152 



ON FRESH AIR. 



where the wholesome breeze can gain no ad- 

 mittance, and where the foul vapours issue 

 from the feverish mouth, and return to it, and 

 from thence to the lungs, which are barely able 

 to perform their duty. The windows are con- 

 stantly shut, and the door most carefully closed ; 

 by which mischievous custom the lungs have no 

 chance of receiving a fresh supply of air from 

 without, and at last the patient sinks in death 

 for want of it. If those in typhus fever were 

 conveyed to an open shed, screened on one side 

 against the blowing wind, with a sufficiency of 

 clothes upon them, very little physic would be 

 required, for the fresh air would soon subdue 

 the virulence of the disease in nine cases out 

 of ten. 



When a person finds that he cannot sleep at 

 night, if he would open the window and take a 

 few turns up and down the room, there can be 

 no doubt but that sweet sleep, " placidissime 

 somne Deorum," would return with him arm-in- 

 arm to bed. "Wonderful is the degree of heat 

 which is generated by the human body when 

 prostrate on a soft bed. Those parts of the sheets 

 which do not come in contact with it, will of 

 course retain their w r onted coldness ; and then 3 



