The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905, 1852-07-14
Night Air.

Ii is n prevalent idea that night air Is
not so healthy as the atmosphere when
under the influence of light This opinion
must have originated from some cause, or
else it must be set down among old wives
fables. No one ever had an opinion that
the composition Of air waschanged during
the night hours, but certainly it Is well
known, that air and atmosphere. are two
different things. The atmosphere may
become perfectly corrupt, and in many
PAGES it becomes so, bat air is a fixed
composition, therefore, when it becomes
mixed with superabundance of carbonic
acid or any other gas, it is no longer air.
Tie atmosphere-that ocean in which we
continually bathe, and on which we con-
tinually feed, often becomes unfit for res
piration by extraneous matter floating in
it, under the different names of miasma,
Infection, &c. 1t has been said, the be-
{lief.of night air being injurious, is an er-
ror, which has hindered the introduction
of ventilation more than all other" This
Z We do N tsbelieve, for it is well known
TINT the effluvisof marshes is the most
! dangerous during night hours, and those
!. who are cxposed to the night air in any
country, except upon the ocean, never en-
Joy such good health as those who. are
protected from its influence. Thedomes-
b tic animals, such as COWS and horses, which
Z are housed every night in summer, "do
better" as the farmers say, than those
which are exposed to the free ventilation
of chilling damps, and the extraneous gas
cs which sluggishly float near the earth's
Esurface at night, owing to the absence of
the sun, which, during the day, carries
! them up like the dew, above the stratum
{ in which we live and walk. No one ever
supposed thst the pure atmosphere had
anything to do with causing the death of
persons exposed at night within the trop-
les; nor does it produce the cough Of the
consumptive and asthmetic, nor the Ian
gour and piserywhich the sick SO frequent
ly experience.
These and other suferings experienced
more particularly at night, are caused by
4 carbonic acid, absence of sunlight, rapid
reduction Of temperature, the air being sat
urated with moisture, &c, and not by that
/ air without which we cannot live three
minutes. 1t is absurd to suppose that
fresh air supports our life and destroys
our life and gives us health at one and
the same time. The same thing cannot
) possess the utterly incompatible character
of good and evil, Of supporting life and
destroying it. It is all nonsense to talk
about pure air being hurtful to life and
, health, atsany season by night or day !;
but while carbonic, acid, absence of sun
light, rapid reduction Of temperature, the
atmosphere saturated with moisture, DC,
at night are the causes of sickness and
suffering, it is no error to believe that the
night atmosphere is oItentimes injurious
to health. A belief in this need not pre-
vent good ventilation, for if cotton cloth
screens are placed in windows during
night hours, a free ventilation is obtained,
and the air is somewhat rarified, before it
enters the apartment; this meets all the
necessary conditions Of freedom from cx-
posurc, and n plentiful supply Of as good
air as can be obtained. Those who be-
lieve that constant exposure to night air is
not injurious, have never had the good for
tune of trusting to that notable appendage,
PLACED, so prominently on mans front for
detcctor, viz; good olfactory explorer.
Scientific 1mericon.