Fig. 65 —How the windows of your bedroom should be open to get the most fresh air.
Changing the air in a room is called ventilation. To get plenty of fresh air in a room there must be one or more places for it to enter and one or more places for it to pass out. Where there is no furnace or fan, windows on one side of the room may be opened at the bottom to let in the air and the same windows opened at the top to let the impure air escape. Do not sit in a draft, but use a board or curtain to throw the air upward as it enters the window. A room should not be kept too warm. Sitting in a very warm room weakens the body and prepares it to take cold. The temperature of a living room should be between 65 and 70 degrees.
Fresh Air while you Sleep.—Thousands of people have weakened their bodies and brought on disease by sleeping in bad air. Many persons keep their windows so tightly closed during the night that the air smells bad in the morning. I knew a family who always slept with windows closed except in the very warmest weather. Three of the children died of tuberculosis, and a fourth one took the disease but was saved by keeping his windows wide open.
Bad air in the sleeping room makes one feel drowsy in the morning instead of refreshed by sleep. Your windows should always be open while you sleep. In cold weather a window should be open a foot at both the bottom and the top, or if there are two windows in the room, both may be opened at the bottom. In moderate weather the openings should be twice as large. A cap may be worn to keep the head warm, and the bed should be out of the draft.
Fresh Air gives Health.—Four hundred people die of tuberculosis in our country every day. A few years ago it was thought that no one could get well of this disease. Now three fourths of those in the first stages of the disease get well. The chief part of the cure is fresh air. Medicine is seldom used because no medicine will cure tuberculosis. Good food and rest are great helps.
Many of those with tuberculosis stay out of doors all day and at night sleep in tents or with all of the windows wide open, even in the coldest weather. Snow may blow in and the water in the room may turn to solid ice, but fresh air, the good angel of health, will give the body new strength and make it well and strong again.
