The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/684 (page 49)
    from pure air into their bedrooms in the morning before a door or window has been opened, and remark the state of the atmosphere —the close, oppressive, and often fetid odour of the room—and she will cease to wonder at the pale, sickly aspect of her children. Let her pay a similar visit some morn- ing after means have been taken, by the chimney, ventilator, or otherwise, to secure a full supply and continual renewal of the air in the bedrooms during the night, and she will be able to account for the more healthy appearance of her children, which is sure to be the consequence of supplying them with pure air to breathe. If we sleep in a close room, the carbonic acid which escapes from the lungs at each expiration is absorbed by the moisture of the breath and, uniting with other impure gases which are always found in close rooms, becomes heavy and settles on the floor, especially if the apart- ment is cold ; hence the nearer the floor we sleep in cold weather, the more injurious is the air we breathe. We should all be health- ier if the bedroom contained nothing but a chair, a table, a bed, and a strip of woollen carpet at its side ; for curtains and furniture gather dust and dampness, and harbour poisonous emanations. BEDS, DAMP Damp beds, though perhaps less frequent than damp clothes, are most fatal in their effects ; for not only is the body at rest and not, therefore, able by exercise to warm the surface and thus throw off the ill effect, as can be done with damp clothes, but while we are asleep, it is, from physiological reasons, more open to any malign influence from cold or other causes. When U.H a person doubts whether the bed in which he is about to sleep is well aired, or rather when he does not know for a certainty that it is so, he had better either pass the night out of bed altogether, or remove the sheets and sleep between the blankets. It is not enough that a bed should have been well aired at some distant time, but it should be kept free from damp, as it rapidly attracts moisture from the atmosphere. When there is no likelihood of a bed being required for a considerable able period, the bedding should be stripped and put away, and the mattress rolled up. It can then be much more expeditiously aired when needed for another occupant. BEDS FOR CHILDREN The kind of bed and its arrange- ment are very important in regard to their influence upon the sleep of children. The chief points to be considered are the adaptation to the natural needs as to warmth, respiration, transpiration, and posi- tion of the healthy body. The infant, for security, is often put to sleep in a crib, and this, if made with open sides, to allow of a free circulation of air, is unobjection- able. It should be entirely free from curtains, and so constructed that all parts of it and its contents may be accessible for airing and cleansing. The horsehair mattress is the best to lie on, for it gives all the required warmth, while it admits of the passage and evaporation of the natural moisture and vapours of the body. It is, moreover, in consequence of its porousness, easily dried, ventilated, and purified. Its elasticity gives it the further advantage of yielding easily to the pressure and movement of the body, while its ready return to its original E