A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene Part 34

510. _The sleeping-room should be so ventilated that the air in the morning will be as pure as when retiring to rest in the evening._ Ventilation of the room would prevent morning headaches, the want of appet.i.te, and languor--so common among the feeble. The impure air of sleeping-rooms probably causes more deaths than intemperance. Look around the country, and those who are most exposed, who live in huts but little superior to the sheds that shelter the farmer's flocks, are found to be the most healthy and robust. Headaches, liver complaints, coughs, and a mult.i.tude of nervous affections, are almost unknown to them; not so with those who spend their days and nights in rooms in which the sashes of the windows are calked, or perchance doubled, to prevent the keen but healthy air of winter from entering their apartments. Disease and suffering are their constant companions.

510. What is said of the ventilation of sleeping-rooms? What would adequate ventilation prevent? Give a common observation.

_Ill.u.s.tration._ By many, sleeping apartments twelve feet square and seven feet high, are considered s.p.a.cious for two persons, and good accommodations for four to lodge in. An apartment of this size contains 1008 cubic feet of air. Allowing ten cubic feet to each person per minute, two occupants would vitiate the air of the room in fifty minutes, and four in twenty-five minutes. When lodging-rooms are not ventilated, we would strongly recommend early rising.

511. _The sick-room, particularly, should be so arranged that the impure air may escape, and pure air be constantly admitted into the room._ It is no unusual practice in some communities, when a child or an adult is sick of an acute disease, to prevent the ingress of pure air, simply from the apprehension of the attendants, that the patient will contract a cold. Again, the prevalent custom of several individuals sitting in the sick-room, particularly when they remain there for several hours, tends to vitiate the air, and, consequently, to increase the suffering and danger of the sick person. In fevers or inflammatory diseases of any kind, let the patient breathe pure air; for the purer the blood, the greater the power of the system to remove disease, and the less the liability to contract colds.

_Observation._ Among children, convulsions, or "fits," usually occur when they are sleeping. In many instances, these are produced by the impure air which is breathed. To prevent these alarming and distressing convulsions, the sleeping-room should be ventilated, and there should be no curtains around the bed, or coverings over the face, as they produce an effect similar to that experienced when sleeping in a small, unventilated room. To relieve a child when convulsed, carry it into the open air.

What is said of the size of sleeping-rooms? 511. What is said of the sick-room? Mention some prevailing customs in reference to these rooms. What is said of convulsions among children?

512. _While occupying a room, we are insensible of the gradual vitiation of the air._ This is the result of the diminished sensibility of the nervous system, and gradual adaptation of the organs to blood of a less stimulating character. This condition is well ill.u.s.trated in the hibernating animals. We are insensible of the impure air of unventilated sleeping-rooms, until we leave them for a walk or ride. If they have been closed, we are made sensible of the character of the air as soon as we renter them, for the system has regained its usual sensibility while inhaling a purer atmosphere.

513. _In the construction of every inhabited room, there should be adequate means of ventilation, as well as warming._ No room is well ventilated, unless as much pure air is brought into it as the occupants vitiate at every respiration. This can be effected by making an aperture in the ceiling of the room, or by constructing a ventilating flue in the chimney. This should be in contact with the flues for the escape of smoke, but separated from them by a thin brick part.i.tion. The hot air in the smoke flues will warm the separating brick part.i.tion, and consequently rarefy the air in the ventilating flue. Communication from every room in a house should be had to such flues. The draught of air can be regulated by well-adjusted registers, which in large rooms should be placed near the floor as well as near the ceiling.

514. While provision is made for the escape of rarefied impure air, we should also provide means by which pure air may be constantly admitted into the room, as the crevices of the doors and windows are not always sufficient; and, if they should be adequate, air can be introduced in a more convenient, economical, and appropriate manner. There should be an aperture opposite the ventilating flue, at or near the floor, to connect with the outer walls of the building or external air. But if pure heated air is introduced into the room, it obviates the necessity of the introduction of the external air.[16]

[16] Mr. Frederick Emerson, of Boston, has devised a simple and effective apparatus for removing vitiated air from a room. It is successfully used upon all the public school-houses of Boston. It is now being generally applied to the school-houses and other public buildings, as well as private dwellings, of New England.

512. Why are we insensible to the gradual vitiation of the air of an unventilated room? 513. What is very important in the building of every inhabited room? How can a room be well ventilated? 514. What is said relative to a communication with the external air?

515. In warming rooms, the hot air furnaces, or box and air-tight stoves converted into hot air furnaces, should be used in preference to the ordinary stoves. The air thus introduced into the room is pure as well as warm. In the adaptation of furnaces to dwelling-houses, &c., it is necessary that the air should pa.s.s over an ample surface of iron moderately heated; as a red heat abstracts the oxygen from the contiguous air, and thus renders it unfit to be respired.[17]

[17] Dr. Wyman's valuable work on "Ventilation," and the work of Henry Barnard, Esq., on "School-house architecture," can be advantageously consulted, as they give the practical methods of ventilating and warming shops, school-rooms, dwelling-houses, public halls, &c.

