ventilated house to make sleepers ill. No coal gas should escape from a furnace or stove, and gas pipes and burner keys should be tested often. Don’t test them with a match, if you suspect a leak. Your nose is safer and just as reliable. You can always smell escaping gas. If you can’t find the leak that way, send for a plumber. The leak may be from a pipe in a wall, or under a floor. A neglected leakage of gas may not only cause sickness, but also an explosion and fire.
Ventilation should be studied. Every house has windows and doors. Most of them have transoms over the doors. A few have fireplaces. Fireplaces are the best ventilators, even when there is no fire in them, for bad air is drawn up the chimney. A window, lowered from the top a few inches in cold weather, lets fresh air in between the sashes, and the bad air out above.
The time we need to be most careful about ventilation is in the winter. On cold winter evenings the family likes to sit in the cosy living room, warmed by the steam radiator or base burner stove. Two or three gas jets burn for reading or sewing. Fire and people use up the oxygen in the air very fast (see Air and make carbon dioxide. In an hour or two the oxygen supply in the room gets too low for comfort, and the carbon dioxide too high.
Look for these danger signals: Father begins to yawn. The lights do not burn so bright. Big brother feels dull and can’t do his arithmetic. Sweet tempered sister gets cross. The only bright and happy person in the room is the baby on the floor. The baby has the best air of all because warm, used air goes up. But even the baby cries after awhile; the canary bird nearly tumbles off its perch and mother has a headache. The bad air almost fills the room. No one knows what is the matter. It’s lucky if some one comes in from outside and says: "My, but it’s stuffy in here." A window is opened and everyone brightens.
The next time that happens in your family, test the air in the room. Bring in a small glass jar of water and a bottle of lime water. Pour the water out of the jar and let it stand a few minutes to fill with the air in the room. Then pour a half inch of lime water in the jar and shake it hard to mix the air and water. If there is too much carbon dioxide in the room the water will turn chalky. The remedy is fresh air. Air as bad as that ought to be turned out of doors.
Every family should have a few simple "first aids for the injured" in the house, and know how to use them. A cut, a burn,
