The Portland daily press., 1897-07-23
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE HOME.
Danger in Closed Houses.

A great many people leave their city
homes early every summer. In many
cases these houses are simply closed, and
remain shut up for two or three months.
Ii burglars do not effect an entrance and
rifle the house of such portable valuables
as they can lay hands on, paterfamilias
congratulaets himself upon his thrift,
and mamma and her daughters at once
enter into a calculation upon the most ad-
vantageous way of laying out in winter
display the saved money that caretaker
of the house would have cost.
And yet this very economy may in the
end be more expensive than the highest
priced caretaker. Even if you have
connected your house with the telegraph
office so perfectly that no door or window
in the entire structure can be opened
without sounding an alarm, your most
dangerous enemy will gain an entrance
and will increase and multiply during
your absence. This enemy is the mi
crobe. He has various titles, but call him
what you like he is still more to be
lCdreQ UQau IL N1O1G dIlill vi Jul SletlSs
There is no occupied house that has
not, or may not have at any time, a few
of these germs of disease lying in a bunch,
only waiting chance. to gather their
forces together in sufficient strength to fall
upon their defenceless victim, man, and
destroy him. The absence of the family
and the closing of the house present this
desired opportunity, which is at once
seized upon. Their great enemy, the
sun, has been shut out. The sun is
about the only thing of which they are
afraid Their vitality is almost inf
nitely greater than that of man. No
temperature has ever been found cold
enough to kill them; many of them ac-
tually thrive in boiling water.
The sunlight has been carefully ex-
Guided; the traps in the plumbing go
dry by the evaporation of the water i'll
less than a week The action of the air
upon the lead pipes causes a decay; a
slight sloughing off of little particles of
something, probably an oxide of lead.
The traps which were once filled with
clean, protecting water, are now the hid
ing places of foul air returned from the
sewers and there are generated the germs
of that merciless disease, diphtheria.
Plumbing put in by the most scientific
men cannot perform it's functions unless
the conditions are fulfilled. If the traps
are dry there might as well be no traps.
This going dry of the traps could have
been prevented by filling them with glyc-
crime before leaving for the country.
Glycerine, from its wonderful quality OF
drawing all the moisture there is in the
air toward itself, does not evaporate. The
glycerine will be ION guard like a
good and faithful sentinel when the fam
lily, after several months absence, has re-
turned; while water will vanish in the
shape of vapor, Sinking its duty and
leaving its post to the foe.
But if his precaut1on. of filling the traps
with glycerine, either through parsimony
or lack of knowledge, has not been taken,
what is to be done? Turn on as much
water and in as many places through
your house as possible. You may use
this water for flushing and cleansing pur-
poses, but do not drink any of it until
the flow has thoroughly cleansed the lead
pipes, and this will take some time. One
high authority gives this limit as prefer
ABLY week, certainly not less than forty
eight hours.
At the same time that this water is set
running, some once should go all over the
. .4o.se, open every window and door wide.
Let in all of Gods sunlight that you
possibly can. Sunlight and darkness are
inc good and evil of health. Sunlight is
the vital principle which goes TO make UP
a pure atmosphere. To all high forms of
life it is an absolute necessity, and it is
deadly to most heterogeneous Use
the sunlight to Danish danger from your
rugs and draperies by hanging them in
the yard or in some place where the sun
can get good purifying sweep at them.
Open all the doors that lead into the Gel
lar, and Danish the smell of m ildew.
The philanthropists of London have be-
come SO thoroughly awakened to the i'm
portance of sunlight that recently an act
has been passed by Parliament requiring
all houses erected in London to be re-
etricted in height, and all the streets te
be at lest forty feet wide.
Absolute, systematic, perfect cleanli-
ness, other considerations being favora.
BILE, is the mother of health. There are
microbes everywhere, in the air we
breathe, the houses we live in, the water
we drink. You may be as clean as soar
and sand can make you, but if you live
in vault where no sunlight penetrates
yonr fellow tenants of the microbe order
will be likely to be of the poisonous
death dealing variety The house that
has been closed all summer though 1t
were left immediately clean, viii be
dusty in the fall. and i'll this dust germs
OF disease Iurk. 1t Is we'll to be sure that
these enemies of health be routed before
the family lie down to rest. And it is
much safer and pleasanter to arrange to
have these necessary precautions taken
than it is to repent when death has
knocked at your door.-New York Trib.
une.
The Value of Fruit Diet
A celebrated French physician, DR.. Du.
poury, divides fruits into five classes
each of which possesses special hygien-
ic value-the acid, the sweet, the
astringent, the oily, the mealy. To the
erst, including cherries, Strawberries,