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Health, Happiness, and Longevity

by Louis Philippe McCarty · English · Gutenberg #39219 · 374,680 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Health, Happiness, and Longevity

Author: Louis Philippe McCarty


        
Release date: March 21, 2012 [eBook #39219]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEALTH, HAPPINESS, AND LONGEVITY ***




Produced by Bryan Ness, Laura and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









[Illustration: Happy Homes are happier if the "NEW HOME"]

TERMS TO SUIT EVE

THE NEW HOME SEWING MACHINE CO

CHAS. E. NAYLOR, MANAGER.

725 MARKET ST. (History Building), SAN FRANCISCO




    HEALTH,
      HAPPINESS,
        and LONGEVITY.

    Health without Medicine, Happiness
    without Money,

    THE RESULT,

    LONGEVITY.

    BY

    L. P. McCARTY,

    Author of the Annual Statistician and Economist,
    SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.


    SAN FRANCISCO:
    CARSON & CO.,
    210 POST STREET.




  HEALTH
  HAPPINESS
  AND
  LONGEVITY.


Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1890, by

L. P. McCARTY,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.


  Price, in Flexible Covers,      $.75
  Price, in Paper Covers,          .50


  ADDRESS,
  L. P. McCARTY, 814 Cal. St., S. F., Cal.
  OR THE BOOK TRADE GENERALLY.


  CARSON & CO.,
  Wholesale Agents, 210 Post St.,
  SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.




PREFACE.


                                  =  ... "to know
    That which before us lies in daily life
     Is the prime wisdom. What is more is fume,
    Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
    And renders us, in things that most concern,
    Unpractic'd, unprepar'd, and still to seek."
                --_Milton's Adam to Angel._=

Experience is honored.

This book is the result of experience.

Man is interested in what pertains to health.

We are positive that the ideas herein set forth are healthful.

Our profession is not that of a doctor of chemical medicines.

We have no hobby to ride or patent panacea to advertise, but desire to
express, in plain, forcible, truthful language, the methods by which
mankind can practically achieve health, happiness and longevity. These
go together. Why should they not? Related, dependent upon each other,
the great objects of human life, the culmination of all physical and
worldly pleasure are contained in them.

Whether you are the perfect embodiment of a business man or the ideal
disciple of a certain profession, you cannot possibly reach the highest
or even most lucrative grades of your calling without health, happiness,
and their logical consequence, longevity. They will prove trusty
lieutenants. Without them the battle of life will draw to a close in
retreat and end in defeat.

To assert that the average man can enjoy health without medicine,
happiness without even money, and longevity too, is a broad and sweeping
declaration. In fact, we expect to have opposition from those who have
not tried the formula laid down in the following pages.

To _keep_ yourself in health without medicine is what we intend to
convey; and we assert that but little or no medicine is necessary to
reach that condition. To have happiness without any money (in the
present condition of society) is not what we claim, but that more
happiness can be extracted from a competency than by more or less.

To live to good old age means with us 80 to 120 years, to increase with
future generations, when order, regularity, sobriety, cleanliness, and
love for the whole human family, shall be paramount in the political,
moral, and intellectual world.

The author is living on thirty years of made land. In other words,
according to medical diagnosis, he should have _died_ thirty years ago!
Hence he desires to put before the unhealthy, unhappy, and short-lived
human race the result of his experience of half a century. Having
battled with a score of diseases, a number of which were claimed to be
absolutely incurable--having freed himself entirely of them all--having
been completely restored to health and happiness, he honestly believes
that he has a convincing right to be heard.

You can now prove for yourself.




PART I.




CHAPTER I.

     "Health is the vital principle of bliss,
     And exercise of health."


_Health_, _Happiness_, and _Longevity_. What a talisman is here! In them
is the magic that can rule all men. No seal, figure, character, engraven
on a sympathetic stone, can equal their single or combined influence.
Say to your fellow-man, "If you follow my direction I will confer upon
you health, happiness, and longevity," and you will receive his lasting
gratitude. He will always be your friend. Money is potent, but these
qualities are, as it were, omnipotent. Money alone cannot bring them;
they alone can make wealth.

This work is _not_ a _philosophical_ treatise, difficult to read and
more so to comprehend. Its ideas are simple, the result of long
_experience_ and _observation_. Its propositions are easily
demonstrated. Then, my reader, do not think you are perusing the hobbies
of a crank, the fantasies of a dreamer, and the preachings of him who
does not practice. The world has been so flooded with worthless
productions of such characters that we fear we must combat severe
_prejudice_. Will you lay that aside? If so we will not only interest
but instruct you. Agreeing with our premises and conclusions, you will
certainly reap some benefit; not agreeing, you will be tempted to
further investigation, which will inevitably prove the strength of our
position.

This book was not written at one sitting or many, but it is the
culmination of several _years' preparation_. While the first part is the
result of thorough reasoning and experience, the second is a collection
of the best modern data on prominent diseases and their remedies, with
our own annotations. Both sections represent thoughtful and painstaking
labor. Even if you are so bold as to maintain that you possess health,
happiness, and are sure of longevity, we believe you cannot fail to find
practical, valuable truths in these pages. Whether you are an editor,
merchant, lawyer, doctor, minister, or day-laborer, we hope at least to
entertain you. Are we right? Read and judge.

From the mythological times of _AEsculapius_ down to the present day,
votaries of medical science have been compounding, diagnosing, and
prescribing for helpless, suffering humanity. For many ages this
condition may have been a necessity, but in the light of our present
civilization, sound common sense is the best physician. That _doctors_
cannot be trusted to be right in every instance or even in a majority of
them is shown by practical experiments. They certainly are well proved
to be an inharmonious crowd by the experience of a _Boston Globe_
reporter, who recently called upon ten regular physicians on the same
day, and described his symptoms in exactly the same language to each. He
received ten prescriptions, of which no two were alike, and a majority
were utterly inconsistent each with the other. _Nellie Bly_, the famous
lady writer of the New York _World_, had a cold and went to over fifty
of the city's leading physicians, in October, 1889, asking them to
prescribe for her. They did, and among the collection there were no two
alike, and many diametrically opposite in nature and effect!

In a lecture recently delivered before the Cooper Medical College, San
Francisco, Cal., on the subject of "Quacks and Quackery," by Prof. L. C.
Lane, the speaker said: "Every good thing in the world has been
counterfeited, and in these advanced times the work is so well done that
it takes an expert to detect the true from the false. Everything is now
more or less adulterated, especially the food we consume. The three
great professions also of theology, law, and medicine, have been and are
grossly counterfeited, especially the latter, which opens up the widest
field for imposture."

As the above quotations, without an explanation, might convey the idea
to the reader that the author considers that doctors, dentists, and
specialists are no longer a necessity, I will say, Under the present
state of society, they are not only indispensable, but absolutely a
necessity. When you are ill, and do not know what is the matter with
you, or if you know the nature of your ailments, and do not know a
remedy, seek a first-class physician; take his advice in every
particular until he either cures you or you are convinced he cannot. I
am not a prophet, nor the son of one, but I will venture an opinion that
before the close of the next century, the position of the minister,
teacher, and physician will be filled by one and the same person. The
teacher _then_ will fill the most exalted position on the earth. He will
not only instruct how to navigate the air without collision, but how not
to catch cold at 30,000 feet elevation in your shirt sleeves, and _who_
and _what_ is _God_. His school-house will sit upon the most elevated
spot in his district, with light reflected from all four sides; it will
be at least fifty feet from the floor of his school-room to the ceiling;
and in place of a steeple, there will be a dome, containing a 100-inch
refractor telescope, and with the extra timber not used for a _steeple_,
the seats will be made more comfortable, and pure filtered water will be
supplied for the pupils to drink.

It is granted that the majority of mankind appreciate health, desire
happiness, and expect longevity. With this as an incentive, why not
strive to win the prize? Do not depend on the doctor, do not think some
drug must be applied or imbibed for every ill; there are other methods.

Perhaps we can aid you to the true enjoyment of life if you will
_impartially_ weigh our _argument_. Here is an _editor_ suffering from
nervousness. He consults a physician, who hands him an opiate so that he
can sleep. Better if he had given up all thought of his paper and
battles of words, on leaving his office, and allowed his throbbing,
weary brain a deserving rest. Then the cells of this brainy tissue would
cease to be gorged with blood, and sleep would positively follow. Again,
there is a _clergyman_ every Sunday beseeching his flock to obey the
commandments of the _Bible_; while every day, through carelessness, he
is breaking the laws of health. If an _all-wise Being_ gave us our
bodies as homes of our souls, did he not mean that we should promote the
happiness of the soul by providing for it a healthy residence? What
logic and strength exist in a religion that does not countenance such
philosophy? The majority of mankind admire a well-developed _physique_.
The minister wishes and prays to influence the masses of men. Can he
reach them effectively, can he point to himself as an example, can he
sway them by any reasoning or eloquence, when he himself has a husky
voice, a pallid face, and a weakened figure? Indeed, the cowled,
decrepit monk could lead the world in the darkness of the middle ages;
but in the brightness of the nineteenth century his scepter is
powerless.

_Health_, _Happiness_ and _Longevity_ seem to be all that is required
for mortal man. They are the foundation, the superstructure, and the
apex respectively of the great _Pyramid_ of life. Who would desire more
than the possession of perfect health, the realization of happiness, the
achievement of ripe old age, retaining all the pleasurable attributes of
Perfected Manhood, experiencing all these until called upon to surrender
this present house of clay for a more advanced state, whatever that may
be? Such degrees of soundness, felicity, and age, which we have
mentioned, are within the reach of all who desire them, if they will
observe the rules implied in the following terms, arranged in the order
of their importance: Regularity, Cleanliness, Temperance (or
moderation), Morality, and Self-control. It is safe to state the
proposition that there is not one in a thousand of those induced to
peruse this humble effort, who will not claim to possess one or more of
the foregoing virtues, while a fair minority will urge that they are
characterized by all of them.

That your _egoism_ may not get the better of you in the start and bias
you before reading my talk, I will frankly say that there is hardly a
person living to-day who is either regular, cleanly, temperate, moral,
or self-controlled. It is a fact that some have made fair efforts in
those lines of action, but we shall attempt to prove that not any have
perfected themselves in a single attribute above mentioned. With us,
regularity, cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control are so
interlaced as to become synonymous terms, the perfection of any one of
which means the consummation of all, while their master could laugh at
sorrow, pain, and even death, for through long years they would pass his
door and forget to knock. Just in proportion as we approximate these
virtues, correspondingly will our _lives_ be prolonged and our
_happiness_ intensified. _Fear_ will not prostrate us because

     "Death rides on every passing breeze,
     He lurks in every flower."

As modifying the foregoing partially, let us understand, however, that
it is possible to have health and longevity to a wonderful degree
without cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control, on one
vital consideration. That is, the _continual_ exercise of _regularity_.
Here we have the corner-stone of the whole structure of health, the
cardinal first law. But can we be happy without the generous employment
of _all_ these virtues? Obviously and fortunately, we cannot. _Health_
is also the chief _desideratum_ to happiness. As disease creeps through
the physical frame, as aches and pains increase and torment our bodies,
our _doubts_ supplant _faith_ in the _Source_ of all goodness.

After a quarter of a century's constant devotion, in sackcloth and
ashes, as it were, attempting to free the body from the shackles of
pulmonary consumption, and growing gradually worse during the whole
period, the majority of devotees, we think, would begin to inquire, "Are
our prayers lacking sincerity? or is the Source of goodness at this time
otherwise occupied? or may it not be that this for which I ask, I must
seek by personal action?" We will try this self-helping method; if
success comes, we will return to the same altar with a more exalted idea
of a higher Source. Cleansed of our maladies, we will have a clearer
perception of who and what is God.




CHAPTER II.

     "There is naught like universal co-operation to promote universal
     achievement."


_Individuals_ may seek and obtain health through the agencies already,
and to be, suggested. To keep in health, their _neighbors_ must be
induced or compelled to adopt the same course. This is not an absolute
law, but manifestly is very essential. Supposing your own house,
sidewalk, alley, or yard, are comparatively immaculate, it will be
impossible to live without constant danger and exposure if your friend
(or enemy in this sense) has an untidy house, a dirty sidewalk, and a
filthy yard, in your proximity. Then how encouraging to note that health
is as contagious as disease. It even spreads with greater rapidity.
Health is gladly welcomed; disease is shunned like a deadly poison. All
over the world past and contemporary history proves that, once started,
health spreads at a rate that disease cannot follow. What will surely
result? Healthful communities will make healthful municipalities;
healthful municipalities will end in commonwealths and nations of like
character. The whole earth will be leavened. From a record of 34 years
as the average _duration_ of human life, the thermometer of universal
progress will point to the threescore and ten, or 70 years.

If you were induced to smile at the close of the last sentence, it shows
that you are not lost to all sense of appreciation--but quietly put on
your sober cap for a moment and read a few facts on _vital statistics_.
The average length of life up to twenty years ago was 33 years, now it
has reached about 34.8 years. This has not been caused by the _whole_
world becoming more healthful--indeed, some portions of the earth,
including sections of the United States, have retrograded, and the
former limit of _mortality_ has been lowered--but by the health of a
number of _organizations_, _sects_, and individuals who have increased
their standards of regularity, cleanliness, temperance, morality, and
self-control. Thus the average rate of mortality has been raised nearly
2%. An interesting fact which is new to the majority of persons is this,
that the whole sect of _Friends_, or _Quakers_, live an average of 58
years per individual. In the thirty-two years from 1850 to 1882 they
raised the average six years, or about one year in five. With this
ratio, which is itself increasing, the plurality of Quakers will be
centenarians in less than two hundred years--in half that time if
assisted by the world at large. By the foregoing it will be seen that
the whole organization of Friends live 70% longer than the general age
allotted to mankind, which includes them to make up the universal rate.
Another noticeable feature in connection with the Quakers' life is this,
the deaths among them average 18 in every thousand; in the general
population, 22 per thousand; while the amount given to charities per
inhabitant in that sect is $7.78, and in the total population the
average is $1.46. Why this difference in longevity to so marked a
degree?

The _prohibitionist_ will give this reason, that the Friends dissipate
less; the religionists will say they are more truthful, more godly.
While each of the aforementioned reasons have a healthful tendency,
there is a more scientific conclusion, for it is a well-known fact that
there are thousands of cases of longevity of men and women who lack
every moral principle, and dissipate all their lives. The _scientist_
comes to our rescue. He tells us that the Quaker's life is prolonged by
his methodical way of living, evenness of temperament, wearing the same
weight of clothing, allowing nothing to furrow the brow, regularity of
sleeping, drinking, exercising, and eating. He takes no food or drink
into his stomach above 100 degrees or below 50 degrees Fahr. _Boiling_
hot soup and frozen _ice-cream_ are unknown in a Quaker family. This
might convey the idea that ice-cream is foresworn by them. Not entirely
so. They use the same good judgment in that as in every other
indulgence, allowing the cream to rise in temperature from 10 degrees to
15 degrees above the freezing point, to soft consistency, before it is
taken into the stomach. Dr. Ufflemann, a German physician of authority,
draws some important conclusions from his own experiments and those of
others. The rules laid down are briefly:--

1. That, in general, a temperature of food which approaches that of the
blood is most healthful.

2. For quenching the thirst the best temperature is from 50 degrees
Fahr. to 68 degrees Fahr. Americans prefer about 40 degrees.

3. The gulping down of ice-water or hot coffee, etc., means eventually a
stomach damnation.

4. The use of very hot and cold substances, following or alternating, is
injurious to the teeth.

5. Ingestion of cold food and drinks lessens the bodily temperature,
whether it be normal or febrile.

6. Cold food and drinks increase the tendency to cough, by causing,
reflexly, a congestion of the bronchial vessels. Hence persons with
bronchial disease ought not to indulge in cold drinks.

The habits of indulgence in alcoholic drinks, tobacco, opium, and other
narcotics or stimulants, have less to do than is generally supposed with
longevity, but much to do with happiness, while their abuse or
irregularity determines all for health, happiness, and longevity
combined. Temperance men and moralists will take issue with me, and
undertake to prove that any quantity, no matter how small, of either
alcohol, tobacco, or opium will shorten life; but the facts will not
sustain the assertion. It is the irregularity with which the body is
treated, either by outward application or bathing, in eating, sleeping,
or excess in all vices. For health, a regular gratification in the full
list of vices is better than having no vices--such as are so termed by
the world--and being irregular in everything else. While I do not
believe in practising any form of vice, yet the man who takes six drinks
of alcoholic spirits in reasonable quantities at fixed intervals each
day, smokes six cigars--two after each meal--chews three ounces of
tobacco with the same punctuality every day, eats his meals slowly and
at stated periods, sleeps from 8-1/2 to 9 hours per night between the
same hours, will outlive the man who neither smokes, chews, or drinks,
but does eat and sleep irregularly, and lies awake all night hating his
neighbor for his immoralities. He gets thin and haggard, followed by
all the weaknesses to which his system is heir; while the other man,
with his evenness of nature, habits, and dissipations, enjoys health,
becomes fat, and lives to the proverbial good old age.

Here, then, my reader, we have the explanation why a man may live
through _dissipation_ all his life, and then die only by accident at 80
or 100 years of age. A beggar, miser, or hermit may by degrees contract
the habit of filthiness, non-bathing, scantiness of food and improper
clothing, with such regularity that he will outlive all his friends and
relatives, and be chronicled at his death as one of the _centenarians_.
As an interesting fact, we state that in 1888 a beggar, aged 84, in
Perth, Hungary, tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the
Danube because he was no longer able to support his father and mother,
who were 115 and 110 years old respectively! _Poisons_ may be taken in
infinitesimal doses for a while, then increasing by degrees until
_twenty_ grains of morphia or strychnia may be taken at a single dose
without immediate injury. There is at least one case of positive record
in Colusa County, of this State.

In closing this chapter we wish to call attention to a reasonable result
of true system, or regularity. Here is a _convict_ in the State prison.
Before he was incarcerated his health was imperfect, and he wore a
sallow, dejected look; but behold him after six months of strict
penitentiary discipline; he is a well man, fat and sleek--no longer a
semi-invalid. There are exceptions, but they are due to melancholy
generally. A _soldier_ after he enlists, unless he is exposed to the
constant privations of protracted war, throws off most defects in his
physique. You must know the cause; it is the compulsory regulation of
diet and clothing. Cleanliness and regularity are forced upon them,
showing it to be just what they needed.




CHAPTER III.

     "Let health my nerves and finer fibers brace."


The possession of health, happiness, and longevity requires _not_ so
much a general literary and _scientific education_, as a _practical
knowledge_ of one's own self. The latter will far outweigh the other. In
many ways, however, will these qualities be improved by the former. A
person must know what is regularity, cleanliness, and temperance, or
moderation. By the use of these effective auxiliaries, I have freed
myself of so many maladies within the last thirty years that the average
medical devotee will laugh in derision and question my trustworthiness.
For the first _eleven_ years of my life I had _seven_ years of wasting
sickness. Of these, _five_ were spent in bed. At the age of 22 I left a
clerkship in New York City to come to California, _via_ Cape Horn.
_Consumption_ was strongly seated on my lungs. In addition to this
dangerous affliction I had bronchitis, catarrh, constipation, piles,
periodical rheumatism, cataracts on my eyes, corns on my feet, and fever
and ague from one to three months every year. Surely I was in a position
to sympathize with _Job_, but impatient, rather than patient like the
Biblical hero. I set myself towards absolute health. Before I had been
in this State two years, I gained the mastery of the lung and throat
troubles; but while assisting in putting in a flume in Feather River,
below Oroville, in 1859, I ruptured myself so that for twenty-five years
I wore a truss. Now I am entirely rid of the aforementioned list of
ailments, including hernia.

