Plants cause oxygen deprivation at night???????

From: ExoticRainforest <Steve at exoticrainforest.com> on 2010.02.14 at 01:04:12(20586) I've been asked twice recently ifplants can cause oxygen deprivation at night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a bunch of posts on gardenwebsites today that make that claim. Can anyone with a scientificbackground elaborate on this one?? Thanks! Steve HTML +More www.ExoticRainforest.com --------------010006070700000903080100

From: "E.Vincent Morano" <ironious2 at yahoo.com> on 2010.02.15 at 07:37:54(20591) I have to say that this is a most absurd claim. Plants produce oxygen and absorb the carbon dioxide our breath. I refuse to participate in the in the recession. --- On Sat, 2/13/10, ExoticRainforest wrote: HTML +More From: ExoticRainforest Subject: [Aroid-l] Plants cause oxygen deprivation at night??????? To: Date: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 5:04 PM I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyone with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? Thanks! Steve www.ExoticRainforest.com -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l --0-649464370-1266219474=:63261----==============s00856272790419685=

From: Steve Marak <samarak at gizmoworks.com> on 2010.02.15 at 08:11:54(20592) I assume that claim is based on the idea that while plants' metabolisms produce a net surplus of oxygen, they do also use some oxygen, and that therefore at night (when not photosynthesizing) they are technically decreasing rather than increasing the oxygen in the room? I have no actual measurements, but my immediate conclusion would be that this is absurd from a purely logical standpoint, because anyone who sleeps in a room with another person (or pets, for that matter) at night has something with a much higher metabolism than plants using up their oxygen, and no one has any concern about oxygen deprivation in that situation. (For that matter, if it were true, even people with no plants in their bedroom would be suffocated each night by all the evil grass, trees, and shrubs outside ... where do they think the air in their homes comes from?) Steve +More On Sat, 13 Feb 2010, ExoticRainforest wrote: > I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at > night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a > bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyo ne > with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? -- Steve Marak -- samarak@gizmoworks.com ---1463802623-992230943-1266221514=:25880 _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l ---1463802623-992230943-1266221514=:25880--

From: Walter Turner <wvturner at gmail.com> on 2010.02.15 at 13:07:57(20594) I can�t add to the ideas Steve Marak presented, but I can try some numbers. I hope the readers of Aroid-L will work through my numbers here. It would be bad enough for me to look like an idiot because I overlooked something that changes the results by a factor of a hundred or so, but it would be worse for the wrong results to stand without correction. I asked a friend who did his doctoral work on plant respiration and got the approximation that the emission of CO2 in the dark is unlikely to exceed 4 micro moles per square meter of leaf surface per second. This is the same as the O2 taken up. Say our plants have a leaf area of one meter. Let�s say for the sake of argument that both upper and lower leaf surfaces emit at that rate, so our plants use up 8 micro moles PER SECOND (please excuse the upper case, but when we think of a whole night the seconds really add up). In an 8-hour night, we have the 8 micro moles/s x 3600 s/h x 8 h = 230400 micro moles of oxygen the plants take up. That is only millionths of moles, so it amounts to 0.23 mole. That got the number back down in a hurry. How much oxygen was in the room to start with? A room 4 m x 4 m x 2.4 m has 38.4 cubic meters of air. That is 38400 liters. At room temperature, a mole of gas is about 25 liters, so the room has 1536 moles of air. If we say the air in the room is 20 % oxygen, we have 307 moles of oxygen to start with. How much of the total oxygen in the room did the plant use? It is 0.23/307 = 0.075 %. What about our oxygen-starved sleeper? A person breathes out about 900 g CO2 per day or about 300 g in an 8-hour night. CO2 has a mole weight of 44. 300/44 = 6.8 moles CO2 emitted = moles O2 taken up by a person in the night. The 6.8 moles of oxygen used by the sleeping person amounts to only about 6.8/307 = 2.2 % of that available. How do the plant and the sleeper compare? The plant uses 0.23/6.8 = 3.4 % as much. With all the guessing (�approximation� in science-speak), none of the numbers has any meaning unless it�s rounded off to only one digit. You can insist that a sleeping person uses less oxygen than an active one, the room is smaller and the plant larger, but that doesn�t change anything. A good-sized plant surface won�t reduce the oxygen content of the room by much more than a tenth of a percent, and that is only about three percent of what the inhabitant uses up. If the sleeper is oxygen-starved, he or she probably isn�t breathing right. It can�t be blamed on the plant. I�ve known people who slept with their heads under the covers. That does scare me. Walter Turner HTML +More On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Steve Marak wrote: I assume that claim is based on the idea that while plants' metabolisms produce a net surplus of oxygen, they do also use some oxygen, and that therefore at night (when not photosynthesizing) they are technically decreasing rather than increasing the oxygen in the room? I have no actual measurements, but my immediate conclusion would be that this is absurd from a purely logical standpoint, because anyone who sleeps in a room with another person (or pets, for that matter) at night has something with a much higher metabolism than plants using up their oxygen, and no one has any concern about oxygen deprivation in that situation. (For that matter, if it were true, even people with no plants in their bedroom would be suffocated each night by all the evil grass, trees, and shrubs outside ... where do they think the air in their homes comes from?) Steve On Sat, 13 Feb 2010, ExoticRainforest wrote: > I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at > night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a > bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyone > with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? -- Steve Marak -- samarak@gizmoworks.com _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l --00c09fc2bdbe5456d1047fa34eaf----==============%49714025068542158=

