HEALTH AT HOME.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1989, 9 July 1880, Page 4

HEALTH AT HOME.

At the recent Sanitary Congress, at Croydon, England, the president, Dr. B. W. Eiohardeon, F.E.8., gave an address on “ Health at Homo." That there was no place like home was a saying peculiarly appropriate to his subject, for the river of national health mast rise from the homes of the nation. He would lay down a few golden rules for securing health at home, First he would put sunlight. Whether your home bo large or small, give it light. In a dark and gloomy house one could never see the dirt that polluted it, unwholesome things got stowed away and forgotten, the air became impure, and soon some shade of ill health was engendered in those persons living in the house. Not only was the mind saddened in a home that was not flushed with light, but sunlight was of itself directly useful to health. The practice of placing sick people in dark and closely curtained rooms was alike pernicious to body and spirit, and, moreover, ho had found by experiment that certain organic poisons analogous to the poisons which propagate epidemic and contagious diseases were rendered innocuous by exposure to light. He would next refer to the allied topic of night'and hours of sleep. If it were good to make all possible use of sunlight, it was good equally to mako as little use as possible of artificial light. Artificial lights, so far, had been sources of waste, not only of the material out of which they were made, but of the air on which they burned. In the air of the closed room the present commonly used lamps, candles and gaslights robbed the air of a part of its vital constituent, and supplied in return products really injurious to life. Gaslight was in this respect most hurtful, but the others were bad when long kept burning in one confined space. The fewer hours after dark that were spent in artificial light the better, and this suggested of itself, that within reasonable limits the sooner we went to rest after dark the better. It was of the greatest importance in a healthy home to let every person have a separate bed, and the clothes should be light and warm. As the bedroom was tho room in which one-third at least of the whole life was passed, that ought to be the room on which most trouble after health should be bestowed. The rule followed was the reverse of this. The bedroom should be so planned that never less than 400 cubic feet of space should be given to each occupant, however good the ventilation might bo. The walls should be colored with distemper or with paint, that, like the silicate paint, could be washed three or four times a year. The windows should have nothing more than a blind and a half muslin curtain. Tho floors should have carpets only round the beds, without valances from the beds. The furniture should bo as simple and as scanty as was possible, the chairs free of all stuffings or covers that could hold dust. Of all things, again, the room should be kept clear of vestments not in use. From time to time a fire should bejmade in every bedroom, that a free current of atmospheric air might sweep through it from open doors and windows. Dry scrubbing was by far the beat mode of cleansing the floor. An equal temperature of about COdog. Fah. should be maintained, as far as possible, throughout tho house, a free access of air, and, above all, dry. His last rule ho would take from tho more etriot of oar Jewish fellow-subjects, that of a complete household-cleansing once a year ; the cleansing of every article, great and small; of every wall and floor, door, and lintel; and tho removal and destruction of all organic refuse, however minute.