Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1880 — Poisonous Gases in Houses. [ARTICLE]

Poisonous Gases in Houses.

- giis wnicn lorcw ilb way mrvugn hjc and onen fixed basins into that emanating from stoves. . Unless there is a free circuUion and an adequate supply of pure air in a bedroom occupied by one or more persons, the volume of air enclosed becomes very rapidly exhausted <rf its life-pre-serving properties, and proportionately charged with gases.of an opposite character. Hie mere breathing of the air takes from it the oxygen, and returns a volume of carbonic acra gas, which speedily assumes an undue proportion to the former, and renders the atmosphere absolutely dangerous to life. But there are other sources of danger that too frequently fail to be recognized, even by generally careful householders. These are the pipes leading from waterclosets, sinks and fixed wash-stand basins, to the house drain, and which often serve as the inlets by which that most deadly of poisons, sewer gas, enters dwellings. , It does not matter venr much whether the poison enters the hallway from a water-closet, the kitchen from a sink, or the bedroom from a fixed wash-stand basin, it will attack the sleeper in bis bedroom. Thousands of fatal cases of disease that are believed to be the result of contagion are really due to sewer-gas poison brought directly into bedrooms by the ways we have suggested. Another dangerous gas that must be guarded against in bedrooms is that emanating from stoves. During eold weather these stoves are much used as heaters in sleeping apartments, and through ignorance of the principles of combustion and ventilation, the carbonic acid gas given off fills the air with its poison. It is a hundred times safer to sleep in a cold bed room than in one heated by a badly-regulated stove. Open fireplaces obviate all danger, and serve as the best means of ventiuttion.