From: ExoticRainforest <Steve at exoticrainforest.com> on 2010.02.15 at 13:20:10(20595) Thanks Steve. The idea appearsfrivolous but your observation makes perfect sense. I had two peoplegive me a scientific answer yesterday and I'm beginning to work on anew page for my site that will hopefully explain the myth and thescience..........but I still need more good input! Thanks! Steve HTML +More Steve Marak wrote: I assume that claim is based on the idea that while plants' metabolisms produce a net surplus of oxygen, they do also use some oxygen, and that therefore at night (when not photosynthesizing) they are technically decreasing rather than increasing the oxygen in the room?I have no actual measurements, but my immediate conclusion would be that this is absurd from a purely logical standpoint, because anyone who sleeps in a room with another person (or pets, for that matter) at night has something with a much higher metabolism than plants using up their oxygen, and no one has any concern about oxygen deprivation in that situation. (For that matter, if it were true, even people with no plants in their bedroom would be suffocated each night by all the evil grass, trees, and shrubs outside ... where do they think the air in their homes comes from?)SteveOn Sat, 13 Feb 2010, ExoticRainforest wrote: I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation atnight if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found abunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyonewith a scientific background elaborate on this one?? -- Steve Marak-- samarak@gizmoworks.com _______________________________________________Aroid-L mailing listAroid-L@www.gizmoworks.comhttp://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l --------------000907040105030002030705

From: "Marek Argent" <abri1973 at wp.pl> on 2010.02.15 at 15:49:40(20598) Dear Steve, Plants produce oxygen for all the oxycen-consuming processes on Earth, like breathing or burning. The balance in a room must be always positive, plants consume a small percent of oxygen they produce. Marek HTML +More ----- Original Message ----- From: ExoticRainforest To: undisclosed-recipients Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:04 AM Subject: [Aroid-l] Plants cause oxygen deprivation at night??????? I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyone with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? Thanks! Steve www.ExoticRainforest.com _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l Nie znaleziono virusa w tej wiadomosci przychodzacej. Sprawdzone przez AVG - www.avg.com Wersja: 8.5.435 / Baza danych wirus�w: 271.1.1/2686 - Data wydania: 02/13/10 19:35:00 ------=_NextPart_000_0113_01CAAE5E.DDA5A620----==============72987290613764563=

