Sleep, or, The hygiene of the night / by W.W. Hall.

  • William Whitty Hall
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sleep, or, The hygiene of the night / by W.W. Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    promiscuous company, will, without speaking a word, chill the whole party; another will fill it with dis- gust; while a third will send out a genial influence on every heart. It does not require a very large stretch of the imagination to infer that a combination of the ethereal or spiritual emanations with the more solid or material, may not very reasonably be thought to have a malign influence on a highly wrought or very susceptible organization, especially when brought into so close a contact as that of bed-fellows. It is known the world over, that low typhoid fevers of the most malignant and fatal type are caused by hu- man emanations, by crowding persons in confined apartments. These things being true, there is wis- dom in the universal custom of Germany to have all beds single. Such a thing as a double bed would be considered a disagreeable curiosity in that wide- spreading nation. What custom prevails in this re- spect when the “fatherland” is left, is not known. UNHEALTHY HOUSES. A man requires ten cubic feet of air every minute, in order to supply an amount of oxygen sufficient for the wants of the system. The air enters the lungs full of oxygen, it leaves them without an atom, hence that which leaves the lungs is so wholly unfit for breathing purposes, that if re-breathed, un- mixed with any other air whatever, it would cause instant suffocation. This unnutritious air is so very light that when out of doors it rises instantly toward the clouds, as may be seen any frosty morning; but when a person is in a close room, this unwholesome air mixes with that which surrounds it, and in a few moments the whole air of any room becomes con- taminated, and this contamination becomes more ag- gravated, more virulent at every breath, and this is the reason of the greater rapidity with which persons
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