When we note the faces of persons who, by reason of their occupations, pass their lives in the open air, such as peasants, gardeners, etc., we usually find them healthy and fresh-looking, and looking more youthful than their actual age. This is especially so in the case of their wives and daughters, who are more exempt from certain injurious habits, such as smoking, and are less addicted to other harmful agencies, like alcohol. Their fresh rosy faces speak in eloquent terms of the benefits of fresh country air.
On the other hand we see that others, whose daily avocations compel them to stay all day in a close atmosphere, very frequently look pale and sickly. Among such persons, as observation shows, infectious diseases are frequent, and especially tuberculosis. This disease most frequently develops in persons who pass all their time in close places, especially when they are poorly fed at the same time. We can trace this plainly in the working classes in certain European countries where, in Vienna, for instance, until the past several years, about 70 per cent. of the total mortality was due to tuberculosis.
If we now take such tuberculous persons and place them in a hospital or sanatorium and subject them to the open air treatment, compelling them to pass all their time exposed to the fresh air, both day and night, we soon witness a marvelous change. Their appearance is improved, and also their appetite; and after a time in most of the cases there will be an increase in bodily weight. We thus see that the open air produces wonderful effects in such persons, who, as a rule, have been immured in close places, they shattering their health.
We have thus witnessed the clinical demonstration of the fact that fresh air is able to improve our health. Fresh air contains much oxygen, and this is a most indispensable substance, for without it we cannot live. The red corpuscles in the blood which, loaded with carbonic acid, the veins convey to the lungs, eagerly absorb the oxygen from the air that we inhale and then convey it to the tissues to satisfy their requirements for this precious substance.
By absorbing oxygen the elimination of carbonic acid is at the same time facilitated. The greater the number of red blood corpuscles that comes to the surface of the lungs the greater will be the volume of oxygen which is taken into the system, and afterwards the larger will be the volume of carbonic acid gas expelled. Thus in the lungs there takes place a distintoxication of the organisms, and, according to certain authorities, the cells of the lungs are co-operating in this process in a manner analogous to the internal secretion by the cells of other glandular structures.
The more fresh air, i.e., the more oxygen we get into our lungs, the more we can contribute to the processes of oxidation in the tissues. When the processes of circulation and of breathing are checked, and when insufficient oxygen is absorbed, we soon see a very important change for the worse in the condition of such persons, as exemplified by cases of heart and lung trouble.
Given the great importance of oxygen, we must try by every means to get as much of it into our lungs as possible; we shall get more of it from air that is not stagnating, but always in circulation. When we are in a closed room, after a certain time we absorb all the oxygen in it, particularly when there are several persons present who are sharing with us the oxygen in the air.
Staying for a long time in air so vitiated that it contains but little oxygen and much carbonic acid and many microbes exhaled by the others, we are liable to reap the disadvantages we have set forth in the chapter on the dangers of a close room. According to Pettenkofer, the exhalations from the persons present in a close room are much more noxious than the carbonic acid gas. We, therefore, open the window and door in order to create a current of fresh air, and so allow the oxygen to be renewed. In this we but imitate nature, which sends a wind to purify the close atmosphere on warm summer days. This is natural ventilation.
If we want to preserve our youth for a long time and attain an old age, we must take all available means to avoid such air contaminated by billions of microbes and vitiated by the exhalation of so many human beings and animals, who also absorb much of the oxygen. To this is added the smoke from the numerous manufactories, houses, and plants, and the dust and exhalations from many noxious substances of various kinds. As, however, fortunately, all this vitiated air is generally found in the lower strata, always endeavor to find a lodging in the more elevated portions of the city, and on the highest floor possible if staying in an apartment house or in a hotel. If possible our houses should be built on the outskirts of the city, and preferably near a park, or wood, or at least a meadow where there is a free circulation of pure air.
In our rooms, and especially in the sleeping room, the window, or at any rate the transom, should always stand open, and if possible also during the night. But when obliged to sleep in a room with a closed window to avoid the noise of the street traffic, the first thing to do in the morning, directly one gets up, is to open the window and let in the fresh air, and do not close the window again until night-time. When we are well covered we need not be afraid of catching cold. As a rule only those take cold who keep in a warm room and live at enmity with fresh air. Fresh air, as a matter of fact, never does any harm to its friends; it is only dangerous to its enemies. As Captain Svaerdrup, a member of Nansen’s expedition to the North Pole, told us, he and his comrades never suffered from colds as long as they were in the polar regions. They first caught them when they approached Christiania.
