Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated October 31, 1953: Dread of London Smog

With winter conditions already setting in, public authorities were under considerable anxiety preparing for wide spread fog worsened by the addition of smoke, to create dense smog of the kind London had experienced in December 1952. The London Medical Committee (affiliated to the British Medical Association), representing 6,000 London doctors, solemnly warned Government on the 29th of the impending danger. It urged the public to take to regular use of "Smog Masks". The Smog Mask was a relatively simple device which could be made of surgical gauze and instructions were being widely circulated on how to make it at home at a cost of a few pence. Fog was a known phenomenon in London and other industrial areas in Britain. But its effects were getting worse year after year. In the winter of 1952, a great spread of thick smog enveloped London for four days, leading to the death of 4,000 people, while thousands of others became seriously ill. Doctors compared it to be like a poison-gas attack in war-time. They feared that a similar disaster could be repeated in the winter of 1953. . Although not cent-per-cent effective, it was claimed that the meshes of a home-made mask would arrest most of the soot, while moisture from the breath, condensed over the mask, would prevent the drawing in of some of the chemicals that created lung disorders. Government was, meanwhile, awaiting an interim report from a Committee that had been set up to examine the problem and suggest measures to deal with it. The official view was that the practicable way to forestall smog was to reduce the emission of smoke from chimneys.

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• The Hindu Crossword 7816
• Solution to puzzle 7815
• Saint honoured by the Lord
• dated October 31, 1953: Dread of London Smog
• dated October 31, 1953: Secretaries Designated in Madras
• dated October 31, 1953: Seasonal Tips
• Weather

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