Chapter L: W. LEEDS, Esq

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Office of the Metropolitan Board of Health,
No. 301 Mott Street,
New York, August 26th, 1867.

Friend Leeds.

Your Lectures on Ventilation have given me much pleasure, and
have renewed my confidence in the utility of popular instruction
upon the subject. I heartily thank you for the thoughtful care
with which you have set forth all the essential principles of
ventilation, in language so free from technical words, and so full
of plain and homely illustration, that even an uneducated reader
can fully understand all you have written. The good Dr. D. Boswell
Reid, Dr. Wyman and myself had each attempted to use such a style
of explanation and instruction; but you have far excelled us all.

The first want of every living being is fresh air, and unless the
human lungs are supplied with such air constantly at the rate of
from ten to thirty cubic feet every minute, by night as well as
by day, perfect health and vigor cannot be preserved. Then, too,
there are exhaled from the surface of the body and from the lungs,
such quantities of waste organic matter, which tend to immediate
putridity, that it, together with the carbonic acid, would keep
the human body immersed in a deadly vapor of these exhalations,
were not fresh air supplied. The illustrations by which you have
made these truths easily understood, are admirably given in your
lectures, and the method, by which you would best insure success
in removing the foul and supplying the pure fresh air in every
place where persons live or sleep, are, as I believe, from my own
careful studies of this subject, most correct and trustworthy.
Indeed, I am able to say that, in my examinations of the vast
number of hospitals and buildings which you ventilated during
the late war, under authority from the intelligent and humane
Quartermaster-General of the army, the proof of entire success
in your work was everywhere witnessed. Simplicity, invariable
certainty and a liberal sufficiency characterizes these admirable
methods of yours.

I wish every family in the land had a copy of these lectures.

Sincerely yours,

ELISHA HARRIS, M. D.,
Corresponding Secretary Metropolitan Board of Health.

To LEWIS W. LEEDS, Esq.

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VAUX, WITHERS & Co., Architects,
No. 110 Broadway, New York, August 27th, 1867.

Dear Mr. Leeds.

I am glad to receive your Lectures in printed form, and trust
that they may be widely read throughout the community.

Having been in the habit for several years past, of consulting
with you professionally in regard to the arrangements to be made
for heating and ventilation in plans for public and private
buildings, I take this opportunity to acknowledge the value
of the aid thus given; and as I feel assured, from a lengthened
personal experience, that your thorough knowledge of the subject,
both theoretically and practically, is calculated to render your
assistance particularly valuable in the adjustment of complex
and intricate plans, I trust that one result of the circulation
of your interesting pamphlet may be to introduce you more widely
to members of the architectural profession.

I remain, Dear Mr. Leeds,
Yours faithfully,

CALVERT VAUX.

LEWIS W. LEEDS,
Heating and Ventilating Engineer.

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110 Broadway, New York, Aug. 30th, 1867.

Mr. LEWIS W. LEEDS was employed early in the war of the rebellion
by the Sanitary Commission, as an agent to urge the necessity to
the health and strength of the army, of the thorough ventilation
of tents and quarters, and to devise and suggest to the proper
officers the adoption of the best means for this purpose.

At a later period of the war, at the suggestion of the Commission,
the Quartermaster's Department engaged his services, and gave him
large discretionary powers for the ventilation of hospitals. He
was thus employed during all of the war, with great advantage,
and the improvements which he brought about were unquestionably
the means of saving thousands of lives. * * * *

Mr. Leeds has a special talent for making improvements in houses of
ordinary construction, by means which may be readily adopted, and
with materials which may be anywhere procured without difficulty
or great expense.

Mr. Leeds' course of lectures on Ventilation is calculated to
supply instructions of great practical utility. An invaluable
addition to the health, happiness and wealth of the nation
would result, if they could be delivered before every school in
the country.

FRED. LAW OLMSTED,
First General Secretary of the Sanitary Commission.

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Treasury Department,
Office of the Supervising Architect, Sept. 11th, 1867.

My Dear Friend.

Your valuable Lectures on Ventilation have been received, and have
been read with much pleasure, more especially as you are about
the only person I have ever met, who, after making the ventilation
and heating of buildings a specialty, has condescended to follow
the laws of nature, and provide the means of adapting them to our
artificial modes of life. Your lectures show a thorough study
and knowledge of the principles involved, which are, like all
natural principles, very simple if once understood. I have also
to take this means of acknowledging the valuable aid that I have
received from you on many occasions, and to express a hope that
you will not despair, but relying on the adage that "truth is
mighty" &c., go on with your exposures of the absurdities of the
complicated and costly humbugs that are so fashionable at present,
and trust you will succeed not only in your missionary labors,
but find them pecuniarily profitable.

Very respectfully,

A. B. MULLETT,
Supervising Architect.

LEWIS W. LEEDS, Esq.,
Engineer Ventilation and Heating,
Germantown, Penn'a.

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FOOTNOTES.

[Footnote 1: I mean merely pecuniarily--in dollars and cents;--the cost in physical pain and mental anxiety, of course, cannot by computed in dollars and cents.]

[Footnote 2: In addition to which there appeared to be a deficiency in the arrangements for ventilation.]

End of Project Gutenberg's Lectures on Ventilation, by Lewis W. Leeds

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