PRECAUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 
PERTAINING TO THE 
ENJOYMENT 
OF 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
SELECTED FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS. 
PUBLISHED BY ROSS WINANS. 
BALTIMORE: 
JOHJf CP. (2)E8 FOI?QE8. 
1871. PRECAUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 
PERTAINING TO THE 
Enjoyment of Health and Com tort. 
For the illustration of the subject of venti- 
lation, bathing, (fee., I make the following 
extracts from Chambers’ Miscellany and other 
Works. 
“With respect to the ventilation of private 
houses, we offer the following admonitory hints: 
Let each bed be as open and airy as possible, 
that is, have plenty of room for the air to 
play over and about it. 
The bed should be as open and airy during 
the day as the night, for during the night it 
absorbs impurities which should have liberty 
to escape after the persons rise from it. 
On rising in the morning, open wide the 
curtains or doors, throw down the bed clothes, 4 
health and comfort. 
or, what is better, hang them on screens 
during the day, and open the window and 
door, so that the air may blow freely through 
the house, and carry off all impurities in the 
atmosphere, buch precautions are especially 
necessaiy in the case of newly built houses, 
where moisture and other injurious exhala- 
tions, are apt to arise irom the walls, the 
painting, and wood work. 
A good house-wife will take care to allow 
nothing to remain within doors, which may 
cause a bad smell. All by-corners and closets, 
should be regularly swept out, washed, and 
ventilated. 
It may be asked, how is it to be known 
when a house is ill-ventilated. If, on coming 
from the open air, you are sensible of a stifiin<>- 
musty odor in any apartment, at once throw 
open the door or windows, and see for the 
future that a continual current be admitted, to 
prevent such a want of ventilation. 
By attention to these simple, but necessarily 
brief directions, as regards cleanliness and ven- HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
5 
tilation, much disease and suffering, loss of 
time through ill-health, moral deterioration, 
and other obvious evils might be avoided, and 
a vast amount of comfort and enjoyment se- 
cured. 
As Nature does nothing in vain, we may 
ask what has been her design in causing such 
an exhalation of vapor and liquid from the 
body? The design has been the purifying of 
the system. 
A pure and bracing atmosphere, is well 
known to be more conducive to health, than 
one which is heavv and relaxing. 
When the skin is in a proper condition, and 
the atmosphere pure, the vital functions, suf- 
fering no impediment from external circum- 
stances, proceed with the requisite energy, and 
the feelings enjoy that degree of buoyancy, 
which is the best criterion of a good state of 
health. 
When in a perfectly healthy condition, the 
skin is soft, warm, and covered with a gentle 
moisture; the circulation of the blood is also 6 
HEALTH AND COMFORT 
in a state of due activity, giving it a fresh and 
ruddy color. The degree of redness, as for 
instance, in the cheeks, is usually in propor- 
tion to the exposure to the outer atmosphere ; 
such exposure, when not too severe, causing 
active circulation of the blood not only through- 
out the body, but to the most minute vessels 
on the surface. 
It must be obvious, from what has been 
said, that cleanliness is indispensable in secur- 
ing not only a healthy condition, but also 
much comfort both of body and mind. Clean- 
liness is attained by attention to various cir- 
cumstances and practices; for the most part 
people are clean only by halves. Dress, wash- 
ing, bathing, household arrangements, all re- 
quire consideration. 
Dress.—Purification of the skin may be 
greatly promoted, by the wearing of clean 
garments. That garment which is placed next 
the skin, the shirt, be it of linen, cotton, or 
woolen, ought to be changed less or more 
frequently, according to circumstances—such 7 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
as the degree of labor, the nature of the 
employment, the warmth of the climate, and 
so on. The reason for the change is evident. 
The shirt is the immediate receiver of a large 
proportion of the matter thrown out by the 
pores, and much of what it receives, it retains. 
Besides, therefore, becoming unseemly from its 
appearance, it becomes foul, and the foulness 
reacting on the skin, irritates and clogs it. 
Custom is the great regulator in affairs of this 
kind ; but is not always correct. Some change 
their linen daily, others every two or three 
days, the great number weekly. What is 
very inconsistent, those who change their gar- 
ments the least frequently, are the manual 
laboring classes, who should change them more 
frequently than any one else. As it is princi- 
pally for the benefit of this numerous body 
that we pen these pages, we must speak as 
explicitly as possible. 