When standing at the window inhale the fresh air deeply several times and retain it as long as possible before exhaling it.
Indeed we could preserve our health much more effectively if we imitated the Indian and slept in the open air. It is a fact that many Indians possess great immunity to all kinds of fatigue, enjoy very robust health, and reach a green old age. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that they pass the whole of their life in the open air. When tuberculous people are kept under the free-air treatment we are, after all, only following the example of the red man. Nobody who is accustomed to live in a close room with heavy curtains at an average temperature of 75° to 80° from October to May, can imagine the pleasures of a wooden hut or tent for day and night use. When Dr. Pottenger, of the Monrovia Sanatorium, near Los Angeles, California, showed me around his little wooden cottages in which his patients lived, I simply envied them. I cannot imagine a more healthy dwelling-place than a tent in summer and a wooden hut in winter, with a stove in it for the cold weather; and if we cannot raise the heat over 75°, so much the better.
The son of a family in England, who are great friends of mine, has formed a resolution not to sleep any longer in the comfortable family mansion, but in a tent in the meadows of his property during both winter and summer. His family and friends regarded this as an eccentricity, against which they warned him; but still he got on very well in his tent, and looks fresher and healthier than ever before. We are always put down as eccentric if we have the courage to resist the foolish prejudices of our surroundings. For my part I prefer to live to be 100, and to attain this I do not object to be considered “eccentric.”
Anyone who is anxious to live long and preserve his youth should endeavor to spend as much time as possible in the open air. After the day’s work is finished we should always get out into the air, preferably in a park or wood adjacent to our home, where there is more oxygen contained in the air. We should follow the example of those English people who leave town on Saturday and remain in the country until Monday, leaving behind them the cares of business. There is probably no nation which likes exercise in the open air so much as the English, Scotch, and Irish, and among them is to be found the greatest longevity. An agreeable way to get plenty of fresh air is by automobiling, and for those whose means can afford it long journeys by automobile may constitute an excellent fresh air cure, as they tend to improve the appetite, produce sleep, and relieve neurasthenic conditions in general. But automobiling can only be considered as a hygienic means for longevity when the speed does not exceed twenty to twenty-five miles an hour.
When in the country we should always prefer mountains, and the higher they are the purer is the air and the more oxygen does it contain, as a rule. At the same time very much depends also on the presence of forests, especially of pines and fir trees. High mountains with such arborization generally have pure fresh air full of oxygen, and there is no drug in pharmacy that can equal this in its beneficial effects. It is a fact, established by leading physiologists, that persons living on mountains have more red blood-corpuscles than those living in the plains. When patients are sent to spots so elevated in the air as mountains with forests, we find them, as a rule, looking healthy and fresh when they return from their holiday in the fresh air.
As found by A. and Y. Loewy and Luntz,[251] mountain air improves the processes of oxidation and increases the number and depth of the respirations. All this, however, according to these savants, is the result of the exciting action of the sunshine. It speaks volumes for the health-giving properties of mountain air that the inhabitants of such spots, especially in Scotland, Switzerland, and Norway, have such fresh rosy cheeks. These we notice more particularly among the females, especially in young girls who are freer from the agencies harmful to good health, such as alcohol, sexual excesses, etc. In Norway almost all the young girls have fresh red cheeks, for which, indeed, they are noted, due to the delightful air on its mountains and forests, with which the whole land is almost covered.
I had the opportunity of proving for myself, after spending a certain time in a resort on the top of a mountain in Norway, the delightful purity and invigorating quality of the air, which was due to the large amount of oxygen. As a confrère expressed it, there was champagne in the air! It was not soiled here by any manufacturing plant, the curse of so many places with fine air. Norway, one of the most extensive countries in Europe, has at the same time a very small population, only about two millions, and very few factories, so that the air is not polluted either by a dense population or by the smoke of manufactories. Scotland, with its highlands, has also a similar air, and the color of the Scotch lassies is not far behind their Norwegian sisters. This can be admitted as a scientific argument for the relations of health in the country.
But Americans need not travel so far. There is as good a climate and wonderfully fresh air in the Rocky Mountains, and also in other highly elevated places, of which America can boast many more than Europe. But whether there or in Europe it would be necessary to give up all occupations for a few months, or at least for several weeks after every six months. This time we should pass in those elevated places where we can climb every day; climbing presents an excellent opportunity to get much fresh air into our lungs, as we are then obliged to take much deeper inspirations, thereby obtaining more oxygen from the pure air of the mountains. As we shall show in the next chapter, exercise combined with fresh air is of the greatest importance to our health and chances for a long life and a green old age.
