Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/97

Rh on, however, it must be done in a very large room, freely ventilated, and scrupulously free from dust; for, the more exercise the body takes, the more air it requires, and the less of incumbrances in the way of mechanical obstacles to a free respiration. In damp days, when walking out-of-doors is impossible, the consumptive child may thus have three hours' dancing with advantage; not in stuck-up bowing and scraping, finnicking, polite quadrillism, but in good active dances, that make every limb feel pleasant fatigue.

In the performance of muscular exercise let the consumptive never encumber himself, nor check the free movements of his body, by strappings, loads of clothes, carrying of weights, and the like. These are but tasks; they lead to unequal exertion in special sets of muscles, and to an inequality of expenditure of power which ought to be avoided.

A last consideration on the value of muscular exercise is, that it is eminently useful in keeping the respiratory muscles in a state of active nutrition. For, if to the loss of capaciousness in the lungs to receive air there is added a daily increasing failure in the muscles by which the acts of inspiration and expiration are carried on, it is clear that a double evil is at work. Now, this double evil is most actively presented in consumption. As the respiratory muscles, together with the other muscles, lose their tone, so do the general symptoms of exhaustion increase in severity, sometimes without very marked change in the pathological condition of the lungs. In sequence, day by day, as the nutrition of these muscles decreases, and as they fail in tonic contractile power, they gain in excitability; so that the irregular spasmodic contractions to which they are subjected in the act of coughing are produced by the merest excitement, and the cough is more frequent as it becomes more feeble.

A Uniform Climate is an Important Element in the Treatment of Consumptives.—Consumptive patients are constantly asking questions as to the value of a change of climate. The poorest applicants for relief are anxious on this point, and are often ready at once to contemplate emigration, if the merest hope is given to them that such a course would prove beneficial. In considering climate, the fact should be remembered that the main point to be obtained is to select such a part of the earth's surface as presents the nearest approach to an equality of temperature. Different writers of eminence have given the most contrary opinions on climate and consumption. Some have recommended a warm climate, others the polar regions. Both parties have spoken from experience, and they are, in some measure, both right; for a climate equally cold and a climate equally hot are each much more favorable than one in which there are constant variations, and where the thermometer in the course of the year ranges many degrees from freezing-point up to 100° Fahr. or higher. Speaking of 153,098 deaths from consumption occurring between the years 1841 and 1851, the Irish Census Commissioners observe: