Ventilation and Heating. - Gas. - House-drainage. - Clothing and Protection from Cold. - Sleep. - Exercise. - Posture. - Bathing. - Regulation of the Bowels. - Rest and Change. - Smoking. - Meals. - Proper Hours for Meals. - Afternoon Tea.

*** These Rules will require to be modified by the medical man to suit special cases.

Ventilation And Heating

No sitting or sleeping room should be left long without a fire, and every room in which persons live, either by day or by night, should have some opening by which it communicates directly with the outer air; but this should be so arranged that no draught can fall upon the persons in the room.

If several rooms are occupied by turns during the twenty-four hours, the temperature of any one should not differ greatly from that of the rest.

No draught should blow upon a bed, and during sleep the whole body should have one covering at least of woollen material; for, while it is very important to keep the air of sleeping-rooms fresh, it must be remem bered that the body is more susceptible to chills during sleep than waking, and that changes in the temperature of the outer air are especially apt to occur during the night, and are therefore in danger of producing chills before they are observed. (See Sleep.)

All arrangements for ventilation must be based upon the following facts: -

The rate of respiration in an average sized adult man is about 16 times per minute, and each such respiration vitiates about 1 cubic foot of normal atmospheric air; so that each adult man vitiates 960 cubic feet of air per hour, and consequently will require a supply of fresh air at that rate; or in round numbers 1,000 cubic feet per hour.

This supply of fresh air can be provided by observing the following conditions: -

A current of air travelling at the rate of 36 linear inches per second is not perceptible as a draught, and at that rate of movement 1 1/4 cubic feet per minute or 75 per hour will be admitted by an aperture of 1 square inch sectional area, communicating directly with the outer air.

If, therefore, an apartment is provided with an aperture having a ratio of 1 square inch sectional area to each 75 feet of cubic capacity, the whole air of the apartment will be changed once per hour.

Supposing, then, that the cubic capacity of an apartment is in the proportion of 1,000 feet to each person in it, the requisite supply of fresh air may be obtained, without draught, through an aperture of from 13 to 14 square inches sectional area to each 1,000 feet of cubic capacity.

But if the cubic capacity of the apartment is only in the proportion of 500 feet for each person in it, the air must be changed twice per hour in order to supply the requisite 1,000 cubic feet of fresh air for each person.

Smoking

A certain number of persons have a peculiar susceptibility to the poisonous influence of Tobacco, and they should never touch it. But for the majority of adults a moderate amount of smoking does not appear to have any seriously deleterious influence, and in many it acts as a useful antidote to brain-worry. Its abuse is always injurious.