The importance of regularity and punctuality in every circumstance of
daily life is not sufficiently realized. The more often and regularly
any act is performed the more automatic it tends to become, and the less
effort, whether mental or physical, attends its performance. This is a
matter of daily experience and observation, and is true not only of
mental work and manual or mechanical exercises, but of the organic
functions of the body. Quite apart from the harm done by too frequent
eating or too prolonged periods between meals or want of rest, the brain
finds itself ready for sleep, the stomach for digestion and the bowels
for action at the same hour every day, when these acts are performed
with unbroken punctuality, and the strain upon the system to adjust
itself to new conditions is therefore reduced to a minimum.
_GENERAL HEALTH CONDITIONS_
_Guard Your Water Supply—How Diseases Are Classified—How to Prevent
Contagion—Care of the Sick Room—Disinfection, Its Importance and Its
Methods—Period of Isolation or Quarantine—Duty of All Households Where
Sickness Has Invaded, to Guard Others Against Its Spread._
Man cannot preserve his health entirely by his own caution as to his
food and personal habits. His surroundings enter into the matter at all
times. By this is meant the house in which he lives, its situation and
conditions, as well as the community itself. Fortunately, in this
country we have not yet become so overcrowded as to forbid ordinary care
in the matters of drainage, light, ventilation and other requisites.
Americans should congratulate themselves that their ample country and
general prosperity enable them to regulate their food, their habits and
the conditions around them in high degree. At the same time the fact
that these things are so generally within our control places upon us the
obligation to do what we can for the community to maintain the general
health.
Let us note now, briefly, some points of primary importance in the
conditions that assure general health. Air, warmth and light must be
provided for the dwelling. In cities we cannot always choose, but in
smaller communities and in the country we can in large degree control
such things for ourselves. Some things require only to be suggested to
be clearly understood. A house should stand where the character of the
soil and the contour of the surface will provide the best drainage.
Hollows should be avoided. When a house is built on a hillside the
ground should not be dug out so that a cliff rises immediately behind.
Trees may afford valuable shelter, not only from cold winds, but from
fogs. But it is not generally wise to have them close around a dwelling,
at least in large numbers, since they impede the free circulation of the
surrounding air, and retain dampness beneath their shade. In the country
a house may be sheltered from cold winds on the side from which they
prevail, by trees. Exposure of each side of a house in succession to the
rays of the sun helps to keep the outer walls dry, to warm it in winter
and to aid ventilation in the summer. The north wall may be made with
advantage a dead wall, and ventilating pipes and soil pipes may be
carried up through it, but chimneys carried up through a north wall,
being warmed with difficulty and apt to smoke, should not project but be
built inside the house. Attics with slanting ceilings and dormer windows
are cold in winter and hot in summer.
Once occupied, the most important thing in the house is fresh air. The
most common impurity in the atmosphere of rooms is carbonic acid gas,
which is thrown off by the lungs of the occupants, and must be disposed
of by ventilation in order that health shall be assured. The lamps or
gas lights used in the room likewise give off carbonic acid, which is
formed at the expense of the oxygen of the air, the vital element, which
we require to breathe. Crowded rooms, or any rooms improperly
ventilated, become tainted in this manner, and the headaches and
faintness which we experience under such circumstances are direct and
natural results of carbonic acid poisoning. School rooms are
particularly trying upon pupils and teachers, unless their ventilation
is especially guarded. It is considered that the proper degree of purity
in the air of a room can be maintained only by introducing at least
2,500 cubic feet of pure air per hour for each person, this being a
virtual minimum. In mines it has been noticed that the men require not
less than 6,000 cubic feet per hour, and that when the quantity falls to
4,000 cubic feet there is a serious falling off in the work done.
Manifestly the better and tighter the building the more need there is
for special means of ventilation.
In the days when open fireplaces were almost the only means of heating
houses they were of great value in aiding ventilation. Nowadays our
stoves, radiators and furnaces do not help us in this matter, and we
must take additional pains to see that ventilation is provided in some
other way. Of course the simplest and most perfect method is to permit
the free passage of the wind through open doors and windows. Every room
should have its air thus completely renewed at least once a day. The
mere renewal is done in a few minutes, but a longer time is required to
dislodge the organic vapors and other impurities that lurk in the
corners and behind furniture. In schools and work shops this should be
done during the intervals for meals, and in churches between services.
But in our climate it is not possible to have windows and doors open
during all the time a room is occupied, except in very warm weather. It
is seldom, however, that the window of a bedroom cannot be opened for a
few inches all night without direct benefit to the occupant of the room.
His bed, of course, must not be immediately in the draught. Curved
pipes, ventilating shafts and slides under the windows are substitutes
easy to use when windows cannot be actually opened.