no SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



respect. It has been said that the reason why the air in rural dis- 

 tricts is so pure is that the poor country people have all the bad air 

 shut up in their houses. There is a great deal of truth in this. 

 Doctors are constantly struggling with the strange aversion that 

 the rural population has regarding sufficient air in the bedrooms. 

 As soon as night falls the windows and doors are tightly closed and 

 the kerosene lamp adds to the pollution of the air. It is a common 

 experience to find the doors and windows kept closely shut owing to 

 the deeply rooted fear of catching cold. In European countries the 

 windows of many of the older dwellings were originally intended for 

 light and not for air, and are merely panes of glass built into the wall 

 and not intended to be opened. Others are so badly constructed that 

 the upper sash cannot be lowered and the lower sash is scarcely ever 

 raised more than a few inches. 



The children in. many country cottages instead of being rosy and 

 robust, as they should be with healthy surroundings, are frequently 

 pale and bloodless on account of this bad air. This deticient venti- 

 lation of country houses and the bad food so common, where milk 

 and eggs ought to be so plentiful and good, conspire to give to some 

 country populations a bad start in the earlier years. No better ex- 

 ample can be cited than that of the " poor whites " of the Southern 

 United States. Indolence, ignorance, general helplessness and 

 inertia are their characteristics. Their children are pale and gaunt, 

 and their living quarters are horrible beyond description. It is a 

 wonder the death rate among them is not greater than it is.' 



It seems very strange, but it is a fact, that about seventy years 

 ago a proposition was made to use the Mammoth Cave in Ken- 

 tucky as a winter resort for invalids. Sixteen consumptives were 

 sent there to gain the reputed benefit from the equable temperature 

 and asserted purity of the air in that cavern. Five of these patients 

 died and the others were injured as a result of the darkness and 

 dampness combined. That such an irrational and cruel experiment 

 should have been tried seems incomprehensible at the present day.^ 



' The death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis for Virginia during the year 

 ending June 30, 1913, was for whites 98.4, and for colored 256 per 100,000. 

 The state rate was estimated at 148. 



" See Croghan : The Mammoth Cave as a Winter Resort for Invalids (Bos- 

 ton Medical and Surgical Journal, 1843, Vol. 28, p. 188). 



Daniel Drake, M. D. : Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Louis- 

 ville, Kentucky, 1843, Vol. 7, p. 78. 



