Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1896.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXX, Issue 210, 5 September 1896, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1896.

The darkened sick room — the cool shady house which nestles in the comfort of a twilight gloom, while the glare of but mer outside distracts the eye of tho wayfarer and makes him long for night— has provided many novelists with material for word painting. The ignorant nurße is depicted as carelessly letting in a flood of sunshine which makes the patient in the bed squirm ; and the parson's gentle daughter comes in, draws down the blind, pulls the curtains together, and does other kind and picturesque things which read well in three volumes, But, alas for the sentiment and the established usages of fiction ! Koch and Pepper and ) asteur are rare iconoclasts. In the sick room of the future glaring, dazzling lightlight whichif the patientcannotbear mnst still be introduced while he is chloroformed — will be tbe priuoipal remedial agent, for cool shady houses, nestling 'mid umbrage of leafy Irees, with a deep veranda round about and gurgling water flowing by, are mere nurseries of bacteria — and the germ ilourisheth where a century ago lovers sat in the gloaming and wooed. To be healthy wo must build where the sunlight strikes through and through, we must perch ou a high hill or slope, and exchange our shade for glare, our trickling brook for subsoil drainage, and om- dripping dew drops from the boskage of shrubberies for asphalted yards,

Kooh and Pasteur havo discovered a number of lowly microorganisms—probably plants which do all sorts of things not calculated to preserve poace of mind in the human body, Home have an affinity to fermentation and othor. to dampness. They allix themselves to roots, grow on walls, mix themselves with the soil, but they never seem to quite fulfil their .estiny till they have done something unpleasant to animal life. Why they do it no one seems to know, but they have an uncomfortable desire to fix the free nitrogen of the atmosphere, and thus they become the most valued commission agents of undertakers and doctors' Othe;- organisms devote themselves to being unpleasant to' human 'Jbein'gs. A creature lijce a comma has a large connection in tbe pijolej-a fine. A

thing like a semi-colon seems to trade in erysipelas, diphtheria, tuberculosis— the modern name of consumption. _ early all these germs increase and multiply in darkness and damp — let in a fl .od of light and remove the moisture ancl they die, aa tbey breed, in millions. A ray of sunlight kills them, but a layer of water 20 inches thick protects them. According to Pepper, " direct sunlight, with desiccation and elevation of temperature, is one of nature's most potent agents for destroying bacteria." Places whei.' the sun does not reach, or reaches only partially, are excellent retreats for various pathogenic organisms, and they flourish best in those cool, dark, and Blightly damp homes so attractive io us in the heat and glare of the summer,

In Now Zealand we may not fully realise what terrible discomforts aro heat and glare ; yet, while our winter compels us to court sunshine, we still shun the light in summer when wo can. But in Australia, where in most localities tho winter is only a pleasant interlude between hot winds and bursting thcrmometors, tho tendency is to build houses constructed specially to exclude the light. The homo with a deep veranda all round it, with leafy trees embowering tho structure and excluding the sun, is irresistibly attractive when tho glass is at 112 in the shade ; but we arc now told by scientists that just there bacteria groAV best. What are wo to do 1 When tho thermometer approaches and passes tho nineties lifo in glare and dryness is nofc worth the living. In sickness there is nothing so distinctly unpleasant and discomforting as light. It may be very satisfying to know that yonder blazing orb, which makes us wilt like a cabbage leaf on an asphalt pavement, kills the germs of disease ; but we see and feel the light, whilo bacteria are micro-organisms invisible. Statements of scientists, together with the frequent presence in the Victorian capital of typhoid, diphtheria, consumption, and other germ diseases, havo caused considerable alarm, bocause most of the houses that aro not tenement abominations are deep voranda-ed and court seclusion from as much light as possible to guard against the terror of the '' brickfielder," which blows all tho summer. The " Argus " attributes half the ills of the city to theso dark houses, and to undrained clay subsoils, and says : — " If a visitor makes an observant tour through tho suburbs of Melbourne his attention will naturally be directed to tho ever-prevalent villa He will (md it surrounded by a wido veranda so constructed that tho margin of the veranda is often nearer tho ground than tho top of the window protected by it. In other words, tho villa is so surrounded by veranda that tho admission of sunlight to the rooms is usually scanty in tho most favourable situa tion. In many instances the sun cannot obtain admission in any circumstances whatsoever. He will frequently find that houses, substantially and carefully built, are placed on sandy loam, lying on a stiff clay subsoil, and that, for the most part, ■subsoil drains, whether made of spalls or of agricultural drain pipes, are unknown luxuries. In mid winter, the subsoil water may sometimes bo seen bubbling up through tho footpath afc the bottom of a slope. Yet the inhabitants will tell him that the house is well built and that the position is excellont."

We are somewhat happier in New Zealand thau in the almost torrid colonies of Australia — for we seek rather than shun the sun. (n summer we love the shade ; but we do naturally that which is advocated ia Melbourne as a sanitary measure —so set our houses and our windows that the Bun may ponetrato them, and we provide for the requisite shale with blinds- Of course all houses are not thus built; but it at least is onr standard of excellence. In those rooms io whioli the health-giving sun cannot find access it is recommended that movable metallic reflectors be fitted up, so that on bright days a beam of sunlight may be mado to pass across, devastating in its passage the colonies of micro-organisms. This is most essential in winter, for in the cold and damp tho bacteria breed and flourish, and tho secluded shady retreat so pleasant in summer, in the winter becomes the nursery of all the ills to which flesh is heir.