EFFECTS OF DRYING. 101 



vapour, simple or compound, could be arrested by such a 

 defence ; but it is easy to suppose the detention of organ- 

 ized and comparatively bulky bodies electrical and glu- 

 tinous, or moist. 



However intense may be the virulence of a miasmatic 

 atmosphere, its powers are greatly abated by artificially 

 drying it. Hence, wood-cutters and waterers on the coast 

 of Africa, find it advantageous to kindle a number of fires 

 in the vicinity even of their sultry work. Lind attributed 

 the greater health of the ship Edgar, compared with that 

 of her consort, to the location of her cooking apparatus, 

 " between decks." Folchi, a Roman writer, says, "many 

 persons are known to me who have, during many years, 

 preserved themselves from fever, in the worst parts of the 

 country around Rome, by adopting the most rigid cau- 

 tion in retiring within their houses before evening, closing 

 the windows, warming the rooms, and taking care not to 

 go out in the morning until the sun has been some time 

 above the horizon." Old John Kaye speaks of the ex- 

 emption of cooks and smiths from the sweating sickness. 

 (Sudor. Angl.} There is no other poison, save that of 

 the fungi, so far as we know, which is thus disarmed by 

 dryness and heat. In any view of the case, the fact is 

 inexplicable unless we suppose an organic cause, to which 

 the absence of humidity is antagonistic. 



Immemorially, the sleeping in damp sheets has been 

 thought hazardous to health ; but the keepers of hotels 

 and boarding-houses know that the danger is very slight, 

 unless the sheets have been put away in a damp state, and 

 have acquired a mouldy smell. The constant practice of 

 the hydropathists shows the little hazard of a wet sheet, 

 while daily experience demonstrates the certainty of at 

 least stiffened and painful muscles, and an arrest of the 



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