The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-11-20
VENTILATION.
DR.. HICKS ON THE VALUE OF PURE ARA
LECTURE BEFORE THE TEACHERS INsTI-
TUTE OF WILMINGTON, DEL.

DIR. HICKS ON THE VALUE OF PURE ARA
! LECTURE BEFORE THE TEACHERS INsTI-
TUTE OF WILMINGTON, DEL.
The regular monthly lecture before the
/ Teachers Institute was delivered at the
High School, by Thomas +. Hicks, NJ. D.,
on "Eentiation. He said:
"Of the mysteries of human life we
know but little, but we know something
of its phenomena and of how life is main
tanned. There is constant process of
growth and decay in the human body.
The worn out particles are carried off and
their places are supplied by new. 1t is
said that the particles of the human body
are entirely changed in the period of seven
years, but as the new particles that take
the place Of the old are formed in the like
ness of the old, the same personal appear
ance is preserved. Our bodies are made
over new, but the new body is SO much
like the old that we do not know the differ
ence.
Of the work of eliminating the waste
material from the body, the lungs do a
great part. The blood is purified by con-
tact with the air in the lungs. Air once
breathed has lost five per cent of oxygen
and taken on five per cent of carbonic acid.
1t is therefore not lit for breathing again.
There should be provision for constant
change of air in sleeping rooms, parlors,
school houses, halls and churches. Instead
of this, persons are frequently shut up as
closely as possible. They breathe again
the exhalatons from each others lungs
and bodies. In this way serious diseases
are often engendered. 1t has been said
that a mans own breath is his greatest
enemy What then can be said of the
practice of so closely combining an assem-
blage of persons that each man must not
only breathe his own, but the breath of
others over and over again.
1t is commonly thought that if room is
cold no ventilation is needed, but cold air
air. Indeed, as heat is motion, heat pro-
notes ventilation. 1t is easy to ventilate a
warm room, for in that case the persons
occupying it can be comfortable warm,
the escape Of the impure air and for the
intowing of pure air from without.
In cold days IN the Fall, churches and
halls are tightly closed until the atmos-
phere is positively pestilential, and if one
speaks of ventilation, the answer is: 'Oh.
it is too cold already.
Fires should be made up, ventilators
should be thrown open or the windows let
ventilation or change of air, is not fit for
any human being Or for any breathing ami
NAL to occupy.
Churches are now so ill-ventilated that
it is a question whether one does not COM
init more sin by going into them than by
staying outside; for the pure air of heaven
better promotes the spirit of worship than
the muggy, offensive, impurity- laden, NAL
shuts in and saves up from Sunday to
Sunday.
Every church should be thoroughly aired
after each service. There should also be
change of air during services. The same
may be said of school houses and school
sessions. 1t is difficult to study we'll in
confined atmosphere. Many persons are
broken down in health during their school
course, not because they have studied too
hard, but because they have been COM
PEELED to study in poisonous atmosphere.
We hear much of going into the coun-
try, to the seaside, or to the mountains, for
a change of air. But many are poisoned
as they go by the atmosphere of the steam
boat cabin, the railway car, and the hotel.
Why should we in entering the houses of
God, where there should be the incense of
Heaven, be oppressed and almost stifled
with befogged and foul atmosphere? -
The speaker made few remarks in con-
clusion on the practice which prevails in
some countries of dressing so that the
lungs do not have full play. The lungs
are vely yielding and easily compressed
Many fashionable ladies never use the air
cells in the lower lobes of their lungs
These cells have been closed by pressure
Their breathing must necessarily be imper-
feet and insufficient, and their strength of
both mind and body must be, in that de-
gree, impaired.
The speaker thought it possible to find
higher object Of living than to be in fash
ion; that the rounded and we'll developed
forms of nature were more beautiful than
the deformities of the Partisan fashion
makers. There was better day coming
in this respect, and as teachers had the
training of the girls, the coming generation
of women, it was their duty not only to
teach them the physiological facts on this
subject, which are found in the books, but
to set them in their own persons right
example.