Addressing men (and women too) who labor 
daily at a mechanical employment, we wTould 
offer the following advices: 8 
health and comfort. 
Do Dot sleep in the shirt which you wear 
during the day. Have a night shirt and a day 
one. Cotton makes the best, as it is certainly 
the cheapest night shirt. A clean day shirt 
should, if possible, be put on twice a week, 
and a clean night shirt once a week. Do not 
be contented with the old fashioned practice of 
putting on a clean shirt only on Sundays. 
The washing of a shirt is a very small matter; 
and it must be a wretchedly paid employment 
that cannot afford a trifle for this useful and 
agreeable purpose. 
If you labor at an employment in which 
fumes and exhalations of a deleterious kind 
are apt to be absorbed by the clothes you 
weai, make a rule of changing your whole 
garments every evening when done with work; 
and let your work-clothes be washed pretty 
frequently, and well exposed to sun and air. 
This advice is particularly offered to house- 
painteis, plumbers, and all who work in oils, 
pigments and metals. By inattention to this 
practice, the health of house-painters is ex- HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
9 
extremely liable to injury. They may be said 
so to be gradually killed by the absorption of 
poison through the skin, as well as by the 
lungs. One ordinary symptom of the disease 
which they contract is known by the name of 
painters’ colic. Indeed, every individual em- 
ployed at chemical-works, dye-works, gas- 
works, and the like, should be extremely 
attentive to the cleanliness of their clothes and 
persons. After ten hours’ exposure in such 
places, both the skin and garments are to a 
certain extent saturated with noxious fumes, and 
though for several years these may produce no 
other sensible effect than the inconvenience of 
an offensive odor, yet they are most assuredly 
undermining the health of the parties exposed. 
Washing the body thoroughly after the hours 
of labor, will enable the skin to throw off the 
greater part of the effluvia it may have 
absorbed; and shaking and exposing the gar- 
ments to the air will materially assist in dis- 
pelling the offensive odors. 10 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
It should be known, too, that dark colored 
cloth imbibes effluvia much more readily and 
retains it longer than cloth of a light or white 
hue. 
The best kind of outer garments for workmen 
of any class are such as will easily wash; 
indeed all their daily work-clothes should be 
of materials that can be readily washed and 
dried. 
The neatest and most economical kind of 
cloth for jackets and trowsers is strong white 
fustian. A tidy workman desirous of feeling 
comfortable and of looking respectable, may 
very easily have two suits, one to use while 
another is being washed and dried. How 
much a good wife may do to insure this 
health-giving cleanliness, need not be insisted 
on. 
Washing.—The hands, face, neck, and arms 
should be washed at least twice daily, so as to 
remove every vestige of impurity from the skin. 
These ablutions should be in the morning on 
rising and in the evening after labor. If the HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
11 
labor be of a dirty kind, as, for instance, 
that of painters, plumbers, black-smiths, 
engineers, <&c., the washing should be not 
only morning and evening, but breakfast and 
dinner—before, not after—these meals. 
At the same time, the hair should be brushed, 
which by the way, ought to be protected in all 
dusty employments, by a light linen or paper 
cap. There cannot be the least doubt, that, by 
such ablutions alone—nothing else being used 
o o 
than soap and water—the health of workmen 
would be very essentially promoted. 
Sponging.—This is the next step towards 
personal cleanliness. In cases where bathing 
by entire immersion of the body cannot be 
conveniently obtained, it may answer every 
desirable end to sponge the body all over with 
water every morning on getting out of bed. 
In doing so, begin by wetting the head and 
shoulders, and then proceed to the rest of the 
body. To save a slop on the floor, the person 
may stand in a broad shallow tub or pan, or 
even on a square of oil cloth, which is cheap 12 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
and can be easily removed. After sponging, 
rub and dry tbe body with a rough towel and 
then immediately dress. 
This process is so simple, so inexpensive, 
and will occupv so little time, that no one need 
neglect it on any common pretence. When a 
sponge cannot be conveniently obtained a wet 
towel will answer the purpose. The small 
amount of trouble incurred by this kind of 
ablution will in general be amply repaid by an 
increase of health and comfort. 
Bathing.—Here we arrive at the great and 
almost universally recognized engine of per- 
sonal purification. 
