“KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.” 
A STARTLING NEW TREATISE—INDIAN PHYSIOLOGICAL WISDOM—DANGERS OP 
SLEEPING WITH THE MOUTH OPEN—HOW TO EFFECT A REFORM. 
( From the Nero Orleans Crescent, of April 18th, 1868.) 
“ Shut Your Mouth ” is the emphatic and not over-polite injunction which 
is made conspicuous on the cover of a singular volume by George Gatlin. Ho 
has during all of a long life pursued the study of ethnography among the native 
races of North and South America; has described them with rare fidelity ; has 
painted hundreds of representative savages more faithfully than any other man, 
aud has paid particular attention to their sanitary system. 
One thing at least he has learned from these children of nature, and that is 
the immense importance of keeping one’s mouth shut. In a general sense we 
all recognize this fact theoretically. Mr. Catlin, however, restricts his observ- 
ations to the physiologicrl advantages of shutting the mouth, particularly during 
sleep, and brings out some startling truths. He says : 
“ There i*3 no animal in nature, excepting man, that sleeps with the mouth 
open; and with mankind I believe the habit, which is not natural, is generally 
confined to civilized communities, where he is nurtured and raised amidst en- 
ervating luxuries and unnatural warmth, where the habit is easily contracted, 
but carried and practiced with great danger to life in different latitudes and 
different climates ; and in sudden changes of temperature, even in his own 
house. 
“ The physical conformation of a man alone affords sufficient proof that this 
is a habit against instinct andjthat he was made, like other animals, to sleep with 
his mouth shut—supplying the lungs with vital air through the nostrils, the 
natural channels; and a strong corroboration af this fact is to be met with 
amongst the North American Indians, who strictly adhere to Nature’s law in 
this respect, and show the beneficial results in their fine and manly forms, and 
in exemption from mental and physical diseases.” 
And in another place :— 
“ It requires no more than common sense to perceive that mankind, like all 
the brute creations, should close their mouths when they close their eyes in 
sleep, and breathe through their nostrils, which were evidently made for that 
purpose, instead of dr rpping the under jaw, and drawing an over-draught of 
cold air directly on the lungs through the mouth ; and that in the middle of 
the night, when the fires have gone down and the air is at its coolest tempera- 
ture—the system at rest and the lungs the least able to withstand the shock. 
“ For those who have suffered with weakness of the lungs or other diseases 
of the chest, there needs no proof of this fact; and of those, if any, who are yet 
incredulous, it only requires that they should take a candle in their hand and 
look at their friends asleep and snoring ; or, with the night-mare, (or without 
it,) with their eyes shut and with their mouths wide open—the very picture of 
distress, of suffering, of idiocy and death; when Nature designed that they 
should be smiling in the soothing and invigorating forgetfulness of the fatigues 
and anxieties of the day, which are dissolving into pleasurable and dreamy 
shadows of * realities gone by.’ ” 
He holds “ that the air which enters the lungs is as different from that which 
enters the nostrils as distilled water is different from the water in an ordinary 
cistern or frog-pond. The arresting and purifying process of the nose upon 
the atmosphere with its poisonous ingredients passing through it, though less 
perceptible, is not less distinct, nor less important than that of the mouth, 
which stops cherry-stones and fish-bones from entering the stomach. 
“ When awake man can breathe through the mouth with'comparative impu- 
nity, but, when he relaxes all of his energies in the repose of sleep, and his pow- 
ers of resistance are giving away to its quieting influence, if he gradually opens 
his mouth to the widest strain he lets the enemy in that chills his lungs—that 
racks his brain—that paralyzes his stomach—that gives him the night-mare—■ 
brings him imps and faries that dance before him during the night; and during 
the following day headache, toothache, rheumatism, dyspepsia and the gout.” 2 
The auther thus gives his own experience : 
“ I had been, like too many of the world, too tenderly caressed in my infan- 
cy and childhood by the over-kindness of an affectionate mother, without cruelty 
of thoughtfulness enough to compel me to close my mouth in my sleeping hours ; 
and who, through my boyhood, thinking that while I was asleep I was doing 
well enough, allowed me to grow up under that abominable custom of sleeping 
much of the time with the mouth wide open; and which practice I thought- 
lessly carried into manhood, with niglit-mare and snoring, and its other results ; 
and at last, (as I discovered just in time to save my life,) to the banks of the 
Missouri, where I was nightly drawing the deadly draughts of cold air, with 
all its poisonous malaria, through my mouth in my lungs. Waking many times 
during the night, and finding myself in this painful condition, and suffering 
the succeeding day with inflammation (and sometimes bleeding) of the lungs, I 
became fully convinced of the danger of the habit, and resolved to overcome 
it, which I eventually did, only by sternness of resolution and perseverance, 
determining through the day to keep my teeth and my lips firmly closed, ex- 
cept when it was necessary to open them ; and strengthening this determination, 
as a matter of life and death, at the last moment of consciousness, while enter- 
ing into sleep, 
“ Under this unyielding determination, and the relief I began to feel from 
ajpartial correction of the habit, I was encouraged to continue in the unrelaxed 
application of my remedy, until I at length completely conquered an insiduous 
enemy that was nightly attacking me in my helpless position, and evidently 
fast hurrying me to the grave. * * * * * * * 
“ Finding myself so evidently relieved from the painful and alarming results 
of a habit which I had recollected to have been brought from my boyhood, I 
became forcibly struck with the custom I had often observed (and to which 1 
had before alluded, of the Indian women pressing together the lips of their 
sleeping infants, for which I could not, at first, imagine the motive, but which 
was now suggested to me in a manner which I could not misunderstand ; and 
appealing to them for the object of so, apparently, cruel a mode, I vras soon 
made to understand, both by their women and their medicine-men, that it was 
done “ to insure their good looks and prolong their lives and by looking into 
their communities, and contrasting their sanitary condition with the bills of 
mortality among the civilized races, I am ready to admit the justness of their 
reply, and am fully convinced of the advantages those ignorant races have over 
us in this respect, not from being ahead of us, but from being behind us, and 
consequently not so far departed from Nature’s wise and provident regulations 
as to lose the benefit of them. 
“ We wish-we could give the amusing wood-cut illustrations which add to 
the impressiveness of the following : 
“ Watcb your little brothers and sisters, or little innocent playfellows, when 
asleep with their mouths strained open, and observe the painful expressions of 
their faces, their nervous agitation, the unusual beating of their hearts, the 
twitching of their flesh and the cords of their necks and throats, and your own 
reason will tell you that they do not enjoy such sleep. And, on the other hand, 
what pictures of innocence and enjoyment are those who are quietly sleeping 
with their mouths firmly shut and their teeth closed, smiling as they are enjoy- 
ing their natural repose ? If you will, for a few moments, shut your eyes and 
let your under jaw fall down, as it sometimes does in your sleep, you will soon 
see how painful the over draft of cold air on the lungs becomes, even in the 
day-time, when all your energies are in action to relieve you, and you will in- 
stantly perceive the mischief that such a mode of breathing might do in the 
night, when every muscle and nerve in your body is relaxed and seeking re- 
pose, and the chill of the midnight air is increasing. 
*• It is most undoubtedly the above named habit which produces confirmed 
snorers, and also consumption of the lungs and many other diseases, as well as 
premature decay of the teeth, the night-mare, etc., from which it has been 
shown the savage races are chiefly exempt, and, I firmly believe, from the fact 
that they always sleep with their mouths closed and their teeth together, as I 
have before described.