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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



lation ; moreover, exhalations from the 

 surface of the bodies even of the healthy, is 

 constantly adding a considerable proportion 

 to the other sources of atmospheric im- 

 purity. Notwithstanding facts like the 

 above, people lie, singly or in numbers, for 

 six or eight hours every night, breathing 

 over and over again the same contaminated 

 atmosphere ; they sleep heavily, and rise in 

 the morning, wondering perhaps that they 

 feel even more languid than when they lay 

 down at night ! 



The notorious cases of low lodging-houses, 

 and other such resorts, are not now alluded 

 to ; but the less -suspected nurseries and well- 

 furnished apartments even of the higher classes 

 — many of which, with door, window, and 

 chimney closed, and heavy curtains drawn 

 round heavy sleepers, are perfect hot-beds of 

 disease. It is time such ignorant, culpable 

 disregard of all the principles of health 

 should cease. We spend on an average one- 

 third of our lives in our bed- rooms, for the 

 purpose of refreshing the body ; how im- 

 portant then to have them as airy as pos- 

 sible, with free entrance for the good air, 

 free exit for the deteriorated ! If the door 

 of a room must be fastened at night, let it 

 be by a chain-bolt ; or if it must be locked, 

 let the upper panels be perforated, or the 

 window fitted with a pane of perforated 

 glass or zinc — at all events let air in some- 

 how. Keep the chimney open, that it may 

 carry off the impure ; this it will do, par- 

 ticularly if fitted with an Arnott's venti- 

 lator. Breathing the air in crowded as- 

 semblies of people is only occasional, and 

 generally for a short time ; it can do com- 

 paratively slight mischief. The air we 

 breathe for one-third of our lives, cannot 

 be vitiated without the most serious injury 

 to health, and curtailment of life. Many 

 a mother has mourned over the untimely 

 grave of a child; little suspecting how the 

 close hot nursery had undermined the 

 young constitution, before the fatal cold 

 or epidemic snatched her treasure away. 



Diet, clothing, exercise — all claim serious 

 attention ; still more, for old or young, the 

 purity and ventilation of the sleeping apart- 

 ment. 



Burning candles, or lamps, vitiate air in 

 the same manner as the respiratory process 

 of animals. They consume oxygen, and 

 form carbonic acid ; consequently they are 

 undesirable in close rooms at night, or indeed 

 at any time, if there is insufficient renewal 

 of the air. A fire in the bed-room is re- 

 commended as a means of ventilation, and it 

 undoubtedly is so as long as it is burning 

 briskly — if kept well replenished, and if the 

 chimney draws well; but when, during 

 the hours of sleep, the fire gets low, and the 

 draught up the chimney is diminished, the 



air vitiated by the burning embers is very 

 apt to become diffused through the apart- 

 ment ; and with it, sulphurous and other 

 fumes. This point is one frequently over- 

 looked ; and from the very injurious con- 

 sequences which may result, requires strict 

 attention. Plants or flowers, kept in a sleep- 

 ing apartment, are another not unfrequent 

 source of impure air ; for although living 

 vegetation, under the influence of sunlight, 

 has the power of abstracting carbonic acid 

 from the atmosphere, which in fact it con- 

 tinually purifies from the effects of animal 

 respiration — in darkness, the case is reversed. 

 Not only do leaves cease to absorb carbonic 

 acid, but they give it out. When it is re- 

 membered, that in a school in which pupils 

 had been taking lessons for three hours, 

 with doors and windows closed, the amount 

 of carbonic acid has been found to be eight 

 times the average ; that much less than this 

 causes uneasiness, that a little more may 

 cause death — enough has been said to prove 

 the necessity for preserving the air we 

 breathe in a state of the highest possible 

 purity, and of avoiding every known source 

 of deterioration. In the room of sickness, 

 the necessity is increased tenfold ; both for 

 the sake of the patient, and of those around, 

 the air must be kept pure. In the few cases 

 in which ventilation cannot be had recourse 

 to, Liebig recommends the use of slack lime 

 spread on a board. This quickly absorbs the 

 carbonic acid of any closed space in which 

 it may be placed, and fresh air must rush in 

 through the crevices, to supply the place of 

 the former gas. Et scarcely requires mention, 

 that all decomposing substances, in what- 

 ever situation, cannot fail to render the air 

 impure — moist vegetable matter particularly ; 

 damp decaying wood, sawdust, straw, &c. — 

 all exhale carbonic acid, and in close places 

 may also originate serious disease. It is 

 worthy of note, that whilst decomposing 

 dead animal matter does not seem so 

 materially to affect health, the morbid ex- 

 halations from living animal bodies poison 

 the atmosphere to such an extent as to oc- 

 casion the most malignant fevers. 



Locality, it is well known, exerts much 

 influence over the purity of the atmosphere. 

 The air of towns must of course be less 

 pure; principally from admixture of sul- 

 phurous vapor, the product of combustion. 

 The air of the coast is stimulating and 

 strengthening; probably in some measure 

 owing to its containing minute portions of 

 the sea constituents. The air of all damp, 

 low situations, is particularly unhealthy; 

 doubly so if the situation is surrounded by 

 elevations which prevent atmospheric 

 changes. Intermittent fevers, and diseases 

 of a neuralgic character, prevail in these 

 places ; the noxious influence is generally 



