I. VENTILATION AND WARMING.
The very first canon of nursing, the first and the last thing upon which a nurse's attention must be fixed, the first essential to a patient, without which all the rest you can do for him is as nothing, with which I had almost said you may leave all the rest alone, is this: To keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him. Yet what is so little attended to? Even where it is thought of at all, the most extraordinary misconceptions reign about it. Even in admitting air into the patient's room or ward, few people ever think, where that air comes from. It may come from a corridor into which other wards are ventilated, from a hall, always unaired, always full of the fumes of gas, dinner, of various kinds of mustiness; from, an underground kitchen, sink, washhouse, water-closet, or even, as I myself have had sorrowful experience, from open sewers loaded with filth; and with this the patient's room or ward is aired, as it is called — poisoned, it should rather be said. Always air from the air without, and that, too, through those windows
through which the air comes freshest. From a closed court, especially if the wind do not blow that way, air may come as stagnant as any from a hall or corridor.
Again, a thing I have often seen both in private houses and institutions. A room remains uninhabited; the fireplace is carefully fastened up with a board; the windows are never opened; probably the shutters are kept always shut; perhaps some kind of stores are kept in the room; no breath of fresh air can by possibility enter into that room, nor any ray of sun. The air is stagnant, musty, and corrupt as it can by possibility be made. It is quite ripe to breed small-pox, scarlet-fever, diphtheria, or anything else you please.[1]
Yet the nursery, ward, or sick room adjoining will posi-
- ↑ The common idea as to uninhabited rooms is, that they may safely be left with doors, windows, shutters, and chimney-board, all closed — hermetically sealed if possible — to keep out the dust, it is said and that no harm will happen if the room is but opened a short hour before the inmates are put in. I have often been asked the question for uninhabited rooms, "But when ought the windows to be opened?" The answer is, "When ought they to be shut?"
