The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-01-03
Hints for People With Weak or Dis.
eased Lungs.

Hints for People With Weak or Dis.
eased Lungs.
DIR. NlEMEYER, of New York, has an
article in the last number Of the Popu.
lar Science Monthly. on "Lung Venti-
lation." He tells young people not to
frequent balls or dancing parties too
much, if they do not wish to die of con-
sumption. The dust - kicked up by
the dancers in a parlor or ballroom is
q terrible thing for the lungs, and SO is
the Overheating effect of the same.
He thus advises the person with lung
troubles:
The patient must, with scrupulous
cOnscientiousness, insist on breathing
fresh, pure air, and must remember
that the air of closed rooms is always
more or less bad, impure. No man,
however uncleanly, would drink muddy,
dirty water. Unfortunately, for de-
tecting impurities of air, the only organ
we have is the nose, and, in most per-
sons, the nose is of SO obtusc SENSIBLE
ity that it is of no service. Beside
dust, injury to the lungs is caused prin-
cipally by the products of respiration
(carbonic acid and watery vapor),
which act as poison on the lungs and
the blood. A party which occupies a
room for hours, breathing the same air,
might be compared to party of bath
ers drinking the water in which they
battle. The man who on the
street cuts off from his lungs
the "cold'' air, is like ruminant.
If this literally true comparison were
universally accepted and acted on, the
number of cough-complaints would be
reduced one-half.
The patient must keep the window of
his bedroom open. Night air is fresh
air without daylight; he who fears
night air is like child who breads
darkness; the air in the room after
the light is extinguished is also night
air. In close, crowded, heated rooms
the patient suffering from lung COM
plant respires consumptively. In win
ter artificial heat may be employed,
but the window must be opened above,
and thus we we have at once both
warmth and ventilation. In the city,
night air is always wholesomer than
day air, being both purer and stiller.
If it be objected that what suits the
blacksmith does not suit the tailor l
reply that may be true of a plate of
sauerkraut. But here the case is Just
the reverse. The blacksmith who has
no trouble with his lungs can stand
vapar-dust, heat, fatigue; but the one
who has pulmonary disease risks his
life if he has not always abundance of
fresh, pure air.
So far of the what?-lung ventilation.
Next, of the why?
On rising, let the patient drink fresh
milk (not coffee), which will be relished
all the more if one wakes with an incli-
nation to cough. Then let him approach
the open window. brandish the arms
over the head-which enables the lung
apices to inhale air more easily-and
for few minutes fetch as deep inspira-
tions of air as possible. He must fire.
quently take such deep inspiration in
the open air.
If the lungs do not become free, let
him introduce into them-not into the
stomach-something to act on the dry
mucous membrane-as the vapor of
water or of camomile-tea.
If the cough is caused rather by a
scratchy'' feeling in the throat, if it is
spasmodic, let him swallow or gargle
some substance that will quiet the
nerves. Cold water is best-in summer
ice-water; in some cases cooled fennel
tea is of service, but not syrup or any
hot drink.
The reader will allow me to recite
the case of a patient of mine. A year
ago, during his honeymoon, congratu-
lated him, and told him that a dry
cough with which he was troubled was
durable, provided he took care to live
in the open air as much as possible, in
uring himself to cold, sleeping in we'll
ventilated chambers, free from dust,
etc. But this advice was hardly rel
ished by the young pair. In October
they hired rooms in a house that had
just been built; its ''dampness they
remedied by keeping up fires steadily;
the windows were hardly ever opened,
as the house stood on windy corner,
and the husband was growing more
and more sensitive to cold; for this rea-
son, too, he seldom went out of doors.
In November he took to the bed, was
again about, but he gradually declined,
to the last hoping to recover.
| Different was the course followed by
Mr.. H-,who, emaciated and troubled
with a cough, had hemOrrhage from
contracting 'sevcre cold" He went
into the country and took as much ex-
ercise as he could in the open air,
and returned home with only slight
cough. At home he every morning
took warm bath with illusions of cold
water, avoided rooms with bad air, etc.
In six months he was free from his
cough, appeared to be well nourished,
and no longer had any fear of taking
cold.
If the reader will dispassionately com
pare these two cases, he will agree with
me that the first patient, who had never
had hemorrhage, fell a victim to the
action of foul air, while H used to
say, Il must give to my diseased
lungs, above all things, fresh air, as
the prime necessary Of life." Animals
never take cold, even in winter: there
fore among men it must be a result Of
wrong habits f air does any harm.
We know that goldfish quickly perish
when fresh water is not provided for
them; and when we were boys we used
to consider it cruelty to animals if we
made no openings for ventilation in the
boxes in which we kept cockchafers.
Levi Swartz, of Evansville, Pa,
was shot by a man named Croll, the
other day, and died from the effects
the following day. Mr.. Swartz had
climbed into a grapevine and was
gathering grapes when Mr.. Croll came
along with his gun. Seeing something
move in the vine he supposed it to be q
wild turkey or q pheasant, and dis
charged his piece at the object.
The police at Utica, N. Y, have
discovered that an obstruction placed
upon the Central Railroad tracks neal
that city recently, and which came neal
wrecking the night express, was placed
there by an insane man who thought
that God demanded !" that the railroad.
| l ch@,,0l t>x,n knl . ~A L.