Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-12-01
JBe QaiIp G5roaieIf.
POLLUTED AIR.
One Of the Great Dangers to Health.
IN, 7


[Dr. J. NJ. Gregory.l
Fresh, pure air for breathing stands
in the front rank of the conditions Of
life and health. And, unfortunately,
this condition is the one most frequent
ly and most fatally violated by all classes
of society. Food, drink and exercise
are required onl y at intervals, and may,
IN case Of need, be dispensed with for
days together but breathing must be
constant, through every minute of life,
by night and day. Loaded though 1t
be with dust and dirt. with foul and
deadly gases, with miasma and germs OF
disease, the air must be received into
the lungs. Volumes have been written
to prove and enforce the truth that pure
air is life and health, and that foul air is
disease and death but still we sin, and
suffer for our sin, against this truth.
Let it be known that no school-room
occupied, as is now the custom, by the
whole school, during all the school
hours, can be sufficiently ventilated to
make it entirely healthful. Let any
Psychologist be asked to make the COM
mutation of The air needed, and he must
confirm this statement. From the mo-
ment the children are assembled the air
of the school-room begins to deterio-
rate +; and, since no system of ventila-
ton sweeps the whole body of impure
ain out at once, the best it can do is to
keep the mixture from becoming as bad
as possible.
The first rule should be to use the
minimum of confinement for each pupil.
The second should be to keep the fewest
possible seated at their studies in the
same room. Every pupil that can be
trusted to study his lesson elsewhere
should be advised to visit the school
room at lesson times only; and, instead
of the foolish ambition to keep every
seat filed, let it be sought to have as
many vacant seats as may be possible
without remitting any of the teaching.
1t is not, however, in crowded parlors,
ciub-rooms, lecture halls and schools
alone that impure air is to be feared.
In all houses bad air can be found.
Dust and moldy damp haunt the rooms
reserved for special occasions, while
those In daily use are saturated with
the breath, smoke, steam and gases
from all the household life and work.
And frequently the source of corruption
is found in the very soil which the house
covers. This is especially the case with
those houses built in our prairie towns,
where, without removing foot of the
soil, or opening a foot of drainage, the
house is set upon a few low posts, and
then boarded around to prevent the cold
winds getting under the floor. In the
winter it is not uncommon to bank it
with straw or even with barn-yard litter.
The half-decayed mass beneath, in the
dark and damp, Tnvisited by sun or
wind, generates poisonous gases, which
are sucked up through every ereviee in
ueatlrrui ruiIuteiiv6. '5uun uutsrs' are
death-traps. ! have known more than
one family to pine, and even perish, in
such dwelling.
Half of the ill-health of women over
that of men must be charged to the in
door life which forbids them the life
giving influence Of heavens free. pure
air and sunshine. a--r-
Our houses want more windows,
larger chimneys, more transoms. more
CRATE fires In winter, and less poisonous
furnaces. 1t is to the stoves within our
own bodies, fed by abundance of fresh
air, that we must look for heaIthfulest
heat, and not so much to the stoves
whose porous iron plates offer SO little
resistance to the deadly carbonic-acid
gas. We make our houses comfortable
at the expense of their healthfulness
when we shut out Gods sunshine and
pure air. Better, in this respect. the
wlnd-searched howell of the poor men
than the padded homes of luxury and
wealth.
Especially should our sleeping-roop,.
be made larger, and be better ventilated
Better the open window and the night
AR, often so foolishly dreaded. than the
90" poisoning which the bad air gives,
ana which leaves the sleeper TO awake
weak and unrefreshed by his slumbers.
NO more serious mistake is made in our
mouse building than that of the small
peo-chambers. Sanitary science says
tilat these apartments should be the
largest, sunniest and ARREST of all in the
no'''e' Let them never be on the ground
noo, ana let the bed be rolled at night
li'o the middle of the room, SO that the
"Ai may move freely around the sleepers.