[Footnote 1: Read by Wm. C. Conant before the Polytechnic Association
of the American Institute, New York, May 10, 1883.]


I suppose that we all consider ourselves to be sufficiently impressed
with the importance of ventilation. If I should stop here to declaim
against foul exhalations, or to dwell upon the virtues of fresh air,
you might feel inclined to interrupt me by saying, "Oh, we know all
about that! If you have anything practical to advance, come to the
point." Gentlemen, I beg your pardon, but I must say that the great
fact concerning ventilation, as yet, is that its strongest advocates
are not conscious of one-half the seriousness of the subject; and the
second fact is that the supposed means of ventilation prescribed by
science _fail to secure it_.

This, then, is my point to-night--the supreme necessity, still urgent,
and _universally_ urgent, for a reformation of the breath of life. I
believe in a promised time when the days of a man's life shall again
be as the days of a tree. And next to the abolition of vice and sin, I
believe that the very grandest factor of such result must be an entire
disuse of obstructed air for the lungs. I propose to bring forward
some evidence of the necessity, and likewise of the possibility, of a
reform so radical and sweeping as this. The subject is too wide for
the occasion. I shall be able to read only extracts from what I have
prepared, in the few minutes that you can give with patience to my
unpracticed lecturing.

The best prescription that doctors have to give (when we are not too
far gone to take it) is to live out of doors. Why is this? Why is life