sure that they chose to be obese (very few people do!). Yet even if they did, we must acknowledge that people also persist in indulging in dangerous activities such as riding motorbikes, smoking, drinking, working on oil rigs and down coal mines – all of which put their health at risk. Yet the NHS quite rightly treats all these people free, even if there is a direct cause and effect between their health problem and their lifestyle. The ethos is for the NHS to treat all people who needtreatment without charge, not treat them according to their lifestyle.
That said, the NHS does have finite resources and so, to some extent, has to distribute treatment according to need. That means, of course, that urgent, life-threatening or severe illnesses must always get priority. Doctors must also decide how much of their resources they are going to put into treating each case. Some patients will not necessarily be prescribed a drug that would alleviate their condition simply because it is very expensive for the benefits it produces, and money and resources are deemed better spent elsewhere. Such decisions about priority are being made all the time and provoke a great deal of questioning and controversy.
It’s in this light that questions such as the one about not treating obese people must be seen. Doctors are within their rights to refuse to treat doggedly persistent smokers for smoking-related ailments and recalcitrant alcoholics for alcohol-related illnesses. The cause-and-effect relationship between obesity and illness is not quite so clear-cut. Nevertheless, levels of obesity are steadily growing in the UK, and the health problems it creates are imposing a growing burden on the NHS. One in four people in the UK were obese in 2007, and the proportion is swelling all the time, especially amongst young people. Health experts talk of an obesity time bomb, with the associated health problems likely to put massive pressure on resources in the future. This is why the government is under pressure to launch as powerful a public information campaign against obesity as past governments have against smoking. Refusing to treat obese people on the NHS, however, will solve nothing.
Why did they used to make the mill chimneys so tall?
(Engineering, Cambridge)
Actually most chimneys are tall; mill chimneys were just taller. Chimneys need to be tall for two reasons. The first is to vent smoke high up into the air where it can be carried away and dispersed by the wind. The second is to provide a good updraft for the fire, and this is probably what really mattered for the mill owners of the Industrial Revolution, who I suspect weren’t that worried about pollution as they created the dark, satanic mills that filled the skies with black smoke in Blake’s bleak vision. The mills of the early Industrial Revolution were of course driven by steam power, and the tall chimneys provided the powerful up-current make the fire burn intensely enough to create the steam to drive all the mill’s machines.
Tall chimneys provide a good updraft because of the pressure difference between the inside of the chimney and the outside. The heat of the fire makes the fumes or ‘flue gases’ expand and become less dense and so rise up the chimney. The result is that the flue gases filling the chimney are at a much lower pressure than the outside air. Thepressure difference draws air into the fire through a vent near the base of the chimney and so makes the fire burn more fiercely. On the whole, the taller the chimney, the more pronounced this effect, known as the stack effect, is. Build a tall chimney and you get a big pressure difference, a strong updraft and a roaring fire hot enough to generate the steam to drive a lot of heavy machines.
Build your chimney too tall, however, and the flue gases cool too much by the time they reach the top of the chimney and the effect is diminished. So the height of the chimney needed to match the needs of the mill’s steam
That said, the NHS does have finite resources and so, to some extent, has to distribute treatment according to need. That means, of course, that urgent, life-threatening or severe illnesses must always get priority. Doctors must also decide how much of their resources they are going to put into treating each case. Some patients will not necessarily be prescribed a drug that would alleviate their condition simply because it is very expensive for the benefits it produces, and money and resources are deemed better spent elsewhere. Such decisions about priority are being made all the time and provoke a great deal of questioning and controversy.
It’s in this light that questions such as the one about not treating obese people must be seen. Doctors are within their rights to refuse to treat doggedly persistent smokers for smoking-related ailments and recalcitrant alcoholics for alcohol-related illnesses. The cause-and-effect relationship between obesity and illness is not quite so clear-cut. Nevertheless, levels of obesity are steadily growing in the UK, and the health problems it creates are imposing a growing burden on the NHS. One in four people in the UK were obese in 2007, and the proportion is swelling all the time, especially amongst young people. Health experts talk of an obesity time bomb, with the associated health problems likely to put massive pressure on resources in the future. This is why the government is under pressure to launch as powerful a public information campaign against obesity as past governments have against smoking. Refusing to treat obese people on the NHS, however, will solve nothing.
Why did they used to make the mill chimneys so tall?
(Engineering, Cambridge)
Actually most chimneys are tall; mill chimneys were just taller. Chimneys need to be tall for two reasons. The first is to vent smoke high up into the air where it can be carried away and dispersed by the wind. The second is to provide a good updraft for the fire, and this is probably what really mattered for the mill owners of the Industrial Revolution, who I suspect weren’t that worried about pollution as they created the dark, satanic mills that filled the skies with black smoke in Blake’s bleak vision. The mills of the early Industrial Revolution were of course driven by steam power, and the tall chimneys provided the powerful up-current make the fire burn intensely enough to create the steam to drive all the mill’s machines.
Tall chimneys provide a good updraft because of the pressure difference between the inside of the chimney and the outside. The heat of the fire makes the fumes or ‘flue gases’ expand and become less dense and so rise up the chimney. The result is that the flue gases filling the chimney are at a much lower pressure than the outside air. Thepressure difference draws air into the fire through a vent near the base of the chimney and so makes the fire burn more fiercely. On the whole, the taller the chimney, the more pronounced this effect, known as the stack effect, is. Build a tall chimney and you get a big pressure difference, a strong updraft and a roaring fire hot enough to generate the steam to drive a lot of heavy machines.
Build your chimney too tall, however, and the flue gases cool too much by the time they reach the top of the chimney and the effect is diminished. So the height of the chimney needed to match the needs of the mill’s steam
Similar Books
The Duke's Temptation
Addie Jo Ryleigh
The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers
Mike Evans
Catching Falling Stars
Karen McCombie
Survival Games
J.E. Taylor
Battle Fatigue
Mark Kurlansky
Now I See You
Nicole C. Kear
The Whipping Boy
Speer Morgan
Rippled
Erin Lark
The Story of Us
Deb Caletti