ant.

[Sidenote: Aspect, view, and sunlight matters of first importance to the
sick.]

A very high authority in hospital construction has said that people do
not enough consider the difference between wards and dormitories in
planning their buildings. But I go farther, and say, that healthy people
never remember the difference between _bed_-rooms and _sick_-rooms in
making arrangements for the sick. To a sleeper in health it does not
signify what the view is from his bed. He ought never to be in it
excepting when asleep, and at night. Aspect does not very much signify
either (provided the sun reach his bed-room some time in every day, to
purify the air), because he ought never to be in his bed-room except
during the hours when there is no sun. But the case is exactly reversed
with the sick, even should they be as many hours out of their beds as
you are in yours, which probably they are not. Therefore, that they
should be able, without raising themselves or turning in bed, to see out
of window from their beds, to see sky and sun-light at least, if you can
show them nothing else, I assert to be, if not of the very first
importance for recovery, at least something very near it.

And you should therefore look to the position of the beds of your sick
one of the very first things. If they can see out of two windows instead
of one, so much the better. Again, the morning sun and the mid-day sun--
the hours when they are quite certain not to be up, are of more
importance to them, if a choice must be made, than the afternoon sun.
Perhaps you can take them out of bed in the afternoon and set them by
the window, where they can see the sun. But the best rule is, if
possible, to give them direct sunlight from the moment he rises till the
moment he sets.

Another great difference between the _bed_-room and the _sick_-room is,
that the _sleeper_ has a very large balance of fresh air to begin with,
when he begins the night, if his room has been open all day as it ought
to be; the _sick_ man has not, because all day he has been breathing the
air in the same room, and dirtying it by the emanations from himself.
Far more care is therefore necessary to keep up a constant change of air
in the sick room.

It is hardly necessary to add that there are acute cases (particularly a
few ophthalmic cases, and diseases where the eye is morbidly sensitive),
where a subdued light is necessary. But a dark north room is
inadmissible even for thes