Rural Hygiene Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--Waterproofing of cellar walls.]

Another method is to paint the masonry with liquid asphalt, and then imbed in this paint a thickness of asphalt-covered building paper which is again painted with asphalt. This may be done in the horizontal layer where it could not conveniently be done vertically.

Four different ways used in France for securing dry cellar walls are shown in Fig. 11. The heavy black line represents the damp course, which, when added to the effect of the interwall s.p.a.ce, which is shown in all the drawings but the first, and there replaced by a deep drain, insures absolute freedom from all moisture within the cellar. Figure 12 shows sections recommended by Dr. George M. Price, and indicates clearly the location of the damp course.

_The cellar floor._

The floor of the cellar, in the same way, must be kept from dampness, and this is best done by covering the cellar floor with a layer of concrete, one part cement, three parts sand, and six parts broken stone; or, one part cement and eight parts gravel may be used. Care should be taken, however, that the gravel does not contain an excess of sand, and it is always well in using gravel for concrete to check the proportion of these two materials. This may be done as follows: Sift the gravel through an ash sieve so that it is free from sand; fill a ten-quart pail even full with the gravel and then pour in water to the top of the pail, keeping account of the amount of water poured in. This volume of water gives the proper amount of sand to use with the gravel for concrete, and if more sand than this was present in the original gravel, it should be sifted out until the proper proportion is reached.

Concrete is not water-tight, and the concrete floor of the cellar must be treated in some way to prevent water or moisture rising through this floor. One method is to cover the concrete thus laid with a denser mixture of cement and sand, put on three fourths of an inch thick, and made by mixing equal parts of sand and cement; or the asphalt layer already referred to in the cellar walls may be carried across the cellar, putting, as before, a paint layer on the concrete, then paper, then another paint layer, making it continuous and without a break from outside to outside. On top of this, to prevent wear and tear, a floor of brick, laid flat, or a two-inch layer of concrete may be laid.

_Cellar ventilation._

The great importance of the cellar as that part of the house where, if anywhere, unhealthy conditions exist, justifies this prolonged discussion, and before leaving the subject, ventilation in the cellar should receive a word of encouragement. Too many cellars are damper than need be, are musty and close, full of odors of decaying vegetables and rotting wood, entirely from lack of ventilation. The cellar windows are small and always, closed. The cellar door is seldom opened, and never with the idea of admitting air. The impression on entering such a cellar is of a tomb.

The cellar, even in that part devoted to storing vegetables, needs ventilation as much as the house does, for the cellar air finds its way up into the house, and an unventilated cellar means a house with air deficient in oxygen and overloaded with carbonic acid, a condition which causes pale faces and anaemic bodies. Far better and healthier is it to open all the cellar windows, covering them with coa.r.s.e netting to keep out animals and with fine netting to keep out insects, and let the disease-killing oxygen and sunlight in. Malaria comes from the cellar, whenever the malarial mosquito can find there a breeding place. The writer has seen many cellars in which mosquitoes were living the year through in entire comfort, utilizing the moisture and warmth of the cellar to enjoy the winter months and up and ready for their mission at the first sign of spring. A cistern in the cellar is objectionable on this account, and if one exists, it should be covered with mosquito netting.

_The old-fashioned privy._

Another source of ill-health as well as of temporary discomfort is the typical construction and continued use of an outside closet or privy.

The physical shrinking from the use of the ordinary building is most reasonable. As generally constructed, great draughts of air (presumably for ventilation) are continually pa.s.sing through the small building, and when the temperature of the outside air is at zero, or thereabouts, only the strongest physique can withstand the exposure involved without serious danger of consumption, influenza, and pneumonia, or at least inviting those diseases by reducing the vitality of the body. Two improvements suggest themselves and should be put into effect wherever this primitive construction must continue to be used.

In the first place, the building itself should not be fifty or a hundred feet away from the house, so that every one is exposed to rain, snow, slush, and ice in making the journey thither. But some corner of the woodshed or barn should be utilized or the small building should be moved up by the back door and connected therewith by a roofed pa.s.sage.

The barn location is objectionable if it involves outdoor exposure in going from the house to the barn. A liberal use of earth in the privy vault will eliminate odors, and a water-tight box or bucket makes a frequent removal of the night soil practicable.

In the second place, a small stove ought to be provided to warm the closet in the coldest weather. Then the dislike to suffer from the cold, which leads so many to postpone nature's call, will be avoided, and the consequent digestive disorders which come from constipation and intestinal fermentations prevented.

