VENTILATION,
and this covers a multitude of minor matters, but we have only room for considering the subject in its broader aspect.
In olden times ample ventilation was secured through the massive open chimneys, which, with their generous hearthstones, was such a distinguishing and healthful feature of the homes of our ancestors. They were, perhaps, "a blessing in disguise," but that they were a real blessing there is no doubt. Then, too, they were the grand altars of the family, around which the sweetest recollections of childhood and youth cluster, as does the ivy to the walls of old-time buildings, making them, though rude and rough, to memory most dear.
In place of these natural escapes for foul, and the admission of fresh air, we have absolutely nothing in the present day to take its place. On the contrary, air-tight stoves and air-tight furnaces have supplemented the cheerful blaze of the fireplace, and in lieu of fresh air, a great amount of poisonous gases are emitted, which stupefy and promote disease. Especially is this the case where the fuel used is any of the coals, instead of wood. The most deleterious of coals is the anthracite. Its heat is scorching and drying beyond any other, and the gases are more subtle and pernicious, excepting, possibly, charcoal, which, however, is not used as fuel to any extent.
These air-tight coal stoves, such as are in ordinary use, are the worst of all, since their name gives confidence to the public, who do not consider that, while they have the merit of "keeping the fire through the night," they do not keep the gases within. They are sure to creep through the apertures, or, if barred there, will escape through the iron itself, and it need not be very much in quantity to prove offensive to people with delicate lungs or in a debilitated state of the system. The strong and well will scout these opinions doubtless, and hold them of little value, and to them it is not of so much consequence whether they observe strictly the rules which govern health or no, their robust constitutions (thanks to their parents, who did observe these rules, either accidentally or purposely) will carry them along, doubtless, to a ripe old age; but their children are to be reared in health, and the fact of vigorous parentage may not, in their cases, where carelessness prevails, guarantee vigorous lives; and, while the fathers and mothers may escape from the ill effects of the vitiated atmosphere of their apartments by exercise in the open air, their children cannot. And it is well known that the children, in these cases, die one after another, the result of poor ventilation or unhealthful location, or both combined, while the parents wonder what the cause can be, ascribing it to all things but the right.
Everything about our homes should be subjective to the one central idea of health. Things of beauty or luxury, whether in or around the dwelling, should, if on close scrutiny they are found prejudicial, be at once removed.
The family sitting-room, if no other in the house, ought to be warmed by means of a wood fire if a stove is used, yet a grate is far better, and is the nearest approach to the old-fashioned fireplace attainable in these times. A flue cut in the chimney near the ceiling, with a register affixed, will, where stoves or furnaces are used, be of service, and are quite easily and inexpensively constructed. The windows of sleeping-rooms should be so made that the top sash can be as readily lowered as the bottom one raised, and at night the former should be left down sufficient for the free admission of fresh and the escape of foul air, but it ought not to draw across the sleeper. Night air is not as objectionable as the confined air of unventilated rooms. Invalids should, however, avoid exposure to it as much as possible, since when out in it, it envelops the whole person, and the chill and humidity may work serious injury.
The old saw, that "early to bed and early to rise, makes people healthy, wealthy, and wise," is deserving of more consideration than is accorded it. Take any city-bred girl, who has been accustomed to late hours and the excitement of entertainments and parties, and who, by these unhealthful and killing rounds of so-called pleasure, has become emaciated and prematurely old, and place her in a well-regulated home,—the country is by far the best, where early retirement is a rule, with a wholesome diet,—and she will in a few weeks show a marked improvement. Mrs. Stowe relates a very interesting story of a city-girl who had all to gratify her that fond parents could procure, and, though constitutionally strong, this hothouse, fashionable life had began to undermine her general health, and having exhausted the skill of the regular physician, her condition became so alarming that other counsel was sought; and this new disciple of Esculapius was a shrewd, honest man, and wont to get at the root of difficulties. He saw at a glance that the patient's disease was born wholly of fashion. He found her waist so tightly laced as to admit of little room for full and free respiration; this, with late hours and unwholesome food, was doing its work. Being asked to prescribe, he first cut loose the stays which bound her; then, ordering suitable shoes and apparel, gave directions for her immediate removal to the country, where she was to first rest and lounge in the sunshine, and as health returned, to romp and frolick in the open fields and join in the merry glees of country life. With feelings akin to those coming of great sacrifices, the commands were followed, and this frail, dying girl was, in one brief summer, so far restored as that the glow of her checks and the sparkle of her eyes rivalled those of the farmer's fair daughter whose companion she had been.
