Healthy Homes.

Manawatu Herald, 7 April 1894, Page 3

Healthy Homes.

(Concluded).

To provide satisfactory perflation, make all windows extend as near to the ceiling and to the floor as practicable, make them all readily openable, and introduce windows and •doom of such size and in such positions as to allow you at any time to ope,n,up the. horne v thorougb.ly.to the out^dtSorf air] so| tJ3at4b;e latter may sweep right through it in a strong current. For ventilation, it is especially important that the hall or (if there be more than one floor) the staircase- well be provided with openings in the walls or in the doors to allow entrance of fresh air, and with one or more pipes extending directly upwards fi'om the ceiling to above the roof, the outer opening of each pipe being fitted with a fixed cowl, and each separate compartment must be independently ventilated, openings being supplied for admission and others for escape of air. Sufficient openings for admission of air can generally be provided in a simple manner by raising the lower sash of each window a few inches, and filling up the opening by a board so that an interval will be formed between the upper and lower sash. Air will then freely enter at this interval without giving rise to draught. Openings for escape of air may be provided in the shape of the ordinary holes through the walls near to the ceilings ; but in this case it is necessary to place a hood opening downwards over the outer end of the opening, otherwise there will be draught, and rain will be driven through the opening. A few points now as to drains. All indoor drains must be as short as possible and completely exposed, so that all sinks must be as close to one of the outer walls of the home as possible, and the sink pipes should be taken directly through that wall. The sink pipes must on no account discharge in the open air over a short impervious gutter, and the gutter in turn may discharge through a proper trap into an underground drain. The utmost care, as already i said, is to be taken to preserve cleanliness around the home, other* wise the air of the home cannot be healthy, and flies will introduce unclean matters into the food within the home. The soil therefore must not be contaminated with drainage matters or manure of any sort unless it be most assiduously cultivated. 1 Among the conditions particularly to be mentioned in this connection there is the Melbourne specialty, the single pan service, which should at the very first opportunity be abolished. It 13 a service which necessitates the retention of infectious bowel matters on the premises from one year's end to another, the most disgusting of all possible forms of fouling of the atmosphere about the home, and ready facilities for infection of foods by means of flies. By all means get rid of that from your homes. There is no saving to the State in the retention of that murderous service. Get rid of it, as it has been got rid of in Prahran, Brighton, Essondon, Caultield and Kew. Finally as to water supply

and milk, you must in this country boil or filter all the water used for drinking, and boil or thoroughly scald all the milk. You have it almost entirely in your own hands to have much or to have little typhoid fever, according as you elect to ignore or to carry out those simple operations ; and for filtering you must use either a Jeffery or a Cham-berland-Pasteur filter, 'if you desire to have hydatid disease and to be subjected to repeated surgical operations, by all means drink the water raw. If you desire to be affected with typhoid fever, by all means drink the water and the milk raw as it is delivered at your homes.

I would now beg of you to remember that the above are only a few of the many conditions which are to be observed for the maintenance of health. There are thousands of others, and though here one and there one of us, as individuals, may pas 3 a long and healthy life while ignoring the conditions to be observed, rest assured that the race which lends itself most readily to the observance of those conditions will be victors in the struggle of race with race which is silently but none the less surely proceeding. In conclusion, let me remind you that the sin of sins is that which militates against the health of self and of others, and hands down a tainted legacy to the thivd and fourth generations that are to come ; and that there is for each one of us a solemn reflection : "Am I betraying the constitution of myself or of others, and in so doing betraying the constitutions of others yet to be born ?"