[Sidenote: Airing damp things in a patient's room.]

In laying down the principle that this first object of the nurse must be
to keep the air breathed by her patient as pure as the air without, it
must not be forgotten that everything in the room which can give off
effluvia, besides the patient, evaporates itself into his air. And it
follows that there ought to be nothing in the room, excepting him, which
can give off effluvia or moisture. Out of all damp towels, &c., which
become dry in the room, the damp, of course, goes into the patient's
air. Yet this "of course" seems as little thought of, as if it were an
obsolete fiction. How very seldom you see a nurse who acknowledges by
her practice that nothing at all ought to be aired in the patient's
room, that nothing at all ought to be cooked at the patient's fire!
Indeed the arrangements often make this rule impossible to observe.

If the nurse be a very careful one, she will, when the patient leaves
his bed, but not his room, open the sheets wide, and throw the
bed-clothes back, in order to air his bed. And she will spread the wet
towels or flannels carefully out upon a horse, in order to dry them. Now
either these bed-clothes and towels are not dried and aired, or they dry
and air themselves into the patient's air. And whether the damp and
effluvia do him most harm in his air or in his bed, I leave to you to
determine, for I cannot.


[Sidenote: Effluvia from excreta.]

Even in health people cannot repeatedly breathe air in which they live