“It is only in towns, where the delivery, stowage, and removal of earth is attended with cost and difficulty, that any artificial aid for drying the compost would be desirable. On premises not cramped for space, the atmosphere, especially with a glass roof to the shed, will act sufficiently fast.
“You may by means of it (the earth system) have a privy close to the house and a closet up-stairs, from neither of which shall proceed any offensive smell or any noxious gas. A projection from the back of the cottage, eight feet long and six feet wide, would be amply sufficient for this purpose. The nearer three or four feet down-stairs, would be occupied by the privy, in which, by the seat, would be a receptacle for dry earth. The ‘soil’ and earth would fall into the further five or four feet, which would form the covered and closed shed for mixing and drying. Up-stairs, the arrangement would be much the same, the deposit being made to fall clear of every wall. Through, this closet the removal of noxious and offensive matters in time of sickness, and of slop-buckets, would be immediate and easy; and if the shed below be kept well supplied with earth, all effluvium would be almost immediately checked. As to the trouble which this will cause, a very little experience will convince the cottager that it is less instead of greater, than the women generally go through at present, while the value of the manure will afford an inducement to exertion.
. . . . . . . . .
“The truth is, that the machinery is more simple, much less expensive, and far less liable to injury than that of the water-closet. The supply of earth to the house is as easy as that of coals. To the closet it may be supplied more easily than water is supplied by a forcing-pump, and to the commode it can be conveyed just as coal is carried to the chamber. After use, it can be removed in either case by the bucket or box placed under the seat, or from the fixed reservoir, with less offense than that of the ordinary slop-bucket — indeed, (I speak after four years’ experience,) with as little offense as is found in the removal of coal-ashes. So that, while servants and others will shrink from novelty and at first imagine difficulties, yet many, to my knowledge, would now vastly prefer the daily removal of the bucket or the soil to either the daily working of a forcing-pump or to being called upon once a year, or once in three years, to assist in emptying a vault or cesspool.”
To the above complete and convincingly apt arguments and statements of fact, we do not care to add any thing. All that we desire is to direct public attention to the admirable qualities of this Earth System, and to suggest that, at least for those living in the country away from the many conveniences of city life, great water power, and mechanical assistance, the use of it will conduce largely to the economy of families, the health of neighborhoods, and the increasing fertility and prosperity of the country round about.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WARMING AND VENTILATION
There is no department of science, as applied to practical matters, which has so often baffled experimenters as the healthful mode of warming and ventilating houses. The British nation spent over a million on the House of Parliament for this end, and failed. Our own government has spent half a million on the Capitol, with worse failure; and now it is proposed to spend a million more. The reason is, that the old open fireplace has been supplanted by less expensive modes of heating, destructive to health; and science has but just begun experiments to secure a remedy for the evil.
The open fire warms the person, the walls, the floors and the furniture by radiation, and these, together with the fire, warm the air by convection. For the air resting on the heated surfaces is warmed by convection, rises and gives place to cooler particles, causing a constant heating of its particles by movement. Thus in a room with an open fire, the person is warmed in part by radiation from the fire and the surrounding walls and furniture, and in part by the warm air surrounding the body.
In regard to the warmth of air, the thermometer is not an exact index of its temperature. For all bodies are constantly radiating their heat to cooler adjacent surfaces until all come to the same temperature. This being so, the thermometer is radiating its heat to walls and surrounding objects, in addition to what is subtracted by the air that surrounds it, and thus the air is really several degrees warmer than the thermometer indicates. A room at 70 degrees by the thermometer is usually filled with air five or more degrees warmer than this.
Now, the cold air is denser than warm, and therefore contains more oxygen. Consequently, the cooler the air inspired, the larger the supply of oxygen and of the vitality and vigor which it imparts. Thus, the great problem for economy of health is to warm the person as much as possible by radiated heat, and supply the lungs with cool air. For when we breathe air at from 16 to 20 degrees, we take double the amount of oxygen that we do when we inhale it at 80 to 90 degrees, and consequently can do double the amount of muscle and brain work.
Warming by an open fire is nearest to the natural mode of the Creator, who heats the earth and its furniture by the great central fire of heaven, and sends cool breezes for our lungs. But open fires involve great destruction of fuel and expenditure of money, and in consequence economic methods have been introduced to the great destruction of health and life.
Of these methods, the most popular is that by which radiated heat is banished, and all warmth is gained by introducing heated air. This is the method employed in our national Capitol, where both warming and ventilation are attempted by means of fans worked by steam, which force in the heated air. This is an expensive mode, used only for large establishments, and its entire failure at our capitol will probably prevent in future any very extensive use of it.
