HESTTS FOR THE WELL

Jleanliness is next to godliness.

Always rest before and after a hearty meal.

Do not eat too much. Do not eat late at night.

Food, especially bread, should never be eaten hot.

Children should never be dressed in tight clothes.

Never sit in a damp or chilly room without a fire.

Supper just before going to bed is highly injurious. If hungry, a bit of bread or cracker will check the craving without spoiling sleep.

Never enter a room where a person is sick with an infectious disease with an empty stomach.

When really sick, send for a good physician ; and as you value your health and life, have Hothing to do wUh quacks or patent medicines.

The condiments, pepper, ginger, etc., are less injurious in summer. Fat beef, bacon, and hearty food may be eaten more freely in winter.

Let the amount of the meal bear some relation to future needs as well as present appetite; but it is better to carry an extra pound in your pocket than in your stomach.

A small quantity of plain, nourishing soup is a wholesome first course at dinner. Rich soups are injurious to persons of weak digestion, and a large quantity of liquid food is not beneficial to adults.

Three full meals daily are customary, but the number, the relative quantity and quality, and the intervals between them, are largely matters of opinion, habit and convenience; regularity is the important thing.

Exercise before breakfast should be very light ; and it is better to take a cracker or some trifle before going out, especially in a miasmatic climate. Early breakfasts are a necessity to the young and growing.

Remember that when the stomach is .sour after eating, the food is actually rotting — that is a nauseating word but it expresses the absolute fact in the case — and it means that some of the rules above given have been violated.

Eat in pure air and in pleasant company; light conversation and gentle exercise promote digestion, but hard work of any kind retards it. Avoid se- vere bodily or mental labor just before and for two hours after a fui^ meaL

Most people drink too much and too fast. A small quantity of water sipped slowly satisfies thirst as well as a pailful swallowed at a draughts

Drinks at meals should be taken at the close, and not too strong or hot. Dyspeptics especially should drink s]>aringly. Children need more thaa adults, but too much is injurious.

Adults need to eat at regular intervals two or three times a day, allowiag (556)

HiyTS FOR THE WELL. 557

time for each meal to be fully digested before another is taken. It would spoil a loaf of bread, half baked, to poke a lump of cold dough into the middle of it.

Use good palatable food, not highly seasoned ; vary in quantity and quality according to age, climate, weather and occupation. Unbolted or partially bolted grains are good and sutticient food for men; but nature craves variety. As a rule, the flesh of meat-eating animals is not wholesome food. Hot 8oft bread digests slowly.

Don't eat too fast; the digestive organs are something like a stove, which if choked up and out of order, burns slowly, and if you keep piling in fuel, grows more and more choked. The wiser course is to let it burn down and put in fuel only when needed. It is a foolish notion that food always keeps up the strength. Only what we digest helps us; all beyond that is a tax upon the system, and exhausts the strength instead of increasing it.

Masticate well ; five minutes more at dinner may give you better use of an hour afterward. At meals never drink a full glass of very hot or very cold liquid. Never wash down a mouthful. Avoid waste of saliva.

Avoid tobacco, alcohol in all forms, and all stimulants. Every healthy man is better, stronger, has a clearer head, more endurance, and better chances for a long life, if free from the habitual use of stimulants. The boy who begins the use of tobacco or liquors early is physically ruined.

Avoid colds and break up as soon as possible when taken. As soon as conscious that the pores are closed, keep warm within doors, drink warm ginger tea, relax the bowels, and take a vapor bath. Breaking a cold up early, often saves a severe attack of congestion, pneumonia, often even a fever.

Panaceas aro prhiia facie humhnf;s; their makers and takers, their vendors and recommenders are knaves or fools, or both. Nature cures most diseases, if let alone or aided by diet and proper care. There are no miracles in medicine; remember that to keep or to got health generally requires only a recognition of Nature's powers, with knowledge of anatomy and physiology, experience, and common sense.

Never sleep in clothing worn during the day. and let that worn at night be exposed to the air by day. Three pints of moisture, filled with the waste of the body, are given off every^ twenty-four hours, and mostlj' absorbed by clothing. Exposure to air and sunlight purifies the clothing and bedding of the poisons which nature is trying to get rid of, and which would otherwise be brought again into contact with the body.

The lungs should be trained to free, full, and vigorous action. "The breath is the life." A man will exist for days without food, but when the breath is cut off life ceases. If breathing is imperfect, all the functions of the body work at a disadvantage. It is a common fault to breathe from the surface of the lungs only, not bringing into play the abdominal muscles, and so not filling the more remote air-cells of the lungs. By this defective action the system is deprived of a part of its supply of air, and by inaction the air-cells become diseased.

