Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1884 — Prevention of Pneumonia. [ARTICLE]

Prevention of Pneumonia.

Oxygen is the agent by which food is fitted to repair the waste of the system, and is equally the agent whereby the effete matter is fitted to be removed by the lungs and kidneys. This agent, so doubly essential to life and health, is taken up by the lungs from the inbreathed air. The amount necessary is about equal to the amount of food. In pneumonia, at its second stage, there is an exudation into some portion of the lungs. This speedily solidifies and completely fills up the air cells. So rapidly may this take place, thai two pounds of such solid matter may be deposited in twelve hours, or less. Hence the reason why pneumonia is sometimes so quickly fatal. In case of recovery, this matter softens,’ is absorbed into the circulation, and eliminated by the proper organs, leaving the lungs unharmed. If the worn-out material of the system is more than the inhaled oxygen can prepare for removal, it accumulates, giving rise to various ailments, and is often deposited in the lungs when irritated by a cold; but no cold can cause pneumonia unless there is undue amount of effete matter in the blood. The old are predisposed to it from the changes which age effects in the lungs and chest vails; and so are the very young, from the undeveloped condition of their breathing powers, but the ease-loving, high-living, middleaged gentlemen are liable to it from their habits of life; and so are the sedentary, from very different habits, but which equally keep the inbreathed oxygen unequal to the bodily waste. A few minutes spent daily in exercise adapted to expand the chest would permanently enlarge its capacity, and enable the lungs to take in a corresponding increase of air—an increase, say, from twenty to sixty cuiiio feet a day.— Youth’s Companion.