STRANGE as it may seem, we spend all our lives immersed in a sort of fluid. Not the wet sloshy stuff that comes out of the tap, but air, which, by virtue of its viscous properties, also qualifies as a fluid. We tend to forget that it is there until it reaches gale force, but it is thanks to air that we can live on Earth. The oxygen in air feeds the brain cells that enable us to think, the muscles that let us sit, stand and run, as well as hundreds of other vital metabolic processes within the body.…
Environmental lung disease
By John Lee and Lucy Manning
16 September 1995
