The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-02-10
NIGHT AM HARMLESS.

NIGHT AIR HARMLESS
Breathe all the fresh air you can
get. night and day. That's what fresh
air il for. The fearsome legend about
the baleful influence Of might air.
is only another of the carefully nursed
insanitary requests rom our ances-
Banks of the United States public
health service.
Whence this superstition arose may
only be surmised. Perhaps it is q sur
vival Of the primeval cult Of Sun wor-
ship. which led the ancients to class
ify anything outside the sphere Of So
lar influence as baneful. Our fore
bears were wont to caution their Off
spring to "be careful about the night
air. or children were ordered to come
in out OF the night air. 1t is perhaps
fortunate for the children living in
the Arctic circle. where the nights are
six months long, that the Esquimaux
mothers do not entertain this crude
notion about night air, else their pro-
geny would spend half the year in
doors.
This idea IL generally prevalent and
even one of our well-known flowers is
loaded down with the horrible name
of deadly nightshade'' as a sort Of
verbal relic of this old notion. The
low-lying mist or fog that sometimes
gathers about the surface Of the earth
under certain atmospheric conditions.
after sunset, was held, is held. to be
"miasmatic" and pregnant with lethal
This Is worthy of all
the respect that should be put to any
hoary superstition, but its place is
in the specimen jars of an archaeo1o-
gioal museum, not IN the show room
Of modern intelligent life.
The night air, minus the sun. is no
different from the atmosphere of a
sunless day. The atmospheric enve-
lope Of the earth does not change
from benign to maligr in the twink
ling Of an eye after shutdown. 1t is
still composed Of oxygen. nitrogen. ar
gon and carbon dioxide in the normal
for the given locality.
The open air treatment of tuberculo-
sis and its kindred allies had first to
combat this venerable jargon about
the deadliness of night air, and only
the remarkable results Of this hygienic
aid to its cure brought the supersti-
tious to a realization Of the Stiffness of
their ingrained noctoyhobia.
This generation has witnessed the
Of human beings in re-
spect to the value of fresh air, wheth-
err in bulk or in smaller drafts"
From being q people immersed in
sealed rooms at night.
our own bodily exhalations
over and over again. constantly in
creasing number of persons are sleep
ing in the open, or ut least with open
summer and winter. to their
great benefit. In the morning they
are refreshed with the pure oxygen
of the air breathed during sleep. not
"stewed" nor "seedy" after eight hours
spent in respiring and re-respiring
secondhand and shop-worn air in a
closed bedroom.
A story from the trenches in France
is that q soldier wrote home to his
wife to open her windows at night as
he had found that the night air
didn't hurt ore Bit" That is the ex-
perience of all the advocates of this
sensible custom-once tried the old
custom of sealing ones self in an air.
tight bedroom is never renewed. Dis
eases which involve the lungs can usu-
ally be traced to their beginning in
poorly ventilated sleeping apartments.
inside rooms that do not have a share
of the atmosphere. Nothing can live
well or long without oxygen in the
air, and it was given to us for breath
ing. night and day. not to be taken
sparingly, as If it were a dangerous po-
ton. Some people are actually afraid
of ordinary, common air.
Those emancipated persons who
open their windows at night will tell
you, unanimously, that they cannot
breathe in a chamber unless the win
dow is raised. their sense OF comfort
and vigor demands the life giving
qualities of fresh air. No greater pro-
phylactic advice can be promulgated
than 20 breathe all the fresh atmos-
pheric air you can get, night and day.
There appears to be much merit in
the general principles of Senator Bow