After a heavy supper, either sleep or digestion must suffer, but the person who goes to bed hungry will not have sound and refreshing sleep. If one works after supper, through a long evening, he should eat a light lunch of some sort an hour or two before bed time.
Ordinarily persons do best to retire at ten or eleven, and the habits of society which require later hours are to be regretted. Brain work, however, after midnight is most exhausting, and though sometimes brilliant, would probably be better still if diverted to earlier hours. Whatever be the explanation, it is an undoubted fact that day and night cannot be properly exchanged. About one or two o’clock in the morning the heart’s action sinks, and nature points to the necessity for rest. Sleep in the day time does not compensate for the loss of that at proper time, and slumbers prolonged to a late hour do not refresh the mind or body as does sleep between the hours of eleven and six or seven, the normal period for rest.
Old persons require, as a rule, less sleep than those of middle age, just as they require less food, because their nutritive processes are less active than when they were younger, and perhaps because their mental efforts also are less forced and attended by less exertion and more deliberation. Women, generally speaking, require more sleep than men, at least under like circumstances, apparently because in their case the same efforts involve greater fatigue.
VENTILATION OF BEDROOMS
Rooms which are to be slept in after having been occupied during a whole evening must be thoroughly ventilated before the occupant prepares for bed. Doors and windows must be thrown open for several minutes, the gas or lamp put out, and the air completely changed, no matter how cold it may be outside. This is the only way to obtain refreshing sleep. On going to bed the usual ventilating arrangements should then be followed, but the great point is to change the air thoroughly first.
REGULARITY OF HABITS
The importance of regularity and punctuality in every circumstance of daily life is not sufficiently realized. The more often and regularly any act is performed the more automatic it tends to become, and the less effort, whether mental or physical, attends its performance. This is a matter of daily experience and observation, and is true not only of mental work and manual or mechanical exercises, but of the organic functions of the body. Quite apart from the harm done by too frequent eating or too prolonged periods between meals or want of rest, the brain finds itself ready for sleep, the stomach for digestion and the bowels for action at the same hour every day, when these acts are performed with unbroken punctuality, and the strain upon the system to adjust itself to new conditions is therefore reduced to a minimum.
GENERAL HEALTH CONDITIONS
Guard Your Water Supply—How Diseases Are Classified—How to Prevent Contagion—Care of the Sick Room—Disinfection, Its Importance and Its Methods—Period of Isolation or Quarantine—Duty of All Households Where Sickness Has Invaded, to Guard Others Against Its Spread.
Man cannot preserve his health entirely by his own caution as to his food and personal habits. His surroundings enter into the matter at all times. By this is meant the house in which he lives, its situation and conditions, as well as the community itself. Fortunately, in this country we have not yet become so overcrowded as to forbid ordinary care in the matters of drainage, light, ventilation and other requisites. Americans should congratulate themselves that their ample country and general prosperity enable them to regulate their food, their habits and the conditions around them in high degree. At the same time the fact that these things are so generally within our control places upon us the obligation to do what we can for the community to maintain the general health.
Let us note now, briefly, some points of primary importance in the conditions that assure general health. Air, warmth and light must be provided for the dwelling. In cities we cannot always choose, but in smaller communities and in the country we can in large degree control such things for ourselves. Some things require only to be suggested to be clearly understood. A house should stand where the character of the soil and the contour of the surface will provide the best drainage. Hollows should be avoided. When a house is built on a hillside the ground should not be dug out so that a cliff rises immediately behind. Trees may afford valuable shelter, not only from cold winds, but from fogs. But it is not generally wise to have them close around a dwelling, at least in large numbers, since they impede the free circulation of the surrounding air, and retain dampness beneath their shade. In the country a house may be sheltered from cold winds on the side from which they prevail, by trees. Exposure of each side of a house in succession to the rays of the sun helps to keep the outer walls dry, to warm it in winter and to aid ventilation in the summer. The north wall may be made with advantage a dead wall, and ventilating pipes and soil pipes may be carried up through it, but chimneys carried up through a north wall, being warmed with difficulty and apt to smoke, should not project but be built inside the house. Attics with slanting ceilings and dormer windows are cold in winter and hot in summer.