The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

10 'I' UK IIkai.th Bulletin February, 1927
AN OPEN FIRE AIDS HEALTH
Tilt" farmri- m.-iy not Iimvl- sold his last
yoar's cotton and tobacco for much if
anything above the cost of production.
The drouth may have ruined his hay
crop and his fall potatoes. Cholera
may have spread among his hogs and
depleted his meat supply. His taxes
may have been increased to put on a
new school bus, to help pay the interest
on the bonds for the new consolidated
school, and to help support the county
health department. But on one point
he has his more prosperous city brother
outdistanced by several leagues, and
that is he can have an open fireplace
and afford the fuel to run it. The wellto-do
city man has a furnace-heated
house and so a fireplace would be superfluous
and overheat the room, even
if his wife did not need the fireplace
in her scheme of evergreen decoration.
The poor man in the city must, of
c urse, in order to conserve the precious
fuel supply, resort to a castiron
heater. The man on the farm, however,
be he rich or poor, landlord or
tenant, white or black, has the privi-
(a guar-
lege of cutting his own wood
antee of good health in itself) and
running his own open fire to suit his
own comfort. No wonder our grandfathers
smoked their pipes in the corner
befoi'e the fine old log fires. The
very atmosphere spelled peace and
contentment.
This essay is inspired through reading
a notice in the London News dispatches
of a renewal in the biggest city
in the world of a controversy that has
raged intermittently for seven hundred
years, as to whether or not open fireplaces
should be abolished. The two
reasons advanced against the use of
open fires is the shortage of coal following
the long coal minei's' strike, and
the smoke menace.
-
It is said that the first King Edward
nearly seven hundred years ago started
the controversy by complaining to his
cabinet ministers that the smoke and
gas resulting fi'om the open fireplaces
burning soft coal was interfering with
his sleep. The record is obscure on
the point, but tradition has It that his
lawmakers told him they were sorry,
but if he could not stand the smoke
he would have to go live in Italy or
some other warm country.
At this time Doctor Marie Stoi>es,
the celebrated London woman physician,
is leading the fight for retention
of the open fireplace. Doctor Stopes
says that the open fire not only radiates
peace, and comfort and happiness, but
that the open fire supplies a special
kind of "nourishing" energy just like
a vitamin. She says that this special
(piality acts on the same principle as
the violet rays now so useful in medical
practice. There is undoubtedly a
great deal of truth in the argument of
Doctor Stopes.
For all-over-the-house comfort twentyfour
hours a day the furnace heat is
unbeatable. Furnace heat in the basement
is also responsible for saving the
lives of innumerable helpless children
and old people due to the carelessness
of their adult protectors in exposing
them to open fire accidents. It has also
saved many a tired woman many additional
steps in keeping her house
clean and tidy, as well as freeing her
from anxiety about fire hazards to her
little flock ; but for mental poise and
sound satisfaction nothing can take the
place of a good open fire.
The boys and girls of this age of
clubs and lodges for father, bridge parties
for mother and automobiles and
movies and jazz for the whole family,
who are thus deprived of the contacts
with one another around the big open
family fireplace in the meeting place
of the old time general assembly of
the home in the long winter evenings,
are to be pitied. They are missing one
of the most steadying influences and
some of the finest discipline necessary
to the development of character and
stamina.
Doctor Stopes and her kind will probably
lose the fight in the end, because
the interest of safety to the many,
and the demands of the inexorable
god, economy, will make it so ; however
those of you who can still afford the
luxury of the open fire and the fine,
fresh, pure country air, should make
the most of it and enjoy yourselves to
the limit. You will enjoy knowing
that Doctor Stopes has given you a
scientific medical reason for what you
have always known as a fact.