The detail of how I treated each of the maladies might not interest the
reader, and is too long a story to relate in this work. The principal
things done in each case, however, will be chronicled under their proper
heads in the second part of this work. See index. I do not now smoke,
chew, nor drink intoxicants; the latter I did to a limited degree, and
the former to excess, for a number of years, up to the close of 1869. On
the 31st day of December of that year--the day I smoked my _last
cigar_--I bought _twenty-five_ cigars and smoked _twenty-three_ of them.
My cigar bill that year averaged $2.50 per day, and ran as high as
$4.00. Having dissipated, and had nearly every form of disease, I speak
from my own thorough experience and not from that of anyone else. Why
should not my story, then, have a beneficial influence? If any man knows
how he can improve the welfare of his fellows, it is his duty to spread
the information. True it is that many of the _quasi reformers_, or
informers, are cranks or dreamers; but we wish the fact distinctly
understood and appreciated that we come not under that category. We
raise no false standard; we send forth no untried hypothesis. There is a
man in a New England State who annually lectures on agriculture, writes
special and general articles for the country papers on the most improved
methods of farming, appears before legislative committees as a
successful tiller of the soil. But, alas! what superficiality is
contained in this man's brain. His house is a barn, his garden a
chicken-yard, his orchard a forest, and his meadow a pasture. There are
like phantasmagoric geniuses interested in the health question. We
simply say, Trust them not. Shun them and their advice as you would the
presence and enticings of a bunco steerer. But you will get impatient to
learn in what consists cleanliness, regularity, and temperance if I do
not proceed. Indeed, I think I can hear some of you say, "I neither
chew, drink, smoke, eat irregularly, or miss my stipulated number of
hours in bed; yet I have all manner of aches and pains, and many
lingering maladies." If such be the case, you do not understand the true
principle and its practical application of _cleanliness_. A word here in
regard to bathing. There is no doubt we all should bathe at least once a
day. It should be done either at retiring or rising. If a warm or hot
bath, at night; if cold or sponge bath, in the morning. Of course, if a
person is not accustomed to a cold sponge bath, or is quite nervous, he
must not attempt it too strongly at first. Commence and advance by
gradation. Almost anything can be done to which an individual is
unaccustomed if regular steps are taken towards the end, and not one
leap. Whether it be beneficial or destructive, invigorating or
poisoning, gradation will accomplish the end.

Madame Patti, who always has been obliged to take the greatest care of
herself, gives this warning, which may not be out of place: "Take plenty
of exercise, take it in the open air, take it alone, and breathe with
the mouth closed. Live on simple food; all the fruit and rare beef you
want, very little pastry, a glass of claret for dinner, coffee in
moderation, but never a sip of beer, because it thickens the voice and
stupefies the senses. Keep regular hours for work, meals, rest, and
recreation, and never under any circumstances indulge in the fashionable
habit of eating late suppers. If you want to preserve the beauty of
face, and the priceless beauty of youth, keep well, keep clean, keep
erect, and keep cool." Without being didactic, let me detail to you a
few things you should and should not do; and all of which I carry out to
the letter:--

Adopt some style of _clothing_ so that even if you change the color the
_weight_ will be about the _same_.

Wear no overcoat, overshoes, nor gloves; in their place wear a
sufficiently heavy suit when it is warm, so as to have enough on when it
is cold. By wearing a _chest protector_ fore and aft of the lungs, made
of chamois and flannel, over the under-garment and under the shirt, you
will never take cold through your lungs.

Have good, thick-soled _boots_--and always of the same thickness--and
you will not take cold through your feet.

Have a _hat_ always of the same weight, and that should be light, with
ventilators in the top or sides. If you do not wear your hat at the
lunch table, or in your place of business, you will not catch cold in
your head.

A large list of accessories accompany the above:--

Never sit at your desk or home fireside with the same coat which you use
on the street. In its place have one 50 per cent lighter for such
occasions and positions.

Never _sleep_ in your _under-garments_, nor in any other clothing that
you carry during the day. The reason is strong and obvious. Your
covering in the course of the day receives all the perspiration and
surface deposit of the skin, which amounts to considerable in sixteen
hours. This must have a chance to escape or be absorbed by the air. The
amount is only increased by wearing the same garments at night. Have a
good warm _night-shirt_, and a clean one at least every week.

Do not sleep in a room without having the windows down from the top to
some extent. If there be six, lower three of them.

If you sleep with a companion and do not know anything about _animal
magnetism_, find out through someone who does know. Ascertain which of
you is more positive, and govern yourself accordingly. I find best
results for me in sleeping with my head north, and on the west side of a
negative companion. This principle of magnetism is too little observed.
Yet it applies to all persons at all times. Naturally some individuals
are more magnetic than others, that is, more positive. Usually, if not
always, the more masculine, swarthy, is the more positive, while the
light-haired and eyed are negative. Sleep invariably with your head
towards the north if you are positive, towards the west if you are
negative, but never in any case towards the east or south.

These conclusions are based wholly on scientific reasons, and anyone who
understands physics will see the cogency of our statements.

As a preventative against anything that has once been in my stomach
rising and remaining on the tongue, I use a piece of ordinary
_whalebone_ to curry it every morning, from end to end. This will tend
to purify the breath, sweeten the mouth, and aid mastication.

My _tooth brush_, after using, is so thoroughly _cleansed_ and dried
that anyone acquainted with the facts would hardly believe it had been
used.

There are millions of particles of dust, atoms, _microbes_, or any other
name you may use, that collect upon your person and clothing hourly. If
your garments be tattered and torn, or patched and glazed, this will not
shorten your life or lessen your appetite; but I assure you, if you
will use up a 15-cent whisk-broom twice a year, in brushing yourself
from head to foot before each meal, there will be less to fall upon your
food, and thus find its way to your stomach, and your days will be
prolonged in exact ratio.




CHAPTER IV.

     "On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
     Reason the card, but passion is the gale."


There are more diseases contracted, more unhappiness created during
life, and early decay occasioned, by _politeness_ and _pride_ than by
whisky and tobacco combined. Total-abstinence advocates will assert that
drink kills more than all other causes. What would they think if we
should say, if he is a reformed drinker, that it was out of pure
politeness that he quaffed his first glass.

Politeness is the cause of disease in many ways, of which the following
are a few:--

A friend--only in name--will stop you in the first corner of the street
and insist on telling you a good(?) joke about Brown, Smith, or Jones.
He takes you by the lapels of the coat, holds you to windward for twenty
minutes in a breeze blowing twenty-five miles an hour, although this
lays you up with a cold for a week, and thus plants the first seeds of
consumption. You will be too polite to tell him that your health will
not permit you to be so exposed. As a remedy for this class of attacks,
if a man insists on saying anything more than "How do you do" or
"Good-bye," I should invite him into the nearest hall-way or around the
corner to leeward, entirely out of the draft. If this does not seem
feasible, I would bid him "Good-day."

Another case of excessive politeness is when a gentleman or lady
continues chatting ten minutes in the _hall_ after he or she _must =go=
immediately_. Then at the door after they have walked out, you, in
dressing-gown and slippers, stand on the cold marble step in a driving
fog for twenty minutes more, to hear the latest gossip--too polite to
slam the door in their faces, or excuse it as an accident.

But the politeness that kills faster than any other is that of the
consumptive, bronchially-affected, or catarrhal patient. He will sit at
the table, or in company, and, out of pure politeness, swallow the
_mucus_ and other impurities that arise in his throat--too polite to use
a cuspidor or excuse himself by withdrawing to another room or the open
air, and clear his throat. A great many people are accustomed to
_expectorate_ into their _handkerchiefs_. This is a baneful practice.
Just as soon as that gets dry which they have thrown up from their
lungs, innumerable microbes of deadly effect escape and do extensive
harm. Avoid this habit and use the cuspidor or step out-of-doors. It is
not unreasonable to believe that 50 per cent of all the consumptives
would recover if they would, by care and cleanliness, see that no
particle of mucus once away from the lungs should ever go back down the
throat, and observe other points regarding apparel and cleanliness
mentioned in the first part of this work.

We have already devoted some space to what we should and should not do.
All that, however, is but a small part of a life which will continually
experience health, happiness, and longevity. We trust you do not simply
read these statements not intending to test their value. It is not
unlikely that many of you from your course or line of business will find
it eminently difficult to absolutely follow our instructions. Be that as
it may, come as approximately as you can, and there will positively
result an improvement in your physical condition, a progression in your
happiness, and a realization of longevity. The remainder of this chapter
will be occupied by a program, or rather set of _formula_ of what is
necessary to aid you in _keeping well_, living long and happily.

Keep your _bowels_ open and regular in action. This you can do, if
irregular or _constipated_, by taking a few drops of water in your right
hand every morning and rubbing the bowels in a circular motion from
right to left, until a friction is produced and the moisture gone. From
six to ten separate passages of the hand over the bowels is usually
sufficient, and the object will be accomplished. Each day this is
repeated; in a very short time you will be all right in this particular,
and will not require even this effective medicine. You must be aware
that a score of maladies are kept at bay by the regularity of the
bowels. This fact cannot be too strongly impressed on mankind in
general. It is very seldom indeed that you come upon a man who is well
with a bad digestive apparatus; but, again, he who possesses a strong
stomach and is moderate and regular in eating is almost invariably
characterized with a vigorous constitution. Disease finds no place to
locate upon or in him. There is no doubt the American people eat too
fast, and that is why so many die so soon. The system is worn out when
it should be ready to do its best work. If all the men and women in this
country would eat 50% slower they would live 25% longer. Of this we have
no doubt--nor do you, reader.

Sleep eight hours every night, between the same hours, as nearly as
possible, in a room well ventilated from the top of the window. If your
room is small you will require more _ventilation_ than if it is large;
in this case use more clothing on the bed. If possible have a bowl or
basin of water uncovered in the room, but the next morning do not either
drink or wash your face in the water that has stood exposed all night.
To drink it is slow suicide; to wash in it is unhealthy.

In the morning scrape the tongue with a strip of whalebone, as before
mentioned; brush the teeth with a good stiff clean tooth-brush, up and
down, but not across; note this latter proposition, there is reason for
it. By perpendicular brushing the bristles or hairs get in between the
teeth, where much sediment is left, and the gums are not made sore. This
is the best method also to prevent tartar forming. _Gargle_ the throat
with clean water three or four times; then, if you have it at hand,
drink about three swallows of cool filtered water; if not near go
thirsty until it is. Never take a drink of water, whether you be sick or
well, without first gargling the throat with at least one swallow and
spitting it out. Do you think _filtering_ of reservoir or general city
water is necessary? If not, then make a microscopic examination, and any
skepticism will be entirely removed. It is a prominent fact in science
to-day that almost all diseases and troubles are started or promulgated
by microbes and bacilli. There are often enough of these in one swallow
of water to poison a whole family. Then take a moist towel and apply it
to every part of your body; follow this with a vigorous rubbing with a
dry towel. A sponge bath is recommended by many physicians. This is all
right for the first time, but from that on the sponge begins to get
foul, not from necessity, but because not one person in fifty will wash
and thoroughly _dry_ the _sponge_. In any other case it is a disease
breeder. Perforated with so many cells and passages, intricate and
numberless, it is not surprising that it should be the residence of much
that is dangerous.

During the time of your bath you should close the windows of your room
to exclude the cold draughts--in any part of the country where the
atmosphere moves over two miles per hour--but not the sun. After this
lower or raise your window to the height or level of the eyes, and
proceed to enjoy a breathing exercise. This is done by first exhausting
all the air from the lungs through the mouth, then inhale, slowly,
through the nasal organs to the full capacity of the lungs. Do this
_three_ times or more each morning. If your lungs are not too weak, tap
with your fingers on your chest while it is inflated. This will tend to
develop your capacity of breathing wonderfully. The gentle percussion
thus effected is quite exhilarating. Practice yourself also in _holding_
your _breath_ for a prolonged interval, but always draw in air through
your nostrils; they strain out all impurities.

You are now ready for your breakfast; but, perhaps you say, I am a
workingman and have not the time. To such I would reply: I go through
all these duties in _one_ hour's time, and if belated I accomplish it in
_forty minutes_. If I have to take a train at 5 A. M., I see that I am
called at 4 A. M., at least, and enjoy my regular time for _toilet_. I
would advise those of you who think you have not time, to go to bed that
much earlier. Even if you are to travel, by using my method of
preparation you will not experience that tired, disagreeable, restless
feeling that will otherwise come. You all know how intensely that
feeling acts to destroy all your pleasure until the day is half over and
it is worn away. Employ common-sense ways and you will be as fresh at 6
as at 12 o'clock. Your lips will not be blue, your skin cold, your teeth
unclean, your mouth dry, your eyes red, and your whole self out of sorts
as it were.




CHAPTER V.

     "Of right choice food are his meals, I ween."


Now as to what you should eat, what you should not eat, and how you
should eat. This is perhaps the greatest problem for a man to solve. A
man with a bad digestive apparatus is practically an invalid. We have no
hesitation in saying that there is as much bodily injury done by over
and careless eating among people commonly called temperate as among
those who drink alcoholic liquors to a large extent. If you would
preserve your vital strength and capabilities for a happy, long period,
mind your diet. Don't rest too much on the insane idea that you have a
_stomach_ of _iron_ and that you can digest shingle nails. You are not a
species of the genus ostrich, or goat. Then if you really do possess
organs that can take care of all kinds of food, their splendid power
should not be destroyed or even weakened by improper indulgence. The
mightiest engine is soon as valueless as old iron if it is continually
exerted to its greatest velocity. If inanimate mechanism cannot stand a
permanent strain surely bodily flesh would be quickly disabled.

Some foods are particularly muscle formers, others produce fat, and
still others brain and nerve, while most of the common articles of diet
combine these uses in varying degrees.

But the question to cover our entire physical needs requires to be
broadened into this: What combination of food will best nourish the
body? Even then the answer must be modified to suit individual cases,
for the digestive power differs greatly in different persons. Moreover,
there is an interdependence between the different bodily organs and
tissues, so that the body must be built up as a whole. If one part lacks
the whole suffers, and if one part is overfed the others will be
underfed.

Thus a person who becomes unduly fat loses in muscular fiber, either in
quantity or quality. One who overfeeds the brain loses in muscular
strength. So, too, muscular development may be carried to such excess as
to impoverish the brain, and also to reduce the fat of the body below
what is necessary both as surplus food laid up for emergencies, and as a
protection against sudden changes of temperature.

The best food for producing muscle, therefore, must, while being duly
appetizing, contain a large per cent of nitrates for the muscles, of
phosphates for the brain and nerves, and of carbonates for the fat.

Of nitrates, beans stand at 24 per cent, then peas at 22, cabbage and
salmon at 20, oats at 17, eggs and veal at 16, and beef at 15.

Of phosphates, salmon stands first at 7, then codfish at 6, beef and
eggs at 5, beans and veal at 4, and cabbage, peas, and oats at 3.

Of carbonates, butter stands at the head at 100, rice at 80, corn and
rye at 72, wheat at 69, oats at 66, peas at 60, beans at 57, and cabbage
at 46.

Fresh codfish fried in fat or served with butter gravy about equals beef
in all respects, and so do eggs fried in fat. But we must add:--

The mere eating of food cannot make muscle. The muscles must be called
into vigorous daily exercise, yet without overdoing.

Excessive eating is weakening, and must be avoided. It is the amount
digested and assimilated that tells, not the quantity taken into the
stomach.

All the laws of health must be steadily observed. We are in favor of a
diet that excludes meat entirely; and once a day should be the excess of
those who indulge in the flesh-eating luxury. A suspicion that there is
a difference between merely getting food down into the stomach and its
digestion, is abroad, and that a peach, an orange, an apple, a spoonful
of flour, or something similar, which is digested, is really better for
a man than a beefsteak, which simply passes through the alimentary
canal. See "Food" for further consideration of vegetarianism.

For _breakfast_ have any of the numerous preparations of _mush_, such as
oatmeal, cracked wheat, and germea, every other day some kind of fish;
of the miscellaneous, potatoes baked or boiled, eggs poached, boiled, or
omelette, and natural fruit; of drinks, water, filtered or boiled, and
not below 56 degrees Fahr., milk, pure and sweet but not cream, cocoa,
chocolate, tea, or coffee. These are good and beneficial in the order
they are placed. The following from the N. Y. _Medical Record_ is
invaluable information:--

"Stimulants (drink most healthful).--Milk heated to much above 100
degrees Fahrenheit loses for a time a degree of its sweetness and
density. No one who, fatigued by over-exertion of body or mind, has ever
experienced the reviving influence of a tumbler of this beverage, heated
as warm as it can be sipped, will willingly forego a resort to it
because of its being rendered somewhat less acceptable to the palate.
The promptness with which its cordial influence is felt is indeed
surprising. Some portion of it seems to be digested and appropriated
almost immediately, and many who now fancy they need alcoholic
stimulants when exhausted by fatigue will find in this simple draught an
equivalent that will be abundantly satisfying and far more enduring in
its effects. There is many an ignorant overworked woman who fancies she
could not keep up without her beer; she mistakes its momentary
exhilaration for strength, and applies the whip instead of nourishment
to her poor, exhausted frame. Any honest, intelligent physician will
tell her that there is more real strength and nourishment in a slice of
bread than in a quart of beer; but if she loves stimulants it would be a
very useless piece of information. It is claimed that some of the lady
clerks in our own city, and those too who are employed in respectable
business houses, are in the habit of ordering ale or beer at the
restaurants. They probably claim that they are 'tired,' and no one who
sees their faithful devotion to customers all day will doubt their
assertions. But they should not mistake beer for a blessing or stimulus
for strength. A careful examination of statistics will prove that men
and women who do not drink can endure more hardships, and do more work,
and live longer, than those less temperate."

If you must eat meat for breakfast, have your _steak rare_, mutton chops
well done; if fish, always well done; and if each are fried, use butter,
not lard--the same applies to everything else that has to be fried. All
meats are sweeter and more healthful broiled than fried. Of bread, for
health, natural _graham_ comes first; and, in order of nutrition, corn,
corn and wheat mixed, rye, and wheat. They should be taken cold and at
least twenty-four hours after baking. If the midday meal is a lunch, all
dishes should be cold. It can be made up largely from dishes left over
from the morning meal, such as cold cracked wheat with milk, natural
fruit; add nuts, sauces, jellies, and prepared fruit.

If _dinner_ is taken at noon instead of lunch at that hour, any one of
the score of vegetable soups are first in value; all other kinds are
secondary; let there be from three to six kinds of vegetables cooked;
any of the drinks mentioned for breakfast may be used, but none of them
iced; cold bread, and no pastry unless an open pie with unshortened
undercrust. An excellent morsel for _dyspeptics_ is _sea biscuit_ dipped
in cold water and then placed in a hot oven from three to five minutes.
If meat is to be a portion of this meal, you can have beef, mutton, or
venison, roasted or broiled, the former rare, and the two latter well
done. Provided dinner is enjoyed at the close of the day, it should
occur before 5:30 P. M.; if at midday, then the lunch meal can be
renamed supper, and can be partaken of as late as 6 or 7 P. M. Let there
be no eating two meals for Sundays and holidays, and three for other
days, or indulging in them at later hours in the morning and earlier in
the evening; for this irregularity will detriment more than many kinds
of improper food.

Do not eat _fresh pork_, for this and every other kind of swine flesh is
an abomination. Eat no _kidney_, _liver_, or _tripe_; deal sparingly
with _fowl_ and all the bird family. Outside impure water and
uncleanliness, there can be but one cause for _skin diseases_, eczema,
boils, and the dread leprosy, which is the eating of pork, kidney,
liver, duck, etc. If the lion indiscriminately kills and eats all kinds
of flesh, and thereby is made ferocious, if the lamb is rendered passive
and inoffensive by grasses and grains, then what the swine or different
domestic fowls eat must have something to do with the make-up of the
flesh of their bodies. The hog is the most filthy animal of that nature,
while chicken and duck are the most so in the line of fowls used by man
for food. It is offensive but true that they will not only _eat_ but
relish both their own and man's _excrement_.

