Life and the conditions of survival, the physical basis ofethics, sociology and religion; popular lectures and discussions before the Brooklyn ethical association by Brooklyn ethical association

Author:Brooklyn ethical association. [from old catalog]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Conduct of life, Ethics, Progress
Publisher: Chicago, C. H. Kerr & company
Published: 1895-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

Compared with nomadic life, the fixed life of modem cities, while producing more children, also kills more of them.

Defects of ventilation have been mentioned. Modern language seems to have no capacity of expression and the modern mind no capacity of comprehension of what is taking place in modern cities in consequence of imperfect ventilation. The annual loss of life due thereto is many-fold greater than that of all the battlefields of the world, with all the murders thrown in. And yet it seems impossible to arouse public attention to the fact, or to find a single properly ventilated building anywhere.

In one of the finest office buildings in New York City, during a recent winter, eighteen employees, lawyers in the prime of life, were so poisoned with foul air that four of the eighteen died within a year in consequence. The physician of one of them, finding his medicines had no effect, instituted inquiry and concluded it was due to poison in the blood resulting from bad ventilation of the room occupied by the eighteen young men, who were thus more than duo-decimated thereby in a single winter.

But this is only one of many faults of the aggregated shelter system of modern city life. The foods even of city people are nearly always injured and often infected, in transit from the places of production to the city and the tables of city dwellers. The sizes of modern cities and the separation of residences from places of business are causes of enormous cost of time, waste of life and wear and tear of nerve, muscle and brain tissue, of which we take little or no account, although they constantly tend to reach the limit of endurance.

These results are due in part to the misuse of shelter and to the misunderstanding of its true function io a progressive, evolutionary civilization,

And they are also symptomatic evidences of the con-stitutional disease at the very heart and core of modern civilization.

Mr. Franklin S. Holmes: —

I must differ with one of the speakers when he states that no building in New York is to-day well ventilated. Good and scientific ventilation can be had if paid for. The Metropolitan Club building, corner of Sixtieth Street and Fifth Avenue, which was opened a week or two since, is an instance in point of a building artificially ventilated throughout. To accomplish this work power machinery, fans and ducts have been provided throughout, without stinting cost. The Carnegie Music Hall is another building similarly ventilated. Here one of the assembly rooms is entirely below ground, and without a window of any kind. The capacity of the ventilating apparatus is entirely adequate to the removal of the air from the hall in a few minutes. I agree with what has been said as to the indifference of people in general to the matter of ventilation, but differ with the speaker as to his wholesale denunciation of all modern ventilating practice. Suitable ventilation can be obtained, but it requires the employment of a specialist and the outlay of considerable money.

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