rooms where they
sleep tight shut up, is destruction to them. And, if the child's
breathing be disordered by disease, a few hours only of such foul air
may endanger its life, even where no inconvenience is felt by grown-up
persons in the same room.

The following passages, taken out of an excellent "Lecture on Sudden
Death in Infancy and Childhood," just published, show the vital
importance of careful nursing of children. "In the great majority of
instances, when death suddenly befalls the infant or young child, it is
an _accident_; it is not a necessary, inevitable result of any disease
from which it is suffering."

It may be here added, that it would be very desirable to know how often
death is, with adults, "not a necessary, inevitable result of any
disease." Omit the word "sudden;" (for _sudden_ death is comparatively
rare in middle age;) and the sentence is almost equally true for all
ages.

The following causes of "accidental" death in sick children are
enumerated:--"Sudden noises, which startle--a rapid change of
temperature, which chills the surface, though only for a moment--a rude
awakening from sleep--or even an over-hasty, or an over-full meal"--"any
sudden impression on the nervous system--any hasty alteration of
posture--in short, any cause whatever by which the respiratory process
may be disturbed."

It may again be added, that, with very weak adult patients, these causes
are also (not often "suddenly fatal," it is true, but) very much oftener
than is at all generally known, irreparable in their consequences.

Both for children and for adults, both for sick and for well (although
more certainly in the case of sick children than in any others), I would
here again repeat, the most frequent and most fatal cause of all is
sleeping, for even a few hours, much more for weeks and months, in foul
air, a condition which, more than any other condition, disturbs the
respiratory process, and tends to produce "accidental" death in disease.

I need hardly here repeat the warning against any confusion of ideas
between cold and fresh air. You may chill a patient fatally without
giving him fresh air at all. And you can quite well, nay, much better,
give him fresh air without chilling him. This is the test of a good
nurse.

In cases of long recurring faintnesses from disease, for instance,
especially disease which affects the organs of breathing, fresh air to
the lungs, warmth to the surface, and often (as soon as