VENTILATION. 129 



To this it may be replied that ventilation in our case, can- 

 not be had, without considerable expense. Can it be had for 

 nothing, by the industrious bees ? Those busy insects, which 

 are so indefatigably plying their wings, are not engaged in 

 idle amusement ; nor might they, as some would-be utilita- 

 rian may imagine, be better employed in gathering honey, 

 or in superintending some other department in the economy 

 of the hive. They are at great expense of time and labor, 

 supplying the rest of the colony with pure air, so conducive 

 in every way, to their health and prosperity. 



I trust that I shall be perrahted to digress, for a short time, 

 from bees to men, and that the remarks which I shall offer 

 on the subject of ventilation in human dwellings, may make 

 a deeper impression, in connection with the wise arrange- 

 ments of the bee, than they would, if presented in the shape 

 of a mere scientific discussion ; and that some who have 

 been in the habit of considering all air, except in the par- 

 ticular of temperature, as about alike, may be thoroughly 

 convinced of their mistake. 



Kecent statistics prove that consumption and its kindred 

 diseases are most fearfully on the increase, in the Northern, 

 and more especially in the New England States ; and that 

 the general mortality of Massachusetts exceeds that of almost 

 nny other state in the Union. In these Stales, the tendency 

 of increasing attention to manufacturing and mechanical 

 pursuits, is to compel a larger and larger proportion of the 

 population to lead an in-door life, and breat he an atmos- 

 phere more or less vitiated, and thus unfit for the full devel- 

 opment of vigorous health. The importance of pure air can 

 hardly be over-estimated ; indeed, the quality of the air we 

 breathe, seems to exert an influence much more powerful, 

 and hardly less direct, than the mere quality of our food. 

 Those who, by active exercise in the open air, keep their 



