RULES FOR HEALTH
I
The first step towards the reduction of disease is, beginning at the beginning, to provide for the health of the unborn. The error, commonly entertained, that marriageable men and women have nothing to consider except wealth, station, or social relationships, demands correction. The offspring of marriage, the most precious of all fortunes, deserves surely as much forethought as is bestowed on the offspring of the lower animals. If the intermarriage of disease were considered in the same light as the intermarriage of poverty, the hereditary transmission of disease, the basis of so much misery in the world, would be at an end in three or at most four generations.
II
Greater care than is at present manifested ought to be taken with women who are about to become mothers. Wealthy women in this condition are often too much indulged in rest and are too richly fed. Poor women in this condition are commonly underfed and made to toil too severely. The poor, as we have seen, fare the best, but both, practically, are badly cared for. Nothing that is extraordinary is required for the woman during this condition named. She needs only to live by natural rule. She should retire to rest early; take nine hours' sleep; perform walking or similar exercise, to an extent short of actual fatigue, during the day; partake moderately of food, and of animal food not oftener than twice in the day; avoid all alcoholic drinks; take tea in limited quantities; forego all scenes that excite the passions; hear no violence of languages, be clothed in warm, light, loose garments; and shun, with scrupulous care, every exposure to infectious disease.
III
In meeting the uncontrollable causes of disease the special influence of season deserves particular regard. It should always be remembered that, other things being equal, during winter the body loses, during summer gains in weight. Further, it should be remembered that these changes are abrupt: that usually the loss commences, sharply, in September and lasts until April, and that the gain commences in April and lasts until September. In September, though the weather even be warm, it is right, therefore, to add to the clothing and to commence a little excess of food. In summer it is right not only to reduce the clothing, but to eat less food than in winter.
IV
The best means of preventing the spread of the communicable diseases is perfect and instant isolation of the affected, and removal and thorough purifying of all clothing and bedding with which the affected have come in contact. It is a vulgar error to suppose that every child must necessarily suffer from the contagious maladies, and that the risk of exposure to infection is, therefore, of little moment. The chance of infection lessens with advance of life, and that person is strongest who has never passed through a contagious malady. Against small-pox vaccination is the grand safeguard, but even vaccination ought never to prevent the isolation of those who suffer from small-pox.
V
The mortality from the uncontrollable causes of disease amongst persons of advanced life is best prevented by providing against sudden vicissitudes of heat and cold. The primary care is to guard against sudden change of vascular tension from exposure to heat when the blood-vessels are weakened by cold. Such exposure is the cause of nearly all the congestions which occur during winter, and which carry off the enfeebled. The sound practice is to maintain the body, at all hours and seasons, but especially during the hours of sleep, at an equable temperature. The temperature of 60° Fah. may be considered a safe standard.
VI
The true danger of every form of mental exercise is the addition of worry. Laborious mental exercise is healthy unless it be made anxious by necessary or unnecessary difficulties. Regular mental labour is best carried on by introducing into it some variety. New work gives time for repair better than attempt at complete rest, since the active mind finds it impossible to evade its particular work unless its activity be diverted into some new channel. During the new work a fresh portion of the brain comes into play and the overwrought seat of mental faculty is secured repose and recovery. Excessive competition in mental labour is ruinous at all ages of life.
VII
The idea that excessive physical exercise is a sound means of promoting health is erroneous. Man is not constructed to be a running or a leaping animal like a deer or a cat, and to raise the physical above the mental culture were to return to the shortness and misery of savage life. Physical training, while it should be moderately encouraged, should be refined and made secondary to mental training. Every rash and violent feat of competitive prowess should be discountenanced.
VIII
The combination of mental and physical fatigue, as it is practised in many pursuits at this time, are exceedingly dangerous. Long journeys each day, to and from the sphere of profession or business, are hurtful. The idea that mental labour may be advantageously supplemented by violent muscular exercise, such as is implied in long and fatiguing walks or laborious exercise on horseback, is an error. Moderate and regular exercise, at the same time, favours mental work. The practical point is to regulate the physical labour that it shall not induce fatigue.
IX
One of the surest means for keeping the body and mind in perfect health consists in learning to hold the passions in subservience to the reasoning faculties. This rule applies to every passion. Man, distinguished from all other animals by the peculiarity of his reason, is placed above his passions to be the director of his will, can protect himself from every mere animal degradation resulting from passionate excitement. The education of the man should be directed, not to suppress such passions as are ennobling, but to bring under governance, and especially to subdue, those most destructive passions, anger, hate, and fear.
X
To escape the evils arising from the use of alcohol there is only one perfect course, namely, to abstain from alcohol altogether. No fear need be entertained of any physical or mental harm from such abstinence. Every good may be expected from it. True, a certain very qualified temperance, a temperance that keeps the adult to a strict allowance of one ounce and a half of alcohol in each twenty-four hours, may possibly be compatible with a healthy life; but such indulgence is unnecessary and encourages the dangerous desire to further indulgence. A man or woman who abstains is healthy and safe. A man or woman who indulges at all is unsafe. A man or woman who relies on alcohol for support is lost.
