The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-06-26
Health In the Farmhouse.


THIS is the season when fermentation
is progressing rapidly, and vile odors
are being generated to pollute the air
and to disseminate the seeds of such in
fictitious diseases as scarlet and typhoid
fever, diphtheria, cholera, etc. Farm
ers are longer lived than any other class
OF citizens-statistics showing their
average age at death for the last thirty
five years in Massachusetts, as being
65.57 years, while the average of ali
other classes has been 51.15, and the
average of mechanics laboring out of
doors, the next longest lived class, has
been 53.05, still it is great mistake TO
suppose that the rural districts are more
free from typhoid fever and other in
fectlous diseases than are cities and
large villages, The germs of typhoid
fever especially, a disease which now
causes about one-fifth of the deaths in
Massachusetts, are generated from the
sewage and other filth in and around
the farmhouse. The sewerage of cities
has been SO perfected, that in this re-
spect they have the advantage over
the country, and the largest number
of deaths from filth diseases is now re-
ported from the rural districts. Health
is the great blessing of life, as, without
this, other blessings can not be enjoyed !;
and farmers, long-lived though they are,
must see to it that they do not fall be-
hind other classes in the enjoyment of
what Emerson calls ssthe first wealth. :"
They must not sneer, as some of them
are inclined to do, at the scientific in
vestigations of the laws of health, call
ing them ole women's notions, for these
Investigations have resulted in the pro-
longing of human life nearly fifty per
cent. within the past three centuries.
The Massachusetts Board of Health af.
firms that as large proportion of the
population of the earth now live to the
age of seventy, as three hundred years
ago lived to the age of forty-three. This
may not all be attributed to better I'M
derstanding of the laws of health, as
peace as well as science has had her vic
tories in these centuries; but no intelli-
gent man can doubt but that the adj
vance in knowledge has largely consti-
tuted to the advance in the average of
human life.
One of the great drawbacks to health
in the farmhouse is the storage of vege-
tables in the cellar. These, if stored in
large piles in a warm cellar, will heat
and give off a noxious effiuvium in the
winter, and if left till warm weather,
will become very offensive and very
likely will generate disease. Vegetables
for stock should be stored in barn cellars.
or if these are wanting, in pits or
trenches dug in dry soil where they will
keep much fresher than in any cellar.
Those intended for family use may be
put into the house cellar, but in this case
the cellar must be kept as cool and well
ventilated as possible, and cleaned out
as early in the spring as the weather
will permit. If any one has cabbages,
or turnips, or onions in his cellar as late
as May he should understand that he
exposes his family to that terrible
scourge, typhoid fever. A very perfect
ventilation of the cellar at all seasons
of the year may be effected by
opening hole into the chimney.
In the large, old-fashioned chimneys
resting on an arch into which the ashes
were shoveled by taking up tile in the
corner of the fireplace, the best ventila-
blon pOtolUle may De secured Dy remOV-
ing shis tile permanently, and letting
the air of the cellar rush up the chimney.
as it will SO long as the chimney is heat
ed. When fires are no longer necessary,
and even before this, the cellar windows
may be removed, and if the cellar occu-
pies, as it should, the whole ground plot
and windows on all sides, the ventilation
will be perfect. In any event the old
vegetables, with perhaps the exception
of potatoes, should be taken out. Pota-
toes are not much inclined to decay at
this season of the year, but should be
looked over, sorted and chitted, and the
small and rotten potatoes as also the
sprouts and all rubbish of every kind,
removed, and the cellar whitewashed.
The kitchen of many farmhouse looks
nice and tidy, while the cellar is full of
disorder and filth. Such a farmer may
not be guilty of murder prepense, but
there is great danger that manslaughter,
possibly parricide, may be laid to his
charge.-Massachassetts Ploughnsan.