Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1915 — The Necessity of Fresh Air [ARTICLE]

The Necessity of Fresh Air

Without an abundance of fresh air a person cannot expect to be healthy. A constant supply of untainted oxygen is .essential to keep the body in good condition. To Inhale only pure, unvitlated air is man’s natural prerogative and duty. It should be as repugnant to us to breathe foul air as to eat decayed food or enjoy wilted flowers. The olfactory nerves of a majority of people need cultivating. Many cater fastidiously to their stomachs whe habitually feed their lungs upon poisonous, offensive and devitalized air. The atmosphere which some houses offer to their guests is a positive affront to discriminating nostrils. A self-respecting or sane host would not proffer vitiated food, nor water for baths which had been previously used; yet foul air which had been breathed and rebreathed Is served through Ignorance or carelessness, without regard to Its offensiveness. Like the rain it falls upon the jusfand upon the unjust—upon those whoSfe dull and uneducated nostrils Inhale it complacently and upon the few whose natural instinct revolts at the outrage. The nose may be trained, like the palate, to a fine sense of .discrimination and be taught to reject that which is in the slightest degree offensive or Inimical to health and cleanliness, as well as to enjoy with rare satisfaction an atmosphere filled with life-giving ozone. There seems to be, even In this enlightened age, a general inclination to confound the purity of the air with Its temperature. People who inhabit houses with wide open windows all summer will close those same windows tightly in winter, cover all the chinks and apertures with weather strips and then exclaim complacently: “Now, our house is nice and comfortable for the winter. No drafts can come In here!” Why, a draft would be, if not a lifesaver, at least a health-preserver. Most people have observed that miasmatic maladies are more common tn winter than In summer. Have they ever endeavored to assign the reason? It is because in winter our houses are closed against ventilation, because the windows are rarely opened. That most loathsome of diseases, smallpox, prevails and spreads most during the winter months, when pure air is excluded from the home, and the germs of this foul disease are permitted to increase undisturbed by ventilation, amid filth and impurities.