UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOUNDED  1836
WASHINGTON,  D. C.
SPO  16—67244-1 
 
 
C. 086001) MORSB. 
 
                    ■yu< $y
BOOK OF  HEALTH
FOR THE
MILLION,
WITH PRACTICAL REMARKS ON
BATHING, DIET, EXERCISE, DISEASE,
AND THE
WATER CURE.
     BY LA ROY SUNDERLAND.
Author of " Palhetisrn: Man Physiologically and Mentally Considered ;»
       "New Phrenological Chart," tec. &c. &c.
       BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY WHITE & POTTER,
   Chronotype Office, 15 State Street.
         1847. 
-\
SftrtrJ
  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847,
               By La Roy Sunderland,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Mass. 
              CONTENTS.



                  CHAPTER I.
Importance of SeK Knowledge,     ....   5
                  CHAPTER II.
Health—Disease,    ..-.---7
                 CHAPTER III.
Drugging,    -        ......13
                          t
                 CHAPTER TV.
Treatment of Disease,......18
                 CHAPTER V.
Pure Cold Water, Bathing, &c,                     21
                 CHAPTER VI.
The Water Cure,   -------    29
                 CHAPTER VII.
Regimen, Food, Exercise,.....53
                 CHAPTER VIII.
Drink,   ---------    71
                 CHAPTER IX.
Clothing,........73
                  CHAPTER X.
Exercise—Employment,......75
                  CHAPTER XI.
Sleep—Rest,........79 
IV                   CONTENTS.

                   CHAPTER XII.
  Air—Light,........82
                   CHAPTER XHI.
  Parents, ----.----86
                   CHAPTER XIV.
  Infancy,      ----.-_-    91
                   CHAPTER XV.
  Childhood,........93
                   CHAPTER XVI.
  Youth,......-.-95
                  CHAPTER XVII.
  Old Age,........97
                  CHAPTER XVHI.
  Causes of 111 Health,    ---...   99
                   CHAPTER XIX.
  Signs of Good Health,......107 
BOOK  OF  HEALTH.
               CHAPTER  I.

         IMPORTANCE OF  SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

  The remark is often made, that " we never suf-
ficiently appreciate health, till it is once lost."   If
this be true, it follows that until we become invalids,
we are not likely to feel, as we should, the  import-
ance of a knowledge of those laws upon which Life
and Health so much depend.  Persons not sensible
of any interruption in their  health, are not apt to
imagine there  is, or  can be, any real  danger of
losing it; and hence, nothing offered to them upon
this subject is thought  worthy of much attention.
Alas !  that we should wait till

             "«------Maladies,
     Ghastly spasms, racking tortures, qualms,
     Heart-sick agony, fevers,
     Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
     Intestine stone, or ulcer colic pangs,"

seize  upon  us before we can seriously give our
minds to the consideration of a subject in which we
            2 
6
SELF KNOWLEDGE.
 are so deeply interested ?   But so it is.  We blun-
 der on, sowing broad-cast the seeds of

           "-----Wide, wasting pestilence,
        Dropsies, asthmas, and joint racking rheums,"

 till, in most cases, it is too late to see our want of
 information, or to repair the mischiefs we have done.
   Reader!  whatever your age or  condition in life
 may now be, you are either destitute of good health,
 or liable to  be so.   Or, if you are not an invalid
 yourself, your child, your father, mother, husband,
 wife, brother,  sister, neighbor,  or friend, may now
 be suffering the pains of death, which  might have
 been avoided by a knowledge of what you will find
 in the following pages.   " Knowledge is power," it
 is Health, it is Life, and Happiness, it is freedom
 from pain, freedom from

        " Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy,
        And moon-struck madness."

 Why not, then,  " in all thy  gettings,"  get  knowl-
 edge %  Knowledge of your self, of your mind, your
 body,  the laws  of  your being,—eating, drinking,
 sleeping, thinking, acting, living and dying f  What
 knowledge  so   important  as  this ?    Knowledge
 which tells  you how to live, how to avoid pain,
how to be happy, and how to render others so ! 
HEALTH—DISEASE.
7
               CHAPTER  II.

                HEALTH--DISEASE.

  The human body has been  aptly compared to a
sack filled with  hair.   Now, suppose  each hair to
be a tube of a. peculiar size, through which a stream
of blood is constantly flowing.  These tubes are,
everywhere, permeated with extremely small ner-
vous threads, which communicate to them the power
by  which  their size  is  increased or  diminished.
Their activity, or the  quantity  of blood circulated
through these tubes depends on their  size;—these,
when contracted, convey  the blood with greater ve-
locity, and when enlarged, they convey less.   The
body is almost  entirely made up  of little tubes or
capillary vessels, and health depends upon their com-
parative size, and, consequently, upon the quantity
of blood which they convey in a given time.  When
the due amount of nervous power is communicated,
at the proper times, the heart dilates and  contracts
regularly;  the  voluntary and other  muscles obey
without obstruction the several necessities which call
them into action ;—the various secretions  are made
at the proper periods—the vital affinity predominates
in its tendencies to preserve  all  parts of the system
against the destructive  power of  oxygen, which
tends to break them down, and the balance of power
is duly maintained between  the digestive, absorbing, 
8
HEALTH—DISEASE.
 circulating, assimulating, breathing, and excreting
 functions.   This we call a state of perfect health.
   But, if the tubes, or capillary  vessels,  from any
 cause, are deprived of their due amount of nervous
 energy, then, their healthy tone, or size, is disturbed
 or lost; the due velocity of their fluids is retarded,
 and congestion ensues.
   On the contrary, when from any cause, the nerves
 are stimulated to give out too great an amount of
 influence, the tubes may be said to contract and be-
come too small, and hence the current of fluid is,
 in its course, too  much  diminished.  According to
 Dr.  Billing, (and  no -higher  authority need be
 sought) disease is caused by impressions made upon
 the nervous centres by which the nervous influence
 is exhausted  or  morbidly diminished.   That the
 capillary blood vessels,  which (in  health)  are al-
 ways held in a state of semi-contraction (tone)  by
 virtue of the nervous power given out by the nerves,
 become weakened and relaxed, (" the diminution of
vital resistance'''' of Liebig) proving their diameters
enlarged,  whenever the  exhausted  nerves fail to
supply them with the quantity of nervous influence
necessary to preserve their tone, or state of semi-
contraction upon their contents.  That the weakened,
relaxed, and ew/arg-ec?capillaries now admit a larger
current of blood, the  motions of which through
them become slower, which is a state of congestion.
When this congestion  takes  place in  the veins, it
constitutes simple congestion ; when  in the arteries,
it is accompanied by a degeneration  of their coats.
It now takes the name of inflammation.   The de- 
HEALTH--DISEASE.
9
generation of the arterial coats is Liebig's "especial
action  of the destructive force of oxygen."   The
enlarged arteries now contain an excessive quantity
of oxydized blood, while  the resistance opposed to
its influence is diminished, as we have seen above.
But  this  degeneration does not take place in the
veins, because the veins  do not  contain oxydized
blood.
  The Vital Forces give those qualities to the living
body which constitutes the system sympathetic, and
renders all its parts excitable, or susceptible to an in-
fluence from every other part;  and hence, one  part,
or organ, is influenced by its association with anoth-
er.   The strength of the associations will depend on
the  difference in the qualities  or  functions of the
parts, and the nervous or 'mental  connection estab-
lished between them.
   This susceptibility of the nervous system to im-
pressions from different causes, by which its power
is increased or diminished, is differently developed
in different persons.   Its  degree,  in  every case, is
determined by the nervous or sensorial power. What
this power is, has never yet been  proved, and pro-
bably  never  will be.=*  We know, however, that
by it the several parts and organs of the system are

  * The best work  extant on this subject is that by Dr. John
Harrison, entitled " An Essay Towards a Correct Theory of the
Nervous System."  In this work Prof. Harrison has demonstrated
beyond all question, that the prevalent notices of an Electric,
Galvanic, or Magnetic, theory of nervous action are utterly un-
founded.  He concludes with Pearson, as follows:
  1.  That the existence of electrical currents in the nerves, is an
hypothesis contradicted by experiment. 
10
HEALTH—DISEASE.
 made capable of receiving active impressions.   The
 eye,  for instance, is capable  of feeling the  impres-
 sions made upon it by the rays of light, the ear  by
 sound, the nose by odors,  &c.   The  skin is also
 prepared to feel the impressions made by  external
 agents or substances, as of heat or cold, soft or solid,
 rough or smooth.    But  the impressions  made  on
 the organs of sense are not immediately connected
 with that co-operative  power upon  which  life de-
 pends.  Each of the senses, when  stimulated  by
 any  suitable  impression  being  made  upon them,
 manifests a perception, and in  this way  more or
 less influences the state of health.   The  influence

  2. The action of electric currents on the nerves should be put
 in the same category with chemical and mechanical stimuli.
  3. Metals are infinitely better conductors of electricity than the
 nerves.
  4. The nerves are not better conductors than the muscles : their
 powers of conduction do not change when they are changed by
 mechanical violence, (though narcotics, as laudanum, instantly
 renders the nerves powerless.)
  5. The covering of the nerves is incapable of isolating the most
 feeble electric currents  which man produces in galvanic experi-
 ments, so that, if the muscle intervene, the current will pass from
the  nerve into it.
  That these conclusions are  correct, no one  can doubt, for one
 moment, who has read attentively the work above referred to.
 And with the fall of the notions  of the electrical action of the
nervous system, must fall, also, the claims put forth in behalf of
the  numerous medicines said to be " Electrical," " Magnetic," or
 " Galvanic."  Every one who knows  any thing of the laws of
 " Magnetism," knows that you  cannot render'medicines  of any
kind "magnetic," in the sense claimed by many, and hence those
 who make  this pretention are either ignorant or  dishonest.  If
 such drugs do perform the cures attributed to them, it is not done
by magnetism, as might easily be shown. 
HEALTH—DISEASE.
II
of excitability upon the heart and arteries,  veins,
lymphatic glands and secreting vessels, make these
several organs capable of feeling the impressions
made by the stimulant which acts upon them, and
predisposes  them to perform their natural functions.
  By the alternating motions of contraction and ex-
pansion, the blood and  lymph are circulated, the
various absorptions and secretions are carried on,
and the different  excrement is thrown  out  of the
system.  The organic operation kept up for these
important purposes, we call excitement.
  Excitement is maintained at the expense  of ex-
citability, and therefore there must be  a constant
reproduction of excitability in the system, equal  to
the expenditure necessary for the maintainance  of
constant excitement.  If a diminution of excitability
exist, (as is the case in the decline of life,) the sys-
tem is diseased ;  and  if  it be accumulated to an
over degree, it is also diseased  in  an  opposite  con-
dition, the equilibrium being disturbed.
  The agencies which operate on man's suscepti-
bilities, and  excite or diminish his nervous poxceis,
are as numerous as the items which  make  up the
universe, including, withal,  every emotion,  percep-
tion,  conception and thought, which comes  within
the range of his mind.   The different elements re-
ceived into  the stomach, also, cold, heat, light, dark-
ness, sound, color,  odor, bodily and mental exercise,
associations, in a word, every thing, real or  imagi-
nary, which may  touch the nervous  system or oc-
cupy the mind, is capable of aftectijig the  health,
and producing those changes in the "nervous cen- 
12
HEALTH—DISEASE.
tres " which alter the tone of the capillaries, and
thus bring on a state of disease, or remove it, as the
case may require.
  These various stimuli, acting  upon the  nerves,
fibres, and tissues, excite them to action, and when
in due quantity, the system is in a state of health;
but when continued  too long,  or  in  too  large  a
quantity, the susceptibility is exhausted, and  the
system sinks into a state of indirect debility.   Weak-
ness from the  use of tobacco, or alcohol, is an in-
stance of this kind of languor ; and the same condi-
tion is brought on by inhaling a sultry atmosphere.
  Hence, we see that disease is not a substance, a
thing, added to the system, or existing in it, in the
sense supposed by many.  Disease is, in all cases,
the increase or diminution of that amount of nervous
energy,  heat and motion, which constitutes  health.
When the interruption is merely functional, we call
the disease acute; but when it has continued suf-
ficiently long to alter the structure of the particles
composing the parts affected, we say it is  chronic,
and the treatment should vary, accordingly. 
DRUGGING.
13
              CHAPTER  III.

                    DRUGGING.