From: ExoticRainforest <Steve at ExoticRainforest.com> on 2010.02.16 at 09:14:28(20603) Thank you Walter! That is the kind of info I need to make a good explanation! I hope to be able to post a page on my website in the next few weeksexplaining all of this since my little site receives a lot of hits frompeople around the globe looking for answers. Almost one half millionhits popped up last year so if none of you object I would like to beable to use selected quotes from your responses in that piece. Steve HTML +More www.ExoticRainforest.com Walter Turner wrote: I can’t add to the ideas Steve Marak presented,but I can try some numbers. I hope the readers of Aroid-L will workthrough my numbers here. It would be bad enough for me to look like anidiot because I overlooked something that changes the results by afactor of a hundred or so, but it would be worse for the wrong resultsto stand without correction. I asked a friend who did his doctoral work onplant respiration and got the approximation that the emission of CO2 inthe dark is unlikely to exceed 4 micro moles per square meter of leafsurface per second. This is the same as the O2 taken up. Say our plantshave a leaf area of one meter. Let’s say for the sake of argument thatboth upper and lower leaf surfaces emit at that rate, so our plants useup 8 micro moles PER SECOND (please excuse the upper case, but when wethink of a whole night the seconds really add up). In an 8-hour night, we have the 8 micro moles/sx 3600 s/h x 8 h = 230400 micro moles of oxygen the plants take up.That is only millionths of moles, so it amounts to 0.23 mole. That gotthe number back down in a hurry. How much oxygen was in the room to start with? A room 4 m x 4 m x 2.4 m has 38.4 cubic metersof air. That is 38400 liters. At room temperature, a mole of gas is about 25liters, so the room has 1536 moles of air. If we say the air in the room is 20 % oxygen,we have 307 moles of oxygen to start with. How much of the total oxygen in the room didthe plant use? It is 0.23/307 = 0.075 %. What about our oxygen-starved sleeper? A person breathes out about 900 g CO2 per dayor about 300 g in an 8-hour night. CO2 has a mole weight of 44. 300/44 = 6.8 moles CO2 emitted = moles O2 takenup by a person in the night. The 6.8 moles of oxygen used by the sleepingperson amounts to only about 6.8/307 = 2.2 % of that available. How do the plant and the sleeper compare? Theplant uses 0.23/6.8 = 3.4 % as much. With all the guessing (“approximation” inscience-speak), none of the numbers has any meaning unless it’s roundedoff to only one digit. You can insist that a sleeping person uses lessoxygen than an active one, the room is smaller and the plant larger,but that doesn’t change anything. A good-sized plant surface won’treduce the oxygen content of the room by much more than a tenth of apercent, and that is only about three percent of what the inhabitantuses up. If the sleeper is oxygen-starved, he or sheprobably isn’t breathing right. It can’t be blamed on the plant. I’veknown people who slept with their heads under the covers. That doesscare me. Walter Turner --------------070806030007020901020009

