THE WORTH OF FRESH AIR.

[Concluded.]

A very large quantity of fresh air is spoiled and rendered foul by the

act of breathing. You, yourself, spoil not less than a gallon every

minute. In eight hours’ breathing a full-grown man spoils as much fresh

air as seventeen three-bushel sacks could hold! If you were shut up

in a room seven feet broad, seven feet long, and seven feet high, the

door and windows fitting so tightly that no air could pass through,

you would die, poisoned by your own breath, in a very few hours; in

twenty-four hours you would have spoiled all the air contained in the

room, and have converted it into poison, provided you could have lived

therein so long.

One hundred years ago the English were allowed by the Great Mogul or

Emperor of India, to build warehouses and dwellings in certain parts

of his Empire. One of these mercantile settlements or factories, as

they were called, was planted on the bank of a large river just where

Calcutta, the capital city of Bengal, now stands.

In the year 1756, the nabob, or tributary king of the province of

Bengal died, and was succeeded by a very young man, who bore the

outlandish looking title of Surajah Dowlah. This young barbarian cast

a covetous eye on the neighboring British factory, and one summer day

attacked the place suddenly with a large army. The small party of

English who were in the factory, despairing of their ability to effect

any successful defense, tried to make their escape to some ships which

were lying in the river.

Several of the fugitives reached the vessels in safety. But in the

confusion of the flight, one hundred and forty-six individuals fell

into the hands of the victorious nabob. These, his officers thrust

for the night into a small cell, which was used as the prison of the

fortress, and was known under the dismal name of the Black Hole of

Calcutta. This cell had but two small square holes for windows, and

was only eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, so that the last

person of the one hundred and forty-six had to be crushed in upon the

rest with violence, as the door was closed and locked. The anguish of

the crowded captives soon became so great, in this vile hole, that the

neighborhood resounded with the noise of their struggles and cries. As

the night wore on, these sounds, however, gradually sunk into silence.

When the morning came, and the door of the prison was opened, the

reason of this silence became sadly apparent. In the place of the one

hundred and forty-six prisoners who were shut up on the previous day,

they took out one hundred and twenty-three corpses, and, twenty-three

miserable beings, who looked more like ghastly spectres than men, and

who could hardly be said to be alive. This occurrence furnished one

remarkable instance of the deadly power of the poison vapors which are

poured out from the inside of living beings. Now I will tell you about

another case of a similar kind.

A few years ago, a vessel started from Cork in Ireland, to take a large

number of emigrants to a ship just about to sail from Liverpool. A

violent storm sprung up in the night, as the vessel was crossing the

Irish Channel, and the captain, fearing that the alarmed passengers

would interfere with the sailors, and render it difficult to work the

ship, sent them all below into the hold, and covered them closely down

with the hatches. The imprisoned passengers soon found that they were

suffocating, and called and knocked loudly for help, but their cries

either were unheard or disregarded. In the morning the hatches were

removed, and to the horror of the captain and his crew, the hold was

found half full of dead bodies and dying people, instead of containing

living men and women. Such are the fearful consequences which follow,

when human beings are forced to breathe the same air over and over

again.

You are very much shocked, both at the savage cruelty of the Indian

tyrant, and at the carelessness and ignorance of the Irish captain. But

what will you think of yourself if I now show that you do, in a small

degree, every night, what they did on so large a scale? What was it

that caused the closeness of this room before we opened the window? It

was the presence of precisely the same kind of poison, as that which

killed the prisoners at Calcutta, and the passengers in the hold of the

ship. That poison did not destroy you in a single night, only because

it had not gathered in sufficient strength to do so. Your room was not

more than half as large as the Black Hole of Calcutta, but there were

only two of you shut up in it instead of one hundred and forty-six. The

air of your room was merely hurtful instead of being deadly. But the

fact still remains. _When you rose in the morning, that air was not fit

for a human creature to breathe._

When you rise to-morrow morning, just go out of doors for five minutes,

and observe carefully the freshness of the air. That air is in the

state in which God keeps it for breathing. Then come back suddenly into

your close room, and your own senses will at once make you feel how

very far the air of your chamber is from being in the same wholesome

and serviceable condition.

This is one way, then, in which people produce derangement in their

bodies, and cause their works, or organs, to get choked up and clogged.

They are not careful always to keep fresh air immediately around them.

They suffocate themselves slowly; taking, perhaps, a long time to

complete their task, but, nevertheless, accomplishing it none the less

surely. Individuals who dwell in crowded towns, and, therefore, have to

live by day as well as by night in close, impure apartments, go down to

their graves, even before they have reached their prime; and their thin

pale faces, dull sunk eyes, and languid movements, tell they are doing

so, with painful clearness. It is well known that people who dwell in

towns and work in close rooms, as a rule, die seventeen years earlier

than men who dwell in the country, and work in the fields by day.