  In no one thing, probably, not even  in  religion,
have  the  world of mankind been  more  deceived
and injured, than in the views which have gov-
erned the multitude in  the use of medical  drugs.
Indeed,  the history  of the " healing art,"  as  it
has been  miscalled, begins with the  most silly fa-
bles, and, for centuries, it rests upon nothing better
than  dubious tradition.  Nor  is it two centuries
since  the rationale  of the  materia medica began to
contain scarcely anything  either of science or com-
mon  sense.   No trade, no art, was  ever made to
combine  more of rank  nonsense, glaring absurdi-
ties, and disgusting ignorance, than may be affirmed
of the medical profession.  Whether Ave consider
the number and varieties of their drugs, sometimes
thirty  and forty  combined into one  dose,  or the
loathsomeness of their prescriptions, such as " pul-
verized Egyptian Mummy" "bezoar" said to  be
from the  intestines of animals, the " moss from a
dead man's skull," and  the like, one is at a loss to
conceive how it could have been possible for one of
the "  learned professions "  to be so shamefully igno-
rant of the laws of life and health,*  or how any

  *As  a specimen, read the following:—" To cure the gout, take
the hair and nails, cut them small, mix them with wax, and stick
them to a live crab, casting it into the river again" !!!
  The first  "court physician" in London, when attending the
               2* 
14
DRUGGING.
civilized people could be so duped by their unfound-
ed pretensions to medical skill.   And yet, we should
not,  perhaps, marvel,  in  view of  the  conflicting
systems  of Theraputics  which prevailed  a few
centuries ago; when systems, (if such they may be
called,) are popular, at the present day, as peurile
and as unworthy of the times in which we live, as
any that have obtained votaries since the days of
Esculapius.
  The age we live in is one of drugs! and genera-
tions yet unborn will have occasion to speak of it
as the  " Age of Drugs," the age of " patent pills,"
" patent powders," " patent syrups," " patent pan-
aceas," and " patent "  nostrums, without number !
The aversion which multitudes long ago began to
feel for the prevalent systems of bleeding and drug-
ging, has given rise to various other forms  of medi-
cal treatment, which have no more adaptation to
the true laws of life and health, than the old ones
which  the new  schools are now so zealous in their
attempts to explode.   Some  of the new schools,
however,  have this to recommend them  over  the
old ones;  the former prescribe far  less drugs than
the latter;  and  one of the new schools, we know,
prescribe "next to nothing,"  which is its only re-
commendation above its rivals.
  That drugging has destroyed more lives than  the
sword, there can be no doubt at all.   Indeed, I doubt

king's son for small pox, ordered the sick room to be hung with
scarlet cloth, and the patient to  be rolled up in similar stuff!—
Sketches of Imposture and Deception. 
DRUGGING.
15
whether the use of alcohol has  done more to de-
populate the globe  than the use of medical  drugs.
The reasons are to be found  in  the nature  of the
human mind.   The inherent,  all-prevailing love of
life, and the dread of death, have urged on the trem-
bling multitudes till they have, many of them, made
apothecaries'  shops of their  stomachs,  and swal-
lowed  pills and powders  which  might  have been
measured by the bushel !
   It is certainly to be lamented,  that many physi-
cians do so often prescribe drugs, in  the effects of
which they, themselves, have no confidence at all.
And the effects of those they have any faith in, are
always more or less uncertain !  Nor is this all.*
It is surprising that  invalids  should continue  to
take drugs, most, or all of which, are decidedly per-
nicious, month after  month  and year after year,
when they know themselves  to be growing worse
and worse all the time.
   How extensive the mischiefs resulting from  the
ordinary methods of drugging are, may be inferred
not  only  from  the great  number of invalids  con-
stantly in  the  habit  of swallowing  the nostrums

  * The following facts were related  to me by Capt. H. H. W.,
formerly of the U. S. Army.  His sister had been under the treat-
ment of Dr. J. C. W., for some sixteen years, and had often paid
one hundred dollars and upwards for medicines alone, prescribed
by Dr. W.  One day her mother bethought herself, and said to
him, " Dr, what is the matter with our daughter?"  "Well,"
replied the Dr., " indeed, Madame, J  do not know!!!"  Sixteen
years attendance and prescribing for a patient, and then confessing
his utter ignorance of what her complaint was ! ! !  And he one
of the most popular physicians of the day ! 
16
DRUGGING.
offered to the public, but, also, from  the fact, that
so very many drugs are recommended for the cure
of the same disease.  And, is it agreeable to reason,
that so many different substances, and some of them
often poisonous, can be taken into the system with-
out injury 1
  Will the mass ever learn, that there is, there can
be no real " Panaceas," no " Universal Medicine ?"
There cannot be  any better evidence of ignorance
or dishonesty, or both  combined, than when a man
offers what he calls a " Catholicon," or " Universal
Medicine," for the cure of one disease in all cases,
or for  the cure of all diseases in all persons.*
  * I speak what I know, when I affirm that many of the patent
pill venders are as ignorant of medicine and theraputics, as they
are of the materials of which the moon is made.  Many medicines
are advertised under fictitious names, and imaginary persons are
set forth as the great discoverers of the " Galvanic Rings,"
" Magnetic Fluids," patent powders, and the like, because the real
originators of those impositions are so obscure, that they do not
dare to be known as the authors of what they sell.
  A Boston correspondent of the Hampshire Gazette makes the
following statement in reference to the Patent Medicine business :
The amount of business transacted and capital employed in mak-
ing and vending these medicines, is almost incredible.   The car-
goes  of some of the vessels arriving here, are composed almost
entirely of some ingredient for some of the patent medicines.  The
virgin tar and wild cherry bark from North Carolina are imported
by cargoes for this object.  The bottles are manufactured in Penn-
sylvania, and oftentimes constitute the whole cargo of the vessel.
Opium is used in large quantities in the manufacture.  A manu-
facturer used eight hundred dollars worth of opium, last week, in
the preparation of a single medicine.  A gentleman in this city
has $180,000 capital employed in the manufacture and vending
of a single medicine, and has 12,800  agents employed in vending 
DRUGGING.
17
  Pull well I know, that  some invalids do, some-
times, experience relief after taking one or more of
the thousand patent nostrums, blazoned forth in
such high sounding encomiums through the public
papers.   But what does this prove 1  Not that those
vile compounds were necessary for those invalids,
or that they  might not have  recovered far sooner,
had they attended to their diet and exercise, without
taking any medicine at all.  For  the  last twenty-
five years, during my travels in almost every State
in the Union, I have found hundreds  who have
recovered from chronic diseases, without the use of
medicine, where I have met with one who recovered
from medicine alone.
the same.  He had last week, orders on hand for 1300 gross, and
on one day forwarded 600 gr^ss (96,400 bottles) by the five rail-
roads from this city; to one of. which seven large trunk loads were
carried. They were packed in 2,056 boxes,  and the  invoice
amounted to $57,768.  A good operation for one day. 
IS           TREATMENT OF DISEASE.
               CHAPTER  IV.

         TREATMENT  OF  DISEASE.

   But the invalid is ready to ask, what  should  be
 done 1  " Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? "
 Answer, you must, and should, decide for yourself.
 Become  acquainted with the nature of your disease.
 Enough has been  offerred in  the preceding pages,
 to show  that the starting point of all disease is de-
 rangement  in  the  nervous system.   The  nervous
power  is generally,  or in  some particular part,  or
parts,  increased or impaired.  The next thing is the
 contraction  or  enlargement of the capillaries; and
 consequently too much or too little blood is  circu-
 lated in  the parts affected.  One  is  congestion, the
 other inflammation,  but in either  case  the  balance
 of power between the supply and waste of the parts
 is lost.   The nutrition is interrupted—the secretions
 are  misdirected—the circulation   is  diminished  or
 accelerated—the excretions are irregular.  Oseous
 matter is left in the wrong places, hence tumors  of
 various kinds are formed, and the functions of life
 are disturbed.
   Now it is an axiom universally admitted among
 medical  men,  of every class,  that  the only  thing
 which medicine can  do in the  treatment of disease
is to assist  nature.   It is nature,  or  the  laws  of
life,  which  constitute the  curative principle in all
cases.  All  we  have to do, therefore, is to assist her. 
TREATMENT OF DISEASE.           19
She may be, and doubtless is, but too often hindered
in her work by  the prevalent modes of drugging.
But the question comes up, as to how this assistance
shall be rendered, and so rendered as not to do any
mischief to the system :
   1.  That treatment  is best which reaches, most
directly, the nervous energy.   That is, it should be
such as  will,  with the least difficulty, reach the
" nervous centres," without the process of digestion,
assimulation, and  circulation.  Drugs which have
to be  taken into the stomach,  and digested, or
assimulated,  and distributed through the system,
may,  and  often do,  impair the stomach  and the
other tissues with which they come in contact, and
in this way they do more hurt than good.
   The application of cold water to the entire surface
of the whole body, has this advantage, and secures
the above result in the treatment of disease.
   2. That must be the best agency for assisting the
nervous energy, or for diminishing  it, (as  the case
may require) which we  can bring to bear, at the
same time, upon the largest number of the nervous
susceptibilities.  The nerves of sense are distributed
all over the surface of the human  body; and the
sudden, or gradual, or continual application  of cold
water, with severe friction, produces these results,
and with this advantage, water opens and cleanses
the pores of the skin, and thus assists  another  of
the most important functions at the same time.
   Sedative effects  are produced by  prolonging the
application of wet bandages, as by these the capil- 
20          TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

laries are relaxed, and the balance of power restored
between the nervous arid circulating systems.
   If the proximate cause of disease be, as we have
seen, the enlargement or constriction of the capilla-
ries, then whatever appliances to the nerves of sen-
sation, which will cause  the capillaries to enlarge
or to constringe, as the case may require, must  be
one of the best processes of cure.  These results are
secured by the application of cold water.  Suddenly
applied,  it produces  a  constringent effect.  When
the system is enveloped in water for any length  of
time, so guarded as to  allow it, as it were, to steep
itself into a state of relaxation, the effects are seda-
tive, and thus capillary tension is  diminished and
health is restored. 
PURE COLD WATER—BATHING.         21
               CHAPTER  V.

PURE COLD WATER--BATHING, FOR THE PRESERVATION
                   OF HEALTH.

  It has been truly said, that, from the first hour
of man's existence to his latest breath, in health
and  in  sickness, rich or poor, water is always re-
quisite.  Baths were dedicated  by the ancients to
the divinities of medicine, strength,  and wisdom,
namely :—iEsculapius,  Hercules, and Minerva, to
whom  might properly ba added  the goddess of
health,  Hygeia.   The use of water has been en-
forced  as a religious observance, and water has
been adopted as one of the symbols of Christianity.
  The following remarks on  bathing  are so much
to the point, and  prepared, as I find them, to my
hand, I do not hesitate to transcribe them here:*
  The structure and purposes of the skin, the con-
stant removal and reproduction of the cuticle, the
functions of the oil-glands and perspiratory system,
afford the ground-work for inferring  the necessity
of bathing.   The  cuticle is cast off in minute, pow-
dery scales, many of which  are retained upon the
surface by the pressure of clothing.   These mingle
with the oily and saline products of  the skin, and
form a thin  crust.   This crust, on account  of its
adhesiveness, collects particles  of dust  and soot
*Dr. Cutter's Physiology. 
22         PURE COLD  WATER--BATHING.

from the atmosphere, and particles of  foreign mat-
ter from our dress, so that in the course of the day,
the whole body becomes coated with impurities.   If
this  coating be allowed to remain, to become thick
and  established upon the skin, it will  produce the
following effects :  1st. The pores will be obstruct-
ed, consequently transpiration  impeded, and the in-
fluence of the skin as a respiratory organ, entirely
prevented.   When the pores  are obstructed,  and
transpiration is checked, the elements of the  trans-
pired fluids  will necessarily be  thrown  upon the
system ;  and, as they are injurious and poisonous if
retained, they must be  removed by other organs
than the skin.  These organs are the lungs, kidneys,
liver, and intestines.   When these organs are called
upon to perform their offices, and  in addition that of
another,  the healthy equilibrium is destroyed, and
the oppressed organ will suffer from exhaustion, and
become the prey of disease.  Thus, obviously, hab-
its of nncleanliness are the cause  of consumption
and  other  serious  diseases of  the vital organs.
Again ; obstruction of  the pores will prevent respir-
ation through the skin, thus depriving the blood of
one source of its oxygen, and one outlet for its car-
bonic acid, which will diminish the temperature of
the system, and all the effects  of  chill, from inade-
quate clothing, will be manifested.
  2d.  The retained film will irritate the skin, both
mechanically and chemically; it  will  keep it damp
and cold, from attraction and detention of moisture;
and,  possibly, foreign matters, once removed from
the system, may be re-conveyed into it by absorp- 
           PURE COLD WATER--BATHING.        23

tion.  As a consequence, cutaneous eruptions and
diseases will be produced, and the re-absorption of
matter once separated from the system, will  be the
exciting cause of other injurious disorders.
  3d.  A film of foreign substance on the skin will
inevitably become  the seat of detention  of mias-
mata and infectious vapors,  which will  rest here
previously to being absorbed, and their absorption
will engender the diseases of which they are the pe-
culiar cause.  These are the most serious  results of
uncleanliness of the skin.
   Baths  are useful for three purposes:   1.  To
promote  cleanliness.  2.  To  preserve health.  3.
To remove  disease.  In  its first capacity, bathing
enables us to remove the  coating of impurities from
our bodies.  It effects this purpose by dissolving
saline matters, and  holding in temporary suspension
those substances which are insoluble.  These sub-
stances are of an oily nature, and  the skin being
provided  with an oily secretion, soap renders the
oily product of the skin  miscible in water ;  hence
it is an invaluable agent  for purifying the skin.  It
is an indispensable aid, for in no other way can the
substance upon the surface of the skin, and  the im«-
purities which adhere to  it, be thoroughly removed.
If jiny unpleasant sensations are felt after the use
of soap, they may be immediately removed by wash-
ing the surface with water slightly acidulated with
lemon-juice or vinegar.
  Bathing may be partial or general, and  the water
used  may be cold, temperate, tepid, warm, or hot.
A person may apply it to his system with  a  sponge, 
24         PURE COLD WATER--BATHING.

