OF AIR.
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never ventilated by fires nor open windows, and rarelykept clean. This occasions that damp, musty, unwhole-some smell which one feels upon entering a church, andrenders it a very unsafe place for the weak and valetu-dinary. These inconveniences might, in a great measure, be obviated, by prohibiting all persons from bury-ing within churches, by keeping them clean, and per-mitting a stream of fresh air to pass frequently throughthem, by opening opposite doors and windows.
Wherever air stagnates long, it becomes unwhole-some. Hence the unhappy persons confined in gaolsnot only contract malignant fevers themselves, butoften communicate them to others. Nor are many ofthe holes, for we cannot call them houses, possessed bythe poor in great towns, much better than gaols. Theselow dirty habitations are the very lurking-places of badair and contagious diseases. Such as live in them sel-dom enjoy good health; and their children commonlydie young. In the choice of a house, those who haveit in their power ought always to pay the greatest at-tention to open free air.
The various methods which luxury has invented tomake houses close and warm, contribute not a littleto render them unwholesome. No house can be whole-some, unless the air has a free passage through it. Forwhich reason, houses ought daily to be ventilated, byopening opposite windows, and admitting a current offresh air into every room. Beds, instead of beingmade up as soon as people rise out of them, oughtto be turned down, and exposed to the fresh air fromthe open windows through the day. This wouldexpel any noxious vapour, and could not fail to pro-mote the health of the inhabitants.
In hospitals, gaols, ships, &c. where that cannot beconveniently done, ventilators should be used. Themethod of expelling foul, and introducing fresh, air, bymeans of ventilators, is a most salutary invention, andis, indeed, the most useful of all our modern medicalimprovements. It is capable of universal application,and is fraught with numerous advantages, both to those