From: "Ertelt, Jonathan B" <jonathan.ertelt at vanderbilt.edu> on 2010.02.16 at 15:30:28(20604) One must also keep in mind that this is discussing the oxygen and overall gas make-up of the room as though it were tightly closed and sealed, which of course it is not. The idea of someone sleeping with their head under the covers is much closer to that, with CO2 levels increasing quickly and O2 going down � it is always a concern for parents especially. These other figures are useful figures so that some approximate figures are available, but the idea of a tightly sealed room where even these figures would possibly make a difference doesn�t jive with most rooms. Jonathan HTML +More On 2/15/10 7:07 AM, "Walter Turner" wrote: I can�t add to the ideas Steve Marak presented, but I can try some numbers. I hope the readers of Aroid-L will work through my numbers here. It would be bad enough for me to look like an idiot because I overlooked something that changes the results by a factor of a hundred or so, but it would be worse for the wrong results to stand without correction. I asked a friend who did his doctoral work on plant respiration and got the approximation that the emission of CO2 in the dark is unlikely to exceed 4 micro moles per square meter of leaf surface per second. This is the same as the O2 taken up. Say our plants have a leaf area of one meter. Let�s say for the sake of argument that both upper and lower leaf surfaces emit at that rate, so our plants use up 8 micro moles PER SECOND (please excuse the upper case, but when we think of a whole night the seconds really add up). In an 8-hour night, we have the 8 micro moles/s x 3600 s/h x 8 h = 230400 micro moles of oxygen the plants take up. That is only millionths of moles, so it amounts to 0.23 mole. That got the number back down in a hurry. How much oxygen was in the room to start with? A room 4 m x 4 m x 2.4 m has 38.4 cubic meters of air. That is 38400 liters. At room temperature, a mole of gas is about 25 liters, so the room has 1536 moles of air. If we say the air in the room is 20 % oxygen, we have 307 moles of oxygen to start with. How much of the total oxygen in the room did the plant use? It is 0.23/307 = 0.075 %. What about our oxygen-starved sleeper? A person breathes out about 900 g CO2 per day or about 300 g in an 8-hour night. CO2 has a mole weight of 44. 300/44 = 6.8 moles CO2 emitted = moles O2 taken up by a person in the night. The 6.8 moles of oxygen used by the sleeping person amounts to only about 6.8/307 = 2.2 % of that available. How do the plant and the sleeper compare? The plant uses 0.23/6.8 = 3.4 % as much. With all the guessing (�approximation� in science-speak), none of the numbers has any meaning unless it�s rounded off to only one digit. You can insist that a sleeping person uses less oxygen than an active one, the room is smaller and the plant larger, but that doesn�t change anything. A good-sized plant surface won�t reduce the oxygen content of the room by much more than a tenth of a percent, and that is only about three percent of what the inhabitant uses up. If the sleeper is oxygen-starved, he or she probably isn�t breathing right. It can�t be blamed on the plant. I�ve known people who slept with their heads under the covers. That does scare me. Walter Turner On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Steve Marak wrote: I assume that claim is based on the idea that while plants' metabolisms produce a net surplus of oxygen, they do also use some oxygen, and that therefore at night (when not photosynthesizing) they are technically decreasing rather than increasing the oxygen in the room? I have no actual measurements, but my immediate conclusion would be that this is absurd from a purely logical standpoint, because anyone who sleeps in a room with another person (or pets, for that matter) at night has something with a much higher metabolism than plants using up their oxygen, and no one has any concern about oxygen deprivation in that situation. (For that matter, if it were true, even people with no plants in their bedroom would be suffocated each night by all the evil grass, trees, and shrubs outside ... where do they think the air in their homes comes from?) Steve On Sat, 13 Feb 2010, ExoticRainforest wrote: > I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at > night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a > bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyone > with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? -- Steve Marak -- samarak@gizmoworks.com _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l --_000_C7A016345B26jonathanerteltvanderbiltedu_----==============q96258345007601451=

From: Theodore Held <oppenhauser2001 at gmail.com> on 2010.02.16 at 18:53:10(20605) You might be interested to know that certain quacks in the 1920s were sure that people would suffocate themselves while sleeping in an unventilated room, plants or no plants. There was a very colorful individual in those days named Bernarr Macfadden who wrote of this threat. I have a book of his with a picture of a person sleeping with his bed half-way out of a window. The idea was that you needed to sleep with your head outdoors or risk death. So one would reason since we did not see waves of suffocations that we're pretty safe continuing the way we have for the last hundred years. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this is true even in modern houses that are as air-tight as we can make them. Imagine the distress that might be suffered by those people who happen to live in the Amazon jungle. Surrounded by all that respirating plant life should make it impossible for any warm-blooded vertebrate to make it through even one night. Ted Held, fearless of having plant nearby, even at night. +More On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Marek Argent wrote: > Dear Steve, > > Plants produce oxygen for all the oxycen-consuming processes on Earth, li ke > breathing or burning. > The balance in a room must be always positive, plants consume a small > percent of oxygen they produce. > > Marek > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: ExoticRainforest > To: undisclosed-recipients > Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:04 AM > Subject: [Aroid-l] Plants cause oxygen deprivation at night??????? > I've been asked twice recently if plants can cause oxygen deprivation at > night if kept in a bed room. I've never heard of such a tale but found a > bunch of posts on garden websites today that make that claim. Can anyo ne > with a scientific background elaborate on this one?? > > > Thanks! > > Steve > www.ExoticRainforest.com > > ________________________________ > > _______________________________________________ > Aroid-L mailing list > Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com > http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l > > ________________________________ > > Nie znaleziono virusa w tej wiadomosci przychodzacej. > Sprawdzone przez AVG - www.avg.com > Wersja: 8.5.435 / Baza danych wirus�w: 271.1.1/2686 - Data wydania: 02/ 13/10 > 19:35:00 > > _______________________________________________ > Aroid-L mailing list > Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com > http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l > > _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l

