Get Outside!

Author: Joseph Mercola

The healing properties of fresh air have been appreciated since ancient times. When Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) recommended that people with tuberculosis breathe in the air of an evergreen forest. We now know that air happens to be high in ozone, a known germicidal agent.

In more recent history, outdoor air was considared part of the standard treatment for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Ironically, the “high-tech” hospitals of modern day, with their enclosed, indoor, close quarters, may be facilitating the spread of disease far more so than the open-aired hospitals of yesteryear.

During the 1960’s, scientists working on biodefense research coined the term “open-air factor,” or OAF, to describe the germicidal component of outdoor air that was capable of killing pathogens and reducing their infectivity. interest in the use of open air to promote health and reduce infectious disease fell away by the 1970.s, however, and has remained largely ignored since.

in a review article published in Cureus, infectious disease expert Peter Collignon with the Australian National University is caling for urgent further investigation into OAF, particularly as it relates to COVID-19, stating: “We need to act without delay, as there is already sufficient evidance to show that public health generally would improve if more emphasis was placed on increased exposure to outdoor air.”

The history of open air healing

According to Collignon, the healing effects of outdoor air were “widely exploited” during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “firstly, in the treatment of the tuberculosis patients who underwent “open-air therapy” in Sanatoria; and secondly by military surgeons during the First World War,” he wrote “They used the same open-air regimen in specially designed hospital wards to disinfect and heal severe wounds among wounded soldiers.”

English physician John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1915) was among the first advocates of what later became known as the “Open-air method.” He exposed children who had tuberculosis to “sea air and sunshine at the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital in Kent, England, in 1791,” according to an article published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009.

The germicidal effects of fresh air were further harnessed during the 1918 to 1919 influenza pandemic, when it was commin to place the sick outdoors intents or in open-air hospitals. Records from an open-air hospital in Boston during the spanish flu outbreak suggested that patients and staff there were spare the worst of the outbreak.

Fresh air and sunlight are two things notably lacking in modern hospitals, but they were in abundance at the Camp Brooks Hospital, which treated hundreds of patients during the 1919 influenza pandemic. Treatments took place outdoors to maximize sunshine and fresh air.

The surgeon general of the Massachisetts State Guard, William A. Brooks, reported that in a typical general hospital with 76 influenza cases, 20 patients dies in a thre-day period, while 17 nurces became ill. “By contrast,” the researchers wrote, “according to one estimate, the regimen adopted at the camp reduced the fatality of hospital cases from 40 percent to about 13 percent.”

In the case of a future pandemic, they noted, improvements in air-handling units and portable filtration units may be warranted for hospitals and other buildings but, even better, “more might be gained by introducing high levels of natural ventilation or, indeed, by encouraging the public to spend as much time outdoors as possible.”

Later, in the 1950’s, an open-air regimen was proposed as a mass treatment for burns in the event of a nuclear war. “Under such disaster conditions, adequate numbers of dressings and the facilities for their use were unlikely to be available,” collignon wrote. “The open-air regimen was considered the only viable treatment. Control of infection was considered to be the ‘outstanding feature’ of this approach.”

Open air’s germicidal factor

There are multiple factors that reduce infection risk in outdoor spaces. Infectious particles are more rapidly diluted and disbursed, for starters, while temperature and humidity variations could inactivate viruses. Ultraviolet light from the sun is also known to inactivate viruses such as influenza and coronaviruses, not to mention that sunlight would have boosted patient’s vitamin D levels, a deficiency of which may increase susceptibility to influenza and other respiratory infections.

However, the direct germicidal properties of outdoor air are blatantly overlooked, dispite a 1968 study published in the journal Nature that revealed a germicidal property in rural air. The experiment showed that ourdoor air was more lethal to airborne pathogens than indoor air, and the scientists developed a technique to measure the effects of outdoor air on the survival of bacteria, viruses, and spores. Collignon explained.

“Tests were initially carriedout during the hours of darkness as, in common with other bacteria and viruses, E. coli are rapidly killed by sunlight. The E. coli samles exposed to outside air usually died off rapidly, but not so indoors.”

“On some occasions, the E. coli samples in free air lost viability in 30 minutes, whereas those in enclosed air survived for several hours. the bactrial effect varied from night to night, and it disapeared rapidly in any type of enclosure.”

In addition to E. coli bacteria, outside air was also effective against viruses and other bacteria, including Brucella suis, Francisella tularensis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus group C, and Serratia marcescens.

The germicidal component of the air was dubbed OAF, but the researchers were unable to identify what, exactly, it was composed of at that time. In the 1970’s, other researchers determined that OAF wasn’t a single compound, but rather “amixture of highly reactive chemical species which varied in composition.”

In 2021, experts in atmospheric science again revisited OAF, agreeing that no single molecule or class of molecules appear to be responsible for the high levels of bactericidal activity reported. They even concluded that Hydroxyl radicals (HO), components of OAF known to kill airborne pathogens, aren’t responcible for the observed germicidal activity. They concluded: “We identify other potential candidates, which are formed in ozone-alkene reactions and have known (and likely) germicidal properties, but the compounds responsible for the OAF maintain a mystery.”

The ongoing mystery of how OAF works may be the key reason why it continues to be neglected in public health and infection control. Collignon stated, although the fact that fresh air is free and unpatentable is another likely factor.

Could increased ventilation preserve OAF indoors?

The research into OAF in the 1960’s found that the germicidal effects of outdoor air could be preserved in indoor simulations if ventilation rates were high enough. Specifically, 30 to 36 air changes per hour were necessary to preserve OAF. In other words, the entire volume of air in the space would need to be replaced every two minutes or less. A typically sealed modern building replaces only about 63 percent of the total air volume each hour, relying on ducting and circulation fans, according to the book “Indoor Air Quality and HVAC Systems.”

Decades ago, hospitals amd other building types were desiggned to prevent infections from spreding. High levels of natural ventilation were an absolute requirement.

Today they are not. Fresh air is no longer considered to be germicidal or therapeutic for hospital patients or , for that matter, anyone else. Windows are smaller, ceilings are lower, cross-ventilation can be difficult if not impossible. Balconies and verandas are not as common as they once were.

“Why have we been so slow to realize that fresh air is the best tonic and the best antisceptic?” - Dr. Robert Saundby

Collignon is working to get hospitals and schools as well as other community buildings toopen their eyes and their windows.

Its time to rediscover fresh air… get outside.


This article was printed in the Epoch times on August 10, 2022



Previous
Previous

Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve

Next
Next

Kid Friendly Thanksgiving