nt sleep,
and good food will, in most cases, keep the body in such a condition
that pneumonia need not be dreaded, no matter what the exposure or what
the temperature. Further than this, if the disease does once start and
gain a foothold in the lungs, the best cure is, as with tuberculosis, a
plentiful supply of oxygen or fresh air in order to remove the toxins
formed by the disease and give the lung tissue an opportunity to
recover.

Formerly medical men treated pneumonia by confining the patient in an
overheated room in which steam was generated, with the idea that the
lungs would be most helped by an atmosphere of moist heat. Now, a
pneumonia patient is supplied with all the fresh air possible, the
windows of the sick room, even in winter, being kept continually open,
and every effort being made to give the patient fresh air even when
every breath means a shooting pain, and apparently untold suffering. In
some of the New York City hospitals, the ward for pneumonia patients is
on the roof, and children and babies suffering with pneumonia are at
once taken there, even with snow piled all around the tent in which they
are kept. The nurses and physicians are obliged to don fur coats, and
heavy blankets must be provided to keep the patients from freezing to
death; but the pneumonia germ, under these conditions, is worsted almost
as if by magic, and within a few hours after leaving the warm wards of
the hospital the patients start on the road to recovery.

The remedy, then, for the 2000 cases of pneumonia which occur in New
York State each year, is an improved regulation of the health conditions
of the separate families throughout the state--a better hygienic
regulation of the everyday life. Care must be taken to provide better
ventilation in the houses, more fresh air in the sitting room and in the
sleeping rooms, more outdoor life in the winter time, and more exercise
by which the blood circulation will be kept active. Then more varied and
more suitable food must be consumed, food which will be capable of
absorption by the tissues and not clog the intestines and poison the
system. More bathing, by which the pores of the skin can be relieved of
the organic matter which otherwise clogs them and prevents their
effective action in the removal of waste products, must be indulged in.
With these three factors properly evaluated, with more fresh air, with
better food, with ample bathing, pneumonia need not be dreaded, since
th