How to Live | Page 9

is often disastrous even for
the purpose in view, namely to gain wealth. For wealth gained at the
expense of health always proves in the end a bitter joke. The victim
proceeds through the rest of his life to spend wealth in pursuit of health.
Section IV--Outdoor Sleeping
Unfortunately most people can not live out of doors all of the time, and
many are so situated that they can not even secure ventilation, granted
that they want it. But there is one important part of the twenty-four
hours when most people can completely control their own air supply.
This is at night. We spend a third of our time in bed. Most of us live
such confined lives during the day that we should all the more avail
ourselves of our opportunities to practise air hygiene at night.
[Sidenote: Tuberculosis]
[Sidenote: Well Persons]
It is the universal testimony of those who have slept out-of-doors that
the best ventilated sleeping-room is far inferior in healthfulness to an
outdoor sleeping-porch, open tent, or window tent (large enough to
include the whole bed). For generations, outdoor sleeping has
occasionally been used as a health measure in certain favorable
climates and seasons. But only in the last two decades has it been used
in ordinary climates and all the year round. Dr. Millet, a Brockton
physician, began some years ago to prescribe outdoor sleeping for some

shoe-factory workmen who were suffering from tuberculosis. As a
consequence, in spite of their insanitary working-places (where they
still continued to work while being treated for tuberculosis), they often
conquered the disease in a few months. It was largely this experience
which led to the general adoption, irrespective of climate, of outdoor
sleeping for the treatment of tuberculosis. The practise has since been
introduced for nervous troubles and for other diseases, including
pneumonia. Latterly the value of outdoor sleeping for well persons of
all classes, infants and children as well as adults, has come to be widely
recognized.
[Sidenote: Vital Resistance]
Outdoor sleeping increases the power to resist disease, and greatly
promotes physical vigor, endurance, and working power.
[Sidenote: Night Air]
Many people are still deterred from sleeping out by a mistaken fear of
night air and of the malaria which they imagine this dreaded night air
may bring. To-day we know that malaria is communicated by the bite
of the anopheles mosquito and never by the air. The moral of this is not
to shut out the night air, but, when necessary, to shut out the mosquito
by screens. The experiment has been made of sleeping out-of-doors in
screened cages in the most malarial of places and no malarial infection
resulted, though those who were unprotected and were consequently
bitten by mosquitoes contracted malaria as usual. The truth is that night
air, especially in cities, is distinctly purer than day air, on account of
the fact that there is much less traffic at night to stir up dust.
[Sidenote: Protection From Cold]
It is very important, in any sleeping balcony, to be protected from the
wind by a sash on one or two or--in very windy places--three sides. But
of course sleeping out-of-doors does not reach its maximum efficiency
if there is too much protection, that is, if the sleeping-out place is so
shut in that very free currents of air are not secured. An outdoor porch
really ceases to be an outdoor porch, when enclosed on four sides.

A roll curtain (preferably rolling from the bottom) can be arranged on
the open side or sides, to be used in case of storms only. In cold
weather a thick mattress, or two mattresses, should be used. It is not
only what is over the sleeper, but also what is under him, that keeps
him warm. The body should be warmly clad, and the head and neck
protected by a warm cap or helmet or hood. To prevent the entrance of
cold air under the bedclothes, one or more blankets should be extended
at least two feet beyond the head, with a central slit for the head. Early
awakening by the light may, if necessary, be prevented by touching the
eyelids with burnt cork, or by bandaging the eyes with a black cloth or
stocking. Sheets should be well warmed in the winter-time before being
used. They can easily be warmed with a hot-water bag, flat-iron, or
soapstone. Blankets next to the skin are not hygienic.
[Sidenote: Sleeping-tents]
Sleeping out is really much easier than most people imagine. In fact,
few, if any, of the other cardinal rules of hygiene are so easy to obey.
Where a sleeping-porch is not available, an inward window tent can
always be had which puts the sleeper practically out-of-doors and at the
same time cuts off his tent from the rest of the room.