It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the
consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is,
nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the
cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much
less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the
western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown.
Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable
part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of
facts, we might, _a priori_, argue, that excessive dryness of the air
would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time
immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and
inflammation of the respiratory organs.
A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the
wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has
not injured them,--that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant
days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more
moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs.
There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for
keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet
carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind.
Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands.
That point of temperature at which the moisture of the air first becomes
visible is known as the dew-point. According to one authority, the mean
dew-point of England, from the first of November to the last of March,
is about 35°; that of our Northern States about 16°. Now suppose a house
in England is kept at a temperature of 70°, the drying power would there
be represented by 35. A house with the same temperature in Albany, for
example, would possess a drying power of 54. This great contrast in the
atmosphere of the two countries is strikingly illustrated by the
difference between the plump body and smooth skin of the Englishman, and
the lean, juiceless body, and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is
also shown by the well-known difference in the influence of house-heat
upon furniture. Our chairs and sofas and wood-work warp and shrink,
while nothing of the sort occurs in England.
As we cannot increase the amount of moisture in the atmosphere of our
continent, we must limit our practical efforts to the air of our houses.
If we use a stove, its entire-upper surface may be made a reservoir for
water; ornamental work, of but little cost, may be used to conceal it.
The furnace may be made to send up, with its heat, many gallons of water
daily, in the form of vapor. In justice to stoves and furnaces, I must
say here, that, in the opportunity to do this, they possess one
advantage over open fire-places.
By adding artificial moisture in this way to the air of our houses, we
not only save our furniture from drying and shrinking, but protect our
skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs from undue dryness, and from the
affections to which it would give rise. It is found necessary, in our
cloth-manufactories, to maintain a moist atmosphere in order to
successful spinning. Intelligent managers have assured me that coughs
and throat difficulties are comparatively rare in the spinning
department.
We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is
comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove,
is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its
boiling kettles moistens the air.
Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years
without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your
parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of
that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that
the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. The dry heat of the
parlor produced headache, irritability, and perhaps a sense of stricture
in the chest. If we would avoid these, a dry chapped skin, an irritable
nervous system, and a dry hacking cough, we must add the needed humidity
by artificial means.