The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-01-04

in the course of the last few years I have visited a dozen. or more schools some of them several times, and found in practically every. instance that the air in the rooms was bad unless the windows were open 1. Dr. Luther H. Gulick, Director of the Department of Child HygE enc of the Russell Sage Foundation, stated in a letter to Science, CVol XxXIIL, Mar. 3, 1911:)
 Two or more years ago, my atten- ton was drawn to the astonishingly unfortunate condition of the threats and .tonsils- of school children and the number who had adenoids- TlIs led, through a series of investigations to the general study of the air we breathe | in buildings. This air we al know is somehow or other not as good for us even under the best conGr tiof1s of ventilation as the open air. Dr. Gill man Thompson and Dr. Brennan of New York City have changed the death rates from pneumonia and cer- tain Q; her diseases by placing the beds of patients out of doors or next to open windows These two men think we ought to do away with all systems Of ventilation and use simply natural ventf ation-open windows.
 Practically all the best manuals of heating and VentilatinR engineers tell us thai with a good system of ventFia- ton the opening of windows causes on.y danger; yet, as a matter of fact, children in rooms so treated do not ex- hibit the distressing conditions refer red to at the beginning of this letter. | And, in a still more recent paper pre- pared by Dr. Gulick on The Air We Breathe" he says:
 It is largely waste of money, ef- fort temper, and health to try to do real teaching or study in temperatures higher than 68 degrees Any class should be dismissed if the temperature rises above 72 degrees, provided the outside temperature is below this point. People in hospitals. where the temperature is absolutely controll- ed by thermostats, do not do as well 1 as those who have the stimulus that comes from change of temperature. not to be trusted "A good thernome- ter should be so large that it can be easily read at a Distance. It Is not too much to say that greater educa- be obtained by attention to the air children breathe than by any other 1 In most of the public schools visit ed by the committee, instead of finding. good thermometers that could be cas- | fly read at distance, the figures on they could barely be distingu shed on close examination, ai1d but few of them seemed to register correctly. In fact. a member of the committee was told 1 by one high in authority that the | Board Of Education had bought some cheap thermometers that could not be expected to register correctly In one case the writer entered room .wh ich seemed very hot, though the thermom- | eter registered 64 degrees. Another | thermometer was sent for, which, be
 "A degrees. The writer left, unable to endure the hot,stuffy room in which were immured forty children with f1usheds- listless faces, and has not yet paused in its ascent. l pr. Christian H. Holmes of Cincin- 1 nati, who has made an exhaustive
 study of this subject, in a pamphlet Of
 tai Hygiene (p. 2S.) declares: 1 The fresh air supply heated to such.
 ually to warm building Is thereby ] seriously deteriorated for breathing
 purposes; therefore to secure heal, hy ventilation the heating of a building tinct from that of the air supply. l Many years ago Florence Nightin-
 gale took up the same question, sug- gesting that a simple air-test be de- 1 Vised, which might register the quail | ity of the air. She protested against l the crowded national scho where so
 ma ny children's epidemics have their What a tale it's air-test would tell! We would have parents saying, and
 saving rightly, will not send my stands at "horrid." Scarlet fever i would be no more ascribed to conta- | sion, but to it's right cause.-the air 1 test standing at foul We should
 
 sations'' and of plague and pes, H. ence'' being ''in Gods hands" when, so far as he knew, He has put them into our own! The little air-test would I both betray the cause of these mys CT ious dispensations and call upon us to remedy it.
 Are the protests of these witnesses l who know whereof they speak to re- main unheeded by the Board of Edu- cation?
 ! It is not asked that the Board of
 Education install expensive apparatus
 or alter the systems of ventf ation which now obtain. But 1t may rightly be asked that very simple change be made, that will, reqUGre no outlay of imoney-namely,to discontinue the pres ent systems of ventila tiCn which. many
 authorities are agreed are hurtful to the children, open the windows and let
 our chi dren breathe the fresh air that
 nature meant them to breathe, una
 dulterated and uncooIed.
 LOUISE WATERMAN WISE.
 New York, Jan. l, 1912.
 New York-Notif7ed by wireless to
 meet the steamer Verdi from Rio De l Janeiro, Mrs. Henry Focht, of Cleve- land O., found that her husband. a