Baton-Rouge gazette. [volume] (Baton-Rouge, La.) 1819-1856, 1850-06-22

Why Epidemics Rage at Night.

II was in one night that 4 900 perissled
Of the plague IN London of 1865. It was
ut night That The army Of sennacherib
was destroyed, Both III England and on
the continent n large proportion Of the
cholera cases, in its several forms, have
been observed to have occurred between
one aud two. O'clock in the morning.
The 'dangersof exposure to night mir"
has been 81 theme Of physicians from time
un,nenOrial but it is remarkable they
have never yet called in the aid OF cheIGiss
try to account for the fact.
It is st night that the stratum OF air
nearest the ground must always be the
most charged with the particles Of ami
mallzed matter given out from skin, and
deleterious gases, such "a carbosiic acid
| gas, the product Of respiration, and suipil.
uretted hydrogen, the product Of the
sewers. In the day, gases and vaporous
substances Of oil kinds rise i'll the air by
the rarefaction Of heat at night, when this
rarefaction leaves them, they fall by an
increase Of gravity, if imperfect1y mixed
with The atmosphere, while the gases evol-
vcdduing the night, instead Of ascending,
remain at nearly the same level. IL IL
known that carbonic acid gas at a low
temperature partakes so nearly Of the
nature Of II fluid, that it may be poured
out Of one vessel into another it rises at
the temperature at which it is exhaled
from the lungs, but its tendency is toward
the floor, or the bed Of the sleeper, In cold
and unventilated rooms.
At Hamburg, the alarm Of cholera at
night in some parts Of the city was 20 great
that ON sJlle occasions many refused TO go
to bed, lest they should be attacked un~
awares III their sleeps Sitting up, they
probably kept their stoves Or open fires
burning for the sake Of warmth, and that
warmth giving the expansion to any dele
ferrous gases present, which would best
promote their diIution in the atmosphere,
the means Of safety were thus nncon-
~sciously assured. At Sierra Leone, the
natives have a practice iii the sick1y season
Of keeping fires constantly burning in their
huts at night, assigning that the fires kept
away the evil spirits, to which, IN then
ignorance, they attribute fever and ague.
Latterly, Europeans have begun to adopt
the same practice; and those who have
tried it, assert that they have now entire
immunity from the tropical feyers to which
they were formerly subject.
In the epidemics Of the middle ages,
fires used to be lighted in the streets for
the publication OF the air and in the
plague of London, of 1865, fires in the
streets were at n time kept burning in
cessantiy, till extinguished by a violent
storm or rain. Latterly, trains of gun
powder have been fired, and cannon dis
charged for the same objects but it is
that these measures, although
sound in principle, mus necessarily, out
doors, be on too small a scale, as
against an ocean Of atmospheric
air to produce any sensible effect. Within
doors, however, the Ease IL different. 1t
Is quite possible to heat a room sufficiently
to produce a rarefactlon and consequent
dilution of any malignant gases it may
contain , and it is of course the air of the
room, and that alone at night, which
into immediate contact with the
a person sleeping Westminster
Rcgkct1.