400 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JUNE 25, 1S34. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 25, 1S3-1. 



HEALTH AXD CLEANLINESS. 



In our last (page 398), we gave some remarks 

 on the importance of pure air and pure water us 

 indispensable to health, and the methods by which 

 farmers may best convert the poisonous gases, 

 which emanate from manure heaps, &c. into food 

 for plants. Since writing that article, we have 

 hail our attention directed to an essay i:i the Com- 

 panion lo the British Almanac, which relates in 

 part, to the same subjects, but does not fall imme- 

 diately nor exclusively under the cognizance, nor 

 within the province of the cultivator. But, as 

 every human being has a direct and all important 

 interest in these topics, we shall make no apology 

 for the following extract as a substitute for less 

 valuable mailer of our own fabrication. 



We are all thoroughly aware of the necessity of 

 breathing; and the agreeable freshness and reviv- 

 ing influence of the pure morning nir must con- 

 vince us that the breathing a pure atmosphere is 

 conducive to health ; yet we as carefully exclude 

 the air from our houses as if its approach were 

 noxious. Intending to shut out the inclemencies 

 of the weather only, in our care to guard ourselves 

 against the external air, we hinder that renewal of 

 the atmosphere, which is necessary to prevent its 

 becoming stagnant and unfit to support animal life. 



Few persons are aware how very necessary a 

 thorough ventilation is to the preservation of 

 health. We preserve life without food for a con- 

 siderable time, hut keep us without air for a very 

 few minutes, and we cease to exist. It is not 

 enough that we have air, we must have fresh air; 

 for the principle by which life is supported is taken 

 from the air during the act of breathing. One 

 fourth only of the atmosphere is capable of sup- 

 porting life ; the remainder serves to dilute the 

 pure vital air, and render it more fit to be respired. 

 A full grown man takes into his lungs nearly a 

 pint of nir each time he breathes ; and when at 

 rest he makes about twenty inspirations in a min- 

 ute. In the lungs, by an appropriate apparatus, 

 the air is exposed to the action of the blood, which 

 changes its purer part, the vital air (oxygen gas), 

 into fixed air (carbonic acid gas), which is not 

 only unfit to support animal life, but absolutely de- 

 structive of it. An admirable provision of the 

 great Author of nature is here visible, to prevent 

 this exhausted and now poisonous air from being 

 breathed a second time : — while in -the lungs the 

 air receives so much heat as makes it specifically 

 lighter than the pure atmosphere ; it consequently 

 i;ises above our heads during the short pause be- 

 tween throwing out the breath and drawing it in 

 , again, and thus secures to us a pure draught. By 

 the care we take to shut out the external air from 

 our houses, we prevent the escape of the deterior- 

 ated air, and condemn ourselves to breathe over 

 tt^ain the same contaminated unrefreshing atmos- 

 phere. 



Who that has ever felt the refreshing effects of 

 the morning air can wonder at the lassitude and 

 disease that follow the continual breathing of the 

 pestiferous atmosphere of crowded or ill ventilated 

 apartments. It is oidy necessary to observe the 

 countenances of those who inhabit close rooms 

 and houses, the squalid hue of their skins, their 

 sunken eyes, and their languid movements, to be 

 sensible of the bad effects of shutting out the ex- 

 ternal air. 



Besides the contamination of the air from being 

 breathed, there are other matters which tend to 

 depreciate its purity; these are the effluvia con- 

 stantly passing oil' from the surface of animal bod- 

 ies, and the combustion of candles and other burn- 

 ing substances. On going into a bed room in a 

 morning, soon after the occupant has, left his bed, 

 though he be in perfect health, and habitually 

 cleanly in his person, the sense of smelling never 

 fails to be offended with the odor of animal efflu- 

 via, with which the atmosphere is charged. There 

 is another case still more striking, when a person 

 fresh from the morning air enters a conch in which 

 several persons have been close-stowed during a 

 long night. He who has once made the experi- 

 ment will never voluntarily repeat it. The simple 

 expedient of keeping down both windows hut a 

 single half inch would prevent many of the colds, 

 and even fevers, which this injurious mode of 

 travelling often produces. Outside passengers, 

 though they may suffer a little more from cold and 

 wet, generally escape those every day complaints 

 of those who pay double their fare. If under such 

 circumstances the air is vitiated, how much more 

 injuriously must its quality he depreciated, when 

 several persons are confined to one room, where 

 there is an utter neglect of cleanliness ; in which 

 cooking, washing and all other domestic affairs are 

 necessarily performed ; where the windows are 

 immovable, and the door is never opened but 

 while some one is passing through it ! On enter- 

 ing such a den of filth, the nose is saluted by a 

 stench so horrible, as to make any person unused 

 to it, recoil and pause before he ventures in ; but 

 the wretched inhabitant has his sense of smelling 

 so blunted that he does not perceive that, with 

 every breath he takes, he inhales a poison, which 

 is sapping the vigor of his body, and destroying 

 the energies of his mind. 



