Page:Science ofDress053.png

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
CHAP. IV.]
Temperature—Ventilation.
53

maintained at an even temperature of between 62° and 65° Fahrenheit, which should be regulated by a thermometer always kept well in view. How often may children be seen sitting up at lessons with fingers and noses red and blue with cold, or, on the other hand, confined in a room so hot and stuffy that it is painful to enter it! In this, as in everything else, the only right way is to avoid extremes, which can best be done by keeping an eye on the thermometer. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the ventilation of rooms must not be sacrificed for the sake of warmth, for, vulgarly speaking, this is only "robbing Peter to pay Paul." If air cannot readily enter and leave the room, the atmosphere by the process of breathing, which I have described, becomes overcharged with carbonic acid gas and vapour of water, and loses its oxygen. The same portion of air cannot be breathed twice, so that if an animal is enclosed in a limited space it dies as soon as all the air contained in its prison has passed through its lungs. Hence bad ventilation is a serious evil.

The sufferings of children from cold are terribly increased by the barbarous way in which they are generally dressed.

From all that I have said, it ought to be very clear that children should be better protected from the cold—more warmly clad—than grown people. But what do we find when we look around us? Herbert Spencer said years ago, "What father, full grown though he is, losing heat