Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... LECTURE XII. To-night I propose to say a few words to you in reference to the ventilation, temperature, and light of your wards or sick-rooms. I have not left it until the last because I consider it of minor importance, but because there were other details more likely to be of interest to probationers on their first entrance into hospital life. Dr. Anderson, in his admirable little book on "Medical Nursing," says--" Air may be regarded as invisible, without colour, taste, or smell.... It is not a simple body; it is not one of the elements, as the ancients supposed, but a compound body. It consists mainly of two elements, oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen is a gas, without colour, taste, or smell; it sustains animal life, and supports combustion, i.e. it enables fuel to burn. It is the life-giving principle of the air, although there is only one part of it to four of nitrogen. Nitrogen is also devoid of colour, taste, or smell. It extinguishes life and light. It modifies the vital properties of the oxygen, or, as has been said, ' it dilutes the oxygen as water does wine or spirits.' These two elements form almost the whole bulk of the atmosphere; but there is a third body, which, although there is only a trace of it in the air as a whole, is so poisonous in itself, and so readily increases in circumstances that concern us very directly, that we must give it our most careful attention. I mean, of course, carbonic acid gas. This is a compound body devoid of colour, but with a slight smell, and a rather sour taste. It extinguishes light, and if breathed undiluted, destroys life instantly.... We cannot remain in a room without increasing the quantity of this poisonous gas. With every expiration we give out at once impure air--air so far unfit to be...
