HOW TO MAKE AN UNHEALTHY BEDROOM. (From the Journal of Public Health)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 413, 30 March 1850, Page 4

HOW TO MAKE AN UNHEALTHY BEDROOM. (From the Journal of Public Health)

If you want a thoroughly unhealthy bedroom, these are the precautions you should take -.-Fasten a chim-ney-board against the fire-place, bo as to prevent loul air from escaping in the night; and, of course, in the night season never have a door or window open. Use no perforated zinc in panelling ; especially avoid it in small bed-rooms. So you will get a loom fu'l of had air. But in the same room there is bad, worse, and worst : your object is to have the worst air possible Suffocating machines are made by every upholsleicr; attich one t.i your bed; it js an apparaas of poles, rings and curtains. By drawing your curtain" aiound you before you ileep, you ensure t<j yoiTaelf a condensed body of foul air over your perbon. This poison vsponr-balh you will find "to be most efficient when it is made of any thick m-derM. There being triuibpirtion through tbe hkin, it would not be a bad idea to see whether this cannot be iv some way hindered. The popular method will do very well ; smother the flesh at much as possible in feathers. The feathers rernin all the heat übout the body, and stifle the skin so far effectually, that you awake in the morning pre»aded by a Seme of languor, which must be very agreeable to a pe rson who has it in his mind to be unhealthy. In order to keep a check upon exhalation about your head (which otherwise might have the way of nature) put on a stout closely woveo nightcap. People who are the hight of cleverness in this respect sleep with their head under tbe bed-clothes. Take no rest on a hair mnt trass; it is elastic and pleasant certainly, but it does not encaie tlie body, and therefore you run n risk of not awaking languid. Never wash when you goto bed; you are not going to see anybody, and therefore there is no use in washing. In the morning wet no more skin than you absolutely must — that is to say, no more lhan your neighbours will see during thp day,— • the face and hands So much you may do with a tolerable good will, since it is the other part ot the iurfacp of the body more covered more impelled in the full discharge of its functions which has rather the more need of ablution ; it is therefore fortunate that you can leave that oth p r part unwashed. Five minutes of sponging and rubbing over the whole body in the morning would tend to invigorate the system, and would send you with a cheerful glow to the day's business or pleasure. Avoiding Jby all means if you desire to be unhealthy. Lard in the bedioom is called bear's grease. In connexion with its virtues in promoting the growth hair, there is a tale which is no fiction — not the old jest of the man who rubbed a deal box with it over night, and found a hair trunk in the morning. It io said thut the first adventurer who adveitised bear's grease for snle appended to the laudation of its efficiancy a NOTA bene, that gentlemen, after applying it, should wash the palms of their hands, otherwise the hair would sprout thence alto. Of course, as you do not dense your body daily, so you will not show favour to your feet. When a German Prince was told confidently that he had dirty hands, he replied with the liveliness of conscious triumph, ''Ah! do you call dat dirty? You should see my toes!" Some people wash them once in every month— that will do very well; or once a year, it matters little which. In what washing you find yourself unable to omit, use only the finest towels— thoie wh eh inflict the least friction on the skint Havine made these arrangements for yourselves, take care that they are adheared to, so far as may be conTenient, throughout your household. Here and there put numerous sleepers into a singla room ; this is a good thing for children, when you require to blanch them and render them delicate; but you must take care not to carry this too far, otherwise you will render them pasty, pot-bellied, and deformed. It was this practice which was so successful at Tooting in thinning the population. By all meant let a baby have foul air, not only by the use of suffocating apparatui, but by causing it to seep where there are four or five others in a well closed room. So much is due to the maintainance of our orthodox rate of infant mortality.