39. A delicate lady frequently complains of cold feet; she has neither sufficient food nor sufficient exercise to keep them warm. Walking and plenty of nourishment are the best remedies she can use to warm them. If they be cold before retiring to rest—a frequent cause of keeping her awake—let her walk briskly for half an hour, before undressing for the night, about either the hall, or the landing, or a large room.
40. Some ladies declare that they are always cold, their feet especially, which are as cold as ice! The fact is, they not only do not take exercise enough, but they do not take nourishment enough—breakfast especially—to keep them warm. Many ladies really and truly half starve themselves; they consider it to be vulgar to eat much, and to satisfy their appetite! they deem it low to take a long walk: every poor woman can do that! it is much more easy and pleasant to loll back in an easy carriage, and to be rolled along! Truly; but if carriage exercise be more agreeable, is it as healthful? Certainly not: there is very little exercise in riding in a carriage; but every organ, muscle, nerve, and blood-vessel of the body is put into beneficial action by walking. Walking is essential to health; there is no substitute for it; there certainly is no perfect health without it.
41. The reason why my fair countrywomen take so much opening medicine is the want of exercise. How truly it has been said that “physic, for the most part, in nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.”
42. I consider it to be a grievous misfortune for any one—man, woman, or child—who cannot, without the frequent taking of physic, keep their bowels regular. When such is the case there is something wrong, very wrong, about her system and about her proceedings, and the sooner the matter is inquired into and rectified the better. The necessity of a constant swallowing of opening medicine is a proof of chronic ill health, and will in time injure her constitution beyond remedy. I cannot speak too strongly on this subject; I have, in my professional experience, seen so much mischief and misery caused by the frequent swallowing of opening pills, that I should not do my duty if I did not raise my voice against the abominable custom. Why, many ladies make a practice, during the whole of their lives, of taking two or three times a week opening pills! The bowels, they say, will not act without them; but I maintain that if they would resolutely refrain from swallowing them, and adopt the rules of health laid down in these pages, they would be able altogether to dispense with them, to their great benefit and delectation. But then the rules of health require trouble and perseverance—(and what that is worth having does not?)—while the swallowing of a couple of pills might be done quickly, and with very little trouble; but although the frequent taking of pills gives at the time but little trouble, they cause much trouble afterwards! Look, then, at the results of each system, and decide accordingly! It has been said that “gluttony kills more than the sword;” my conviction is, that the constant taking of opening medicine kills more than gluttony and the sword combined! The abuse of aperients is one of the crying evils of the day, and who so proper as a medical man to raise his voice to suppress, or at all events to lessen, the evil?
43. If a lady be costive, and is in consequence inclined to take a dose of physic, let me advise her to take instead a long walk, which will in the majority of cases do her vastly more good; and if requiring repetition, the one is far more agreeable, and the effects are much more likely to be lasting than the other. Exercise, I am quite sure, is, as a rule, in the long run much more effectual and beneficial than opening physic.
44. A newly-married wife ought to be cautious in the taking of horse exercise. As long as she be not pregnant, horse exercise is very beneficial to health, and is a great enjoyment; but the moment symptoms of pregnancy develop themselves, she must instantly give it up, or it will probably cause her to miscarry.
45. Let her breathe the pure air of heaven, rather than the close contaminated air either of an assembly or of a concert-room. The air of an assembly or of a concert-room is contaminated with carbonic acid gas. The gas-lights and the respiration of numbers of persons give off carbonic acid gas, which gas is highly poisonous.
46. The truth of this assertion is patent to every one who will observe the effects that a large assembly, more especially in the evening, when the gas or candles are flaring away, has on the system; the headache, the oppression, the confusion of ideas, the loss of appetite, the tired feeling, followed by a restless night—all tell a tale, and loudly proclaim that either an assembly or a concert-room is not a fit place for a young wife desirous of having a family.
47. Let a young married lady attend well to the ventilation of her house. She may depend upon it that ventilation, thorough ventilation, will prove one of the best friends she has in the world. Let her give directions to her servant to have early every morning every window in the house opened, as the morning air is fresher and sweeter than it is later in the day. “For ventilation, open your windows both at top and bottom. The fresh air rushes in one way, while the foul makes its exit the other. This is letting in your friend and expelling your enemy.”[[11]] This opening of the window, top and bottom, of course applies only to the rooms that are unoccupied:—in an occupied room in hot weather one sash only—the lower, as a rule, is best—ought to be opened. If the upper be lowered when the room is occupied, the cold air is apt to strike on the top of the head, and to give cold.
48. Let her give orders that every chimney in the house be unstopped, and let her see for herself that her orders have been obeyed; for servants, if they have the chance, will stop up chimneys, as they are fully aware that dust and dirt will come down chimneys, and that it will give them a little extra work to do. But the mistress has to see to the health of herself and of her household, which is of far more consequence than either a little dirt or extra work for her servants.