in New York, through which, according to Prof. 
Chandler, down to the present year, thirteen thousand 
lives have been saved. 
By the aid of sea-side homes for sick children, ex- 
cursions to the country, and on the water, free medi- 
cal attendance and sanitary advice, this lowering of 
mortality in tenement-houses goes on more and more 
rapidly. In 1876, 3060 deaths occurred amongst 
them from summer diarrhoeal diseases; in 1879, 
2084-a reduction of nearly a thousand in this death- 
rate alone. 
Besides some regulations referred to on a previous 
page, it is now enjoined, by the New York Tenement- 
House Law, that the space between floor and ceiling 
must be in every room at least eight feet. Every bed- 
room must have direct communication with the out- 
side air, and six hundred cubic feet of air-space must 
be allowed for every occupant. When this last en- 
actment comes to be fairly carried out among the 
hundreds of thousands now packed together with an 142 
OUR HOMES. 
average, in some blocks, of from one to two hundred 
in a single house, the sanitary millennium will almost 
have arrived. Now, upon two miles of Fifth Avenue, 
four hundred families dwell in wealth and comfort. 
Less than two hundred yards from this elegant 
thoroughfare, a single block of tenement-houses has 
long contained seven hundred families, aggregating 
thirty-five hundred souls. How much disease and 
how many deaths in Fifth Avenue may have been de- 
rived from such a block ! 
It has been shown that no skill or ingenuity can 
suffice to build a healthy and comfortable tenement- 
house of several stories for a large number of people 
upon a lot twenty-five by a hundred feet. The best 
that can be done with such lots is, to erect upon them 
(<7/ most, two or three on a single lot) small two- or 
three-storied dwellings of improved construction. 
This has been done lately in Brooklyn, each house 
costing about $1100. These, at a rent varying from 
$13 to $20 per month, will produce a fair return to 
their owners. Upon this topic more will be said in 
our next and concluding chapter. 
Boston as well as New York has long been over- 
crowded upon the tenement-house system ; and some 
smaller manufacturing cities of New England have 
had of late an increasing excess of population. A 
committee of the American Social Science Association 
not long since reported that in Boston the average pro- POPULA TION. 
143 
portion is more than eight persons to a dwelling, some 
of the old wards having an average of eleven and 
twelve. In Fall River it is between ten and eleven. 
In New York, according to the census of 1870, it was 
nearly fifteen persons to each dwelling ; in nine wards, 
twenty-two. At the same time, Philadelphia had one 
house for every six persons, as the average for the 
whole city; while its worse wards had one house 
for every eight.* No wonder, then, that this city has 
been called the " City of Homes ! " 
* The actual number of houses in 1870 was, in New York, 
64,440; in Philadelphia, 112,366. Population of the former 
city, nearly a million; of the latter, about 675,000. In 1876, 
by count of the police, there were in Philadelphia nearly 144,000 
houses. In New York, by the State Census of 1875, the num- 
ber of dwellings was 67,126; population, 1,041,886; average for 
each house, 15.52. The average for each house during the same 
year in London was 7.8 persons. (See Report for 1878, by J. 
T. Nagle, M. D.; Hospital Gazette, Dec. 13, 1879.) CHAPTER XI. 
working-men's homes. 
IN Dr. B. W. Richardson's imaginary model city, 
Hygeia, a method is proposed by which the work 
of men and women may be kept quite apart from 
their dwellings. This separation is to be effected by 
the establishment of blocks of buildings expressly for 
the purpose; where, in appropriate rooms, the tailor, 
dress-maker, lace-maker, etc., may go through with 
his or her daily task, and return home when it is done. 
Day-nurseries, meanwhile, are to take care of the 
children while their mothers are away at work. This 
is carrying the co-operative principle very far; too 
far, probably, ever to meet with universal favor or 
success. But a certain degree of approach to it al- 
ready exists in connection with many avocations; and 
the question of the maintenance of good homes for 
working-people has become one of the most pressing 
in sanitary and social science. 
Naturally, most workmen wish to have their dwell- 
ings near their places of business, so as to save time, 
effort, and expense in going from the one to the other. 
144 WORKING-MEN'S HOMES. 
145 
With those whose occupations are sedentary, involv- 
ing but little muscular labor, it is really better that 
there should be distance .enough between home and 
work to secure some exercise in the open air in the 
morning and evening walk. But with those whose 
labor is prolonged and fatiguing, it is desirable that 
the home should be either near the place of work, or 
accessible by some cheap and rapid conveyance. 
Working-men's trains, with reduced fares, now run 
to and from several of the largest cities in England, 
and in our own country ; and they are very useful. 
Horse-cars, in Philadelphia especially, render a simi- 
lar kind of service, though with much less saving of 
time. 
Where ground is greatly in demand for business 
purposes, it is impossible to get a good interest from 
dwellings upon it, unless they pay a high rent. If 
this rent is to be obtained from poor tenants, there 
must be a great many of them in one building. 
Other portions of large cities are usually rendered 
unavailable for homes for the working-class, by the 
high prices growing out of social preferences for 
localities. After awhile, the valuation of health will 
prevail more reasonably than now, and then a town- 
lot on the highest and most open quarter of the city 
will command at least as good a price as one on lower 
ground, closely built with marble or brown-stone 
fronts, on a fashionable street. Such a comparative 146 
OUR HOMES. 
equalization of land-values may, before long, aid in 
making it practicable for capitalists, or well-to-do 
artisans on a smaller scale, to erect houses in good 
parts of the town, at a small or moderate expense - 
such as will be within the reach of workmen who 
must live not very far from city establishments. 
