The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-02-05
Pure Air.

MANS own breath is his greatest enc
my is the appropriate motto which Mr..
! Leeds has placed on the title-page of his
little volume. Lectures on Ventilation. BY
Lewis w. Leeds and its significance it is
/ well for all to consider That the health
! of the body is maintained, i'll some way or
other, by a constant supply of oxygen.
and that this can only be obtained from the
air, is, in a general way, comprehended, as
is also the fact that the air we breathe may
contain certain injurious elements ; but the
matter of ventilation in all its details is
shrouded in a cloud of mystery as appall-
ing in its results as it is incxplicable in an
age of such general enlightenment.
That the subject is one worthy of careful
study, our readers will at once admit, if
they can believe, with Mr.. Leeds, that
more than forty per cent. of all the deaths
III American cities every year are caused
by feul air, and that the comfort and use
fulness of the remaining sixty per cent. are
greatly abridged from the same cause
Consumption has come to be considered our
national disease, yet it, with its large class
of associate complaints. sis almost entirely
the result of breathing impure air, and is
as preventible by the exclusive use of pure
! air as mania potu or drunkenness is by
the exclusive use of pure water
The arts of civilization have done much
for our comfort. Air-tight stoves, con-
structsd OH the most economical principles,
and hot-air furnaces, keep us warm in our
hcrmetically- rooms during the cold
est winter weather. great advance surely
Oh the g-cabins and large open fires of
our fathers but the race has become mar
row-chested and thin bloetled. and one
fourth of the children die before they are a
year old-as surely, and much less merc-
fully, smothered to death as was Desdem-
ona.
The air Of cities is supposed to be cor
rupt, and those who can afford the time and
money flee to the country during the sum-
mer months for fresh air but such is the
effect Of the constant motions and currents
analysis, but little difference is found in the
purity of city and country air. There is
nothing in this country like the city of
Manchester in England, "where two mil
lions of tons of coal are burned annually,
the smoke from which fills the air. and
stretches like black cloud far into the
country. Thus, added to the five hundred
tons of carboRic acid thrown from the lungs
of its animal life every day arc many times
that amount some two thousand tons
daily pouring ont from its forest of factory
chmneys." Yet the outdoor air of Man
chester is only as impure as that of room
fifteen feet square and ton feet high would
be made "by father, mother, and three
children, with gas-light, i'll seven min
utes.' sit is not in the external atmes-
phere that we must look for the greatest
impurities, but it is in our own houses that
the blighting, whitening curse of foul air
is to be found
Mr.. Leeds says-aud we think the facts
warrant him in saying it: 81 therefore
believe that family living in the filthest
street in our city, if they were careful to
have constant current of air from that
street, filthy as it is passing through the
house at all times, night and day, would
bo more healthy, other things being equal,
than family spending their winters in the
finest hon e, if kept alright, in the heal
thiest location in the city, and their sum-
mer in the country, especially if they were
always careful to exclude the atqht air from
their bedrooms
Now, this matter of night air, of which
we hear SO much, is greatly misunderstood.
In malarious districts the external atmos-
pherc is undoubtedly more dangerous after
nightfall at certain seasons, and hence,
probably, has originated all the rubbish we
hear about avoiding tile night air. As DR..
Die Lewis asks i'll L book of his on health
g In the night, what air can you breathe
but night air? The question is, shall it be
pure or poisonous - In fever districts
some may, OF two evils conclude that the
confined air Of a close room is preferable,
though, for our part, with our body thor
oughly protected, we should rather con-
front the dangers of cut door than those
Of confined air, anywhere But at all
events, with this exception, the air at night
is as harmless-nay, more healthful and in
vigorating than in the daytime. Dr. Lewis
says that he cured his wife of decided con-
sumptive tendencies by causing her to sleep
between two open windows. and expo sed to
a constant draft. This thoroughly accores
with Mr.. Leeds theory, and, we venture
to say, with the experience Of every per-
son who has given it n fair trial. Mr.. Leeds
says: " have practieed for many years
sleeping with my windows open every
night, summer and winter, allowing the
unebstructed breeze to flow across my bed.
to the great improvement of my health and
strength"
An almost universal fallacy in regard to
ventilation is. that in the winter it is less
necessary than in the summer. Go into
nihety-nine out Of every hundred of our
churches on a cold winters day the stoves
or furnaces will he in full blast, and the
windows and doors tightly closed After
sitting an hour and Il half and inhaling
over and over again the air which has ira
verscd, and brought impurities away from,
the passage, of five hundred or or thou
sand lungs, mention to your neighher that
the air is oppressive and the house ill-ven-
tlated. "Oh no" he will reply, g was
cold as it was Most persons never think
of ventilation, except as precautionary
measure against excessive heat and the
church is filled in the morning, then tightly
closed until the evening, when the csnere
CATION again enter an atmosphere only a
little less foul than that of the Infamous
"black hold" but to be rendered still more
foul before the evening shall end and she
brain grows dull, the head aches. the ser
Eon is uninteresting but, unless the room
is warm, there is no need of ventilation
We have entered gentlemen's parloss and
sitting rooms the odor of which L. $500