The modern factory; safety, sanitation, and welfare by Price George Moses 1864-1942

Author:Price, George Moses, 1864-1942
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Factories
Publisher: New York, Arno
Published: 1969-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

The older hygienists considered carbonic acid a virulent poison, extremely dangerous to health, and ascribed all the ill effects of confined air to the presence of carbonic acid in ill-ventilated rooms, liater studies, however, showed that the r61e of carbonic acid was greatly overrated and that a very large increase in the contents of carbonic acid in the air of the room is needed before any perceptible effects are produced upon the human beings present. The increase which is considered as possibly dangerous varies from 4 to 10 per cent, and it is claimed by some that air even with 25

* Second Report of the Departmental Committee on Ventilation of Factories, Haldane and Osborn.

THE MODERN FACTOBY

1 h

AIR AND VENTILATION IN FACTORIES

353

or 30 per cent of carbonic acid may be inhaled with impunity. Such a proportion of carbonic acid, however, is scarcely ever found in a closed room. Experiments have also shown that guinea pigs may live for half an hour in air consisting of 80 per cent of CO2 and 20 per cent of oxygen. Only an increase of carbonic acid not often found in rooms produces frequent and labored breathing, discomfort and distress. According to Gartner, one may work for hours in an atmosphere containing 1 per cent CO2.

In all investigations of air in rooms and workshops, the proportion of CO2 in the air has hardly ever exceeded 50 volumes per 10,000, and the usual percentage of carbonic acid, even in foul and ill-ventilated rooms with a number of burning gas-fixtures, ranges from 20 to 30 voliunes per 10,000. The highest CO2 contents found by the Departmental Committee were only from 0.32 per cent to 0.53 per cent in tailoring shops, 0.47 per cent in textile establishments, and 0.56 per cent to 0.57 per cent in cotton-spinning mills.

The following table taken from the reports of the Commissioner of Labor for 1908, 1909 and 1910, shows the temperature and humidity in New York factories,*

The importance of the presence of carbonic acid in the air is not because of its poisonous character in the proportion in which it is usually found in the air, but because, as a rule, it is found in proportion to the general contamination of the air of a room by human beings, and has been regarded therefore as a valuable index of the general impurities of the air in confined spaces. This importance

* *' Factory Sanitation and EflEiciency/* by C.-E. A. Window, Smithsonian Report for 1911. page 615.

of carbonic acid (CO2) as an indicator of the condition of the air and of air-change in inhabited rooms was emphasized by Petten-koflfer and his pupils, who were the first to indicate the importance of carbonic acid as such an index, and devised appliances for tests of the air for carbonic-acid contents.

The carbonic acid contents of the air have also been made a basis for legal standards for ventilation in various countries and states.

Organic Matter. The presence of living beings in an inhabited room results in adding to the

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