We cannot use space foolishly, if we show plainly why pork should be
abandoned. Did you ever stop to think on what most _swine_ live? _Swill_
is the most common term for it. Anything and everything that is the
refuse of a boarding-house will they eagerly devour. Give them _rotten_
apples and potatoes, full of innumerable microbes, and they will relish
the repast. Place them in a dung heap--they will root, and eat much of
what they find. Now all meat, all flesh and tissue, is made from what an
animal or person eats--if he doesn't eat he grows thin and starves. Then
the hog's flesh is made from elements derived from swill, decayed
substances, and everything either cooked, uncooked, or even digested,
that man is through with or has cast off. You who eat pork relish that
which once you have refused to eat--only in another form. Can you enjoy
this meat when you consider all this? Surely its use means bad health
and contamination. Skin diseases and _poor complexions_ are found almost
entirely among those who live on these improper foods. Again, even if
you feed swine on clean corn, milk, and water, we ascertain by careful
experiment and examination that pork is most susceptible to bacteria of
almost any meat. Better boycott it altogether. _Leprosy_ and skin
troubles are found largely among pork-eating people--such as the
inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, where there are 749 lepers. On the
other hand, Jews, who everywhere are marked with clear skins, avoid
pork. In Constantinople there are 250 lepers, in Crete upwards of 3,000,
and quantities in the islands of eastern Mediterranean Sea, and 1,000 in
Norway. These places are all characterized by the great amount of pork,
and duck too, that they consume.

Other things not good for _invalids_, and will make strong persons
invalids, are: Fried potatoes, hot cakes, warm bread, pound cake, green
cucumbers, and rich pie-crust. Eat only those things that will excite
the salivary glands to assist digestion. The walls, not the center of
the alimentary canal, need attention.

Have your _soup cool_ enough so that it will not cause tears in your
eyes when you swallow--same with your coffee, tea, and other warm
drinks; take no _ice drinks_; if you are used to having water only with
your meals, drink it warm with sugar and milk, and _not hot_. If you are
obliged to live in a second-class boarding-house or restaurant, and are
obliged to take one of three meals each day at such a place, insist on
having a _napkin_. Use it first to wipe your glass for water, then
follow by polishing every utensil set before you for use at your meal.
If note is taken of the napkin before and after each meal, you will be
able by a mathematical calculation to tell just how much _real estate_
did not belong to you.

How you should eat: Begin with one swallow of cool water. Eat slowly;
take full 20 minutes for a hurried meal, and 45 minutes when you have
the time. If you eat beefsteak, have it rare; if mutton chops, have them
well done; if _fish_, well done and brown; if potatoes, first choice,
baked; second, boiled; third, stewed or mashed. Never eat decayed
vegetables or fruit; have them fresh or do without them. At table, see
that the conversation is pleasant and mirthful. Should any of the
younger members of the family insist, at each meal, in changing this
order of things, cause them for a short season to sit at a separate
table in the kitchen, until this sort of disease--for disease it is--may
be cured. Nothing retards digestion, brings dyspepsia, or creates
neuralgia, to such extent as a sullen disposition. We will end this
chapter with a remarkably bright paraphrase on the ten commandments,
which we recently ran across:--


THE TEN HEALTH COMMANDMENTS.

"1. Thou shalt have no other food than at meal-time.

"2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any pies, or put into pastry the
likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or in the waters under
the earth. Thou shalt not fall to eating it or trying to digest it. For
the dyspepsia will be visited upon the children to the third and fourth
generation of them that eat pie; and long life and vigor upon those that
live prudently and keep the laws of health.

"3. Remember thy bread to bake it well; for he will not be kept sound
that eateth his bread as dough.

"4. Thou shalt not indulge sorrow or borrow anxiety in vain.

"5. Six days shalt thou wash and keep thyself clean, and the seventh
thou shalt take a great bath; thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and
thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the stranger that is within
thy gates. For in six days man sweats and gathers filth and bacteria
enough for disease; wherefore the Lord has blessed the bath-tub and
hallowed it.

"6. Remember thy sitting-room and bed-chamber to keep them ventilated,
that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee.

"7. Thou shalt not eat hot biscuit.

"8. Thou shalt not eat thy meat fried.

"9. Thou shalt not swallow thy food unchewed, or highly spiced, or just
before hard work, or just after it.

"10. Thou shalt not keep late hours in thy neighbor's house, nor with
thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his
cards, nor his glass, nor with anything that is thy neighbor's."--_New
England Farmer._

With the use of the foregoing as a guide, and ordinary judgment in the
affairs with your fellow-men, life will run smoothly, happiness will
follow, and a long life be the result.




CHAPTER VI.

     "Let the jewel of happiness poise in the setting of health."


If you are a reader of this work to find out a cure for consumption,
catarrh, bronchitis, constipation, hemorrhoids or piles, hernia or
rupture, rheumatism, fever and ague, cataracts on the eyes, warts on the
hands, corns on the feet, and how to abstain from drink and tobacco in
all injurious forms, we will try and not disappoint you. Under the head
of each disease above named, see index and second part. We offer you a
remedy. All of these troubles I have had (and a score not mentioned), of
the entire list of which _=I=_ am now _free completely_. In short, the
whole number of diseases that beset the human family can be cured by
care, cleanliness, regularity, fresh air, cold water used internally,
and by compress, proper clothing, right food, regular exercise, an even
disposition, a clear conscience, intelligent and agreeable associates,
and a reasonable amount of time.

It took me 30 years, 25 of which I spent ascertaining the way. If
someone could have informed me, as this book does you, I would have
enjoyed full health _twenty-five_ years earlier than I did. Anyone
observing the rules I have recounted can restore a broken-down
_constitution_ in less than 5 years--yes, even if one foot is already in
the grave! Soon you will begin to lift it out, and it will be a long
period before you will take that step again. I do not exaggerate when I
state that I had _both feet_ in the grave. Fortunately, however, my head
was above-ground, and I began to reason how to get the rest of myself
away. The secret was discovered, the causes set to work, and finally the
end achieved. To use another figure, my coffin had many nails already
driven in it when I secured a clincher, pulled them all out, and then
split up the old wooden hulk to make fires with which to start the
steam of my new energies.

All of my _time_ is _employed_. I do some sort of laborious work every
day to start my blood coursing vigorously, and open the pores of my
skin. By a proper adjustment of my under-clothing, I prevent a cold, and
am always ready with a good appetite when meal-time comes. I have never
studied _Anatomy_, _Medicine_, or _Surgery_, know but little about the
niceties of the English language, but I have studied the Materia Medica
of myself, and am aware of just what is beneficial and what is injurious
for me.

There is a duty each individual owes to his fellow-man, each municipal
corporation to its citizens, and each State and general government to
those over whom they preside. Every individual should strive to see how
much distress he can relieve during his short stay on this earth; how
few thorns he has to place in the pathway of others, and how many drops
of oil he can pour on the disturbed waters of the ocean of life.

_Accidents_ that are _preventable_, caused by carelessness, laziness,
and ignorance, cost more money, suffering, and life than viciousness and
incendiarism, in the ratio of 3 to 1. Every man who builds a mill,
manufactory, or a business block, makes his own rate of insurance.

A slight variation in the construction of a building, the omission of
certain details, the wrong location of hazardous machinery or materials,
or the neglect of cleanliness and order, may very seriously affect the
_fire hazard_, and consequently the _rate_ of insurance which must
necessarily attach to the property.

The _Fire Losses_ in the United States amount to $125,000,000 per annum,
and the great mass of this enormous loss is chargeable to bad
construction of buildings, the lack of necessary apparatus for
extinguishing fires, and carelessness in the management of property. The
_unavoidable_ losses are few in number; the _avoidable_, many. Insurance
companies _restore no value_, _repair no loss_; they can only
_distribute_ the loss throughout the community. Careless, ignorant,
annihilative, is the term to be applied to 75% of the fire losses. The
destruction of life by accidents, where immediate death follows, in the
United States is large; but, in comparison with those that assist in
shortening life, they are about in the ratio of 1 to 100. Only such
persons as have undoubted _integrity_, coupled with order, cleanliness,
and carefulness should be allowed to insure their property, and this
should be restricted by law. A certain sect in our population that now
have to be charged from 50 to 100% more for insurance than other people,
should be stricken from the list of the insured, until they have by
personal action abolished this difference in risk.

When the time comes that only such persons as attend to all the details
of cleanliness and prevention of the loss of property and health can be
insured, the cost will be reduced 50%. Until we are willing, or educated
up to that point, to protect our neighbors' lives and property as if
they were ours, we must expect to pay this 50% more for everything we
have, use, drink, eat, and wear. Longevity will be restricted in the
same proportion. Hundreds of accidents would be prevented by proper
care. Throwing foolishly the match, cigar, cigarette, etc., any and
everywhere, causes great loss of property, and often life; the
unthinking eat oranges and _bananas_ in the _street_ and cast underfoot
the rinds and skins to cause the next moment the _dislocation_ of a
limb, or broken skull. Over 500 accidents have occurred in this city
alone during the last 5 years, occasioned by some sort of vegetable or
fruit refuse lying upon the pavements; fatal results, though not all
immediate, happened to 15 persons, and a number were maimed for life.
Broken bottles and glass thrown into the street and on the sidewalks
bring about at times frightful accidents to both man and beast; and if a
correct report could be had from each livery-man and teamster in this
regard, it would startle the most inhuman of our race.

The _tax-payer_ has a tendency to be selfish when he is really doing
himself severe injury. It is a case of reflex action. In passing along a
thoroughfare he sees a banana skin lying on the sidewalk. He cannot
possibly stop or trouble himself to push it into the gutter. Almost
immediately another man comes along, steps on the skin, slips, breaks
his leg, and is carried to the hospital. He remains there a month,
supported by the city, that is, by money paid by the same tax-payer. In
this manner, and other ways, can every man act, both selfishly or
unselfishly. If selfish in passing this by, it is sure to come back on
him a hundred-fold to the original trouble required. His unselfishness
will consist in saving his fellow-men from danger by removing the cause.
Indeed, he will be selfish if he casts it off for the sake of decreasing
his taxation, but such selfish unselfishness will be gladly excused.

_Garbage_ thrown out of back doors or under neighbors' steps creates
contagion, and in time the thoughtless individuals fall a prey to their
own carelessness. Three out of every five men and five out of every
hundred women are ruptured as a result of their own or somebody else's
recklessness.

On the top of nearly every house in the section where _artesian_ water
is used, there is a _tank_ to receive water for various purposes about
each dwelling; much of this is employed for drinking and culinary uses.
Without any attempt at a sensation, we pronounce this box or _tank_ a
_death trap!_ There is not a clean one in this whole great city, that
has an outside exposure, and 9 out of every 10 are reeking with filth.
Having had occasion to investigate several I am convinced that they
average alike. If so, there are at least 500 tons of concentrated filth
playing the part of filters in the tanks of this city alone at this
writing! And there is every reason to believe that this city is as clean
as the average. Provided this is so, there is enough of such refuse in
the United States to dam the Mississippi River many times and build a
levee across Lake Erie.

Health officers may keep their own tanks clean in the future, but if
individuals desire health and abolition of the need of Health Boards,
let them keep their own tanks, back yards, streets, and pavements neat.
Municipal corporations should prevent by _law_ the throwing of any kind
of rubbish into the streets, and make it a misdemeanor for the
proprietors allowing any of their mercantile houses, work-shops, or
residences to be found filthy, and there are thousands of them in this
city. To avoid accidents, every man, woman, and child should be
compelled to pass to their right on the street. Every person in every
city not having a legitimate vocation in the eyes of the law, nor an
income from property or money in the bank, should, if criminally
inclined, be sent to the House of Correction. If poor and willing to
work, they ought to be put to work in the public streets and in the
parks, to beautify them, for the benefit of the frugal classes. No
begging should be allowed, under penalty of imprisonment. That a city
may escape being overrun by country tramps, their entrance should be
quarantined.

To stop contagion, public _crematories_ should be established and
cremation of the human and animal bodies be compulsory. If the principal
church and secret organizations will now change their rituals so as to
permit of the incineration of the bodies of their deceased members, the
world will have advanced 100 years before the close of this century and
the average duration of life at that date will have increased from 34.8
to 40 years. It is needful that the false sentiment regarding the
disposition of our dead should undergo a complete revolution. There
could probably be no better aid to this end than a general investigation
of the mortuary records of the towns and cities of the globe, by proper
officials, the facts and discoveries of whom should be given all
possible publicity. An hundred or so years ago this was not so much a
matter of importance as now, with a greater and increasing density of
population, by virtue of which a great portion of the habitable earth is
fast becoming a mass of putrifying corruption, that will involve at no
distant time the world in pestilence, woe, and desolation.

The recent official return on the condition of the London cemeteries is,
or should be, sufficient to cause all reasonable persons to cry out for
the crematory. In Brompton Cemetery, with an area of twenty-eight and
three-fourths of an acre, there have been buried in less than fifty
years one hundred and fifty-five thousand bodies. In Tower Hamlets
Cemetery, with twelve acres less, in about the same time, the number is
two hundred and forty-seven thousand.

When it is remembered how perfectly unfitted the soil of these districts
is for burial purposes, together with the means so largely employed for
preventing speedy decomposition, one may readily imagine the danger that
menaces those above this still-increasing mass of sub-pollution.

Multiply the condition of the London suburbs by several hundred thousand
more, and then ponder the product! Talk about sanitary regulations, when
our public health laws are violated thus, and the air and water poisoned
as a result of the superstitious custom of body burial! When pestilence
stalks abroad, it is said to be planetary influence or divine wrath! The
following from the Springfield _Republican_ will indicate the current of
public opinion:--

"That the custom of burying the dead is bound to be superseded by more
scientific and economical methods, especially in the centers of
population, may be seen in the reanimation of the old scheme of
desiccation by New York capitalists. These men are not yet ready to
accept cremation. Their project is to build mausoleums as substitutes
for cemeteries, where the body will be subjected to the absorbent action
of currents of pure, dry air, which will prevent decomposition, and, by
thoroughly exhausting the body of moisture and gases, carry away all
germs of disease. These air currents, thus laden, will then pass through
furnaces, where all noxious elements will be destroyed. The lifeless
form will be reduced in weight about two-thirds and nearly one-half in
size. Resting in a sepulcher, it may then be preserved for an indefinite
period. As explained in detail, with particulars of the beauty of the
buildings thrown in, this scheme has advantages compared with the
undesirable method in vogue, though it is less thorough and simple than
cremation. A promoter of the enterprise in speaking of the desiccated
body says that 'although shrunken, still, with the semblance of life, it
is an object that the eye of affection can look upon without a shock,
and the sanitarian can think of without a shudder.' In essence, however,
the scheme is simply a concession to a public, not yet educated to the
idea of cremation. While appropriating enough of the latter system to
solve the question of public health, it caters to the human
sentimentalities in preserving at half size the dead form. Upon these
sentiments, summed up as the 'instinct of humanity,' the promoters of
the new system base their hopes of profit. Besides advancing in its
favor all the arguments used for cremation, its friends add that in the
desiccating process no danger can exist of suspended animation escaping
notice."

Public _fountains_ should be established in every other block of cities
or towns having over 1,000 inhabitants, with best-devised filters known,
so that both man and beast could enjoy pure water to drink, free for the
taking. During epidemics it should be not only compulsory in
municipalities to have water filtered in each house before drinking, but
it should be boiled. Every house ought to have a filter. If you cannot
afford a $40 one, you can secure one for 40 cents.




CHAPTER VII.

    "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
    As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
    Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
    We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

    "But evil is wrought by want of thought
    As well as by want of heart."


The following extract from the report of the Grand Jury of this city,
given publicity December 5, 1889, is self-explanatory:--

"Some of the dives and variety theaters are the nurseries of vice and
crime, where drunkenness is encouraged, our youth demoralized, the
unwary roped in and robbed, and crimes committed which the authorities
are unable to prevent or discover. There is, of course, a broad
distinction to be noted between those places of public resort where the
demand for distilled, fermented, and malt liquors is supplied in a
legitimate manner, and the entertainment provided, if any, is not of an
objectionable character, and those places where salacious performances
are presented as an attraction, and lewd women, under the guise of
waitresses to serve liquors, pursue a shameful vocation. These evils may
be partly remedied if respectable citizens will refuse to rent their
property for such uses, and also refuse to assist in obtaining licenses
whereby such headquarters for drunkenness, lewdness, and crime are in a
measure entrenched behind existing general laws.

"The so-called 'social evil' is aggressive on our thoroughfares, and
should be restrained by the authorities within narrower limits."

But we add our interpretation and our suggestions for these twin evils
which stalk up and down the earth and apparently defy control.

The _minister_ treats lightly upon the liquor traffic, in many instances
because certain of his church members either sell it at wholesale,
retail, or furnish the barley, corn, grapes, hops, or rent to the man
who does. The _editors_ of all newspapers of general circulation must
treat the subject likewise, for fear of his advertising patrons. His
readers are never taken into account, for the simple reason that
circulation alone does not pay newspapers issued daily, and very few
that are issued weekly. It will be seen by the above report that the
grand jurymen too have _vital_ interests at stake. In order to keep
their respective businesses from being boycotted by their
fellow-merchants, they handle the subject with soft gloves, as if it
were eggs, and the "social evil" by this same jury is done up in
_nineteen_ words. But they have indicated a great deal in those few
words, namely, that such an evil _does exist_--something the different
_church_ organizations have _refused_ to acknowledge.

High license, with personal responsibility for results, under a
sufficient bond, will in time remedy the liquor traffic.

The _social evil_ should be licensed, and under the perfect control of
the police--and not the police under its control, as seems to be the
case in this city. Are they not under pay to look the other way? Its
boundaries should be exact, isolated, and under the direct supervision
of the health department. Is there any justice in demanding a license
of a milliner, or on any other mercantile pursuit that a female may see
fit to adopt, while 5,000 of these questionable women go untaxed,
because you do not _dare_ to acknowledge that their calling _exists?_ To
ask the question is to answer it--No!! Let no one think that in any way
whatever we would seem to unduly countenance, or in the least encourage,
this evil. But we do believe in recognizing absolute facts. They cannot
be overlooked. It is surprising that, amidst all this widespread
discussion of intemperance, no more has been said on this _social
problem_. As long as men are mortal, this condition of relations will
exist--it has existed through all time--but it is possible to limit it,
to heavily license it, and keep it within proper bounds.

Then by all means should churches and various kinds of societies exert
their influence to the legal recognition of the true status, and benefit
the general condition of mankind. Boards of supervisors, aldermen, etc.,
are clothed with power to accomplish the ends suggested, if they are
only backed by public sentiment.

If the _Catholic Church_ organization alone will inaugurate a general
agitation over the country, as they have already indicated and begun in
their convention at Baltimore, on the liquor traffic, they will either
break it up or put it under control; for 60% of this business is carried
on by their following.

Public _urinals_ are greater necessities than public fountains in cities
and large towns. The alarming increase of _diabetes_ and kidney troubles
in cities during the last few years, while remaining normal, or actually
decreasing in the rural districts, has led to the belief that the
prolonged detention of the urine is the principal, and, in most cases,
the only cause of this terrible malady. The foregoing facts
recapitulated exhibit a few of the ills of mankind that are in the power
of municipal officials to alleviate. The duties of the general
government cover all of the above, and include the _prevention_ of all
_criminals_ and _paupers_ of every nation from _landing_ on our shores;
the compulsory education of all citizens old and young--as it is cheaper
to educate than to punish criminals; to furnish employment upon all
useful and needed public works for the worthy, willing poor, and cause
to be distributed with equity to the deserving, all the earnings of the
criminal institutions of the country, over and above their actual
expenses.

It will not be out of place to complete this chapter with a few words on
the necessity of giving man and beast _one day_ in seven to _rest_.
_Sunday_ seems to be the preferable one, but to compel the observance of
one particular day in each week for all classes and sects would be
tyrannical. The majority of religious societies employ Sunday for
worship and rest, but, throwing aside the moral and religious bearing,
every human being would be healthier, happier, and live longer, if he
rested one day in the week. We all live too fast. Though we enjoy
laziness at times, yet we are too anxious to get riches or fame earlier
than we ought or can. A man may work so mightily that he will be very
wealthy at 40 instead of 50, but he will die at 70 instead of 80. Better
prolong life by reserving forces for the future.




CHAPTER VIII.

     "For a man's house is his castle."


