The effect upon appetite of the chemical constituents of the air of occupied rooms

Abstract

It has been shown by many observers that the ordinary effects of the air of an unventilated occupied room are due to its high temperature rather than to its chemical composition. In the experiments carried out during the past two years by the New York State Commission on Ventilation, we have found that neither the pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration nor metabolism are influenced to a measurable degree when human subjects are exposed for periods of from 4 to 7 hours to the air of a room in which all the chemical products due to human occupancy have been allowed to accumulate (so that the carbon dioxide averages over 30 parts per 10,000)—provided the temperature of the chamber be kept down by artificial means.

In the course of our investigation we have however, discovered a new measure of the influence of vitiated air which seems to indicate that there is after all an effect produced upon the body by the chemical constituents of the air of an occupied room. This effect is manifested in a diminished appetite for food.

The subjects in the first three of the five series of experiments reported which are tabulated below were young men, mostly students at the College of the City of New York or at New York University, and in the last two series young women. For five days a week for a period of from two to six weeks, they were placed in the observation room of the experimental plant at the College of the City of New York (described Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol., Vol. XII, p. III). In each series of experiments the subjects were supplied with a fresh air supply of 45 cubic feet per minute on half the days while on the other days no air was supplied and (subject to unavoidable leakage through walls and ceiling) the carbon dioxide, organic matter, and whatever else was given off from mouths, bodies, and clothing accumulated in the room.