American Woman's Home by Catharine Esther Beecher;Harriet Beecher Stowe
page 54 of 529 (10%)
page 54 of 529 (10%)
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their last members dying "rotten with scrofula." A fire destroyed a
large part of this village. Houses were then built to secure pure air, and scrofula disappeared from the part thus rebuilt. We are informed by medical writers that defective ventilation is one great cause of diseased joints, as well as of diseases of the eyes, ears, and skin. Foul air is the leading cause of tubercular and scrofulous consumption, so very common in our country. Dr, Guy, in his examination before public health commissioners in Great Britain, says: "Deficient ventilation I believe to be more fatal than _all other causes_ put together." He states that consumption is twice as common among tradesmen as among the gentry, owing to the bad ventilation of their stores and dwellings. Dr. Griscom, in his work on Uses and Abuses of Air, says: "Food carried from the stomach to the blood can not become _nutritive_ till it is properly oxygenated in the lungs; so that a small quantity of food, even if less wholesome, may be made nutritive by pure air as it passes through the lungs. But the best of food can not be changed into nutritive blood till it is vitalized by pure air in the lungs." And again: "To those who have the care and instruction of the rising generation--the future fathers and mothers of men--this subject of ventilation commends itself with an interest surpassing every other. Nothing can more convincingly establish the belief in the existence |
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