Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/135

Rh necessary to use more bed covering, but do not close the windows. You need pure air, no matter how cold it may be. Intense cold, however, is a powerful disinfectant, and when the temperature is extremely low it might be sufficient to raise the window only three or four inches. But in warmer weather open every window as wide as possible, and get in all the drafts you can.

It should also be remembered that the lung-poison of a stifling bed-chamber may undo the sanitary benefit of a long day passed in out-door exercise. European tourists can combine the useful with the agreeable by doing their sightseeing afoot, but should not forget that Alpine morning-breezes may fail to neutralize the bedroom air of a South-German tavern.

Nor can the purest atmosphere of our planet—that of the breezy ocean—be relied upon to counteract the monstrous air-filth of an unventilated cock-pit. Sailors, in spite of an abundance of outdoor exercise, thus often contract lung-disorders, and Captain Cook relates that the natives of the South Sea Islands, after visiting the sailors' cabin of his ship, were seized with strange respiratory afflictions: sneezing-fits, coughs, and pains in the chest, together with a kind of