According to the Jewish dispensation, certain 
observances to insure personal cleanliness were 
the subject of religious injunction; and for a 
similar reason Mahommedans in eastern coun- 
tries have been enjoined to perform ablutions at 
stated times and seasons. In these Oriental 
countries, and also in Russia, the use of the 
warm bath is universal among the richer classes, 
and the public establishments for bathing are in HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
13 
some places on a scale of great splendor. Inat- 
tention to cleanliness of apparel seem to render 
these ablutions indispensable for personal com- 
fort. 
The mass of the people having neither the 
means to purchase nor the convenience for 
using private baths, must of course resort to 
public ones ; and for their accommodation, there- 
fore, every town ought to possess one or more 
establishments fitted up with all proper con- 
veniences for bathing. In this respect, not- 
withstanding our wealth, our boasted civilization 
and mechanical skill, we fall infinitely short of 
the Greeks and Romans, who had not only 
their domestic, but their public baths, in which 
the poorest citizen might lave. 
While we wonder at their prevalence among 
all the eastern and northern nations, may we 
not lament that they are so little used in our 
own country? We might, perhaps, find reason 
to allow that erysipelas, surfeit, rheumatism, 
colds, and a hundred other evils, particularly 
all sorts of cutaneous and nervous disorders, 14 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
might be alleviated, if not prevented, by a 
proper attention to bathing. I hardly know 
any act of benevolence more essential to the 
comfort of the community, than that of estab- 
lishing by public benefaction, the use of baths 
for all classes in each of our cities and manu- 
facturing towns. The lives of many might be 
saved by them. Throughout the vast empire 
of Russia, through all Finland, Lapland, 
Sweden, and Norway, there is no cottage so 
poor, no hut so destitute, but it possesses its 
vapor bath, in which all its inhabitants, every 
Saturday at least, and every day in cases of 
sickness, experience comfort and salubrity. 
Among the ancients, baths were public edi- 
fices, under the immediate inspection of the 
government. They were considered as insti- 
tutions which owed their origin to absolute 
necessity, as well as to decency and cleanliness. 
Ventilation.—The lungs, inhale and use up 
pure air, and expel only that which is vitiated. 
It is calculated that every human being 
consumes on an average two and a half hogs- 15 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
heads of pure air per hour. That may be 
called the allowance required by nature for the 
due action of the lungs, the purification of 
the blood, and the preservation of health. 
Dwellings, work-rooms, and other enclosed 
places, would require to afford that quantity 
of fresh air for each inmate; and not only so, 
but something more to supply the consumption 
of air by fires and artificial lights. In a room 
having a number of lights, at least as much 
as four hogsheads per hour for each individual 
should be admitted. 
By neglecting to afford such supplies by 
means of channels for ventilating, almost every 
dwelling house, work-room, school, church, 
theatre, (fee., becomes filled with an impure 
air, to breathe which is most injurious to 
health. 
This subject for a number of years engaged 
the consideration of men of science, and 
numerous reports have been published, showing, 
by the most conclusive evidence, that the want 
of ventilation is daily producing diseases most 16 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
fatal to the general population ; the loss of 
daily power—that is, the loss of at least 
one-third the industrial capabilities enjoyed by 
men working under advantageous circum- 
stances : the nervous exhaustion attendant on 
work in crowds, and the consequent temptation 
to resort continually to stimulants, which in 
their turn increase the exhaustion, are fully 
proved, and indeed generally admitted. 
Accordingly, since the attention of medical 
men has been sufficiently directed to the sub- 
ject, the explanation has become complete of 
many deplorable cases of general ill health 
and mortality in such places, attributed at first 
to deficiency or bad quality of food, or to any 
cause but the true one—want of ventilation. 
The defective state of information on the sub- 
ject of ventilation is frequently shown in 
reports, which assume that apartments contain- 
ing given cubic feet of space are all that is 
requisite for life and health, whereas if a 
spacious drawing room be completely closed 
against the admission of air, an inhabitant HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
17 
confined to it would be stifled, whilst by active 
ventilation or change of air, men working in 
connection with diving machines live in the 
space of a helmet, which merely confines the 
the head. 
In the majority of instances of the defective 
ventilation of schools, the pallid countenance 
and delicate health of the school-boy, commonly 
laid to the account of over-application to his 
book, are due simply to the defective con- 
struction of the school-room. In the dame 
schools, and the schools for the laboring classes, 
the defective ventilation is the most frequent 
and mischievous. 
