Part 34 (1/2)

510. _The sleeping-room should be so ventilated that the air in the morning will be as pure as when retiring to rest in the evening._ Ventilation of the room would prevent morning headaches, the want of appet.i.te, and languor--so common among the feeble. The impure air of sleeping-rooms probably causes more deaths than intemperance. Look around the country, and those who are most exposed, who live in huts but little superior to the sheds that shelter the farmer's flocks, are found to be the most healthy and robust. Headaches, liver complaints, coughs, and a mult.i.tude of nervous affections, are almost unknown to them; not so with those who spend their days and nights in rooms in which the sashes of the windows are calked, or perchance doubled, to prevent the keen but healthy air of winter from entering their apartments. Disease and suffering are their constant companions.

510. What is said of the ventilation of sleeping-rooms? What would adequate ventilation prevent? Give a common observation.

_Ill.u.s.tration._ By many, sleeping apartments twelve feet square and seven feet high, are considered s.p.a.cious for two persons, and good accommodations for four to lodge in. An apartment of this size contains 1008 cubic feet of air. Allowing ten cubic feet to each person per minute, two occupants would vitiate the air of the room in fifty minutes, and four in twenty-five minutes. When lodging-rooms are not ventilated, we would strongly recommend early rising.

511. _The sick-room, particularly, should be so arranged that the impure air may escape, and pure air be constantly admitted into the room._ It is no unusual practice in some communities, when a child or an adult is sick of an acute disease, to prevent the ingress of pure air, simply from the apprehension of the attendants, that the patient will contract a cold. Again, the prevalent custom of several individuals sitting in the sick-room, particularly when they remain there for several hours, tends to vitiate the air, and, consequently, to increase the suffering and danger of the sick person. In fevers or inflammatory diseases of any kind, let the patient breathe pure air; for the purer the blood, the greater the power of the system to remove disease, and the less the liability to contract colds.

_Observation._ Among children, convulsions, or ”fits,” usually occur when they are sleeping. In many instances, these are produced by the impure air which is breathed. To prevent these alarming and distressing convulsions, the sleeping-room should be ventilated, and there should be no curtains around the bed, or coverings over the face, as they produce an effect similar to that experienced when sleeping in a small, unventilated room. To relieve a child when convulsed, carry it into the open air.

What is said of the size of sleeping-rooms? 511. What is said of the sick-room? Mention some prevailing customs in reference to these rooms. What is said of convulsions among children?

512. _While occupying a room, we are insensible of the gradual vitiation of the air._ This is the result of the diminished sensibility of the nervous system, and gradual adaptation of the organs to blood of a less stimulating character. This condition is well ill.u.s.trated in the hibernating animals. We are insensible of the impure air of unventilated sleeping-rooms, until we leave them for a walk or ride. If they have been closed, we are made sensible of the character of the air as soon as we renter them, for the system has regained its usual sensibility while inhaling a purer atmosphere.

513. _In the construction of every inhabited room, there should be adequate means of ventilation, as well as warming._ No room is well ventilated, unless as much pure air is brought into it as the occupants vitiate at every respiration. This can be effected by making an aperture in the ceiling of the room, or by constructing a ventilating flue in the chimney. This should be in contact with the flues for the escape of smoke, but separated from them by a thin brick part.i.tion. The hot air in the smoke flues will warm the separating brick part.i.tion, and consequently rarefy the air in the ventilating flue. Communication from every room in a house should be had to such flues. The draught of air can be regulated by well-adjusted registers, which in large rooms should be placed near the floor as well as near the ceiling.

514. While provision is made for the escape of rarefied impure air, we should also provide means by which pure air may be constantly admitted into the room, as the crevices of the doors and windows are not always sufficient; and, if they should be adequate, air can be introduced in a more convenient, economical, and appropriate manner. There should be an aperture opposite the ventilating flue, at or near the floor, to connect with the outer walls of the building or external air. But if pure heated air is introduced into the room, it obviates the necessity of the introduction of the external air.[16]

[16] Mr. Frederick Emerson, of Boston, has devised a simple and effective apparatus for removing vitiated air from a room. It is successfully used upon all the public school-houses of Boston. It is now being generally applied to the school-houses and other public buildings, as well as private dwellings, of New England.

512. Why are we insensible to the gradual vitiation of the air of an unventilated room? 513. What is very important in the building of every inhabited room? How can a room be well ventilated? 514. What is said relative to a communication with the external air?

515. In warming rooms, the hot air furnaces, or box and air-tight stoves converted into hot air furnaces, should be used in preference to the ordinary stoves. The air thus introduced into the room is pure as well as warm. In the adaptation of furnaces to dwelling-houses, &c., it is necessary that the air should pa.s.s over an ample surface of iron moderately heated; as a red heat abstracts the oxygen from the contiguous air, and thus renders it unfit to be respired.[17]

[17] Dr. Wyman's valuable work on ”Ventilation,” and the work of Henry Barnard, Esq., on ”School-house architecture,” can be advantageously consulted, as they give the practical methods of ventilating and warming shops, school-rooms, dwelling-houses, public halls, &c.

_Observation_. Domestic animals need a supply of pure air as well as man. The cows of cities, that breathe a vitiated air, have, very generally, tubercles. Sheep that are shut in a confined air, die of a disease called the ”rot,” which is of a tuberculous character.

Interest and humanity require that the buildings for animals be properly ventilated.

515. How should rooms be warmed? What is necessary in the adaptation of furnaces to dwelling-houses?

CHAPTER XXVI.

HYGIENE OF THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS, CONTINUED.