Country folks escape this severe penalty, because even when they half

smother themselves by night, the thoroughly fresh air in which they

spend the day goes a great way toward the removal of the mischief.

Still they are by no means free from all penalty. You yourself have

suffered from breathing bad air. Do you remember last autumn, when I

came to see you sick in bed with the fever? Do you recollect how your

limbs ached, and your skin burned then, and how you tossed restlessly

from side to side, without being able to sleep, your mouth and tongue

being brown and parched with dryness which water could not moisten? You

could not raise your head from the pillow; and once when I asked you

how you felt, you answered me by telling me something about the corn

stacks and the last harvest, being quite unconscious of what you were

saying. What do you think was the matter with you then? Your body and

blood were full of poisonous vapor. And what do you think had made them

so? Why, fresh air had not done its work of purification as it ought.

You had been breathing a great deal of impure air, and were paying the

penalty for having done so. If you had seen the prisoners in the Black

Hole of Calcutta an hour or two before they died, you would have found

them exactly in the same state.

The term “fever” is taken from a Latin word which signifies “to burn.”

The skin and the body feel burning hot in fever, because impure

poisonous blood is flowing everywhere through their vessels, in the

place of pure blood, and the blood is poisonous because it has not

been freed from its poison-vapors as fast as they have been bred in,

or thrown into its streams. In the worst forms of fever the blood gets

so impure that it steams out, through the breath, vapors which are

able to produce the same kind of disease in other people, and which

are, under these circumstances, termed _infection_. The infectious

poison-vapors of fever get so strong when they are received into close

rooms, and are not allowed to be blown away, that they often kill

persons who breathe them in that state, very quickly.

But you want me to explain how all the mischief, which results from

breathing foul air, may be prevented. Come down with me into the

garden, and creatures that you believe to be of far inferior powers to

yourself, shall give you a lesson.

You keep bees. Here is a hive, I see, crowded with the busy insects. By

the numbers that I observe clustering about the low arched door, and

bustling out and in so incessantly, I learn that the industrious little

fellows must be very closely packed together in their straw house.

There must be many thousands of them dwelling together in a place that

can not, at the most, equal more than a couple of square feet; and

there is not a single window in the straw wall; no opening of any kind

but the low, and half-choked entrance. Really, if those bees need to

breathe, you who have furnished them with their dwelling must be nearly

as bad as the cruel nabob, who shut up his prisoners in the Indian

Black Hole!

Those bees certainly do need to breathe every bit as much as men and

women; and what is more, they manage to breathe ten times better than

you do at night. Notwithstanding all the crowding there is within their

close dwelling, the air never gets there into the poisonous state in

which the air of your sleeping room is by the morning. The bees take

care that it shall not do so. Just bend down your ear and listen near

the hive for a minute. Do you hear that incessant low humming? That is

the bees hard at work, making an artificial wind. It is the sound of a

couple of score of broad, stiff fans, flapping to and fro with great

rapidity. Look, I drop this piece of light thistle-down near the door

of the hive, and you see it is at once blown away from it by a steady

draught. If you could see through the straw walls, you would notice

twenty little sturdy fellows holding on to the floor of the hive with

their feet, just within the door, and flapping their wings backwards

and forwards without a moment’s pause. Now and then one or two tired

insects drop out from the line of the fanners, but their places are

immediately filled by fresh recruits, who lay hold of the floor and

fall vigorously to work with their wings. This is the appointed band

of air-purifiers, plying their business for the good of the entire

community, and wafting a fresh breeze continuously through the hive.

The bees take it by turns to carry on this necessary labor, and some

of them are always at it. The humming caused by the rapid vibrations

of their fans, scarcely ever ceases. It has been ascertained that air

taken from the inside of a hive, is quite as pure as the fresh air that

floats in the open space around; so perfectly do these little earnest

workmen perform their purifying task.

The industrious bees, then, are an example to mankind. If people dwell

in close rooms, they must cause an artificial breeze of fresh air to

blow through them. Having shut out the great wind, that it may not

chill too much by its uncontrollable currents, they must introduce such

a little wind as they can keep thoroughly under control, but which

nevertheless is sufficient to perform the office of purification as far

as it is required. This process of causing an artificial wind to blow

through the inside of a dwelling is called _ventilation_, from a Latin

word which signifies “to blow” or fan with the wind.

