Part 11 (1/2)

1. Where are the lungs located?

2. What do the tubes in the lungs carry?

3. What part of the air do we use in the body?

4. Tell how the air gets into the lungs.

5. What pa.s.ses from the blood into the air sacs?

6. Why should we breathe through the nose?

7. Why should you keep the fingers away from the nose?

8. What are the vocal cords?

9. Give two reasons why no one should spit on the floor.

10. Tell how alcohol harms the lungs.

CHAPTER XV

FRESH AIR AND HEALTH

=How much Air we Breathe.=--At every breath we take in about one pint of air. We breathe eighteen times each minute. Nine quarts of air therefore pa.s.s in and out of the lungs every minute. Air once breathed is not fit to breathe again. It contains waste and carbon dioxide which weaken the body.

If you breathe three full breaths into a wide-mouthed jar or bottle, it will contain so much of the carbon dioxide that a lighted candle or splinter will at once go out when thrust into the jar. A cat shut in a tight box two feet square and one foot high will die in less than a half hour.

Many years ago when the British and Hindoo soldiers were fighting each other, the Hindoos made prisoners of 146 of the British and locked them in a room about one half as large as a common schoolroom. There were only two small windows. During the night 123 of these men died because of the bad air.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 64.--The direction of the flame of the candle shows how the fresh air enters and the bad air leaves a room.]

=How much Air should enter a Room.=--The air laden with waste coming out of the lungs quickly mixes with the other air of the room. In this way all of the air in the room soon becomes impure. Forty children will give out nearly two barrels of air in one minute. In another minute this air has made all of the other air in the room unclean. It can still be breathed, but it makes children feel drowsy and lazy and may cause headache. They then do poor work.

To keep the air pure in a room, fresh air must be let in from the outside. If there are many in the room, the openings must be large or fans on a wheel must be used to force the air in. In the New York schools a little over a cubic yard of fresh air is forced into the room for each child every minute.

=How to get Fresh Air into a Room.=--When air is warmed it becomes lighter and rises. In many public buildings, fresh air heated by a furnace is forced into the rooms through pipes entering several feet above the floor. By a fan or heated flue the impure air is sucked out of the room through openings near the floor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 65.--How the windows of your bedroom should be open to get the most fresh air.]

Changing the air in a room is called _ventilation_. To get plenty of fresh air in a room there must be one or more places for it to enter and one or more places for it to pa.s.s out. Where there is no furnace or fan, windows on one side of the room may be opened at the bottom to let in the air and the same windows opened at the top to let the impure air escape. _Do not sit in a draft_, but use a board or curtain to throw the air upward as it enters the window. _A room should not be kept too warm._ Sitting in a very warm room weakens the body and prepares it to take cold. The temperature of a living room should be between 65 and 70 degrees.

=Fresh Air while you Sleep.=--Thousands of people have weakened their bodies and brought on disease by sleeping in bad air. Many persons keep their windows so tightly closed during the night that the air smells bad in the morning. I knew a family who always slept with windows closed except in the very warmest weather. Three of the children died of tuberculosis, and a fourth one took the disease but was saved by keeping his windows wide open.

Bad air in the sleeping room makes one feel drowsy in the morning instead of refreshed by sleep. _Your windows should always be open while you sleep._ In cold weather a window should be open a foot at both the bottom and the top, or if there are two windows in the room, both may be opened at the bottom. In moderate weather the openings should be twice as large. A cap may be worn to keep the head warm, and the bed should be out of the draft.

=Fresh Air gives Health.=--Four hundred people die of tuberculosis in our country every day. A few years ago it was thought that no one could get well of this disease. Now three fourths of those in the first stages of the disease get well. The chief part of the cure is fresh air. Medicine is seldom used because no medicine will cure tuberculosis. Good food and rest are great helps.