Confidential Chats with Boys

by William Lee Howard

These cases we call dipsomania; and they are now understood to be cases of faulty work on the part of the liver and other organs which retain the poisons of the body.

Turkish baths, sweating and other methods soon put him in a position to understand himself. He was shown just what to do to keep the poisons out of his body and hence keep off the attacks. Of course his liver had been injured, and probably his kidneys, by the absorption of so much alcohol; but by care and watchfulness he became a useful citizen, but could never for a moment forget his delicate condition.

Now it is not necessary for you to understand what to do in these cases—but it is necessary for you to understand how to keep from getting into the same state.

If you have headaches due to some cause that you do not recognize—as you would from those following blows or breathing foul air in closed rooms—just remember that some organ of the body—skin, kidneys or liver—is retaining poison. You must get rid of that at once; for every hour it remains it accumulates and if allowed to go on, some of the organs will be affected. Then when you get to be forty and over you will wonder why your kidneys are not in perfect health or why you have become so nervous.

If the headaches are so distressing that you cannot exercise violently enough to sweat—not simply perspire—then get out in the air, no matter what the weather is, and take long, deep breathing exercises. Keep this up until your chest muscles ache. Now you should commence to feel better. Put all the pure water in you you can hold. After a while make a brave effort to exercise so that the water and its poisons run off your skin. Then wrap yourself in a thick blanket and go to bed. Before breakfast eat some fruit and drink plenty of water. After your bowels have moved you should be feeling as fit as a trivet.

If this feeling of well-being possesses you, then it is certain you had an overplus of the natural poisons in your body.

If this advice and knowledge had been the possession of boys and youths twenty years ago we should not have to build hospitals for dipsomaniacs as we are doing to-day.

All I am saying to you and shall say, does not mean you should not consult a doctor—quite the contrary. What I want you all to understand is some of the important matters that have not been told boys by teachers or parents—things which, when you thoroughly grasp, will make your growing life free from worry and misunderstanding. Oh! there are so many moments in a boy’s life when he needs to know things; when he longs for that knowledge; when he suffers inwardly, is afraid of himself and when he only gets from his father or mother the advice: “You had better go and see the doctor.” And the doctor? Generally gives him a slip of paper and tells him to return in a day or so to see if the medicine works.