HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1942, Page 4

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

WE ALL NEED THIS TONIC. OPEN THE WINDOWS AT NIGHT. (By the Health Department). In the good old days, when the darkness held all sorts of horrors for our forebears, father’s last job before turning in was to slam and bolt all the doors and shutters. He then retired to his straw pallet, and he and the household felt reasonably secure for the rest of the night. Such was the power of superstition. And such is the power of superstition today. We’re still scared of the darkness. We shut our windows at night. Why? Not so much because we are nervous about what can get in, but simply because the age-old fear of the unknown is still working in us, even if we don’t recognise it as such. Grandma had a saying, “shut the window and keep out the night air. And what Grandma said still goes it seems. It is wrong, with all due respect to Grandma. Our forefathers used to close their shutters and windows to keep out the mist, because they thought the night mist brought ague. They couldn’t know that the cause of the ague—we know it as malaria was the mosquito which bred on the undrained areas round their dwellings left by indifferent sanitation. But the fear of the dark persists. That is why windows are shut at night. That is why frequent colds, tonsil and adenoid troubles, and even anaemia get a hold. Don’t be frightened of the night air. Open the windows, and let it in. Free movement of the air through a room is not draught, and it isn't, dangerous, as long as the occupant is snug and warm. Danger to health comes through stale air, in stuffy rooms, not through the open window. This is the time of the year to begin opening the windows wide at bedtime. Babies and other members of the family will get used to those fresh, invigorating night breezes before the winter, and, once they do, just notice the freedom from colds.