_Cow stables._

In matters of health, aside from ventilation, which is discussed in the next chapter, there is little to be said concerning the other buildings on the farm. Barns for hay are not involved. A few words may profitably be devoted to barns for stock, involving, as they do, by their construction, the health of the stock. One enthusiastic farmer writes that it is possible for farmers to keep their stock at all times under conditions which are an improvement upon the month of June. He believes that the cow stable should be as comfortable for the cows as the house is for the owner, subject to no fluctuations of temperature, and that, in this way, the health as well as the comfort and milk production of the cows would be maintained.

Light should be listed as the first essential of healthy stables, light to kill disease-producing bacteria, to make dirty corners and holes impossible, and to react on the vitality of the animals. Compare this with some stables where fifteen, twenty, or thirty head are stabled in an underground dugout with two or three small windows not giving more than four square feet in all. Stable windows should be set, like house windows, in two sashes and capable of being raised or lowered at will.

In winter a large sash may be screwed over the regular window to keep out frost and moisture, provided there is some independent method of ventilation.

For good healthy conditions, a cow needs about 500 cubic feet of s.p.a.ce, with active ventilation. In old stables, with poor construction, as little as 200 cubic feet per cow was allowed, and when stables were made tight with matched boards and building paper, 200 cubic feet was found to be too small, and it was recommended that one cubic foot be allowed for each pound of cow. But when tried by wealthy amateurs, it was found that this was too large; the stables were damp and cold in winter and became a predisposing factor in the development of tuberculosis. Between the two extremes, 200 and 1000, is the practical average named above, namely, 500 cubic feet of air s.p.a.ce for each cow.

For the health of the cow as well as for the good quality of the milk the stable should be built with special reference to being kept clean.

The ceiling should be dust-tight, so that if hay is stored above, it will not sift through. The part of the barn where the cows are kept should be separated from the rest of the barn by tight part.i.tions and a door into the cow stable. Nothing dusty or dirty should acc.u.mulate. The floor of all stables for cows, horses, hens, and pigs should be of concrete to insure the most sanitary construction. Planks absorb liquids and wear out rapidly under the feet of the stock. Concrete can be kept clean, is nonabsorptive, and if covered with some non-conducting material, like sawdust, shavings, or straw, is a perfectly comfortable floor for the animals.

_Use of concrete._

No development of recent times has tended more toward the improvement and greater comfort of house building than the use of concrete. In the earlier houses, the cellar walls were so badly built and the connection between the top of the cellar wall and the timber sill of the house was so poor that the winter's wind blew through above to the manifest discomfort of those in the house. The writer remembers sitting in the best room of a well-to-do farmer, and watching, with great interest, the carpet rise and fall with the gusts of wind outside. To avoid such unhappy consequences, farmers have been accustomed to bank up the house outdoors in the fall with dry leaves, spruce-boughs, or manure, usually to a point on the woodwork. This, of course, closes the cellar windows for the winter for the sake of keeping out the wind. A concrete wall, at the present price of cement, using gravel for the mixture instead of stone, need cost but little more than the price of the cement and the labor involved, and a tight cellar wall may thereby be obtained.

If the soil in which the cellar is dug is firm enough, the outside of the excavation can be made so that no form on that side will be required, but it is always better to make the excavation about two feet more than necessary, to put forms inside and outside, and, after their removal, plaster or wash the wall with a thick cream of cement and water. In carrying the wall above the ground, forms must be used with great care to secure a smooth surface, and Fig. 13 shows two methods suggested by the Atlas Cement Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 13.--Cellar-wall forms.]

There are so many forms of construction where concrete is not merely a convenience but a great advantage in the matter of health around the house, and particularly a house in the country, that there would be no end if one once began enumerating and describing the various methods and processes involved. Besides the cellar walls and cellar floor, there are outside the house, silos, manure bins, walks, curbing, steps, horse-blocks, hitching and other posts, watering troughs, and drainpipe, all successfully made of this useful material. In the barn, the barn floor, the gutters, the manger and watering troughs, cooling tanks, and sinks are also made of cement. While it is possible to differentiate between the methods and the mixtures for these various purposes, it will not be greatly in error if the construction always follows the following principle.

Use enough cement to fill the voids in the gravel or in the sand and stone mixture employed, and have enough sand in the gravel or with the stone to fill the voids in the stone. This is readily determined, as already suggested, by the use of water. The water, which will occupy the voids in the stone, represents the necessary sand. When this amount of sand and stone is well mixed, the water then permeating the interstices represents the necessary cement, though it is a good plan to add about 10 per cent extra to allow for imperfect mixtures.

The mixing should always be done so thoroughly that when put together dry, no variation can be seen in the color of the mixture. It is surprising to see how readily a streak of unmixed dirt or of unmixed cement can be detected in a pile by the difference in the color which it presents. Such mixtures should always be made dry first and then the water added and again mixed until the result is of a perfectly firm consistency. Such a mixture can be applied to any of the purposes mentioned, and, in general, it is better to have too much water than not enough. The only difficulty with a very wet mixture is that the forms require to be made nearly water-tight, whereas with dry mixtures the same attention to the forms is not necessary.

If the concrete is to be used in thin layers, as in pipe or watering trough, where a smooth surface is wanted, better results are usually obtained by using a dry mixture and fine gravel and tamping the mixture with unusual thoroughness. It is always unsafe to smooth up or re-surface a piece of concrete. The difference in texture of the surface coat causes it to expand and contract differently from the ma.s.s of concrete underneath, and inevitably a separation occurs. If it is desired to put on a sidewalk, for instance, a smooth top coat, the consistency of the two kinds of concrete should be alike, and the top coat should be applied almost immediately after the bottom layer is put in place. Where concrete is used to hold water, a coat of neat cement should always be put on with a broom or a whitewash brush, mixing the neat cement with water in a pail, and it does no harm to go over the surface three or four times, the object being to thoroughly close the pores in the concrete.

For floors of cellars or barns, the dirt should be evened off and tamped and then the cement concrete should be spread evenly over it, and tamped just enough to bring the water to the surface. When partially dry, a better finish is obtained by lightly troweling the concrete. In a cellar or barn, it is not necessary to divide up the area into squares or blocks as is done with sidewalk work, but the entire area may be laid in one piece. In order to keep the surface level, however, it may be found convenient to lay down pieces of 2" x 4" scantling, the tops of which shall be on the desired level of the finished floor. By filling in behind these scantlings, which can be moved ahead as the filling progresses, the exact level desired can be obtained. Usually four inches thick will be a proper depth of concrete for this purpose.

CHAPTER IV

_VENTILATION_

The average individual breathes in and out about eighteen times a minute, taking into his lungs the air surrounding him at the time and expelling air so modified as to contain large amounts of carbonic acid, organic vapor, and other waste products of the lungs. The volume of air taken in is about the same quant.i.ty as that expelled and amounts to eighteen cubic feet per hour. Fortunately, the air expired at a breath is at once rapidly diffused throughout the surrounding atmosphere, so that, even if no fresh air were introduced, the second breath inhaled would not be very different from the first. But after a certain length of time the air becomes so saturated with the waste products of the lungs that it is no longer fit to breathe, and it is evident that in order to keep the air in a room so that it can be taken into the lungs with any reasonable degree of comfort, there must be a continual supply of fresh air admitted with a proper provision for discharging polluted air. If this is not done, there is, so far as the lungs are concerned, a process established similar to that which is occasionally found when a village takes its water-supply from a pond and discharges its sewage into the same pond.

Not long ago, the writer found in the Adirondacks a hotel built on the side of a small lake which pumped its water-supply from the lake, and discharged its sewage into the same lake only a few feet away from the water intake. That the hotel had a reputation of being unhealthy, and that it had difficulty in filling its guest rooms, is not to be wondered at, and yet individuals will treat their lungs exactly as the hotel treated its patrons.

_Effects of bad air._

In order to establish a proper relation between the amount of impurities diffused through the air and the physiological effect on individuals breathing that air, certain observations have been noted and certain experiments have been made which prove without question the injurious effect of vitiated air.

Professor Jacob, late Professor of Pathology, Yorkshire College, Leeds, gives the following example on a large scale, to show the results of insufficient ventilation: "A great politician was expected to make an important speech. As there was no room of sufficient dimensions available in the town, a large courtyard, surrounded with buildings, was temporarily roofed over, some s.p.a.ce being left under the eaves for ventilation. Long before the appointed time several thousand people a.s.sembled, and in due course the meeting began; but before the speaker got well into his subject, there arose from the vast mult.i.tude a cry for air, numbers of people were fainting, and every one felt oppressed and well-nigh stifled. It was only after some active persons had climbed on the roof and forcibly torn off the boards for a s.p.a.ce about twenty feet square that the business of the meeting could be resumed."

Remembering that the process of breathing is for the purpose of supplying oxygen to the blood and that the absorption of oxygen in the lungs is the same process which goes on when a candle burns, the following experiments were made by Professor King of the University of Wisconsin, to show the effect of expired air on a candle flame. He took a two-quart mason jar and lowered a lighted candle to the bottom, noting that the candle burned with scarcely diminished intensity. Through a rubber tube, he breathed gently into the bottom of the jar, with the result that the candle gradually had a reduced flame and was finally extinguished. He observed also that if the candle were raised as the flame showed signs of going out, the brilliancy of the flame was restored, while lowering the candle tended to extinguish the flame. Even when the candle was raised to the top of the jar, the flame was extinguished after sufficient air had been breathed into the jar.

