Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/845

Rh We now pass to other evidence affecting the poison that escapes from lungs and skin. We all know that a room is offensive when many people are crowded into it; we know the unpleasantness of a bedroom before the air has freely entered it; we know how disagreeable the breath and the clothes can be; we know that animals die when submitted to air that has been breathed, even when the carbonic acid has been removed; we know how necessary is the continuous flood of pure air in hospitals—we have heard it stated that this much freer admission of air is rendering unnecessary the antiseptic treatment of wounds; how by treating men in the open air and in tents recoveries have been made quicker and better than in hospital; and how in the case of the Austrian army "the most severe maladies ran their course much more mildly" in the free air, while the recovery was quicker and more perfect (Ransome, Health Lectures, 1875-'78, page 151). So also Dr. Parkes says (page 181) in cases of blood-poisoning, the best treatment is complete exposure to open air; so also in typhus; and in a less degree in enteric fever, small-pox, and plague. "This complete exposure," he adds, "of patients to air is the most important mode of treatment, before even diet and medicines." In