d advice given for the following twenty-four hours.
One of the most common violations of the prescriptions given is
overexertion, and yet the rest condition is essential for building up
the diseased lung.

The third method of treatment involves fresh air, in order to improve
the oxygenating character of the blood. If one remembers that the oxygen
in the blood is the chief scavenger of the body and that the vitality of
the red corpuscles and their abundance is an essential factor in curing
the disease, it will be seen why fresh air is so important. The tendency
to-day is to insist on fresh air and to lay less stress on the climate
than was formerly done.

It was not uncommon a few years ago for a physician, recognizing
consumption, to send his patient away, partly because he honestly
believed the climate of Arizona or Colorado or the Sandwich Islands was
better than that where the patient lived, and partly, without doubt,
because he was glad to get rid of a disease which he knew it was not in
his power to cure. To-day, unless the patient can go to a properly
equipped and maintained sanitarium, physicians recognize that conditions
may be as beneficial at home as elsewhere and, provided the three
factors mentioned--good food, rest, and fresh air--can be obtained, the
chances for recovery are better because of better care at home than
elsewhere.

But fresh air is essential, and this means that the patient must spend
twenty-four hours a day in the open. He must eat and sleep out of doors.
He must not go into the house when it rains, nor when it snows, and even
with the thermometer at zero he must still stay out, wrapping himself
up, to be sure, so that his body is not cold, but breathing into his
lungs the life-giving, vitalizing, oxygen-bearing air. The side porch of
a house may be very easily transformed into a room with a cot bed and an
easy chair, where the consumptive may stay continually, and while it is
convenient to have a window or a door opening from the porch into a room
where the patient may be dressed and bathed, this is not essential,
although customary in sanitariums. If no side porch exists, it is
possible to build such a porch, and the picture shows how such a
construction may be added to even a small house in the city (Fig. 75).
If this is out of the question, the windows of a room may be left open
all the time, or the patient may lie on a bed, the head of which either
extends through the window or is ar