Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/134

128 air delusion children are often fuddled with miasma till they prefer it to fresh air and dislike to sleep near an open window. But in a single month that aversion can be changed into a decided predilection, till the cool breath of the night-wind becomes a chief condition of a good night's rest, and the closing of the bedroom windows creates a feeling of uneasiness, not unlike the discomfort induced by an attempt to sleep with your head under the blankets. In the sleeping dens of the French village taverns, where after September the window-sashes are actually nailed down, the children of a hygienic home would pine for a draught of oxygen as a sweltering traveler thirsts after fresh water.

Besides open window's, Dio Lewis recommends an open fireplace and a good wood fire all night; but that is a matter of taste; an extra blanket will serve the same purpose, and the danger of damp bed-clothes in mid-winter has been as strangely overrated as the perils of cold drinking-water in midsummer.

In stormy nights a half-closed "rain-shutter" (a window-blind with broad bars) will keep the room perfectly dry without excluding the air.

When the mercury sinks below zero it may be