Word: smog
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Diarist John Evelyn of the 17th century knew not what the 20th would bring. London last week looked as if it had slithered to the bottom of the Thames. Smothered by smog as fetid and impenetrable as river sludge, traffic stopped, airports closed, and more than 100 ships swung helplessly at anchor. For four days and nights, the dark, satanic peasouper dumped grit and grime over 22 counties, cocooned 125,000 miles of icy roads, and caused 20,000 automobile breakdowns. The worst fog that London has known since the "Black Death" that took 4,000 lives...
First warning was the telltale eye-stinging vapor that old Londoners know so well. Out went the Red Alert to 200 hospitals, which went on a disaster standby in readiness for elderly patients, who are most susceptible to smog-induced pneumonia and bronchitis (or the "English disease," as it has long been known on the Continent). Ambulances searching for victims clanged their bells frantically, but could not extricate themselves from the vast rush-hour traffic jams. Not until the third day did London Transport authorities surrender to "very adverse weather conditions"; then, at last, they ordered their 5,000 buses...
...Japan's Kanto Plain, on which Tokyo and Yokohama nestle, makes smog differently but just as deadly. Countless industrial plants burn soft coal or oil, said Lieut. Colonel Harvey W. Phelps, but few have proper smokestacks. Acrid smoke can be seen billowing out of doors, windows and ventilators near ground level...
...Japanese doctors do not recognize this as a unique form of asthma, but this does not mean the Japanese are immune: five native Japanese have come down with it, and the only victim who died was a Nisei from Hawaii. Army medics once thought that evacuation from the Kanto smog zone effected a geographic cure, but now they find many victims with continuing symptoms long after return...
Though smoke and smog the world over inevitably damage the airways leading to the lungs and the oxygen-exchange cells in the walls of the lungs themselves, the effects usually appear slowly. There is an imperceptibly progressive shortness of breath. After years of decreased breathing volume and oxygen exchange, the heart has to work harder to pump more blood, and may fail in the process. The damage shows up dramatically when the lungs are subjected to added stress-from infection or vigorous exertion. This sort of weakness, said Colonel Phelps, is an increasing cause of medical retirement among officers aged...