No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;--not because houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more corrupts the air, which has done duty already--to how many lungs, for how many hours? Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his lungs and system were famishing! I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this class,--but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains, in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts. MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE. It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is, nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown. Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of facts, we might, _a priori_, argue, that excessive dryness of the air would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and inflammation of the respiratory organs. A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has not injured them,--that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs. There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind. Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands.