The National tribune., 1889-05-09
CHAPTER XIV.
uNsAN1TARY HAB1rs-(continued.)


Abnormal habits, however, are by no means
confined to dietetic sins Every long-contin-
ued violation of Natures health laws is apt to
become chronic penchant, and there is no
doubt that our indoor modes of life have filed
our northern cities with people who prefer foul
to fresh air, and experience an actual discom-
fort on being exposed to the draft of a window
opened on the sunniest morning in May. That
habit can make repulsive odors not only en-
durable, but positively agreeable, is sufficiently
proved by the now almost universal popularity
Of tobacco-smoke, which James /, of England,
described as @ hateful to the nose harmful to
the brain, dangerous to the lungs. and in its
black loathsome fumes most nearly resembling
the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is
bottomless!" and which in, now smoke cloud
ed Turkey was once thought so offensive that
Sultan Amurath Nv sentenced smokers to have
their noses aud ears cut off. Three different
Popes tried to check the growth of the tobacco
habit by Contemporaries and solemn edicts,
which as we have seen in n former chapter,
were once sufficient to almost abolish the use
of horsefesh, but failed to counterfeit the
Witchery of q far more unnatural habit-per-
haps because of its unnaturalsm-the persist
ence of every abnormal practice being proper
toned to the degree of its righteousness. l
have known sailors who admitted that the
fumes of their cockpit made them asthmatic,
but insisted that they were unable to sleep in
fresher air, aud even in the tropics preferred
to pass the night in an atmosphere resembling
that of the Calcutta Black Hole. Druggists
become partial to their medley of medicinal
odors, rs Danish peasants TO turfsmoke, and
| biographer of Frederick Schiller, the German
Byron mentions the curious fact that the great
poet owed his falling health to an unconquer-
able passion for the smell of rotten apples which
he accumulated for that special purpose, in
such quantities, indeed, that the half vinous,
| half moldy odor often sickened visitors of his
private study in spite of his precaution of clos
ing the door of his apple cupboard before adj
uniting stranger.
An excess of temperature, too, can become an
abnormal necessity. Charles Reade, in one of
| his novels Is CIoister and Hearth" describes
/ village inn in the Netherlands where an arm
| full of wood was chucked into the blazing fire
| whenever the CHATTER OF the door bell announced
! the arrival of an additional guest, till at P.
| M the heat of the guest-room rivaed that of
! furnance. And like many similar sketches of
the clever novelist, that description is founded
| on fact, the taverns and wating-r0oms of all
| Northern Europe being dreadfully overbeated,
] from notion of the same mistaken hospitality
/ which too often seems to mislead the porters of
our American passenger trains The new law
/ against the use Of railway stoves may tend to
mitigate the evil and thus indirectly prevent
more mischief than the legislative reformers
| were apt to anticipate-the peril of being ere
mated in collision being limited TO probability
of one chance in billion, while four out of Eve
| long distance passengers were sure, in Winter
| at least to be ung-sickened by the oVerpower-
ing heat of the red hot stoves each end of the
car. School children often suffer all the misery
/ of a lead roof dungeon from similar cause.
! During the Austrian occupation of northern
! Italy the military barracks of Venice were
| consolidated with a large arsenal facing due
| south, and covered with sheets of lead, almost
| black with SCOT and the accumulation of oxide.
! If an Austrian soldier was guilty of drunken
| ness and disOrderiy conduct, or absence without
leave, he was, for the first offense, let off with
! a reprimand, and for every following violation
1 of the code sentenced to Imprisonment in the
! guardhouse for a period varying from day to
/ three weeks If the maximum of three weeks
/ failed TO mend his morals, they tried the per-
| suasive efficiency ola twenty FLYER (an opera
1 ton specially affective to cavalrymeu), and as
/ a last resort sometimes attempted to refarm an
habitual transgressar by a" sentencing him to
! the roofs" About 10 a. m.-rarely sooner--the
delinquent was handcuffed and taken upstairs
/ to one of Ave or six small garrets directly I'M
der the roof, exposed to the rays OF the Southern
! land nearly always cloudless) sun. Before noon
| the prisoner generally screamed for mercy :
| but there are cases ON record of tough Magyars
| resisting the ordeal all day even several sue
| ceSsiVe days, though the after-efects of the
terrible heat never failed to handicap the victim
for life. Nevertheless, persistent practice might
| Nave enabled prisoner to prefer that tempera-
| ture, aud feel chilly whenever the mercury re-
/ turned to the rational side ola hundred degrees;
! for in the country districts of all our North
/ ern States there are school-teachers who seem
never to feel quite comfortable till the school
! room stove gets hot enough to ignite a match
from distance OF seven inches. As long as
! the fuel-supply holds out there might not seem
| to be any special harm in prediction OF that
SORT but the trouble is that a high temperature
bn aut af all OfA
germs and often aggravates slight catarrh
into a serious lung disease. Superheated sick
rooms once made every hospital death-trap /;
but since the experience of the Crimean war
and the test-experments with airy hospital
tents our abiest pathoIogists incline to the
opinion that the temperature Of an infirmary
| should be kept at minimum compatible with
/ the comfort of the nurses, and that patients
| especially under the influence of febrile dis
| orders should be warmed by additional bed