26. _German Stove_ versus _English Chimney_.—That a room heated by invisible caloric—with an atmosphere stagnant as the dead sea, humid as a Scotch mist, and odoriferous as a slaughter-house—should prove more congenial to the lungs of persons in the first or last stage of consumption, than an apartment with a blazing fire at one end, a large column of hot air rushing up the chimney, and a thousand tiny streams of cold air stealing in through the chinks and crevices of doors and windows, I do not, for a moment, deny. But, that the general balance of salubrity is on the side of the German stove, and against the English fire-place, I very much doubt. I admit that the air of an English room, heated by fire, is frequently changing the degree of its temperature, not only as a whole, but in different parts of the same chamber. This is the alpha and omega of Continental objections to the English plan—and it would not be difficult to show that this variability of heat, so much complained of, is a powerful preservative against atmospheric disorders in general. Nothing is more certain than that the most effectual way of counteracting the effects of sudden changes in the temperature of the air around us, is to _habituate_ ourselves to these vicissitudes. It is in this way, that daily sponging of the face, throat, and other exposed parts of the body, first with hot, and then immediately with cold water, generally prevents face-aches, ear-aches, tooth-aches, and catarrhs, by habituating those parts to changes of temperature. And it is on this principle, that a person who has been for some time in an English room, where variations prevail, goes out into the open air afterwards, with far less risk than he who has been for an equal time in an actual sudatorium, at a high and unvarying range of temperature. But let us look a little more closely into the affair. In the room heated by a German stove and consequently where there cannot be a free ventilation, every individual is breathing the identical air that has circulated through the lungs of every other individual in the same place—through the air-cells of the scrofulous, the scorbutic, the asthmatic, the consumptive, &c.—air that is not only deprived of its oxygen, but loaded with animal effluvia of a very questionable character! Add to these the malodorous essence of tobacco, much of which must drip down the throat, as well as into the receptacle below the bowl of the pipe, during the day, to be exhaled in _poisonous_ gases through the rooms at night! All must have experienced the debilitating effects of disoxygenated air in crowded rooms, even where there were various facilities of ingress and egress for the breath of Heaven. But where these facilities are wanting, the depression of the vital energies is indescribable. In short, I am of opinion that nothing can compensate for the ventilation produced by the English chimney. Those who stand or sit near a partially opened door, or a broken pane of