THE AIR WE BREATHE

Entrusted To My Care
Copyright 1966 Western Producer Prairie Books
243 pages,
ISBN 0-88833-175-4.

As soon as practical devices are developed and made available to improve the quality of exhaust gases from internal combustion motors - of which there are now thousands on every thoroughfare - their attachment should be made mandatory.

And people in cities, it seems, have a way of kicking up a lot of dust. Winnipeg studies conducted by the provincial Department of Health and Public Welfare, served to show the extent of such pollution over centers of heavy population. Forty-nine and one-fifth tons per square mile was the astonishing average of monthly dustfall in greater Winnipeg in 1958. It appeared as a lot of solid matter to be floating in the atmosphere and yet Winnipeg tests showed only two-thirds as much suspended material was found over certain more highly industrialized cities.

In the Winnipeg analysis, the chief sources of air pollution were soil dust from roads and fields, smoke from industrial and domestic chimneys and exhaust from motor vehicles. Understandably, the concentration of dust was found to be greater in spring and summer than in winter when snow blanketed roads and fields. The month of June witnessed the highest dustfall - 99.3 tons per square mile - and November saw the lightest, down to 29.3 tons per square mile. No doubt the prevalence of soil drifting in June helped to explain the concentration in that month.

Nor was the air over the Manitoba city polluted uniformly. Industrial sections of the city showed more dustfall than residential districts. In the former, dustfall peak reached 123 tons per square mile in June while residential areas were showing 88 tons.

One of the best assessments of air pollution and smoke control made in Canada came from a select committee of the Ontario Legislature. The report, published in 1957, might well have been required reading for municipal officials. Radioactive fallout was not overlooked as a serious danger to the human race but the committee's purpose was to examine pollution of local sources.

Said the report: "The old fashioned idea was that a smoking chimney is a sign of full lunch pails and of prosperity. We are convinced that smoke does not prove prosperity. What it does show is ignorance, waste and negligence or bad manners. It is a source of unnecessary dirt and work for the housewife. It may also be a sign of full hospital beds. We say again it is neither polite nor proper to dump your garbage on your neighbor's property."

Wherever reasonably practical, the Ontario committee would prohibit all incineration. After saying a good word for sanitary land fill dumps as a solution to garbage problems, the report added: "Wherever possible, municipal incinerators should be replaced by some other more advanced method of garbage disposal."

With a background of medical information and guidance, the Ontario committee made some strong statements about the affect of air pollution on health-mentioned headaches, chronic bronchitis, sinusitis, asthma and some other allergic manifestations and concluded: "We believe that there is ample authority and a continually increasing amount of evidence to justify the statement that air pollution is a major cause of lung cancer and other malignancies."

Not until 1935, when Public Law 159 was passed in the United States Congress, did the relationship between air pollution and human disorder seem to merit serious study. Air pollution was known to irritate certain body membranes, especially those of eyes and respiratory tract. In England, chronic bronchitis was found to be the result of local air pollution and then medical authorities concluded that the disease was increasing on the North American continent - perhaps in proportion to the growths on industrialization.

Donora, Pennsylvania, had a tragic experience in 1948, when a heavy fog in which smoke ingredients and other pollutants became entrapped. For days the fog did not lift and the sad result was 20 deaths and hundreds of cases of illness due specifically to the atmospheric abnormality.

London fog in December, 1952, was even more serious and in one week the death list climbed to between 4,000 and 5,000. Most deaths were among older people already affected by some respiratory or circulatory trouble.

Air pollution can irritate and injure eyes. There is no question about that. But most recent interest shifted to the possibility of contaminated air being villain in connection with the alarming increase ilung cancer. In research with animals, sulphur dioxide was seen to stimulate cell activity and suspicion was aroused. Deaths due to lung cancer are higher in big industrial cities than in rural areas. If air pollution is ultimately found to be related to stomach cancer, the explanation will likely rest in the solid materials finding their way into the alimentary tract.

The research workers have much to do before all of the dangers associated with the dirty air are catalogued and understood. In the meantime, the fact that certain forms of air pollution can lead to sickness and death should not be overlooked. And, because much of the increase in pollution can be prevented, every reasonable measure should be taken to stop careless people from using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for waste fumes and dust. Man's ingenuity has been spectacular but he would do well to disturb nature's balances as little as possible - and keep clean air.