XIV.––The Children Require Country Air
The Essential Proportion of Oxygen.––Every one knows that the breathing of air which has lost little of its due proportion of oxygen is the essential condition of vigorous life and of a fine physique; also, that whatever produces heat, whether it be animal heat, or the heat of fire, candle, gas-lamp, produces that heat at the expense of the oxygen in the atmosphere––a bank which is drawn upon by every breathing and burning object; that in situations where much breathing and burning are going on, there is a terrible drain upon this vital gas; that the drain may be so excessive that there no longer sufficient oxygen in the air to support animal life, and death results; that where the drain is less excessive but still great, animal life may be supported, and people live in a flaccid, feeble life in a state of low vitality.
Excess of Carbonic Acid Gas.––Also we know that every breathing and every burning object expels a hurtful gas––carbonic acid. A very small proportion of this gas is present in the purest atmospheric air, and that small proportion is healthful; but increase that quantity by the action of furnaces, fires, living beings, gas-lamps, and the air is rendered unwholesome, just in proportion to the quantity of superfluous carbonic-acid gas it contains. If the quantity be excessive––as when many people are huddled together in a small unventilated room––speedy death by suffocation is the result.
Unvitiated, Unimpoverished Air.––For these reasons, it is not possible to enjoy fulness of life in a town. For grown-up people, the stimulus of town life does something to make up for the impurity of town air; as, on the other hand, country people too often forfeit their advantages through the habit of mental sluggishness they let themselves fall into: but, for the children––who not only breathe, but grow; who require, proportionately, more oxygen than adults need for their vital processes––it is absolutely cruel not to give them very frequent, if not daily, copious draughts of unvitiated, unimpoverished air, the sort of air that can be had only remote from towns.
Solar Light.––But this is only one of the reasons why, for health’s sake alone, it is of the first importance to give children long days in the open country. They want light, solar light, as well as air. Country people are ruddier than town folk; miners are sallow, so are the dwellers in cellars and in sunless valleys. The reason is, that, to secure the ruddy glow of perfect health, certain changes must take place in the blood––the nature of which it would take too long to explain here––and that these changes in the blood, marked by free production of red corpuscles, appear to take place most favourably under the influence of abundant solar light. What is more, men of science are beginning to suspect that not only the coloured light rays of the solar spectrum, but the dark heat rays, and the chemical rays, minister to vitality in ways not yet fully understood.