Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/847

Rh Again, we find disease attacking country districts for the first time, where houses had been improved, and the ventilation, which used to take place through porous walls and less well-fitting windows, has been done away with. A case of this kind is reported to us by Mr. Alexander Campbell, of Auchindarroch, Lochgilphead; and we believe that the same thing was observed in a Westmoreland district. In an interesting letter Mr. Campbell writes: "Some years back I was asked by a medical officer of large experience in the Highlands regarding a phenomenon which had puzzled him. He had exerted himself much, and with great success, to have improved cottages built, but in proportion as the cottages grew better did the health of the people grow worse. I gave him my opinion that in tho old, uncomfortable-looking cottages, built may be of dry stone, and open to the roof, the people were kept healthy in spite of themselves by the wind blowing through them, while the new cottages, tightly built, and with well-fitting doors and windows, excluded the air, and the windows being seldom or never opened, the inhabitants were poisoned. He said he fully agreed in this, and would ask for no more new cottages until the people had learned how to live in them. I have found a considerable amount of ill health among the paupers in the island of Tiree, which, from its situation, exposed as it is to the free action of breezes from the Atlantic, should be one of the healthiest islands of the Hebrides. I attribute this to the mode in which the houses are built, with two walls two or three feet apart, the interval being closely packed with sand. The air is thus hermetically excluded, and unless the windows are made to open, and are freely opened, the inhabitants are constantly, when within their dwellings, breathing vitiated air." It is also worth while quoting from a review of Major Fisher's book (which book we have not read) in The Spectator, May 2, 1891, Through the Stable and Saddle Room: "Everybody knows something of the importance of ventilation, both for man and horse; but it is not so widely known as it ought to be that, while horses seldom or never take cold through being exposed to cold, they are often made ill by being too warm. [It is not the warmth; it is the impure air.] It is the inside, not the outside, air that gives them coughs, sore throats, congestion of the lungs, and sundry other ills to which horse-flesh is heir. For this reason, old ramshackle stables, full of cracks and crevices, are healthier than brand-new buildings with tight doors and windows and impervious roofs. Our author, who never generalizes rashly, and supports his theories with copious instances, mentions one or two curious 'cases in point.' Remounts for cavalry regiments, which are mostly of Irish extraction, have often to travel in severe weather part of the way in cattletrucks, with no other protection from the cold than their own coats. Nevertheless, the remounts nearly always arrive at their destination in perfect health; yet they are no sooner placed in stables, however well ventilated, than they begin to suffer from coughs and colds, which generally end in strangles. During the autumn manœuvres of 1875, Major Fisher's regiment was encamped near Aldershot, and though it rained almost incessantly, and the horses were picketed in the open, without so much as a blanket to cover them, colds and coughs were unheard of, and the favorite charger of one of his brother officers, which at the time she left the barrack-stable suffered from a severe cold, was made whole by a few days' exposure to the elemental strife." The book should contain some valuable facts. So also it is stated by Mr. Angell (Health Lectures, 1879-'80, page 31) that in the old crowded lodging-houses people sleeping on the floor would escape fever, while those sleeping on the bedsteads would be struck by it. Those on the floor got ventilation from the door and fireplace; those on the bedsteads were above the line of it—the colder