it may be poured upon him, or he may  immerse
himself in it.   The  simplest mode of  bathing is to
apply water to a small extent  of surface, by means
of a wetted sponge, and after being  rubbed dry,
again cover with the dress.  In this way the whole
body may be speedily subjected to  the influence of
the water, and to no less useful friction. The water
used may be warm or cold.   This  species of bath-
ing may be practiced by  any invalid,  and always
with benefit,(if the bathing is succeeded by a glow
of warmth over the surface,  as this is the test by
which the benefit of all forms of bathing is to be es-
timated. J
  The bather  may  stand or sit in a  shallow tub,
while he receives the water from a sponge squeezed
over the shoulders  or  against the body.  In this
form of bathing the body is more  exposed;  hence
it is less suitable  for very  feeble individuals than
the first-named method.   In   the early use of this
form  of the sponge-bath, the  bather  should con-
tent himself with a  single effusion from the sponge,
and should then dry the  body quickly with brisk
rubbing.
  The third kind of bathing is that of the shower-
bath,  which provides a greater amount of affusion
than the former, combined  with a greater shock to
the nervous system.   The concussion  on  the skin
by the fall of water, particularly distinguishes this
from the previous modes  of bathing.   The degree
of concussion is modified by the size of the  open-
ings through which  the water issues, and the height
of the reservoir.  The shower-bath admits of mod- 
           PURE COLD WATER—BATHING.         25

ification, adapting it to the most delicate as well as
the robust.  The extent of fall, the size of the aper-
tures, the quantity and temperature of the water,
may be regulated at pleasure.  In using the shower-
bath, it would be judicious to commence with warm
water, for which, by a gradual process, cold water
may be substituted.  In this way the system may
be inured to cold  water.  After bathing, the skin
should be wiped dry and rubbed briskly.
  The fourth form of bathing is that in which the
body, or a portion of it, is immersed in water. The
temperature of the water  in this form of bathing,
may be modified according to the sensations and
purposes of the bather.  When  the temperature is
below 76 deg. it is termed a  cold bath ; when from
75 deg. to 85 deg., a temperate bath ;  from 85 deg.
to 95 deg., a tepid bath; from 95 deg. to 98 deg., a
warm bath; from 98 deg. to 105  deg., a hot bath.
In using this form  of bathing the skin should be
wiped  perfectly dry, and  briskly rubbed.  The
length of time a person may remain in a cold bath
with benefit, varies from two to  ten minutes, while
a person may remain in a temperate, tepid, or warm
bath from ten to thirty minutes, or  until special in-
dications are exhibited.
  In the vapor-bath the vapor is  not only applied to
the exterior  of the  system, but it is inhaled and
brought in contact with every part of the  interior
of the lungs.   The bather is  seated upon a chair,
and the vapor gradually turned on around him, until
the proper temperature (90 deg.  to  100 deg.) is at-
tained.   In this form of bathing, the skin  should 
26        PURE COLD WATER--BATHING.
be wiped dry, and smartly rubbed.  The bath may
be continued from ten to thirty minutes.
  In order to increase and promote the reaction of
the skin, various measures and processes are used,
some  of which are practiced  in, and others after
quitting the bath.  Of the former, the rubbing and
brushing the skin are the most common and impor-
tant.  The brisk and efficient friction of the skin
with a coarse towel and flesh-brush, after quitting
the bath, should never be omitted.  This short cat-
alogue embraces all the appliances requisite for  the
purpose.
  Bathing, in its second capacity,  preserves and
promotes health by its immediate and remote phy-
siological effects on  the system.   When the body
is moistened with a sponge wetted with cold water,
or when affusion by the sponge or shower-bath is
effected, the skin  instantly shrinks, and the whole
of its tissue contracts.  This contraction diminishes
the capacity of the cutaneous system of blood-ves-
sels, and a portion of the blood circulating through
them is  suddenly thrown  upon the deeper parts and
internal  organs.  The nervous  system,  among
others, participates in it,  and is  stimulated by  the
afflux, and communicates its impressions of stimulus
to the whole system.  This causes a more energetic
action of the heart and blood vessels, and a conse-
quent rush of blood back to the skin.  This is  the
state termed reaction, the first object and purpose
of every form  of bathing whatever.   It  is the test
of its  utility and  safety.  This reaction is known
by  the  redness of the  surface, the glow,  comfort, 
           PURE COLD WATER--BATHING.         27

and warmth which follow the bath.  The bather
should direct all his care to ensure this effect.  By it
the internal organs are relieved, respiration is light-
ened, the heart is  made  to beat calm and free, the
mind is clear and strong, the tone of the  muscular
system is increased, the appetite is sharpened, and
the whole system feels invigorated.  This is the
end and  aim of the bather, and to this all his train-
ing tends.  The error is, to expect the result without
the preparation.
  In order to promote this reaction, and  to  be effi-
cient in preserving health, bathing should be regu-
lar, should be commenced by degrees, and increased
by  a  process of training, and should not be per-
mitted to intrude upon hours devoted to some im-
portant function, as digestion.   It must not precede
or follow too closely a meal, or severe  mental  or
muscular exercise, as reaction is  less certain and
vigorous, when important internal organs are em-
ployed, than when  they are at rest.  When the
vital powers are greatest, and the  system most free
from exhaustion, bathing is most beneficial; hence,
the morning is preferable to the evening, and the
middle of the forenoon to the middle of  the after-
noon, for this healthful and agreeable duty ;  as the
vital action of the  system is most energetic in the
early part of the day.
  As regards the frequency of bathing, the face and
neck,—from their necessary exposure to the atmos-
phere, and the impurities  which the latter contains,
—should receive at least two washings in twenty-
four hours, one of which should be with soap; the 
28         PURE COLD WATER--BATHING.

feet, from the confined nature of the coverings which
are worn over them, require at least one;  the arm-
pits, from the detention, as well as  from  the pecu-
liar properties of the secretions, at  least  one;  and
the hands and arms, as  many as seem proper.   The
whole person should be bathed every second day,
without fail, and every day if possible.
  In diseases of the skin and internal organs, bath-
ing is a remedial measure of great power.  It should
never be neglected or omitted.  It is not only plea-
sant and safe, but is really more effective than any
medicine administered  internally. 
WATER  CURE.
29
                CHAPTER  VI.

                 THE  WATER CURE.*

   If all disease consists, as we have seen, in the
altered condition of the nervous centres, by which
the capillaries become relaxed and enlarged, or too
much contracted,  it is easy to perceive how the
application  of  cold water, in the various forms de-
scribed  below,  corrects  the evil and restores the
Little tubes to their sound, healthy state.
   Water, that  is  used  for any dietetic purpose,
should be soft and pure.   The  rain that falls unob-
structed from the clouds, may be taken as a stand-
ard of purity.

                    SHOWER BATH,
   This bath may  be taken  in  a variety of ways."
Bathing machines  are now  quite  common in this
country.f  But where these are not to be had, you

  * The " Cold Water Cure," as a system of distinct medical
treatment, had its origin with Vincent Priessnitz, a German pea-
sant.  His discoveries were by accident, but the good they have
done, will carry his name down to the  latest ages of the world
with imperishable honor.
  t No one can be excused for not providing a shower bath.
A simple and  very convenient one can be made of a common
wooden  pail, with its bottom thoroughly perforated.  Then
a new second bottom is put in about one-half or three-quarters of
an inch above the perforated one, which has in it a hole as large
                   3 
30
WATER CURE.
may stand in a  large tub, of any  kind, while an
assistant  pours  a pail of  water upon  your head,
through  a cullender, or from a common watering
pot.
   A cold bath should never be taken when  you are
exhausted, or feel  chilly ;  and if you feel cold or
numb after taking it, warmth should be restored, im-
mediately, by severe friction or exercise.  For weak
and feeble persons, tepid  water may be  used, at
first.
   It is a great mistake to suppose, as many do, that
a cold bath should not be  taken  when the system
is warm, or in a state of perspiration.*   If it be in
the morning, or while the stomach is empty,a state
of free  perspiration is so  much the  better.   The
bath, in such cases, gives a kind of a galvanic shock
as a dollar, to be covered with a common bellows-valve, i, e. one
made of a piece of thin board about one and a half or two inches
square, with the under side covered with sheep-skin. A string
from this valve to a lever fastened on the brim of the pail, raises
the valve when pulled.  The whole is then suspended by cords
and pulleys.  A curtain made of common cotton cloth  is then
fastened up to the wall, in such a way as to allow the apparatus
to rise and fall freely.  The cloth may be sewed to a common
barrel hoop, ingress and egress being where the edges meet.  This
last is necessary, both for concealment and to keep the water from
spattering off on other articles.   The other, and only other thing
is a tub, in which the operator stands, and the lower end of the
curtain terminates.  Thus, the water that gets on the curtain is
carried directly into the tub.  The descent of the water should
be from three to six feet, at least, above the head.

  * The catamenial period is no objection against cold bathing.
Indeed, I have known many cases where the shower, or hip-bath
has removed uterine irregularities of long standing. 
WATER CURE.
31
throughout the system, promoting the secretions,
and benefitting, generally, the entire nervous econ-
omy.

                   ABLUTIONS.*
  These  are  generally the mere preparation for
more active treatment, and are a test of the  degree
of reactive power possessed by the individual; and
a measure of the capabilities and necessities of the
system for the  ulterior processes of the cure.  As  a
means also of maintaining recovered health, or of
invigorating the constitution,  when  the  full pro-
cesses are not at command, or not indicated, ablu-
tions deserve  extensive if  not  universal adoption,
and may be had recourse to with safety and benefit
alike in infancy and in  age, by females as by males.
In even  advanced stages  of pulmonary consump-
tion, the  writer has long  recommended their use,
and with very decided  advantage.  The tempera-
ture and quantity  of the water used—the length of
time of its application to the entire surface by towel
or sponge—and the degree of friction, wet and dry,
with which it is to be  accompanied and followed,
are to be  regulated by the feelings of the  patient
and the effect produced.  When warm from bed in
the morning is the best time for  these ablutions;
reaction is thereby more certainly ensured.   A smart
walk after it, or, in very debilitated  patients, a re-

  * The succeeding directions ,for the medical use of cold water,
are from a most valuable little work, by Dr. Balbrrnie, entitled
the " philosophy of the Water Cure."  His directions with re -
gard to Diet, however,  I do not approve. 
32
WATER CURE.
 turn to bed again, with friction of the skin  under
 the bed-clothes, will further conciliate this salutary
 effect.  The same  ablutions,  dec,  may be  gone
 through at night; and under certain circumstances,
 once or twice during the day.

             THE RUBBING WET SHEET.
   This is an intermediate process between ablutions
 and immersion in the cold bath, whether of the half
 or  of the whole of  the  body, and  is, therefore,
 another of the preparatory measures  of treatment.
 A large coarse linen sheet, adapted at once to im-
 bibe water and to excite friction, wrung out of cold
 water, or  allowed  to be dripping, is dexterously
 thrown as an envelope round the body; the patient
 at the same moment commences  active friction on
 the fore part of his person,  while  an assistant plies
 the same process on  all the posterior parts.   This
 rubbing may be continued from two to five minutes,
 when the skin becomes much reddened, and a com-
 fortable glow is felt.   A dry sheet is  then used in
 the same way, and a very exhilarating reaction
 ensues.
  This kind of bath is a more invigorating  agent
 than mere ablution, because its momentary  shock
 is more decided; evaporation from the  surface is
prevented, and  a greater amount of friction is per-
mitted.  The temperature of the water, as well as
the quality and quantity of friction, must be appro-
priated to the delicacy of the patient and the nature
of the case.   This is the cheapest, the readiest, and
the best of all portable baths.  It is a  convenient 
WATER CURE.               33
 application at home, and no incumbrance on a jour-
 ney; realizing the  advantages of the shower and
 plunge  baths,  without their occasional  disadvan-
 tages, and always at hand.

