Pope's manual of nursing procedure.

  • Pope, Amy Elizabeth, 1869-
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pope's manual of nursing procedure. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    an arrangement such as shown in Fig. I may induce enough movement in the air to secure good ventila- tion. As shown in Fig. 1 a narrow board is placed beneath the lower sash so as to raise the upper edge of the latter above the level of the bottom of the upper sash and the cold air entering between the two sashes is deflected upward, and thus it will not impinge upon the people in the room. Cause of odor, etc.: It is very commonly thought that the odor in a badly ventilated room and the inertia and drowsiness that the inmates often ex- perience are due to the excessive amounts of carbon dioxid that collect, but CO, is an odorless gas and it has no actual injurious effects on the system in the amounts in which it ordinarily accumulates in houses and hospitals. In reality, the odor is com- monly due to decomposed skin excretions and to exhalations other than CO, given off in the breath from, chiefly, the stomach and mouth; and the las- situde, etc., result from interference with heat elimina- tion due to deficient air movement, excessive humidity, high room temperature, and consequent vasomotor changes which increase the amount of blood in the skin and lessen the brain supply. Though the emanations mentioned in the preceding paragraph are not injurious to health, they are not to be tolerated in house or institution because they are signs of poor ventilation, and consequently of the presence of the harmful, though less easily ap- preciated, conditions. Unfortunately, the olfactory nerve endings become accustomed to such stimuli very quickly, and thus after a person is in a badly ventilated room for a short time consciousness of the odor diminishes. Therefore, nurses should accustom