After individual cleanliness and regularity, erect your next _house_ in
which you intend to live, or that you expect to rent to another, or
remodel your present residence, to correspond with the following:--

Sanitary House.--It should stand facing the sun, on dry soil, in a wide,
clean, amply-sewered, substantially-paved street, over a deep,
thoroughly ventilated and lighted cellar. The floor of the cellar should
be cemented, the walls and ceilings plastered and thickly whitewashed
with lime every year, that the house may not act as a chimney to draw up
into its chambers micro-organisms from the earth. If your lot is
situated so that you cannot face your house either east or south,
construct the rooms in such a way that your parlors and sleeping
apartments will receive the sun at least 3 hours during the day. All
windows should extend from floor to ceiling, adjusted to let down from
the top, and in position to secure as much as possible of the through
currents of air. The outside walls, if of wood or brick, should be kept
thickly painted, not to shut out penetrating air, but for the sake of
dryness. All inside walls should be plastered smooth, painted, and,
however unaesthetic, varnished. Mantels should be of marble, plate,
iron, or, if wood, plain, and, whether natural, painted, or stained,
varnished.

Interior wood-work, including floors, should all show plain surfaces and
be likewise treated. No paper on the walls, no carpets on the floors,
but movable rugs, which can be shaken daily in the open air--not at
doors or out of windows, where dust is blown back into rooms--should
cover the floors. White linen shades, which will soon show the necessity
of washing, should protect the windows. All furniture should be plain,
with cane seats, without upholstery. Mattresses should be covered with
oiled silk. Blankets, sheets, and spreads--no comforts or quilts--should
constitute the bedding.

Of plumbing there should be as little as is necessary, and all there is
must be exposed.

The inhabited rooms should be heated only with open fires, the cellar
and halls by radiated heat, or, better, by a hot-air furnace, which
shall take its fresh air from above the top of the house and not from
the cellar itself or the surface of the earth, where micro-organisms
most abound. Let there be no annual house cleaning, but keep it clean
all the time, and have it gone through thoroughly at least four times
per year.

Of course a corner lot is always preferable, but how often it is
supposed that the benefit consists alone in a commanding position, in a
chance for architectural display, when the greatest boon is the
increased opportunity for sunlight. The atmosphere of a room where the
sun never shines is never agreeable or healthful. Science has taught us
that the sun is the source of all life. It will effect more than tons of
disinfectants and chemicals to purge and sweeten the air of a house. Let
the building be exposed to the south, and keep shade trees from
checking the sun too much. Verandas and broad piazzas often do as much
harm as they give pleasure--especially if they are all covered with
vines. Be more careful about plumbing than people are wont to be. Do not
practice economy by trying to cut down _plumbing_ bills. When a
contractor agrees to erect a house, either withhold this part from him
or see that he employs the most skilled labor. Ventilation cannot be
slighted, for upon it health greatly depends. If you can in any way
afford it, use _incandescent electric light_ instead of gas or oil. The
reason is a powerful one. An ordinary _gas_ jet destroys as much pure
air and oxygen as five men--a good-sized _oil lamp_ equal to three men.
Add to this the heat that comes from such methods, and we see the strong
advantage of the incandescent electric light. This vitiates no air,
gives off no perceptible heat. Though there are stories that electric
lights injure the eyes, from careful observation we find that it hurts
the eyes of the majority no more than any artificial light.

The _Sanitary News_ urges people not to paper or paint the interior
walls of houses. Arsenical poisons are used in coloring wall paper. Mold
collects in flour paste used in fastening paper to walls, absorbing
moisture and germs of disease. Glue also disintegrates, so that any
friction removes small particles, to which germs attach and float in the
air. Undecorated walls, ugly as they are, the _News_ insists are the
only healthy ones to live within.

Dr. Cushing, of this city, thus ends his lecture on "Healthful
Houses":--

"The essentials then of good house building are, first, a dry soil, a
good foundation, exposure to the sun, and, next, good plumbing by
reputable men at whatever cost necessary for first-class work, warming
and ventilating by open grates rather than by steam heaters and stoves,
clean floors and clean walls; and now, if there be no decomposition of
animal or vegetable matter allowed in the immediate vicinity of the
house, we shall have done the best that the present state of science
will permit toward making our houses healthful."

The Hotel Del Monte is the only perfectly clean hotel in America. It is
located at Monterey, Cal., not over a quarter of a mile from the ocean.
The prevailing winds are from the sea and would naturally blow over the
sands towards the house. Now the cause of dirt has virtually been killed
by the planting of trees, brush, and by the laying of asphaltum walks
and sod-ground drives on this windward side. The only dirt is that which
is brought there by travelers--this is easily kept down. The moral is
here: If possible prevent dust and dirt by stopping the cause.




CHAPTER IX.

     "Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide."


As we are hastily reading books and papers we continually come across
maxims, epigrams, and short, pithy sayings that attract us. We wish we
could not only remember them, but also often put them in practice, but
they slip our mind and actions almost immediately. From time to time the
author has collected fruit from the vast field of health of its kindred
subjects, and placed the best of them in this book for the reader's
careful consideration. Among the multitude of "Don'ts" for politeness
are the following for health alone:--

"Don't endeavor to rest the mind by absolute inactivity; let it seek its
rest in work in other channels, and thus rest the tired part of the
brain.

"Don't delude yourself into the belief that you are an exception as far
as sleep is concerned; the normal average of sleep is eight hours.

"Don't allow your servants to put meat and vegetables in the same
compartments of the refrigerator.

"Don't keep the parlor dark unless you value your carpet more than your
and your children's health.

"Don't forget that moral defects are as often the cause as they are the
effects of physical faults.

"Don't direct special mental or physical energies to more than eight
hours' work in each day.

"Don't neglect to have your dentist examine your teeth at least every
three months.

"Don't read, write, or do any delicate work unless receiving the light
from the left side.

"Don't pamper the appetite with such variety of food that may lead to
excess.

"Don't read in street-cars or other jolting vehicles.

"Don't eat or drink hot and cold things immediately in succession.

"Don't pick the teeth with pins or any other hard substance.

"Don't sleep in a room provided with stationary washstands.

"Don't neglect any opportunity to insure a variety of food."

There are many things we should _never_ do. Among them are:--

"Never go to bed with cold or damp feet.

"Never lean with the back upon anything that is cold.

"Never begin a journey until the breakfast has been eaten.

"Never take warm drinks and then immediately go out in the cold.

"Never ride in an open carriage or near the window of a car for a moment
after exercise; it is dangerous to health or even life.

"Never omit regular bathing, for unless the skin is in regular condition
the cold will close the pores and favor congestion or other diseases.

"Never stand still in cold weather, especially after having taken a
slight degree of exercise."

Perhaps among the following you may find succinctly stated what will be
of eminent value:--

"Focus your brain as you would a burning-glass. Butter enough for a
slice won't do for a whole loaf.

"Keep empty-headed between times. Mental furniture should be very
select. Useless lumber in the upper story is worse than a pocketful of
oyster shells. Leave your facts on your book shelves, where you can find
them when wanted. A walking encyclopedia cannot work for want of room
to turn round in his own head.

"Don't tax your memory. Make a memorandum, and put it in your pocket.
Every unnecessary thought is a waste of effective force.

"Don't believe that muscular exercise contracts head work. Brain and
muscle are bung-hole and spigot of the same barrel. It is poor economy
to keep both running.

"Pin your faith to the genius of hard work. It is the safest, most
reliable, and most manageable sort of genius.

"Amuse yourself. This is the first principle of good hard work. And the
second is like unto it.

"Don't work too much. It is quantity, not quality, that kills.
Therefore, work only in the day-time. Night was made for sleep. And loaf
on Sunday. Six days' work earns the right to go a-fishing, or to church,
or to any harmless diversion, on the seventh.

"Go to work promptly, but slowly. A late, hurried start keeps you out of
breath all day trying to catch up.

"When you stop work forget it. It spoils brains to simmer after a hard
boil.

"Feed regularly, largely, and slowly. Lose no meal; approach it
respectfully and give it gratefully. No more can be got out of a man
than is put into him.

"Sleep one-third of your whole life. How I hate the moralist who croaks
over time wasted in sleep. Besides, sleep is, on the whole, the most
satisfactory mode of existence."

Misconceivements.--"There are a number of mistakes made even by wise
people while passing through life. Prominent among them is the idea that
you must labor when you are not in a fit condition to do so; to think
that the more a person eats the healthier and stronger he will become;
to go to bed at midnight and rise at daybreak, and imagine that every
hour taken from sleep is an hour gained; to imagine that, if a little
work or exercise is good, violent and prolonged exercise is better; to
conclude that the smallest room in the house is large enough to sleep
in; to eat as if you had only a moment to finish a meal in, or to eat
without any appetite, or to continue after it has been satisfied,
merely to please the taste; to believe that children can do as much work
as grown people, and that the more hours they study the more they learn;
to imagine that whatever remedy causes one to feel immediately better
(as alcoholic stimulants) is good for the system, without regard to the
after-effects; to take off proper clothing out of season because you
have become heated; to sleep exposed to a direct draught; to think any
nostrum or patent medicine is a specific for all the diseases flesh is
heir to."

Weariness.--"A tramp knows what it is to be leg-weary, a farm laborer to
be body-weary, a literary man to be brain-weary, and a sorrowing man to
be soul-weary. The sick are often weary of life itself. Weariness is
generally a physiological 'ebb-tide,' which time and patience will
convert into a 'flow'. It is never well to whip or spur a worn-out
horse, except in the direst straits. If he mends his pace in obedience
to the stimulus, every step is a drop drawn from his life-blood.
Idleness is not one of the faults of the present age; weariness is one
of the commonest experiences. The checks that many a man draws on his
physiological resources are innumerable; and, as these resources are
strictly limited, like any other ordinary banking account, it is very
easy to bring about a balance on the wrong side. Adequate rest is one
kind of repayment to the bank, sound sleep is another, regular eating
and good digestion another. One day's holiday in the week and one or two
months in the year for those who work exceptionally hard usually bring
the credit balance to a highly favorable condition; and thus with care
and management physiological solvency is secured and maintained."

"What Produces Death.--Someone says that few men die of age. Almost all
persons die of disappointment, personal, mental, or bodily toil, or
accident. The passions kill men sometimes even suddenly. The common
expression, 'choked with passion,' has little exaggeration in it, for
even though not suddenly fatal, strong passions shorten life.
Strong-bodied men often die young; weak men live longer than the strong,
for the strong use their strength and the weak have none to use. The
latter take care of themselves, the former do not. As it is with the
body, so it is with the mind and temper. The strong are apt to break,
or, like the candle, run; the weak burn out. The inferior animals, which
live temperate lives, have generally their prescribed term of years. The
horse lives 25 years, the ox 15 or 20, the lion about 20, the hog 10 or
12, the rabbit 8, the guinea-pig 6 or 7. The numbers all bear proportion
to the time the animal takes to grow to its full size. But man, of all
animals, is one that seldom comes up to the average. He ought to live a
hundred years, according to the physiological law, for five times 20 are
100; but instead of that he scarcely reaches an average of four times
the growing period. The reason is obvious--man is not only the most
irregular and most intemperate, but the most laborious and hard-working
of all animals. He is always the most irritable of all animals, and
there is reason to believe, though we cannot tell what an animal
secretly feels, that more than any other animal man cherishes wrath to
keep it warm, and consumes himself with the fire of his own
reflections."

Provided you have babies in your family go through the following and see
if you can't train your child so it shall be among the last seventeen
mentioned:--

"Take your pencil and follow me, while we figure on what will happen to
the 1,000,000 of babies that will have been born in the last 1,000,000
seconds.

"I believe that is about the average--'one every time the clock ticks.'

"One year hence, if statistics don't belie us, we will have lost 150,000
of these little 'prides of the household.'

"A year later 53,000 more will be keeping company with those that have
gone before.

"At the end of the third year we find that 22,000 more have dropped by
the wayside.

"The fourth year they have become rugged little darlings, not nearly so
susceptible to infantile diseases, only 8,000 having succumbed to the
rigors imposed by the master.

"By the time they have arrived at the age of twelve years but a paltry
few hundred leave the track each year.

"After threescore years have come and gone we find less trouble in
counting the army with which we started in the fall of 1889.

"Of the 1,000,000 with which we began our count, but 370,000 remain;
630,000 have gone the way of all the world, and the remaining few have
forgotten that they ever existed. At the end of eighty, or, taking our
mode of reckoning, by the year 1969 A. D., there are still 97,000
gray-haired, shaky old grannies and grandfathers, toothless, hairless,
and happy.

"In the year 1984 our 1,000,000 babies with which we started in 1889
will have dwindled to an insignificant 223 helpless old wrecks,
'stranded on the shores of time.'

"In 1992 all but seventeen have left this mundane sphere forever, while
the last remaining wreck will probably, in seeming thoughtlessness,
watch the sands filter through the hour-glass of time, and die in the
year 1997 at the age of one hundred and eight.

"What a bounteous supply of food for reflection!"

"Laughter as a Health Promoter.--In his 'Problem of Health,' Dr. Greene
says that there is not the remotest corner or little inlet of the minute
blood-vessels of the human body that does not feel some wavelet from the
convulsions occasioned by good hearty laughter. The life principle, or
the central man, is shaken to its innermost depths, sending new tides of
life and strength to the surface, thus materially tending to insure good
health to the persons who indulge therein. The blood moves more rapidly
and conveys a different impression to all the organs of the body, as it
visits them on that particular mystic journey when the man is laughing,
from what it does at other times. For this reason every good hearty
laugh in which a person indulges tends to lengthen his life, conveying,
as it does, new and distinct stimulus to the vital forces."




CHAPTER X.

     "While bright-eyed science watches round."


A scientific investigation into the nature and causes of consumption
proves the immediate causes, apart from hereditary, to be dampness of
houses and localities. Of races, the negroes seem most liable, and the
Jews the most exempt. A french scientist has found that inhalation of
air containing a small amount of _hydrofluoric acid_ gas has a
remarkably good effect on _consumption_. In England good results were
obtained by inspiration of air mixed with _ozone_. That the disease
results chiefly from inactivity of the lungs is the statement of a
physician who maintains that the cure of the disease is a mechanical
question. The International Tuberculosis Congress lately held at Paris
admits that tuberculosis is contagious, can be transmitted from man to
animals, and _vice versa_, and is the same in men, women, and cattle.
Diseased milk is the most frequent agent of transmission, and with this
meat, particularly lightly cooked, as food. Predisposing causes are
sedentary life, overwork, mental anxiety, insufficient nourishment, in
general, anything calculated to lower the vitality. The congress has
discovered no remedy, only palliatives for tuberculosis. Catarrhs,
bronchitis, and other throat troubles have a tendency to develop into
pleurisy or consumption when neglected.

_Typhoid fever_ never affects the atmosphere, but it does affect water,
milk, ice, and meat. The eggs of a parasite from dogs, and hence more or
less infecting all waters to which dogs have access, appear to have an
unequaled facility of passage to all parts of the human system.

As for _surgical operations_, in a German paper are particulars of a
case in which the eye of a man was thrust out of its socket by a
parasite cyst in the rear, discovered by surgical exploration and
extracted. From a 5-year old boy an injured kidney was removed
successfully and the patient recovered. The bridge of the nose was
completely restored by using the breast-bone of a chicken and stretching
the flesh of the old nose over it.

Even the part of a destroyed nerve of the arm was restored by the
substitution of a part of a sound nerve from an amputated limb, so that
the continuity was restored and sensation returned in 36 hours!
Prematurely-born children are kept in an artificial mother, which
consists of a glass case warmed by bowls of water. A new opiate has been
discovered called the sulsonal. It produces sleep in nervous people and
those affected with heart disease, but not in healthy subjects. The idea
that sufferers from heart disease should avoid physical exertion has
been dispelled by a noted physiologist who has successfully employed
regulated exercise.

Brown-S'equard has brought out his great Vital Fluid. He is reported as
saying: "I never made use of the word 'elixir,' still less of the words
'elixir of life.' These are all expressions or inventions of sensational
newspapers. If quacks or ignorant men in America have killed people, as
stated by the New York papers, they would have avoided committing those
murders had they paid the least attention to the most elementary rules
as regards the subcutaneous injection of animal substances. Injections
of animal matter have no danger, as a rule, unless the substances begin
to be decomposed. When this condition of things exists, no good can be
obtained, and there is grave danger of inflammation, abscesses, and even
death."

"Professor Brown-S'equard is reported to have lately informed the French
Academy of Sciences that, by condensing the watery vapor coming from the
human lungs, he obtained a poisonous liquid capable of producing almost
immediate death. The poison is an alkaloid (organic), and not a microbe
or series of microbes. He injected this liquid under the skin of a
rabbit and the effect was speedily mortal without convulsions. Dr.
S'equard said it was fully proved that respired air contains a volatile
element far more dangerous than the carbonic acid which is one of its
constituents, and that the human breath contains a highly poisonous
agent. This startling fact should be borne in mind by the occupants of
crowded horse-cars and ill-ventilated apartments."

"A very curious geographical distribution of certain virtues and vices
has been mooted by a scientist. Intemperance is mostly found above
latitude 48 degrees, amatory aberrations south of the forty-fifth,
financial extravagance in large seaports, industrial thrift, in pastoral
highland regions."

"Advance in Hygienic Clothing.--The new cellular clothing now coming
into use in England is said to be a success. It is woven out of the same
materials as the common weaves of cloth, being simply, as its name
indicates, closely woven into cells, the network of which is covered
over with a thin fluff. Its porous quality allows the slow passing of
the outside and inside air, giving time for the outside air to become of
the same temperature as the body, obviating all danger of catching
colds, and allowing vapors constantly exhaled by the body to pass off,
thus contributing toward health and cleanliness. The common objection to
cotton clothing--that it is productive of chills and colds--is removed
if woven in this manner, and the invention can certainly be said to be
strictly in accordance with hygienic and scientific principles."

The annual death rate, in 1888, for the principal cities of the world,
per 1,000 inhabitants, was: San Francisco, Cleveland, Stockholm, 17;
Bristol, Dresden, 18; Chicago, Cincinnati, Edinburgh, London, Turin, 19;
Berlin, Baltimore, Brussels, Buffalo, Liverpool, Philadelphia,
Pittsburg, 20; Brooklyn, St. Louis, Tokyo, 21; Amsterdam, Christiana,
Paris, Washington, 22; Glasgow, 23; Copenhagen, 24; Bombay, Boston, New
Orleans, Pesth, Venice, Vienna, 25; Breslau, Calcutta, Manchester, New
York, Prague, Rotterdam, 26; Dublin, 27; Rome, 28; Hamburg, Munich, 29;
Trieste, 30; Buda Pesth, St. Petersburg, 32; Alexandria, 38; Madras, 40;
and Cairo, 51.

The death rate among the poor and rich respectively varies much. In
Paris the death rate per 1,000 inhabitants between 40 and 50 years in
easy circumstances was 8.3 against 18.7 among the poor. In London are
some districts of the wealthy classes where the rate was 11.3 against 38
in the slums. The mean age at death among the gentry was 55 years, while
among the workers it was 20-1/2 years. It was found that only 8% of the
children of the upper classes died in their first year against 19% in
the general population of Liverpool and 33% in the slums of that city.
Deaths from consumption were nearly one-fourth of all deaths among the
poor, and only one-eighteenth among the rich.

The above facts and figures cannot fail to set every intelligent person
who reads them to thinking of this great health problem.




HAPPINESS.




CHAPTER XI.

HAPPINESS.


    "The learned is happy Nature to explore,
    The fool is happy that he knows no more."


Happiness is defined by Webster as an agreeable feeling or condition of
the soul arising from good of any kind; the possession of those
circumstances or that state of being which is attended with enjoyment;
the state of being happy; felicity; blessedness: bliss; joyful
satisfaction.

_Happiness_ is generic and applied to almost every kind of enjoyment
except that of the animal appetites; _felicity_ is a more formal word,
and is used more sparingly in the same general sense, but with elevated
associations; _blessedness_ is applied to the most refined enjoyment
arising from the purest social, benevolent, and religious affections;
_bliss_ denotes still more exalted delight, and is applied more
appropriately to the joy anticipated in heaven.

