Page:Rural Hygiene - Florence Nightingale.pdf/18

 the ceiling; and the Health Missioner must see the kind of window and how it opens, in order to show the best way of airing the room. If, happily, there is a fireplace, no board or sack must fill up the chimney.

Furniture of Bedroom—Bed and Bedding.—No feather or flock bed to be allowed with unwashed tick, or which has not been pulled to pieces for years to be cleaned. Cleansing of chamber utensils—danger of unemptied slops—how to get rid of dust, and not merely to let it fly into the air and settle again. How to get rid of vermin. Lumber—not to turn the space under the bed into a lumber closet with rags and refuse, worn-out clothes and boots, coals and potatoes. Nothing to be kept under the bed but the chamber utensil with a lid. No vallance, only a frill. No carpet in the bedroom. Fresh air and sunshine in the bedroom by day promote sleep by night.

(1c) Kitchen.—Danger from refuse of food, grease in all the rough parts of kitchen table and chopping blocks, crumbs and scraps in chinks of ill-laid floor. Even typhoid has been known to result from this in barrack-rooms. How to fill up these chinks. Danger of remains of sour milk in jugs and saucepans. All refuse poisons the air, spoils fresh food, attracts vermin, rats, beetles, &c. Brick floor too porous, dangerous to sluice with too much water. Where do you get your water for cooking? Is it water plus sewage? Where do you get your milk? Is it milk plus water plus sewage? Where do you keep it? How to keep milk cool; how to clean kitchen table, crockery, pots and pans. Danger of dirty sink.