Confidential Chats with Boys

by William Lee Howard

You have heard a great many stories about the endurance of the little Japanese, and a lot has been said about its being due to their custom of living on rice. This has but little to do with their powers of endurance. Of course a diet of rice and vegetables do not leave in the body such an amount of poison as meat will leave; but even when the Japanese eat meat we witness their wonderful powers of endurance.

They can start on a run and keep it up all day. But they will stop two or three times a day and take a hot bath. Here is the secret—that is, the principal secret. I have had one of these little, but powerful chaps pull me in a ’rickshaw up hills and around mountain roads at a dog trot which tired me to watch him; so fearful was I at first that he would break down. But about every two hours he would stop at a bathhouse along the roadside and literally wash off the sweat containing the cast-off poisons from his body. Then fresh as when he started in the morning, he would go on again.

He wore only a loin cloth, hence his body was free from any covering which would keep the pores from working and performing their duty—the second secret of his endurance.

Now, if this man had been dressed in underwear and over this skin covering wore a pair of trousers and a jacket, he would have become tired, had a heavy feeling throughout his limbs, and if forced onward, succumbed to headache—that is he would have shown all the symptoms of self-poisoning. Especially so would this have happened had the baths been denied him.

Similar habits and customs were the reason for the Indian being able to run long distances and keep the pace up day after day.

But you ask; how about the Northmen; the Icelanders, those hardy and enduring men of Lapland? Surely they have to wear heavy clothing and have no hot baths along the roadside. Partly true; but their endurance is of a different nature; it is that of being able to put out great muscular power, to withstand severe cold and long fasting. This latter ability is simply because when they do eat it is a gorging of fatty food; food which gives out heat. The Eskimo remains quiet and semi-asleep many months in the year. When he makes a kill for food he and his family—even the babies—eat like wolves. They stuff themselves like the animals, then go to sleep in the winter and live off the fat on their body. Then their form of endurance is one of race—a trait which has been passed down to them for generation after generation. But I am doubtful if their contact with civilization does not injure this trait, and then will come their extinction.

But contrary to the general impression those hardy Northmen living in Norway, Lapland and Iceland take excellent care of their skin. In traveling in Iceland after a hard day’s work over ice fields and lava deserts, the natives would bring us to camp where there were either hot springs or little huts built of lava blocks which were primitive Turkish baths. In these huts were round stones; upon these they would build a hot fire and after it had burnt to ashes these were brushed off and water poured upon the stones. This produced a hot steam in which the natives would remain until the sweat poured down in streams. Then after rubbing each other they would put on their heavy homespun clothes and emerge fit for another day’s hard work. It is the same in Norway and Lapland.

These habits are what gives them the ability to endure physical work without exhaustion.

While upon this subject I would like to impress upon you the unnecessary custom of using any perfumes upon the body. The sweetest odor is that coming from a clean, healthy skin.

There is another feature of this skin cleanliness—the help it gives the kidneys. A lot of poisonous matter is cast off from the kidneys. Now, if the pores of the skin are kept constantly open, much of this material goes out through them, thereby relieving the kidneys from extra work. As you grow along in years this becomes a very important matter, for many kidney diseases are due to the overwork they have had to do, when it could have been better done by the skin. When we come to dealing with vital matters in keeping good health—the care of the sex organs—more will be told you about these poisons.