Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-12-02

them With an indescribable nastiness that the
stomach resents until it becomes paralyzed
into ins ensibiiity and against which the aching
head makes indignant and persistent protest
Few OF us would care to enter the bath which
bad already served predecessor, yet the wa
ter possibly were less offensfveIv soiled
than the air of the apartment into
which we plunge with reckless indif-
erence. The nausea which assails Won
in the confined cabin below the water line
or in the musty pestiferous sleeping holes of a
Pullman car, disappears when YOU have access
to the free air, as does the drowsiuess which
possesses you in church, and which Won have
ascribed to the prosy sermon. When the pub
lie can be made to realize that one-half the
men, women and children who are falling dead
around us, have died before their time from
preventable diseases, and that most of these
are directly or indirectly due to impure air
they will appreciate how momentous is this
problem of keeping clean the atmosphere we
breathe. Yet air as deadly may be found in
the sumptuous palaces of princes and million
aires. Men build costly mansions and
heedlessly fit them with contriyances
designed to aid that Incidence of luxury
which spares the haccid muscles the slightest
effort, and which, through their unsanitary
construction, destroy their children and them
selves. The victims or typhoid and dphtheria
sleep without waking on satin cushions in
rosewood collins. Our own children go to ill
ventilated schools by day and sleep in ill ven
tiiated rooms by night The invalid teacher
fretted by the cares of her vocation, enfeebled
by her Sedentary life and cherries solitude
tries to supplant her failing heat-producinp,
power by closing windows and doors and build
ing fires, until the crimson which the sunlight
had stamped on the child'S cheek fades and
she too shivers at the fresh airs touch You
too, suffer headache from foul air-you are
tired and listleSs from foul air-you sleep dis
turbed and awaken unrefreShed from foul air
ten in every thousand of you die yearly from
foul air. Happier by far to sleep on a rude
pallet in garrett, through whose matched roof
the stars twinkle, than on the downiest couch
INT tan nNnn III 81 -
whose heavy hangings stifle the still air. which
curtained windows have imprisoned and fire
and sewer have poisoned Better SILVER as
they do in Europe around a porce-
stupor from breathing the mephitic
atmosphere of an apartment overheated by
the furnaces and fues by which modern in
genuity contributes TO the defilement of the
air. accomplished by coal gas, illuminating
gas, sewer gas, and human exhalations The
one gift Of which nature has been so munifi-
cent that peasant and prince alike can boast
a boundlesS wealth of 1.-THE one whose purity
she has so carefully provided that it can only
be polluted by combining it-thet of all others
most essential to the healthy maintenance Of
the body is fresh air. Chief food of the we'll
most potent of remedies for the Sickt Place
the convaleseent where the bright sun warmed
air can kiss her pallid cheeks; lead the care
worn man from the murky recesses of his
office to the seashore, where the fresh breeze
comes Skipping over the waves; send the
swarms of feeble, emaciated children from the
dark, damp courts and cellars OF the city into
the green fields, with their air perfumed by wild
flowers, if you would witness the magic that
can be wrought by this invisible agent. But,
is health only possible in the sunshine, on
the seash0re, or upon the open fields! No!
The air Of the city may be as pure as that of
self of ia puritieS. The nursery and schoolroom,
the chamber and the office, the court room
the theatre and church can all be habitable, if
human intelligence will lend itself to this one
.1a 80 1l1, II
will realize that invisible impalpable filth is as
noxious as that filth which offends the sight
and touch, and infinitely more to be dreaded
Learn to shun this and the great victory of
sanitary science will have been won
1t is almost supererogatory to do more than
suggest that the law of cleanliness involves
cleanliness of the body itself as of the habili-
ments with which it is clothed and the comi-
Gle it inhabits One need not be physiolo-
gist to understand what wondrous influence a
clean skin has upon the harmony of the func-
tions how many pounds of effete material are
cast off by it during the day, and how neces-
sary that this human refuse should be re-
moved The dry and grimy skin is neither
healthful, comfortable nor beautiful. If the
prize OF health be not incentive enough, nor
the sense of comfort be an inducement to fire.
