Rotunda midwifery for nurses and midwives / by G.T. Wrench.

  • Guy T. Wrench
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Rotunda midwifery for nurses and midwives / by G.T. Wrench. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    All your duty consists in is to try to discover the cause of any disagreeable smell. If the w.c. smells, it is possible there is not sufficient flush of water, or the pipes leak, or there is something wrong with what is called the trap, which shuts off the w.c. from the big iron drain pipe that runs down the side of a house and is known as the soil pipe. A^diichever it is you must see that the matter is put right, for such bad smells affect the health of the inliabitants, giving them sore throats and headaches, and are especially bad for the pregnant or lying-in woman. The best w.c. has an earthenware closet, a movable seat, and a separate cistern in the w.c. It must always have a window in the outside waU of the house, which is to be kept open. Dustbins are nowadays mostly made of galvanized iron and are under the charge of the sanitary authorities. In the summer they may get offensive, if things that can go bad, such as old vegetables, potato parings and remains of meat, are thrown into them. Refuse of this nature should be burnt on the kitchen fire and not thrown into the dustbin. (3) Ventilation and Fresh Air.—We now come to a con- dition of health in Avhich your advice is of gi’eat value, namely, on the need of fresh air. Fortunately the value of fresh air is becoming so generally known that there is not much need to jjoint out its advantages. Our curiosity is rather aroused as to how doctors in the past got the notion that fresh air was bad for patients and children, and kept them in hot, stuffy rooms. A room is not properly ventilated if when you go into it you notice a stuffy smell. If you are sitting in the room you will not notice it yourself, but some visitor Avill. The air is made stuffy and impure by the respiration of human beings, by candles, lamps or gas, and by decom- posing scraps of food you sometimes find in the rooms of the poor. The fact that artificial lighting, except electric light, vitiates the air shows you the particular need of good ventilation in the evening. You are all aware how stuffy a well-filled drawing-room gets on a winter’s evening.
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