From: "mossytrail" <mossytrail at hctc.com> on 2010.02.17 at 02:29:12(20610) Sleeping with head under the covers scares you? What are your bedcovers made of? Plastic? > > I can?t add to the ideas Steve Marak presented, but I can > try some numbers. I hope the readers of Aroid-L will work > through my numbers here. It would be bad enough for me to > look like an idiot because I overlooked something that > changes the results by a factor of a hundred or so, but it > would be worse for the wrong results to stand without > correction. +More > > > > I asked a friend who did his doctoral work on plant > respiration and got the approximation that the emission of > CO2 in the dark is unlikely to exceed 4 micro moles per > square meter of leaf surface per second. This is the same > as the O2 taken up. Say our plants have a leaf area of one > meter. Let?s say for the sake of argument that both upper > and lower leaf surfaces emit at that rate, so our plants > use up 8 micro moles PER SECOND (please excuse the upper > case, but when we think of a whole night the seconds > really add up). > > > > In an 8-hour night, we have the 8 micro moles/s x 3600 s/h > x 8 h = 230400 micro moles of oxygen the plants take up. > That is only millionths of moles, so it amounts to 0.23 > mole. That got the number back down in a hurry. > > > > How much oxygen was in the room to start with? > > A room 4 m x 4 m x 2.4 m has 38.4 cubic meters of air. > That is 38400 liters. > > At room temperature, a mole of gas is about 25 liters, so > the room has 1536 moles of air. > > If we say the air in the room is 20 % oxygen, we have 307 > moles of oxygen to start with. > > > > How much of the total oxygen in the room did the plant > use? It is 0.23/307 = 0.075 %. > > > > What about our oxygen-starved sleeper? > > A person breathes out about 900 g CO2 per day or about 300 > g in an 8-hour night. > > CO2 has a mole weight of 44. > > 300/44 = 6.8 moles CO2 emitted = moles O2 taken up by a > person in the night. > > > > The 6.8 moles of oxygen used by the sleeping person > amounts to only about 6.8/307 = 2.2 % of that available. > > > > How do the plant and the sleeper compare? The plant uses > 0.23/6.8 = 3.4 % as much. > > > > With all the guessing (?approximation? in science-speak), > none of the numbers has any meaning unless it?s rounded > off to only one digit. You can insist that a sleeping > person uses less oxygen than an active one, the room is > smaller and the plant larger, but that doesn?t change > anything. A good-sized plant surface won?t reduce the > oxygen content of the room by much more than a tenth of a > percent, and that is only about three percent of what the > inhabitant uses up. > > > > If the sleeper is oxygen-starved, he or she probably isn?t > breathing right. It can?t be blamed on the plant. I?ve > known people who slept with their heads under the covers. > That does scare me. > > Walter Turner > _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l

