Gospel of Fresh Air.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7404, 7 March 1903, Page 4

Gospel of Fresh Air.

The Need of Ventilation. Dr. J. V. Ryan, delivering the prcsidcntal address before the Medical Society of Victoria recently, referring to the treatment of consumption, is reported m the Intercolonial Medical. ■Journal to have said:-— Let me say a word about ventilation. Fresh air and sunlight aro as essential to life as food and drink. The total deprivation of ono or the other would mean death to all animals. A diminution in the supply of cither, as in the case of food or drink, results in tho impairment of the bodily functions; while, on the other hand, an abundant allowance of both ensures tho healthy working of tho animal organism. If living almost entirely in the open air, by night as well as by day, is found to bo tho most important means of improving the condition of phtisical patients, of lowering tho temperature, lessoning cough and expectoration, and improving the appetite, it may surely be taken for granted that tho same condition is not likely to prove injurious to tho average man or woman.

And yet this assumption is evidently widoly prevalent amongst us, for the greatest precautions arc taken by the ordinary householder to exclude from his dwelling the light of heaven, as well as the breath of life. Tho air of the houses in which so large a proportion of our lives is passed should, in reality, bo as fresh and pure as the outer atmosphere. Practically, of course, it is not possible to maintain it so, but our constant endeavour should be to procure, as near an approach to this as is possible. It only too evident, however, that an opposito courso is more generally taken, by grudgingly admitting fresh air during the day, aud by doing our utmost to exclude it at night.

And hero it may be well to confess that medical men themselves are not free from blame in this matter. We are often tho aiders and abetters of the public in tho errors of their ways, by the bad example shown them in our own houses, and by the faulty arrangements for, and not infrequently tho entire absence of, proper ventilation so often noticeable in sick chambers under our immediate control. For it must not be forgotten that if pure air is desirable for the man in ordinary health, it is essential to tho poor invalid, who for days and nights, and often for many weeks together, is compelled to occupy the samo apartments. The exclusion of fresh air from our houses is, no doubt, largely owing to our needless fear of catching cold. This is, to some extent, a delusion. Colds aro hardly known in the Arctic Regions. Nansen and his crew were imaii'ected by colds during thoir long residence in polar ice, and only caught them on then- return to more civilised regions. Horses and cattle, whilst running out, are seldom affected with catarrh, but tho samo animals when housed in close and warm stables readily fall victims to it. In other words, a cold is a mild infective fever, caused by a specific micro-organism, which finds itself at home in warm, ill-ventilated rooms, whilst it is weakened or rendered innocuous by fresh air and sunlight.