just mentioned contains less than 1,500 cubic feet of space, and 

 how is this for breath capacity for two persons ? To be sure this 

 room opens into the kitchen, and thus gives some more air, but 

 what kind of air would you expect to find in a room at the end of 

 an evening where the whole family has been gathered, and where 

 possibly some cooking has been going on at the same time ? 4nd 

 does the farmer or she the good wife usually take pains to venti- 

 late the room just before going to bed ? 



But now in spite of this dreadful state of things some, yeS, 

 many people, do raise a family, rear the children to manhood and 

 womanhood, and how is this about ventilation, if you do violate a 

 law of nature ? So the Escjuimaux eat and relish for a dessert a 

 pound or so of tallow candles. Some Chinese feed on worms, not 

 quite so fat and large as our tobacco worms, and still I believe 

 there is better food even for them than are these. 



And on the other hand, sometimes the wife begins to go down 

 hill with consumption, a child dies in convulsions, by pneumonia, 

 cholera morbus or infantum, and then at the funeral there is a 

 wonderful submission to the will of the Lord at this most myste- 

 rious dispensation of Providence, when the I'eal thing submitted 

 to has been the foul air of the sleeping and living-room for past 

 months or years. 



There are some gases almost instantly fatal to life. Carbonic 

 acid is one. But physiology tells us that there is no poison so fa- 

 tal to the human race as the exhalations of the human body it- 

 self. Carbonic acid probably kills by keeping away the oxygen 

 fi'om bodily tissues, but the decayed, impure and poisonous vapors 

 cast off by our own bodies not only crowd the pure air out, but 

 convey directly back into our bodies this fermenting poison of de- 

 cay and death. 



Another point of interest concerning the purity of 

 the air is the location of it. I mean its position nearer or farther 

 from or under the surface of the ground. Analysis of the air, 

 chemical and otherwise, shows most conclusively that near and 

 under the surface of the ground it is much more injurious to the 

 health of man than that several feet above it. Hence the lower 

 story of most of our dwelling houses, and specially that of our 

 old-fashioned houses, which merely " squat " on the ground, is not 

 a suitable one for sleeping-rooms. I fulty believe that not an in- 



