Health Department by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 6, 1875

Health Department.

By Editor

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 2.

Burn Kerosene the Right Way.

A CORRESPONDENT calls attention of all consumers of kerosene oil to the pernicious and unhealthy practice of using lamps filled with that article with the wicks turned down. The gas which should be consumed by the flames is by this means left heavily in the air, while the cost of the oil thus saved at present prices would scarce be one dollar a year for the lamps of a household. His attention was called particularly to this custom by boarding in the country where kerosene was the only available light. A large family of children living in the same house were taken ill one night and on going to the nursery the mother found the room nearly suffocating, with a lamp turned down, whereupon the physician forbade the use of a lamp at night, unless turned at full head. He says he could quote many cases, one of a young lady subject to fits of faintness, which if not induced, were greatly increased by sleeping in a room with the lamp almost turned out. Besides the damage to health, it spoils the paper and curtains, soils the mirror and windows, and gives the whole house an untidy air and an unwholesome odor.—Sel.

We are pleased to see the above in print. We have often had occasion to speak of this, and hope every reader will remember it. Several times persons have come into our meetings with lanterns and turning them down, set them near the speaker's stand, to have them ready for immediate use at the close of the meeting. In such cases we have invariably requested them to change the position of the lantern and explained the danger of the practice. The above article does not magnify the danger of kerosene lamps turned down in sleeping rooms. We advise all to banish lights from sleeping apartments entirely, unless circumstances make them necessary. John Harvey Kellogg