          THE SHALLOW, OR HALF BATH.
  This  is the common oblong bath used in our bed-
 rooms, but containing only from three inches to one
 foot depth of water, of various temperatures, as the
 case may require.   This bath is used in two oppo-
 site modes, and with  two very distinct intentions.
 It serves, in one class of cases,  as a preparation for
 the full bath;  and it answers admirably in another
 class of cases, where a prolonged continuance in the
 bath is wanted to produce a derivative effect.
  I. With the first object it is frequently used morn-
 ing and evening, and commonly after " unpacking "
 from the wet sheet.   The patient remains in it from
 three to ten minutes, being well rubbed by an as-
 sistant,  and himself joining,  if possible, in the oper-
 ation ; a few basins or buckets of cold  water are
 generally thrown over him before  he rises from the
 bath.  Exercise is advisable to  be taken after this,
 as after all the other baths.
  II. The second object for which the shallow bath
 is employed, constitutes it the " decus et tutamen "
 of Priessnitz; demonstrating at once the resources
 of his system,  and  achieving some of the highest
 triumphs  of his genius.   In  persons  suddenly
 stricken down  by  violent maladies—in  inflamma-
tory attacks—in congestions of the nobler organs—
or when collapse of the vital and voluntary powers 
34
WATER CURE.
exacts the alternative of obtaining speedy reaction,
or incurring sudden death—in such cases, prompt
and powerful measures, directed by the soundest
judgment can alone save the  patient: this means,
or without its ally before mentioned, is the single re-
source and the sole warranty of hope.   The temper-
ature of the bath for this purpose must be lowered,
and its  duration prolonged from one to four or six
hours, with continued friction, until reaction, con-
secutive fever, or derivation to the extremities, is
decidedly established.

    THE FULL BATH, OR GENERAL COLD BATHING.
   This  is of immemorial usage, whether in sea,
river, or lake, both as a curative agent in disease,
and a preservative in health.   Its genial action de-
pends on the  degree  of shock received, and the
amount of reaction ensuing.  Much fallacy prevails
as well among the learned as the illiterate, as to the
supposed danger of cold bathing, when the body is
bedewed with perspiration.  The practice of Priess-
nitz, and of  ancient  and modern nations, shows
with how little risk,  and how much benefit, the
body covered with sweat, may be plunged into cold
water, or rolled into the  snow.  But the same holds
true  with  the body freely perspiring  from active
exercise; provided there be no material structural
alteration of the heart, lungs,  or great vessels ; and
the system  is not in a state  of decided fatigue or
exhaustion.  It is a customary thing for school-boys
in the summer season, in the brief mid-day interval
of their classes, to run to the bathing spots of rivers 
WATER  CURE.
35
or canals, and  plunge into the water in profuse
perspiration.   This the writer has done, and hun-
dreds of his school-fellows, hundreds of times, not
only without  any bad effects,  but with great ad-
vantage.  Animals when pursuing their  prey,  or
escaping  from  their  pursuers,  invariably  take
through all opposing waters, and emerge from the
bath  not  only  unharmed but  invigorated.  This
aquatic hardihood may, with a very little  prepara-
tion, be safely tested throughout the severest weather
of winter, if a smart walk be taken after as well  as
before it.  But this is counsel only for the strong in
limb and  valiant in heart  Those  with  whom it
agrees will not soon regret the  recommendation,  or
decline the practice.
   In  the  water  cure treatment, before taking the
cold bath, the temperature of the body is duly raised,
the  circulation  equalized, and visceral irritation
soothed by the wet sheet fomentation ; much more
rarely now, and very properly so, by the sweating
blanket.  The shock is thus more general, and the
reaction more complete.   The strength, spirits, and
appetite are  all  simultaneously  increased.  The
early morning is the best time for this bath; but it
may be repeated with great benefit more than once
during  the day,  if the immersion be but momentary,
and the system  possessed of tolerable  vigor.  The
patient must never remain in the  bath till he feels
chilly, unless  under febrile excitement. The more
active exercise while in the bath, as  by swimming,
the better.  Under severe crises, as  well as in the 
36
WATER CURE.
 bodily conditions formerly mentioned, cold bathing,
 for its stimulant effect, is obviously improper.

                  THE HIP BATH.
   Had Priessnitz done nothing else than  develope
 the manifold and manifest advantages of this ener-
 getic remedy, he would  still have done enough  to
 entitle him to the lasting gratitude of posterity.  Its
 powerful aid is had  recourse to, to accomplish two
 opposite intentions.
   I. As  a tonic, stimulant, solvent, anti-spasmodic,
 and anodyne, in obstructions, engorgements, chronic
 irritation, and acute inflammations of the digestive
 apparatus, and of the pelvic viscera.
   II. As a powerful dirivative in acute and chronic
 affections of the heart, lungs and brain.
   According as  either of these intentions is  to be
 accomplished, so is the temperature,  duration, and
 frequency of the bath to  be varied.  The person  is
 covered while in the bath, all except  the parts im-
 mersed.  The water usually reaches  the height of
 the navel, and the tub is only large enough to admit
 of free motion of the hands and arms for rubbing.
 The temperature varies from 40° to 60° Fahrenheit
 and the duration in it from a quarter of an hour to
 a full hour or longer.  While in the  bath, the pa-
 tient to employ himself in thoroughly rubbing the
belly, sides, and loins,  first with one hand and then
with the  other.  Very soon the first chill of the bath
subsides, and the heat of the water by degrees equal-
izes itself to nearly that of the  body.   If the  stay 
WATER CURE.
37
 in it therefore be prolonged, it is necessary to change
 the water once or oftener.
   To fulfil  the first intention specified, the temper-
 ature must  approach the higher range given, that
 is near 60°, and its duration need not exceed twenty
 minutes;  but the bath should  be repeated several
 times a day; on  quitting it, reaction is further pro-
 moted by hard  friction  with a  coarse dry  towel.
 Two of such baths per diem is a usual  dose; in
 special cases, and for a short  time,  five  or six a
 day may be taken as in severe constipation, chronic
 diarrhoea, dysentery, passive uterine  hosmorrhage,
 uterine and vesical catarrh of a  profuse character.
   To fulfil  the  second indication, the water must
 be colder, the duration  in it  more prolonged,  and
 the friction more severe.   To  aid  its  derivative
 effect,  it is sometimes necessary to apply evaporat-
 ing bandages to the  head or chest, according to the
 existing disease  to be combated.
   The best  time  for the administration of hip baths
 is between  meal hours, when the stomach  is not
 loaded ; and the indispensable exercise can be made
 both to precede and  to succeed the bath.  The mus-
 cularity of hip, their prolonged use induces, is very
 striking.

                 THE HEAD BATH.
  This is a  highly energetic remedy used in deter-
 minations of blood to the head, the delirium of fever
 (the patient being in  the wet  sheet,)  headaches,
convulsions, epilepsy, rheumatism of the scalp, neu-
                 3* 
38
WATER CURE.
ralgia, opthalmic diseases, deafness, loss of smell
and taste.
  The patient lies on a rug or mattress, and the
back of the head is placed in a broad shallow basin,
containing from two to four inches depth of cold
water.  Each side of the head is also placed in the
water  in  succession.  The  duration  of the  bath
may be from five minutes to half an hour.   At the
conclusion the head is to be well dried and rubbed
with a towel.  This friction, however, is only al-
lowable where there is no inflammatory action to
combat.
  The frequent and prolonged affusion of cold water
upon the  head, even to the production of intense
pain from the chill, is one of the most powerful ton-
ics of the nervous  centres, and has been long our
main anchor of hope when combating with  the old
weapons, Hypocondriasis and other nervous affec-
tions.

                'THE FOOT BATH.
  Unless in sprains and local injuries, this is chiefly,
if not entirely, used as a derivative bath in affections
of the head, chest, stomach, intestines,  and uterus.
For this purpose the water should  be from two  to
six inches deep, and the  whole foot, sole, ancles,
and legs, are  to be  thoroughly  rubbed with  firm
hands from ten minutes to half an hour, changing
the water as it gets hot.   The feet must be warmed
by exercise, both before and after the  bath.  This
is the remedy,par  excellence, for habitual cold  feet.
It is an effectual controller of uterine haemorrhage. 
WATER CURE.               39
 If the determination of blood to  the higher organs
 still continues, wet compresses to them (uncovered
 by dry bandages) will be occasionally necessary.

                 PARTIAL BATHS.
   The application of partial baths, adapted to differ-
 ent members of the body, has been  considered as a
 proof of Priessnitz's admirable tact, and knowledge
 of derivation.   If the bandages in question are heat-
 ing bandages, i. e. wet  compresses  covered by dry
 ones, so as to prevent evaporation, then the proof is
 valid,  and  the  praise  deserved.  For the  nature
 and object of such a bandage is to determine a mo-
 limen of the fluids to the  part whereon it  is ap-
 plied,  of course diverting  them — deriving them
 from neighboring localities, and at their expense.
 This is at least the received theory of derivation or
 counter irritation.   But if, as we take it, Priessnitz's
 practice  is  to place  a  higher part of an affected
 member—as an elbow or a knee in  the case of an
 injury in the hand or  foot—in a constant cold bath,
 or to cover it with  compresses constantly renewed
 before they evaporate or get warm,  his object then
 is, Sedation—to lessen the molimen hmmorrhagicum
 to the part in another way;  and show at once his
 clear conceptions of the varied operation of water,
 and  his strong inductive powers in turning them
 to practical account—a  tact  and discrimination
greater than in the other case at least;  as using the
better means to attain the same end.
  The leg-bath,  or arm-bath,  when  ulcers, fixed
pains, skin diseases, nodes,  he, affect any of the 
40
WATER CURE.
 extremities, are highly useful applications:  accord-
 ing to the duration of the bath and the temperature
 of the water,  a sedative, stimulant, revulsive or
 anodyne effect is produced.   The eye-bath, ear-bath,
finger-bath belong to the same category.

                   THE DOUCHE.
   This remedy belongs almost exclusively to the
 treatment  of chronic diseases.   As it is the  most
 powerful of all the water-cure processes of its  class
 —the most powerful when  properly indicated and
 judiciously applied, to exalt  the energies of the or-
 ganism to complete Avhat the other parts of the treat-
 ment might fail to cure by a crises;—so when mis-
 applied—when  the true pathological condition of
 the patient is not determined—when fever is present,
 when there is disease of the  bloodvessels, heart, or
 brain, or the organic nerves are paralyzed, it is the
 most pregnant with mischief.
   The Douche  is the strongest local stimulant of
 the vascular and nervous  systems.   Inducing a
 strong reaction and determination to  the surface, it
 tends  pre-eminently  to  dissipate  the  remnant  of
 chronic engorgements of the mucous tissues,  and
 visceral  congestions  of  all kinds; but  after other
 remedial means have laid the foundation of recovery
 —resusitating the energies of the whole organism,
 exhilarating  the spirits and quickening  the senses,
 it is  very  intelligible how it should facilitate and
 hasten the arrival of the crisis.  The whole secern-
 ing and excreting apparatus seem to take a new ac-
 tivity; and their altered products seem as  if the 
WATER CURE.
41
elimination from the system of every thing morbid
and effete, that had  resisted  the usual decomposi-
tions and transformations.
  The Douche is  a column  of water of variable
thickness, descending from a variable height; from
three to six inches is its ordinary diameter, and from
ten to twenty feet its usual fall.  Its effect is deter-
mined by the state of the body, the force of the fall,
and the coldness of the water.  To insure its good
effects, it should be taken at the time of the highest
bodily activity and vigor, as early  in the morning
in the stronger, and between  breakfast and dinner
in the weaker—in  both cases always premising
smart exercise short of fatigue.  Active exercise is
especially necessary after the douche.  The reason
that necessitates this, forbids the drinking of much
cold water at this particular time of the day, at
least till reaction be fully established.
  The average duration of the douche is from three
to ten minutes : the uninitiated should never exceed
the former.   It is usual to commence this bath by
receiving it on the palms of the hands, and washing
the face,  head,  and chest.   The shoulders,  neck,
spine, loins, hips and extremities are then subjected
to the powerful stream;  avoiding the stomach-pit,
and the abdomen.   The hands are  sometimes held
up and spread above the head to protect it from the
fall of water ; allowing the stream to act as a shower
bath.   In local complaints, as  palsies, sprains, tu-
mors, the affected  parts  are  particularly subjected
to the influence of the douche.  This bath is highly
enjoyed, and always  gladsomely  anticipated—a 
42                WATER  CURE.
 proof that  it leaves no ungrateful reminiscences—
 which is much more than can be said for any of the
 old modes of cure.
   In cases  where this measure is strongly indicated,
 two short douches per diem are more advantageous
 than one prolonged one.

