Open Doors | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 20, 1872

Open Doors.

Most of our houses—or at least a large proportion of them—are heated by a furnace, even if all the warmth is not derived from one. Open fireplaces, it seems to us, are becoming rarer and more rare, and with them disappears a most efficient means of ventilation. We will not stop here to lament this as a great loss to us in a social point of view, thus depriving the family of the focus to which its various members may come—the hearthstone, so dear to all who have had a real one—though we believe it to be a great loss; but we will urge it as a reason for throwing open more freely the doors of communication between entries and rooms. Since furnaces have been so generally introduced, entries and passages can be, and are, kept much warmer than was possible before—quite warm enough, if not indeed too warm, for health—and there need no longer be the risk of unduly lowering the temperature of the rooms in which we live, by leaving the door open behind us. Besides, windows shut closer, and, as towns increase in size, the outer cold has less effect upon in-door temperature; and, what is of far greater moment, ventilation, in too many modern houses, must be secured through the entries, or not at all. Fresh air, it is true, is poured into the rooms from the furnace, but egress for that which is vitiated is not provided, and it must pour out through cracks, or remain. Of course, if we could wait, it would pour out.

Fresh hot air coming in would gradually completely purify the room, which would attain a temperature of over 180° Fahrenheit. But we cannot stand it; so we shut the register, and put an end to ventilation and temporary discomfort together.

Very few houses, however, have means for throwing as much hot air into their entries as into the rooms, so that not only are the latter filled with vitiated air, but actually, in spite of all the modern improvements, the entries grow cold; more coal is thrown on the furnace, its upper door is shut, and very little is effected.

Now, if we would only accustom ourselves to open doors, we would certainly have better ventilation in the rooms, and warmer entries, while both rooms and entries might be kept at a temperature of 68 degrees with much less trouble than is now expended in bringing rooms “up to seventy degrees.”

Where there are children, it is, we think, of great importance that rooms and entries should be of the same temperature, for certainly a large proportion of the chest and bowel affections of the young can be traced among certain classes to an exposure to a change in temperature, especially where the little ones are in the habit of passing from overwarmed rooms into somewhat underwarmed entries.

There is no need to dilate on the necessity of ventilation to young and old; but even where stoves are used, and a certain ventilation is thus afforded, our remarks hold true; for there is no doubt that all ordinary modes of burning anthracite coal pour into our rooms so much of the inodorous, tasteless, poisonous carbonic oxide, that we can hardly have too much air with which to dilute it.

So we put in a plea that instruction be given to our young folks somewhat different from that which their forefathers received. Teach them by all means to be obedient and docile, but forgive them if doors be left ajar; nay, more—teach them to leave them open.—Medical Times.