AIR, PURE OR PUTRID, WHICH?
By Anna M. Skeer
OXYGEN and nitrogen, or carbonic acid gas, catarrh, alcohol, nicotine, and sulphur, which? Except in such cities as Pittsburg and Chicago, and in the crowded tenements of the poorest people, we take our choice of the air we breathe, or are compelled to take the choice—or the ignorance—of other people. Because air is a colorless, odorless thing, it seems to some minds not to have any use, or not to exist. As long as it does not show enough enmity to rise up and knock a man down, as it does sometimes in mines and wells and sewers, it is left undisturbed until it becomes putrid. When nature does take up the office of avenger, and sweeps it from hill to valley, and through every unguarded door and crevice, it is regarded as a deadly enemy, and is schemed against with a resistance worthy of a besieged fort. A popular notion prevails that warm air is good air, even if it has been heated over several times, and that it is a matter of economy to save all the air that has ever had any heat applied to it. It seems a pity to cool off the bedclothes in the morning, and chill the room, so the covers are carefully replaced while they are warm and tainted with the exhalations of the night. Carbonic acid gas is well known by chemists to be a deadly poison. It exists free in pure air in the proportion of one part to twenty-five hundred, but is the chief element in all air that has been breathed once by any pair of lungs, whether of beast or human being. In its unmixed state it extinguishes fire and life. In its mixed state, as found in unventilated rooms and churches, it clogs the lungs and poisons the blood. The lights are in full blaze, the furnace in full blast, the organ in full breeze (organs are not subjects for poison), the preacher in full zeal; but the people! What is the matter with the dear people? They keep examining the stained-glass memorial windows as tho they were looking for something not inscribed there, tho each one says, “To the glory of God,” etc. Then they yawn, or fidget, or sleep, and the preacher gets the headache. There may be nothing wrong but bad air, which saves a dollar’s worth of coal and costs a priceless amount of health and spirituality, not to say bad temper and loss of average attendance. In the homes parents wonder why the children are restless all night, and pale and fretful all the time. Very often the secret is that they breathe rum and tobacco in their father’s breath, and accumulated carbonic acid gas from all sources, for many days. Whether or not the science of ventilation is one of the lost arts, we do not know, but are sure it is well worthy the study of our rising architects how to keep the air of buildings pure without incurring the danger that exists in drafts. It is worth the attention of our political economists to consume the smoke and refuse of our houses and manufactories, in order that the atmosphere may not be black and rank with poisonous elements. In the meantime there is wanted information and agitation, common sense and courage. Many people do not know that consumption and general enervation are often due to bad air, and that fevers are due to decaying matter in cellars and ash piles, or that three-fourths of the work of the teacher and preacher are lost because hearers can not concentrate attention. The subject of ventilation, like all the rest of the health questions, and other reforms, needs constant stirring up; here a little, and there a little. Almost every sexton needs to be lectured or replaced, and public service halted till windows are opened. The common sense15wanted is not to kill people with drafts, and not to suppose we are going to be killed every time we see a window open. The imagination and habit play a large part here. It takes courage to let sunlight in on carpets, and breezes in on lace curtains, and to say, “Please don’t smoke my rooms and my carriage full of nicotine.” All our work of keeping people from killing themselves and us is an ungrateful service, but is greatly needed. If our work brings success as well as reproach, we can afford to take for our encouragement the assurance lately expressed in new shape by a writer, that those who are cannonaded now will be canonized by and by.—Anna M. Skeer.