                 THE WET SHEET.
   This application is used for the two-fold purpose
 of increasing or diminishing the animal temperature;
 in,either case it is equally anodyne and antiphlogis-
 tic—soothing aches and irritation—removing lan-
 guor and fatigue—tranquilizing the pulse,  and sub-
 duing fever.  It opens  the pores,  favors cutaneous
 transudation, and aids.the elimination of effete ele-
 ments and morbid materials.   Hence the intolerable
 odor sometimes exhaled from  the sheets; the  thick
 coating of slimy matter with which they are var-
 nished ; the debris, smell, and color of medicines
 and ointments long before used deposited in them;
 and the eruptions that  soon appear upon the skin.
 The fluids  repelled  from the surface by  the first
 chill, return with a brisker circulation :  the escape
 of caloric is prevented  by the covering:  and the
 moisture of  the sheets is converted into vapor.   Ac-
 cording to the delicacy of constitution, and the fee-
 bleness of the reactive power, the heat of the water,
 and the weight of the covering must be  increased.
 The imbibition of water by the body in this  and
the other processes, is manifested by very unequivo-
cal symptons.   This origin of the effect in question,
in the wet sheet at least, is a legitimate inference. 
WATER CURE.
43
  The wet sheet is Priessnitz's greatest discovery,
and  far outstrips  all other  therapeutical improve-
ments  ever made in the healing art.  This is des-
tined to be,  by-and-bye, the universal domestic
remedy used by mothers and nurses in the outbreak
of all illnesses; and will supersede, in nine  cases
in ten, both the employment of medicine, and the
attendance of the physician.  With every water-
cured person its efficacy will be an article of faith
that  no arguments will stagger, and its  practice in
every  emergency  a source  of confidence that  no
authority  will  baffle.  Henceforth  the  name  of
Priessnitz will be a household-word, and a grateful
posterity will embalm his memory.  Few  are the
complaints, in young or old, in which this  remedy
will  not be hailed as one of the best boons ever given
by Heaven to suffering mortals.   This language is
strong, and may be  called  enthusiastic.   But we
appeal to those who have tested the powers of the
wet-sheet fomentation, whether our meed of praise
is commensurate with its merits.   In weariness and
watching—in fatigue and cold—in restlessness and
anguish—in acute diseases and in chronic ailments
—in fevers and  inflammations—in shivered nerves
and fretted brain—in worn-out stomachs and palsied
kow-els—in irritated  skin  and broken bones—in
quelling morbid heat and soothing morbid sensibility
__in the quiet routine of home, and the bustle of
travel  abroad—in infancy and in age—in the weak
and  in  the strong—in cottages and in palaces—in
courts and in camps—in hospitals and in prisons—
—in all climates and seasons—shivering at the poles, 
44                WATER CURE.
or scorching in the tropics—in all the multiform ills
that flesh is heir to—the  wet sheet will be the first
remedial resource of the sick, and the last earthly
refuge of the dying.
  The wet sheet is  applied  in the following way:
A very thick blanket is first spread upon a mattress;
a sheet of coarse linen is then wrung out on a pole ;
this is smoothly spread over the blanket; the  pa-
tient then reclines at full length, and has  the sheet
wrapped  round him, fitting  it closely about  the
neck, and securely covering the  feet.  The blanket
is then with equal care tucked under the neck and
shoulders, the trunk and limbs of one side, and then
of the other.   This "packing," which  resembles  a
compact bale of goods, is then completed by a load
of additional  blankets  and coverings, or preferably
by  a down-feather  bed, which is well tucked  in
from the neck to the feet.  In this state the patient
is allowed to  remain from half an hour to an hour.
The first impression is disagreeable, but. it is only
for a minute or two; and is  succeeded by a sooth-
ing  freshness heightening into  a delicious glow;
which would end in perspiration if prolonged.   On
being unpacked from this envelopment, the patient
takes the cold or tepid half-bath or  full-bath, and
is well rubbed  in the water by an attendant for  a
longer or shorter time, himself assisting in  the oper-
ation.  He then dresses quickly,  and  goes out  to
his customary walk.  This process is usually gone
through the first thing in the morning, and  com-
mences the daily routine of treatment.   It is  re-
peated or not in the subsequent parts  of  the day 
WATER CURE.
45
according as it is indicated.  The sensations of the
patient will often be the monitors for his extrication,
and the inducement for its repetition or cessation.
When the object is to quell fever, the sheet must be
changed every quarter of an hour or half hour, or
as often as may be necessary to bring about a cool
surface.  When the due abstraction of heat and re-
duction of fever is effected, the patient is then put
into a slightly tepid bath, and well rubbed.
  If determinations to the head occur during this
process, cold applications to the scalp are to be con-
stantly renewed as they get  warm.  If the feet or
legs continue cold too long, they may be kept out
of the envelopment, and wrapped in flannel.

               THE WET BANDAGES.
  These applications  accomplish on a small scale,
and on fitting  places,  what the wet sheet does for
the whole body.  They  are employed,  also, with
the two-fold object of cooling or heating, of dimin-
ishing or increasing action, according as evapora-
tion is permitted or prevented, and according to the
frequency of their renewal.  In the one case, when
the object is to lessen  action—to subdue  or prevent
inflammation—to  allay the  irritation  of wounds,
bruises, or fractures—the  fomentation is  kept con-
stantly renewed, but allowed to evaporate.   In the
other case, it acts as a counter-irritant; it transfers
action from the deeper-seated parts to the surface,
allaying irritation, relieving visceral  congestions,
dissipating engorgements, opening up obstructions,
solving  spasm, and  restoring secretions.   These 
46
WATER CURE.
objects are further  aided  by derivation to distant
parts, as by the hip-bath and foot-baths.
  The wet bandages are applied to various parts of
the body.   The first or refrigerant bandage consists
of linen of suitable size for the part affected, folded
several times, and dipped in cold water, gently ex-
pressed, and placed on the part affected.   This ap-
plication is renewed every five  or ten minutes, ac-
cording to the cooling effect intended, and continued
night  and day without interval, until the inflam-
mation is removed  or danger averted.  Neglect in
their change may cause the worst results, by pro-
moting what it is intended to prevent.  These cool-
ing bandages are used when active inflammation is
going  on;  in acute affections of the head ; in  local
injuries;  in suppurating surfaces, as boils; in com-
pound fractures—and wherever the indication is to
lessen action.
   The heating  or  stimulant bandage only differs
from the last in evaporation being prevented by an
effectual covering,  or bandage, of dry linen, and in
the water being more thoroughly wrung out.   These
are not changed  till they begin to be dry.   This fo-
mentation is universally applied in all local chronic
diseases,  all wounds, injuries, and ulcers ; in disor-
ders of the liver,  stomach, bowels, heart, lungs, and
ganglionic nervous centres—in short, to any painful
spot, or  seat of  irritation—to  some  eruptions and
boils,  and to gouty and rheumatic joints.
   The abdominal fomentation  or bandage is almost
of universal application.  This consists  of a towel
of about three yards long, and  from half a foot to a 
WATER CURE.
47
foot wide.   One-third of it wetted and well wrung
out is  wound round the  abdomen and  back, and
covered by the dry part drawn as tightly as can be
conveniently borne;  for otherwise it would permit
evaporation, and produce chill.  It is to be renewed
whenever it becomes  dry ; and is usually  to  be
worn by night as well as  by  day.  If the back
should remain chilly,  the  front part only of  the
bandage is  to be  wetted ;  and  exercise  should be
used after it.  This fomentation is of great utility
in all  derangements of the abdominal and pelvic
viscera;  facilitating remarkably  the functions of
the stomach and bowels ;  allaying morbid  sensibil-
ity and inflammatory irritation in its several tissues;
relieving constipation on the one hand, and diarrhoea
on the other.  Patients subject to sore throats, or to
pulmonary  affections,  wear constantly the heating
bandages round the throat, and over the  chest.

             THE  SWEATING PROCESS.
   This is the most liable to  abuse of all  the water-
cure measures, and requires for its due administra-
tion more practical acumen,  and pathological knowl-
edge,  than  any of the other parts  of the  treatment.
It is a powerful depletant. draining the system of its
fluids; and  indiscriminately  prescribed, or injudi-
ciously prolonged, determining the worst evils.
   Fully to  decarbonize the blood—to purify it from
the poisonous  properties  acquired  in its returning
circuit—the equilibrium of the circulation  and res-
piration is necessary.  The want of the due relative
proportion between the circulation and  respiration 
48
WATER CURE.
—the more excited state of the former relatively to
the latter, produces a greater afflux  of  blood into
the  lungs  than  can be  fully oxygenated : hence
streams of this fluid, greater or less, unchanged by
the vivifying process, and charged with their nox-
ious ingredients, must  again go the round  of  the
system, to  the manifest detriment of the more deli-
cate functions.  A large  coarse  blanket is  spread
upon a mattress ;—the patient lies down upon it, as
in the wet  sheet, and is closely packed from neck
to toe, and  covered with a number of other blankets,
preferably  with a feather bed : the amount of cov-
ering being regulated by the difficulty of perspira-
tion : to any diseased part a wet compress is applied,
and it is generally requisite to enclose  a urinal in
its proper place.  If there be headache or fulness
of the  vessels of the head, the wet  (evaporating)
compress must be kept on it.
  This operation is generally performed  the first
thing in the morning, so early as four  o'clock; or
if the sweating is with difficulty produced,  an after
period of the day, when the patient is warmed  by
exercise, is  selected.   When  perspiration breaks
out (which is sometimes, especially at first, several
hours after the packing,)  it is allowed  to continue
a longer or shorter time, according to the necessities
of the treatment, and the tolerance of the constitu-
tion ;  during this time the window is opened to ad-
mit fresh  air, and the  patient is supplied with a
small glass of cold water every quarter of an hour.
The active exercise  of  the limbs in the blanket
sometimes recommended to promote perspiration  is 
WATER CURE.
49
on the grounds above stated, dangerous counsel, as
it is bad practice.   Having duly (and too often, un-
duly) sweated, the  patient is  unpacked, and steps
into  a  shallow bath, preferably a  shower or  a
plunge-bath, if at  hand, containing tepid or cold
water.  If the shallow  bath  be used, the  water
should not be above a foot deep, and he should be
thoroughly rubbed from two to ten  minutes,  by an
attendant,  and have  a few buckets of cold  water
poured over him.   After  a little practice, the cold
plunge-bath is preferred, as possessing more tonic
power; or  two baths are used, one  cold,  the other
having the chill taken off; the patient transferring
himself from one to the  other.  In all cases, as  a
general rule, the patient washes the face, head,  and
chest just before immersion.
  This transition from copious perspiration to cold
water, is not only  perfectly innocuous, but highly
salutary.   A powerful reaction, and  a high degree
of exhilaration and vigor are the  result. Active
exercise should then be  taken, if possible,  before
breakfast.
  In this process, there is a powerful revulsion of
the fluids of the body from the centre to the surface.
Hence there must be  a general elimination of mor-
bid elements by the  skin.  This is manifested in
the change of the nature  of the perspiration  as the
process is persevered in: from clear aqueous  and
devoid of smell, it becomes colored, viscid, glutinous,
fetid  &c.  The odor, and sometimes the color of
medicines,  in the sweat of those who have "drug-
ged " much, is very remarkable.  The urine also 
50
WATER CURE.
 alters in like manner; even  the  breath and  open
 sores come  to partake of the same fetor.  These
 morbid phenomena  appear to be  critical, and are
 hailed as tokens of convalescence.  They are gen-
 erally intense in proportion to the powers of reaction;
 and the reaction is, coeterisparibus, in proportion to
 the suddenness and intensity of the stimulation pro-
 duced by the change from heat to cold.
   In persons of full habit, of inflammatory diathesis,
 or laboring under pulmonary congestions; in cases
 characterized by much nervous debility;  in fevers,
 catarrhs, &c, the sweating blanket is bad practice,
 and should  give place to the wet sheet.
   The blanket perspiration—in cases  where  it is
 tolerated and  indicated, as in gouty and rheumatic
 subjects, and in cold, sluggish, and phlegmatic tem-
 peraments—is a much more favorable  preparative
 for the cold bath,  than the sweat produced by heat
from without, as in the vapor bath.  The chief nox-
 ious effect in this case is from so  much heated air
 being inhaled by  the lungs,  and conseqnently not
 only irritating the lungs  by its heat,  but robbing
 them of their due supply of oxygen by diluting it.
 The cool air inhaled by the lungs in  the sweating
 blanket, and the cool liquid taken  into the stomach,
 make an essential  difference  in favor of  the latter
 process.

