DISEASE AND DAMP TWIN BROTHERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 12

DISEASE AND DAMP TWIN BROTHERS

BADLY BUILT HOUSES Approval of the request of the British Medical Association for a committee of architects to assist in the inquiry into the causes of rheumatic diseases among children was given by the council of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The committee will consist of leading architects, including Professor R. Elsey Smith, former surveyor of the Shoreditch Borough Council, and other members of the Science Standing Committee of the Institute. Some of them have already given considerable attention to the question of dampness in houses, which is believed to be one of the primary conditions favourable to the disease. Badly built houses may be damp in the upper and lower floors, while the middle floor may be free from this evil and consequent disease. In overcrowded areas, however, the disease is hardly ever found. Architects maintain that healthy houses can be built on almost any site so long as proper precautions are taken in the building to eliminate damp. In their recently published report the British Medical Association’s Committee on Rheumatic Heart -uoo olit o} auiuo uo.ipnMO tii esussjQ elusion that damp in dwellings had much to do with the mass-production of the disease, and the first proposal in the policy advised by the committee is stricter attention to the prevention of damp in dwelling-houses.