Air Sampling in a Hospital ventilated by The Plenum System

COLEBROOK (1946) has shown that the provision of clean air, especially in operating theatres and dressing rooms, is an essential condition for the prevention of wound infection. To achieve this it is necessary to have an adequate and controlled ventilation rate and the air introduced should be free from bacteria. Such conditions are being provided in modern operating theatres but in most hospitals the usual method of ventilation is by windows and is often referred to as "natural ventilation. " Most of the field studies on the bacterial content of hospital air have been done in such institutions and the present investigation was undertaken with the object of finding out the level of bacteria carrying particles in the theatres and wards of a hospital which has a controlled system of ventilation, namely the Plenum system. At the same time, because of the availability of a mobile unit designed for the sterilisation of air by recirculation over U.V. light, an attempt was made to assess the value of U.V. light used in this way as a means of reducing the bacterial content of the air in the hospital wards. The effect of U.V. light in one operating theatre was also investigated. METHODS USED.