quent bathing. the clear complexion and soft
smooth velvet surface of the clean man and
clean woman should induce every human
being 70 avail himself or herself of
this cheap balm of beauty Man breathes
have succeed ed in convincing you that the airy
aliment with which the inner man is fed must
be innocuous l would have you not forget
that the outer man cannot Wallow indolently
in the human waste, which the processes Of
life accumulate about and upon him, without
falling from that high caste of physical man
hood to which his superior development en-
titles him. Time will not permit me to enter
into the details Of the toilet, beyond insisting
that matutinal washing of the face and hands
and an occasional ablution of the feet are not
oil fhn Of L.. HI
The undergarments freighted with their load
of organic debris must be changed and
cleansed. and the porous surface of the body
freed from the dry, horn-like !coating of epithe-
lial scales, which neglect allows to form and
interfere with tbs cutaneous exhslation. Man
is prominently the creature of habit The
child trained to be clean from birth will look
upon sponge and bath and tooth brush as in
d1spensable, and will walk all Its days on the
Clearly path on which its mother first taught
it TO pick its footsteps. The sordid teeth and
fetor-tainted breath are not only dishgure-
mentS of the fairest face but shameful evil
dences of maternal neglect and iucapacity.
With this might cease to claim your atten-
ton. When the lungs are hourly filed with
pure air and the clean body is bathed in its
sunlit ocean, the enlivened blood will crave its
proper food, and the awakened appetite NAV
be safely trusted to select it. Food has hitherto
engroSsed the attention of hygienists to the ex-
clusion or this weightier matter of fresh air.
Eat what you please Of the good things of this
life only be sure to eat enough. Renounce the
heresy that it is wise to rise from the table
with hunger unappeased, and above all do not
send the little helpless dependents ON your
bounty supperless to bed, to have their empty
stomachs rack them with III quiet slumber.
The gaunt-eYed gaze Of the poor, underfed
shop girl Is sadder sight than her scantiIy
clad form, but saddest sight of all
is the spectacle of the poverty stricken
mother spending her little stock of
hardearned pennies for drugs for the feeble
child. which. like herself, needs only abundant
food to be well. The discussion Of 6ietaries is
matter OF secondary Importance. Accustom
the child to be omnivorous. The eccentricities
of the palate of later life are often the results
of caprices gratified during childhood. Let the
food be good and wholesome, plentiful in quanti-
ty, and not ruined by the cooking National and
sectional habits become idiocratic, and are not
easily eradicated. The Yankee stomach de-
lights In pies and baked beans, while hog and
the pie board from the North and the trying
pan from the South, and thousands will live
who now perish The cook is mighty power
Amid the smoke and vermin Of the kitchen he
wages war on the people who despise him. He
sugars the venomed pill and sweetens the
poisoned draught, and with disdainfu con-
tumely bids you eat, drink and die. Dignity
his calling. and expound its mysteries to the
ruler OF the drawing room. Let the young
mistress OF the house know that culinary
chemistry is as elevated study as the physO-
logical chemistry by her brother, and that the
changes to be rung in -four and butter and
sugar, and milk and eggs, are not mere
1.-The average school child is liable to be
subjected to a greater or less number of the
Following approved educational practices or in
cidentals OF school management: A long en-
forcement of constrained or military atti-
tudes, and the compelling girls, in particular
to stand for protrscted periods o. time; the
prolonged sitting at desks, whose height or re-
lation TO the seat forces the child into a cramp-
ed position; a lack of supervision over the play
crowded rooms; dusty or impure air
and poorly regulated temperature; insufficient
or improper lighting Of the rooms; lack of care
TO prevent the increase OF myopia and deaf
ness. Few teachers understand that the my
opic eye Is always sick eye Excessive
studying out of school, irregularity in meals
insufficient recreation, the excitements and
worry Oh examinations. the struggling for high
marks, steady mental application without re-
ference to changes in bodily functions or phy-
steal Strength-all these unite to impair the
health and often prematurely break down the
constitution OF growing children. That these
are not imgainary evils it is unnecessary to
argue Actual observation long ago established
the facts The Medical Record NetU York
November 10, 1881, p. 54S.
doctor Smith Townshend, Health Oficer of
the City of Washington, in his annual report
submitted to the Commissioners of the
District of Columbia, November, 1881. states:
In many instances, In this and other cities.
hot air furnaces are located in unventilated
cellars, and, having no cold air duct from the
outside, the inmates of the entire building are
forced to breathe the cir taken up from the
cellar The cellar is probably made re-
ceptacle for all refuse from the rooms above,
there is an accumulation of ashes and filth in
the corner, an imperfectly drained surface and
a defective sewer trap and sewer opening in
the floor, with other insanitary conditions
generating impure les were to be taken up by
the ducts of the furnace and conveyed above
for use as lung food by the unfortunate and
unsuspecting occupants Instances are known
where the furnace has been set in a nit in the