Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

Want of cleanliness, then, in rooms and wards, which you have to guard against, may arise in three ways. [Sidenote: Dirty air from without.] 1. Dirty air coming in from without, soiled by sewer emanations, the evaporation from dirty streets, smoke, bits of unburnt fuel, bits of straw, bits of horse dung. [Sidenote: Best kind of wall for a house.] If people would but cover the outside walls of their houses with plain or encaustic tiles, what an incalculable improvement would there be in light, cleanliness, dryness, warmth, and consequently economy. The play of a fire-engine would then effectually wash the outside of a house. This kind of walling would stand next to paving in improving the health of towns. [Sidenote: Dirty air from within.] 2. Dirty air coming from within, from dust, which you often displace, but never remove. And this recalls what ought to be a sine qua non. Have as few ledges in your room or ward as possible. And under no pretence have any ledge whatever out-of sight. Dust accumulates there, and will never be wiped off. This is a certain way to soil the air. Besides this, the animal exhalations from your inmates saturate your furniture. And if you never clean your furniture properly, how can your rooms or wards be anything but musty? Ventilate as you please, the rooms will never be sweet. Besides this, there is a constant degradation, as it is called, taking place from everything except polished or glazed articles--E.g. in colouring certain green papers arsenic is used. Now in the very dust even, which is lying about in rooms hung with this kind of green paper, arsenic has been distinctly detected. You see your dust is anything but harmless; yet you will let such dust lie about your ledges for months, your rooms for ever.