In very hot climates where dwellings need to be ventilated for the

sake of coolness, as well as for purification, men follow precisely

the example set by the bees. They hang up broad and stiff canvas fans,

which they call _punkas_, near the ceiling, and cause these to flap

backwards and forwards constantly, by pulling them to and fro with

ropes. In more temperate climates, it is rarely found necessary to take

all this trouble, for the air readily makes currents of its own accord

inside of rooms, if only allowed to do so. All that is necessary is the

furnishing of a free passage into the room, and a free passage out, and

it will then make a clear march through. One opening will not do, when

fans are not kept going, because then the entering and departing air

would meet face to face and obstruct each other. There must be “in” and

“out” doors, just as one sees in much frequented offices and banks, in

great towns.

A very effectual plan for securing the ventilation of a dwelling room

consists in carrying a pipe of perforated zinc across the house, from

outside wall to outside wall, just beneath the ceiling, allowing the

ends to pass through the walls quite into the open air; then whichever

end of the pipe chances to be most towards the quarter of the heavens

from which the wind is blowing, should be closed with a plug, a free

passage being left for the escape of the heated air through the

opposite end. A number of holes should also be made through the door,

near its bottom, until altogether they afford as much room to passing

air as the inside bore of the zinc pipe. If you cannot manage to fix

such a zinc pipe across the ceiling, why take out one or two of the

panes of the window, and put into their place, plates of what is called

_perforated zinc_ (zinc plates pierced full of holes), such as you may

buy for a trifle at any ironmongers. That is the next best thing you

can do.

As soon as some arrangement of this kind has been completed, you will

find that the air begins to move gently through the room, cold fresh

air coming in through the holes in the door, and warm impure air being

pressed out before it through the perforated zinc tubes or plates. This

takes place partly because the external wind rushes, in its hasty way,

against the openings through which the air is intended to enter, and

forces itself in; but also, and more particularly, because the inside

air gets warmer than the outside, and is then compelled to shift its

quarters on that account.

The air contained inside of inhabited rooms gets warmed by the bodies

and breaths of the persons living there. Then it is lighter, bulk for

bulk, than the colder air outside, for warmth stretches and lightens

everything. But as heavy things fall or press down to the earth more

strongly than light ones, the cold air always squeezes into the room

through the lower openings, and pushes the warm impure air out before

it, through the upper ones.

When you light a fire in your room during cold weather, it makes a

quick and strong draught through the room, for the same reason. Fires,

indeed, are among the most powerful ventilators that can be brought

into play. Let your fire out, and go on sitting in the room with two

or three of your neighbors, and you will find the air of the room will

be close and foul in half-an-hour, although it was quite fresh before.

While the fire is burning, the chimney takes upon itself the office of

the holes in the zinc tube or zinc plate fixed in the window, and the

heated air of the room is pushed up through it by the fresh cold air

which rushes in through all other openings and crevices. It is only

in rooms where no fires are burning—as for instance, in your sleeping

room—that holes through the walls and windows can serve as outlets for

impure air.

But if you live with several companions, in small rooms, as some

workpeople are compelled to do by their occupation, those rooms cannot

get properly ventilated, even although fires are burning. Some of the

poison-vapors, poured out from your living bodies with the breath, are

so light that they are at once driven up to the top of the room, and

collect there gradually, spreading lower and lower as they become more

abundant. They can not get out through holes made in the walls or

windows because, as we have seen, the fire causes streams of cold air

to press in there.

A plan has been contrived, however, to ensure perfect ventilation

even in small and crowded rooms, provided fires be burning. This plan

consists in making an opening into the inside of the chimney, near

to the ceiling, and fixing a balanced valve in it in such a way that

the valve-plate is opened by outward draughts, but immediately closed

by inward ones. Then the impure vapors lurking near the ceiling are

continually being swept away, into the current of the chimney, through

this valve.

You are sure you have no money to spare to buy valves, and zinc tubes

and plates, or to pay to workmen for making holes in your walls,

and in your doors and windows. I admit that properly these trifling

things should be done at the expense of the landlord to whom the house

belongs. It should be as much his duty to make a house fit to live in,

so far as due ventilation is concerned, as it is to keep it dry by

covering it with a roof of tiles or slate. As landlords, however, are

commonly themselves ignorant about these matters, you must learn to

look to the affair for yourself. You will be the sufferer if the right

thing be not done, therefore it is alike your interest and your duty to

see that it is done.

Suppose then that you have a hard landlord who will do nothing for

you, and that you are so poor you can not spare a shilling or two for

the purchase of metal tubes or plates. Then I will tell you what I

would do, if I were in your shoes. I would borrow a large gimlet of

the carpenter, and I would bore a row of holes through the upper part

of the window frame in my bedroom, just above the glass, sloping them

downwards a little, so that the rain may not be able to run in; next I

would never quite shut the door of the chamber, and I would bore other

holes through the frames of the windows down stairs, to act as channels

of inlet. A few rough pegs of wood would serve to close some of the

holes, if at any time too much air entered the room in consequence of

a strong wind blowing outside. This is what I would do, rather than I

would submit to be poisoned at night because I was poor.

