EFFECTS OF DEFICIENT VENTILATION. 189 



of spring", a general debility has been induced, which 

 imperatively demands a cessation of festivity and a 

 change of scene and air. This debility is often ig- 

 norantly ascribed to the unwholesome influence of 

 spring, a season extolled by the poet, not as a 

 cause of relaxation and feebleness, but as the dis- 

 penser of renovated life and vigour to all created 

 beings. 



It is in vain to warn such persons beforehand 

 that Nature is always consistent, and that if bad air 

 be really unfit for healthy respiration, it must be 

 detrimental to them, and to all who breathe it ; and 

 that its ill effects are not less real because at first 

 gradual and unperceived in their approach. They 

 know too little of the animal economy and of na- 

 ture's laws, and are too much devoted to their own 

 object, to be impressed by cautions of this kind ; and, 

 in looking- forward to the ball-room or crowded 

 evening-party, few of them will believe that any 

 possible connexion can exist between breathing- its 

 vitiated atmosphere and the headaches, indigestion, 

 and cutaneous eruptions which so frequently follow, 

 and to be delivered from which they would sacrifice 

 almost every other enjoyment. 



If it be said that nobody will be troubled with all 

 this trifling care, and that thousands who expose 

 themselves in every way nevertheless enjoy good 

 health and a long life, I can only answer that it is 

 true ; but that an infinitely greater proportion pass 

 through life as habitual invalids, and scarcely know, 

 from experience, what a day of good health really 

 is. The late discussions on the Factory Bill have 

 demonstrated, by an unassailable mass of evidence, 

 that many circumstances, rarely considered as in- 

 jurious, because they have no immediate effect in 

 suddenly destroying life by acute diseases, have 

 nevertheless a marked influence in slowly under- 

 mining health and shortening humaa existence. 

 There are trades, for example, at which workmen 



