A Treatise on Ventilation

Engineer Lewis W. Leeds (American, 1829–1896) was responsible for ventilating government hospitals in the 1860s. He used fresh airflow to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. His book Treatise on Ventilation (1871) is a compilation of lectures delivered at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He staged live demonstrations of how air moves through buildings, using props such as candles, smoke, and boxes filled with colored water. He believed that heated air mixed with human breath spreads disease, and thus he advocated heating walls and floors rather than the air in the room. He was interested in the ventilation of public buildings such as churches and hospitals as well as homes and apartments. The stunning illustrations in his book are important works of information graphics; they have been compared to airflow studies used to analyze the transmission of COVID-19.

James Biber, “Ventilator Blues,” UX Collective, December 16, 2020, https://uxdesign.cc/ventilator-blues-bb5431abdf1a

Lewis W. Leeds, Lectures on Ventilation: Being a Course Delivered in the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1869. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36936/36936-h/36936-h.htm

Daniel Olsson, Daniel and Petra Vladykova Bednarova, “History of Ventilation Technology,” Swegon Air Academy, 2016/12/01, http://www.swegonairacademy.com/2017/09/13/history-of-ventilation-technology-printed/