night.


[Sidenote: Air from the outside. Open your windows, shut your doors.]

Always air your room, then, from the outside air, if possible. Windows
are made to open; doors are made to shut--a truth which seems extremely
difficult of apprehension. I have seen a careful nurse airing her
patient's room through the door, near to which were two gaslights, (each
of which consumes as much air as eleven men,) a kitchen, a corridor, the
composition of the atmosphere in which consisted of gas, paint, foul
air, never changed, full of effluvia, including a current of sewer air
from an ill-placed sink, ascending in a continual stream by a
well-staircase, and discharging themselves constantly into the patient's
room. The window of the said room, if opened, was all that was desirable
to air it. Every room must be aired from without--every passage from
without. But the fewer passages there are in a hospital the better.


[Sidenote: Smoke.]

If we are to preserve the air within as pure as the air without, it is
needless to say that the chimney must not smoke. Almost all smoky
chimneys can be cured--from the bottom, not from the top. Often it is
only necessary to have an inlet for air to supply the fire, which is
feeding itself, for want of this, from its own chimney. On the other
hand, almost all chimneys can be made to smoke by a careless nurse, who
lets the fire get low and then overwhelms it with coal; not, as we
verily believe, in order to spare herself trouble, (for very rare is
unkindness to the sick), but from not thinking what she is about.