Smog and Human Health

Abstract

Smog in acute incidents, such as that in the Meuse Valley in 1930 and at Donora in 1948, exerts a heavy stress upon the organs of respiration and secondarily upon the circulatory system. Those already suffering from chronic respiratory or cardiac ailments may be seriously affected. Deaths can follow from cardiac failure. This acute action of smog is not due to any specific toxic activity of chemicals contaminating the air, but to the ability of solid particles and moisture droplets to concentrate irritant gases, which can then be conveyed to all parts of the respiratory tract and produce reactions which interfere with respiration.

General industrial medical experience does not substantiate the claims that intermittent exposure to mild smog episodes causes chronic disease. Smog, however, must be accepted as one of the physiological stresses to which the populace may be exposed. As such, it plays a part along with many other forms of stress in the total pattern of community health.