_Observation_. Domestic animals need a supply of pure air as well as man. The cows of cities, that breathe a vitiated air, have, very generally, tubercles. Sheep that are shut in a confined air, die of a disease called the "rot," which is of a tuberculous character.

Interest and humanity require that the buildings for animals be properly ventilated.

515. How should rooms be warmed? What is necessary in the adaptation of furnaces to dwelling-houses?

CHAPTER XXVI.

HYGIENE OF THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS, CONTINUED.

516. The change that is effected in the blood while pa.s.sing through the lungs, not only depends upon the purity of the air, but the amount inspired. The quant.i.ty varies according to the size of the chest, and the movement of the ribs and diaphragm.

517. _The size of the chest and lungs can be reduced by moderate and continued pressure._ This is most easily done in infancy, when the cartilages and ribs are very pliant; yet it can be effected at more advanced periods of life, even after the chest is fully developed. For want of knowledge of the pliant character of the cartilages and ribs in infants, too many mothers, unintentionally, contract their chests, and thus sow the seeds of disease by the close dressing of their offspring.

518. If slight but steady pressure be continued from day to day and from week to week, the ribs will continue to yield more and more, and after the expiration of a few months, the chest will become diminished in size. This will be effected without any suffering of a marked character; but the general health and strength will be impaired. It is not the violent and ephemeral pressure, but the moderate and protracted, that produces the miscalled, "genteel," contracted chests.

519. The style of dress which at the present day is almost universal, is a prolific cause of this deformity. These baneful fashions are copied from the periodicals, so widely circulated, containing a "fashion plate of the latest fashions, from Paris." In every instance; the contracted, deformed, and, as it is called, lady-like waist, is portrayed in all its fascinating loveliness. These periodicals are found on almost every centre-table, and exercise an influence almost omnipotent. If the plates which corrupt the morals are excluded by civil legislation, with the same propriety ought not those to be suppressed that have a tendency so adverse to health?

516. What varies the amount of air received into the lungs? 517. How can the size of the chest be diminished? When is this most easily effected? 518. How are the miscalled, "genteel," contracted chests usually produced? 519. What is said of the style of the dress at the present day?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 100. A correct outline of the Venus de Medici, the beau ideal of female symmetry.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 101. An outline of a well-corseted modern beauty.

One has an artificial, insect waist; the other, a natural waist. One has sloping shoulders, while the shoulders of the other are comparatively elevated, square, and angular. The proportion of the corseted female below the waist, is also a departure from the symmetry of nature.]

_Observations._ 1st. The Chinese, by compressing the feet of female children, prevent their growth; so that the foot of a _Chinese belle_ is not larger than the foot of an American girl of five years.

What does fig. 100 represent? Fig. 101? Give observation 1st.

2d. The American women _compress their chests_, to prevent their growth; so that the chest of an _American belle_ is not larger than the chest of a Chinese girl of five years. Which country, in this respect, exhibits the greater intelligence?

3d. The chest can be deformed by making the linings of the waists of the dresses tight, as well as by corsets. Tight vests, upon the same principle, are also injurious.

520. In children, who have never worn close garments, the circ.u.mference of the chest is generally about equal to that of the body at the hips; and similar proportions would exist through life, if there were no improper pressure of the clothing. This is true of the laboring women of the Emerald Isle, and other countries of Europe, and in the Indian female, whose blanket allows the free expansion of the chest. The symmetrical statues of ancient sculptors bear little resemblance to the "beau ideal" of American notions of elegant form. This perverted taste is in opposition to the laws of nature. The design of the human chest is not simply to connect the upper and lower portions of the body, like some insects, but to form a case for the protection of the vital organs.

521. _Individuals may have small chests from birth._ This, to the particular individual, is natural; yet it is adverse to the great and general law of Nature relative to the size of the human chest. Like produces like, is a general law of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

No fact is better established, than that which proves the hereditary transmission from parents to children of a const.i.tutional liability to disease and the same may be said in regard to their conformations.

If the mother has a small, taper waist, either hereditary or acquired, this form may be impressed on her offspring;--thus ill.u.s.trating the truthfulness of scripture, "that the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."

Observation 2d. Observation 3d. 520. What is the size of the chest of a child that has always worn loose clothing? What is said of the size of the laboring women of Ireland, and the Indian female? How is it in ancient statues? What is the design of the chest? 521. What is a general law of both the animal and vegetable kingdoms? What fact in this connection is well established?