A constant renewal of the air is absolutely ne- 

 cessary to its purity ; for in all situations it is suf- 

 fering either by its vital part being absorbed, or 

 by impure vapors being disengaged and dispers- 

 ed through it. Ventilation therefore, resolves itself 

 into securing of a constant supply of fresh air. 



In the construction of houses, especially in those 

 built for the poor, this great object has been too 

 generally overlooked, when, by a little contrivance 

 in the arrangement of windows, and doors, a cur- 

 rent of air might, at any time be made to pervade 

 every room of a house of any dimensions. Rooms 

 cannot well be ventilated that have no outlet for 

 the air ; for this reason there should be a chim- 

 ney to every apartment. The windows should be 

 capable of being opened, and they should if possi- 

 ble be situated on the side of the room opposite to 

 and furthest from the fireplace, that the air may 

 traverse the whole space of the apartment in its 

 way to the chimney. 



Fire places in bedrooms should not be stopped 

 up with chimney boards. The windows should 

 be thrown open for some hours every day, to 

 carry off the animal effluvia, which are necessari- 

 ly separating from the bed clothes, and which 

 should be assisted in their escape by the bed being 

 shaken up, and the- clothes spread abroad, in 

 which state they should remain as long as pos- 

 sible ; this is the reverse of the usual practice of 

 making the bed, as it is called in the morning, and 

 tucking it up close as with the determination to 

 prevent any purification from taking place. At- 

 tention to this direction with regard to airing the 

 bedclniiies and bed after being slept in is of the 



greatest importance to persons of weak health. In- 

 stances have been known in which restlessness 

 and inability to rind refreshment from sleep would 

 come on in such individuals, when the linen of 

 their beds had been unchanged for eight or ten 

 days. In one case of a gentleman of very irrita- 

 ble habit, who suffered from excessive perspira- 

 tion during the night, and who had taken much 

 medicine without relief, he observed that for two 

 or three nights after he had fresh sheets put upon 

 his bed, he had no sweating: and that after thai 

 time lie never awoke, but that he was literally 

 swimming ; and that the sweats seemed to increase 

 with the length of time he slept in the same sheets. 

 By not permitting him to sleep in the same sheets 

 or night clothes more than twice without their be- 

 ing washed, he instantly lost his debilitating affeo- 

 tion. 



ITEMS OF INTELLIGENCE. 



fcTTlic Death of the vencrabh and illustrious Generai 

 Lafayitti: occurred on the morning of the 20iA of May 

 last. He uas born 1st Sept. 1757. 



We learn from the National Intelligencer, that a mew- 

 sage was on Wednesday transmitted to Congress by the 

 President of the United States, communicating official 

 information of the unfortunate accident at Toulon. It 

 appears that three of the guns of the Frigate United 

 States had been inadvertently left shotted, all of which 

 were discharged during the salute, and mnst of them di- 

 rectly into the French ship of the line Suffren. by which 

 two men were killed and two wounded. The Presi- 

 dent recommends to Congress that pensions be author- 

 ized for the families of the unfortunate victims of the 

 accident. — Mer. Journal. 



Foreign. Richard Lander who discovered the mouth 

 of the Niger, and who accompanied the late trading ex- 

 pedition up that river, is said to have been murdered by 

 the natives at a place two or three hundred miles up 

 that river. A treaty, it is now believed was sign- 

 ed at London on the 22d of April, between England, 

 France, and Spain, to bring about a settlement of the af- 

 fairs of the Peninsula. The Queen of Spain to send an 

 army to Portugal. Miguel and Don Carlos to be exclud- 

 ed. England to furnish a naval force if necessary. News 

 had been received at Lisbon of the entry of a Spanish 

 army of 10,000 into Portugal. Parliament bad voted 

 decidedly against Mr. O'Connrll's proposition to repeal 

 the Union bill — majority 480. 



The Planet Jupiter. Professor Airy, by a very master- 

 ly process has determined the mass of Jupiter, by obser- 

 vations of the elongations of the fourth satellite, and he 

 has proved that the magnitude assigned by Laplace is 

 erroneous, and finds that the mass of Jupiter is more 

 than 323 times that of the earth, being the 1048-G9th 

 part of that of the sun ; a truly valuable result in phys>- 

 ical astronomy. — White's Ephemeris for 1834. 



Frost. There was a heavy frost in this place on the 

 night of Saturday last, which did much damage in the 

 gardens and fields. Corn, beans, cucumbers, &c. are 

 entirely cut down in many places. Some persons have 

 been through their fields with shears, and cbpt the corn 

 even with the ground — others are planting again. Grass 

 and English grains generally, look promising. Notwith- 

 standing these " nipping frosts" retard the labors of the 

 husbandman, and render his prospects of an Indian 

 corn crop extremely dubious, he has the assurance that 

 seed time and harvest shall never fail, and has no reason 

 to distrust the goodness of Him who watereth the hills 

 from his chambers, and satisfietb the earth with his 

 works. — Newport, N. H. 



Darid Sherman (who got drunk with cider brandy and 

 murdered his wife) was executed on Friday last. 