            LAVEMENTS AND INJECTIONS.
   Lavements and  injections of cold water are staple
 articles of water-cure treatment.  The former  thor-
 oughly remedy constipation, and  afford relief in 
                  WATER CURE.                51

certain cases of diarrhoea.  Their use for the former
purpose may safely be left to the discretion of the
patient, or at least should be a standing order, if the
other processes of the cure fail to produce a daily
evacuation.   A large quantity, as two pints, taken
to produce distention of the colon, and then imme-
diately rendered, will generally operate more effect-
ually than a small quantity,  which  is apt to be re-
tained and absorbed, and fail of its effect;  a second
lavement may sometimes be necessary fully to re-
lieve the bowels.  The best  time for its use is im-
mediately after breakfast.   This is its use as an
ordinary  measure of hygeiene.  In the  treatment
of disease it is a great subsidiary aid; but its ad-
ministration must be under professional direction.
   Cold injections into the uretha and vagina are of
indispensable necessity in all chronic or acute  mu-
cous or muco-purulent discharges of these passages.
For leucorrhcea and uterine catarrh, the most effect-
ual restoration of the relaxed mucous lining, when
the fountain of the  issue has been dried up (which
ordinary  water remedies will  fail  to do,) is the in-
troduction  of  a small tube  (speculum)  into  the
passage,  and retained while the patient takes the
cold hip-bath.   This instrument is four inches long,
and of various calibres, from half an inch to two
inches in diameter,  made of a sheet  of  zinc wire-
work.  This allows  the  water to  come  in contact
with the  walls of the passage.  Its introduction is
not painful; and  its salutary results inconceivable
by those  who have not used it.  In painful uterine
affections, in dysmenorrhcea, cancer, euralgia  (the 
52
WATER CURE.
irritable uterus of Gooch,)  used in the tepid hip-
bath, it is an unfailing resource.   In passive uterine
hcemorrhage it is a specific; but the soundest knowl-
edge and discretion must dictate its use in such
cases. 
REGIMEN.
53
              CHAPTER  VII.

                  REGIMEN.

  It seems strange, indeed, that among  professed
medical men, so  little attention  should have  been
given to regimen  in the treatment of disease.  But
the regulation of the dietetic habits is, as a general
thing,  of  infinitely more  importance  than ail the
medical drugs in  the world.  The first and the last
attention should be given to the food  with which
the stomach is filled.   From  that food are elabo-
rated all the fluids and solids of the system.  From
that food is  eleminated, in part,  that peculiar nerv-
ous influence which supplies the capillaries with their
power, without  which disease  and  death  ensue.
The slightest reflection would  seem  sufficient  to
show the great importance of attention to the kinds,
and the quantity, of food.  True, no absolute rule
could be given for all cases.  The most we can do,
is to lay down general principles—principles founded
upon the laws of Chemistry and Human Physiology,
and from which each  one may  be  able to discern
what course of living is the best, and the most con-
ducive to health.

                 FOOD1—EXERCISE.
  It would seem  to be a dictate of reason that there
should be  a correspondence between  the amount of
                 4 
54                 REGIMEN.
food taken into the stomach and our exercise.  Ac-
cording to Professors Liebig and Lavoisier, an adult
man takes into his system, every year, 835 lbs, of
oxygen, and yet does not increase in weight.   What,
then, becomes of the enormous  quantity of oxygen
introduced in the course of the year into the human
system 1   The carbon and hydrogen of certain parts
of the body have entered into combination with the
oxygen introduced through the lungs and through
the skin, and  have been given out in the form of
carbonic acid and  the vapor of  water.  At every
moment, with every expiration, parts of the body
are thus removed, and are emitted into the atmos-
phere.   No part of the oxygen inspired is again ex-
pired as such.  Now,  it is found  that an adult in-
spires 321 oz- °f oxygen daily; this will convert the
carbon of 24 lbs. of blood into  carbonic acid.  He
must, therefore, take  as much nutriment  as  will
supply this daily loss; and, in fact, it is found that
he does so;  for the average  amount  of carbon  in
the daily food of an  adult man, taking moderate
exercise, is 14 oz., which  require  37 oz. of oxygen
for their conversion into carbonic  acid. .  But it  is
obvious,  as  the inspired oxygen  can be removed
only by its conversion into carbonic acid and water,
that the amount of food  necessary for the  support
of the animal body must be in  direct ratio to the
quantity of oxygen taken  into the system.   Thus,
a child in whom the organs of respiration are natur-
ally in a state of great activity, requires food more
frequently and in  greater  proportions to  its bulk
than an adult, and is  also less  patient of hunger. 
                      REGIMEN.                 55

f A  bird deprived  of  food, dies on  the  third day;
  whilst a  serpent, which  inspires a mere trace of
  oxygen, can live without food for three months.
  The capacity of the chest in an animal is a constant
  quantity ; we therefore inspire the same volume of
  air, whether at the pole  or the  equator; but  the
  weight of the air, and consequently of the oxygen,
  varies with the temperature.  Thus, an  adult man
  takes into the system, daily, 46,000 cubic inches of
  oxygen, which, if the temperature be  77°, weigh
  32£  oz.,  but when  the  temperature  sinks  down
  to  the freezing point (32°) it will  weigh 35 oz.
  Thus, an adult  in  our  climate in winter may
  inhale 35 oz.  of oxygen ; in  Sicily he  would
  inspire only  28£ oz.; and if in Sweden,  36  oz.
  Hence, we inspire more  carbon  in cold weather,
  when the barometer is high, than we do in warm
  weather ; and we must consume more or less carbon
  in  our food in the same  proportion.  In our own
  climate,  the difference between  the summer and
  winter in the carbon  expired, and therefore neces-
  sary for food, is as much as an eighth.  Even when
  we consume equal  weights of food, an  infinitely*
  wise Creator has so adjusted it as to meet the exi-
  gencies of climate.  Thus, the fruit on which  the
  inhabitants of the South delight to feed, contains
  only 12 per cent,  of carbon, whilst the bacon and
  train-oil enjoyed  by  the  inhabitants of the Arctic
  regions contain from  66 to 80 per cent, of the same
  element.   Now, the  mutual  action  between  the
  elements of food  and the oxygen of the air is  the
  source of animal  heat. All living creatures whose 
56                 REGIMEN.
existence  depends on 4he  absorbtion  01  oxygen.
possess within themselves a source of heat, inde-
pendent of the medium in which  they exist;  this
heat, in Liebig's opinion,  is wholly due to the com-
bustion of the carbon and  hydrogen contained in
the food which they consume.  Animal heat exists
only in those parts of the  body through which arte-
rial blood (and with  it oxygen in  solution) circu-
lates.   The carbon and hydrogen of food, in being"
converted  by oxygen into carbonic acid and water,
must give  out as much heat as if they were burned
in the open air; the only difference is, that this heat
is spread over unequal spaces of time, but the actual
amount is  always the same.  The temperature of
the same in the torrid as in the frigid zone; but as
the body maybe considered in the light of a heated
vessel, which cools with an accelerated rapidity, the
colder the  surrounding medium, it is obvious  that
the fuel necessary to retain its heat must vary in
different climates.  Thus, less heat is necessary in
Palermo, where the temperature  of the air is  that
of the human body, than in the polar regions, where
it is  about 90°  lower.  In  the animal body the
food is the fuel, and by a  proper supply of oxygen,
we obtain the food  given out  during  its com-
bustion  in winter.  When we take  exercise in  a
cold atmosphere,  we  respire  a greater amount of
oxygen, which implies a more abundant supply of
carbon in  the  food;  and by  taking  this food we
form the most efficient protection  against the cold.
A starving man is soon frozen to death ; and every
one knows that the animals of prey of the  Arctic 
REGIMEN.
57
 region are far more voracious than those of the tor-
 rid zone.  Our clothing  is merely  equivalent  for
 food, and the more warmly we are clothed, the less
 food we require.  Were we to go destitute of clothes,
 like certain savage tribes,—or if, in hunting or fish-
 ing, we were exposed to the same  degree of cold as
 the Samoyedes,—we could with ease consume 101b.
 of flesh, as warmly-clad travellers have related with
 astonishment  of  those people.  We thus  perceive
 an explanation of the apparently anomalous habits
 of different nations. (The maccaroni of the Italian,
 and the train-oil  of  the Greenlander and the Rus-
 sian, are not adventitious freaks of taste, but articles
 fitted to administer to their comfort in  the  climates
 in which they have  been  born;  the  colder the re-
 gion,  the more combustible must the food be.  j
  This is further shown by Liebig's  account of the
 composition of the  blood, and  of the identity of
 chemical composition of fibrine and albumen.  The
 nutritive process is simplest in the case of  the car-
 nivora.  This class  of animals live on the  blood
 and flesh of the graminivora, whose blood and flesh
 is identical with their own.  , In a chemical sense,
 therefore,  a carnivorous  animal,  in taking  food,
 feeds upon itself;  for the  nutriment  is identical in
 composition with its own tissues.
  Liebig further shows, that the nitrogenized com-
 pounds of vegetables forming the food  of graminiv-
orous  animals are called vegetable fibrine,  vegeta-
 ble albumen, and vegetable caseine.   Now, analysis
 has led to the interesting  result, that they  are  ex-
actly of the same composition in one hundred parts; 
58
REGIMEN.
and what is still more extraordinary, they are ab-
solutely identical with the chief constituents of the
blood—animal  fibrine and  animal albumen.  By
identity  we do  not  imply similarity, but absolute
identity, even as far  as their inorganic constituents
are concerned.  These   considerations show  the
beautiful simplicity of nutrition.   In point of fact,
vegetables produce, in their inorganism, the blood of
all animals.  Animal and vegetable life are therefore
most closely connected.   When exercise is denied
to graminivorous and omnivorous animals, this is
tantamount to a deficient supply of oxygen.  The
carbon of the food not meeting with sufficient oxy-
gen to consume it, passes into the compounds con-
taining a large excess of carbon, and deficiency of
oxygen ;  or, in other words, fat  is produced.  Lie-
big is led to the startling  conclusion, that fat is
altogether an abnormal  and  unnatural  production,
arising from  the adaptation of nature to circum-
stances, and not of circumstances to  nature—alto-
gether arising from a disproportion of carbon in the
food to that of the oxygen respired by the lungs, or
absorbed by the  skin.  Wild animals, in a state of
nature, do not contain fat.   The  Bedouin or Arab
of the desert, who shows with pride his lean, mus-
cular, sinewy limbs, is  altogether free from  fat.
And the professor points out the diseases  arising
from this cause,  and furnishes some valuable hints
to therapeutics.  From all that has transpired, we
may sum up the nutritious elements of food as fol-
lows.  The ingredients  adapted for the formation
of the blood, and which the professor calls the plas- 
REGIMEN.
59
tic elements of nutrition, are as follows :—Vegetable
fibrine, vegetable  albumen, vegetable caseine and
animal flesh.  The other ingredients of food, being
fitted to retain the temperature of the body, he calls
the elements of respiration-

             DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD.
   A few  years  ago, a series of experiments were
made by Dr. Beaumont on a young man's stomach,
which had been opened by a gun-shot wound, from
which he undertook to determine the digestibility of
different articles of food.  The following table was
drawn up by him, but I am far from supposing,
that we may safely infer from this, the precise digest-
ibility of the different articles of food, here mentioned,
when taken into the stomaeh of different individu-
als, without regard to the intervals between  the
meals, the health, or the amount of exercise taken
at the time.
   Farinacea.—Rice, boiled soft, was digested in one
hour;  sago an hour and three quarters.  Tapioca
and barley, two  hours.  Bread, fresh, three hours;
stale, two-
   Vegetables.—Potatoes, roasted, two hours and a
half;  boiled, three hours.  Parsnips and beans, two
hours  and a half.   Carrots, boiled, three hours and
a quarter.  Cabbage, raw, two hours; vinegar much
assists in digestion.  Beet,  three hours and three
quarters.
  Fruits.—Apples, sweet and ripe, one hour and a
half-  mellow, two hours—hard  and sour,  nearly
three.  A mellow peach, an hour and a  half. 
60
REGIMEN.
  Fish and Shell-fish.—Trout, boiled or fried, one
hour  and a half.  Codfish, cured and boiled, two
hours.   Oysters, undressed, nearly  three hours;
roasted, three  hours  and a  quarter;  stewed, three
hours and a half.  Salmon, salted and boiled, four
hours.
  Poultry.—Turkey,  roasted, two hours and a
half;  boiled, five minutes more.   Chickens, fricas-
seed, two hours and three quarters.  Wild goose,
roasted, two hours and a  half.   Fowls, boiled  or
roasted, four  hours.   Roasted ducks, four hours;
and, if wild, half an hour more.
  Butcher's Meat.—Soused tripe, pig's feet boiled
or fried, one hour.  Venison, steak, boiled, one hour
and thirty-five  minutes.   Liver,  calf's or lamb's,
two hours.  Sucking pig, two hours and a half.
Mutton,  boiled, three hours;  roasted,  a  quarter
more.  Beef, fresh boiled  or roasted,  three hours;
lightly salted and boiled, four hours and a quarter.
Pork  steak, broiled, three  hours and  a quarter;
stewed, three hours; lately  salted and boiled, four
hours and a half; roasted, five hours and a quarter.
Veal,  boiled, four hours;  fried, half an hour more.
  Eggs.—Raw, two hours; roasted, a quarter more;
soft boiled, three hours; hard boiled or fried, half
an hour longer.
  Milk—Two  hours.  Custard, baked, two hours
and three quarters.   Butter and cheese, three hours
and a half. Apple dumplings, three  hours;  Suet,
four  hours and a  half.   Oil, somewhat  longer.
Calves foot jelly, half an hour.
  It  will be seen that of farinaceous substances 
REGIMEN.
61
 rice digested more easily, and old bread more  rap-
 idly than new; and that oily food is particularly
 indigestible.

