The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking | Page 9

tell
unerringly the degree of oxygen wanting and required.
It is ordinarily supposed that carbonic-acid gas, being heavier, sinks to
the bottom of the room, and that thus trundle-beds, for instance, are
especially unwholesome. This would be so, were the gas pure. As a
matter of fact, however, being warmed in the body, and thus made
lighter, it rises into the common air, so that usually more will be found
at the top than at the bottom of a room. This gas is, however, not the
sole cause of disease. From both lungs and skin, matter is constantly
thrown off, and floats in the form of germs in all impure air. To a
person who by long confinement to close rooms has become so
sensitive that any sudden current of air gives a cold, ventilation seems
an impossibility and a cruelty; and the problem becomes: How to admit
pure air throughout the house, and yet avoid currents and draughts.
"Night-air" is even more dreaded than the confined air of rooms; yet, as
the only air to be had at night must come under this head, it is safer to
breathe that than to settle upon carbonic acid as lung-food for a third, at
least, of the twenty-four hours. As fires feed on oxygen, it follows that
every lamp, every gas-jet, every furnace, are so many appetites
satisfying themselves upon our store of food, and that, if they are
burning about us, a double amount of oxygen must be furnished.
The only mode of ventilation that will work always and without fail is
that of a warm-air flue, the upward heated air-current of which draws
off the foul gases from the room: this, supplemented by an opening on
the opposite side of the room for the admission of pure air, will

accomplish the desired end. An open fire-place will secure this,
provided the flue is kept warm by heat from the kitchen fire, or some
other during seasons when the fire-place is not used. But perhaps the
simplest way is to have ample openings (from eight to twelve inches
square) at the top and bottom of each room, opening into the
chimney-flue: then, even if a stove is used, the flue can be kept heated
by the extension of the stove-pipe some distance up within the chimney,
and the ascending current of hot air will draw the foul air from the
room into the flue. This, as before stated, must be completed by a
fresh-air opening into the room on another side: if no other can be had,
the top of the window may be lowered a little. The stove-pipe extension
within the chimney would better be of cast-iron, as more durable than
the sheet-iron. When no fire is used in the sleeping-rooms, the
chimney-flue must be heated by pipes from the kitchen or other fires;
and, with the provision for fresh air never forgotten, this simple device
will invariably secure pure and well-oxygenated air for breathing.
"Fussy and expensive," may be the comment; but the expense is less
than the average yearly doctor's bill, and the fussiness nothing that your
own hands must engage in. Only let heads take it in, and see to it that
no neglect is allowed. In a southern climate doors and windows are of
necessity open more constantly; but at night they are closed from the
fear referred to, that night-air holds some subtle poison. It is merely
colder, and perhaps moister, than day-air; and an extra bed-covering
neutralizes this danger. Once accustomed to sleeping with open
windows, you will find that taking cold is impossible.
If custom, or great delicacy of organization, makes unusual
sensitiveness to cold, have a board the precise width of the window,
and five or six inches high. Then raise the lower sash, putting this
under it; and an upward current of air will be created, which will in
great part purify the room.
Beyond every thing, watch that no causes producing foul air are
allowed to exist for a moment. A vase of neglected flowers will poison
the air of a whole room. In the area or cellar, a decaying head of
cabbage, a basket of refuse vegetables, a forgotten barrel of pork or
beef brine, a neglected garbage pail or box, are all premiums upon

disease. Let air and sunlight search every corner of the house. Insist
upon as nearly spotless cleanliness as may be, and the second prime
necessity of the home is secure.
When, as it is written, man was formed from the dust of the earth, the
Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became
a living soul."
Shut off that breath of life, or poison it as it is daily poisoned, and not
only body, but soul, dies. The child, fresh