Happiness is only comparative, and we drink it in, in the exact ratio of
our understanding to interpret the justice of the divinity within us.
The first pre-requisite is_ wisdom_, the second is like unto it, _more
wisdom_, and the third sufficient understanding to know that it is
wisdom.

    "It is easy enough to be pleasant,
      When life flows by like a song,
    But the man worth while is one who will smile
      When everything goes dead wrong.
    For the test of the heart is trouble,
      And it always comes with the years,
    And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
      Is the smile that shines through tears.

    "It is easy enough to be prudent
      When nothing tempts you to stray,
    When without or within no voice of sin
      Is luring your soul away.
    But it's only a negative virtue
      Until it is tried by fire,
    And the life that is worth the honor of earth
      Is the one that resists desire.

    "By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
      Who had no strength for the strife,
    The world's highway is cumbered to-day,
      They make up the item of life,
    But the virtue that conquers passion,
      And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
    It is these that are worth the homage of earth,
      For we find them but once in a while."
                                     --_Ella Wheeler Wilcox._

We possess none of the attributes save in a degree only, any one of
which can be intensified, brightened, or benefited by our thoughts and
actions. The shortest road to happiness, after having cleansed your
body, actions, and thoughts, is to "do all the good you can, in all the
ways you can, to all living creatures you can, just as long as you can."
The more unselfish you become, the less you think of personal comfort,
and the more pleasure you take in the comforts of others, the deeper and
broader will the fountains of your own happiness become. There is no
class of people who have equal happiness or bliss pictured upon their
countenances to those who practice and teach the universal brotherhood
of man without regard to race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

Happiness is like manna. It is to be "gathered in grains and enjoyed
every day; it will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor need we go
out of ourselves nor into remote places to gather it, since it is rained
down from heaven at our very doors, or, rather, within them."

George Macdonald says: "A man must not choose his neighbor; he must take
the neighbor that God sends him. In him, whoever he be, lies hidden or
revealed a beautiful brother. Any rough-hewn semblance of humanity will
at length be enough to move the man to reverence and affection."

And there is a still more extensive love, urges Charles Mackay:--

    "You love your fellow-creatures? So do I,--
    But underneath the wide paternal sky
    Are there no fellow-creatures in your ken
    That you can love except your fellow-men?
    Are not the grass, the flowers, the trees, the birds,
    The faithful beasts, true-hearted, without words,
    Your fellows also, howsoever small?
    He's the best lover who can love them all."

There are certain principles that lead to positive happiness. One of
these is the avoiding of mistakes. "What have been termed 'the fourteen
mistakes of life' are given as follows: It is a great mistake to set up
our own standard of right and wrong and judge people accordingly; to
measure the enjoyment of others by our own; to expect uniformity of
opinion in this world; to look for judgment and experience in youth; to
endeavor to mould all dispositions alike; not to yield to immaterial
trifles; to look for perfection in our own actions; to worry ourselves
and others with what cannot be remedied; not to alleviate all that needs
alleviation as far as lies in our power; not to make allowances for the
infirmities of others; to consider everything impossible that we cannot
perform; to believe only what our finite minds can grasp; to expect to
be able to understand everything. The greatest of mistakes is to live
for time alone when any moment may launch us into eternity."

Ignorance is a state of happiness that many fairly intellectual people
cite as well worthy of emulation; but those who assert it have not
understood, or attempted to fathom, how shallow is this lake of
knownothingness called "ignorance." Only a slight ripple can be seen on
the bosom of a shallow lake during the most fearful storm, yet but a
slight zephyr is needed to show the white caps upon the grand old ocean,
and at the least provocation of a storm "see how she causes the
continents to tremble, showing her great depth and majesty." If in the
presence of this happy, ignorant personage, we place the most beautiful
piece of statuary or painting, or produce the most startling of
Shakespeare's plays, with the best living talent, or have the most
gifted vocalist sing the most difficult _aria_, or have a panorama of
the pyramid Jeezeh, Eiffel Tower, Washington Monument, Philadelphia City
Hall, Cologne Cathedral, all actual size, and such of nature's grandest
views as the Yosemite Fall, and Father of the Forest, we would look upon
this happy individual and listen in breathless silence for his opinion.
Well, what of it? what is to prevent it? would be the reply. But note
the difference even in a cultured child; see the gentle cheek turn from
pale pink to livid carmine, the heart pant, the bosom heave, and the
whole form, for the time being, feel itself suspended in the air. To the
above picture, add cultured, ripe old age, and the enjoyment, ecstasy,
and pure happiness that would follow could only be measured by the
difference between where _we_ stand and the _end_ of space!

Prerequisites in the begetting of wisdom are, first, you must be regular
in everything you do, act, or think. This will give you health. Second,
you must be regular, cleanly, temperate, and moral. This will start you
on the road to happiness. Third, in addition to the first and second
propositions, you must exercise self-control in all its aspects if you
would have health, be happy, and live to excessive old age, before the
culmination of which you will possess wisdom of no ordinary character.

Let the legend that "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands
mourn," cease, and in its place have, "The universal brotherhood of man
removes the shackles of inhumanity, replacing them by bands of love."
This will elevate the trend of human thought, and every zephyr of human
intellect will gather and multiply until a cyclone of happiness
envelopes the earth; like love it will seem but a soothing breeze to the
human heart, so gentle will fall its benign influences.

This brings us to the point where every person is led to look to each of
the four points of the compass and there exclaim, "Who or what is God?"
This is the first thing upon which intelligent beings should render a
decision; mankind can only approximate happiness until they have
settled in their own mind this point. It is not imperative that your
decision should cover _all_ the truth or the _only_ truth in regard to
Deity, but it should preclude all doubt on the part of the person so
deciding. There is just as much inconsistency in the statement that we
know who and what is God in his physical proportions, just where He or
It resides, and just what relation It or He holds toward the human
monad, man, as there is in the assertion, "There is no God."

There is no harm, however, in asserting our belief in _one_ God, the
Trinity, or a great First Cause. If we believe it and shape our lives
accordingly, true light will be given sufficient to satisfy each
searcher after the Truth; and he or they will advance to some other
belief just when it is necessary. The exultant Methodist receives his
light in one form, and the quiet Quaker in another. The devout Catholic
represents still another type of ritualistic form, and the Wisdom
Religionist (Theosophist) seems to get his from Nature, and finds some
good in everything. With the 1,100 other different kinds of faith, there
should be no complaint on our part of a variety from which to choose.

We offer not as anything new, but as something possibly forgotten, the
following formulae for obtaining happiness, _viz._: (1) The carrying out
in our lives and actions the Golden Rule; (2) total unselfishness as
regards self; (3) trying to excel all others in doing what the world
calls _good_; (4) condemning no one until we have heard both sides of the
question in dispute; (5) having the same tender compassion for all the
lower animals that you exercise towards the human family; (6) following
out consistently some religious belief, and, until you are convinced of
a better one, defending it; (7) above all other things, having charity
for every person's short-comings and belief. Add to these a few
intrinsic principles: (1) Happiness is no other than soundness and
perfection of mind; (2) there are two ways of being happy--we may either
diminish our wants or augment our means--either will do, the result is
the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that
which happens to be the easiest; (3) happiness is a road-side flower
growing on the highways of usefulness; (4) carry the radiance of your
soul in your face; let the world have the benefit of it; (5) learn the
lesson embodied in this little poem:--

    THE TWO WORKERS.

    "Two workers in one field
      Toiled on from day to day,
    Both had the same hard labor,
      Both had the same small pay;
    With the same blue sky above,
      The same green grass below,
    One soul was full of love,
      The other full of woe.

    "One leaped up with the light,
      With the soaring of the lark;
    One felt it ever night,
      For his soul was ever dark.
    One heart was hard as stone,
      One heart was ever gay;
    One worked with many a groan,
      One whistled all the day.

    "One had a flower-clad cot
      Beside a merry mill;
    Wife and children near the spot
      Made it sweeter, fairer still.
    One a wretched hovel had,
      Full of discord, dirt, and din,
    No wonder he seemed mad,
      Wife and children starved within.

    "Still they worked in the same field,
      Toiled on from day to day,
    Both had the same hard labor,
      Both had the same small pay;
    But they worked not with one will:
      The reason let me tell--
    Lo! the one drank at the still,
      And the other at the well."

(6) Embody in your lives the better idea of this poem, "Where Do You
Live," by Josephine Pollard:--

    "I knew a man, and his name was Horner,
    Who used to live on Grumble Corner:
    Grumble Corner, in Cross-Patch Town,
    And he was never seen without a frown.
    He grumbled at this; he grumbled at that;
    He growled at the dog; he growled at the cat;
    He grumbled at morning; he grumbled at night;
    And to grumble and growl were his chief delight.

    "He grumbled so much at his wife that she
    Began to grumble as well as he;
    And all the children, wherever they went,
    Reflected their parents' discontent.
    If the sky was dark and betokened rain,
    Then Mr. Horner was sure to complain;
    And, if there was never a cloud about,
    He'd grumble because of a threatened drought.

    "His meals were never to suit his taste;
    He grumbled at having to eat in haste;
    The bread was poor, or the meat was tough,
    Or else he hadn't had half enough.
    No matter how hard his wife might try
    To please her husband, with scornful eye
    He'd look around, and then, with a scowl
    At something or other, begin to growl.

    "One day, as I loitered about the street,
    My old acquaintance I chanced to meet,
    Whose face was without the look of care
    And the ugly frown which it used to wear.
    'I may be mistaken, perhaps,' I said,
    As, after saluting, I turned my head;
    'But it is, and it isn't, the Mr. Horner
    Who lived for so long on Grumble Corner!'

    "I met him next day; and I met him again,
    In melting weather, and pouring rain,
    When stocks were up and when stocks were down;
    But a smile somehow had replaced the frown.
    It puzzled me much; and so one day
    I seized his hand in a friendly way,
    And said: 'Mr. Horner, I'd like to know
    What can have happened to change you so?'

    "He laughed a laugh that was good to hear,
    For it told of a conscience calm and clear,
    And he said, with none of the old-time drawl,
    'Why, I've changed my residence, that is all!'
    'Changed your residence?' 'Yes,' said Horner,
    'It wasn't healthy on Grumble Corner,
    And so I moved; 'twas a change complete;
    And you'll find me now on Thanksgiving Street!'

    "Now, every day as I move along
    The streets so filled with the busy throng,
    I watch each face and can always tell
    Where men and women and children dwell;
    And many a discontented mourner
    Is spending his days on Grumble Corner,
    Sour and sad, whom I long to entreat
    To take a house on Thanksgiving Street."




CHAPTER XII.

     "Gold can gild a rotten stick and dirt sully an ingot."


Aids to Morality.--"Many imagine that the only ways in which public and
private morality can be improved," says the Philadelphia _Ledger_, "are
those definite and direct methods which appeal at once to the conscience
and the heart. Preaching and teaching, persuading and warning, exhorting
and encouraging, are instrumentalities worthy of all honor, and those
whose abilities qualify them for such tasks should receive every
possible stimulus to exert them in so noble a cause. But it is a great
mistake to suppose that these are the only means to promote morality.
Every truly civilizing influence is also a reforming one. By this we do
not mean that miscalled civilization which multiplies wants, and
increases luxury and develops refinement in a few, at the expense of the
many, but that advancement of mind and of knowledge, which is forever
disclosing better methods of living and diffusing them among the whole
people. Dr. Howard Crosby, president of the Society for the Prevention
of Crime, in New York, and who has had wide opportunities of observing
the condition of morality in that city, has recently declared that the
moral condition of New York has vastly improved during the past few
years, and that fifty years ago, although there was far less of the
foreign element than there is now, a low condition of morality existed
that would not be tolerated at the present time. What is true of New
York in this respect is equally true of our other cities, and if there
be any pessimist who points to the well-known corruptions and vices
which still exist as a refutation of this statement, we would remind
him that the very fact that such things are now brought to the light,
discussed, and condemned, is a proof that they are on the decline. When
a community is deeply sunk in immorality, little or no comment is made
on the fact. When we come to seek into the causes of this improvement,
we shall find that among the most prominent are the practical results of
scientific progress and the civilizing tendencies of the age. There is
no question that dirt, disease, and darkness are prevalent sources of
vice and crime, and whatever influences are brought to bear against them
will also press heavily against immorality. The increasing value set
upon health, as shown alike in sanitary laws and regulations and in the
greater willingness manifested by the community to understand and adopt
hygienic modes of life, is beyond dispute. The improvements in house
building and drainage; the introduction of water, pure and plentiful;
the freer admission of fresh air; the better systems of ventilation; the
brilliant lighting up of our city streets--all contribute to the
prevention of crime and to the spread of a higher type of morality,
while increasing the health, peace, and comfort of the community. And
when to all these we add the better and wider education given to the
rising generation than was thought possible fifty years ago, we shall
find abundant reason for the moral advancement which has been made.
There are some persons who feel quite powerless to help on the cause of
reform, or to improve the moral character of a single individual,
because they have no gift for influencing men by direct appeal. They
have, perhaps, tried and failed, and so, although they would like to do
some good in the world, they are hopeless of any success. Let such take
courage as they remember how many indirect, yet most effectual, methods
there are of accomplishing this end. Let them look over the multitudes
of civilizing agencies that are silently working in the interests of
morality, and attach themselves to such as most heartily engage their
interest. Every intelligent individual must be in sympathy with some of
them; and it is just there that his services are needed and will be most
valuable. Nor let him make the mistake of supposing that he is thus
working upon a lower or inferior plane. It is in works of benevolence
and reform, just as in all other kinds of work--that which a man can do
best is the very best thing for him to do. So, if one man is interested
in sanitary schemes and another in evening schools; if one is anxious
for free libraries and another for free parks; if one can help to secure
good roads and clean streets and another can aid in protecting children
or dumb animals from ill-treatment, let each be assured that in such
exertions he is doing his share in promoting morality and in elevating
character as surely and as effectually as those whose peculiar province
it is to teach or to preach, to admonish or to advise."

If the butcher's trade begets in him, the butcher, a disposition to use
the knife more indiscriminately, and causes him to look upon the taking
of life indifferently and unconcernedly, so that in a majority of the
States he is disqualified from sitting upon a murderer's jury, there
then must be something not only in the associations we keep but in the
business we follow.

The average lawyer tries by every known means to clear his client. In
50% of the cases handled by 50% of the attorneys their clients are
guilty and they know it. They do not break the law of their State or
country simply because the laws in the main are made to screen the
evil-doers and not the honest citizen. But how they can do this and
affiliate with any one of the 1,100 different faiths, or attend their
church organizations or services sincerely, is more than we can surmise.
In contrast, however, we must mention an isolated case that has reached
us well authenticated. A very prominent and able lawyer of New York
City, who had the reputation of never losing a case, was accosted by a
well-known offender of the law on trial for felony before the court of
Oyer and Terminer. The attorney invited the would-be client into his
private office and had him state his case. He finished, and the lawyer
remarked, "You are guilty." "Well, I know that," replied the culprit,
"that is why I want your services--you never lose a case." "Sir," said
the lawyer, "you have come to the wrong office. I have never failed in
any case before the courts; I account for it from the fact that I have
never espoused a cause where I knew the client was guilty. Knowing I was
right, I have thrown my whole soul into it, and won."

Gossip.--There is a vast deal of unhappiness in this world caused by
gossip. Dr. J. G. Holland presents helpful ideas in the following:--

"What is the cure for gossip?--Simply culture. There is a great deal of
gossip that has no malignity in it. Good-natured people talk about their
neighbors because they have nothing else to talk about. As we write,
there comes to us the picture of a family of young ladies. We have seen
them at home, we have met them in galleries of art, we have caught
glimpses of them going from a book store or library with a fresh volume
in their hands. When we meet them they are full of what they have seen
and read. They are brimming with questions. One topic of conversation is
dropped only to give place to another in which they are interested. We
have left them after a delightful hour, stimulated and refreshed, and
during the whole hour not a neighbor's garment was soiled by so much as
a touch. They had something to talk about. They knew something, and
wanted to know more. They could listen as well as they could talk. To
speak freely of a neighbor's doings and belongings would have seemed an
impertinence to them, and, of course, an impropriety. They had no
temptation to gossip, because the doings of their neighbors formed a
subject very much less interesting than those which grew out of their
knowledge and their culture.

"And this tells the whole story. The confirmed gossip is always either
malicious or ignorant. The one variety needs a change of heart and the
other a change of pasture. Gossip is always a personal confession either
of malice or imbecility, and the young should not only shun it, but, by
most thorough culture, relieve themselves from all temptation to indulge
in it. It is a low, frivolous, and, too often, a dirty business. There
are neighborhoods in which it rages like a pest. Churches are split in
pieces by it. Neighbors are made enemies by it for life. In many
persons it degenerates into a chronic disease, which is practically
incurable. Let the young cure it while they may."

Married Life.--As the family is the center about which all life
revolves, it is absolutely essential to have happy relations there.
Husbands too often neglect their wives and homes. "Women are lonely,"
says Mrs. Annie Jenness. "They miss their husbands. What amount of
companionship exists between the American woman and the man? He starts
for his office as soon as his breakfast is hurriedly swallowed. He does
not come home at the lunch hour. He is barely in season for a late
dinner. Very possibly he belongs to a club and has an engagement as soon
as dinner is done.

"If not that, his head is in bank or counting-house, and he studies the
stock quotations in the night's paper, and counts, as against a possible
rise of wheat, the day's gossip, with which his wife is overflowing,
very small potatoes. They have callers, or they go to opera or theater.
It may easily happen that they do not spend ten minutes in conversation
with each other during the day. American men are always in a hurry. They
seem to live for the sole purpose of catching trains. They have no time
to amuse or be amused.

"The conditions of modern life separate them from women. The lives of
men grow more and more simple--business comprehends the whole. The lives
of women grow more and more complex--everything which is not business is
given over to them. A man past the romantic epoch, who honestly enjoys
talking with women, is not an average mortal. The every-day sort of man
takes pains to be detained somewhere until all the guests have departed
from his wife's 5 o'clock tea. The couple live in different worlds. The
world is now discussing why marriage is a failure, if it is? Then
consider this collection of reasons:--

"When either of the parties marry for money.

"When the lord of creation pays more for cigars than his better half
does for hosiery, boots, and bonnets.

"When one of the parties engages in a business that is not approved by
the other.

"When both parties persist in arguing over a subject upon which they
never have and never can think alike.

"When neither husband nor wife takes a vacation.

"When the vacations are taken by one side of the house only.

"When a man attempts to tell his wife what style of bonnet she must
wear.

"When a man's Christmas presents to his wife consist of boot-jacks,
shirts, and gloves for himself.

"When the watchword is, 'Each for himself.'

"When dinner is not ready at dinner-time.

"When 'he' snores his loudest while 'she' kindles the fire.

"When 'father' takes half of the pie and leaves the other half for the
one that made it and her eight children.

"When the children are given the neck and back of the chicken.

"When children are obliged to clamor for their rights.

"When the money that should go for a book goes for what only one side of
the house knows anything about.

"When there is too much latch-key.

"When politeness, fine manners, and kindly attentions are reserved for
company or visits abroad."




CHAPTER XIII.

     "The greatest friend of truth is time."

WHAT WE INHERIT FROM THE PAST.


