Right and Wrong Way to Read
In this present chapter of the Reader’s Guide, the subject of health and disease is treated just as the Guide treats any other department of knowledge. You may want to learn something about it because it is one of the most wonderful branches of science, just as you would take up the course of reading on astronomy. Or you may feel that you ought to know more than you do about your own body, about the way you should live in order to preserve your health, and about the causes of the diseases to which you are exposed. Some people will tell you that it is unwise to read about the subject at all. That is absurd. There are no doubt exceptional people, with unsound nerves, who will imagine they must take every patent medicine they see advertised, and who long to try every newly discovered serum that the newspapers tell them about.
The Danger of “Doctoring” Yourself
Again, you may be told that if you try to learn something about health and disease, you will be tempted to think you know as much as the doctor; and so neglect to go to him when you need his advice. But this objection, again, applies only to people who lack good sense. For example, if you read the article on Dentistry, by Dr. E. C. Kirk, dean of the Dental Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, it will help you to understand whatever your dentist may be doing for you. But it will certainly not give you the idea that you could fill your own teeth.
When you find your watch has stopped, you wind it. Then, if it does not start, you take it to the watchmaker. If, instead of doing that, you tried to tinker with it yourself, you would soon be in trouble. On the other hand, it would be ridiculous to go to the watchmaker without first finding out whether the watch merely wanted winding, and a man ought to know enough about his watch to connect the fact that it has stopped with the probability that he has forgotten to wind it. The daily winding is his work, not the watchmaker’s. The chemical and mechanical work that is going on within you is as complicated as anything in a watch or anything that you could see in a laboratory or factory. It is your business (and your most important business, for if you neglect it, you will not be able to do anything properly, for yourself or for anybody else) to keep this machinery running, and to do that is not so simple as to wind a watch. Your body needs food and warmth. It very probably gets too much of both. Furthermore, the food is often unwholesome, and the warmed air is often bad air. But unless you are a millionaire invalid, you do not have a private doctor with you at all hours to watch the food put on your plate and to ventilate your room.
The Kind of Knowledge You Need
The average watch is better treated than the average human body, and when the average body goes wrong, through the average man’s thoughtlessness, he proceeds, without in the least knowing what is wrong, to take violent medicines, or to experiment with some fad about diet or underclothing or gymnastics, and to make matters very much worse. The knowledge he can gain from the Britannica will tend to keep him from being careless, and also from trying to doctor himself when he needs professional care. Whether you undertake a complete course of medical reading or not, it is certainly worth your while to read the first group of articles mentioned in this chapter—those which have to do with the healthy routine of life.
Eating and Drinking
You will find the best introduction to the subject of diet in general in a section (Vol. 26, p. 799) of the article Therapeutics, by Sir Lauder Brunton. He is one of the most famous consulting physicians in the world, and he gives you advice which your own doctor will certainly confirm when he tells you that the way to avoid indigestion is to masticate your food well and sip half a pint of hot water four times a day—when you go to bed, when you get up, and again about an hour before luncheon and dinner, instead of drinking anything with any meal except your breakfast. If you try that treatment for a week, you will be glad that you looked at this chapter of the Guide. Nutrition (Vol. 19, p. 920), by Prof. Noel Paton and Dr. Cathcart, describes the process of nourishment and shows how important it is to chew the food thoroughly, not only in order to break it up, but also in order to combine with it a sufficient supply of the chemical juices which come from the glands in the mouth. Dietetics (Vol. 8, p. 214) shows what use your body makes of each kind of food that you eat. This article, by the late Dr. Atwater of the United States Department of Agriculture, who conducted the famous government investigation of diet, and R. D. Milner, also of the Department, contains tables showing the amount of nourishment required by persons who are doing light or heavy muscular work, as well as by those who lead a sedentary life. It will interest you to see (p. 218) how the food of an American business man compares with that of an American working in a lumber camp. The article Dietary (Vol. 8, p. 212), describing the food given to prisoners, soldiers and sailors in various parts of the world, contains some striking information as to the possibilities of the simple life. In Sweden prisoners get only two meals a day, and those consisting chiefly of porridge or gruel; and the “punishment diet” in English prisons is one pound of bread a day, and nothing else but water. The article Water Supply (Vol. 28, p. 387), by G. F. Deacon, deals with the storage and distribution of water, and shows how it should be filtered for drinking. Sewerage (Vol. 24, p. 735) describes the sanitary systems which prevent the pollution of streams and wells. Mineral Waters (Vol. 18, p. 517) describes the great variety of springs from which the table-waters in general use are obtained. Their medicinal values are also indicated, and in the table which classifies thirty of the most important American springs it is curious to see that nearly all of them lie in the Appalachian Mountain chain.
Hurtful Foods