But the most common mode of warming is by heated air introduced from a furnace. The chief objection to this is the loss of all radiated heat, and the consequent necessity of breathing air which is debilitating both from its heat and also from being usually deprived of the requisite moisture provided by the Creator in all out-door air. Another objection is the fact that it is important to health to preserve an equal circulation of the blood, and the greatest impediment to this is a mode of heating which keeps the head in warmer air than the feet. This is especially deleterious in an age and country where active brains are constantly drawing blood from the extremities to the head. All furnace-heated rooms have coldest air at the feet, and warmest around the head. It is also rarely the case that furnace-heated houses have proper arrangements for carrying off the vitiated air.
There are some recent scientific discoveries that relate to impure air which may properly be introduced here. It is shown by the microscope that fermentation is a process which generates extremely minute plants, that gradually increase till the whole mass is pervaded by this vegetation. The microscope also has revealed the fact that, in certain diseases, these microscopic plants are generated in the blood and other fluids of the body, in a mode similar to the ordinary process of fermentation.
And, what is very curious, each of these peculiar diseases generates diverse kinds of plants. Thus in the typhoid fever, the microscope reveals in the fluids of the patient a plant that resembles in form some kinds of seaweed. In chills and fever, the microscopic plant has another form, and in small-pox still another. A work has recently been published in Europe, in which representations of these various microscopic plants generated in the fluids of the diseased persons are exhibited, enlarged several hundred times by the microscope. All diseases that exhibit these microscopic plants are classed together, and are called Zymotic, from a Greek word signifying to ferment.
These zymotic diseases sometimes have a local origin, as in the case of ague caused by miasma of swamps; and then they are named endemic. In other cases, they are caused by personal contact with the diseased body or its clothing, as the itch or small-pox; or else by effluvia from the sick, as in measles. Such are called contagious or infectious. In other cases, diseases result from some unknown cause in the atmosphere, and affect numbers of people at the same time, as in influenza or scarlet fever, and these are called epidemics.
It is now regard
ed as probable that most of these diseases are generated by the microscopic plants which float in an impure or miasmatic atmosphere, and are taken into the blood by breathing.
Recent scientific investigations in Great Britain and other countries prove that the power of resisting these diseases depends upon the purity of the air which has been habitually inspired. The human body gradually accommodates itself to unhealthful circumstances, so that people can live a long time in bad air. But the “reserve power” of the body, that is, the power of resisting disease, is under such circumstances gradually destroyed, and then an epidemic easily sweeps away those thus enfeebled. The plague of London, that destroyed thousands every day, came immediately after a long period of damp, warm days, when there was no wind to carry off the miasma thus generated; while the people, by long breathing of bad air, were all prepared, from having sunk into a low vitality, to fall before the pestilence.
Multitudes of public documents show that the fatality of epidemics is always proportioned to the degree in which impure air has previously been respired. Sickness and death are therefore regulated by the degree in which air is kept pure, especially in case of diseases in which medical treatment is most uncertain, as in cholera and malignant fevers.
Investigations made by governmental authority, and by boards of health in this country and in Great Britain, prove that zymotic diseases ordinarily result from impure air generated by vegetable or animal decay, and that in almost all cases they can be prevented by keeping the air pure. The decayed animal matter sent off from the skin and lungs in a close, unventilated bedroom is one thing that generates these zymotic diseases. The decay of animal and vegetable matter in cellars, sinks, drains, and marshy districts is another cause; and the decayed vegetable matter thrown up by plowing up of decayed vegetable matter in the rich soil in new countries is another.
In the investigations made in certain parts of Great Britain, it appeared that in districts where the air is pure the deaths average 11 in 1000 each year; while in localities most exposed to impure miasma, the mortality was 45 in every thousand. At this rate, thirty-four persons in every thousand died from poisoned air, who would have preserved health and life by well-ventilated homes in a pure atmosphere. And, out of all who died, the proportion who owed their deaths to foul air was more than three fourths. Similar facts have been obtained by boards of health in our own country.
Mr. Leeds gives statistics showing, that in Philadelphia, by improved modes of ventilation and other sanitary methods, there was a saving of 3237 lives in two years; and a saving of three fourths of a million of dollars, which would pay the whole expense of the public schools. Philadelphia being previously an unusually cleanly and well-ventilated city, what would be the saving of life, health, and wealth were such a city as New-York perfectly cleansed and ventilated?
Here it is proper to state again that conflicting opinions are found in many writers on ventilation, in regard to the position of ventilating registers to carry off vitiated air. Most writers state that the impure air is heavier, and falls to the bottom of a room. After consulting scientific men extensively on this point, the writer finds the true result to be as follows: Carbonic acid is heavier than common air, and, unmixed, falls to the floor. But by the principle of diffusion of gases, the air thrown from the lungs, though at first it sinks a little, is gradually diffused, and in a heated room, in the majority of cases, it is found more abundantly at the top than at the bottom of the room, though in certain circumstances it is more at the bottom. For this reason, registers to carry off impure air should be placed at both the top and bottom of a room.