558 HINTS FOR THE WELL.

Evacuate the bowels daily, and, above all, regularly ; the best time is after breakfast; partly to be rid of a physical burden during the day, but chiefly to relieve the bowels. Constipation is safer than diarrhoea. For the former, exercise, ride horseback, knead the belly, take a glass of cool water before breakfast, eat fruit and laxative food ; for the latter, follow an opposite course — toast, crust, crackers and rice are the best food. Pain and uneasi- ness of digestive organs are signs of disturbance; keep a clear conscience; rest, sleep, eat properly ; avoid strong medicines in ordinary cases.

Keep the person scrupulously clean ; change the clothing worn next to the skin (which should be tlannel) often. Don't economize in washing bills. A cold bath every morning for very vigorous persons, or once or twice a week and thorough rubbing with a coarse towel or flesh-brush mornings when bath is not taken, for the less robust, is necessary to keep the functions of the skin in health, and is very invigorating. After warm baths a dash of cold water will prevent chill and "taking cold." In bathing in winter, the shock from cold water is lessened by standing a minute in the cold air after the removal of clothing before applying water.

A very prolific source of disease is defective drainage. In the country, slops and waste water are thrown into the back yard to trickle back into the well and pollute it, or to form a reeking cesspool which poisons the air. In cities, the sewer-connections with houses allow the foul gases to rush back through the waste-pipes to closets or sinks and into the house. Neat- ness will cure the first, and a flue connecting each system of drainage-pipes with the tallest chimney in the house where a fire is constantly used, will draw off and consume the gases in the second.

It should be remembered that the use of chloride of lime, and other fu- migants, does not destroy filthiness, but only renders it less evident. Clean- liness, fresh air, and sunlight will purify. Cleanliness is a very strong word. Carpets filled with dust or grease, dirty furniture, or walls covered with old paper, defile the atmosphere as much as a refuse heap in the cellar or back yard. A dark house is generally unwholesome and dirty. The sunlight is second only in importance to fresh air. To convince one that light purifies, it is only necessary to go into a darkened room and note the corrupt smelL

Ventilation can not be accomplished by simply letting the pure air in ; the bad air must be let out Open a window at top and bottom, hold a lighted candle in the draft, and see the flame turn outward at the top and inward at the bottom, showing the purifying currents. Windows on opposite sides of the room ventilate still more perfectly. In sleeping rooms, avoid "drafts'* when possible, but danger of taking cold from them may be averted by extra clothing. In living-rooms, an open fire-place or grate in- sures ventilation. The tise of close stoves, and close rooms, are the causes of the increased prevalence and fatality, in winter, of small pox, scarlet fever, and other contagions diseases.

Colds are often, if not generally, the result of debility, and are preceded by disordered digestion. Such cases are prevented by a removal of the cause hy diet and pure air. Extreme cold or heat, and sudden exposure to cold

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by passing from a heated room to cold outside air, is very injarious to the old or iireak. All such should avoid great extremes and sudden changes. In passing from heated assemblies to the cold air, the mouth should be kept closed, and the breathing done through the nostrils only, so that the cold air may be warmed before reaching the lungs, which have just been im- mersed in a hot-air bath. The injurious effect of such sudden changes is caused by driving the blood from the surface to the internal organs, pro- ducing congestions.

Bad smells mean that decay is going on somewhere. Rotten particles are floating in the air, and penetrating the nostrils and lungs. Their ofTen- siveness means that they are poison, and will produce sickness and death, ur 80 reduce the tone of the system that ordinarily luild disorders will prove fatal. In all such cases remove the cause when possible. Many of these poisons are given off by the body, and are removed by pure air, as dirt is washed away by water. Soiled or foul air can not purify any more than dirty water will clean dirty clothes. Pure air enters the lungs, becomes charged with waste particles, which are poison if taken back again. An t^n\t spoils one gallon of pure air every minute^ or twenty-five flour barrelfuls in a single night, in breathing alone. A lighted gas-burner consumes eleven gallons, and an ordinary stove twenty-five gallons a minute. Think of these facts before sealing up the fire-place, or nailing down the windows for winter.

Let the sunshine into every room in the house. The sunlight is a great purifier. Keep the cellar not only clean and sweet, but give it fresh air and good ventilation, or it will poison the rest of the house.

Tf one is accustomed to sleeping with windows open, there is no danger of taking cold (rom the exposure, winter or summer. People who shut up windows to keep out " night air," make a mistake. At night, the only air to breathe is ** night air.** A bed that has been made up for a week or longer is not fit to sleep in. It has gathered moisture and should be aired. When fixed wash-bowls stand in sleeping^rooms, the waste-pipe should be carefully dosed, as sewer gases often escape through them into the room.