The world moves only through the constant accumulation and conservation
of force--the force of mind. We are not capable of conceiving the
immense wastage of this force from year to year and from century to
century. If we produce a great inventor we are ignorantly proud of him.
We wonder at him as if he were a miracle. A great thinker in mechanics,
in art, in science, in letters, astonishes as if he were a prodigy, when
he is really only an approach to what all men have the right to be, to
what all men may become when the right mind has applied to it the right
compelling power of suggestion from the force of other minds. As surely
as the plant is involved in its seed, so surely is all the progress of
the future involved in the thought of the past, recorded in books as far
as it is possible to record it at all. The telephone, the telegraph, the
phonograph, the steam-engine, the power loom--every result of the
application of mind in the subjection of matter--existed in the minds of
men and was recorded in books years before the thought gave suggestion
to the mind which applied it practically. Back of the mind of the great
thinker in poetry, in statesmanship, in science, in mechanics, is the
conserved force of the minds preceding him. But what does it all avail
if it is wasted? We may have now a thousand Edisons, Fultons, Morses and
Maurys, inert and practically useless because of force unapplied that
might set them in motion to make the lives of millions, born and unborn,
easier and happier. We have poets, statesmen, scientists, and inventors
as unknown and unproductive as the worms which change them into
productive forms of matter in country church-yards, where some Gray
finds them and touches us with a sense of their loss to us without
suggesting the remedy. What remedy is there if it is not this of making
the suggested possibility of the past the endeavor of the present and
the achievement of the future? How is that possible, if we regard our
capable men as miracles, when our own incapacity to understand is the
only miracle when we leave the great possibilities of mind in unnumbered
"thousands to die with the matter of their bodies? Charity builds a
small-pox hospital and men bless it--rightly. It benefits its hundreds
and its thousands. The same benevolence, operating under the force of
the conserved energy of mind, discovers vaccination, and so benefits
millions and tens of millions for ages after the small-pox hospital is
back in the clay from which its bricks were burned. There is here no
parallel possible between the results achieved--those of the one hand so
immensely exceed those of the other. The whole problem of the present
and future is to bring the accumulated force of suggestion from the past
to bear on the given point--on the mind of the living man, capable in
possibility, and failing to achieve only for lack of stimulus--of force,
of power--as a steam-engine is incapable without force applied from
without. And as it is the last shovel of coal that sets the engine to
work, so the mind, prepared for the final suggestion that is to give it
its highest usefulness, will remain inert if the suggestion fails it.
These suggestions may come from nature or directly from other minds, but
in the main they come from the force of mind preserved in books. Can
there be any greater, any more capable benevolence, than that which
gives this force its widest possible application? A million dollars may
endow a hospital for a century. Half as much in an endowment making a
library free may bring pressure to bear on some brain, that, as a
result, will save more suffering for the human race than has been saved
by vaccination."




LONGEVITY.




CHAPTER XIV.

LONGEVITY.

    "Tell me not in mournful numbers,
      Life is but an empty dream,
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
      And things are not what they seem."

     How long shall a man live? That depends entirely upon the
     _Liver!_--_Punch.


If you have read with care the preceding chapters of this work, and
paused between the lines to reflect, you will not now have to be retold
our panacea for a long life. By this we mean the usually allotted
three-score and ten, or also the 120 years given as the limit in
Genesis, 3rd and 6th chapters. These ages, however, are not common in
any country or age. There are many instances of 70 years, but not enough
to be called common, while it is the "survival of the fittest" that
reach 120 years.

In the United States only 5.6% of population are above 60 years and
probably not more than 4-1/2% are over 70 years. Norway has the best
record, with 9% of the population above the age of 60. Japan has
1,182,000 people over 70 years, but only 73 of these are over 100, and 1
alone has reached the age of 111 years. Probably the oldest human being
living in the United States at this writing is the old Indian named
Gabriel, residing at or near Castroville, Cal., 100 miles south of San
Francisco. He has an authentic history of 146 years, and he is believed
to be over 150 years old. But for real characteristic longevity, we must
visit the mountain fastnesses of Thibet, in Asia, where live a number of
specimens of the human family that have a recorded history back to the
latter part of the 16th century.

We have previously told you that by regularity alone man may reach the
age of 100 years. Now we intend to treat more the possibilities of how
long it is possible for mankind to retain all their mental faculties and
enjoy sufficient vital force to battle with the world for a livelihood.
We are led to believe, like Dr. Wm. A. Hammond, a prominent physician of
New York City "that there is no physiological reason at the present day
why man should die." (Further on we give more of the Doctor's theory.)
Just so long, however, as there are no paid teachers to show how not to
get sick, how to keep the physique and mind from tiring, the heart from
growing weary and discontented, just so long will the average of life
remain under 40 years and the grave-yards continue to be populated.
There are hundreds of reasons why this or that clan or sect live longer
than the other sect or clan, but what we wish to convey is that none of
them live out all their days. For instance, in comparison with other
nations not mentioned, the German can drink more beer, the Frenchman
more wine, the Russian more pure spirits, the Englishman more brandy,
and the American more whisky, before harm is perceptible, likewise the
Chinese can smoke more opium and the Russian a stronger cigarette, and
more of them, before harm is apparent to others. No matter what an
individual's creed, color, or nationality, if he be intelligent and
clearly endowed with the five known senses, he does know that any
narcotic, no matter of what nature, even if it is as mild as steeped tea
leaves and as odorless as pure water, is a detriment to some one of the
senses. As each sense is dulled, the others must sympathize with it; so
it will not require an instrument to measure to the .001 part of an
inch, or to a single vibration of the violet ray, to test the degree of
injury that the human structure received for each variation from the
path of perfection.

If perfection of climate is sought, perfect sanitation obtained,
regularity, cleanliness, uprightness, temperance, and self-control
practiced, if the bodily waste is supplied with nature's fruits, grains,
vegetables, and herbs, if drinking is done at nature's fountain for
thirst, life will be prolonged to see the light in more than one
century. Finally, add to that, if self is forgotten, and only the
comfort of others remembered and regarded, life may be indefinitely
prolonged.

M. Chevreul, the eminent French scientist, died April 9, 1889, aged 103
years. "On the 31st day of August, 1886, he attained the age of 100
years, and was still in vigorous health, and with all his faculties
unimpaired. The occasion 'was celebrated by the students of Paris, among
whom he is a great favorite, and by the French people generally, with
enthusiasm.' The Paris _Journal Illustre_ seized upon the opportunity to
interview him in a manner that is described as marking 'an era in this
line of journalistic enterprise. Not only were his words taken down
_verbatim_, but his various attitudes while speaking were photographed
by the instantaneous process, and engraved,' twelve illustrations being
given in the interview. M. Chevreul is an important figure in the
scientific world, and the interview contains many useful lessons in
hygiene and philosophy, not the least of which is described by his
interviewer as an exposition of the 'chemical secret of longevity.' In a
condensed form, it is as follows: He regards longevity as a great
blessing, and declares that the method by which it may be secured is
easy to learn; but I think that with many people it would be difficult
to follow. He laid down the proposition that the larger proportion of
the human race die of disease and not of old age. Now, he finds that
while we should especially guard against drawing general conclusions
from particular cases, yet it is nevertheless true that the study of
particular cases may and should conduct us to general precepts. It is
necessary for each one to study his personal aptitudes, and conform to
them with a constant firmness. Every _r'egim'e_ is personal, and 'I cannot
too much insist upon this essential point, that what is suitable for one
may not be for another. It is, then, important for each one to note well
what is adapted to his own constitution. Thus, I have the same aversion
to fish as to fermented liquors, especially to wine, also a distaste for
a large number of vegetables, and I could never drink milk. Shall I
conclude, then, that fish, that the vegetables which I do not relish,
and milk, are not nutritive?--Certainly not; for I judge by a general
rule and not by my own idiosyncrasies. Coffee and chocolate agree with
me; the latter is especially nutritive, and gives me an appetite for
food. It is for me an aperient. Shall I conclude from this that
chocolate would give everybody an appetite?'

"He maintains a barometric exactness and regularity in all the habits of
his daily life,--eats at fixed hours, takes his time, and leaves the
table with some appetite for more. He says he remembers the words of the
wise man, 'The stomach has slain more men than war,' and that the
Spartans proscribed those citizens who were too fat.

"I use little salt or spices, and but little coffee, and I flee as from
a pest from all those excitants of which I feel no need, and from all
tobacco and alcoholics in whatever form they may present themselves.'

"He divides his day, the morning to exact science, the middle of the day
to philosophy, and the evening to music and poetry. 'But above all, no
discussion at the table. One should only eat with a calm spirit. Let the
dining-room remain the dining-room, and never be turned into a room for
argument. Discussion while eating is a cushion of needles in the
stomach.'"

Dr. Felix L. Oswald has made the following brilliant conclusions in the
"Curiosities of Longevity:"--

"Among the centenarians of all nations and all times, a significant
plurality were either rustics, or city dwellers addicted to outdoor
pursuits. Centenarians are remarkably frequent among the bailiff-ridden
boors of Southern Russia, and the five oldest persons of modern times
were care-worn if not abjectly poor villagers: Peter Czartan, who died
in a hamlet near Belgrade, 1724, in his _hundred and eighty-fifth year_;
the Russian beggar Kamartzik, a native of Polotzk, who reached an age of
one hundred and sixty-three years, and died in consequence of an
accident; the fisherman Jenkins, who, in spite of life-long penury,
lived at least a century and a half (the estimate of his neighbors
varying from one hundred and fifty-eight to one hundred and sixty-nine
years); the negress Truxo, who died in slavery on the plantation of a
Tucuman physician, in her hundred and seventy-fifth year; and the
day-laborer, Thomas Parr, who attained the pretty-well-authenticated age
of one hundred and fifty-two years, and who died a few weeks after his
removal from country air and indigence to comfort and city quarters. If
dietetic restrictions tend to prolong human life, the rule would seem to
be chiefly confirmed by its exceptions. The children of Israel are apt
to ascribe their certainly remarkable longevity to the Mosaic interdict
of hogs' flesh....

"John H. Brown, M. D., the Berwick AEsculapius, enumerates a long list of
patients who had postponed their funeral by following his plan of
systematic hygiene--the plan, namely, of 'toning down' plethora by
bleeding and cathartics, and of 'toning up' debility by means of beef
and brandy. But sixteen hundred years ago the philosopher Lucian called
attention to the exceptional longevity of the Pythagorean ascetics,
whose religious by-laws enjoined total abstinence from wine and all
sorts of animal food. The naturalist Brehm describes the robust physique
of a Soudan chieftain who, at the reputed age of one hundred and six
years, could hurl a stone with force sufficient to kill a jackal at a
distance of fifty yards, and thought nothing of starving for a week or
two if his foragers happened to return empty-handed. But the same
traveler mentions that his swarthy Nestor now and then compensated such
fasts by barbecues lasting from ten to twenty-four hours, and including
a _m'elange_ of marrow-fat and pepper-grass, besides dozens of
hard-boiled crane's eggs, jerboa stew, and deep draughts of clarified
butter. Long fasts certainly enhance the vigor of the digestive organs,
but the net result of repeating such experiments seems rather difficult
to reconcile with the experience of Luigi Cornaro, the Venetian
reformer, who managed to outlive all his cousins and schoolmates, and
ascribed his success to the mathematical regularity of his bill of fare,
which, during the last sixty years of his self-denying existence, had
been limited to twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of
fluids--wine chiefly, a beverage which the Soudanese emir would have
rejected with a snort of virtuous horror. Dr. Virchow, though by no
means an advocate of total abstinence, admits that the longevity of the
Semitic desert-dwellers can be explained only by their caution in the
use of stimulants--a virtue which in their case would, indeed, appear to
offset an unusual number of circumstantial disadvantages--thirst, fiery
suns, and fiery passions being decidedly unpropitious to length of life.

"And here, at last, we may strike a bit of _terra firma_ in the
quicksands of speculative hygiene. 'Take a hundred different animals,'
says the sanitarian Schrodt, and you will find them to prefer a hundred
different sorts of solid food, but they all drink milk in infancy, and
afterward water; and considering the infinite variety of comestibles a
healthy human stomach contrives to digest, we might very well agree to
deserve that privilege by limiting the variety of our beverages.'
Instinct certainly abhors the first taste of alcoholic liquors, and
statistics prove that in all climes and among all nations the
disease-resisting power of the human organism is diminished by the
habitual use of toxic stimulants. Mohammed, Buddha, and Zoroaster agree
on that point, and the esoteric teachings of Pythagoras may have
qualified his rather fanciful objections to grape-juice by the practical
hope of longevity. A complete list of infallible prescriptions for the
prolongation of human life would fill a voluminous book, and would
include some decidedly curious specifics. 'To what do you ascribe your
hale old age?' the Emperor Augustus asked a centenarian whom he found
wrestling in the _palaestra_ and bandying jokes with the young athletes.
'_Intus mulso, foris oleo_,' said the old fellow--'Oil for the skin and
mead [water and honey] for the inner man.' Cardanus suggests that old
age might be indefinitely postponed by a semi-fluid diet warmed (like
mothers' milk) to the exact temperature of the human system and Voltaire
accuses his rival Maupertuis of having hoped to attain a similar result
by varnishing his hide with a sort of resinous paint (_un poix
r'esineux_) that would prevent the vital strength from evaporating by
exhalation. Robert Burton recommends 'oil of unaphar and dormouse fat;'
Paracelsus, rectified spirits of alcohol; Horace, olives and
marsh-mallows. Dr. Zimmerman, the medical adviser of Frederick the
Great, sums up the 'Art of Longevity' in the following words: 'Temperate
habits, outdoor exercise, and steady industry, sweetened by occasional
festivals.'"

"The increasing longevity of man is attracting considerable attention
from collectors of statistics, and some curious facts are being
elicited. According to the last census, 10 per cent of the people who
died between 1870 and 1880 had outlived the traditional three-score
years and ten, whereas of the deaths between 1840 and 1850, only 7.47
per cent were of persons of that age. In 1850, 16.90 per cent of the
deaths were of children under one year of age; in 1880, the proportion
was 23.24, showing a smaller percentage of deaths among adults. The
average length of life in England 300 years ago was only twenty years.
In France the average length of life, under Louis XVIII., was
twenty-eight years. Actuaries are figuring that within the past
half-century the average length of life has greatly increased."

"A study of this subject is impeded by the tendency of almost everyone
to generalize from individual examples within his own observation. This
is almost sure to be misleading, because no one's acquaintance is so
large that it embraces factors enough to base a theory on. People say
that life is longer than it used to be, because Palmerston rode to
hounds at 82, and Peter Cooper and the Emperor William were
intellectually vigorous at over 91. They forget that Marino Faliero was
over 80 when he concocted his plot, and that the blind Dodge Dandolo was
84 when he took Constantinople. Every age has produced a few long-lived
men, and here and there a centenarian."

"The question of importance is not whether this age is yielding more
centenarians than former ages, but whether, on the average, the age of
man is longer than it was, and if so, how much longer? The grounds for
an increased longevity--better doctors and more of them, better
drainage, more wholesome food, wiser habits, and better facilities for
securing change of air--justify the belief that life is lengthening, to
what degree it is hard to say. M. Flourens, who had made a life study of
the subject, said that every man ought to live to be a hundred, if he
took care of himself."

"In a number of the _Popular Science Monthly_ is an article by Clement
Milton Hammond on the prolongation of human life that is interesting
both in the way of being readable and as based on returns as to an
unusually large number of persons above eighty years of age. The facts
were obtained by sending out 5,000 blanks to be filled. They were sent
through New England only and were intended to cover personal history and
hereditary influence. Over 3,500 of the blanks were filled out and
returned. They show that less than 5 per cent remained unmarried through
life, the unmarried women being three times as numerous as the unmarried
men. The average number of children was five. Five out of six of the old
people had light complexions, blue or gray eyes, and abundant brown
hair. The men were generally tall and ranged in weight from 100 to 160
pounds, with a few of 200 pounds, and the women of medium size, weighing
from 100 to 120 pounds, with some exceptional cases up to 180 pounds.
The men were generally bony and muscular, and the women the opposite. At
the time of record the hair was generally thick, the teeth poor or
entirely gone, the skin only slightly wrinkled. Generally their habits
of eating and sleeping have been conspicuously regular. They have as a
rule adhered to one occupation through life, and of the 1,000 men 461
were farmers. Few have used alcoholic drink stronger than cider. A large
majority of the men used tobacco. The average age of the parents and
grandparents of the persons reported on was about sixty-five. The
average time of sleep was about eight hours."

Dr. Maurice advances some staunch ideas on old age:--

"Do poor people live longer than the affluent? There are so many more
poor in the world than there are rich that we can be sure of finding
more poor old people. Probably excessive wealth is a burden sure to
exhaust its possessor in the care of it. Our millionaires, however, are
men for the most part who began poor and were possessed of tenacious
vitality, that is, with a grip on other things as strong as on the money
bags. Professor Humphrey's 'Report on Age of Persons' gives us 824
persons, of both sexes, of whom about half were poor and the rest at
least in good circumstances, 10 per cent only being possessed of wealth.
The real truth seems to be that poverty, with an iron constitution and
sound nerves, is most likely to produce an instance of extreme age; but
the possession of the comforts and amenities of life produces by far the
best average of ages. The average age of the middle classes has always
surpassed that of others; but at present sanitation forces on the poor
so many provisions against disease that they are saved from their former
high death-rate, and brought quite near the privately better-bred and
furnished class.

"There has certainly been long sustained, in proverbs and otherwise, a
conviction that early rising and early retiring have much to do with
prolonged vitality. Franklin insisted on it vigorously. Lord Mansfield,
also, held it to be an important item in his sustained vigor to near
ninety. I am inclined to believe that the estimate is not erroneous. We
are far more the creatures of habit than we generally allow. At certain
moments we become regularly hungry, regularly sleepy, and so with all
other functions. It is wise beyond doubt to recognize this fact and
never break our habits, that is, our useful habits. But beyond this,
there are certain habits dependent on cosmical causes, such as movements
of the sun. Our natural rest would seem to be properly conformed, in the
main, to the appearance and disappearance of daylight.

"But after we have fairly and fully considered the subject, there
remains the one fact that idleness will end life sooner than any other
cause. The hour that any person retires from any and all occupation he
is sure to drop into decadence. The mind is very sure to begin to lose
its clearness when it is withdrawn from regular exercise. Both brain and
muscular power lapse with lack of activity. The custom of working
excessively till sixty-five or seventy, and then withdrawing from
business, is wrong at both ends. We crowd life at the beginning, and
let its functioning grow torpid at the close. Much is lost to age by our
modern methods of locomotion. Great walkers are scarce; there is almost
a total lack of horse-back exercise. Carriage-riding over smooth roads
in no way compensates."

Perhaps there is nothing that prolongs life more than genial, hearty
_laughter_. William Matthews says "that there is not a remote corner or
little inlet of the minute blood-vessels of the human body that does not
feel some wavelet from the great convulsion caused by hearty laughter
shaking the central man. Not only does the blood move more quickly than
it is wont, but its chemical or electric condition is distinctly
modified, and it conveys a different impression to the organs of the
body, as it visits them on that particular mystic journey when the man
laughs, from what it does at other times. A genial, hearty laugh,
therefore, prolongs life, by conveying a distinct and additional
stimulus to the vital forces. Best of all, it has no remorse in it. It
leaves no sting, except in the sides, and that goes off. Cicero thought
so highly of it that he complained bitterly at one time that his
fellow-citizens had all forgotten to laugh: _Civem mehercule non puto
esse qui his temporibus ridere possit_. Titus, the Roman emperor,
thought he had lost a day if he had passed it without laughing. What a
world would this be without laughter! To what a dreary, dismal
complexion should we all come at last, were all fun and cachination
expurged from our solemn and scientific planet! Care would soon
overwhelm us; the heart would corrode; the river of life would be like
the lake of the Dismal Swamp; we should begin our career with a sigh,
and end it with a groan; while cadaverous faces, and words to the tune
of 'The Dead March in Saul,' would make up the whole interlude of our
existence."

"Hume, the historian, in examining a French manuscript containing
accounts of some private disbursements of King Edward II. of England,
found, among others, one item of a crown paid to somebody for making the
king laugh. Could one conceive of a wiser investment? Perhaps by paying
one crown Edward saved another. 'The most utterly lost of all days,'
says Chamfort, 'is that on which you have not once laughed.' Even that
grimmest and most saturnine of men, who, though he made others roar with
merriment, was never known to smile, and who died 'in a rage, like a
poisoned rat in a hole'--Dean Swift--has called laughter 'the most
innocent of all diuretics.' Yet the philosopher of Concord, R. W.
Emerson, is reported as having said in a lecture: 'Laughter is to be
avoided. Lord Chesterfield said that after he had come to the years of
understanding he never laughed.' Lord Chesterfield would have had far
more influence if, instead of repressing every inclination to laugh, he
had now and then given his ribs a holiday--nay, if he had even roared
outright; for it would have disabused the public of the notion that he
never obeyed a natural impulse, but that everything he said and did was
prestudied--done by square, rule, and compass. As it was, though he was
confessedly the politest, best-bred, most insinuating man at court, yet
he was regularly and invariably out-flanked and out-maneuvered by Sir
Robert Walpole, who had the heartiest laugh in the kingdom, and by the
Duke of Newcastle, who had the worst manners in the world. In commending
laughter, we mean genuine laughter, not a make-believe, not the
artificial or falsetto laugh of fashionable society, nor, again, the
mere smile of acquiescent politeness, or the crackling of thorns under a
pot, or the curl of the lips that indicates in the laughter a belief in
his fancied superiority. Still less do we mean the hollow, mocking laugh
of the cynic. The laughter which we would commend as healthful is not
bitter, but kindly, genial, and sympathetic."


