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Show HOW CONSUMPTIVES GET WELL BY LIVING OUT OF DOORS. It is trulyan easy and enjoyable way of getting well for any one who is a lover of nature, for, as has been stated, the main principle carried out is to get in touch with that which is out of doors to be amid the trees, continually breathing the air purified by natural processes, to exercise and eat and sleep, if possible, with the sky for a canopy. can-opy. The medical man of the olden time would indeed be shocked if he could visit one of these places, to see so-called invalids hard at work in the forests making their camps, lolling about in hammocks in summer with heads uncovered, and lying muffled in blankets and furs in the sunlight in the dead of winter, with no shelter but the blue sky above them. But these are only some of the ways in which health is sought. Patients who are able to stand the exercise amuse themselves them-selves by clearing away the snow from the verandas veran-das in the winter even the women handling the broom and shovel and enjoying it. Coasting on the hillsides is another strange recreation for those whom we call consumptives encouraged Lt the Massachusetts institutions. Physical culture is one of the requisites for those who are able to attempt it, and daily a dozen or a score of pa- tients are put through the simple movements, under un-der the guidance of perhaps one of their number, or a member of the medical staff. The tent life is a part of the routine of the women In summer as well as of the men, and it is an actual fact that In Massachusetts some of the women have erected their own camps for winter, decorating tho walls with posters and photographs, and converting con-verting them into miniature clubhouses, where they occupy themselves in conversation, reading, sewing, and various games. These camps are unique in many respects. The buildings are composed of but three sides, that lacing the south being left open. They are simply sheds, having a floor to prevent the dampness damp-ness from the ground affecting the inmates. Some forest trees are used for posts, and the walls made of planks or boughs fastened to them. If the temperature is too low for comfort, it is moderated mod-erated by the use of a small stove, sometimes an open Are. Draught is furnished by digging a tunnel through the earth beneath the shed, terminating ter-minating in a length of clay pipe. When a fire is started the air is sucked through this conduit, and Ihat keeps it burning brightly. From 'The Outdoor Treatment of Tuberculosis," by Day Allen Willey, in the Amreican Monthly Review of JRe-views JRe-views for June. |