I think I have said enough to show that no gas stove, geyser or gas
cooking stove should be used without ample and thorough means of
ventilation being provided, and no trace of the products of combustion
should be allowed to escape into the air; until this is done, the use
of improper forms of stoves will continue to inflict serious injury on
the health of the people using them, and this will gradually result in
the abandonment of gas as a fuel, instead of, as should be the case,
its coming into general use. The English householder is far too prone
to accept what is offered to him, without using his own common sense,
and will buy the article which tickles his eye the most and his pocket
the least, on the bare assurance of the shopkeeper, who is only
anxious to sell; but when he finds that health and comfort are in
jeopardy, and has discarded the gas stove, it will take years of labor
to convince him that it was the misuse of gas which caused the
trouble. Already signs are not wanting that the employers of gas
stoves are beginning to fight shy of them, and I earnestly hope that
the gas managers of the kingdom will bring pressure to bear upon the
stove manufacturers to give proper attention to this all important
question.
So strongly do I feel the importance of this question to the gas world
and the public, that I freely offer to analyze the products of
combustion given off by any gas stove or water heater sent to me at
Greenwich during the next six months, on one condition, and that is
that the results, good, bad, or indifferent, will be published in a
paper before this Society, which has always been in the front when
matters of great sanitary importance to the public had to be taken up.
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