Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-02-04
BREATHE MUCH FRESH
AIR, NIGHT AND DAY
Fearsome Legend About Baleful
Influences of Night Air" Is
aMyth

Breathe all the fresh air YOU can
get, night and day. That's what fresh
air is for. The fearsome legend about
the baleful influences of might air" is
only another of the carefully nurscd
insanitary bequests from our ances-
Banks, of the United States Public
Health Service
When this superstition arose may
only be surmised. Perhaps it is a sur
viVal of the primeval cult of Sun
worship, which led the ancients to
classify anything outside the sphere
OF solar influence. Our forhears were
wont TO caution their offspring to be
careful about the night air" or chill
dren were ordered to come in out of
the night air 1t is perhaps FORUM
ate for the children living in the
Arctice circle, where the nights are six
months Iona, that the Esuuimaux
mothers do not entertain this crude
notion about night air, else their pro-
geny would spend half the year in
doors.
This idea is generally prevalent and
even one of our well-known flowers is
loaded down with the horrible name
oil Deadly Nghtshade," 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
possibilities. This is worthy of all
the respect that should he put to any
hoary superstition, but it's place is in
the specimen jars of an archaeological
museum, not in the show room OF
modern intelligent life.
Night Air No Different
The night air, minus the sun, is no
dlherent from the atmosphere of a
sunless day. The atmospheric envel-
ope of the earth does not change from
benign to malign in the twinkling of
an eye after sundown. 1t is still COM
posed OF oxygen, nitrogen, argon and
carbon dioNide in the normal propor-
uons for the given locality. The open
air treatment of tuberculosis and its
kindred allies had first 10 combat
thls venerable jargon about the deadI-
ness OF night air, and only the re-
markable results of this hygienic aid
to its cure brought the supersttious
TO realization of the Stiffness of their
ingrained noctopnobia
This generation has witnessed the
anticipation of human beings in re-
spect TO the value of fresh air, whether
in bulk or in smaller drafts" From
being people immersed in hermet-
lcally sealed rooms at night, breath
ing our own bodily eXhalations over
ana over again, a constantly increasing
number of persons are sleeping IN
the open, or at least with open win
dows, 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-respir-
ing secondhand and shop Worn air
in a closed bedroom.
Soldiers Favor 1t
story from the trenches in France
is that a soldier wrote home to his
wife to open her windows at night as
he had found that the night air didn't
hurt one Bit That is the experience
of all the advocates of this sensible
custom-once tried the old custom of
sealing ones self in an air-tight bed
room is. never renewed. Diseases
which involve the lungs can usually
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 breathing, night
and day, not to be taken in sparingly,
as If IL were dangerous potion. 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 chamebr unless the win
dow is raised, their sense of comfort
and vigor demands the life-giving
qualities of fresh air. No greater pro-
breathe in a chamber unless the win
than to breathe all the fresh atmos-
pheric air you can get, night and