The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-08-05
BED ROOMS AND THEIR VENTILATION

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The heats OF summer, which are now upon u.s.
bring with them their accustomed types of disease
the most violent, not the most deadly of the ellis
which flesh is heir to- As many of the disorders
incident to this season of the year have their ORIGIN
in badly aired beds and indiferently ventilated bed
rooms, few cautions these subjects may be
public benefit. The Philadelphia Ledger has the
following:
A bedroom ought to be the largest room in the
house, ought to have the highest ceiling, ought to
be so constructed to be ventilated with the
greatest ease. Yet all these rules violated in
our bedrooms. All that be done, therefore, is
to ventiate them in the best manner their CON
struction will permit, for supply of fresh air is
indispensable to health
Investigation has shown that every adult person
vitiates four cubic feet of air every minute. Now
if bed room is occupied for eight hours the
amount of air vitiated is more than seventeen
hundred cubic feet. If two adult persons occupy
chamber, the quantity vitiated in eight hours is
about thirty-fve hundred cubic feet. If children
also sleep in the room, the amount is much increased
man and wife occupying chamber ten feet square
and eight feet high will render all its air unfit for
respiration in two hours.
In ordinary apartments, the cold air is be-
low; and the hot above-the purest below, the i'm
purest above. Hence, low bedstead, as general
rule, is healthier than high one; being taken,
however, not to have it so low as to be swept by
currents. Beds on the floor are injurious for exam
ple because the draught from under the door often
goes over them Wherever there is an open fire
place. there is continual suction of air towards it
bed should never be made upon the floor. Cur
rents of air Indispensable nevertheless, if
room is to be kept healthy. But it is not always
easy to establish such a current If we open a
window at the bottom, when the temperature of a
chamber is higher than that out of door, no ex-
change of air is produced and the effect is the
same if we open window at top, when the air
without is hotter than the air within. To ventiate
a room, under such conditions, we must reverse
this process. The popular notion, which is an er-
roneous one is that it is only necessary to raise a
window to produce ventilation, no matter what the
conditions may be. Holding a candle in the aper-
ture will show when current is established, and
when not.
The best method of ventatng a room in summer
is to have door-frames and window frames fitted to
their various openings, and covered with wire CLOTH
mosquito netting, millinet, or other loose fabric,
through which air will pass freely, but in dffused
manner. Where economy has to be consulted the
free opening of windows and doors will generally
answers but it is best to open ALL rather tn an only
one, If this is likely to create draught over the
bed. Where current of air cannot be avoided, or
where such a current is desired for its cooling eff
fects, it should be made to flow equally over the
whole person, this destroys the liability to take
cold.
1t is always best to open window at both top
and bottom. In this case, if the air without is hot
ter than Within the current enters at the top and
passes out at the bottom; but, if the air within is
hottest the current is reversed. Often, on going
to bed at this season, the last is the case but be-
fore morning, the chamber becomes cooler than out
OF doors, so that the sleeper is walked up by a
draught across his person, which did not exist when
he retired. careful attention to these facts, and
an adaptation of them to varying circumstances,
will do much to prevent disease.
THEATRICALS IN PARIs-Tbe excessive heat is said