p. 10 | THE AIR WE BREATHE by A. J. Sanderson, M.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 13, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 19.

THE AIR WE BREATHE.

By A. J. Sanderson, M.D.

WE neither see, hear, feel, taste, or smell the atmosphere which surrounds us; and yet we have more to do with its substance than with any other material element in the universe. In its pure state it is perfectly transparent and free from everything that appears to the physical senses.

The air surrounds the earth’s surface to the depth of several miles. The nearer the sea-level we come the more dense we find it. Hence its effect upon the human body is quite different at this level than at elevations of from six to seven thousand feet. The normal individual should be able to live at any habitable altitude; but such changes often have a marked effect on persons suffering from diseases of the heart or lungs.

In places where habitation is the most compact, the air becomes more and more contaminated, and it is never, in an inhabited country, perfectly pure. It is filled with floating particles of dust and filth, and often micro-organisms which may or may not become a cause of disease.

From a chemical standpoint the air is composed of oxygen and nitrogen in proportions of one-fifth oxygen to four-fifths nitrogen, and a very small percentage (.04) of carbonic acid gas. The first element is the active agent which makes the atmosphere useful to the body, while nitrogen is simply an inert element that dilutes the oxygen to its most practical density.

Oxygen is a very active gas. Its principal office is to support combustion and cause everything to burn readily which comes in contact with it. In pure oxygen nearly everything will burn; even iron will ignite when placed in a chamber containing pure oxygen. With an atmosphere of pure oxygen the whole earth’s surface would soon become a mass of flame. It is because of this capacity of the oxygen to cause things to burn that it becomes so useful in the system. It causes oxidation of all the tissues, thus supporting all the activities and burning or consuming all the refuse material.

Air becomes impure by being repeatedly breathed, or by stagnating in unventilated places. Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant for the atmosphere. One living in a tropical desert can readily breathe a sterilized atmosphere because of the direct and continued burning rays of the sun. In cities or improperly constructed houses where there are many places beneath and around the buildings where the sun never shines, and currents of air can not circulate, we have fruitful sources for the development of germs which contaminate the atmosphere.

There is no atmosphere in inhabited countries that is perfectly free from germs. To find this condition we should have to go to a very large desert, to the middle of the ocean, or to the tops of very high mountains. The ordinary impurities, however, which are present in the atmosphere, need not be detrimental to mankind if proper conditions are maintained in and around buildings, and if persons breathe properly, keeping the atmosphere as pure as possible by good ventilation.

Changes which take place in the atmosphere when breathed, render it unfit to be rebreathed except under conditions of perfect ventilation. One-fifth of the atmosphere that comes into the lungs is oxygen; one-fourth of this amount of oxygen in each respiration is absorbed by the blood; hence, it returns that much impoverished, also accompanied by a similar volume of carbonic acid gas and other impurities which are the poisonous elements from respiration. In this way the air is rapidly contaminated. The normal atmosphere contains three or four parts to 10,000 parts of carbonic acid gas in places that are well ventilated. The proportion is much larger when the air is more or less musty.

Respiration robs the atmosphere of about twenty per cent of its volume of oxygen and throws back into it even a larger per cent of carbonic acid gas. These changes in the atmosphere would naturally render it unfit for the support of human life. This condition arises when a number are huddled together in closed or poorly ventilated places.

Nature has provisions whereby these detrimental changes in the air are reversed. She has in the vegetable kingdom all forms of plant life growing, which get their food from this atmospheric substance which is so detrimental to man. Carbonic acid gas is food for the trees and flowers. They eat it, throw the oxygen back into the air in its pure state, and incorporate the carbon into their developing structure. Thus the fruit of the plant becomes the food of man; and the liberated oxygen again renders pure his atmosphere to be again appropriated by the tissues, undergo combustion, give warmth and energy to the body, and be once more thrown off as carbonic acid gas, become purified, and return through the life-giving cycle.

From the changes which take place in the atmosphere by the presence of a large number of people, the unhealthy conditions, and the necessary accumulation of dust, we would naturally conclude that the atmosphere in the city must become impoverished; but nature has no faults in way of arrangement for the support of human life, even in cities. The wind and atmospheric currents which are ever present, are constantly changing the atmospheric conditions in every locality. The pure atmosphere of the mountain forest may in one hour be carried to the heart of the greatest city of the world, and the same current may carry the air which was there at the beginning of the hour over the ocean-wave. Hence we can see the wisdom of an all-designing Creator in every condition and force in the world that pertains to human welfare.

A. J. SANDERSON, M.D.