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9
The three principal sources of bad health arc bad ventilation,
bad drainage, and bad food; the two first may
be reduced to one, because the organs influenced are
the same, the lungs, their action being to separate from
the air we breathe a health-giving principle contained
in all atmospheric air not contaminated by the impurities
caused by many breathing the same air, or breathing
that which is mixed with the poisonous gases arising
from drains and sewers. So that, in point of fact,
there are only two great sources of disease and impaired
health—bad air, and bad food; but there is this essential
difference in the two, we cannot breathe air in excess;
the larger quantity of pure air we take into our lungs
the better, but not so in regard to food. We may err as
much in regard to quantity as quality, so that bad
health can only be caused in relation to the air we
breathe as to one point—its quality; while two principles
are involved in the bad health produced by food—its
quantity as well as its quality. No one can have good
health who violates the laws by which the blood is rendered
fit to give to the body health and strength; food
gives to the blood the necessary fluid and solid matter,
but it is the air we breathe which gives to this matter
its power of producing warmth, health, and strength;
food may be entirely wasted if the air we breathe has
been poisoned with other gases than those of which
nature has made our surrounding atmosphere.
Every body is acquainted with the smell of coal gas,
and it is a great good that it does smell, for being very
injurious to health to breathe much of it, we at once
take steps to stop the leakage. We must bear in mind
that other smells arise from gases equally unfit for
breathing, and we should be equally energetic in stopping
the leakage, or production of them. The organ of smell
is closely connected with the organ of taste, and you
will see all animals smelling their food before eating it.