The Means for Developing Vitality.
1. Good nutrition. This involves sound digestion and assimilation. It can be assured only through:
a. Wholesome foods, adapted to the age in quantity and preparation
b. Sound teeth
c. Regularity in feeding
d. Right conditions in feeding
Eating slowly
Chewing well
Avoiding severe exercise within an hour after feeding
Eating not less than 1 to 3 hours before bedtime
Eating in a cheerful frame of mind
Food at approximately body temperature
2. Thorough elimination of waste.
a. Through the lungs by oxidization. Deep and adequate breathing accomplishes the two ends of eliminating some of the poisonous waste (as carbon dioxide from the lungs) and bringing quantities of oxygen to the internal cells for burning up of waste. Active physical exercise and the habit of deep breathing are both necessary.
b. Through kidneys and intestines. These are Nature’s plumbing system for removing poisonous waste. Regularity in these functions should become a habit in early childhood. There should be a bowel movement once or twice a day. Abundance of laxative foods in the diet, water between meals, outdoor life and activity, are natural means of regulating these functions.
3. Regulation of bodily heat. Colds and chills pave the way for vital disorders. They are not always symptoms of an infection. They are often due to poor training of the nerves in the skin to respond quickly to changes of temperature. The training of these nerves can come only as that of any other nerves—through their exercise. Indoor and sedentary life does not supply sufficient exercise for them; for this exercise there is required:
a. A low slightly variable temperature, 65°-68° F. indoor
b. Perceptible air current
c. Air baths, sun baths, and cold-water baths administered with judgment
4. Good circulation of blood. The blood is the only avenue by which nourishment can be brought to the cells or their poisonous waste removed. So far as it can be directly controlled, circulation may be quickened by abundance of exercise, cool temperature, wise distribution of porous clothing. The child should be taught how to quickly warm hands or feet by special exercise, rolling or shaking of hands, stretching the arms and forcefully opening and shutting the hands, slowly rising and sinking on the feet, running, alternately stretching the toes and heels, rubbing the feet.
5. Protection of nose, throat, and chest. Nature has provided the nose with a delicate mucous lining that constantly secretes a fluid which has the power to destroy germs that may enter with the air. If this moist mucous lining becomes dry, it cannot function. It will not become dry unless the indoor air is too dry, as is the case in artificially heated rooms unless additional moisture is supplied by open dishes of water and by constant intake of outer air. The throat likewise suffers in a dry atmosphere.
Bundling the throat and chest keeps the skin moist and makes it more susceptible to congestion; they should be made resistant to congestion by deep breathing and daily cold sponging. Adenoids and enlarged tonsils are abnormal growths of lymphatic tissue in the nose and throat that make breathing difficult and inefficient, and that become breeding places for germs. The infection that they harbor leads frequently to colds, earache, deafness, tonsillitis, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever. They obstruct the breathing and reduce the supply of oxygen, spoil the shape of the face, reduce the ability to think, and by their discomfort produce irritability and nervousness. They greatly interfere with the vitality. Adenoids should therefore be removed, and tonsils treated, their removal being a last resort when they are diseased.
6. Maintaining high count and efficiency of red blood corpuscles and of leucocytes in the blood. The red blood corpuscles carry oxygen. Evident symptoms of their inefficiency are paleness, low vitality, inertia. The leucocytes are the special blood cells that attack disease germs which have made their way past the sentinels in the nose, throat, and stomach. The number and efficiency of these bodyguards is increased by outdoor exercise, cold-water baths, air baths, sun baths, by adding more mineral food to the diet.
Additional means of preventing development of germ diseases are: (a) protection from contagion; (b) injecting of antitoxins. The greatest preventive, however, is internal resistance, since disease germs are usually in the atmosphere and are entering the system every day through the nose and mouth.
7. Storing of nervous energy. This is possible only through abundant sleep, regularity of regimen, temperance, moderation, self-control, avoidance of stimulants, narcotics, or dissipation. Nature has intended that childhood shall be a period of accumulating and conserving nervous reserve.
The effect of any regimen or any exception to a principle of good hygiene must be measured not simply by its immediate results but even more by its remote consequences. Nature is patient, long suffering, and will endure much abuse without great protest, but Nature is also an accurate bookkeeper and remorseless creditor; every debt must at some time be paid on demand,—it may be five, ten, forty years later, or in the lives of the succeeding generation. Nature makes no allowance for ignorance of her laws. Parental love cannot atone for lack of knowledge or experience. The death-rate from tuberculosis rises considerably among girls in their twenties. To what extent is this due to general poor hygiene, indoor life, lack of exercise, in childhood? During the last quarter century there has been a marked increase in the death-rate during middle age from kidney disorders, cancer, heart disease, insanity. It may well be asked to what extent these are due to habits of irregularity, overfeeding, wrong feeding, self-indulgence, nervousness, acquired in childhood.