Open Air – Brigham Young,1856

I have argued the point before the people that they are not aware of their ability, that they do not know what they can do; that they are healthier when they live in the open air. What gives the people colds and makes them sick? You hear many say, “I had not had a cold this fall, until I came into our new house.” Brethren and sisters that have come into the city from living in the kanyons, and those who have arrived from the States this season, have not been troubled with colds until they came into warm houses; that gives them colds, by depriving their lungs of the benefit they are organized to receive from the atmosphere.

It is a strange thought, but could you weigh the particles of life that you constantly receive from the water you drink and from the air you breathe, you would learn that you receive a greater proportion of nourishment from those sources than from the food you consume. Many are not aware of this, for they are not apt to reflect how much longer they can live when deprived of food than they can when deprived of air. When people are obliged to breathe confined air, they do not have that free, full flow of the purification and nourishment that is in the fresh air, and they begin to decay, and go into what we call consumption.

People need not be afraid of living out of doors, nor of sleeping out of doors. [“Temptation and Trials Necessary to Exaltation—If the Saints Perform Their Obligations, the Lord Will Not Fail in His—Hand-Cart Emigration Preferable to That by Ox-Teams,” Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, reported by G. D. Watt (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1857), p. 91.]

Brigham Young, President of the Church, 16 November 1856

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