ON THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH.
As this work is designed for the benefit of families as well as other purposes, it is hoped that a chapter on the preservation of the health of young girls will not be out of place. What we design to say in this chapter, will be applicable to the girl of ten years and upwards. It is the duty of the mother or guardian so to direct the conduct of the daughter that she may enjoy the blessings of life, and become a useful member of society. But in order to lay the foundation of future usefulness, the health should be well guarded in early life. Much of course depends upon a good constitution, and strict attention should be paid to its development and preservation. The child at an early age should be guarded against all that would tend to weaken or derange this desirable attribute of the human system.
Exposure is one of the principal sources of injury to the constitution, and therefore the clothing should always be adapted to the season of the year, and the temperature of the air, whether children are at home or abroad. Girls are generally clothed sufficiently warm while at home, but when they are going from home, they change their warm apparel for thinner and cooler garments. They are often allowed to expose themselves to the chilling blasts of winter, with their arms naked, their breasts and shoulders exposed, and their feet clad with thin stockings and shoes, in the place of those just laid aside, which were warm and comfortable.—This is a practice that cannot be too much deprecated, being one of the great evils of dress and fashion, upon whose altar thousands have been sacrificed. How many do we find in these days with enlarged tonsils and broken croaking voices, the fruits of exposure and nothing else?
The practice of tight lacing is another fruitful cause of destruction of health and broken-down constitutions. Young girls should not lace at all—an easy smooth jacket to make the dress fit smoothly is all they should wear. Are we asked why lacing is injurious? We answer, first, the ribs are soft and very elastic and the cartilages that join them to the breast bone are softer than the ribs. If then a jacket or corset be laced around the ribs or chest, so as to prevent a free and full play of the ribs at every inspiration, in the same proportion is the cavity of the chest diminished, and consequently the lungs are deprived of a certain amount of atmospheric air, in proportion to the contraction of the ribs, produced by the laced jacket or corset. Thus the order of nature is deranged and the system is deprived of that due proportion of oxygen which is necessary to health, the vitality of blood and the vigor and proper proportions of the system. One of the consequences of tight lacing therefore is, that the lungs are prevented from discharging a due portion of carbonic acid gas from the blood, and receiving in lieu therefor of due proportion of oxygen from the atmosphere. Hence the person looks pale, the lips assume a blue or purplish color, the breathing is labored, the breast heaves and the circulation is prevented from going on as freely as it should. The small air vessels of the lungs are partially obliterated, they become diseased in their action and tubercles form in them or the lungs; these remain to become in a few years the seeds of an incurable consumption.
Again: The free action of the heat is prevented by tight lacing and the consequence is it labors like a dying man, but in vain—it cannot get relieved from its fetters. The blood is prevented from flowing with that freedom and ease which are essential to the well being of the system, and the violent exertions which the heart must make in order to carry on the circulation, become the cause of disease in that organ, which perhaps can never be cured. Another evil of lacing: The stomach is always included in the deadly grasp of the corset. The lower floating ribs are forced to take the place the stomach should occupy in part; the skirts are compelled to grow too narrow, the liver is also pressed too closely and the stomach is bound as with a cord. The gastric juice is partly prevented from secreting and that which is secreted is unhealthy, the ducts of the liver and pancreatic gland are prevented from performing their healthy functions and consequently the food is not taken in due quantity to nourish the system, and what is taken is not properly digested, for the want of a free and healthy action of the digestive functions. Dyspepsia is the result,—a feeble and finally a destroyed constitution. For all the powers of nature must act freely and naturally, or a sound constitution and good health can never be enjoyed.
Nothing is so fascinating to an intellectual young man as a well cultivated mind, a rosy cheek, an intellectual eye, and a corresponding expression of countenance; these you cannot have if you suppress any of the healthy functions of the system. Exercise is another essential item to promote the health of girls, and this they should be allowed to take freely. At an early age, let them run and play, jump the rope, throw the hoop, leap and skip; for free exercise gives freedom to the muscles and joints and strengthens the nerves, all of which are necessary for the building up of a good constitution. Girls should be allowed to sleep one-third of their time or eight hours in twenty-four, and when younger—they should sleep more. The young of all the animal creation require more sleep than those that are fully grown: girls, therefore, should retire early that they may obtain sleep enough; rise early and enjoy the benefit of the morning air, which is bracing to their systems. After children are ten years old, they should not sleep more than two in a bed, and there should not be more than two beds in a room, unless the room be very large and well ventilated. Girls should rise early and air and set their rooms in order; they should use free ablution of cold water over their breasts and arms, especially as far as they are in the habit of exposing them to the air, as this will prevent their taking cold as easily as they otherwise would. The diet of children should be plain and simple, as their digestive powers are not as strong as those of grown persons. The quantity should always be proportioned to the age and strength of the child. Much mischief is done by letting children eat too much. They should be allowed full time to eat and be taught to chew their victuals well. They should be taught to eat any thing that is common, so that they may appear easy at table at all times, and make their friends so likewise. Frequent bathing is of great service to youth; it invigorates the constitution and gives a fine complexion. The bath may be changed according to the season; it may be cold, tepid or salt. When the cold bath is used, either fresh or salt, the skin should be well rubbed with a coarse towel, as well before they go into the bath, as after they come out. When children are healthy liquid food is as a general rule, better for them than solid food, because it supplies more blood, and this is needed to form and build up the solids, but they should be allowed some of both.