City life is exceedingly destructive to young people, even when considered aside from all undue excitements, indecorous habits, and improprieties. The custom of late hours, night air, and the vitiated air of apartments where companies assemble together, with the liability to contract colds by being detained in draughts, or from want of sufficient protection while returning from social assemblies; all these things destroy annually a great army of young people, who either do not think of consequences or else willfully neglect their lives to pay homage to fashion—the curse of the world.
We cannot think all parents wholly neglectful in teaching their children how to preserve health, and much of responsibility must rest with the young; yet by far the larger portion of parents are so flattered by alluring admirers, and led by the requirements and glamor of foolish fashion, that they seem, to the cool observer, to fairly dig and garland the premature graves of their loved ones.
How we wish we might impress one mother who worships at this abominable shrine, set up heretofore—but we now hope forever cast down to make room for an era of good sense and womanly delicacy—in Paris, by either a dissolute court, or, as we have often been informed, by the nymphs du pavé, who seek to attract by tricks of style till they have come to rule the whole of their sex, or such portions as have not the moral courage to mark out an independent course. The violation of health, contortions of the body, and other absurdities, aside from the vast expense entailed upon the whole people, are perfectly astounding and outrageous beyond belief. Let us examine a moment and see if we are presuming. Granting that every lady in the land expends on an average of but ten dollars each year for the fashionable make-up of her wardrobe; that this mite goes for style, and necessary little etceteras growing out of it, and not in any way for the material itself, which is really the mountain of difficulty. Now, if there are twenty millions of women in our country, it would give the sum of two hundred millions of dollars annually expended for style. What a noble charity this would establish every recurring year. What a relief to pauperism it would form, and that too without the sacrifice of anything but "style." What a relief to struggling, disheartened men, whose lives are those of slaves, and families who pinch and starve themselves that they may possess the magical key to fashionable society! But what is fashionable society that it should have such charms for common and honest people? We give in answer what was given us by one who had had for many years access to it. He said, "Struggle to avoid it as the worst of calamities." It had swept him and his family from a position of comparative affluence to one of misfortune and distress. Fashion is the parent of both—"cussedness" and consumption.
We know some young ladies are personally disgusted with all this "fuss and feathers," who at the same time insist that, if they did not follow the lead of "society" they would be thrown in the background, as at most entertainments those who have carefully and elaborately arrayed themselves receive the lion's share of attention and compliment from the opposite sex, whose good opinion and company they wish to share. While there is more of truth in this response than most gentlemen are willing at first to admit, yet, observant people have ever noted the fact that, notwithstanding these fashionable and polite addresses at public assemblies between the beaux and butterflies, the end of the levee usually terminates the hobnobbing. The "gay ladie" has had, quite likely, her hour of triumph over her more modest, quiet, and unassuming rival, now in the background, but whom—when the young man is ready to proffer his hand and fortune—is most likely to be led to the front, blushing with her becoming and well-deserved honors, leaving the doting mothers, with their dear daughters, to reflect on the "strange ways of you men."
If the world sees, it does not fully believe what it sees, else a change would surely come. The fact is, while men, especially the young men, delight to do honor to these devotees of the milliner and mantua-maker, they cannot—those who have a fair share of good sense—afford to marry them. Their means, their prospects, and their happiness forbid it, and they are right in this conclusion. They prefer to unite their lives with some equally good, and usually more sensible and healthful girl, but of, perhaps, no special prospects or position in society. This decision is certainly founded in wisdom. They are forever relieved from that constant strain on their pride, and the consequent drain on their purse. Their style of living may, in this latter case, be squared, without jar or reproach, to their real revenues, and life be to them worth the living, while they gradually and lovingly lay aside, for any future exigency, something each year on which, in old age or disaster, they may confidently lean, and which, though it may not be great, yet shall, in a reasonable life, be sufficient to tide them to, and "over the river."
Everything, of course, has some exceptions; and where the fashionable lady can sustain the family pride and family coach both at one and the same time, why, then, our remarks and objections have little weight. Yet, in what we have written may be found the real cause of the increase of bachelors and old maids in society.
There are a few noble souls who rise above the bondage of their sex, and follow the dictates of their own consciences in dress as in other matters. This class embraces usually the very wealthy and the very learned people who compose the polite and refined circles, as distinguished from the flippant and fashionable ones. All honor to them. Their example is great, and furnishes the chief hope of any possible reform.