Many of the colds which people are said to catch, commence at the feet To keep these extremities warm, therefore, is to effect an insurance against the almost interminable list of disorders which spring out of a "slight cold.** First, never be tightly shod. Boots and shoes, when they fit closely, press against the foot and prevent a free circulation of the blood. When, on the contrary, they do not embrace the foot too tightly the blood gets fair play, and the places left between the leather and the stockings are filled with a comfortable supply of warm air. The second rule is, never to sit in damp shoes. It is often imagined that unless they are positively wet it is not necessary to change them while the feet are at rest This is a fallacy ; for when the least dampness is absorbed into the sole, it is attracted nearer to the foot itself by its own heat, and thus perspiration is dangerously checked. Any person may prove tliis, by trying the experiment of neglecting this rule, and his feet will become cold and damp after a few moments, although, liking off the shoe and warming it, it will appear quite dry.

660 HINTS FOR THE WELL,

Remember that there is no patent medicine or " patent pad," warranted to "cure by absorption," that will absorb "disease half as rapidly as a wet towel wrapped arolind the body, and covered with a dry flannel. If people were required to pay $10 each for this " valuable secret " there would be no difficulty in getting millions of testimonials to its efficacy. It is too cheap to be popular with people who liked to be humbugged ; but when humbugs all fail, try hot and cold water.

One of the most prominent writers on health topics says: "The great practical lesson which I wish to inculcate, to be engraven as on a plate of steel, on the memory of diildren and youth, j-oung men and women, the mature and the gray -headed: AHcno nothing short of fire or endangered life to induce you to resist^ for one single moment, nature^s alvine call. So far from refusing a call for any reason short of life and death, you should go at th* utual time and solicit, and doing so you will have your reward in a degree of health fulness, and in a length of life, which very few are ever i)ermitted to enjoy. If the love of health and life, or the fear of inducing painful disease can not induce you to adopt the plan I have recommended, there is another argument which, to young gentlemen and young ladies, may appear more convincing— j?«r«on«^ cleanliness. [If you suffer yourself to become and remain costive you will smell badly ; the breath of a costive child even is scarcely to be endured.] Cold feet, sick headache, piles, fistulas, these, with scores of other diseases, have their first foundations laid in constipation, which itself is infallibly induced by resisting nature's first calls. Reader, let it be your wisdom never to do it again."

A Dyspeptic's Fight for Life.

Judge W. was a depressed, despondent, discouraged, listless, moody, nerv- ous, wretched dyspeptic, for five weary years. He tried travel, but neither the keen air of the sea-shore nor the bracing breezes of the northern prairies brought him relief. He tried all the panaceas and all the doctors at home and abroad in vain. Some told him that he had heart-disease, others thought it was inflammation of the spleen, gout, Bright's disease, liver complaint, lung difficulty, or softening of the brain. Bottle after bottle of nostrums went down the unfortunate man's throat, and it was only when physicians and friends gave him up, and pronounced him to all intents a dead man, that he threw bottles, plasters, powders and pill§ to the four winds, and, with the energy of despair, set about disappointing his doctors, and getting ready to live despite their ghastly predictions. Then began a fight for life against dyspepsia, a fight which many have begun, but few have won. He bathed the whole body every morning in cold water, summer and winter, not by a shower or a plunge, but by vigorously dashing the water on the body with the hands, and afterwards rubbing briskly with a coarse towel. This was con- tinued without missing a single morning for years. In the meantime the strictest diet was instituted. By experimenting, the patient found what he could eat without harm, and ate that only in very small quantities, meas- uring his food on his plate before beginning his meal, and limiting himself rigidly to that quantity. His principal food for nearly three years was

HINTS FOR THE WELL. 561

cracked wheat and Graham mush, and the last meal was taken at two o'clock in the afternoon — not a particle of food passed his lips from that time until the next morning, thus giving the stomach complete rest and time to begin the work of recuperation. Special attention was given to eating slowly and thoroughly masticating the food ; and not to eat too much, too fast, or too often, were rules strictly and rigidly observed. Bathing, diet, rest, sleep, and gentle exercise in the open air did the work. It was a dreadful conflict — days of struggle and temptation, requiring more heroism and steady tenacity of purpose than would nerve a soldier for battle, for such a battle is for the day, but this fight was renewed every morning and continued every day for months and years. But patience, courage, intelligent judgment, and a strict adherence to the above regimen won the day without a grain or a drop of medicine, and Judge W. believes that the good Lord of us all has never per- mitted any man to discover or invent medicine that will cure dyspepsia. Nature is the only perfect physician. Cold water, fresh air, the natural frain (wheat), sleep, rest, and gentle exercise, make up the grand panacea^ With these alone, and the self-denial and moral courage to persist in the good fight, the confirmed, nervous, miserable dyspeptic, became a well, strong, and hearty man — in five days? No. In five months? No. In five years? Yes; and after the fight, when contemplating the victory won. he could say with the model philanthropist, Amos Lawrence, after his battle of fifteen long y^ars with the same disease, ** If men only knew how sweet tlie ▼ictory is, thev would not hesitate a moment to engage in the conflict.*'