Page:Stewart 1879 On the teaching of medicine in Edinburgh University.djvu/14

12 true, not only of fever wards, but of general medical wards; overcrowding, or the presence of some peculiarly unhealthy case, lowering the vitality, and otherwise exerting an injurious influence upon the patients. In our new wards, air and light are abundant. The hospital being built on the pavilion plan, there are windows on each side of the ward, and at one of the ends. The wards are 112 feet long, 28 feet broad, and 15 high, and are arranged to accommodate 21 patients. The beds are separated from one another by a distance of at least 6 feet, and thus the evils and discomforts of close approximation are avoided. The cubic space allowed is 2350 feet for each bed. The Architect, Mr. Bryce, tells me that the space is larger than that allowed in the Herbert Hospital and in the new St. Thomas' Hospital in London, two of the best of the recently constructed hospitals of this country, for they have 1200 and 1800 cubic feet per patient respectively. But no available cubic space would suffice if there were not arrangements for the removal of the impure and the supply of pure air. In our wards the ventilation outwards is by extraction, a central heated chamber being in connection with the ventilating structure in the different wards. At each corner of the wards there are shafts with two openings, one low down, the other high up; and beneath each bed there is an opening leading to the extracting apparatus. By these means all noxious vapours will be readily removed. But a further aid has been arranged in connection with the gas brackets, for over each of them is a receiving tube, which will carry off other waste products besides those of the gas. The open fire-places are also valuable ventilators. For the supply of fresh air we are to depend to a large extent upon the windows, all of which are made to open at three places. At the top, fourteen feet from the ground, there is an arrangement for swing opening, which may be kept closed or opened to a very small extent, or to several feet. From the swing arrangement it is anticipated that both an outward and an inward current may be secured at the tops of the windows. The sashes are also movable, and by them fresh air may be admitted at the level of the sill or at the top of the window. But as in our climate direct opening of windows is often unsuitable, each ward has also been provided with three Galton grates. These grates