                vegetable  food.
   There is just as much evidence to prove, that the
 monkey is an omniverous animal  as there is to prove
 that man is.   Man can live on a mixed diet, but it
 never has been, and never can be shown either,
 from Anatomy, Physiology or experience, that he
 might not, as a general  thing, in climates like our
 own, be more healthy and live longer, upon a pure
 vegetable diet.   The  following are  among the
 names of men distinguished for their attainments
 and intellectual worth, who  have given their testi-
 mony in  favor of a pure  vegetable  diet, viz:—
 Cheyne, Jeoffroy,  Sir  John Sinclair, Cranstoun,
 Hufeland, Abernethy, Cullen, Lambe, Lawrence,
 Buchan, Whitlaw and Cuvier.  Abernethy says :—
 " If you put improper food into the  stomach it be-
 comes disordered, and the whole  system is effected.
 Vegetable matter  ferments and  becomes gaseous,
 while animal substances are changed into a putrid,
 abominable, and acrid stimulus.  Now some people
 acquire preposterous  noses;  others, blotches on the
 face, and different parts of the body; others, inflam-
 mation of the eyes; all  arising from the irritations
 of the stomach.  I am  often asked why I do not
 practice what I preach.   I reply by reminding the
inquirer of the parson and the sign-post—both point
 the way, but neither  follow its course."
  Sir John Sinclair says:—"I have  wandered  a
               4# 
62                 REGIMEN.
good deal about the world, my health has been tried
in all ways, and by the aid of temperance and hard
work,  I  have worn out two armies, in two  wars,
and  probably could wear out  another before  my
period of old  age  arrives.   I- eat no  animal food,
drink no wine, or malt liquor or spirits of any kind;
I wear no flannel, and  neither regard wind nor rain,
heat nor cold, when business is in the way."
   It is Avell known, that the almost exclusively veg-
etable diet of the  Irish is highly  favorably  to vi-
vacity and good health.  It is certain that vegetable
food has a happy influence on the mind and tends
to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a  liveliness  of
imagination, an acuteness of judgment, seldom en-
joyed by those who live on animals.   Dr. Franklin
ascertained that vegetable diet promoted clearness
of ideas and quickness of thought, and that a tran-
sition from vegetable to animal food produces inju-
rious effects.
   A gentleman who has paid muqh attention to this
subject,  states that he has more than once  selected
from his tenant's children a boy remarkable for that
smartness of  intelligence so common in-the Irish
youth, while in the capacity of errand boys on the
farm, or helpers in  the stables,  and before they be-
came pampered with better food than  their parents'
cabin afforded.  The lads were at  first  lively and
intelligent, and displayed a degree of shrewdness
exceeding what is  generally met with from youths
of a more exalted walk of life in England.  But he
invariably found that in proportion  as these boys
are better fed, they relaxed in activity, became dull 
REGIMEN.
63
 and stupid; and he is confident that change in dis-
 position  sprung from the effect of change  in diet,
 and was  not owing to corruption of mind from their
 intercourse with the other servants.  In fact they
 lose all that vivacity of manner so  inherent in the
 Irish boys, whether born in the vast bog of Allan,
 or in the dry and rocky counties of  Mayo and Gal-
 way.  He is  therefore  inclined  to  think that the
 character of the people does  not  depend so much
 upon climate or soil, as upon food, for no part of the
 globe can differ more than these parts of that king-
 dom.
  A potatoe diet is found  greatly to  improve the
 quality of the blood.  Hence  roasted potatoes have
 been successfully employed as a specific against the
 sea scurvy, when  other remedies have failed.
  According to Dr. Smith, in no other part of the
 world, (in proportion to  the population,) are there
 more instances of extreme longevity, than  among
 the Norwegian peasantry, who scarcely ever taste
 animal food.^In the severe climate  of Russia, also,
 where the inhabitants live on a coarse_ vegetable
 diet,\there are a great many instances of advanced
 age.  The late returns of the Greek Church popu-
 lation of the Russian Empire, give  (in the table of
 the deaths of the male sex)  more than one thousand
 above a  hundred  years  of age;  many between  a
 hundred  and a hundred and  forty;  and four, be-
 tween one hundred and forty  and one hundred  and
 fifty.   It is stated, that, to whatever age the Mex-
ican Indians live, they  never become grey-haired.
They are represented  as peaceable cultivators of 
64
REGIMEN.
the soil, living constantly on vegetable food; often
attaining a hundred years of age,  still green and
vigorous.
  Of the South  American  Indians, Ulloa says, he
has " known several who, at the age of a hundred,
were still very robust and active,  which unques-
tionably, must, in some  measure, be attributed  to
the perfect sameness and simplicity of their food."
Both, the Peruvian Indians,  and the  Creoles, are
remarkably long lived; and retain their faculties to
a very advanced age.  Slaves in the West Indies
(now free) are recorded from a hundred and thirty
to a hundred  and forty years of age. #

                     BREAD.
  As bread may truly be said to be " the staff and
stay of life,"  and, as it is, unquestionably, the most
important article of food, which man takes into his
stomach, it seems proper, that we should give it a
distinct consideration here.   Lavater cautions us
against even keeping company with that man  " who
eats no bread for his  dinner."  That is, the man
who substitutes flesh, or even  other kinds of vege-
tables, for bread, shows such an utter ignorance, or
disregard for  the  laws of his  own life and health,
that he should be  shunned as a dangerous com-
panion.
  There is no one article of food, with which man
could not dispense with greater safety to his health,
than that of good bread.  Other articles, to be sure,
may, in a measure, be used as substitutes,  but not
* Fruits  and Farinacea. 
REGIMEN.
65
one, nor indeed, all combined, could by any means,
fully supply its place.   Bread is  the article which
we should miss the soonest,—the  one which  we
should make  the principal article of diet; and  the
one which we should  be the  most  unwilling to
dispense with, if compelled to make  choice between
that and something else.
  Bad bread, that is,  bread  made  of bolted meal,
and eaten hot, and saturated with animal oil,  is bad,
and worse than  no bread,  in  many cases. The
mischiefs the use of such bread has  produced could
not be told.   Dyspepsia, Intemperance in the use of
intoxicating  liquors, nervous and sick head-ache,
are among the effects produced by  the use  of this
kind of bread.  Surely, such stuff ought not to be
called the  "staff of life."  It is more like the staff
of death.  It has laid  the foundation for diseases,
which have  carried thousands  to an  untimely
grave.
  Bread should, in all cases,  be made of meal, from
which the bran has not  been separated.  Indeed, no
food should be taken in  a highly concentrated form,
such as honey, butter, sugar, &c.  The innutritious
parts are necessary to assist the process of digestion.
Nature never produces nutriment  in a concentrated
state.   The grain is combined with the chaff and
the straw.   The sugar, the acids, the mucilage, and
the oil of fruits,  is  united with  farinaceous, and-
fibrous principles—husk !   Animals fed for some
time on these highly concentrated  forms of nour-
ishment, become ill and die.
  The best grain for bread is wheat.   But  Indian 
66                  regimen.
corn, rye, oats, barley, rice, and many other vegeta-
bles may be made into good bread; however, none
will compare with wheat.   Bread made of the pure
wheat meal, unbolted,  and eaten cold, is the  first
and best article of diet for all.  And if  I could only
be the means of inducing my countrymen, one and
all, to come back to the use of good bread, I know
that I should be the means of greater good " both
to their souls and bodies," than was ever done be-
fore by any one man.   No military glory, no bloody
victory ever achieved on the field of battle, no dis-
covery in  the  mechanic  arts,  not even  those of
Steam and the " Magnetic Telegraph," would begin
to compare in my own mind, with the benefits to be
anticipated from  the universal  use of good bread.
Nothing but  good results have followed the use of
this bread  among the thousands of families who
have  adopted it,  in different parts of  the country,
within the last ten years, good, that no one will, or
can, appreciate  whose  appetite  has  become viti-
ated by years of  bad  habits, in the use of the hot,
greasy and vile compounds, such as have  smoked
from day to day, upon the tables both of the  rich
and the poor, for  ages past.

                vegetable food.
  To show the reader how little  necessity there is
for eating  flesh, from the  want of  a variety of vege-
tables, the following enumeration is made.   It might
be greatly enlarged :—
  1.  Wheat.—The  most  common  preparation of
this article for food is to make it into bread, but it is 
REGIMEN.
67
very good boiled  or  baked whole, or cracked.  It
may be cooked as hommony, or the unbolted meal
made into plain puddings, mush or gruel.
  2. Maize or Indian Corn.—This grain may also
be prepared in a variety of ways.   If boiled whole,
it may first  be hulled with alkali of considerable
strength, so that the  hull may wash  off before the
kernel is softened.  In this way the natural flavor
of  the corn  will be preserved.   If  the  corn  be
cracked  or ground, it is capable  of  being cooked
into a variety of dishes—either as hommony or
mush, or boiled or baked  into puddings.
  3. Rye.—This grain may be prepared in the same
way as wheat.  It is, to some constitutions, some-
what laxative, and hence should be used by persons
disposed to costiveness.
  4. Barley.—This  makes a wholesome article of
diet.   It may be boiled whole or cooked in a vari-
ety of ways when properly hulled.
  5. Oat Meal.—This is much used in Europe, and
properly prepared, is excellent food.
  6. Rice.—From Beaumont's tables it will be no-
ticed, that only one article of food was found so ea-
sily digested as this.   It is the principal food of the
Hindoos and many  of the  Chinese.   In point  of
importance it may be placed  next to bread.  And
scarcely  another article can be cooked in so great a
variety of ways.  Indeed, bread may be made of it,
besides, pies, puddings, porridge, gruel and custards.
  7. Tappaoca and  Sago.—Make excellent pud-
dings  of various kinds.
  8. Beans.—These, in numerous varieties, abound 
68
REGIMEN.
in all parts of the country:  and boiled, baked, or
stewed, are  highly nutritious, except when mixed
with hog-oil.
  9. Pease.—-It was pease of some kind upon which
the three Hebrew children thrived  so remarkably,.
while the Chaldean flesh eaters, made no advance-
ment in size or health.
   10. Potatoes.—This vegetable should be ranked
with bread  and rice.   Its place could not be sup-
plied with  scarcely another in the  vegetable king-
dom.  It grows in numerous varieties, and may be
cooked in  many different ways.   It is subject to
disease,  but, when in a good condition,  it forms a
most excellent article of food  for man and animals.
   11.  Garden vegetables, " too numerous to men-
tion," such as mellons, tomatoes, &c, he.
   12. Fruits.—Of fruits the apple is at the head of
the  list.  The different  varieties of berries, and,
indeed, all ripe indigenous fruits, are excellent for
food, and should be taken as  a  part of  the regular
meal.

