Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/618

600 and incontestably prove, from increased demand, the necessity for increased supply.

This view, which we admit to be an extreme one, of ventilation requirements in dwelling-houses, may serve, at least, to impress upon many the advantage of living as much as possible out-of-doors, and of taking some regular exercise. On the other hand, it will certainly show the futility of the petty, peddling expedients adopted under the name of ventilation, when the prevailing apathy is stirred to such an extent as to cause "something to be done," which may be a little better than resting content with doing nothing at all.

What we have said of the indifference, ignorance, or error as to ventilation, has had special reference to the designers of houses "built to look at," and to sell; but a deficiency so general and complete cannot be ascribed to those only who, while they occupy the position of teachers, are compelled to take their cue from the taught. The education of public opinion is a delicate process. It is essentially one of action and reaction, requiring concurrence to initiate and cooperation successfully to work out. The illness of the Prince of Wales did much to amend house-drainage, for the torpidity of public opinion gets well aroused when royalty suffers; and the asphyxiation of a nobleman or the blood-poisoning of a bishop would, no doubt, be a wonderful stimulus to the application of common-sense to house-ventilation.

The second rule that we lay down relates to the conditions of the supply of the large volume of fresh air we have indicated as necessary for perfect health: it must be tempered—warmed. No raw, damp, frosty air of an ever-changing temperature ought to have uncontrolled and constant ingress to our dwelling. Air out-of-doors is suited to out-of-door habits. It is healthy and bracing when the body coated and wrapped, and prepared to meet it, and when excerciseexercise [sic] can be taken to keep up the circulation; but to live under cover is to live artificially, and all essential conditions must be dealt with to suit an abnormal state, and all the evils attaching to ventilation, as generally effected, spring from the neglect of this consistency. We admit raw air, and we warm it most at the critical moment when we send it up the chimney! We freeze our backs and scorch our faces. We sit with our feet in a current of cold air, and our heads are kept in an impure atmosphere, vitiated by human lungs, the products of gas-consumption, and loaded with animal matter. We have a torrid zone bordered by the hearth-rug, and the arctic regions in the neighborhood of the windows and door. Medical men shiver at the abstract idea of violent changes of temperature, but they raise no warning voice against delicate patients being subjected to a variation of 60° in a modern drawing-room. The notion is stereotyped that night air is unwholesome. The casual admission of air during the day is no longer permitted, all known apertures are carefully closed, and, if intention