on will be the health of the inmates. The first and most indisp

be called murder of the most hideous character. But it is probable that more than one half of this nation are doing that very thing. The murderous operation is perpetrated daily and nightly, in ou

ure, "The people do perish for lack of knowledge." And it is this lack of knowledge which it is woman's special bu

nd the nutritious portion is absorbed by the blood, and then is earned by blood-vessels to the lungs, where it receives oxygen from the air we breathe. This oxygen is as necessary to the nourishment of the body as the food for the stomach. In a fu

y from the collar-bone to the lower ribs, and

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uster of these air-cells, and Fig. 24 is the inside view. The lining membrane of each air-cell is covered by a network of minute blood-vessels called capillaries which, magnified several hundred times, appear in the microscope as at Fig. 25. Every air-cell has a blood-vessel that brings blood from the heart, which meanders through its

eighteen million of these wonderful little purifiers and feeders of the body. By their ceaseless ministries, every grown person receives,

scharge into the right side of the heart. This impure blood passes to the capillaries of the air-cells in the lungs, where it gives off carbonic acid, and, taking oxygen from the air, then returns to the left side of the heart, from whence it is sent out through the aorta and its myriad branching arteries to every part of the body. When the upper portion of the hea

walls of which are lined with minute blood-vessels; and we k

pillaries, that line these air-cells, where the air in the air-cells gives its oxygen to the blood, and i

f blood, in a common-sized man, is sent three times every hour through the lungs,

xygen to every part of the body, or return unrelieved of carbonic aci

es decay and pass away. It is in the capillaries, which are all over the body, that this change takes place. The blood-vessels that convey the pure blood from the heart, divide into myriads of little branches that terminate in capillary vessels

ms a large portion of the body. Watery vapor is also formed in the capillaries by the

e described. A portion of the oxygen received in the lungs unites with the dissolved food sent from the stomach into the blood, and no food can nourish the body till it has received a pro

is a fatal poison, causing certain death. When it is mixed with only a small por

tes has deprived the air of oxygen, and loaded it with carbonic acid, may truly be said

ns of the body that causes animal heat. It is a process similar to that which takes place when lamps and candles are burning. The oil and tallows which are chiefly carbon and hydrogen, unite with the oxygen of the air and form carbonic acid and wa

ll these were united in one length, they would extend twenty-eight miles. These minute tubes are lined with capillary blood-vessels, which are constantly sending out not only carbonic acid, bu

ctly contrary process; for they are absorbing carbonic acid and giving out oxygen. Thus, by a wonderful arrangement of the beneficent Creator, a constant equilibrium is

a full supply of pure air. But civilization has increased economies and conveniences far ahead of the knowledge needed by the common people for their healthful use. Tight sleeping-rooms, and close, air-tight stoves, are now starving and poisoning more

is thus exhibited in M

d can not be rec

er who understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air a

ess, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say his prayers-that he don't want to be good. The simple difference is, that the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night fed by poison, is in a

with only a flue for a stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing up of fire-places and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of fuel; it save

every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight, where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between eighty and ninety; and the inmates,

open air during the six cold months, because they invariably catch cold if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about the first of December ha

multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and

reaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you woke full of life and vigor, you looked out into the whirling snow-storms without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high as your head on yo

nto a room only eighteen feet square with but two small windows, and in a hot climate. After a night of such horrible torments as chill the blood to read, the

ows. The agonies, groans, curses, and shrieks that followed were horrible. The struggling mass finally burst the door, and the captain found seventy-two of the two hundr

from bad air far more than those who are accustomed to it. The body of strong and healthy persons demands more oxygen, and throws off more carbonic acid, and is distressed when the supply fails. But the one reduced by bad air feels little inconvenience, because all the functions of life are so slow that less oxygen is neede

nventilated rooms is sc

n, M. Baudeloqu

d always manifests itself when they abide in air which is unrenewed. Invariably it will be found that a truly scrofulous disease is caused by vitiated air; and it is not necessary that there should be a prolonged stay in such an atmosphere. Often, several hours each day is sufficient. Thus

arly all were seized with scrofula, and many families became wholly extinct, their last members dying "rotten with scrofula." A fire d

ventilation is one great cause of diseased joints,

ublic health commissioners in Great Britain, says: "Deficient ventilation I believe to be more fatal than all other causes put together." H

work on Uses and A

o that a small quantity of food, even if less wholesome, may be made nutritive by pure air as it passes through the

ag

lief in the existence of something vitally wrong in the habits and circumstances of civilized life than the appalling fact that one fourth of all who are born die before reaching the fifth year, and one half the deaths of mankind occur un

the Indians of our western territories, states: "I have rarely seen a sick boy among the Indians." Catlin, the painter, who resided and travele

ealth are well known, in his very useful work

h doubting whether I had not committed a sin in exposing myself so long to its poisonous air. There are in our great cities churches costing $50,000, in th

so vile in this respect, that I would prefer to have my son remain in utter ignorance of books rather than to breathe, six hours every day, such a poisonous atmosphere. Theatres and concert-rooms are so foul that only reckless people continue to visit them. Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not by the journeying, but because of the devitalized air

d with low vitality and feeble circulation, they were unconscious that they were breathing air that at once produced in me dizziness and a s

room it is colder, and therefore heavier, than the air within, so it sinks to the bottom of the room and forces out an equal quantity of the impure air, warmed and vitiated by passing through the lungs of inmates. Thus the question is, Shall we shut up a

but this it rarely is except in chemical experiments. It is the property of all gases, as well as of the two (oxygen and nitrogen) composing the atmosphere, that when brought together they always are entirely mixed, each being equally diffused exactly as it would be if alone. Thus the carbonic acid from the skin and lungs, being warmed in the body, rises as does the common air, with which it mixes, toward the top of a room; so tha

s to the animal system. Carbonic acid has no odor; but we are warned by the disagreeable effluvia of close sleeping-rooms of the other poison thus thrown into the air from the skin and lungs. There is one provision of nature that is little understood, which saves the lives of thousands living in un

s how to secure the remedy. For often the attempt to secure pure air by one class of person

and unventilated rooms are much more liable to take cold from exposure to draug

eeps windows open and makes such draughts that the wife, who lives all day in a close room and thus is low in

ts in badly-ventilated rooms. But at times the physician, or some earnest patient, in

hat will empty rooms of the vitiated air and bring in a

for this duty has never been any part of female education. Young women are taught to draw mathematical diagrams and to solve astronomical problems

problems of domestic economy, as will be farther illustrated in the succeeding c