But the best and highest aim always will be for 
every man to own his dwelling. Building associations 
admirably promote this result. Some of these, in 
London, have been started and managed by men of 
capital, for the benefit of the poor. Others are truly 
co-operative. This is the character of those which 
have become very successful and useful in Philadel- 
phia. 
Ground-rents, irredeemable so long as the interest 
is paid, make the purchase of land for building more 
practicable. One who owns a small lot (say eighteen 
by ninety feet, on a fifty-foot street), on which there 
is a ground-rent, may join a Building Association ; 
and, by paying one dollar a month, he may have op- 
portunity to borrow from the association, at a moder- 
ate premium and interest, enough money to put up a 
small house. It may be of brick-fourteen and a 
half feet front (leaving a passage at the side of three 
and a half feet) and thirty-two feet deep. Thus, by 
paying dues, in all amounting monthly to about 
twelve dollars and a half, he is enabled, in eight, ten, 
or twelve years, to clear off his indebtedness on the WORKING-MEN'S HOMES. 
147 
house, and have it for his possession as well as his 
home. Multitudes of such two- and three-storied 
houses, with two (seldom three) rooms on a floor, and 
mostly owned by their occupants, are to be seen in 
rows and blocks in many parts of Philadelphia. 
George Peabody did an immense amount of good, by 
presenting a large sum of money for the erection of 
model lodging-houses in London for the poor; but 
much more advantage has resulted from this happy 
series of enterprises, which have made it possible for 
thousands to erect homes for themselves. Morals, as 
well as comforts, are thus often signally improved. 
Of course, philanthropists may and must, especially 
at first, assist and direct such reforms. Prince Albert 
was, herein, a truly noble example and leader. John 
Ruskin and Octavia Hill in London, the Board of 
"Trustees" in Glasgow, and the "Association of 
Physicians" in Copenhagen, have alike shown not 
only that the comforts and decency of the very poor 
can be thus greatly aided, but that vice and intemper- 
ance are thereby discouraged, and municipal order 
promoted - and all this without loss, indeed with a 
very fair return to the owners on their investments. 
Yet, alas, how many of the poor, in all our cities, 
still need to be lifted out of their squalidness, and 
taught how to live ! For these, there is excellent 
training, as well as health-giving and much enjoy- 
ment, in the summer-days' excursions and the " coun- 148 
OUR HOMES. 
try week." * In the latter, especially, there is a rich 
combination of all these advantages. Show the un- 
willing but ignorant prisoner of Five Points or Alaska 
Street how the humble farmer or farm-laborer lives, 
in a neat and airy cottage among green fields, and 
he or she must be inspired with longings for some- 
thing better for himself or herself, and for their off- 
spring. The sights and odors of the fresh, open 
country will long live in the dreams of children who 
are taken out to be refreshed and revived by them; 
and then they cannot so easily afterwards be content 
without cleanliness, which is possible everywhere, 
and thus sweetness, in the working-man's home. 
They will be better, safer, more patriotic citizens 
therefor; and so it is the interest, nay, almost the 
necessity, of every member of the wealthier class to 
aid and encourage all that can be done toward so im- 
portant a reform. Even a single day's lesson in 
healthy living will help this much. 
Six hours of sunshine ! six bright hours of gladness! 
Six hours of joy 'mongst grass, and flowers, and trees; 
Six hours' escape from want, and woe, and sadness; 
Six hours of butterflies, and birds, and bees! 
* This is an arrangement by which families living in the 
country receive, for a week or more at a time, children of the 
poor from the city. It is managed by a voluntary organization 
of benevolent ladies, who have reported excellent results from it. WORKING-MEN'S HOMES. 
149 
That's all they pray for; all these tiny creatures, 
Stunted and squalid, ask of you one day, 
To let God's breezes fan their wee, wan features,- 
One day from their dark homes to get away. 
One day to leave the fetid court and alley, 
To breathe pure air, to hear the wild bird's song; 
One day to track the brook adown the valley; 
One day ! - Oh ! say, my brothers, is't too long ? * 
* From London Truth, 1879. CHIEF WORKS 
FOR 
Consultation on the Subjects of this Primer. 
Parkes' Practical Hygiene. 
Buck's Hygiene and Public Health, Vol. I. 
Leeds on Ventilation. 
Pettenkofer on Air in Relation to Clothing, Soil, 
and Dwellings. 
Wyman's Practical Treatise on Ventilation. 
Hygeia, a Model City of Health, 
By B. W. Richardson, M.D. 
Healthy Houses, by Fleeming Jenkin. 
Sanitary Arrangements for Dwellings, by W. Eassie. 
Dulce Dornum ; or, 7'he Plumber and Sanitary Houses, 
By S. S. Hellyer. 
Plumbing and House Drainage, by W. P. Buchan. 
Sanitary Drainage of Houses, by G. E. Waring. 
Dangers to Health, by T. Pridgin Teale. 
Annual Reports of Massachusetts Board of Health. 
7'he Sanitarian ; a Monthly Magazine of Health. 
The Plumber and Sanitary Engineer ; a Biweekly 
Journal. 
150