From this, as well as all other testimony on 
this subject, it is clear that society is daily 
suffering to an indescribable extent by atmo- 
spheric impurity. Great loss of life, occasional 
or lingering bad health, poverty from inability 
to labour, mental depression, crime, and intem- 
perance, are the well-observed results of this 
discreditable state of things. 18 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
To assuage as far as possible this enormous 
evil, very extensive improvements would be 
required in the construction of towns and 
dwellings generally, and perhaps these may in 
time be effected, including more plentiful sup- 
plies of water. 
VENTILATION BY E. E. PERKINS. 
“ Having endeavored to be explicit on the 
1 Advantages of Gas in Private Houses,’ we 
will in this division submit our views on 
ventilation, holding it, as we do, of vital 
importance. 
The object of a good system of ventilation 
is to quickly remove such air from any room, 
building, or locality, which militates against 
health or life; and to keep up a continual 
volume of pure cool air therein and thereat. 
I say, will not you urge the necessity of 
inhaling pure air in your homes, so that the 
future man may in his earliest childhood lay 
the foundation of a robust constitution? for 
listen to what medical and other qualified men HEALTH AHD COMFORT. 
19 
have said on the effects of vitiated atmosphere 
on children, normally and by descent. 
Mr. Carmichael in his Essay on the nature 
of Scrofula, charges vitiated domestic air, 
particularly in sleeping rooms, with being the 
primary cause. 
Dr. Arnott states that an individual, the 
offspring of persons successively living in bad 
air, will have a constitution decidedly inferior 
to one born of a race living in the pure air, 
and that the mischief does not end here; but 
from that first injury, the further descendants 
further degenerate ; that defective ventilation 
deadens both the mental and bodily energies, 
leaving its corrupting influence upon the person. 
The water given off by perspiration is not 
pure water, not such as is liberated in the 
process of distdlation of evaporation, but is 
contaminated with the most offensive animal 
effluvia. M. Leblanc states that the odor of 
the air at the top of the ventilator of a crowded 
theatre or room is of so noxious a character, 
that it is dangerous to be exposed to it even 20 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
for a short time. If this air be passed through 
pure water, the water soon exhibits all the 
phenomena of putrefactive fermentation. 
Every one who has knowledge or wealth at 
his disposal, is bound to exert some portion of 
them as much for the benefit of his less 
fortunate fellow-being as for his own plea- 
sure or profit; for it is to his own daily safety. 
Besides which, is there not & moral law requir- 
ing us to do so ? Is there not also a natural 
law? There are both these laws, and they 
have this distinguishing proof of their divine 
origin, they are self-acting ; they confer the 
reward of obedience, and they inflict the 
penalty of transgression, with a precision and 
certainty which find no parallel in mere human 
laws and institutions. 
Regarded in its general aspect as a source of 
life and health, an ample supply of pure air, in 
conjunction with the immediate removal of 
secreted and exhaled impurities beyond the 
possibility of re-inhalation, is a subject of pro- 
found interest to all humanity. HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
21 
If we can believe and understand that, by 
the influence of the rays of the sun upon its 
different aspects, the towering pile of granite 
on Bunker Hill is caused continually to sway 
to and fro upon its base, with equal readiness 
may we comprehend that the refined and deli- 
cate living animal organism will vary in its 
phases of health, with the varying quality of 
the air upon which it depends for its actual 
existence. 
It was about the middle of the Seventeenth 
Century that Thomas Sydenham burst the 
trammels of prejudice in which both the medi- 
cal and the popular mind of his country and 
the world had long been bound, in reference to 
the inocuousness and availability of the oper- 
ations of nature, and demonstrated the value, 
in the management of diseases, of the great 
medicaments which she had furnished from the 
beginning of creation. When he tore away 
the bed-curtains, drove his patients from their 
sweltering beds, threw up their windows, or 
ordered them on horseback, the community 22 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
thought him crazy; such kind of treatment 
was opposed to all their experience, and he had 
no authority for it from hooks. 
But, holding them in light estimation when 
they contravened the obvious dictates of reason 
and nature, he consulted only the latter, and 
saved many from loathsome death by small- 
pox, and from premature graves by con- 
sumption. 
One century later, the world was shocked 
by receiving from Calcutta a horrible lesson of 
the consequences of confining human beings in 
a close and unventilated atmosphere. Ten 
hours sufficed to produce intolerable thirst, 
intense fever, delirium, and death in one 
hundred and twenty-three, out of one hundred 
and forty-six persons, and a high putrid fever 
in those found alive at the end of that time. 