In arranging for pure air in dwellings, it is needful to proportion the air admitted and discharged to the number of persons. As a guide to this, we have the following calculation: On an average, every adult vitiates about half a pint of air at each inspiration, and inspires twenty times a minute. This would amount to one hogshead of air vitiated every hour by every grown person. To keep the air pure, this amount should enter and be carried out every hour for each person. If, then, ten persons assemble in a dining-room, ten hogsheads of air should enter and ten be discharged each hour. By the same rule, a gathering of five hundred persons demands the entrance and discharge of five hundred hogsheads of air every hour, and a thousand persons require a thousand hogsheads of air every hour.
In calculating the size of registers and conductors, then, we must have reference to the number of persons who are to abide in a dwelling; while for rooms or halls intended for large gatherings, a far greater allowance must be made.
The most successful mode before the public, both for warming and ventilation, is that of Lewis Leeds, who was employed by government to ventilate the military hospitals and also the treasury building at Washington. This method has been adopted in various school-houses, and also by A. T. Stewart in his hotel for women in New-York City. The Leeds plan embraces the mode of heating both by radiation and convection, very much resembling the open fireplace in operation, and yet securing great economy. It is modeled strictly after the mode adopted by the Creator in warming and ventilating the earth, the home of his great earthly family. It aims to have a passage of pure air through, every room, as the breezes pass over the hills, and to have a method of warming chiefly by radiation, as the earth is warmed by the sun. In addition to this, the air is to be provided with moisture, as it is supplied out-doors by exhalations from the earth, and its trees and plants.
The mode of accomplishing this is by placing coils of steam, or hot water pipes, under windows, which warm the parlor walls and furniture, partly by radiation, and partly by the air warmed on the heated surfaces of the coils. At the same time, by regulating registers, or by simply opening the lower part of the window, the pure air, guarded from immediate entrance into the room, is admitted directly upon the coils, so that it is partially warmed before it reaches the person: and thus cold drafts are prevented. Then the vitiated air is drawn off through registers both at the top and bottom of the room, opening into a heated exhausting flue, through which the constantly ascending current of warm air carries it off. These heated coils are often used for warming houses without any arrangement for carrying off the vitiated air, when, of course, their peculiar usefulness is gone.
The moisture may be supplied by a broad vessel placed on or close to the heated coils, giving a large surface for evaporation. When rooms are warmed chiefly by radiated heat, the air can be borne much cooler than in rooms warmed by hot-air furnaces, just as a person in the radiating sun can bear much cooler air than in the shade. A time will come when walls and floors will be contrived to radiate heat instead of absorbing it from the occupants of houses, as is generally the case at the present time, and then all can breathe pure and cool air.
We are now prepared to examine more in detail the modes of warming and ventilation employed in the dwellings planned for this work.
In doing this, it should be remembered that the aim is not to give plans of houses to suit the architectural taste or the domestic convenience of persons who intend to keep several servants, and care little whether they breathe pure or bad air, nor of persons who do not wish to educate their children to manual industry or to habits of close economy.
On the contrary, the aim is, first, to secure a house in which every room shall be perfectly ventilated both day and night, and that too without the watchful care and constant attention and intelligence needful in houses not provided with a proper and successful mode of ventilation.
The next aim is, to arrange the conveniences of domestic labor so as to save time, and also to render such work less repulsive than it is made by common methods, so that children can be trained to love house-work. And lastly, economy of expense in house-building is sought. These things should be borne in mind in examining the plans of this work.
In the Cottage plan, (Chap II. Fig. 1,) the pure air for rooms on the ground floor is to be introduced by a wooden conductor one foot square, running under the floor from the front door to the stove-room
; with cross branches to the two large rooms. The pure air passes through this, protected outside by wire netting, and delivered inside through registers in each room, as indicated in Fig. 1.
In case open Franklin stoves are used in the large rooms, the pure air from the conductor should enter behind them, and thus be partially warmed. The vitiated air is carried off at the bottom of the room through the open stoves, and also at the top by a register opening into a conductor to the exhausting warm-air shaft, which, it will be remembered, is the square chimney, containing the iron pipe which receives the kitchen stove-pipe. The stove-room receives pure air from the conductor, and sends off impure air and the smells of cooking by a register opening directly into the exhausting shaft; while its hot air and smoke, passing through the iron pipe, heat the air of the shaft, and produce the exhausting current. The construction of the exhausting or warm-air shaft is described on page 63.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 880