XI
Smoking tobacco, and the use of tobacco in every form, is a habit better not acquired, and when acquired is better abandoned. The young should especially avoid the habit. It gives a doubtful pleasure for a certain penalty. Less destructive than alcohol, it induces various nervous changes, some of which pass into organic modifications of function. So long as the practice of smoking is continued the smoker is temporarily out of health. When the odour of tobacco hangs long on the breath and other secretions of the smoker, that smoker is in danger. Excessive smoking has proved directly fatal.
XII
Indulgence in narcotics, opium, chloral, chlorodyne, ether, absinthe, and all others of the class, is an entire departure from natural law. Except under the direction of skilled opinion and for the cure of disease, the use of these agents is subversive of the animal functions, and is a certain means of embittering and shortening life. It is doubtful whether the freedom of the subject ought to be permitted to extend to the uncontrolled self-indulgence in these poisons. The indulgence indicates an unsound reason which requires to be governed by sound reason, temperately enforced.
XIII
The food on which the man who would be healthy should live should be selected so as to ensure variety without excess. Animal food should not be taken oftener than twice daily. The amount of animal and vegetable food combined should not exceed thirty ounces in the twenty-four hours, and for the majority of persons an average of twenty-four ounces of mixed solid food, a third only of which should be animal, is sufficient. All animal foods should be eaten while they are fresh and after they are well cooked. The habit of eating underdone flesh is an almost certain cause of parasitic disease. The amount of fluid taken, in any form, should not exceed an average of twenty-four ounces daily. Water is the only natural beverage.
XIV
To escape the injuries arising from impure air it is necessary to attend to the following rules: To avoid the admission into closed apartments of air charged with any substance that offends the sense of smell. To avoid surcharging the air with vapour of water. To keep the temperature in every room as nearly as possible at the safe standard of 60° Fah. To take ample means of allowing air to escape from the room by every available outward draught, by the chimney flue especially. To admit air freely at all times, and, when a room is not in use and the external air is not charged with moisture, to allow the entrance of air from without through every window and door.
XV
Occupations of every kind, however varied they may be, require to be alternated, fairly, with rest and recreation. It is the worst mistake to suppose that most and best work can be done when these aids are omitted. Strictly, no occupation that calls forth special mental and physical work should fill more than one-third of the daily life. The minds of men of all classes ought now to be devoted to the promotion of a systematic method by which the productive labour of every life should be carried on within the limited term of eight hours in the twenty-four. The body of man is not constructed to run its completed circle under a heavier burden of labour.
XVI
Enforced idleness, by those who have acquired wealth, is always an error so long as the health is good. Men of business should never actually retire while they retain fair bodily and physical faculty. It is one of the gravest of errors to attempt to enforce idleness on others from the mistaken sentiment of wishing to place them beyond the necessity for work. This is against nature. The earth, which is itself ever in motion, demands ever the motion of cultivation from its inhabitants that it may be a garden properly arranged from age to age. Those, therefore, who have idleness thrust upon them, by their progenitors, should throw it off as if some necessity for work were equally theirs. By this plan they will live longest to enjoy the greatest happiness.
XVII
The natural duration of sleep is eight hours out of the twenty-four, and those who can secure this lead the soundest lives. It is best taken from ten o'clock till six, and it is most readily obtained by cultivating it as an automatic procedure. All stimulants, all excitements, all excessive fatigues, all exhaustions pervert sleep even if they do not prevent it. The room in which sleep is taken should be the best ventilated and the most equably warmed room in the house. The air of the room should be maintained at the natural standard of 60° Fah., and the body of the sleeper should always be kept completely warm. The bed should be soft and yielding. A regular tendency to sleep at other hours than the natural is a sure sign of error of habit or of nervous derangement.
XVIII
Dress, to be perfectly compatible with healthy life, should fit loosely, should be light, warm, and porous, should be adapted to the season as to colour, should be throughout every part of the clothing, upper as well as under, frequently changed, and should be, at all times, scrupulously clean. The wearing of clothes until they are threadbare, is an invariable error in all that respects the health, to say nothing of the comfort of the wearer. All bands or corsets which in any way restrict the course of the blood in any part of the body are directly injurious. Dresses dyed with irritating dyestuffs ought to be carefully avoided.
XIX
Connected with cleanliness of clothing, as a means of health, is personal cleanliness. Perfected action of the skin, so essential to the perfect life, can only be obtained by thorough ablution of the whole body. The ablution ought, strictly, to be performed once in every twenty-four hours. It is best to train the body to the use of cold water through all seasons, so that the requirement for water of raised temperature may not become a necessity. The simplest and best bath is the ordinary sponge-bath. Plungings, splashings, showers, and the like are mere pastimes. The occasional use of the hot air or Turkish bath is an important adjunct to the means of maintaining health.