[Sidenote: Remedies.]
The outer air, then, can only be kept clean by sanitary improvements,
and by consuming smoke. The expense in soap, which this single
improvement would save, is quite incalculable.
The inside air can only be kept clean by excessive care in the ways
mentioned above--to rid the walls, carpets, furniture, ledges, &c., of
the organic matter and dust--dust consisting greatly of this organic
matter--with which they become saturated, and which is what really makes
the room musty.
Without cleanliness, you cannot have all the effect of ventilation;
without ventilation, you can have no thorough cleanliness.
Very few people, be they of what class they may, have any idea of the
exquisite cleanliness required in the sick-room. For much of what I have
said applies less to the hospital than to the private sick-room. The
smoky chimney, the dusty furniture, the utensils emptied but once a day,
often keep the air of the sick constantly dirty in the best private
houses.
The well have a curious habit of forgetting that what is to them but a
trifling inconvenience, to be patiently "put up" with, is to the sick a
source of suffering, delaying recovery, if not actually hastening death.
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