Franklin P. Adams, of Conning Tower fame, has two active indignations. If he is violent in the matter of numbering houses invisibly, he is still more so in the matter of dry sweeping. And those who follow his column closely may have noticed that his antipathy to the broom has increased markedly since the birth of his first child. That, of course, may be mere coincidence; but very probably it is not. For dry sweeping raises dust; dust is dangerous to health particularly to child health. Heywood Broun once scoffed at F.P.A’s aversion to breathing dust-laden air, citing him man’s natural and acquired resistance to the microbes floating therein. But Mr. Broun overlooked the fact that resistance, while an important factor in prevention of disease, is by no means the whole story, as we shall see later. Moreover, if he had consulted vital statistics or the warnings of experienced sanitarians, he would have learned, for instance, that workers in occupations involving a dust-laden atmosphere are much more prone to respiratory infections than workers in other lines.
One of the earliest contributions of bacteriology to the field of public health was an investigation into the relative purity of city and country air. It revealed, when culture samples were examined under a compound microscope, that the air of the mountains and glaciers is free from microbial life. The same is found true of the air of the desert and sea. Why? Because little dust and few animal hosts are present in such regions. Such factors also explain the recent report that no pathogens or disease-making microbes were found on one of the barren Aleutian Islands.
Save to asthma and hay fever patients, the danger of dust-laden air, as a rule, does not inhere in the dust itself, but in the microbes which lodge in and on it. Fortunately, microbes do not multiply while floating in air. They need, as has been noted when they were cultured and examined under a compound microscope, water, mineral, and, organic foods, as well as a temperature more genial than that of the atmosphere. The sun’s rays are warming, of course, but one must remember that the cool ultra-violet rays at the lower end of the solar spectrum not only do not warm the microbes, but also actually destroy them. Indeed, one of the methods of killing microbes is to expose them to direct sunlight. And this is an added reason for keeping dust out of the air. The germicidal and healing ultraviolet rays cannot penetrate the dust and smoke layer, which envelops most large cities. The result is that not only are the microbes in the air not killed, but also the people are deprived of the minimum amount of sunlight essential to good health.
Some of the classic proofs of the healing and disease-preventing qualities of ultra-violet radiation are, sun treatment of bone and intestinal tuberculosis; the solar production, or the solar stimulated production, of certain essential food vitamins; the actual prevention and cure of rickets. Adult bowlegs are usually due to childhood rickets. The best and cheapest insurance against rickets and bowlegs is unobstructed sunlight.
Actual proof of the germicidal effect of the sun’s rays is to be found in the fact that in summer, when the solar radiation is most powerful, the number of microbes over densely contaminated areas decreases.
The disappearance of the dinosaur type of animal is attributed, partly, at least, to the lack of sunshine, for their skeletons show unmistakable signs of rickets. The dinosaurs lived in an age when volcanic smoke and ashes to a great extent veiled the sun. As a result, their bones became too rickety to support the enormous weight of their bodies. Thus handicapped in the struggle for existence, the dinosaurs and their kind gradually became extinct.
In one gram of dust, there may be between several thousand and several millions of microbes when examined under a compound microscope. It has been estimated that a Londoner inhales about three hundred thousand microbes each day; and London’s air is by no means the worst in this respect. Luckily, most of these three hundred thousand microbes are either harmless saprophytes or very weak pathogens, and as such are soon expelled by the ciliated mucous membrane of the respiratory tract. But among so many harmless microbes there are always quite a few actual or potential killers which cannot, perhaps, be so easily got rid of. These, if there are enough of them, or if the individual’s resistance were below par, will cause disease.
The country’s industrial centers have had called to their attention repeatedly the hazard in a sooty and dusty atmosphere. New York City has for some years been trying to reduce the thickness of its smoke blanket. But, owing to divided and non-cooperative jurisdictions, little has been accomplished. If to the smoke one adds the dust raised by millions of shuffling feet, churning wheels, and the dry sweeping of streets and houses, then Mr. Adams’ case against dust reveals itself as far from trivial.
It was reported in 1930 that 80 percent of its smoke is preventable. After remarking that cancer deaths are more common in places where the air is heavily tainted, he says, according to the magazine: I am stirred to protest when I hear it said that it will take ten years to make any change in the smoke cloud over our city. Ten years would spell a generation of children deformed in body and deficient in health, due to the lack of ultra-violet rays. It is curious that people should be willing to take into their bodies this smoke-laden air. And yet we eat only five and a half pounds of food a day, while we breathe more than two thousand gallons of air. Some contains unconsumed carbon, but tar, sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid. It is the tar in the smoke that acts as a. fixative that causes it to cling to the lungs of the citizens.
Smoke is more than a mere inconvenience; it chokes out the ultra-violet rays of the sun so essential for the formation of strong bones, perfectly shaped skulls and sound teeth in children. It takes away from these, too, as well as from adults, protection against colds, influenza, pneumonia, and kindred ills. As for the ever-present tuberculosis, its history is the history of sun-starved people. Dr. Wynne might have added that for the same general reasons the proportion of rickets among city children is twice that among country children.
