Pure Air and Correct Breathing—Their Value
By D. H. Kress
By D. H. Kress, M.D., Director of Washington (D. C.) Sanitarium THE time was when people worked in the field, and slept in rudely constructed homes through which daylight and air were admitted on all sides. Very little thought needed to be given to purity of air. But since this rural life has been exchanged for city life, and work in the field for office work, and the loosely thrown together hut for the modern air-proof dwelling, some plans have to be developed whereby the foul air may be diluted and removed, and pure air admitted. An opening at the top of a window directed toward the ceiling, and an open fireplace, form a splendid ventilating system. If a stove is in the room, by running a pipe containing a damper, from the elbow at the back of the stove to within three or four inches of the floor, the outlet of impure air can be regulated. This is the best ventilating system for the ordinary living-room. The cool air is at the top while the warm, impure air is drawn up the chimney. To supply the same quality of air in the inside of these dwellings that is found on the outside is impossible, since it would require a complete change of the air four or five times every minute. Therefore house dwellers, even where they have the best known system of ventilation, must be content with air that has in it some impurities not found in out-of-door air. For inside air we are forced to adopt a different standard of purity than for out-of-door air. As far as possible, therefore, it is well to live out-of-doors. The beneficial effect of light and pure air may be witnessed by exposing to them bedding containing impurities. How sweet the bedding is at night after such exposure during the day. Sunlight and air have the same beneficial influence on the human body. The organic impurities which are constantly forming in the body and oozing through the pores of the skin, in the absence of light and air undergo putrefactive changes, and develop foul and offensive products, which when reabsorbed or inhaled produce disease. The body needs exposure to pure air in order to be kept sweet and clean. There are those who religiously exclude15the night air from bedrooms, believing it to be harmful. Night air is the only kind of air we have to breathe at night. It is only a question of whether we will open our windows, and breathe the pure night air, or keep them closed, and breathe impure night air. In order to keep the air in rooms as pure as possible, it is necessary to have more than one opening. There should be an inlet for the pure air, and an outlet for impure air, in every ventilating system. These openings should be as nearly opposite each other as possible. The air must be kept circulating. Unless this is done, the air surrounding the body soon becomes so thoroughly impregnated with impurities that it becomes dangerous to health. Sleeping in rooms in which the air stagnates is responsible for the lack of ambition, and the good-for-nothing feeling, frequently experienced early in the morning, and which call for the morning narcotics. Infants are often injured by sleeping in closed rooms with tobacco-using parents. Many an infant's life has been sacrificed in this way. Impure air not only injures health, but dulls the mind; it makes less acute the judgment and the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. It dampens the vital fires, and decreases energy. No one can be what God designed him to be physically, intellectually, or morally, who is content to dwell in poorly ventilated rooms, and breathe impure air.