No Physiological Reason for Death.--"Dr. William A. Hammond, a prominent
physician of New York, who has written several medical treatises, and
was some years ago Surgeon-General of the United States Army, has
recently set forth his belief that there is no physiological reason at
the present day why man should die. He maintains that people die through
the ignorance of the laws which govern their existence, and from their
inability, or indisposition, to attend to those laws with which they are
acquainted. Now, as the business of medical men has ostensibly been for
the last four thousand years to prolong human life, and as Dr. Hammond
affirms that there is no good reason why people should die, the wonder
is why men of his school have not drawn up some formula by which they
could live on for three or four thousand years, at least. There has
always been a vague impression that the knowledge of the preservation of
human life had been lost, and that in some favored era of the world's
history that knowledge would be recovered.

"If there is such a thing as a hidden law of life, which, when
discovered and asserted, will arrest physical decay and prevent death,
except by accident, Doctor Hammond, and all who hold to his doctrine,
ought to lose no time in making it known. This medical authority reasons
that, as the human body is constantly dying and constantly renewing its
particles, this law of displacement and renewal ought to be perpetual,
and that when it is discovered just what substances are best fitted to
maintain this equipoise, as it were, there should be no giving out of
the physical powers.

"'The food that man takes into his stomach,' says Doctor Hammond, 'ought
to be of such quantity and quality as would exactly repair the losses
which, through the action of the several organs, his body is to undergo.
If it is excessive in either of these directions, or if it is deficient,
disease of some kind will certainly be the result. If he knew enough to
be able to adjust his daily food to the expected daily requirements of
his system, disease could never ensue through the exhaustion of any one
of his vital organs. A large majority of the morbid affections to which
he is subject are due to a lack of this knowledge.

"'Now, suppose that he is exactly right in his calculations, and that
the food taken is neither too great nor too little, but exactly
compensates the anticipated losses, the death of each cell in the brain,
or the heart, or the muscles, etc., will be followed by the birth of a
new cell, which will take its place and assume its functions. Gout,
rheumatism, liver and kidney diseases, heart affections, softening and
other destructive disorders of the brain, the various morbid conditions
to which the digestive organs are subject, would be impossible except
through the action of some external force, such as the swallowing of
sulphuric acid, or a blow on the head, or a stab with a knife, which
would come clearly within the class of accidents, and of course many of
these would be avoidable.'

"Dr. Hammond's theory supposes that the time will come when the
individual will have learned the uttermost thing about the laws of life,
and when he will conform so strictly to these laws that he will have
nothing more to learn in regard to the best way of living. It may
require ages for this progress, but when it is attained, and the race is
set free from all morbific influences, physical death would be
impossible. The summary of his points is that 'people die from ignorance
of the laws of life; and from willfulness in not obeying the laws they
know.' That may be a part of the truth which is very near the surface.
But the other demonstration is not quite so clear as could be
wished--that there can be any such thing as an eternity of physical
life, even if all the laws touching that life were known and every one
of them obeyed."




PART II




CHAPTER I.

DISEASES AND REMEDIES; HOW TO PREVENT MOST MALADIES AND CURE ILLS
POSSESSED.


Note.--If the reader is in haste to know what will cure this or that
trouble, before perusing the pages of this entire pamphlet, such as
cramp, colic, indigestion, constipation, headache, etc., the index found
in the back part of this work will give immediate reference, and the
prescriptions instant relief. If you are cured thereby of any of the
many maladies that beset the human family, remember that it is only
temporary; for to be cured of any disease permanently requires the
removal of the cause. One of the objects of this book is to convey that
information.

The great disparity between the actions and teachings of many of our
principal writers must be apparent to every reader of books, pamphlets,
and editorials, upon the subject of health and its allies, happiness and
longevity. Many of the leading exponents of temperance have periodical
spells of drunkenness, and some drink all the time. The prominent
articles written upon the subject of sanitary matters and cleanliness,
are generally by the editor whose office is the scene of disorder, the
floor covered with tobacco quids, old rubbish and dust, and the corners
filled with cobwebs. The writer upon the subject of poverty and the
wrongs of the poor, has his headquarters fitted up in the most
magnificent style;--he never knew what it was to want for a meal, nor
did he ever darken the door of real poverty. The missionary advocate
soliciting funds for the heathen and down-trodden poor of foreign lands,
more than likely never crossed the borders of his own State, certainly
has not taken a stroll through the dark lanes and alleys, or climbed the
dingy stairways of the tenement houses of his own city. If he had done
so, a more effective appeal would have gone up for the suffering poor
and spiritually blind of the principal unsanitary municipalities of his
own country. The physician with a bad cough and broken-down constitution
is still prescribing for consumptives and patients with all manner of
aches and pains, of which his own body is a perfect index.

And the minister who has not yet lost all his hatred for "that other
sect," and occasionally assists in persecuting it, is still teaching the
doctrine of the meek and lowly Nazarene. Having experienced a large
number of diseases and their successful remedies, we have for several
years been collecting the most reliable data and testimony on many--in
short most--of mankind's bodily ills. In this second part we present
them for your benefit.

There are about 11,000 remedies mentioned in the 15th edition of the
"United States Dispensatory," by reference to which it will be seen that
each affliction to which flesh is heir must be more than well drugged.
It is the fault of the community at large that the necessity of such a
work exists. There is no demand for any form of disease even with the
improper state of society as it is to-day. Extreme old age and a limited
number of accidents are all that can be necessary to record. The
following is an admirable article from the St. Louis _Globe Democrat_,
which is quite pertinent.

"Sanitation and Sanity.--The general subject of sanitation now covers
our architecture and our home life; our sewerage and disposition of
waste; our personal cleanliness and contact in all social relations; our
food and drink, both as to quality and kind; quarantine and other
preventives against contagion and infection; the purification of
streams, and the cleansing of the air of smoke and foul vapors; in fact,
the whole subject of health or wholeness. * * * A national board of
health was as unthought of as was an Atlantic cable in 1800. But the
fact that great epidemics were liable to invade us, and did invade us,
led to a system of quarantine and to enforced vaccination. But the
regulation by law of our social manners, so far as they bore on public
health, was not undertaken to any extent until within the past decade. *
* * Indeed, public sentiment is as yet so uninformed that thorough laws
in the case could not be enacted or enforced. There is not a stream in
the United States that can be kept entirely free from pollution. The
sanitary value of this is not understood by even the intelligent
populace. The drainage of swamps is neglected in the neighborhood of our
larger cities." "St. Louis has tolerated inside her limits pools that
have made fevers of a malarious sort, with spinal meningitis, as common
as croup. Chicago has acres of rotting vegetable matter inside the
corporation every autumn. The inroads of yellow fever have always been
invited by the unsanitary condition of Southern towns. The reports of
Surgeon-General Hamilton, last summer, showed that the pest found its
first welcome in a town where sewerage was wholly neglected, and tons of
rotting sawdust and refuse filled the heated air with fever conditions.

"The discovery of the germ origin of diphtheria and of the typhoid forms
of fever, has led to great changes in thousands of households. Our
houses are constructed with far more attention to ventilation and proper
heating. We shall finally get rid of drunkenness and intemperance of
other sorts, on sanitary grounds mainly. Alcohol has been considered as
at least valuable in moderation. It has been looked upon as a medicine.
That its value as a stimulant hangs on the previous abuse of health is
now understood, and its value purely as a very temporary bridging of
weakness alone is conceded. That the drink habit is in any sense,
however moderate, of sanitary value, is disproved. Few doctors prescribe
any form of alcohol for habitual use. The saloon is unsanitary in all
its effects. The temperance issue rests at that point. Animals to which
spirits have been given in their food digest nearly one-half less than
other animals of the kind. The nutrition of the human body demands the
abolition of stimulants and narcotics. The saloon will go ultimately as
a nuisance to health. We have not yet reached a condition when public
morals can rest on any other basis than health. It is doubtful if there
can be a higher basis. What is unwholesome is wrong; what is promotive
of health and completeness for the individual and for the community is
right.

"Sanity is dependent on sanitary living. They both are derived
etymologically from _sanitus_, and that from _sanus_, the Latin for
sound or whole. Insanity has come to have the limited meaning of
unsoundness of brain. * * * Insanity is on the increase in the United
States, but not more so than nervous disorders in general. This
indicates a tendency to a break-down of the national type of organism,
and cannot be considered with indifference. The fact exists as a
consequence of the overwork and high pressure of modern life, but in
this country is at its maximum, because, for several generations, we
have been at white heat, subjecting a continent to our domestic
purposes.

"The vast unfolding of means of wealth has also acted as a stimulant,
compared to which alcohol is insignificant. Our lunatic asylums
multiply, but are all full. The percentage of failure is greatest in
California, where speculation has been most intense. It is impossible to
avoid the problem. How shall we reverse this tendency, and begin the
construction of an American type of full, robust, conservative, and
reserved energy? The underlying problem of all problems is to secure a
constitution. A nation that lives and works in such a manner as to grow
weaker in brain endurance and nerve power, and yet so lives that the
demands on brain and nerves are increased, is doomed. The intensity of
modern life is something we cannot reverse. We must adapt ourselves to
it by securing larger and more systematic means of recuperation.
Brain-workers must learn to use the first half of the day for work, and
sacredly give the last half to rest and play. Night must be given back
entirely to sleep. Withal it is clear that we must understand the close
relation between sanity and sanitation. Our people can no longer eat and
drink as grossly as our fathers did. The stomach gets not half the time
it formerly did for digestion. It must, therefore, be delivered of half
its toil. The introduction of stoves and modern conveniences must be
accompanied by more rational ventilation. Active brains require a vast
and regular supply of oxygen. It is not for the lungs alone that we need
pure air, but for the brain. This is specifically an American problem,
the readjustment of society, so that the mind shall be relieved of
strain and consequent enfeeblement."

Individual, municipal, and national cleanliness by enactment of law are
among the first steps that should be taken. The churches and schools
should teach it as a prerequisite before godliness, or education in
general; then with perfect ventilation, sanitation, and regularity of
all the virtues, there will be no vices, and godliness and education
will be contagious, just as though they were real diseases.

The first thing to undertake if you are desirous of freeing yourself of
any disease, ache, or pain, is to stop the cause. Act on the same
principle you would if you had a barrel that had leaked its contents and
you desired to refill it,--first stop the leak. It is absolutely
necessary that you study _cause_ as well as _effect_, if you would know
yourself.

The Secret of Sound Health.--"Half the secret of life," says
_MacMillan's Magazine_, "we are persuaded, is to know when we are grown
old; and it is the half most hardly learned. It is more hardly learned,
moreover, in the matter of exercise than in the matter of diet. There is
no advice so commonly given to the ailing man of middle age as the
advice to take more exercise, and there is perhaps none which leads him
into so many pitfalls. This is particularly the case with the brain
workers. The man who labors his brain must spare his body. He cannot
burn the candle at both ends, and the attempt to do so will almost
inevitably result in his lighting it in the middle to boot. Most men who
use their brains much soon learn for themselves that the sense of
physical exaltation, the glow of exuberant health which comes from a
body strung to its full powers by continuous and severe exercise, is not
favorable to study. The exercise such men need is the exercise that
rests, not that which tires. They need to wash their brains with the
fresh air of heaven, to bring into gentle play the muscles that have
been lying idle while the head worked. Nor is it only to this class of
laboring humanity that the advice to take exercise needs reservations.
The time of violent delights soon passes, and the effort to protract it
beyond its natural span is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. Some men,
through nature or the accident of fortune, will, of course, be able to
keep touch of it longer than others; but when once the touch has been
lost, the struggle to regain it can add but sorrow to the labor. Of this
our doctor makes a cardinal point; but, pertinent as his warning may be
to the old, for whom, indeed, he has primarily compounded his _elixir
vitae_, it is yet more pertinent to men of middle age, and probably it is
more necessary. It is in the latter period that most of the mischief is
done. The old are commonly resigned to their lot; but few men will
consent without a struggle to own that they are no longer young. All
things are not good to all men, and all things are not always good to
the same man. The man who confines his studies within one unchanging
groove will hardly find his intellectual condition so light and nimble,
so free of play, so capable of giving and receiving, as he who varies
them according to his mood, for the mind needs rest and recreation no
less than the body; it is not well to keep either always at high
pressure. One fixed, unswerving system of diet, without regard to needs
and seasons, or even to fancy, is not wise. The great secret of
existence after all is to be the master and not the slave of both mind
and body, and that is best done by giving both free rein within certain
limits, which, as the old sages were universally agreed, each man must
discover for himself. Happy are the words of Addison, and happily
quoted: "A continual anxiety for life vitiates all the relishes of it,
and casts a gloom over the whole face of nature, as it is impossible
that we should take delight in anything that we are every moment afraid
of losing. "One of the best methods of avoiding that pitiful anxiety is
to learn within what limits we may safely indulge our desire for change,
and then freely indulge it within them."




CHAPTER II.


We shall now take up a practical list of subjects, arranged in
alphabetical order. Without any attempt at egotism, we claim that there
are few nontechnical books extant that contain a superior selection of
preventatives and remedies. Read carefully and judge for yourself. There
are very few common or occasional afflictions which are not considered
to some extent. Why always seek a doctor when you seem to be somewhat
off your physical equilibrium? You will generally at each visit spend
more money than this book will cost. Learn to provide against constant
medical attention.

=Accidents.=--In sudden emergencies, either of accident or sickness, the
first great requisite is presence of mind. Be calm. Endeavor, if
possible, to grasp the situation, and do what is to be done promptly and
quietly, until the arrival of the physician. All hurried and distracted
motions, and all exciting noises, confuse the attendants and needlessly
alarm the sufferer. In many cases, the course of immediate action is
suggested by the circumstances; but where you do not know what aid to
render, it is best to do nothing, except to make the patient as
comfortable, for the time being, as possible. For all ordinary
emergencies, ample directions are:--

"1. Always look in the direction in which you are moving.

"2. Never leave a car, or other public vehicle, when it is in motion.

"3. Never put your head or arms out of a vehicle when it is in motion.

"4. If a horse runs away with you, remain in the vehicle rather than
risk the danger of jumping from it.

"5. In thunder-storms keep away from trees, metallic substances, doors,
and windows. The lower part of a house is the safer.

"6. Never play with fire-arms. Always keep them beyond the reach of
children.

"7. Avoid charcoal fumes; they are deadly when confined in a close room.

"8. Illuminating gas; be sure to turn it off. _Never blow it out._

"9. When gas can be smelt in an apartment always air the room well
before striking a match or bringing a light.

"10. When very cold, move quickly. If any part of the body is frozen,
rub it with snow, and keep from the fire.

"11. Change wet clothing as soon as possible.

"12. Carefully avoid exposure to night air, in malarial districts.

"13. If necessary to go into an old vault or well, first introduce a
burning candle. If the light burns low and finally goes out, carbonic
acid gas is present and the place is unsafe to enter. Unslaked lime will
absorb the gas and purify the air.

"14. Avoid walking on railroad tracks and icy sidewalks.

"15. When awake, very young children should never be left alone.

"16. Do not go, with loose hair or flowing garments, near dangerous
machinery.

"17. Never touch gunpowder after dark.

"18. Never fondle a strange dog.

"19. Never light a fire with kerosene.

"20. Fill and trim your lamps in the day-time. Never trim or fill a
lighted lamp.

"21. Keep matches in a closed metallic box.

"22. Have your horses rough-shod as soon as the ground freezes.

"23. When feeling dizzy or seasick, lie down.

"24. Do not close the damper of your stove too early. Better waste coal
than run the risk of suffocation by gas.

"25. When climbing a ladder, look up and not down.

"26. In railroad traveling take the center of the car, and the middle
car of the train, for safety.

"27. Eat only pure food, drink only pure liquids, think only pure
thoughts, and keep your blood pure.

"28. In going through dry woods or over prairies do not smoke or cast
matches about carelessly. There should be laws against this often wanton
destruction of property.

"29. Look out for spontaneous ignition of oily rags, oil-painted canvas
rolled up, wet iron filings.

"30. In entering mines not used, always try for gas before venturing
into them.

"31. Do not be careless in any way whatever in connection with fire. The
losses in the United States, in 1889, by fires as a result of
carelessness amounted to nearly $100,000,000, while in San Francisco for
the same year we find that fully 80% of the losses can be attributed to
the same source."

=Alcohol.=--Felix L. Oswald, M.D., gives some very good ideas in _Good
Health_ on the alcoholic habit. "'Reform,' says an able political
writer, 'is ever unpopular. All wrongs lie in the consent of the
wronged, and what with the fierce support of those who thrive on the
abuse, and the dull, heavy, ignorant conservatism of the masses, * * *
it is a sad delusion to suppose that the cause is won when the argument
is made.' An unquestionable preponderance of power, they argue, favors
the side of the liquor venders, and in this world, at least, always
finds a way to assert itself as right. The last link of that syllogism,
however, is a rule with occasional exceptions. No unqualified evil has
ever succeeded in maintaining its supremacy, and the evils of the
alcohol vice are offset by no benefits. Alcohol has been called
'negative food,' because its physiological influence torpifies the
functional energy of the digestive organs, and thus, for a time, renders
the toper insensible to the cravings of hunger. The same effect,
however, can be produced by a stunning blow, and we might as well claim
that the interests of political economy could be promoted by a fierce
war, because a knock-down stroke with the butt-end of a musket is apt to
lessen the appetite of the afflicted soldier. No real benefit can result
from the lethargizing effect of a poison dose, the retardation of the
digestive functions being in every case a morbid and abnormal process,
avenging its repetition by the fatty degeneration of the tissues and the
impoverished condition of the blood. * * * During the horrible flood
which a few months ago devastated the two richest provinces of the
Chinese Empire, a number of vile marauders eked out an existence by
fishing out wreckage and plundering floating corpses. The idea of
mentioning the profits of these wretches as a compensating offset to the
horrors of a public calamity would justly consign its propounder to the
custody of a lunatic commission. Yet, by an exactly analogous line of
argument, many of our political economists continue to defend the legal
sanction of the liquor traffic. Nay, it might be seriously questioned if
the total loss (by fire or water) of a billion bushels of grain would
not be financially and morally preferable to their conversion into a
life-blighting poison. According to the statistics of the Treasury
Department, the alcohol drinkers of the United States (representing
hardly one-fifth of the alcoholized nations of Christendom) spent during
the last ten years a yearly average of $370,000,000 for whisky,
$58,000,000 for other distilled liquors, $56,000,000 for wine, and
$140,000,000 for ale and beer; together, $624,000,000 a year. That
enormous sum has been far worse than wasted. It has been invested in the
purchase of disease. It has been devoted to the development of idiocy,
crime, and pauperism. It has turned blessings into a concentration of
curses. The general recognition of these facts will seal the doom of the
liquor traffic."

