Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-10-26
Death in the Cellar.

DedUu LII The cellar.
| MANY Of our ills come from below.
Most beneficent things are from above.
He builds wisely who builds on a rock
and looks well to his foundation. Ou1
| Boards of Health are demonstrating
that numerous fatal diseases come
from our cellars, sewers and water
closets, and no doubt posterity will
laugh at us for having these latter
within our dwellings.
Religious and scientific knowledge
is being more generally diffused among
the multitude, but sin and ignorance
are not easily overcome. We are, in
deed, in many, things, very enlight-
| ened people; nevertheless we know not
| yet how to build or how to live. We
possess a good deal of light, but know
not how to apply it. In every COM
munity we should have hundreds and
thousands of centenarians with their
natural vigOr undated. Many of us,
by reason of inherited infirmities and
ignorant living, are as good as dead
before reaching middle age. Those
whose ancestors have lived a goodly
life, caring for their bodies as well as
their souls, do not reach middle-age
till they have completed their forty
nine years. Seven times seven is the
period for graduating for life work.
But how is it with this generation and
age? Our children are brought up in
violation of the rules of health, and
many who survive might as well have
persisted with the millions who die in
infancy, for they possess neither
strength of body nor of mind.
We seem to have lost the power of
prolonging life. In this climate, we
are housed for six long months of the
year, with doors, windows, and even
the chimney-places carefully closed up,
that the offensive smells and poison
Gus gases from the cellars, sewers and
water-closets may effectually whiten
our cheeks and corrupt our blood. 1t
is well known that when the surface
OF the earth is frozen over, there is a
current of unhealthy gas all the time
entering the warm easements of our
dwellings and lodging permanently
with us in every room to enfeeble and
destroy life. Enter the sleeping
apartments of the majority of houses,
when the sleepers are leaving their
beds in the morning, and if your nose
is fit for it's work, it will tell a lament
able story of impaired mental and
physical powers and inexcusable ig-
norance. By-and-bye. the architect of
the future may bring us relief, but in
the meantime it ,behooves us all to
summon to our help the aid of com
mon sense, for where there is a will
there is a way, in this matter as in
most all others. We can do no more
this morning than point the attention
OF our readers to some suggestions
bearing on this exceedingly important
subject. I.s i541
When we lay in our winter supply of
coal, we first dampen it that it may the
more effectually emit deleterious gases
which, all winter, permeate the whole
house. Into our cellars, also, we put
potatoes, cabbages and other decaying
vegetable matter for nosegays.
Whence come consumption and all kin
dred diseases? We answer, from our
cellars in very many cases. Reader, if
you wish to save the life of your wife
and rear your children in vigor, know
the value of pure air, and attend well
to the subtle enemies which attack us
from cellars and sewers.
There are seven means of keeping
cellars sweet. 1. Buy vegetables and
other perishable commodities daily in
cities; and in the country, store them
in root house at some distance. 2.
Have the cellar windows open night
| and day, except in the coolest weather.
3. Have your furnace for heating the
house in the cellar, drawing in the
air from it all winter, and sending it
up the chimney. 4. Have every part
scrupulously cleansed' and swept fire.
quently. 5. Whitewash it all over
three or four times year. 6. Put in
coal perfectly dry. Z. Keep no live
stock of any kind in it.-N. Y. Wit
ness.
..s.s. - - 49, - rows a ezaH
After much discussion by the Bos-
| ton School Committee, it has decided