Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/151



In latitudes of an inhospitable climate an opportunity for indoor exercise has indisputable advantages, but involves the risk of defective ventilation, and the ideal of a rainday refuge for votaries of the movement-cure is the drill-shed of an Austrian household regiment: A structure 300 feet long by 60 broad, and about 25 feet between the floor and the ceiling of the main hall, yet equipped with hot-air pipes sufficient to counteract the frosts of the coldest winter day.

A time may come when every country town of the civilized North-lands will have a public gymnasium of that sort, and in the meanwhile indoor-workers must contrive to defy the main obstacle to effective ventilation, viz., the superstitious dread of cold draughts.

The supposed connection of catarrhs ("colds") with currents of cold air is strikingly refuted by the practical argument of an open smithy. Blacksmith—as well as the operatives of Northern rolling-mills—often work all day