Nothing is more important than pure food in building up the body and in making heat and power. In consumption the food that is stored up in the body burns itself up very fast. The consumptive must therefore take not only the food needed to supply the usual demands of the body, but enough to make something extra for the disease to burn up without drawing on the reserve fund stored in the body. In order to do this, he will have to eat a great deal, and what he eats must be of the kind that makes the best building material and the most nourishing material. He cannot tax his stomach by eating things that are not nourishing; all the work his stomach can do must be devoted to the foods he really needs.
The weapons with which we fight consumption are rest, good food, fresh air, and sunshine. These will do more good than all the medicine in the world. Fresh air is not only one of the best things for the cure of consumption, but it is one of the best things for the prevention of consumption. You should always breathe plenty of fresh air night and day, and there is plenty of fresh air to be had if you will take it.
Fig. 74. A window tent. (Invented by Dr. W. E. Walsh.)
How to have fresh air at home:
If you have only a single window in your room, try to sleep with your head in the fresh air. It is not always easy to arrange a room in such a way that you can have fresh air without placing your bed in a draft, but even this difficulty can be overcome.
(1) By window tents
There are several devices, called window tents, which you can buy. By the use of such a tent, your head will be out-of-doors all the time; yet the draft cannot strike your body, because a part of the tent fits around your neck and cuts off the air from the rest of your body. One of these tents is shown in Figure 74. You do not put your head out of the window; your head is on your pillow just as if the tent were not there. Your bed is placed directly in front of the window and the tent comes down over your pillow, allowing your head practically to be out-of-doors, but keeping the cold air out of the room. Sleeping under a window tent is the next best thing to sleeping out-of-doors.
Fig. 75. A sleeping porch built in a house.