Readings : Respiration, Part 6

Hygienic Physiology: with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
By Joel Dorman Steele, Ph.D.

(Page 25 of 26)

Some of the most dangerous gases come from wash-basin pipes, being, perhaps, the result of the decay of the soap and the animal matter washed from the skin.

When a pipe is once fairly cleaned out, the potash should be used from time to time, in order to dissolve the greasy deposits as they form, and carry them forward to the cesspool or sewer. - Artisan.

What Came from a Neighbor's Cesspool. - Keep watch not only of your own premises, but stand on guard against those of your neighbors. Dr. Carpenter cites a case wherein "four members of a certain household were attacked with typhoid fever, one of whom narrowly escaped with her life. The circumstances left no doubt in the mind of the attending physician that the malady originated in the opening of an old cesspool belonging to a neighboring house, then in course of demolition. The house in which the outbreak took place is large and airy, and stands by itself in a most salubrious situation.

The most careful examination failed to disclose any defect either in its drainage or its water supply; there was no typhoid in the neighborhood; and the milk supply was unexceptional. But the neighboring house being old, and having been occupied by a school, its removal had been determined on to make way for a house of higher class; and as the offensive odor emanating from the uncovered cesspool was at once perceived in the next garden, and the outbreak of typhoid followed at the usual interval, the case seems one which admits of no reasonable question."

5. The Cellar. - A Typical Bad Cellar. - Did the reader ever, when a child, see the cellar afloat at some old home in the country? You creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water, boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life, drive you affrighted back to the kitchen....Now consider the case of one of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more. In it have been stored all the potatoes, turnips, cabbages, onions, and other vegetables for family food.

The milk and cream, the pork and beef, and cider and vinegar, have all met with various accidents, and from time to time have had their juices, in various stages of decay, absorbed by the soil of the cellar bottom. The cats have slept there to fight the rats and the mice, who have had their little homes behind the walls for half a century; and the sink spouts have for the same term poured into the soil close by, their fragrant fluids. The water rushes upward and sideways into the cellar, forming, with the savory ingredients at which we have delicately hinted, a sort of broth, quite thin and watery at first, but growing thicker as the water slowly subsides and leaves its grosser parts pervading the surface of the earth, walls, and partitions. All this time the air rushes in at the openings of the cellar, and presses constantly upward, often lifting the carpets from the floors, and is breathed day and night by all who dwell in the house. Does it require learned doctors or boards of health to inform any rational person that these conditions are unfavorable to health? - Mrs. Plunkett, Women, Plumbers, and Doctors.

What Came from a Crack in a Cellar Wall. - A few years ago a Boston gentleman inherited a house, situated on one of the most desirable streets of the city. Resolving to make a healthy as well as a beautiful home, he. spent a large sum, and gave personal supervision to all the details of an elaborate system of plumbing. He moved in. Imagine his grief and disappointment when member after member of his family succumbed to diphtheria, and an infant and a grown daughter died. Though so deeply smitten, he did not lose his belief in the connection between cause and effect. He ordered a minute investigation of the premises by experts. A slight crack, so small as to have escaped ordinary observation, was found in the cellar wall. Investigation of the premises next door - the inmates of which were also suffering from diphtheria - showed a choked-up drain, which ought to have connected with the sewer, but did not. The filthy ooze from this was pouring out, just where its effluvium and its disease germs could pass without any hindrance through the crack.

Now that it is shown that gases pass through bricks and many kinds of stone, it is easy to see that the sanitary welfare of one is the sanitary welfare of all. - Mrs. Plunkett.

6. The Bedroom. - The Bed a Night Garment. - There is still one of our garments to be considered, which generally is not regarded as such. I mean the bed - that piece of clothing in which we spend such a great part of our time.

The bed is not only a place of rest; it is especially our sleeping garment, and has often to make up for privations endured during the day and the day's work, and to give us strength for to-morrow. Like our day garments, the bed covering must be airy and warm at the same time. We warm the bed by our body, just as we warm our clothes, and the bed warms the air which is continually flowing through it from below, upward. The regulating strata must be more powerful in their action than in our day clothes, because during rest and sleep the metamorphosis of our tissues and the resulting heat become less; and because in a horizontal position we lose more heat by an ascending current of air than in a vertical position, where the warm ascending current is in more complete and longer contact with our upright body.

The warmth of the bed sustains the circulation in our surface to a certain degree for the benefit of our internal organs at a time when our production of heat is at its lowest ebb. Hence the importance of the bed for our heat and blood economy. Several days without rest in a bed not only make us sensible of a deficiency in the recruiting of our strength, but very often produce quite noticeable perturbations in our bodily economy, from which the bed would have protected us. - Dr. Max Von Pettenkoffer.

Bed Ventilation. - It often happens that the desire of the energetic housekeeper to have her work done at an early hour in the morning, causes her to leave one of the most important items of neatness undone. The most effectual purifying of bed and bedclothes can not take place, if the proper time is not allowed, for the free circulation of pure air, to remove all human impurities which have collected during the hours of slumber. At least two or three hours should be allowed for the complete removal of atoms of insensible perspiration which are absorbed by the bed. Every day the airing should be done; and, occasionally, bedding constantly used should be carried into the open air, and left exposed to the sun and wind for half a day. - Home and Health.