THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 7 



the cool breath of the night-wind becomes a chief condition of a good 

 night's rest, and the closing of the bedroom windows creates a feeling 

 of uneasiness not unlike the discomfort induced by an attempt to sleep 

 with your head under the blankets. In the sleeping-dens of the French 

 village-taverns, where, after September, the window-sashes are actually 

 nailed down, the children of a hygienic home would pine for a draught 

 of oxygen as a sweltering traveler thirsts after fresh water. 



Besides open windows, Dio Lewis recommends an open fire-place 

 and a good wood-fire all night ; but that is a matter of taste : an extra 

 blanket will serve the same purpose, and the danger of damp bed- 

 clothes * in winter has been as strangely exaggerated as have the per- 

 ils of cold drinking-water in midsummer. 



In stormy nights a half-closed "rain-shutter" (a window-blind 

 with broad bars) will keep the room perfectly dry without excluding 

 the air. If the mercury sinks below zero, close every window in the 

 house. Intense cold is a disinfectant, that purifies even the air of the 

 hide-covered dungeons where the natives of the polar regions pass the 

 long winter nights. In the dog-days, on the other hand, do not be 

 satisfied with anything less than a thorough draught ; open every win- 

 dow in and around the bedroom. Consumption has been recognized as 

 a zymotic disease, and sultry heat favors the development of all morbific 

 germs. 



Where the prejudice against open windows has been cured, the 

 cold-air superstition often lingers in the form of a repugnance to out- 

 door exercise in winter. After the last of October thousands of con- 

 valescents suspend their morning rambles, and the hectic symptoms 

 soon reappear. The aggravation of the disease may scare the patients 

 into a warmer climate, but most of them would rather breathe sick- 

 room miasma than the winter air of a high latitude. The truth is, 

 that the prophylactic influence of the out-door atmosphere depends 

 less upon its temperature than upon its purity, and for the open-air treat- 

 ment of lung-diseases a cold, clear winter morning is more propitious 

 than a dusty summer day. The contrast is shown in the effect. A 

 single hour's exercise in the skating-ring or under a snow-covered 

 wood-shed, a sleigh-ride, a brisk walk through an ice-glittering park, 

 will ease the respiratory organs more effectually than a week of languid 

 rambles through the dust and heat of an Italian campagna. 



In larger cities, especially, a good frost defectates the lung-poison- 

 ing effluvia of the slum-alleys, while heat aggravates their offensive- 

 ness. In the cities of our Atlantic seaboard July is about the most 

 unfragrant month in the year, and August the dustiest. Soon after 

 the summer solstice wealthy invalids should, therefore, pack their 



* " I shall not attempt to explain why damp clothes occasion cold, rather than wet 

 ones, because I doubt the fact ; I imagine that neither the one nor the other contributes 

 to that effect, and that the causes of ' colds ' are totally independent of wet, and even of 

 cold" (Benjamin Franklin's "Essays," p. 216). 



