Old-fashioned pitchers and basins are to be preferred to stationary washstands. The latter, though, are so convenient - especially when supplied with hot- and cold-water faucets - that they may be permitted when the waste pipe is short and runs directly through the wall into a rain spout, instead of communicating with the sewer, and when the nurse can be trusted not to use them as a convenient means of disposing of the ordinary chamber waste.

Each child should have his or her own brushes, combs, sponges, soap and towels, and all of them must be kept clean and sweet and have a place of their own.

The medicine closet must contain only such articles as may be often required, and can be used with safety by a person of average intelligence; for example, olive oil, vaseline, oxide of zinc ointment, talcum powder, soda-mint, sweet spirits of nitre, syrup of ipecacuanha, chalk mixture, etc. Any preparation containing opium - even paregoric - is especially out of place in the nursery medicine chest.

Feeding bottles, implements for the heating and preparation of food and for bathing, also belong to the furniture of the nurseries, but their consideration may be conveniently postponed to later sections.

Heating. - Each room requires an accurate thermometer, so hung that it may record the mean temperature - not too close to the fireplace or the windows, where it runs the chance of being unduly heated or chilled.

The temperature of the day nursery should range between 68° and 70°F.; that of the night nursery from 64 to 68° for infants under three months old; after the third month a temperature of 55° is allowable, and when the child is a year old it may be as low as 50° or 45°.

The proper method of heating is by an open fire-place in which either wood or coal is burnt. Either of these fires is superior to a furnace, simply because they serve a double purpose, namely, heating and ventilating. My personal preference is for an old-fashioned hearth, where oak or other quietly burning logs can be used, since a wood fire is more readily lighted and regulated, and is a better ventilator than one of coals. Still, in our climate, with its manifold and sudden changes, it is so essential to have a source of heat constantly at hand that it is difficult to banish the furnace register from any living room. Therefore, while recognizing the disadvantage of furnace heat, in that it makes the air too dry, it is well to supply the nurseries with both means of heating, using the open fire in moderate weather and the furnace only in the presence of severe cold. For general heating the modern hot-water radiating system is to be much preferred to the old hot-air furnace and to steam heating; with it, an even temperature is easily secured without over-drying the air of the house, or loading it with dust and coal-gas.

In my experience, where the nurseries are so situated as to receive direct sunlight through ample windows, there is rarely any need of furnace heat except in the early morning, before the servants have time to make up the wood or coal fire.

Care must be taken to guard every open fireplace with a high fender, one that can neither be knocked down nor climbed over by an active child.

Ventilation. - In addition to furnishing ample space in the nurseries, it is necessary to provide a constant supply of fresh air by ventilation.

By all odds the best ventilator is an open fireplace in which wood is burnt. Such a fire, by creating a draught up the chimney, carries off the impure air, and there are few doors and windows so closely fitting that they prevent the entrance of fresh air to supply the place of that so removed.

Should this not prove sufficient, one of the windows may be utilized, the upper sash being slightly lowered and the lower sash slightly raised, the openings being sufficient to allow of the entrance and exit of air, but not enough to cause a current or draught in the room.

When the rooms are heated by a furnace or stove, some permanent ventilator must be used. For the egress of foul air an opening may be made in the chimney at a convenient distance from the floor; this may be guarded by an ordinary adjustable register, such as is used to regulate the entrance of heated air from a furnace flue.

The same purpose may also be accomplished by making an opening in the upper part of the door. This should be guarded by a movable sash, or by one of the ventilating appliances to be mentioned later.

Fig. 8. - Window Ventilator.

To allow of the free entrance of pure air, one of the glass lights may be replaced by a plate of tin having a multitude of minute perforations, or a ventilator made to fit the window may be used.

The best of these are shown in the four following figures.

One apparatus (Fig. 8) consists of two pieces of board, one of which slides upon the other, so that it may be readily adapted to any breadth of window frame. Each portion has a circular opening to which is fitted a tin or sheet-iron pipe, eight inches long by four inches in diameter, and having a slight upward bend. These pipes are provided with a solid diaphragm (Fig. 9) readily moved by a handle, and intended to regulate the quantity of air admitted. When in position the pipes, of course, project inward.

Fig. 9. - Window Ventilator in Profile Showing Damper.

The wheel window ventilator (Fig. 10) consists of a movable diaphragm and a revolving wheel, the whole varying from six to eight inches in diameter. When placed in position, which is readily done by cutting a circular hole in a window pane or in the door, the difference in temperature between the interior and exterior of the room will create a current, and cause the wheel to revolve noiselessly. 5

The revolving wheel, while it prevents a draught, allows of the passage of two currents, that of fresh air inward and foul air outward, and the diaphragm enables one to control the supply of air.

Fig. 10. - Wheel Ventilator.

Fig. 11. - Board Ventilator in Place.

An admirable domestic arrangement for ventilation consists of a board eight or ten inches in height placed across, and close to, the window sill, as in Fig. 11.

This, when the lower sash is raised, as indicated by the dotted lines, allows of a free entrance of air without a draught, the current being directed upward (as shown by the arrows).

Together with the above careful provision for constant purification of the atmosphere, it is essential to "air" thoroughly both of the nurseries through widely opened windows. With the day nursery this must be done whenever the child leaves it for any length of time, care being taken to close the windows and get the temperature to the proper degree before his return. The night nursery should be aired after the children leave it in the morning, and after the midday nap.

The air of the nurseries should, of course, never be unnecessarily contaminated. Cooking or smoking in the rooms is to be specially avoided. In regard to the latter, there is no doubt that children are often made sick by the fumes of tobacco, and that, of all forms, cigarette smoke is the most injurious.

Cleaning. - It is hardly necessary to say that the nurseries must be kept perfectly clean. Napkins and bed clothing that have been soiled by the discharges from the bladder or bowels must be removed at once from the room, and the practice of hanging diapers wet with urine before the nursery fire to dry should be emphatically discouraged.

Equal care must be taken to promptly empty and clean chamber vessels after use.

The furniture, woodwork and window glass, as well as the floors, must be kept clean and free from dust by wiping with a damp cloth at least once or twice a week.

Should there be a stationary washstand in either room, it is most important to thoroughly clean the basin every day, and to disinfect the waste pipe, however short it may be, twice every week. The latter may be done with ammonia, copperas or Piatt's chlorides. The process is very simple, and consists in pouring down the pipe a gallon or more of a diluted solution of either of the above articles. Copperas is the cheapest and in my opinion the best; a double handful of it in an ordinary bucketful of water forms an efficient disinfectant and deodorizer.

The substance known as household ammonia may be employed in the strength of two table-spoonfuls to a gallon of water, and is especially useful where there is a suspicion that the interior of the waste pipe has become coated with a layer of soap.

Piatt's chlorides is used in the proportion of one part to four of water, and is very efficient, though more expensive than either of the other materials.

The nurseries must never be cleaned while the children are occupying them.