A single round hole, a little more than half an inch across, would

allow as much air to pass through it, as would be sufficient to supply

the breathing of one person, provided the air were driven along by

the movements of a fan, or by other mechanical contrivance, with the

force of a very gentle breeze. Generally, however, it does not move so

fast as this through rooms, when only caused to do so by the greater

pressure of external colder air. It is, therefore, better that the

ventilating openings, both for inlet and departure, should altogether

make up much more than a hole half an inch across.

It is not possible to have too much fresh air in a room, provided only

an uncomfortable and chilling draught is not allowed to blow upon

the body of the inhabitant. You may easily prevent any discomfort or

mischief from draught, even where a great abundance of air is admitted,

by hanging a curtain to catch it and turn it aside. You will find,

however, that there is very little chance of any troublesome draught

when no fire is burning in the room, to make the air rush in with

increased power, for it is fires, as you will remember, which cause

quick and strong currents.

The warmer and stiller the external air is, the more difficult it

becomes to secure free ventilation through the inside of rooms. In the

calm hot nights of summer, the windows of sleeping rooms should on this

account be left partly open all night long. It is better to breathe air

moistened with night dew than it is to breathe air laden with poison

vapors.

But if it be important when people are well that they shall have an

abundance of fresh air moving through their dwellings, it is of far

greater consequence that there shall be a thorough ventilation kept

up in rooms where there is sickness. In all kinds of fevers the blood

is overloaded with poison vapors, and these can not get out of the

body unless they are blown away by pure air. The sick person can not

be freed from the poison vapors that are clogging up his vital organs

until fresh air is supplied abundantly. Do you remember what it was

that first made you better, when you had the fever last year? Can you

not recall to mind how all the doors and windows of your room were kept

constantly open, and how angry I was whenever I came to your chamber

and found them fast closed! Have you forgotten how delicious the fresh

air felt to your parched and poisoned frame, and what luxury there was

in the clean linen when supplied to your body and to the bed, and in

the cold water when it was sponged over your skin?

If ever you are called upon to attend a neighbor or a relation who

has to suffer from infectious fever, as you then did, be sure you

furnish to that sick person the same comfort and alleviation which were

provided for yourself.

Let this be your plan for nursing the sick: Open wide the doors and

windows of your chamber. Keep the body of the patient and the room very

clean. Change the linen both of the person and the bed very often.

Allow only the very simplest kinds of food and drink to be given, and

that in small quantities at a time. Prevent all noise and confusion

around the bed. There are very few persons indeed who will not recover

speedily from attacks of even the worst kinds of fever, if this simple

and prudent plan of treatment is steadily pursued.

The poison-vapors of fever and other infectious diseases are very

deadly when in their greatest strength, but remain so for a very

short time when left to the influences and operations of nature. They

can not bear the presence of fresh air. If they are mixed with a

great abundance of it as they come out of the mouths of sick people,

they directly cease to be dangerous poisons. All that is necessary

to prevent infectious fevers from being communicated from person to

person, by means of the breath, is to take care that fresh air is

continually passing through the sick room. Attendants and visitors may

remain with perfect safety in rooms where even the worst kinds of fever

are prevailing, if they keep all the doors and windows of the chamber

open, and are careful not to catch the breath of the patients until it

has passed through some two yards of space, where there is perfectly

pure air.

Such, then, is the “worth of fresh air.” It keeps the body healthy and

strong. It blows away and destroys the invisible and dangerous poisons

which are steamed forth from putrid and decaying matters, and which are

to the delicate organs of the living frame much worse than dust and

dirt are to clock-work. In disease it is nature’s chief remedy; the

best medicine of the best Physician, furnished gratis, because he is

full of bounty, as well as of great skill. Never let it any longer be a

reproach to you, that you ungraciously turn away such a precious gift

and priceless boon from your doors. Rather open wide your windows, as

well as your doors, and welcome it with all your heart. Go to the bee,

consider its ways, and be wise!

* * * * *

Flattering pleasures, fountain of delights, fertile in miseries, what

do you wish with me? Shameful lusts of the flesh and of the world, why

do you not quit me when I have quitted you? Begone honors, pleasures,

which war against me; all your happiness, subject to change, falls to

the ground in a moment of time; and as it has the brilliancy of glass,

it has also its brittleness.—_Corneille._

But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;

Or, like the snow-fall in the river,

A moment white, then melts forever.—_Burns._