Consumptives, and all invalids, and indeed persons in health, are
cautioned to avoid the night air. Do those who offer this advice forget
that there is no other air at night but "night air"? Certainly we cannot
breathe day air during the night. Do they mean that we should shut
ourselves up in air-tight rooms, and breathe over and over again,
through half the twenty-four hours, the atmosphere we have already
poisoned? We have only the choice between night air pure and night air
poisoned with the exhalations from our skins and lungs, perhaps from
lungs already diseased. A writer pertinently speaks on this point after
the following fashion:--
"Man acts strangely. Although a current of fresh air is the very life of
his lungs, he seems indefatigable in the exercise of his inventive
powers to deprive himself of this heavenly blessing. Thus, he carefully
closes his bed-chamber against its entrance, and prefers that his lungs
should receive the mixed effluvia from his cellar and larder, and from a
patent little modern aquarius, in lieu of it. Why should man be so
terrified at the admission of night air into any of his apartments? It
is Nature's ever-flowing current, and never carries the destroying angel
with it. See how soundly the delicate little wren and tender robin sleep
under its full and immediate influence, and how fresh and vigorous and
joyous they rise amid the surrounding dew-drops of the morning. Although
exposed all night long to the heaven, their lungs are never out of
order; and this we know by daily repetition of the song. Look at the
new-born hare, without any nest to go to. It lives and thrives and
becomes strong and playful under the unmitigated inclemency of the
falling dews of night. I have a turkey full eight years old that has not
passed a single night in shelter. He roosts in a cherry-tree, and is in
primest health the year through. Three fowls, preferring this to the
warm perches in the hen-house, took up their quarters with him early in
October, and have never gone to any other roosting-place. The cow and
the horse sleep safely on the ground, and the roebuck lies down to rest
on the dewy mountain-top. I myself can sleep all night long, bareheaded,
under the full moon's watery beams, without any fear of danger, and pass
the day in wet shoes without catching cold. Coughs and colds are
generally caught in the transition from an over-heated room to a cold
apartment; but there would be no danger in this movement, if ventilation
were properly attended to,--a precaution little thought of nowadays."
Dr. James Blake advises the consumptive to join with several friends,
procure horses and wagons, and set off upon a long journey, sleeping in
the open air, no matter what the weather. He seems to think this the
only way in which it is possible to induce the consumptive to sleep in
the fresh air. Doctor Jackson gives the case of a consumptive young man
(he does not state the condition of his lungs) who was cured by sleeping
in the open air on a hay-stack. This advice and experience do not quite
harmonize with the common terror of night air.
But while I believe that breathing the pure out-door air all night is an
important curative means in this disease, I do not believe that sleeping
in the open fields of a stormy night is the _best means_ for securing
pure night air, in the case of a feeble woman; on the contrary, I think
it might be more pleasantly, and quite as effectually, secured in a
comfortable house, with open windows and an open fire.
No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their
houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;--not because
houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows
are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended
against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more
corrupts the air, which has done duty already--to how many lungs, for
how many hours?
Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him
use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient
put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors
and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his
lungs and system were famishing!
I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an
out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this
class,--but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon
abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains,
in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts.