6 
FRESH AIR. 
BY E. LANKESTER, M.D, 
O F course, all the readers of the Popular Science Review 
will feel that a chapter on fresh air is quite superfluous. 
Sensible and cultivated people are insulted if you hint to them 
that they are not fully acquainted with the benefits of fresh 
air. Yet it is so constantly the case that sensible and culti- 
vated people do not ventilate their sitting and bed rooms, do 
occasionally suffocate their babies in bed, and have children 
who suffer from all forms of scrofulous disease, and grown-up 
sons and daughters dying of consumption, that I feel it is not 
superfluous to write on this subject for them. I want them to 
reconsider the grounds of their belief in fresh air, and to see 
whether they have yet arrived at a due conviction of its 
importance. Have they fully considered the import of the 
fact, that their own life and that of the whole animal kingdom 
depends on the air in which they live ; and that depriving 
them of it for two or three minutes destroys this life ? In the 
great world into which all are born, God has made ample 
supply of this air : the waters of the sea are filled with it ; and 
wonderful are the devices for securing' a due supply of fresh air 
to the blood of the fish and the creeping things which abound 
in all waters. If we could all live in the open air, we should 
always have fresh air and secure a natural ventilation. But man 
requires heat. It is economy of food and strength to him to 
keep himself warm ; and in listening to his instinct for warmth 
te has forgotten to provide, at the same time, fresh air. His 
"‘arm clothes do him no harm ; but directly he hides his head 
under a covering, whether it be in a mud hut or a palace, his 
•orrows from impure air begin. Under these circumstances, 
hi> own breath, which flows away from him in the open air 
without injury, is retained and breathed again. All the com- 
i* rt-, tli- luxuries, and necessities of his life are sources of 
danger to him whilst he is in his house. His curtains, his 
■ hi furniture of every kind, collect the particles of 
mat :er which, rising into the air, render it impure. If the 
Ale--, of cleanliness herself were installed in every room of 
every bouse, she could not prevent the air from being rendered 
