The part played by habit in matters of health is often overlooked. Although the body adjusts itself to widely varying conditions and even to unfavorable ones, the importance of forming desirable habits cannot be overemphasized. Sudden or radical changes in living, however, particularly among people no longer young, may play havoc. New and violent systems of exercise, weight reduction, and food fads forced on families by enthusiastic discoverers involve considerable risk.
Many elements enter into health; in no single one is found hygienic salvation. Temptation always exists to emphasize one element at the expense of others. For instance, people who insist upon overventilating rooms regardless of others' comfort may themselves be utterly careless in regard to necessary sleep, and more than one fastidiously
clean person has disregarded the highly unclean condition of constipation. To maintain sound health only a rational program will suffice: properly balanced work and play, sleep and food and all other elements must be included in due proportion. And over-anxious health seekers might well remember that health is not so much an end in itself, as a means to a happy and productive life; even in concern over health, it is possible for him that saveth his life to lose it.
EXERCISES
- Explain the difference between an hereditary disease and hereditary susceptibility to a disease. How may hereditary susceptibility to a disease be combatted?
- What are the essentials of good ventilation?
- What is the proper temperature for a living room? What are the effects of higher temperatures? Of lower temperatures?
- Describe methods for maintaining household cleanliness.
- Discuss the importance from the point of view of health, of dust; of insects; of garbage; of sewage.
- What principles should guide one in deciding whether a certain water supply is safe to use for drinking purposes? What are the dangers of impure water? How can impure water be rendered safe?
- What diseases may be carried by milk? How can milk be rendered safe?
- Explain the health aspects of personal cleanliness.
- What care should be given the teeth and mouth? Why?
- What bad results frequently follow constipation? How should constipation be remedied?
- Name seven factors that are important in causing fatigue. Why is it uneconomical to continue work, either physical or mental, beyond the point of fatigue?
- What facilities for recreation, especially in the open air, does your community provide for little children? For school children? For working boys and girls? For grown people?
FOR FURTHER READING
- Health and Disease—Roger I. Lee, Introduction and Chapters I, III-V, VII-IX.
- How to Live—Fisher and Fisk, Chapters I, III-V.
- The Human Mechanism—Hough and Sedgwick, Chapters V, XXII-XXIX.
- Disease and Its Causes—Councilman, Chapters X, XII.
- Fatigue and Efficiency—Goldmark, Chapters II, III.
- Preventive Medicine and Hygiene—Rosenau.
- A Manual of Personal Hygiene—6th Edition, Edited by Walter L. Pyle.
- Four Epochs of a Woman's Life—Galbraith.
- Hygiene and Physical Culture for Women—Galbraith.
- The Home and Its Management—Kittredge.
- Exercise and Health—F. C. Smith, Supplement 24 to the Public Health Reports, Government Printing Office, Washington.
- The Sanitary Privy—Farmers' Bulletin 463, United States Department of Agriculture, Government Printing Office, Washington.
- Safe Disposal of Human Excreta at Unsewered Homes—Lumsden, Stiles and Freeman, Bulletin 68, Public Health Reports, Government Printing Office, Washington.
- The Disposal of Human Excreta and Sewage of the Country Home—New York State Department of Health, Albany.
- Milk and Its Relation to Public Health—Bulletin 56, Hygienic Laboratory, Government Printing Office, Washington.
- Milk and Its Relation to Health—New York State Department of Health, Albany.
- Other Publications of the United States Public Health Service and of the Departments of Health of the different states and cities.
CHAPTER III
BABIES AND THEIR CARE
The principles of hygiene are fundamentally the same for young and old. The applications, however, differ at different ages. From the time when physical growth and development are complete until changes due to old age appear, an individual commonly has greater resistance than at other ages, and is able in consequence to endure unfavorable conditions of life with more success.