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Hospital on Airship May Sweep Patients Above Clouds in Quest of Sunlight (1930)
- dang 11y agoUrl changed from http://www.airships.net/blog/tuberculosis-hospital-airship http://www.airships.net/blog/tuberculosis-hospital-airship to what appears to be (a copy of) the original source.
- kingmanaz 11y agoGreat things were possible before the West bore the yoke of diversification and social justice.
- orf 11y agoWhat exactly about this is possible? It's utterly ridiculous. Slightly less so than your comment though.
- andrewclunn 11y agoIt's from 1930. Speculation about the future in the past. That's the interesting aspect, not the idea itself.
- orf 11y agoUtterly ridiculous things are often the most interesting, I didn't say otherwise. The social justice bit of his comment irked me though.
- mitchtbaum 11y ago> What exactly about this is possible? http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/06/green-slow-air.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/06/green-slow-air.html Long-term, helium looks to have issues though, especially if we slow down natural gas mining. Perhaps we could find a tenable balance between helium and hot air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_airship
- orf 11y agoAirships are indeed possible, I hoped it was obvious I was referring to the hospital part of the idea.
- sandworm101 11y ago>> In the days before antibiotics, the only treatment for tuberculosis was sunlight, clean air, and good food. What better place than an airship? I'm not sure that people with lung infections would appreciate the reduced 02 associated with high altitude. Perhaps the substantial advantage would have been that, given these things floated on bags of hydrogen, this would have been the only non-smoking medical ward circa 1930.
- Natsu 11y agoYou're right about the reduced oxygen, but perhaps it could get people away from the dirty city air in some places. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_St._Louis_smog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_St._Louis_smog
- pilsetnieks 11y agoHonestly, the people who could afford going on an airship hospital wouldn't be living (most of the time) in a smoggy urban center anyway.
- reustle 11y agoJust because they're in an airship doesn't mean they have to have reduced 02 right? Can't you just pump more into the ship? They're only up there for the sunlight
- sandworm101 11y agoPressurization would add significant weight. Metal and glass but also the mass of the air. And there would need to be some heavy equipment. Modern planes get cabin air from their jet engines. An airship of the 1930s would probably need dedicated systems --> more weight.
- maj0rhn 11y agoIt appears that the hospital area is pressurized, given that an "open air promenade" is separately called out as such. Also, the main threats from chronic tuberculosis were lung hemorrhage and inanition (wasting) -- not hypoxemia. For whatever reason, the term "antibiotic" is customarily not applied to anti-tuberculous medications, even though, technically, it applies. "Antibiotic" usually refers to anti-bacterial drugs that are given for a short period of time (a couple weeks), but the definition is hard to pind down. Anti-tuberculous treatments go on for months.
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