WHAT IS GOOD VENTILATION. 89 



But there are other hygienic duties besides ventilation, which 

 demand care and attention. Animal heat must be cared for 

 as well as, and at the same time with, the ventilation. Pet- 

 tenkofer says, " The bed must be airy and warm at the same 

 time. We warm the bed by our body, just as we warm our 

 clothes, and the bed warms the air which is continually flow- 

 ing through it from below upwards." 



Now, an exposure of a sleeping-room and its bedding to 

 an open window for from two to six hours a day during half 

 of our year is a needless demand on the animal heat of the 

 occupants of the house and the bed-room. The bed-clothing 

 is so chilled, that it takes away a larger amount of heat than 

 is necessary: there is no need of such a thorough freezing 

 of the bedding, the furniture, and the inner walls of the 

 house by so prolonged an airing of the bed and its cloth- 

 ing. For a proper ventilation, it is not necessary to compel 

 the body to sacrifice such an amount of heat as it must to 

 warm the bed so that restful and healthful sleep can be 

 secured. 



A window open on any side of a New-England house for 

 twenty minutes in the morning, when the wind can blow 

 through the chamber at a rate of five miles per hour, will 

 be ample ventilation for a bed-room by day. 



Bodily heat can hardly be too carefully attended to in 

 such a changing climate as ours, where the thermometer often 

 ranges twenty degrees in as many hours. 



Another topic of no ordinary importance, in connection 

 with the hygiene of the farm, is the mental health of the 

 farmer. And it becomes us to ask the question, if there be 

 need of so much insanity among our farmers and their 

 wives. 



In the report of the Worcester Hospital for 1852, it is 

 stated, that, during the previous twenty years, the propor- 

 tion* of farmers who were patients was twenty-seven in the 

 hundred. In a more recent report of the Northampton 

 Lunatic-Hospital, out of the five hundred and seventy-two 

 men admitted as patients, a hundred and twenty-six, or 

 twenty-two per cent, were farmers. It is a matter of sincere 

 regret, however, that reliable statistics showing the effect 

 of occupation on insanity are very scarce, and especially so 

 in regard to farmers, since, in so many hospitals, the distinc- 