That ‘ black hole ’ has ever since been a by- 
word and a reproach to humanity, while its 
lesson has been too little heeded. 
Let it never be forgotten for a moment 
that this agent, to procure which we have HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
23 
neither to dig into the earth, nor transport from 
foreign climes, nor distill from the alembic, nor 
refine in the crucible, but which is pressed 
upon us with a force and in a measure equalled 
only by the Supreme Benevolence which fur- 
nishes and unceasingly renews it—this agent, 
when left free to act its part, removes the effete 
poison from the blood, and imbues it with con- 
tinual health and freshness ; but when stifled 
and confined, whether intentionally or by acci- 
dent, turns, like a viper, upon the arm that 
nourished it, and plants a deadly venom in its 
veins.” 
WHAT DR. ARNOTT DID AND SUGGESTED. 
In the autumn of 1849, when the cholera 
was raging in England, the Board of Health 
recommended, in one of their notifications 
published in the London Gazette, that in every 
badly-ventilated dwelling “ considerable and 
immediate relief may be given by a plan sug- 
gested by Dr. Arnott—of taking a brick out 
of the wall near the ceiling of the room, so as 24 
HEALTH AND COMFORT. 
to open a direct communication between the 
room and the chimney. 
I assume,” says the Doctor, “that most of 
your readers understand that the air which we 
breathe consists of material elements, as much 
as the water which we drink or the food which 
we eat. 
I assume further, that your readers know 
that fresh air for breathing is the most imme- 
diately urgent OF ALL THE ESSENTIALS TO 
life, as proved by the instant death of any 
one totally deprived of it through drowning or 
strangulation, and by the slower death of men 
compelled to breathe over again the same small 
quantity of air. 
Assuming that these points are tolerably 
understood, I have to show that the spread of 
cholera in this country, has been much influ- 
enced by the gross oversights referred to. 
All from want of fresh air, and conse- 
quently from breathing that which is foul, 
which can be so readily overcome. It would 
seem as if the peculiar morbid agent could as HEALTH AND COM FOR'!. 
25 
little, by itself, produce the fatal disease, as 
one of the two elements concerned in a com- 
mon gas explosion—namely, the coal gas, and 
the atmospheric air—can alone produce the 
explosion. The great unanimity among wri- 
ters and speakers on the subject, in regarding 
foul atmosphere as the chief vehicle or favorer, 
if not a chief efficient cause of the pestilence, 
is seen in the fact of how familiar to the com- 
mon ear, have lately become the words and 
phrases, malaria, filth, crowded dwellings, 
crowded neighborhoods, close rooms, faulty 
sewers, drains, and cess-pools, all of which 
are merely so many names for foul air, and for 
sources from which it may arise. Singularly, 
however, little attention has yet been given 
from authority to the chief source of poisonous 
air, and to means of ventilation, by ivhich 
all kinds of foul air may with certainty be 
removed. 
A system of draining and cleansing, water 
supply and flushing, for instance,—to the 
obtainment of which, chiefly, the Board of 26 
Health and comfort. 
Health has hitherto confined its attention, 
can, however good, influence only that quan- 
tity and kind of serial impurity which arises 
from retained solid or liquid filth, within or 
about a house ; but, it leaves absolutely un- 
touched the other, and really more important 
kind, which in known quantities, is never ab- 
sent where men are breathing—namely, the 
filth and poison of the human breath. This 
latter kind evidently plays the most impor- 
tant part.” 
I extract the following from Tyndall’s con- 
cluding address to the Students of University 
College, London. 
“ Let me utter one practical word in conclu- 
sion— take care of your health. There have 
been men who, by wise attention to this point, 
might have risen to any eminence—might 
have made great discoveries, written great 
poems, commanded armies, or ruled States, but 
who, by unwise neglect of this point, have 
come to nothing. Imagine Hercules as oars- HEALTH AND COMFORT 
27 
man in a rotten boat; what can lie do there, 
but by the very force of his stroke, expedite 
the ruin of his craft. Take care then of the 
timbers of your boat, and avoid all practices 
likely to introduce either wet or dry rot among 
them. And, this is not to be accomplished by 
desultory or intermittent efforts of the will, 
but by the formation of habits. The will, no 
doubt, has sometimes to put forth its strength, 
in order to strangle or crush the special temp- 
tation. But the formation of right habits is 
essential to your permanent security. They 
diminish your chance of falling when assailed, 
and they augment your chance of recovery 
when overthrown.”