Dr. C. E. Spitka expresses some results of science investigating strong
drinks:--

"Alcoholism among the ancients was therefore mainly or exclusively known
in its acute phases, the drunken frenzy in which Alexander the Great
killed Clitus being a familiar example. With the introduction of tobacco
and playing cards, the saloon, the cellar-dive, and the bar-room usurped
the place formerly held by the inn. The enlargement of cities deprived
their inhabitants of rustic sports, and led to their seeking in other
and more dangerous channels an escape from mental and physical strain,
and a variation of routine monotony. It is generally conceded by those
medical writers who are unshackled by prejudice that a certain amount
of alcohol can be ingested with perfect impunity. That amount has been
accurately determined by Dujardin-Beaumetz in the course of experiments
made in the abattoirs of Paris. Transferring the result of his
experiments to the human species, he concluded that a man weighing 120
pounds could take the equivalent of two ounces of alcohol a day for
years without injury to any organ of the body. But when the amount taken
daily exceeds the toleration-point, prolonged abuse is followed by
results which are as sinister as they are insidious. In the dead-house
of the Philadelphia Hospital, Formad found that, of 250 chronic
alcoholists, nearly 99 per cent had fatty degeneration of the liver, 60
per cent had congestion or a dropsical state of the brain, the same
proportion an inflamed or degenerated stomach, while not quite 1 per
cent had normal kidneys. Of 17 children of drunken fathers observed by
Voisin, 3 were idiots, 2 confirmed epileptics, 1 suffered from a
congenital spinal disease, and the remainder died in early life with
convulsions. Of 11 children similarly descended, cited by Dagonet, 9
died in the same way. Of 117 such births recorded in Alsace-Lorraine, 13
were still-born and 39 died of convulsive disorders shortly after birth.
One drunken father had 7 still-born children in succession; another lost
8 of 12 by convulsions. It is not alone as a direct result of inebriety
that a defective nervous system is thus transmitted. Even in his sober
intervals, he whose nervous system has been shattered by alcohol is
liable to have a degenerate or diseased offspring. Of 18 children
recorded as born under these circumstances, Voisin found 8 epileptic and
10 idiotic. As if to prove beyond the possibility of a doubt that such
degeneracy is due to the alcoholism of the parent, and to that alone,
two French investigators, Mairet and Combemale, performed a series of
experiments on dogs, by which they showed that the same result which the
chronic inebriate is accused of producing in his offspring, through
selfish indulgence, can be produced at will in the offspring of lower
animals by compulsory induction of the same vice in them."

An English investigation, just completed, puts in tangible form the
effect of the use of alcohol, from observations covering 4,234 cases in
all walks of life. This report shows that, with men over twenty-five,
the intemperate use of alcohol cuts off ten years from life, those who
never drink to excess, or use no liquor, living, on the average, ten
years longer than those who do. Indulgence, if carried to excess,
doubles diseases of the liver, quadruples those of the kidneys, and
greatly increases the number of deaths from pneumonia, pleurisy, and
epilepsy.

It is not often appreciated how many people die annually from the
effects of strong drink. Dr. Norman Kerr, an eminent physician of
England, believing the statement of temperance people to be extravagant,
that 60,000 people die annually from the effects of strong drink, began
as early as 1870 a personal inquiry, in connection with several medical
men and experts, expecting to quickly disprove the same. According to
their deductions, the latest estimates of deaths of adults annually
caused through intemperance is, in Great Britain, 120,000; in France,
142,000; in the United States, 80,000--or nearly a half million each
year in three countries aggregating a population of 112,000,000.

_Excessive Beer Drinking._--In the earlier part of our work we
endeavored to impress on our readers the necessity of regularity and the
avoidance of excesses. The last week of 1889 in New York City saw two
prominent brewers buried, and two others of the guild were near death.
None of them were, or are, over forty-seven years old. Kidney and heart
disease were the causes of death in the case of the first two. Similar
ailments have marked the other two gentlemen for the grave. The question
arises, Was it beer or champagne that caused these diseases? In this
connection the statement a physician of Bellevue Hospital once made is
not amiss. These are his words: "The worst cases of alcoholic ailments
coming under our observation are those resulting from excessive beer
drinking."

In appearance the beer drinker may be the picture of health; but in
reality he is most incapable of resisting disease. A slight injury, a
severe cold, or a shock to the body or mind, will commonly provoke
acute disease, ending fatally. Compared with other inebriates who use
different kinds of alcohol, he is more incurable and more generally
diseased. It is our observation that beer drinking in this country
produces the very lowest kind of inebriety, closely allied to criminal
insanity. The most dangerous class of ruffians in our large cities are
beer drinkers. Intellectually, a stupor amounting almost to paralysis
arrests the reason, changing all the higher faculties into a mere
animalism, sensual, selfish, sluggish, varied only with paroxysms of
anger, senseless and brutal.

That men are the sex most addicted to stimulating but injurious habits
is sadly growing less true, and women are finding recourse too often to
poisonous invigorators. If one-half of what the doctors are saying all
over the country is true, there may soon be a greater need of a
temperance reform among the women than there ever has been among the
men. Strong drink, however, is not the monster by which the women may be
enslaved, but a strong and poisonous drug equally baneful in its effect.

This drug is antipyrine. It is a white powder, slightly bitter, and
soluble in water. Until about a year ago it was prescribed for fevers
only, but a French medical college recommended it for headaches and
other pains and disorders, and in this way it has gained its grasp on so
many thoughtless and nervous women.

In Chicago and many other places it is said that the habit is gaining
with alarming rapidity, for the women take it for every ill, and cannot
believe that its soothing effect can have any evil result until the
habit is thoroughly fixed upon them. It produces different results under
different circumstances, and, like many other preparations, varies
according to the size of the dose. In large doses it has been known to
produce complete relaxation, and at the same time a loss of reflex
action, and death. In moderate or tonic doses it often produces
convulsions. Its effect as a stimulant seems to be very much like that
of quinine, and the physicians say that they do not understand why it
should get the hold on women that it does.

The latest female vice is intoxication by naphtha. It is not drank. The
fumes of it are simply inhaled, inducing, so the inebriates say, a
particularly agreeable exhilaration.

_Remedies of Alcoholism._--Without much doubt, the best way to affect a
cure is to regularly reduce one's amount of liquor each day until the
system can do without it. A systematic decrease can always be carried
through if the will power will back it. We add also some ideas that have
been advanced by good judges: "To dispel as quickly as possible the
effects of intoxicants, one of the most effectual remedies is a small
dose of sal volatile, or volatile salts, in a wine-glass of
water--repeating the dose in half an hour. A dish of cold broth may
answer the same purpose. The most speedy way, however, of effecting a
cure, is by taking an emetic, following it with the sal volatile and
water half an hour after."

The Russian physician and publicist Portugaloff declares that strychnine
in subcutaneous injections is an immediate and infallible remedy for
drunkenness. The craving of the inebriate for drink is changed into
positive aversion in a day, and after a treatment of eight or ten days
the patient may be discharged. Even should the appetite return months
afterward, the first attempt to resume drinking will produce such
painful and nauseating sensations that the person will turn away from
the liquor in disgust. The strychnine is administered by dissolving one
grain in two hundred drops of water, and injecting five drops of the
solution every twenty-four hours. Dr. Portugaloff recommends the
establishment of inebriate dispensaries in connection with police
stations.

=Appetite=.--Happy is the man who always possesses a good appetite;
unhappy is he who does not have this precious boon. The lack of it
results largely from failure of exercise and the excessive use of
condiments. In the first place, try to take an invigorating bath with a
wet towel and rub hard. If you cannot endure even that, use a dry towel
on the body until the friction brings the blood to the surface of the
skin. Then give the mouth a careful cleansing by rinsing and
tooth-brush. When you sit at the table, do so with a cheerful mood, eat
slowly, partake sparingly of condiments, using salt mostly, and vinegar
for an acid. Preface your meals with a walk long enough to get up a
circulation, if it is dinner or supper hour, but do not tire yourself,
and be sure to rest the last fifteen minutes before eating.

=Asphyxiation.=--A practical man, conversant with cases in which
asphyxiation resulted from inhaling carbonic acid gas, gives some
valuable hints for their recovery by simple remedies always at hand.
Fresh air to restore consciousness is the first important step. Then he
gave apples, apple juice, or vinegar, to neutralize the gas and remove
it from the stomach by eructations. Eggs broken into vinegar mixed and
swallowed made a very effective drink. After removing the gas from the
stomach, the patient was further relieved by a cup of strong, hot
coffee, which speedily restored him to normal vigor. On two similar
occasions, where a physician was called, he administered injections of
carbonate of ammonia, and the man was ill for eight or ten days from the
effects of the medicine. A little common sense is often better than
physic.

=Bathing.=--We have already treated this subject to some extent, but we
recommend the careful reading of Dr. C. H. Steele's ideas, part of which
we embody here; also some other worthy opinions on this matter, of great
importance to health.

"The use of water in the treatment of diseases dates back to remote
antiquity. Savages resort to the surf and sweat-bath, and Hindoos and
Mohammedans bathe because their religion commands them to do so.
References to the bath may be found scattered throughout the literature
of Greece, and in Rome the magnificent buildings and lavish expenditure
devoted to the public bath show it in the highest stage of perfection it
has ever attained."

"It is only within a few years past that the domestic bath has been
accepted as a necessity. No home in England is complete without a
bath-room, and no Englishman deems himself well unless he bathes daily.
The speaker said that a thermometer, whose use should be understood,
should be permanently attached to every bath-tub.

"_Physiological Action of the Bath._--In considering the physiological
action of the bath, it is first to be accepted that water of a
temperature below that of the body abstracts heat from the skin, which
abstraction continues indefinitely, only for a time checked by the
renewed activity of the heat centers. In a bath the temperature of which
is from 92 degrees to 95 degrees, the body may remain indefinitely
without any loss or gain of temperature, but after the bath a cooling
takes place, owing to increased perspirations. If the water is between
77 degrees and 86 degrees, there is, after the first shock, a positive
rise in the temperature of the body. Sixty-five degrees, and lower, may
be borne for a long time."

"Nature adapts herself to the cold bath by a rapid stimulation of heat
production. All the muscles, nerves, and organs of the body are brought
into heightened activity, and thus it is that to the healthy individual
the cold bath is invigorating. But nature has her limits, and the bath
must be discontinued while this tonic effect is felt, for the heat
centers become fatigued and give rise to a chill which may continue for
days afterward.

"The greatest agency in bathing is the stimulation of perspiration, and
this depends upon the relative dryness of the surrounding air. Thus, in
the dry vapor, or Turkish bath, a person will easily endure 264 degrees,
and lose four pounds per hour by perspiration. It is this rapid
evaporation from the skin that keeps the body cool. A person may stand
for some time in an oven, beside a roasting rib of beef. But in the
steam or Russian bath the perspiration is retarded, and a temperature of
120 degrees is hardly bearable. A temperature of 124 degrees may induce
a rise in the temperature of the mouth to 104 degrees or even 107
degrees, which is seldom reached in a raging fever. Hence, there is an
element of danger in the Russian bath--a danger to sudden death similar
to sunstroke. This danger is much more pronounced in the hot-water bath
when perspiration ceases altogether, and the supply of heat from the
interior to the skin is excessive. The temperature of bathing water
should not exceed 104 degrees, and this hot bath should not be endured
more than fifteen minutes. Even then it is likely to be followed by
depression and weakness." "The circulation being quickened, the cold
bath acts as a good blood purifier, washing away the poisons of the body
through the channels of the veins. In case of persons troubled with an
excess of fat, the bath must be accompanied by massage, banting, and a
liberal indulgence in outdoor exercise. In the hot bath there is this
same waste of tissue, but no tonic effects, and it is invariably
accompanied with loss of energy and vitality. But the action of the bath
upon the skin is no less beneficial than upon the interior of the body.
It favors the excretory action of the skin, thus purifying it. The
millions of dead scales, kept to the skin by the clothing, and the
cementing effect of the oil, are washed away, thus relieving the skin,
which is the great sewerage system of the body. The work of the lungs
and kidneys is thus lessened, and the danger of consumption and Bright's
disease, which may be caused by uncleanness, reduced."

"_Effects of Sea Bathing._--Sea bathing is much more tonic than all
other kinds, and the reason is simple. The salt has a slightly
irritating effect on the skin, which is very beneficial. Besides, sea
bathing is always accompanied by the best of exercise, by relaxation and
freedom from the ordinary cares of life, by a change of climate and
scene. The beating of the waves against the body also has an
exhilarating effect. The bath in the sea should be taken about three
hours after breakfast. There are three stages experienced in the cold
bath--first, that of depression; second, the tonic stage; and third, the
giving out of the heat-producing powers. This is the same as the one
stage of the hot bath, and is always to be avoided as highly injurious.

"Nevertheless, the hot bath has its value. Its power to cool the body is
admitted, and it is used with effect in cases inflammation induced by
cold. The cold foot-bath is recommended as a positive cure for cold
feet."

"The practice among modern women of taking hot baths is endangering the
health of the race. In a hot bath there is at first a feeling of
oppression and violent throbbing of the head, followed by prostration, a
highly feverish condition, and a relaxation of the entire system. In
case of any organic disease of the heart or consumption, this bath must
be carefully shunned. The hot bath belongs alone to the province of the
physician. The cold bath, on the other hand, aside from its tonic
effects, renders the body less sensitive to changes of temperature, and
in this climate is, hence, especially valuable as a protection against
catching cold. This bath is from 68 degrees to 75 degrees, and should be
taken in the morning before breakfast."

"=Bleeding.=--A sudden and profuse flow of blood is cause for alarm.
First, decide whether the blood comes from an artery or a vein. If from
a vein, the blood is dark, and oozes or flows evenly; if from an artery,
it is bright red, and spurts in jets. In the former case, the bleeding
may generally be stopped by binding on a hard pad. In case of a ruptured
artery, the flow of blood may be checked by tying a twisted
handkerchief, a cord, or strap, _between the wound and the heart_. If
the hand is cut, raise the arm above the head and bind it tightly. In
_wounds of the throat_, _arm-pit_, or _groin_, caused by cuts, and in
case of any deep wound, thrust the thumb and finger into the bottom of
the wound and pinch up the part from which the blood comes, directing
the pressure against the flow. _In cuts of the lips_, compress the lips
between the thumb and finger nearer the angle of the mouth than the cut
itself. In _scalp wounds_, make direct pressure against the bones of the
skull with the fingers, or, better, by means of a compress or bandage."

"_Nosebleed._--Full-blooded persons who are afflicted with headache and
dizziness are most subject to nosebleed. In such cases, the bleeding
should be regarded as a relief to an overcharged system, and should not
be too suddenly stopped. To stop the bleeding, keep the patient's arms
elevated, apply cold water or ice to the base of the brain, or inject
vinegar or alum water up the nostrils with a syringe. A thick piece of
wrapping paper, placed between the upper lip and gum, and firmly
pressed, will usually arrest the flow. It acts by compressing the
arteries which supply the Sneiderian membrane. Try plugging with cotton,
or a strip of soft muslin, gently pushed up the nostrils, thus causing
the blood to clot about the plug. If these remedies fail, the case
should have the attention of a physician."

=Brain Worry.=--"After a good spell of hard work, the brain worker is
often tormented by finding it difficult, all at once, to turn off the
steam. His work-day thoughts will intrude themselves in spite of every
effort to keep them out. Thackeray generally succeeded in exorcising the
creatures he had been calling into existence, by the simple expedient of
turning over the leaves of a dictionary. A great lawyer was in the
habit, in similar circumstances, of plunging into a cold bath, and
averred that a person never took out of cold water the same ideas that
he took into it. Perhaps the best mental corrective of this condition is
to employ the mind for a short time in a direction most contrasted to
that in which it has been overworked. During excessive labor of the
brain, there is an increased flow of blood to the working organ. If this
condition of distention is long continued, the vessels are apt to lose
the power of contracting when mental activity is diminished. Hence
arises the impossibility of fulfilling the physical conditions of sleep,
the most important of which is the diminution of the flow of blood to
the brain. It is certain enough that the continued deprivation of any
considerable part of the normal amount of sleep will be seriously
detrimental to health. Dr. Hammond, in his work on sleep, mentions the
case of a literary man in America who for nearly a year restricted his
rest to four hours a day, and frequently less. At the end of that time,
the overtasking of his mental powers was manifested in a curious way. He
told the physician that, though still able to maintain a connected line
of reasoning, he found that as soon as he attempted to record his ideas
on paper, the composition turned out to be simply a tissue of arrant
nonsense. When in the act of writing, his thoughts flowed so rapidly
that he was not conscious of the disconnected nature of what he was
writing, but as soon as he stopped to read it over, he was aware how
completely he had misrepresented his conceptions."

=Breathing.=--In each respiration an adult inhales one pint of air.

A man respires 16 to 20 times a minute, or 20,000 times a day; a child,
25 to 35 times a minute.

While standing, the adult respiration is 22; while lying, 13.

The superficial surface of the lungs, _i. e._,of their alveolar spaces,
is 200 square yards. The amount of air inspired in 24 hours is about
2,500 gallons.

Two-thirds of the oxygen absorbed in 24 hours is absorbed during the
night hours, from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M.

Three-fifths of the total carbonic acid is thrown off in the day-time.

The pulmonary surface gives off about 5 fluidounces of water daily in
the state of vapor.

The heart sends through the lungs 192 gallons of blood hourly, or 4,608
gallons daily. The duration of inspiration is five-twelfths, of
expiration seven-twelfths, of the whole respiratory act; but during
sleep, inspiration occupies ten-twelfths of the respiratory period.

There are two good rules to follow given by William Blaikie:--

"1. To hold the body erect, whether standing, sitting, or walking, and
breathe deeply. This habit gives the lungs and digestive organs free
play. More oxygen is taken into the blood, and the food is more readily
digested and assimilated. 2. To fill the lungs full at frequent
intervals, holding the air in the chest as long as is comfortable. This
practice will soon improve a disturbed circulation."

=Bright's Disease.=--Bright's disease is a disorder of the kidneys which
causes those organs to secrete albumen in the urine, while they fail to
extract from the blood the urea, or effete matter, which they should
take up from that fluid. Urea in the blood operates as a poison, and
when accumulated in large quantities, produces drowsiness, convulsions,
and apoplexy. Intemperance is a fruitful source of Bright's disease,
because excessive drinking tends peculiarly to the degeneration of the
kidneys. The best remedy we know, or have ever seen tested, is Bethesda
water, from Waukesha Springs, Wis. It should be natural, without gas; a
quart per day will not be too much for an adult.

=Bruises.=--If the skin is not broken, the best thing for a bruise, or
black and blue spot, as they are often termed, is a piece of pure
copper. It should be thin enough to shape with the fingers just the
curvature or angle of the portion of the body bruised. In applying it,
be very gentle at first, for if it be a finger nail you desire to
preserve, on first application it will give you quite a severe shock,
but by relieving it every second or two, inside of 5 minutes the pain
will cease, and no black spot will follow. If the skin be broken, and
the blood has ceased to flow, and you desire to use this remedy, first
paste a piece of unprinted newspaper over the broken part, and then
proceed as above; but in no case ever place a piece of copper on a
broken part of the skin without the above precaution.

=Burns=.--A correspondent of the Philadelphia _Record_ vouches for the
wonderful efficacy of the common cat-tail as a remedy for burns. He
says: "Take the down, and with just enough lard to hold it together,
make a plaster and lay upon any burn, and it soothes and heals so soon
that it seems a miracle. Put upon a fresh burn, and in less than half an
hour the smart is gone; if it is an old burn, the healing will commence
in twenty-four hours. 'Cat-tail' is also the Indian remedy for
scrofulous sores or ulcers. Age does not destroy its healing virtues. It
can be laid away and kept for years without losing any of its remedial
properties." Burns should be bathed with alcohol or turpentine and
afterwards with lime-water and sweet-oil, but never with cold water.
Soft soap or apple butter are equally excellent for burns.

=Cancer.=--It is well proved that cancer cannot be successfully removed
by use of the knife. Surgeon John McFarlane, of Glasgow, mentions the
cutting out of _eighty-six_ cancers without effecting a _single cure_.
For those who are troubled we would say that there have been and there
are remedies with permanent effects. The writer knows of a female
physician in this city who has been very successful in achieving lasting
cures in numerous authenticated instances.

=Chewing Gum and Other Substances.=--Regular chewing outside of meal
hours of any substance is injurious. It unnecessarily excites the
salivary glands, the strength of which should be reserved for eating. Do
not chew the ends of your finger nails. Little pieces of the nails may
be swallowed, which at some time--possibly quite remote--may cause you
great pain, and even death. This has occurred. It has also been found by
opticians and doctors that hardly anything will affect the eyes
harmfully quicker than gum-chewing.

=Cholera.=--Dr. Gamaleia, of Odes

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