Clearly, then, he argued, air once breathed is not suitable for respiration, unless much diluted with pure air. He argued from this that if a candle using oxygen for combustion could not burn in expired air, therefore an individual using oxygen for the renewal of the blood could not be properly supplied in a room partially saturated with the expired products of the lungs.

Professor King also experimented with a candle burning in a jar on which the cover had been placed, and found that the candle was extinguished in thirty seconds, and he argued that if a candle was thus extinguished on account of the carbonic acid given off, so a person shut up in an air-tight chamber would similarly be extinguished in the course of time.

To prove that expired air is poisonous to animal life, Professor King experimented on a hen, placing the same in a cylindrical metal air-tight chamber eighteen inches in diameter and twenty inches deep. The hen became severely distressed for want of ventilation and died at the end of four hours and seventeen minutes.

In the Wisconsin Agricultural Experimental Station, an experiment was conducted for fourteen days on the effect of ample and deficient ventilation on a herd of cows. The stable was chiefly underground and had two large ventilators which could be opened or closed at will. The food eaten, the water drunk, the milk produced, and weight of the cows were recorded each day. For a part of the time the cows were kept continuously in the stable with all openings closed, and then the ventilators were opened, the alternate conditions being repeated at intervals of four days. The amount of food consumed was practically the same under both conditions. The quant.i.ty of milk given was greater with good ventilation. The chief difference was in the amount of water consumed, since with the insufficient ventilation the cows drank on the average 11.4 pounds more water each, daily, and yet lost in weight 10.7 pounds at the end of each two-day period. Examination of the animals themselves also showed that a rash had developed on their bodies which could be felt by the hand and which was apparently very irritating, since it was so rubbed by the animals as to cause the surface to bleed.

The evident teaching of the experiment is that under conditions of poor ventilation, it was impossible for the lungs to remove waste products to as great an extent as usual, and, therefore, the demand for additional water was felt in order to stimulate greater action on the part of the kidneys to care for these waste products. That this was not a successful subst.i.tute was shown by the loss of weight in the animals, and by the irritation of the skin which evidently was trying to eliminate some of the remaining impurities through its surface.

_Modifying circ.u.mstances._

Fortunately for mankind, it has not been customary, nor even possible, to build dwellings or stables approaching the air-tightness of a fruit jar. Air has great power of penetration, particularly when in motion, and a wind will blow air through wooden walls, and even through brick walls, in considerable quant.i.ty. It is practically impossible to build window casings and door frames so that cracks do not exist, through which air may find its way. When, however, in the wintertime, storm windows have been put on, or when, as occasionally happens, to keep out drafts, strips of paper are pasted carefully around all window casings, or when rubber weather strips are nailed tight against the windows and doors, conditions are obtained which resemble the mason fruit jar, and under those conditions, a person living continuously in such a room is experimenting on himself as Professor King did with the candle.

Another reason why it is difficult to make a room an air-tight chamber is that if a stove or fire-place be in the room, a strong suction is produced through the flame, and such suction requires the entrance of outside air. It is a common experience that a fire-place in a room otherwise tight will refuse to draw and will smoke persistently until a door or window is opened, when, a supply of air being provided, the fire is made bright and active.

Fortunately, the vitiation of the air in a room is never so severe as that in an experimental chamber, and there are few examples which can be cited of men or women dying from lack of ventilation in an ordinary room. But the serious aspect of inadequate ventilation is not that it actually induces death, but that it decreases the powers and activities of the various organs of the body; that it interferes with their normal processes, that it loads up in the body an acc.u.mulation of organic matter which is normally oxidized by fresh air and which, if not oxidized, obstructs the activities of other organs of the body.

_Danger of polluted air._

Unfortunately, it is not possible to detect by the physical senses that point at which the human organism suffers from insufficient ventilation.

Some years ago, Dr. Angus Smith built an air-tight chamber or box in which he allowed himself to be shut up for various lengths of time in order to a.n.a.lyze his own sensations on breathing vitiated air. He found that, far from being disagreeable, the sensation was pleasurable, and he says, "There was unusual delight in the mere act of breathing," although he had remained in the chamber nearly two hours. On another occasion he stayed in more than two hours without apparent discomfort, although after opening the door, persons entering from the outside found the atmosphere intolerable. He placed candles in the box, which were extinguished in a hundred and fifty minutes, and a young lady, who was interested in the experiment, going into the box as the candles went out, breathed it for five minutes easily; she then became white, and could not come out without help.