The Press., 1889-02-07

inebriates, who had passed their days Ill open air, had preserved their respiratory organs intact, whatever inroads their ex- cesses had made on the rest of their sys- tenn; that if he should go into practice, and undertake the cure of pulmonary dis eases, he should begin by driving him out into the Deister Ga densely-wooded noun tain range of Hanover), and prevent him from entering house for year or two. But it is quite possible to make the air of houses as pure and fresh as the Deister and it is the only thing that will put in- door people Cincluding women. who are practically everybody in the end) on equal terms of health with outdoor people.
 Says traveller, a sleeping car is a vile invention, a machine in which civilization goes back to barbaric conditions for the sake of the nineteenth century craze of fast travelling. At night twenty or thirty are shut up in small room, ill-ventilated, with steam heat. The atmosphere is only dilute extract of that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The fear which possesses so large portion of civilized humanity of draughts is wonderful. There is no mis- take about the fact that drau ghts do hurt | them. But why should they? There is no greater luxury op earth than to sleep
 with fresh breeze blowing over you. It is the true way to sleep. Oxygenize the blood, and awake with clear brain aud a
 vigorous body. It is habit, commenced in childhood and continued in mature age,
 which forbids to ninety nine hundredths of the race this healthful enjoyment of the
 free air /; and thus the man or woman who sleeps in bed anywhere near a keyhole is sure to awake with a cold in the head or pneumonia. No system of ventilation for
 railway cars can ever be made successful so long as this characteristic of the
 people remains as it is. You might as
 well expect to invent perpetual motion or square the circle as to ventilate car with fifty people in it except by allowing free admission of air, so that the passengers
 will not be compelled to breathe what oth- CTS have exhaled, it neay be, contaminated
 with contaeium-at least, it is not in its purity otherwise.
 To cite cases of similar exposure which
 have resulted in pneumonia would be
 quite needless before an audience of phy- sicians. But one I have in mind which
 impressed me,-a notice ill the papers at
 the time, ,-the exposure which caused the sickness and death of General Hazen.
 The white house enjoys the unenviable
 reputation as place for taking cold, the
 rooms soon being over- heated by the
 crowds that assemble there, without the
 aid of the large chandeliers that give off
 heat like so many furnaces. The only
 ventilation possible is by the windows,
 that send cold blasts directly upon the
 people, or by stray currents from draughty
 vestibule and open portico Pneumonia
 has often followed one of these indoor
 dress parades.
 1 At the signal office, the first foundation
 of the fatal malady which carried off their
 chief is traced to visit he made with Cap
 tain Greedy to house which it was pro-
 posed to purchase for the use of the signal
 service. This house was so chilly and
 damp that all felt the penetrating chill,
 and next day he was i'll from its effect He immediately afterwards subjected him.
 self to a similar exposure as above men,
 toned, which resulted in pneumonia and death.
 A soldier of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry says he began at Shiloh and ended his march
 to the sea. It was an active regiment at
 the front, encumbered with tents or com ! forts, and exposed to all weather. After a
 rain their clothing dried upon them. They ) slept with water running through their blankets, and perhaps some of the men
 awake i'll the morning with their hair froz-
 en III the mud. But none of them caught
 cold. He says he swan the Tennessee
 river in floating ice at midnight, then rode : till morning with his clothes frozen to his arm pits, without harm to himself or his comrades. The only illness he admits of was from the excessive comfort of fire in ? a log cabin 1; also that since in his service , in Utah and Colorado, he never saw an
 Indian with cold, though they stand the } same exposure with the horse they ride. } Damp localities, with insufficient cloth
 ing, are properly considered among the
 causes of pneumonia. Those who indulge
 immoderately in stimulants are more lia- , ble to it, on account of reckless exposure. Ample exercise in the open air gives great CT exemption to attacks than indoor occu- } pations. If several -persons are attacked in the same house, some local cause, such ) as excessive moisture and neglect of drying the apartments by ventilation, will be dis covered also exposure which will rapidly lower the surface temperature of the body.
 Here may properly be cited the reason why people of fatalistic belief are more li- 7 able to it. They believe that if they are , not to have it they will not no matter if . they expose themselves ever so greatly. They do not govern themselves by a ra- : tional prudence.
 ! read an extract from letter from Mar . sovau, Turkey. The people had asked the government officials to be vaccinated, on account of small pox. One hundred and
 fifty persons had died already. The an. 3 swer was, It is from God what can we do ? 5 The people are fatalists, and did nothing 3 to stay the hand of the plague. They 3 have not learned the Anglo Saxon virtue 3 of keeping their powder dry while trusting in God.
 : We need not go out of our own state to - find examples of criminal neglect, even on |. the part of mothers of the ignorant class ? to protect their own children from contag a ion and diseases of the winter months 0 originating in this barbaric idea of fatal
 ism.
 The winter cough, to which so many are l. liable in the Northern States, bears similar - relations to pneumonia that diarrhea does D to dysentery-of these lesser diseases the ' one subsiding as warm weather approach e es, the other with autumn frosts. Perhaps o the most striking features of the onset oi ]. pneumonia are, severe chill, pain in tht s side, oftener the right, rise of temperature g and rapid respiration. The general ap s pearance of the patient and the whole trair g of symptoms are so striking they need no l. to be reviewed. We don't have to wal {. long before we have, by ausculation ant r percussion, evidence which confirms tn. n outward signs. At the earliest we hay, # the normal sounds and resonance. In ex