hild
mortality are perfectly well known; they are chiefly want of
cleanliness, want of ventilation, want of white-washing; in one word,
defective _household_ hygiene. The remedies are just as well known; and
among them is certainly not the establishment of a Child's Hospital.
This may be a want; just as there may be a want of hospital room for
adults. But the Registrar-General would certainly never think of giving
us as a cause for the high rate of child mortality in (say) Liverpool
that there was not sufficient hospital room for children; nor would he
urge upon us, as a remedy, to found a hospital for them.

Again, women, and the best women, are wofully deficient in sanitary
knowledge; although it is to women that we must look, first and last,
for its application, as far as _household_ hygiene is concerned. But who
would ever think of citing the institution of a Women's Hospital as the
way to cure this want?

We have it, indeed, upon very high authority that there is some fear
lest hospitals, as they have been _hitherto_, may not have generally
increased, rather than diminished, the rate of mortality--especially of
child mortality.

[2]

[Sidenote: Why are uninhabited rooms shut up?]

The common idea as to uninhabited rooms is, that they may safely be left
with doors, windows, shutters, and chimney board, all
closed--hermetically sealed if possible--to keep out the dust, it is
said; and that no harm will happen if the room is but opened a short
hour before the inmates are put in. I have often been asked the question
for uninhabited rooms--But when ought the windows to be opened? The
answer is--When ought they to be shut?

[3] It is very desirable that the windows in a sick room should be such
as that the patient shall, if he can move about, be able to open and
shut them easily himself. In fact the sick room is very seldom kept
aired if this is not the case--so very few people have any perception of
what is a healthy atmosphere for the sick. The sick man often says,
"This room where I spend 22 hours out of the 24 is fresher than the
other where I only spend 2. Because here I can manage the windows
myself." And [Transcriber's Note: Word, possibly "it" missing in
original.] is true.

[4]

[Sidenote: An air-test of essential consequence.]

Dr. Angus Smith's air test, if it could be made of simpler application,
would be invaluable to use in every sleeping and sick room. Just as
without the use of a thermometer