326 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



place, to be kept burning all night. This creates a draft without making 

 much heat, and is a good means of ventilating a sick chamber when warmth is 

 not des^irable, such, for example, as in measles, scarlet fever, and other skin 

 diseases, where a cool air, and at the same time a pure one, is an indispensable 

 means of a safe and speedy cure. But let it always be borne in mind that 

 cold air is not necessarily pure, nor is warm air necessarily impure. 



"With a little fire in a cold bed-room not only is the chamber kept ventilated, 

 but fewer bed clothes are needed; less clothing does more good next day, while 

 there is a freer escape of gases and exhalations from the body of the sleeper, 

 and the person wakes up in the morning more fresh and vigorous. 



Chambers should not only be constructed with a view to a constant, thor- 

 ough, and unprcventable ventilation, but also with an eye to their perfect dry- 

 ness and their free exposure to the sun for the greater portion of each day. 



Florence Nightingale, whose beautiful name and more beautiful character, 

 which will go down to posterity with that of John Howard and Dorothea Dix, 

 and others of nature's nobility, writes, after long years of experience with the 

 sick and suffering : 



"A dark house is always an unhealthy house, always an ill-aired house, always a dirty 

 house. Want of lij^ht stops growth and promotes scrofula, rickets, &c., among children, 

 People lose their health in a dark house, and if they get ill, they cannot got well again in it. 

 Three out of many negligences and ignorances in managing the health of houses generally 

 I will here mention as specimens. First, that the female head in charge of any building 

 does not think it necessary to visit every hole and corner of it every day. How can she ex- 

 pect that those under her will be more careful to maintain her house in a healthy condition 

 than she who is in charge of it ? Second, that it is not considered essential to air, to sun, 

 and clean rooms while uninhabited, which is simply ignoring the first elementary notion ot 

 sanitary things, and laying the ground for all kinds of diseases. Third, that one window is 

 considered enough to air a room. Don't imagine that if you who are in charge don't look 

 after all these things yourself, those under you will be more careful than you are. It appears 

 as if the part of the mistress was to complain of her servants and accept their excuses, not 

 to show them how there need be neither complaints nor excuses made." 



In reference to the same subject, and in confirmation of what has been al- 

 ready stated in this article, Dr. Moore, the metaphysician, thus speaks of the 

 effect of light on body and mind : 



"A tadpole confined in darkness would never become a frog, and an infant being deprived 

 of heaven's free light, will only grow into a shapeless idiot, instead of a beautiful and re- 

 sponsible being. Hence, in the deep, dark gorges and ravines of the Swiss valleys, where 

 the direct sunshine never reaches, the hideous prevalence of idiocy startles the traveller. It 

 is a strange melancholy idiocy; many citizens are incapable of any articulate speech; some 

 are deaf, some are blind, some labor under all these privations, and are misshapen in almost 

 every part of the body." 



I believe there is in all places a marked difference in the healthiness of 

 houses, according to their aspect with regard to the sun, and those are decidedly 

 the healthiest, other things being equal, in which all the rooms are, during 

 some part of the day, fully exposed to the direct light. Ejjidcmics attack in- 

 habitants on the shady side of the street, and totally exempt those on the 

 other side ; and even in epidemics such as ague the morbid influence is often 

 thus partial in its labors. 



SMOKY CHIMNEYS. 



This household calamity can easily be prevented, and always in building 

 new houses ; thus, let the throat of the chimney be so constructed that imme- 

 diately inside of it the space shall be abruptly increased several inches in length 

 and breadth. Lot it increase upward for two or three feet, and then be gradu- 

 ally "drawn in" to the dimensions necessary, and let the whole inside of the 

 chimney be plastered with cement, which will harden with time. 



A very convenient mf^thod of ventilating a room already built is to arrange 

 that one of the panes of glass in the upper sash shall move on a pivot at the 



