The National tribune., 1889-02-21
Written for THE NATIONAL TRIBuNE1
HEALTH HINTS
For Old and Young.
BY FELIX L. OSWALD, NJ. D.,
Author of Physical Education Household
Remedies; The Bible of Nature" etc.
CHAPTER ".
VENTILATION,

tions of modern dweling-h house often lead to
rather unexpected results. There was time
when Frost, " the Giant Hrymir," as our Scan
dinavian forefathers called him, was the most
formidable enemy of the human race. In the
higher ATTITUDES at least, where scaut popula-
tion of hunters was far outnumbered by the
game of the wilderness, the danger of starva-
5ion was less imminent than the risk of freezing
to DEATH and the habits of that time still in
fuence the popular notion which ascribes nine
out of ten ailments to the effect of low tenn
perature.
Caught cold, suppose" is the ready ex-
PLANTATION for the consequences of our numerous
sins against the health-la of nature, and the
plan to exclude every breath of the cool outdoor
atmosphere has consequently become the chief
solicitude of modern housekeeper. Double
windows, close-fitting doors, plastered and
papered walls and "weather-strps," besides cur
tains and shutters, suffice to solve that problem
on all but the coolest days, but it so happens
that our weather-forts bar out friend as we'll as
an enemy. Fresh air is the food of our lungs,
as necessary as our daily bread for the preser-
walton of perfect health, and the same weather.
tight walls which enable us to enjoy an atmos-
phere of artificial Summer by storing up the
warmth of our bearth-fres, has become a direct
cause of disease by Obliging US to breathe an
air as unit for respiration as sewer water would
be for the purposes OF q healthy beverage. Every
time we breathe our lungs absorb a certain
quantity of oxygen, the DEMONSTRATING element
of the atmosphere and by a constant repetition
of that process repeated perhaps for days by
half dozen lungs the air of an unventiated
room at least becomes almost devoid of its
ung-nOurishing ingredients and so offensive TO
our natural instincts that savage, used to the
pure breeze of the highlands, would sooner pass
night in a snOw-covered forest than in the
foul heat of crowded city tenement.
That the tenants of such pest-air dens can
WI he py-
planned only by the compromising tendency of
that same second nature which at last en-
ables an opium eater to swallow his repulsive
drug without direct disgust. In other words,
our instincts, after repeating their vain protest
for a certain length of time at last desist from
hopeless task; but their silence by no means
implies that their appeal has been disregarded
with impunity The opium eater and the
dram drinker do not escape the ruinous effects
of habit which practice at last enables them
to indulge without absolute repugnance, and
the breathers of foul air are not the less apt TO
contract a variety of respiratory disorders
when habit at last enables them 10 nhale their
gaseous posons without direct distress. The
baneful consequences of neglected ventilation
would, indeed, make millions of dwelling
houses as many laZaTettos OF pulmonary con-
sumption if modicum of lifeair did not gen.
! orally manage to penetrate the walls or win
| dows an spite of all precautions. Hence the ap-
|
| half-savage backwoodsmen are superior, from
sanitary point of view, to all but the best-con-
structed homes of wealth. There is very
suggestive belief, remarkably prevalent in
many country districts of our Southern States
| that a man achO builds neD house lcaL not long
surUiUe his rem0Ual from the old homestead. In its
popular Interpretation that result is often con-
nected with retribution of ostentatious pride,
| and from that point of view the idea might APP
pear as absurd as the "unlucky Friday" super
stition, but its practical verifcation is too fire.
qnent to be aScribed to accident alone, and can,
| indeed, be fully explained by the circumstance
that the new house" will in ninety-nine of a
hundred cases prove to be more alright than
the old cabin.
My old woman did not want to leave the
cove" said Tennessee cattle-dealer who had
| saved few thousand dollars aud bought new
| brick house in a little railroad town, and I'm
blamed if | amt getting sorry we ever moved.
This isn't big place, but it's too ALFRED town
like for folks that's used to the mountains"
! You don't like the noise, / suppose, or that
| dust in Summer time," I suggested
Dust? Why, bless your soul, I've swallowed
that by the bushel-bag in driving cattle" said
the old fellow, land it never seemed to hurt
me the least bit ] never had such thing as
a cough, nor my boy Tom either, and now we
are a'grunting and hacking all night long. No
it must be something else. Them cold bricks
all over. They mix alum with their town
flour, they say, and we mOuntain-folks amt
nsed to that. The water, too, don't taste right,
and what they call whisky here is nothing but
factory acid, blame it. And don't you think
the air gets poisoned by those four smoking
trains passing here every day in the year? My
brick shanty isn't more than a hundred yards
from the depot, and the air is black with coal
smoke every time q train stops"
| took a look at mis- brick shanty.n Tt was
a two-story building standing on high ground
in a grove of old oaks and other trees, leafy
enough to filter the atmosphere from any oc
casional admixture of smoke fakes, which
after all, could drift in that direction only
under exceptional circumstances of wind and
weather, and then only for q few minutes day
There were no factories in the little town.
"a Look here, SIR" said l. after calling his at
tention to those circumstances; look at thost
closed windows, and I'll tell you the secret o
the whole trouble in few words; your air Il
all right enough, but the mischief is yor
wouldn't let it reach the inside of your house
Your folks keep the windows closed all night
/ suppose?"
"In night timer Why, of course, they do
Up in the mountains we had no windows t,
open, but we closed our door every evening
and bolted ii, too"
Eyes, / remember, I saw you bolt it; but yoI
had that big chimney, you know, and opei
chinks enough to see the stars all around
, Don't you see that you had all the fresh al
, you needed? Where can you get it now
Stoves for open chmneys, brick walls for tur
key-pen logs and not shingle missing. Yol
ought to keep at least one window open in you
bedroom, in warm spring-weather, like this
and put on an extra quilt or two if the night
I do get little COOL"
''Twouidn't be no use telling my old woman
said he with regretful shake of the head
? "she wouldn't do that for $40 bill, even il
0 hot Summer. At night you have to keep tn
| draft out, or there would be row right away
she would ask me what bought tight hous
4 for, if / don't keep it shut. And in daytime
would not like to do it, on account of tina
- blamed railway smoke"
A year later they put him to rest where rail
way smoke could trouble him no more.
The careless architecture of log cabin re
suits, indeed, in an unintended adyantag
which often counteracts multitude of san
tary mistakes. In the paradise of the souther
J Alleghanies thousands of highlanders barte
: their milk and honey for coffee and chewing
tobacco; they feed their children on pasty corr
bread and rancid bacon, and only too often us
} their corn for the worst of all possible pul
poses; but exercise in open air and the thol
\ ough Though quite unintended) ventilation
their shiftless cabins atone for all that and
spite of bad food and worse drinks, the preir
] dice haunted mountaneer lives to good oil
| age; for the chinks of his rail-pen home say
] him from the effects of the worst of all hygien