The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1880-01-23
COOKED AIR.

There ia one very good reason why people
take cold in winter time. Most of the we'll
to.do spend their lives when in DOORS in
cooked air. The lower down the thermometer
goes, the higher the burn ing coal is piled; all
the chinks and cracks are stopped that would
let fresh air in, and its main chance indeed, is
when the front door opens for twenty seconds,
or when the beds are made in the sleeping
rooms. In ;he living rooms of the family there
is no occasion, many people think, TO raise
the windows ever, except to wash them on pc
rodc clearing days, or to shut in the shutters.
So carpets and furniture and people, lungs and
skin are dried and baked in the hot dry rooms
until ingenious persons can bring out electric
sparks from their finger ends by skating rapid
" up and down the room in their woolen slip,
pers. Out from this kiln dried atmosphere
| into the winter streets and into the very cold
| or very damp air plunge the folks who live in
| these air tight rooms. They put on plenty of
wraps but they wear the same foot gear and
| they carry the same lungs out into the street
with them, and the same sensitive SIX in. Then
they go into friends houses and sit in other hot
rooms with all their wraps on, or they sit in
church pews, the women at least, heavily mui-
| fed in furs and woolens, for period Of two
hours why man will take off his overcoat
in church and women cling TO their jackets as
to an article of faith, is among the puzzles for
the wise to setle) Again they go out into the
damp streets and it is a wonder to all doctors
and thinkers that they do not all take and
keep too, that congested state of lungs and
membranes and chilled blood vessels that We
class under this one convenient term Of cold.
Perhaps the houses are not kept any warmer
than they ought to be- when people are taking
but little exercise. But certainly nearly al
Of them are too dry and lacking in constantly
renewed pure air. 1t has been before remarked
that folks who are extremely particular abou
wearing their own clothes, and who would bl
no means consent to take the cast off Carmen
of a neighbor, one and all of them are per
ectly comfortable to breathe over and owe
again the cast off and soilod air from eacl
others lungs, when it il cooked especially; to
in summer they do insist on a change of it
and do get their houses ventilated. Janitors {
public buildings, in a short sighted economy 0
fuel, will shut up all the apertures by whicl
fresh air might get in, lest they should sufc
some heat to escape thereby, and &relewardet
by sleepy audiences, especially when the ga
burners are at work, also draining the cooket
air Of what life il has. There are some people
many it is to be hoped, who open an inch or two
of their bed room windows every night to in
sure a modicum of fresh air 10 sleep by. Bu
these in the least do not care to have fresh all
to be awake in, seems, for they are content tt
have their furnace draw all its supplies from
tightly sealed cellar and from the stale atmos
phere of the ash boxes and vegetable bins ir
that subterranean apartment. When we live
in fresh air within doors as without with it
proper proportion of moisture for the skin anc
breathing apparatus TO keep up their healthy
tone, it is likely we shall have found out or,
way at least of how moi to take cold.-Philade'
phid Ledger.