We discovered that 19-th century hospital wards could generate up to 24 air changes an hour

that's similar to  the performance of a modern-day, computer-controlled operating theater. We

believe you could build wards based on these principles now. Single rooms are not appropriate

for all patients. Communal wards appropriate for certain patients - older people will with

dementia, for example - would work just as well in today's hospitals, at a fraction of energy

cost.’ Professor short contends the mindset and skill-sets behind these designs have been

completely lost, lamenting the disappearance of expertly designed theaters, opera houses,

and other buildings where up to half the volume of the buildings was given over to insuring

everyone got fresh air.

When the US explorer and academic Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was

ready for what was to be the greatest achievement of his life: exploration of the

remote hinterland to the west of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca Empire in the Andes

Mountains of Peru. His goal was to locate the remains of a city called Vitcos, the last capital of

the Inca civilization. Cusco lies on a high plateau at an equation of more than 3,000 meters, and

Bingham’s plan was to descend from the plateau along the Valley of Urubamba River, which

takes a circuitous route down to the Amazon and passes through an area of dramatic canyons

and mountain ranges. When Bingham and his team set off down the Urubamba in Late July,

they had an advantage over travelers who had preceded them: a track had recently been

blasted down the valley Canyon to enable rubber to be brought up by mules from the jungle.

Almost all previous travelers had left the river at Ollantaytambo and taken a high pass across

the mountains to rejoin the river lower down, thereby cutting a substantial corner, but also

therefor never passing through the area around Machu Picchu.