CHAPTER I
CARING FOR THE HEALTH
Good Health better than Gold.—Horses and houses, balls and dolls, and much else that people think they want to make them happy can be bought with money. The one thing which is worth more than all else cannot be bought with even a houseful of gold. This thing is good health. Over three million persons in our country are now sick, and many of them are suffering much pain. Some of them would give all the money they have to gain once more the good health which the poorest may usually enjoy by right living day by day.
How long shall you live?—In this country most of the persons born live to be over forty years of age, and some live more than one hundred years. A hundred years ago most persons died before the age of thirty-five years. In London three hundred years ago only about one half of those born reached the age of twenty-five years. Scarcely one half of the people in India to-day live beyond the age of twenty-five years. In fact, people in India are dying nearly twice as fast as in our own country. This is because they have not learned how to take care of the body in India so well as we have.
Fig. 1 —By right living this woman remained in good health for several years after she was a century old.
The study which tells how to keep well is Hygiene. Whether you keep well and live long, or suffer much from headaches, cold, and other sickness, depends largely on how you care for your body.
Working together for Health.—One cannot always keep well and strong by his own efforts. The grocer and milkman may sell to you bad food, the town may furnish impure water, churches and schools may injure your health by failing to supply fresh air in their buildings. More than a hundred thousand people were made very sick last year through the use of water poisoned by waste matter which other persons carelessly let reach the streams and wells. Many of the sick died of the fever caused by this water. Although it cannot be said that we are engaged in real war, yet we are surely killing one another by our thoughtless habits in scattering disease. We must therefore not only know how to care for our own bodies, but teach all to help one another to keep well.
A Lesson from War.—The mention of war makes those who know its terrors shudder. Disease has caused more than ten times as much suffering and death as war with its harvest of mangled bodies, shattered limbs, and blinded eyes. In our four months' war with Spain in 1898 only 268 soldiers were killed in battle, while nearly 4000 brave men died from disease. We lost more than ten men by disease to every one killed by bullets.
In the late war between Japan and Russia the Japanese soldiers cared for their health so carefully that only one fourth as many died from disease as perished in battle. This shows that with care for the health the small men of Japan saved themselves from disease, and thus won a victory told around the world.
Fig. 2 —The Surgeon General who, by keeping the soldiers well, helped Japan win in the war against Russia.
The Battle with Disease.—For long ages sickness has caused more sorrow, misery, and death than famine, war, and wild beasts. Many years ago a plague called the black death swept over most of the earth, and killed nearly one third of the inhabitants. A little more than a hundred years ago yellow fever killed thousands of people in Philadelphia and New York in a few weeks. When Boston was a city with a population of 11,000, more than one half of the persons had smallpox in one year. Within a few years one half of the sturdy red men of our forests were slain by smallpox when it first visited our shores. Before the year 1798 few boys or girls reached the age of twenty years without a pit-marked face due to the dreadful disease of smallpox. This disease was formerly more common than measles and chicken pox now are because we had not yet learned how to prevent it as we do to-day.
Victory over Disease.—Cholera, yellow fever, black death, and smallpox no longer cause people to flee into the wilderness to escape them when they occasionally break out in a town or city. We have learned how to prevent these ailments among people who will obey the laws of health.
Fig. 3 —One of the thousands of sturdy red men which smallpox slew before we learned how to prevent the disease.
Until the year 1900, people fled from a city when yellow fever was announced, but now any one can sleep with a fever patient and not catch the disease, because we have learned how to prevent it. Nurses and doctors no longer hesitate to sit for hours in the rooms of those sick with smallpox because they know how to treat the body to keep away this disease. By studying this book, boys and girls may learn not only how to keep free from these diseases, but how to manage their bodies to make them strong enough to escape other diseases.
As the Twig is bent so the Tree is inclined.—This old saying means that a strong, straight, healthy, full-grown tree cannot come from a weak and bent young tree. Health in manhood and womanhood depends on how the health is cared for in childhood. The foundation for disease is often laid during school years. The making of strong bodies that will live joyous lives for long years must begin in boyhood and girlhood.
In youth is the time to begin right living. Bad habits formed in early life often cause much sorrow in later years. It is said that over one half the drunkards began drinking liquor before they were twenty years of age and most of the smokers began to use tobacco before they were twenty years old.
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
1. What is worth most in this world?
2. How many people are sick in our country?
3. How long do most people live?
4. Why do people not live long in India?
5. What is hygiene?
6. How many more deaths are caused by disease than by
war?
7. Give some facts about smallpox.
8. Why do we have no fear of yellow fever and smallpox
now?
9. Why should you be careful of your health while young?
10. When do most smokers and drinkers begin their bad
habits?