Some ask, what, indeed, shall we do if we discard all fashion? Our reply is, to do as the Quakers do. They certainly look quite as presentable and pretty in their "plain clothes" as do any other class of society. But I hear the answer: "Yes, and is not their style fashion?" We grant that it is, but at the same time insist that it is both a sensible, economical, and becoming one; and such a fashion—a fashion of common sense—is what we indorse, having not the least objection to that sort. Like, the old-time mode of cutting boys' hair by use of a bowl clapped over the head, it was a fashion, but a very simple, inexpensive, and proper one enough, considering the circumstances. Now they must have the assistance of a professional artist. Singular now one extreme follows another.
Not until quite a recent date were we inclined to advocate "women's rights," which is but another name—as modernly interpreted—for the ballot. Now we are persuaded that it would be wise for the States to concede this, and thereby open a new channel to them for thought, at once weakening their hold on fashion, and enlarging their views of life and its requirements. Good to the race, it would seem, must come of any change whereby the rising generation shall have less of fashion and its attendant evils, and more of health, with its accompanying blessings.
How few of perfectly healthy girls do we see among all those with whom we are each severally acquainted. Tight lacing, began in early childhood, is one of the chief of evils. You ask a girl of twelve years if she is not too tightly dressed, and the reply is "no;" and the mother is sure to argue that if the girl does not complain it is none of the father's business to meddle. The fact is, the child has been gradually brought to that state of unconsciousness of any discomfort by having been subjected to this abominable process from a very tender age, and being continued each year, the waist is scarce half the natural size it should have been at womanhood. Take a country girl who has grown up free from this practice, and has a well-developed frame, and put on her the harness of her fashionable sister, and draw it to the point the latter is accustomed to wear it, and you shall see whether there is any wincing or no. The argument of these unreasoning mothers is that of the Chinese, who dwarf their children's feet by beginning at an early period, and, doubtless, if these youths were similarly questioned, they, too, would complain of no inconvenience.
In the management and care of children, fond parents seem, in these later years, little else than a bundle of absurdities. For instance, take children of from three to ten years, and you shall see, in a majority of cases, when dressed for the street, their backs ladened with fold on fold of the warmest clothing, while their poor knees are both bare and blue.
Ah! we forget, perhaps, that the physician and undertaker must live; and then the army of nurses and others, too, are to be provided for, quite as the fashionable lady would make reply to any impertinence in matters of her dress, that it kept an army of sewing-girls employed who would otherwise be left to starve!
One of our most vigorous writers, treating this subject, says:—
"Showy wardrobe, excessive work with the needle, where it is done to gratify a taste for display, or morbid fancy for exquisite work, is a crime. Shoulders are bent, spines are curved, the blood, lacking its supplies of oxygen, loses vitality and creeps sluggishly through the veins, carrying no vivid color to the cheek and lips, giving no activity to the brain, no fire to the eye. Let women throw away their fancy work, dispense to a degree with ruffles and tucks, and, in a dress that will admit of a long breath, walk in the clear bracing air.
"Mothers should begin early to lay the foundations of health. Children should have plenty of vigorous, joyous exercise out of doors. They should have romping, rollicking fun every day, at the same time giving exercise to every part of the body, and a healthy tone to the spirits. The body and soul are so intimately blended that exercise for the one is of little value when the other is repressed. Thus the limbs will become well knit and beautifully rounded, the flesh will be firm and rosy, and the whole frame will be vigorous and elastic—vital to the finger tips. Better that our youth should have a healthy physique, even if they cannot read before they are ten years old, as in this case they would soon overtake and outstrip the pale, narrow-chested child who is the wonder of the nursery and the Sunday-school. Children are animals that are to be made the most of. Give them ample pasturage, and let them be as free as is consistent with the discipline they need; keep the girls out of corsets and tight shoes, give them plain food, fresh air, and plenty of sleep."
Nothing invites disease so much as the present style of living among the well-to-do people. Nearly everything tends among this class to deteriorate general health, and, since their numbers have within the last decade greatly increased, the influence on the country must be markedly detrimental, and, but for the steady flow of vitalizing blood from the Old World, the whole Yankee race would ere long, inevitably disappear.
We have dwelt in this chapter at considerable length on the importance of right training and education of the young, and especially of girls, though no more than the subject seems to demand. Boys are naturally more out of doors, since their love of out-of-door life is greater than that of girls, and their sports all lead them into the open air, and by this means they more easily correct the constitutional and natural tendencies to disease, if any there be. Then, too, the iron hand of fashion has not fastened itself so relentlessly upon them as to dwarf their bodies and warp their souls, as it has in some degree the gentler and better and more tender half of mankind, to whom the larger share of this chapter seems the more directly to apply.