Children should always take light suppers and light breakfasts. Their dinner should be of more substantial food and taken freely. But they should never be allowed to eat in haste, as nothing aids the powers of digestion more than the perfect mastication of food.
HEALTH.
Its Value, Conditions, Preservation and Restoration.
Health consists in the vigorous and normal or constitutional action of all the physical organs and functions. Life consists in precisely the same action: in proportion to the vigor of this action is the amount of both health and life, but in proportion as the physical functions are enfeebled or diseased, is health enfeebled and life diminished. But in proportion as we improve our health do we thereby increase life itself. Viewed in any and every aspect, health is life and life is health. By as much therefore as life is valuable should health be preserved if good and restored if feeble.
Health is the great seasoner or relish of all our blessings; nor is it possible to enjoy the latter except by means of the former: without health what can we be? What can we do?—What can we enjoy? For other things being equal, our capabilities of accomplishing and enjoying are proportioned to our health and diminished by disease. If we possessed all the wealth, and all the honors, and all the blessings mortals can possess, we could enjoy them only in proportion as we had health, and their value would be diminished just in proportion to its decline. Suppose we were sick and our appetite thereby destroyed, the richest food and most delicious fruits, instead of rendering us happy would nauseate us. How different if we were healthy. How a good appetite, the produce of health, would enjoy them. Well might the glutted alderman offer a ragged boy a guinea for his appetite for breakfast. The rich invalid is poor, but he who is healthy is rich, because his fund of life and his capacities for enjoyment are proportionally great. Reader, if brought to the brink of the grave, your last hour come, what would you give? What that you possessed would you not give for another year of life and its pleasures? Astor’s thirty millions would be cheap. To impair health in obtaining any amount of earthly goods is a dear exchange, since then to preserve or regain health is to preserve, prolong or regain life itself, and to impair the former is to destroy the latter and its pleasures, as well as hasten death; and since the value of life so infinitely surpasses that of all other earthly blessings, what consummate folly to trifle with health on any account. Then how much more foolish and even wicked virtually to throw it away for nothing, in our eager pursuit of those trifling objects, wealth, honors, and the like, which mainly engrosses mankind? What, sacrifice life upon the altar of mammon? For be it remembered, that no human being can impair his health at any period of his life, without proportionally shortening his days; without being brought to a strict account at the close of life, and he compelled to end it as much sooner than he otherwise would, as he has injured his health during his whole lifetime. Let me urge upon you the infinite importance of preserving your health. This effectually done, millions of money bestowed on each reader could not equally benefit you, because of the incomparable greater value of health than money. Let your own experience testify. Which of you has not, some time or some how, induced debility or pain in one portion of your system or another, which will cripple you for life. A foolish ambition breaks down the constitution of an incalculable number of our youths, unwilling to be outdone they will work at the top of their strength as long as they can stand, perhaps over heat themselves, or in a single day or week bring on some complaint which debilitates them for life, and carries them to a premature grave. An ambitious youth wishing to show his employers what a great day’s work he could do, shovelled till he lamed his side, so that for fifteen years he has been a partial invalid, cannot do any kind of work, nor more than half the amount he formerly did, besides working in almost perpetual pain. Nor is this the half; whatever enfeebles the health enfeebles the mind by weakening and disordering the brain. So perfectly are body and brain inter related, that all the conditions of either react upon each other; whatever augments the health, strengthens the body and thereby invigorates both the brain and the mind. What is the true value of the mind? How much could you afford to give for double the amount you now possess? Neither money nor any thing else can measure its value. To improve our minds is the most effectual mode possible of augmenting all the capabilities, all the pleasure, all the virtue of this life, and ripening for another, and hence should be the paramount business of our whole lives. Health allows you to be always on hand for business, from which sickness takes you and compels you to entrust its management to others, always disastrous, or cuts off your wages if a laborer, creates large doctors, nurses and a host of other incidental bills, and occasions a great variety of pecuniary losses. So measurably if any member of your family is sick, especially a wife. How many, reader, if they and their families had always been well, would have been rich who are now poor? Considered which ever way you will, to preserve the health if it be good, and if poor to regain and then preserve, should be the paramount business of life, should take precedence over all others, and be our first great concern. Come then readers one and all and let us make it our permanent business to preserve and augment our health; let us allow ourselves to do nothing that shall impair it; let us make and take time to do every thing in our power to invigorate it.