WHAT IS IN THE BEDROOM?

Southland Times, Issue 1631, 10 September 1872, Page 3

WHAT IS IN THE BEDROOM?

If two persons are to occupy a bedroom during tbe night, let them step on a weighing scale as they retire, and then again in the morning, and they will find their actual weight is one pound less in the morning. Frequently there will be a loss of two or more pounds, and the average loss throughout the year will be a pound of matter, which has gone off from their bodies, partly from their lungs, and partly through the pores of the skin. The escaped matter is carbonic acid and decayed animal matter or poisonous exhalation. This is diffused through the air in part, and part absorbed by the bedclothes. If a single ounce of wool cotton be burned in a room, it will so completely saturate the air with smoke that one can hardly breathe, though there can only be one ounce of foreign matter in the air. If an ounce of cotton be burned every half-hour during the night, the air will be kept continually saturated with smoke, unless there be an open window or door for it to escape. Now the 1G ounces of Btnoke thus formed is far less poisonous than tbe 16 of exhalations from the lungs and bodies of two persons who have lost a pound in weight during the eight hours of sleeping ; for while the dry smoke is mainly taken into the lungs, the damp odors from the body are absorbed both into the lungs and into the pores of the whole body. Need more be said to show the importance of having bed-rooms well ventilated, and of thoroughly airing the sheets, coverlids, and mattresses i the morning, before packing them uf b the form of a neatly made bed ?