CHUM N EY S. 2 
much afraid of frefh air as perfons in the hydrophobia are 
of frefh water. I myfelf had formerly this prejudice, this 
aerophobia, as | now account it, and dreading the fuppofed 
dangerous effects of cool air, I confidered it as an enemy, 
and clofed with extreme care every crevice in the rooms [ 
inhabited. Experience has convinced me of my error. I 
now look upon frefh air as a friend: I even fleep with an 
open window. Iam perfuaded that no common air from 
without, is fo unwholefome as the air within a clofe room 
‘that has been often breathed and not changed. Moitft air 
too, which formerly I thought pernicious, gives me now 
no apprehenfions: For conlidering that no dampnefs of 
air applied to the outfide of my fkin, can be equal to what 
is applied to and touches it within, my whole body being 
full of moifture, and finding that I can lie two hours in 
a bath twice a week, covered with water, which certainly 
is much damper than any air can be, and this for years 
together, without catching cold, or being in any other man- 
ner difordered by it, I no longer dread mere moifture, either 
in air or in fheets or fhirts: And I find it of importance to 
the happinefs of life, the being freed from vain terrors, 
efpecially of obje&ts that we are every day expofed in- 
evitably to meet with. You phyficians have of late hap- 
pily difcovered, after a contrary opinion had prevailed 
fome ages, that frefh and cool air does good to perfons in 
the {mall pox and other fevers. It'is to be hoped that in 
another century or two we may all find out, that it is not 
bad even for people in health. And as to moift air, here 
I am at this prefent writing in a fhip with above forty 
perfons, who have had no other but moift air to breathe 
for fix weeks paft; every thing we touch is damp, and 
nothing dries, yet we are all as healthy as we fhould be 
on the mountains of Switzerland, whofe inhabitants are 
not more fo than thofe of Bermuda or St. Helena, iflands 
on whoft rocks the waves are dafhed into millions of par- 
ticles, which fill the air with damp, but produce no dif 
eafes 