From: michael kolaczewski <mjkolaffhbc at sbcglobal.net> on 2010.02.17 at 03:43:11(20611) Greetings Everyone, If I may, a brief joke : How much Oxygen would 3 full grown Sasquatches use up in a 20 cubic yard box, if, they were also enclosed in the same box with 3 Philodendron selloum plants, each 8 feet tall with 40 leaves each, 14 inches in diameter and 7 inflorescence each, (which as many of us know, are thermogenic, and can maintain a temperature near 80� F, when they are ripening). With lights on for 6 hours, off for 3, over a 24 hour period ? My apologies... HTML +More What we have here, yet again is another Internet myth, that has gotten legs and run round' the bend. As we have seen from Walter's post, it would not be possible to use up of all the oxygen in the room. Some non calculation factors should also be looked at here. Is the room / house air tight? More than likely not. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other elements in the air are moving in and through, and out of structures, nearly constantly. Doors and windows are opened and closed. which while not as effective as fans or air conditioners, will exchange air in a house. In general, plants are carrying on photosynthesis, the light and dark reactions daily. Therefore we can assume, that oxygen will be in greater quantity than carbon dioxide, in any given period of time. As for the process itself, The light reactions are light dependent, when there is not source of light, that part of photosynthesis is halted. The dark reactions are light independent, do occur during the day, and can continue without light ( in darkness), if the required components for this phase are present. A simple example of photosynthesis is this: the light reactions synthesize 2 components, ATP and NADP, which is reduced. Further, water is used as a basic material, with oxygen as a by product. The dark reactions, take these high energy ingredients from the light reaction to synthesize carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, and other molecules from carbon dioxide. Here ATP is broken down into ADP, with hydrogen and some electrons being removed from NADP. The circle then repeats, with these depleted ingredients being cycled back to the light reaction, to be recharged by the chemical pathway of solar energy. Plant life has been on this planet for nearly immeasurable time. It is almost impossible to fathom the length of time that has transpired since the atmosphere was first charged with deadly gases, lighting, and perpetual storms. Then,when bacteria and algae formed in primordial seas, transforming the atmosphere, began to colonize the land forms, and finally made the earth habitable for the rest of life that came after. To propose that a few house plants would suck the air out a room, or your lungs is of course stupid. As many, if not all of us here have seen, it doesn't take much bad information, or ill informed Internet inhabitants to make for a mountain of erroneous news to make the rounds, and give people misinformation that becomes 'gospel' as they say. I hope this post will be of use to you. Michael Kolaczewski --0-523294295-1266378191=:79979----==============055994374007262208=

From: Paul Temple <paulindr at gmail.com> on 2010.02.17 at 15:55:46(20621) Re the wonderful ... You might be interested to know that certain quacks in the 1920s were > sure that people would suffocate themselves while sleeping in an > unventilated room, plants or no plants. There was a very colorful > individual in those days named Bernarr Macfadden who wrote of this > threat. > In cse it hasn�t lready been aid and in case it is of interest... When I was a teenager or less, so 1970 or before, British hospitals (public and private) refused to allow patients to keep their cut flowers or potted plants in their rooms at night. Each night the nurses studiously removed all such dangers from the rooms so that patients were not deprived of oxyge n while sleeping. This is not a rumour, risk of oxygen deprivation was the stated reason for removing the flora. I personally heard it stated (in tha t era) by our beloved quacks, oops, sorry, I mean medical professionals. So Bernarr Macfadden was not the only idiot in town. The entire British medical profession suffered from the same madness until late in the last century!!! Cheers Paul +More --0016e68ee2c22a6c44047fcde2a5 _______________________________________________ Aroid-L mailing list Aroid-L@www.gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l --==============I64211153478444970==--

From: Paul Temple <paulindr at gmail.com> on 2010.02.17 at 15:55:46(20622) Re the wonderful ... You might be interested to know that certain quacks in the 1920s were sure that people would suffocate themselves while sleeping in an unventilated room, plants or no plants. There was a very colorful individual in those days named Bernarr Macfadden who wrote of this threat. HTML +More In cse it hasn�t lready been aid and in case it is of interest... When I was a teenager or less, so 1970 or before, British hospitals (public and private) refused to allow patients to keep their cut flowers or potted plants in their rooms at night. Each night the nurses studiously removed all such dangers from the rooms so that patients were not deprived of oxygen while sleeping. This is not a rumour, risk of oxygen deprivation was the stated reason for removing the flora. I personally heard it stated (in that era) by our beloved quacks, oops, sorry, I mean medical professionals. So Bernarr Macfadden was not the only idiot in town. The entire British medical profession suffered from the same madness until late in the last century!!! Cheers Paul --0016e68ee2c22a6c44047fcde2a5----==============I64211153478444970=

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