The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/684 (page 10)
    AIR IN PLACES io AIR PASSAGES the end of the tube to the bottom of the bottle of lime water, and then breathe out the air from your lungs for half a minute through the pipe, so that it may bubble up through the water. The clear fluid will very soon become cloudy, almost milky, from the formation of carbonate of lime by the union of the carbonic acid expired from your lungs with the lime v^hich the water has dissolved. AIR IN ILL-VENTILATED PLACES As air which has been breathed has lost some of its life-giving power, and has, besides, become contaminated with useless and injurious refuse materials, it is obvious that we had better avoid taking it again into our lungs, even were it as pleasant as fresh draughts of the atmosphere. How much more, then, must every person shrink from inhaling into the very recesses of his or her body air which is loaded with foul emanations and worn-out refuse cast off at every breath by people in crowded places, in ill-ventilated halls, lecture- rooms, theatres, etc. If it were anything else but air, the idea of using it thus at second-hand, after its ejection by dirty and possibly diseased and unwholesome persons, would be disgusting ; but because the impurities are invisible, they are drawn into the lungs of men and women, without a thought of their origin or of tlieir poisonous nature. Manypersons suppose that they fulfil all the laws of clean- liness when they have bathed and washed the surfaces of their bodies sufficiently with pure water. But cleanliness, in its most comprehen- sive sense, cannot be carried out to meet the wants of the animal economy unless the lungs and skin are equally well bathed with fresh air. Our senses revolt,” says one writer, “ at the mere offer of dirty water to drink ; but Nature dis- plays an equal repugnance when dirty—that is, impure—air is offered for breathing ; and no less injustice is done to the lungs by the inhala- tion of foul air, in which are floating, at the same time, particles of fine dust, arising from different sub- stances in manufacture, than would be to the skin, if, first ditch or gutter water, and then sand and dirt, were sprinkled over it. The very idea of swallowing, or even tasting, the fluid substances ejected as excreta, or thrown off by disease from the body of another person, or even from our own, is abhorrent to all ; and yet how few scruple about receiving into their lungs, by respir- ation, the impure exhalations from the lungs of everybody in the same room with themselves ! But they are doing more : they are inhaling not only the foul air which escapes from the lungs, but, in addition, the cutaneous emanations as well.” AIR-PASSAGES, FOREIGN BODIES IN Morsels of food more frequently than other substances get into the larynx or trachea, the accident happening when a person is engaged in laughing or talking when the mouth is full of food. The symp- toms are sudden spasmodic cough, protrusion of the eyes from the sockets, blood or froth issuing from the mouth and nose, while the patient gasps for breath, turns black in the face, and perhaps becomes insensible. If the morsel of food be light and of small size, it is some- times expelled during a fit of cough- ing. Many bodies may find their way into the larynx and trachea— coins, cherry-stones, beans, or in fact anything which may happen to be in the mouth—and their