Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1892 — THE BODY AND ITS HEALTH. [ARTICLE]

THE BODY AND ITS HEALTH.

Averting Attacks of Asthma.—According to the Journal de Medicine, of Paris, the fumes of bromohydrate of ammonia have a beneficial effect in asthma and bronchitis. By an inhalation of the fumes, under certain conditions, an attack of asthma may bo averted. More Anaesthetic and Antiseptic Agents.—lt seems that the use of solid carbonic acid as an ana-stlietic has been made the subject of a patent by the well-known Dr. Robert Wiesendanger, of Hamburg, When the liquefied gas is poured from the iron cylinder in which it is compressed, it rushes out in the form of a white mist, which may be collected as flakes of pure carbonic acid snow and pressed into solid masses that will > st a number of hours. Carbonic acid us solidified produces intense cold, w ch may be made to benumb any part of' he body to such an extent that minor surgical operations are made painless. This has been practiced with such certainty that, at the Hamburg Hospital, one of the was that of a boy of thirteen who watched without shrinking while a deep cut five inches long was made in his leg. Ventilation. The healthy atmosphere in a room is ono in which the air is changed to the extent of 3,000 cubic feet per hour per adult inmate. The air admitted need not be cold; warmed air, so long as it is fresh, is of course prefer, able to cold air in winter, but in some way the air must be brought in if we are to continue in health. 'There are various ways of doing this. One is by admitting cold air so that it is directed upward toward the ceiling, where the air of a room is at the highest temperature; the cold stream is then heated in its passage as it falls to the lower level for breath* ing. But in large rooms, to utilize at its best this current, there should be in the skirting outlets communicating with a heated up-cast flue, which will draw away the heavy air near the door. In cases where there is heating by hotwater ooils.the cold air may be brought in at or near the floor level and passed 1 Uirougltthfi SSjJV'V.'I 29.4®* tor vitiated air being in or near the celling—to a heated up.cast flue. In larger rooms or buildings for public assemblies it may be necessary with either of these systems to use a fan, either to propel fresh ait into the room or' to draw away the vitiated air. The great desideratum in the admission of fresh air is to cut it up into very fine streams, something in the way water is cut up in passing through the fine nose of a watering-can. It has been found that air admitted through a tube or orifice of equal sectional area throughout enters as a cold draught; but if the inlet be through a series of small truncated cones, the smaller section outward, the larger inward, with a wire gauze on the inside, the current is so cut up and diffused that the draught is not felt. By analogy, a mass of water entering through a narrow canal drives all before it and cuts a channel for itself, but the same quantity passing over a large surface of ground gently irrigates it. Another important point is not to let the passage of the air be at too great a velocity; the gentler the flow the better. —[The Contemporary Review.