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Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1933, Page 4

In-, the course of a paper read at the British Medical Association Conference, discussing motor exhaust fumes, -Sir William Wheeler said motorists, mechanics and pedestrians alike shared the peril. The damage to health had not been scientifrcilly assessed, nor liad it- been considered by the authorities with sufficient cure. The permeation of the atmosphere with these gases was accountable for an un-estimate-d annual rise in the dcath-r'ate. The seriousness of this aspect of motoring revolved round the absence of remedy. Vertical exhaust pipes and many other palliations had been put loti-win'd in a. voluminous literature, but the evil persisted, and became intensified. Sooner or later the question must, in the interests of the whole community, he dealt with .by the authorities responsible for the public health. Every year brought a list of deaths from exposure in ill-ventilated garages. In the streets the trucks and the buses, starting and stopping and changing gear, polluted the air, at the respiratory level. The occupants of a ear coining behind were submitted to an atmosphere of poison gas which would bo deadly but for the interval of ventilation as the traffic moved on. The fumes were cumulative in action a ml predisposed to pulmonary and other- diseases, Mikl degrees oi poison-

ing were difficult to detect, but tb© responsibility for poor appetite, lack of colour and susceptibility to infection in many children must be laid at the door of prolonged inhalation of the products of motor fuel. The blood of traffic policemen had been found to be charged with carbon monoxide at a high concentration—the blood of those who constantly motored in the city must be similarly polluted. Anoxaemia and mild ‘ subjective symptoms were the immediate result. The smoke from factories was far less toxic than the fumes from motors; it was carried away by chimneys of great height out of reach of the ai r we breathed. In the. great cities the- pedestrians and the motorists alike were exposed to a veritable gas attack, which, if intensified, would requite the wearing of masks in self-defence.