New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-02-25
THE AIR WE BREATHE.

One of the most instructive of tho
many publications by the Ladies' SAM
tary Association Of England is an adj
dress by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, en-
titled 1.-THE Two Breaths." This paper
has been published in this country by
Putnam's Sons f0a the Hampton
Tracts, and nothing oould be more
timely than the information it furnishes.
1t is unfortunately too true that thou
sands of persons in this city, and in all
parts of the country, resort to every
means to avoid ventilation of their
homes, and especially of their sleeping
rooms. Many people have an idea that
night-air is unhealthy, and, therefore,
during the hours when the families are
asleep, the houses must be closed
against the entrance of air from with
out. This practice is fatal to health.
It is poisonous to human life. 1t is
breeding and propagating disease, and
q war against Nature.
The 1.-TWO breaths'' spoken Of are
the breath We take in and the breath
we give out; and it cannot be too
strongly impressed upon every person
that the breath which has been breathed
out must not. be breathed in again. DIR.
Kingsley illustrates why this is so. If
q mouse be put in a close box, and a
person send his breath into that box,
the mouse will faint, and in time die.
II child be allowed to get into the
habit Of sleeping with its head under
the bedclothes, thereby breathing its
own breath over and over again, that
child will grow weak and i'll. 1t is a
matter of record that scrofula appears
in children previously healthy, which
fact can only be accounted for from
this habit. Another common thing is
for a number of persons to meet in .
crowded room, with fire and lights, the
doors and windows closed tight. A
faintness inevitably follows; and the
cause is that the persons present have
been breathing each other's breath over
and over again until the all becomes
unfit to support life. Thirty-six per-
sons dance all night in q close room,
with fire and lights, producing seven
cases of typhus fever and two deaths.
Put lighted candle instead of mouse
in . close box, and supply it only with
human breath, and the candle viii 20
out.
The breath we take in Is, or ought to
be, pure air composed as whole of
oxygen and nitrogen, with = minute
portion of carbonic acid. The breath
we give out is impure, to which has
been added, among other matters which
will not support lie, an excess of car
bonic acid. It is not necessary to be
scientific to understand this important
fact. It is only necessary to remember
that oxygen feeds the fire of life, and
carbonic acid puts it out. DR.. Kingsley
states:
"Thcse facts Justify the expression I
Just made use of, that the fire and the
candles in the crowded room were
breathing the same breath as you were
It IL but too true. An average fire in
the crate requires, believe, to keep it
burning, as much oxygen as three hI-
man beings do; each candle or lamp
must have its share of oxygen likewise,
and that . very considerable one: and
an average gas-burner-pray attend to
this, you who live in rooms lighted with
gas-coasumcs IS much oxygen Is six
candles or eleven men. All alike are
AAAAAA9 S~A OOAAS aCAus AA0 CsIOOulS
acid Of the fire happily escapes up the
chimney in the smoke; but the carbonic
acid from the human beings and the
candles remains topoison the room, un.
less it be ventilated
The deaths from. the fumes of char
coal explain the result of a want of ven
tilation. A human being shut up in
room from which all air is excluded,
with pan Of burning charcoal, falls
asleep, never to wake again. His in
ward fire completes with tho fire ol the
charcoal for the oxygen in the room;
both are making carbonic acid out of it;
the charcoal, being the stronger, gets
all the oxygen; the human being, being
the weaker, dies first. but the charcoal,
when it has exhausted all the oxygen in
the room, cools and goes out. An ele-.
plant in that room would put out the
burning charcoal by the carbonic gas
from its immense lungs, and then, when
it had exhausted all the air in the room,
would die likewise Of its own carbonic
acid.
Ventilation means letting ont tho foul
air and letting In the fresh air. The
carbonic acid in the breath from the
mouth is warm, lighter than the air, and
rooms there i layer q foul air along
the ceiling. The fact can be tested by
the fouler air found in the galleries Of
churches and theaters than i found be-
low. In crowded buildings those who
work or occupy the upper floors suffer
most. The first thing II ventilation -