CHAPTER VIII.

Health, and the means to preserve it-Air-The importance of ventilation-Exercise-Food-Water-Cleanliness-Sleep

General rules of health.

THE richest possession of man on earth is perfect health, -a sound mind in a sound body. This is the gift of God; but he grants to us the privilege of wasting or preserving this precious gift.

It is the duty of every one to guard this possession faithfully; if once lost, time and money may be unavailingly spent to regain it. The young are especially bound to preserve it, that they may be enabled to fulfil the duties God has set before them, and provide for a prosperous and vigorous age; nor should those of mature age neglect the health and strength given them, that they may live for the sake of their children.

The means for preserving health are pure air, exercise, cleanliness, wholesome food, and a pious, contented mind.

Air and ventilation, often wantonly neglected by the rich, are unfortunately not always to be procured by the poor; but a spirit of prudence and humanity is abroad, and people no longer construct unhealthy dwellings for their fellow-creatures.

Exercise is the point most neglected by many. The student, the busy merchant, the sedentary artisan, the hard-worked needlewoman, and the languid and luxurious lady, alike suffer from the want of exercise.

Cleanliness is the habit of all ranks in the present day, except the poor, who generally hold it in aversion; yet to them it is, above all, a principle of good health.

Of wholesome food, most people may procure sufficient for the support of health, except the very destitute;

but all have not judgment to select, or skill to prepare the wholesome.

All men, poor or rich, may possess a contented mind. Perfect faith and trust in God enable all to receive his dispensations as blessings, and in sorrow or in joy to say, "All is good."

Air.

The pure air with which the beneficent Creator has surrounded the earth is absolutely necessary to the existence of man.

Every time we draw in our breath we inhale from one to two pints of air, which is composed, when pure, of two gases, named oxygen and nitrogen, a small quantity of carbonic acid gas also entering into the composition. The greatest part of this passes through the lungs, and is taken into the blood to maintain the healthy state of the body; the rest, with a large proportion of poisonous carbonic acid gas, we exhale or send out with every breath.

This noxious vapour, carbonic acid gas, is destructive to human life, therefore it is obvious that in a crowded and close room, when the breath of each person produces a gallon each minute of this deleterious air, that human life is in great peril. It is impossible to inhale the air a second time without danger, and we have many instances on record of men crowded into a close prison, or slaves shut down in the hold of a vessel, perishing miserably from breathing this poisoned air.

Though these instances of numbers perishing in one night are rare, yet are there hundreds of unrecorded deaths-the victims who slowly fall a sacrifice to illventilated and over-peopled rooms. The unwashed and ill-fed artisans shut up in workshops steaming with foul vapours; the pale workwoman in the hot room of the milliner, all weak and enervated with the pernicious

atmosphere, shrink from the chill of the little air they might at rare intervals obtain, and perish by slow .poison.

The benevolent arrangement of Government school inspection has reformed some of the most frightful evils arising from crowded schools; but many of these old establishments still exist in remote country districts, where the pallid faces of the schoolmaster or schoolmistress denote the poison they have swallowed from the breath of the crowded scholars, who, more fortunate than their teachers, have the opportunity of rushing about in the air in their play-hours, and thus reviving the drooping system.

Where it is possible to prevent or alleviate this evil, it is the duty of every one to attempt it. The heads of a family should conscientiously and prudently provide for the proper ventilation of every room in their house, to procure for their children and their servants as much pure air as possible.

To the rich, the luxury of a large house, with spacious and lofty sleeping-apartments, insures healthy air. But people of moderate income, tradesmen and mechanics, are frequently compelled to live in small houses. It is then necessary that every expedient should be used to obtain sufficient ventilation.

When there is no fire in a room, the chimney should never be closed; it is easy to have it well swept, so that there need be no fear of a fall of soot; but that most useful ventilator, the chimney, should never be shut up, especially in a sleeping-room.

The windows of a bedroom should be made to open from the top as well as at the bottom; they should be opened, if it can be done with safety, even before dressing, but always immediately after, and remain open all day, or certainly some hours.

Bed-curtains are an interruption to ventilation, they should certainly never be drawn round the bed; but the neat uncurtained French beds, now so much in use, are

BEDROOM VENTILATION.

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the best that can be employed, and are at once cheap and pretty.

Flowers in pots, or even placed in water, should never be kept in a sleeping-room, for it is the nature of plants to give out during the night a quantity of the pestilential carbonic acid gas, so destructive to human life.

Many people have a great objection to sleep with a bedroom door open, but in such case, the upper panels of the door should be perforated to admit air.

Lamps and candles in a bedroom consume the oxygen and form carbonic acid gas, and are therefore objectionable, unless the door be left open. They should, at all events, be placed in the fireplace. A bedroom fire assists ventilation, but it should be kept up all night, for if it sinks low, sulphurous vapours are spread round the room. Above all other lights, gas-lights should never be burnt in a bedroom; the gas from coals is of a poisonous quality, and is never entirely consumed in the burner, and the portion which escapes, mingling with the common air, renders it noxious. The consequences are, that in a confined, or crowded room, lighted by gas, many people suffer from headache, accompanied by an unpleasant taste in the mouth,-certain signs that they are suffering from a vitiated atmosphere.

To all who have the choice, it is very desirable to select a dwelling in an elevated locality, where the air is dry and pure. In towns, the broad streets are always most healthy, where the sun and air can have free access. Large windows and doors, frequently open, are of great use, to admit the boon of God to all, light and air.

There is an impression on the minds of residents in towns, that a country life must necessarily be a healthy life. It is an undoubted fact that the free open air of the fields and commons must be usually purer than that of a crowded city, which is probably mingled with smoke and deleterious gas; and the field-labourer, during the day, has a healthier life than than the city artisan.

But in town and country alike, the labouring classes. too commonly exclude this precious air entirely from their dwellings, sedulously closing every cranny through which it might enter. When this is the case, the necessary consequences must be that disease will be as frequent in the country cottage as in the city lodging-house; and death will carry off its victims as numerously.

It is, however, in towns especially that this evil exists. In the narrow close streets, where a numerous family are crowded into one small room, sleeping in it, and eating in it, their very food is poisoned with the gas breathed from their lungs, and the garments they wear are loaded with pestilence.

Even in the houses of respectable tradesmen, who ought to know better, we constantly see the windows of sleeping-rooms kept closed, on the pretext that the dust and smoke would come in and injure the furniture, if they were opened. But no consideration should have such weight as the consideration of the question of the preservation of health.

If a family commonly sit in the room in which they eat, it should be thoroughly ventilated after each meal, that the vapour arising from the meat and vegetables may be dispersed.

In cases of sickness, these precautions should be more especially attended to. In an ill-ventilated room the effluvia of food, medicine, &c. is distressing to an invalid, and a free admission of air can alone dispel the annoyance.

A crowded room should have a continual current of air sweeping through every part to carry away the impure gas and effluvia. A gust of air occasionally let into the room fails to effect this useful purpose, and often causes chills and colds, and thus serves to encourage the prejudice against ventilation.

Sleeping-rooms are most healthy when in the upper part of a dwelling-house; a ground-floor sleeping-room,