But in order to get plenty of air it is not indispensable to go to forests or mountains or to the seaside; we can also get it at home, although not with the same amount of oxygen. To absorb much air we must breathe deeply and keep in the inspired air, and endeavor to get it into all parts of the lungs. In ordinary life we forget this and we get just as much air into us with our superficial breathing as is necessary to keep us alive and to feel no harm from our want of air. Most people breathe only superficially, and only inspire deeper when mounting the staircase, unless, indeed, they adopt the less healthy habit of reaching the first floor by the elevator. But as it is of apparent benefit to us to get as much air into our lungs as possible, we improve this state of affairs by breathing exercises. The great importance of these breathing exercises for the prolongation of human life has been especially insisted on by Sir Herman Weber.[252] But before him, Hamel and Harry Campbell[253] had already demonstrated the great therapeutic results of respiratory exercises. Sir Herman Weber recommends commencing with moderately deep inspirations and expirations, continued during from three to five minutes once or twice a day, and then gradually increasing to ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. The depth of each inspiration and expiration, and the duration of holding the breath, are to be increased only gradually. Sir Herman Weber advises inspiring in an erect position, with raised arms and closed mouth, bending the body forward during expiration so that the fingers touch the ground or the toes.
According to this authority, besides the influence on the circulation, the respiratory movements keep up the nutrition and efficiency of the lungs, and also maintain the elasticity of the chest walls, which are apt to become stiff in old age and thus interfere with the free action of the lungs and pleura.
These respiratory exercises can also be performed in a sitting or horizontal position.
According to Sir Lauder Brunton, the deep respiratory movements act as a kind of massage to the lungs, thoracic walls, pericardium, and heart.
Sir Herman Weber mentions that he has seen persons who get out of breath, even after short walks and climbs, and who for this reason abstained from such, and consequently suffered in health and spirits, become, by means of these movements, active walkers and climbers, gaining improvement in every function of the body, and outliving by many years their brothers and sisters who had not practiced them. He also specially recommends these breathing exercises to literary workers, statesmen, professional men, and others who get no time to take the usual methods of exercise.
In certain heart troubles—for example, dilatation of the heart—these movements are contraindicated.
It is natural that if we practice these exercises in the fresh air of the forests or mountains their salutary action will be still more pronounced. But if we are too indolent to perform the regular breathing exercises, whose beneficial effect upon the heart’s nutrition and action is so great, it will suffice for us to take deep inspirations and expirations while walking. We must get into the habit of doing this every day, and thus prolong our life.
As a general rule we only breathe with one part of our lungs, sadly neglecting the other, by which the aëration of the blood will not be so thorough. Independently even of the breathing exercises, it would be very advantageous to our health if we gently took a long breath, which should be so prolonged that we feel our stomach distended. The air will thus reach the deeper portions of our lungs. This will also be the best practice while singing; indeed, the latter would be the very best of ways in which to obtain a good and thorough aëration of the lungs. We have heard of cases where people without a voice have taken singing lessons, for the simple reason that they were descended from families in which tuberculosis was hereditary.
This latter disease is one of the most frequent causes of a shortened existence, and it is, therefore, our duty to point out here the great advantages not only of a generous diet, consisting of a certain amount of underdone fresh meat, uncooked milk of healthy cows or goats, and many eggs, sausages and puddings made of the blood of pigs (see Chapter XXXIX), but also of regular deep breathing, thereby permitting of the entry of oxygen to all parts of the lungs.
We always recommend breathing through the nose, as doing so through the mouth dries up the mucous membranes, especially if throughout the night, during sleep, the mouth is kept open. This bad habit permits of the entrance of cold air which, not being warmed by passing through the nasal passages, may be injurious to the lungs. The Indians are fully cognizant of this fact, for in some tribes the mother binds up the mouth of her child and thus compels it to breathe through the nose.
In the foregoing we have shown the great advantages of abundant fresh air. We have referred to the fresh appearance of country people, especially of those who live on mountains, as also to the improved condition of tuberculous persons after having been exposed to as much fresh air as possible. I ask, therefore, why, if people suffering from this disease derive so much benefit from fresh air, should not we, who are still healthy, be also benefited by it? Let us therefore remain in the open air as much as possible, and never prevent its close approach to us; for it gives health, long youth, and a good old age.