CHAPTER XXI.
HOW TO KEEP THE MUSCLES HEALTHY.
1. How to Make the Muscles Strong.—With which hand can you lift the more? with the right hand or with the left? Why do you think you can lift more with the right hand than with the left? A blacksmith swings a heavy hammer with his right arm, and that arm becomes very large and strong. If we wish our muscles to grow large and strong, so that our bodies will be healthy and vigorous, we must take plenty of exercise.
2. Effects of Idleness.—If a boy should carry one hand in his pocket all the time, and use only the other hand and arm, the idle arm would become small and weak, while the other would grow large and strong. Any part of the body which is not used will after a time become weak. Little boys and girls who do not take plenty of exercise are likely to be pale and puny. It is important that we should take the proper amount of exercise every day, just as we take our food and drink every day.
3. Healthful Exercise.—Some kinds of play, and almost all kinds of work which children have to do, are good ways of taking exercise. A very good kind of exercise for little boys and girls is that found in running errands or doing chores about the house.
4. Food and Strength.—A great part of our food goes to nourish the muscles. Some foods make us strong, while others do not. Plain foods, such as bread, meat, potatoes, and milk, are good for the muscles; but cakes and pies, and things which are not food, such as mustard, pepper, and spices, do not give us strength, and are likely to do us harm.
5. Over-Exertion.—We ought not to exert ourselves too much in lifting heavy weights, or trying to do things which are too hard for us. Sometimes the muscles are permanently injured in this way.
6. The Clothing.—We ought not to wear our clothing so tight as to press hard upon any part of the body. If we do, it will cause the muscles of that part to become weak. If the clothing is worn tight about the waist, great mischief is often done. The lungs cannot expand properly, the stomach and liver are pressed out of shape, and the internal organs are crowded out of their proper places.
7. Tight Shoes.—People are often made very lame from wearing tight shoes. Their muscles cannot act properly, and their feet grow out of shape.
FOOT OF CHINESE WOMAN.
8. In China, it is fashionable for rich ladies to have small feet, and they tie them up in cloths so that they cannot grow. The foot is squeezed out of shape. Here is a picture of a foot which has been treated in this way. It does not look much like a human foot, does it? A woman who has such feet finds it so difficult to walk that she has to be carried about much of the time. Do you not think it is very wrong and foolish to treat the feet so badly? You will say, "Yes;" but the Chinese woman thinks it is a great deal worse to lace the clothing tight about the body so as to make the waist small.
9. Effects of Alcohol upon the Muscles.—When an intemperate man takes a glass of strong drink, it makes him feel strong; but when he tries to lift, or to do any kind of hard work, he cannot lift so much nor work so hard as he could have done without the liquor. This is because alcohol poisons the muscles and makes them weak.
10. Effects of Drunkenness.—When a man has become addicted to strong drink, his muscles become partly paralyzed, so that he cannot walk as steadily or speak as readily or as clearly as before. His fingers are clumsy, and his movements uncertain. If he is an artist or a jeweller, he cannot do as fine work as when he is sober. When a man gets very drunk, he is for a time completely paralyzed, so that he cannot walk or move, and seems almost like a dead man.
11. If you had a good horse that had carried you a long way in a carriage, and you wanted to travel farther, what would you do if the horse were so tired that he kept stopping in the road? Would you let him rest and give him some water to drink and some nice hay and oats to eat, or would you strike him hard with a whip to make him go faster? If you should whip him he would act as though he were not tired at all, but do you think the whip would make him strong, as rest and hay and oats would?
12. When a tired man takes alcohol, it acts like a whip; it makes every part of the body work faster and harder than it ought to work, and thus wastes the man's strength and makes him weaker, although for a little while his nerves are made stupid, so that he does not know that he is tired and ought to rest.
13. When you grow up to be men and women you will want to have strong muscles. So you must be careful not to give alcohol a chance to injure them. If you never taste it in any form you will be sure to suffer no harm from it.
14. Effects of Tobacco on the Muscles.—Boys who smoke cigars or cigarettes, or who chew tobacco, are not likely to grow up to be strong and healthy men. They do not have plump and rosy cheeks and strong muscles like other boys.
15. The evil effect of tobacco upon boys is now so well known that in many countries and in some states of this country laws have been made which do not allow alcohol or tobacco to be sold or given to boys. In Switzerland, if a boy is found smoking upon the streets, he is arrested just as though he had been caught stealing. And is not this really what a boy does when he smokes? He robs his constitution of its vigor, and allows tobacco to steal away from him the strength he will need when he becomes a man.
16. Tea and Coffee.—Strong tea and coffee, while by no means so bad as alcohol and tobacco, may make us weak and sick. A person who drinks strong tea or coffee feels less tired while at work than if he had not taken it, but he is more tired afterwards. So you see that tea and coffee are also whips, small whips we might call them, and yet they really act in the same way as do other narcotics and stimulants. They make a person feel stronger than he really is, and thus he is led to use more strength than he can afford to do.