[11] Taken, with slight alterations, from the description of Dr. A. Combe.
[12] Since the text was prepared for the press, I have noticed from the Syracuse (New York) Journal of January 3d, 1850, mention of the death of General Rensselaer Van Rensselaer, of that city, from breathing "the fumes of charcoal" burned in a "portable furnace." This, it should be remembered, is but one of the many instances that are constantly occurring all over our country, in which immediate death is the result of breathing this destructive agent.
[13] In the district referred to there has since been erected a large and commodious union school house, which constitutes at once the pride and ornament of a beautiful and flourishing village.
[14] Dr. Thackrah, author of a most valuable work on the "Effects of Employments on the Health and Longevity of Mankind."
[15] It would be difficult to say whether carbonic acid gas is in the atmosphere constitutionally, or accidentally, or both.—Dr. Wm. A. Alcott's Health Tracts.
[16] Sulphureted hydrogen gas is the deleterious agent exhaled from privies or vaults, which have been so fatal, at times, to night men, who have been employed to remove or cleanse them.—Dr. Dunglison.
[17] Dr. Franklin, in his usual humorous manner, but with his accustomed gravity, relates, in one of his essays, the following anecdote, for the purpose, doubtless, of showing the influence of pure air upon health, happiness, and longevity.
"It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, Arise, Methusalem, and build thee a house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer. But Methusalem answered and said, If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me a house. I will sleep in the air as I have been accustomed to do."
[18] From Dr. William A. Alcott's Tract on Breathing Bad Air.
[19] S. S. Fitch, M.D., author of "Consumption Cured."