Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1880 — Fresh Air in the Bed-Room. [ARTICLE]

Fresh Air in the Bed-Room.

How much air can be safely admitted into a sleeping or living-room is a common question. Bather, it should be considered how rapidly air can be admttted without injury or risk, and at how low a temperature. We cannot have too much fresh air, so long as we are warm enough and not exposed to draughts. What is a draught? It is a swift current of air at a temperature lower than the body, which robs either the whole body, or an exposed part, of its heat so rapidly as to disturb the equilibrium of our circulation and give us cold. Young and healthy persons oan habituate themselves to sleeping in even a strong draught, as from an open window, if they cover themselves in cold weather with an abundance of bedclothes. But those who have been long accustomed to being sheltered from the outer air by sleeping in warmed and nearly or quite shut-up rooms, are too susceptible to cold to bear a direct draught of cold air. Persons over 70 years of age, moreover, with lower vitality than in their youth, will not bear a low temperature, even in the air they breathe. Like hot-house plants, they may be killed by a winter night’s chill, and must be protected by warmth at all times. As a rule, we may say that, except for the most robust, the air which enters at night into a sleeping chamber should, in cold weather, be admitted gradually only by cracks or moderate openings; or shouldhave its force broken by some interposing obstacle, as a curtain, etc., to avert its blowing immediately upon a sleeper in his bed. The ancient fashion, however, of having bedcurtains, which exclude almost all the air, has rightly become almost obsolete. No wonder that people dream horrid dreams, and wake in the morning wearied rather than refreshed, when .they sleep in rooms sealed up tightly on every side, breathing over and over again their own breaths, which grow more poisonous in every hour of the night. —American Health Primer.