The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-03-06
Warm Sleeping Rooms.

Warm Sleeping Rooms.
The foolishness of the old fashioned
prejudice against warm sleeping rooms
is very sensibly shown by a corre-
spondent of the Queen. Says the writer:
90 1t surely requires very little common
sense to see that it must be thoroughly
bad for nine people out of ten to spend
their evenings in warm, comfortable
rooms, with the thermometer at sixty
degrees, and then to take their depart
ure for chilly bedrooms, along cold pas
sages, and to undress in temperature
of thirty degrees or thirty-tive degrees.
Even the strongest constitution must
suffer more or less by such an insane
proceeding. AS well might one expect
to escape injury to health by standing
for half an hour in the street with no
extra clothing than what we have just
been wearing in the heated room. Any
man or woman deserving to be credit
ed with common sense would before
doing anything so rash as to expose
themselves to the cold of the street take
the precaution of putting on hat and
cloak. In proceeding, however, to
chilly bedrooms, with the thermometer
twenty degrees lower than that of the
room we have just emerged from, we
actually stand about for ten or twenty
minutes, leisurely divesting ourselves
even of the garments that were deemed
necessary as a covering in our warm
sitting room. What is the consequence?
Obviously the immediate effect is that
the heat of the body flies off and leaves
us with so much less vitality. 1t is true
we are expected to jump into bed with
chattering teeth, and get warm between
the cold sheets; but this is mockery,
and only one more evidence of the utter
ly unscientifc way in which we arrange
everything in our households. 1t is but
another instance of the absurd force of
habit and custom. What may be q
very good thing in summer, when the
cool contact of clean linen sheets helps
to cool the heated body, is the reverse
of pleasant or sensible in winter, for
linen being better conductor of heat
than wooden coverings of course rapid
ly abstracts more heat from the already
half-chilled body, and leaves the poor
victim of custom actually colder than
before. Now, the immediate effect of
going to bed in midwinter in bedrooms
which are not warmed is in the highest
degree dangerous to the weakly and
the old, and even to the strong, for
such experiments as the sudden alb
straction of vital power or warmth,
which this rapid lowering of the whole
temperature of the body must cause,
cannot be endured without helping,
however slightly, to impair the consti-
tuition. Our hardest soldiers succumb
to diseases that find their way into their
systems through such chills as are
caught in exposure of this kind; and
even in our houses, safe and comforta-
BILE as we may imagine ourselves, it is
quite possible-nay, it is quite certain
that many children, delicate women
and old people are actually killed
through the ignorance and thoughtless-
ness of those who have charge of them.
1t should be a maxim with all who
value their health, that they can never
lose bodily warmth without at the same
time losing vitality. Whenever they
feel that they have lost heat, their
first duty should be to restore
warmth to the body. This brings us
to an illustration which, perhaps, more
: than anything else, will convince the
housewife of the truth of the foregoing
remarks. Whenever a child or other
inmate of a house is suffering from
cold the first indulgence the patient is
allowed is fire in his or her bedroom.
The fact that this is looked upon as the
first essential to cure by the medical
man sufficiently proves that warmth is
essential to cure, and surely, if
warmth is a good thing as cure, it
would be much wiser to use it as pre-
ventive, if there be any truth in the old
saying that I" prevention is better than
cure" The favorite argument against
warm bedrooms is that it is weakeningi
But, like all other half truths, it is only
true in extremes. Sleeping in badly
ventilated hot rooms may be weaken
ing; but sleeping in temperature of
fifty degrees, or even sixty degrees can
not possibly be so. If it were, then
healthy sleep in the summer would be
impossible. The usual prejudice as.
sumes that warm air cannot be fresh
another absurd notion which one would
think it hardly worth while to rebuff.
1t is, of course, essential that the heat
ing apparatus-be it stove, fire.
place, hot-water pipes, hot air ducts, or
gas stoves should not consume the
oxygen from the room without at the
same time provision being made for
the admission of fresh air from with
out. This fresh air from without need
not, however, come into the room in q
cold state. 1t may be first warmed by
passing near to the fire or heating
apparatus. Providing the above pre-
cautions be taken, there is no fear of
warm rooms being injurious to health,
while there is not the least doubt that
cold rooms and cold passages, into
which delicate women and children are
constantly passing out of warm rooms,
are fatal to health and are everywhere
causing deadly havoc in our midst.