Exhalations of a very hurtful nature proceed also from excretions, which should be removed immediately, certainly before fermentation can have proceeded to any considerable length. The furniture of bed-rooms requires special care. The various processes of rubbing, washing, and scouring, should be frequently repeated; and articles, such as bed and window curtains, should be oftener in the washing-tub than is dreamt of by many very careful housekeepers, and when they are composed of fabrics of a nature to forbid contact with soap and water, the necessary purification may be effected, at least in a partial manner, by occasional exposure to the wind in the open air. In those apartments in which the sick are contained, the atmosphere is particularly liable to become vitiated from the exhalations of the body, and from the excretions being in general more disposed to be virulent than those of persons in health. The necessity for a constant supply of pure air is, if possible, increased, and the utmost care and attention is demanded, in order that this may be duly provided. In large hospitals for the reception of sick, ventilation becomes a point of the most important nature; and, when efficiently established, is entitled to be considered one of the most powerful remedies which can be obtained to check the progress of disease, and to promote recovery, when that is once established. Various methods have been devised to promote ventilation in hospitals, which it is unnecessary to describe here; for this reason, as well as others, that the importance of ventilation is too well understood by medical men, for them not to enforce it in establishments of which they have the management. During sickness in private houses, ventilation cannot be too much enforced. When the weather will permit, one window at least should be partially opened, pulled down, if possible, during the summer. In winter, the door of the apartment should be left open for a short time occasionally; and, if the chamber is not very small, a fire may be used, which will not only remove the cutting dullness of the air, but will also ensure a constant change of the atmosphere, from the ventilation which it causes. In some forms of disease, as in the “Sweating Sickness of England,”—the typhus fever, the skin is wont to become covered with perspiration, which is particularly prone to undergo putrefaction. To obviate that putrefaction, and to prevent the formation of effluvia, it is proper to wash the skin of the patient, in almost every form of disease, with soap and warm water, which will purify that important organ, and assist in rectifying its functions. Where the character of the disease is putrid, sponging the skin with vinegar and water, either warm or cold, should be adopted, and is often of the greatest use.