The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-01
LIVING BY THE METER.
An Old Practitioners Essay on the
Importance of Fresh Air.

Importance of Fresh Air.
Boards of health are often obliged to call
upon the police to assist them in carrying
out their hygienic plans, for the good of the
community, in compelling the individual TO
comply with sanitary regulations, but it is
seldom that the police have recourse to the
Board OF Health. Lubbock, Germany, how
ever, has found an ingenious method of
regulating public meetings and restricting
the number of agitators at public demon
STATIONS, in which zeal gets the better of
moderation, by decreeing that, ''in the in
terest Of the health of the individual at
reunions there shall be an area Of at least
three-quarters of a square meter for each
person" This has set up a merry war;
among the people of Lubbock for the halls
that have hitherto accommodated from two
10 three thousand people will not admit but
eight hundred. calculated by the area at
command. While a moderate sufficency of
fresh air is thus guaranteed the good peo-
pie of Lubbock, free speech is to a great ex-
tent cut off, and they feel that their rights
if not their voices, are being throttled
While this decree was promulgated pri-
marily and solely in the interests of social
laws. it is a good precedent for the Iimi-
tation of congregations within public build
pacatiy rather than their seating capacity
Sunday headache and theater malaise are
due. in great measure, to partial asphyxi-
alton and intoxication from too small
amount OF air, air that is vitiated at that
by foul if not infectious breath, the breath
OF consumption, catarrh, or in seasons of
epidemics, of the grip or perhaps the
plague. Aside from acute disease the in
dividual is subject to nervous enervation
and psychic intoxicatiOn not only from the
vitiated and limited amount of air, but
from the environment. the uor-inducing
heat, the binding glare of the lights, the
intoxicating effiuvia of a thousand mingled
odors, good and bad, and the infectious
psychical and contagious physical emana-
tions. Even a cough is contagious; witness
the nervous church cough which follows a
season of suppressed emotion or enforced
| uuietnesS. Witness the lecture room yawn,
which is indeed excusable when the speaker
| is prosaical and tediously long winded.
| Witness the uniformity with which watches
| are consulted when one man sets the ex-
| ample.
These however. are Of minor Importance.
| They are the humorous incidents of nervous
contagion and infection. The more serious
ones are the most subtle and insidious. They
come with the reaction that always fol-
lows action; they come with the morning.
with the don NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Ian
! guor which always follows late hours and
feverish excitement. These are the over
tense strings of the harp of life strained
| to brilliant concert pitch, but losing their
vibratility under overweight tension, re-
| spending to natures master hand with
harsh and feeble discords. or swapping
| ~
| Even as early as the sixteenth century
| Sanctorius realized the Importance of fresh
air and plenty of it. In his aphorisms he
recommends that in time of pestilence d.
vine service be held in the open air instead
OF in churches. that infected people and
healthy people may not be congregated to-
| gether in confined places. Furthermore, he
proposed to separate the pest-affiicted from
/ those in the same house who were not yet
stricken and he warned people against buy
| ing fowl in the open market lest they
should have been handled by those having
the plague.
To-day open-air meetings of various sorts
| are much in vogue and have caused much
discussion as we'll as legal interference and
obstinate resentment against this interfer-
| ence. Yet the question of health is never
| thought of and never advanced as an argu-
ment in their favor Some of these meet
ings are indeed injurious. for the melting
words OF the speakers beget a fever Of I'M
rest. the delirium of lawlessness the in
| Illumination OF revolution and insurrection
In other meetings while the pure air of
heaven fills and revivifes the lungs of the
hearers. the words of God purify their souls
and oxidize, as it were. the foul germs OF
! sin lurking and fermenting in the heart.