14 
POPULAR SCIENCE REViEW. 
own lungs. Let ns take sitting-rooms first. To be sure, in 
very cold days in winter, when fires are in tlie room, and in 
very hot days in summer, when the windows are opened, the 
air is well changed. But there are the warm days in winter, 
when the fire is let out, and the cool days in summer, when 
the windows are kept close, and the whole of the spring and 
autumn months; and at these seasons the Englishmans sitting- 
room is filled with an atmosphere injurious to his health. If 
he has a drawing-room, the only set-off to this state of things 
is found in its size. If he has, however, a drawing-room, he 
will probably give parties or soirees ; and perhaps it is on 
these occasions that his utter ignorance of the worth or value 
of fresh air will be most obvious. The drawing-room is 
generally lighted with gas, which is turned on to the highest 
point, and then the room is crowded with visitors, even on to 
the stairs. The atmosphere is cruelly oppressive, the guests 
are almost fainting ; but the suggestion of an open window — 
of a draught — is repudiated as something offensive to the 
delicacy and amenities of genteel life, and fresh air is voted 
by all as vulgar and a bore. I am quite aware of the danger 
of sitting or standing in a draught, although I believe that 
is much exaggerated ; but rooms are to be ventilated without 
draughts; and if not, people need not get into them. The 
colds you take at parties are not the result of draughts, but 
the very opposite. The majority of colds arise from the want 
of pure air, and not from cold or cold air. 
But we pass from sitting and day-rooms to bed-rooms. It 
is here that everything is done to keep in carbonic acid and to 
exclude oxygen. What with the smallness of some rooms, 
the destitution of fireplaces, and windows that will not open, 
beds with posts and curtains, and blinds, the bed-room may 
indeed be called the Englishman's Black Hole. The insane 
fear of a draught, with the delusion that night air is preju- 
dicial, undoes almost everything in bed-rooms at night which 
may be done by open-air exercise or healthful occupations in 
the day. The sleeping-rooms of the rich are frequently kept 
so close that even domestic animals would suffer, were they 
compelled to sleep in them, whilst those of the poor are so 
odious that it is almost a wonder health is ever found amongst 
their occupiers. This terrible disregard of the purity of bed- 
rooms is seen everywhere : — in the hammocks of our ships, 
in the cottages of our labourers, in the barracks of our 
soldiers, and in the houses of the middle classes and the 
opulent. The neglect of the ventilation of bed-rooms is as 
common among sensible people, who flatter themselves they 
know the value of fresh air, as among the helplessly poor and 
ignorant of our population. 