                 DIETETIC RULES.
   The following axioms  are  submitted  as the sum
and substance of all  it may  be necessary to say,
here, upon diet.
   1. Meals, should be taken regularly,  as near as
may be, six hours apart.
  2. Luncheons.—These break in upon  the regular
operations  carried on  in  the  system and impede
them, by calling to  the  stomach  a  part of that
physiological  energy, which   is requisite  to  their 
REGIMEN.
69
successful  results.  Consequently digestion is im-
peded and  health impaired.
  3. Drinks.—Avoid tea, coffee, and all kinds of
alcoholic, or fermented liquors.  The best and only
drink, should  be pure cold water.  The best time
for  taking  it  is before  eating or some time after.
The use of fruits obviates thirst, and the necessity
for drinks  of any kind.
  4. KjT The stomach should never be over loaded,
and especially at night.   This rule is of imperative
importance !   Indeed, it may be  doubted, as a gen-
eral  thing, whether,  in  this country, at least, as
much mischief is not often done in the quantity as
in the quality of the food.
  5. The less variety in our food the better.   Not
more than  three different articles should constitute
a single meal.  The variety should be from time to
time and then it will be abundant.
  6.  Mastication.—As a general rule, articles should
be cooked  so as  to  secure mastication, that the
saliva may be thoroughly mixed with our food, and
the  teeth properly exercised.
  7.  Desserts.—It  were better to dispense  with
these altogether.   Whatever articles would  pro-
perly constitute  a dessert, should make part of our
regular  meal.
  8.  Temperature.—Hot drinks  and hot food injure
the digestive powers, consequently the whole system
suffers from it.  Food that is cold is as relishing as
hot food when we get accustomed to it.
  9. Liquid  Food.—Liquids   received  into  the
stomach have to be  taken  up  and  absorbed  be- 
70
REGIMEN.
fore  digestion commences.  Hence, as  a general
rule, food which does not require  chewing  should
be avoided.
  10. If animal food be  taken, it  should never be
oftener than once a day.   And it should be  known
that the flesh of young animals is  not so nutritious
as that  of the older; and wild animals  are better
than  tame, inasmuch as they are  possessed of
more highly fibrinized tissues, from  their  having
more exercise and better air.  We should  eat no
flesh from  diseased animals.
  11. Poisons.—The following may be considered
as poisons which should never, or  seldom, be taken
into the human stomach,  viz:—Most  kinds of
medicinal drugs, and patent nostrums; panaceas,
pills, syrups, intoxicating liquors, confectionaries, hot
cakes, pastry, pickles, greasy and  highly seasoned
food of all kinds. 
DRINK.
71
             CHAPTER  VIII.

                    DRINK.

  Pure cold water is  the best drink, when it can
be received  without the dust and other properties
with which it often becomes mixed.  As it falls upon
the roofs of houses  it is soft and pure.  "Hard
water," as it is called, is unwholesome.. When no
other water  can be obtained, as is often the case in
cities,  "hard water" may be filtered, or distilled,
and in this way rendered  perfectly pure  and fit for
drink.
  If we except milk, which  is the  aliment nature
has provided for infants, it may be put  down as  a
rule from which it is  safe never  to  depart, that
every substitute used for pure cold water, as a drink,
is an injury  to the health.  As a general thing, we
drink  too much, even of water.  When  the diet is
what it should be, and the health is good, there is
little  or no  thirst.   The  immoderate  use of salt
creates an unnatural desire for drink.
  All intoxicating liquors, such  as ardent  spirits,
cider, beer, tea  and coffee, are poisonous, and should
never be taken into the stomach at all.   Dr. John
Burdill, a distinguished dentist of  New York, in-
forms us that he boiled  down a pound of young hy-
son tea, from a quart to half  a pint, and ten drops
killed a rabbit three  months old ; and  when boiled 
72
DRINK.
down to one gill, eight drops killed a  cat  of  the
same age in a few minutes !  Think of it!  Most
persons who  drink  tea, use  not  less than a pound
in three months.  And yet a pound of hyson  tea
contains poison enough  to kill,  according  to  the
above  experiment,  more than seventeen thousand
rabbits, or nearly  two hundred  a day!  And, if
boiled down to a gill, it contains  poison enough to
kill 10,860 cats in the same space of  time!   Dr.
Burdell made similar trials  with coffee, and black
teat and found the results  nearly the same.
   Now, can any one in his senses believe, that any
human  being  can  take  poison  enough  into  the
stomach, in one day, to kill one hundred and eighty
five rabbits, and not suffer from  it ?  Or, that  the
use of  this poison  can be continued from day to
day, without injury to health and life?
   It is not generally known, that  the different kinds
of imported teas are colored; that is, in  the process
of curing the leaves, after they are gathered, there
is coloring matter added to them.  A gentleman in
London, connected  with the  East India Company,
who has the  most intimate knowledge of this busi-
ness, has recently disclosed  the above fact, and he
adds, that  " green tea," or " black," might be any
other color, as blue, or yellow, as  well as the colors
by which these  teas are  now known.   The same
reasons against drinking too much, especially with
our meals, may  be urged as  a general rule against
the use of soups, and  liquid  food  in general.  And
hence, adults should not drink milk, even ; if taken
at all, it should be eaten  with coarse bread  or ripe
fruit. 
CLOTHING.
73
               CHAPTER  IX.

                    CLOTHING.

   Our habits of dressing have so much to do with
 health, that it would be the height of folly to expect
i perfect freedom from disease, where no attention is
 given to this subject.
   1.  Cotton is by far the best material to wear next
 the  skin.   For children and healthy  people,  and
 even most  invalids, no substitute can supply its
 place.  Flannel  is too exciting, and  produces an
 extra amount of  heat,—renders  the skin more deli-
 cate, and doubly susceptible to atmospheric changes.
   2.  Too much, or too warm clothing should be
 avoided, as productive of more evil than when less
 is worn.
   3.  Tight dressing.  Tight cravats produce head-
 ache, congestion  of the  brain, apoplexy, and other
 nervous  difficulties.   Indeed, it would be  much
 more conducive to health  if all  cravats were  dis-
 carded at  once.   Nothing should be  worn  tight
 around the  neck; and  the same remark  may be
 made of the limbs.  Tight garters, tight shoes and
 boots, interrupt the circulation of the blood, prevent
 the free use  of  the muscles, and bring on those
 troubles called "corns,," which often exhaust more
 patience than most people find it  easy to command.
   Tight lacing is another name for self-murder.  It 
74                  CLOTHING.

hinders the full expansion of the lungs, and the free
play of  the heart,  and  intercostal  muscles.  It
presses down the diaphragm, and with it the liver,
stomach and bowels, and in  this way  brings on
piles, dyspepsia, consumption, and a  long  train of
other evils too numerous to detail.  Sometimes the
system is injured by the want of suitable clothing,
as when females go out in the wet with thin shoes,
or expose the neck and chest  without  regard to the
state of the weather. 
EXERCISE.                 75
              CHAPTER  X.

            EXERCISE--EMPLOYMENT.

  The rule for all (who are capable of exercise) is
this:
  1. Regular exercise should be taken in the open
air, daily, (especially after bathing) sufficient to pro-
duce a degree of perspiration.
  2. The occupation should always be  such as to
agree with the health.   It is nothing less than self-
murder to continue in an employment  which you
know', or have good reason for believing, lessens
your health, and thus shortens your life.  The  fol-
lowing facts are from an article in the British and
Foreign  Medical  Review,  for October, 1840, con-
taining a review of a memoir on this subject, founded
on the Tables of the Institution for Sick Mechanics,
at Wurtzburg.
  Among the curious items which the table affords,
is the following :   Of 10^000 persons of various oc-
cupations receiving high  wages, only  1634 were
sick in a year, and only 59 died;  while of those
who received low wages, 2711 were sick, and  103
died.
  The foregoing, we say, is one of the most curious
items which the table in question aflbrds;  for  one
would hardly suspect such an effect to follow as
the result of what seems to be so trifling a cause, 
76
EXERCISE.
at least  comparatively,  as  a difference in wages.
But there are other and more important comparisons
and facts.
  No fact is better established than that professions
and  occupations in which very little muscular ex-
ercise  is required, are far less  healthy than  those
which require more exercise.   Thus,  of 10,000
coopers,  thatchers, sailors,  brewers,  blacksmiths,
stone-cutters,  masons,  millers,  carpenters, wheel-
wrights, butchers, nailers  and  slaters, only  2133
were taken sick, and  67  died ;  while, of 10,000
glovers,  lace-makers, brush-makers,  confectioners,
hair-dressers,  goldsmiths,  shop-keepers,  furriers,
tailors, shoe-makers,  tapesterers,  watch-makers,
gilders,  pewterers,  dyers,  book-binders  and  sur-
geons, 2371 sickened, and 101 died.  The propor-
tion  of deaths in 10,000 who were treated,  was also
very great in the  latter case, being no less than 439,
or almost one  twentieth, while in  the former it was
only 317 in 10,000.
  Again, a comparison is made  in the table, of the
healthiness of those who sit, stand, &c, at their oc-
cupations.  Thus, of those who almost always sit,
2577 in  10,000, sicken  annually, and  99  die.  Of
those who work in a stooping position, 2S58 sicken,
and 95 die.  Of those who stand, 2451 sicken, and
69 die;  while of those who alternately sit and stand,
only  1713 sicken, and  61  die.  The  proportion
which die, of  those who are  treated at the institu-
tion, is greatest among those who constantly sit at
their employment; being almost 400 to 10,000.
  This last is a  most important  fact—one which 
EXERCISE.                 77
 requires the profoundest attention.  For many an
 individual who now sits wholly at his employment
 might contrive to stand a part of the time; and the
 same might be said of those who work in a stoop-
 ing position.   Thus, glovers, lace-makers, brush-
' makers, goldsmiths, belt-makers, furriers, saddlers,
 tailors, shoe-makers, tinmen, weavers and watch-
 makers, all of whom  are represented  as sitting at
lr their employment in the region of Wurtzburg, might,
 the most of them,  stand  a part of the time, as is
 known by experiments made in  our own country.
   Once more.  Of those who are employed in warm,
 moist air, 1913 in 10,000 sicken, and 52 die; while
 of those employed in  cold, moist air,  2165 sicken,
 and 83 die.  Of those, too, who  are subject to rapid
'alternations of heat and cold, 2482 sicken, and  86
 die.
   Want of muscular exercise, bad wages, constant
 sitting, the bent posture, sudden changes of temper-
 ature, low spirits, cold moist air, working in doors,
 mineral dust, and a sedentary life, are obviously in-
 imical to health.
   3.  There are some  kinds of exercise, taken for
 health, which, in many cases, are injurious; such
 as jumping, when carried to  excess, and  riding in
 a chaise.   The motion in these carriages brings the
 body into a stooping posture, and thus the chest is
contracted,  and pulmonary difficulties are  either
 brought on  or very much aggravated.
   4.  Friction.   As a general rule, severe friction
 with  a hair-belt, or hair-gloves, all over the system,
should always precede and follow cold bathing, and »
                 5 
78                 EXERCISE.
especially in the winter.   It is an  excellent habit,
also, for persons to accustom themselves to the use
of the flesh-brush or hair mitten on retiring at night,
and also in the morning before putting on the linen
for  the day.   At the same  time, move about or
dance in the open air, without your clothing, for
five, or twenty minutes, before and  after  the cold
bath; at least, brisk muscular motion of some kind
should be continued till you feel warm ; but it need
&ot be protracted to a state of fatigue. 
SLEEP.
79
              CHAPTER  XI.

                  SLEEP--REST.

 ►  Sleep is one  of the great  alteratives of  animal
"life.  We have,  waking;  sleeping;  motion; rest.
 About one third of our existence is  spent  in that
 state we denominate sleep; from which we infer,
 that  sleep is  just as necessary to our continued,
 healthy existence, as wakefulness.  Indeed, contin-
 ued wakefulness, without  sleep, becomes insanity;
 and so does sleep, when continued too long, have a
 tendency to destroy  the healthy action of the nerv-
 ous system.   It is,  evidently,  therefore, a matter
 of the first importance, that our sleep should be so
 regulated and secured, that it  may  not be inter-
 rupted, neither becoming deficient in quantity, nor
 disturbed with unpleasant  dreams.   In good sound
 sleep, there is no dreaming.  We dream only when
 there is more or less  activity in the cerebral system,
 during sleep;  and the portions  of the brain which
 are excited during sleep, determine the character of
 the dream.  Sometimes parts of the brains become
 diseased, and, in such cases, they are easily excited,
 or it becomes  difficult, and often impossible, to pro-
 duce in them a state of perfect inactivity, or sleep.
 Pressure upon the head will often produce cerebral
 excitements, when asleep; wearing tight hats, bands, 
80
SLEEP.
or caps upon the head, and "doing up the hair,"
as is the fashion among females, is often injurious
and prevents sound sleep.
  Eating full meals, within three or four hours be-
fore retiring to rest, is often a  preventive  of good
sleep.  The principal meal should be taken in  the
middle of the day ; and it would  be better to take
it in the  morning than at night,  as many do.  I
have often cured  cases of  incubus and somnam-
bulism, by inducing the persons afflicted to eat no
supper, nothing after the second meal.
  Beds made of down, or feathers, are  decidedly
objectionable, as they induce too  much heat, and
soon become impure, by retaining the eflluvia of
the body, and  in  this way, they bring on  numer-
ous forms of disease.  The best bed is made of hair,
husks,  the "everlasting  flower,"  palm-leaf,  or
cotton.   " Comfortables" are liable to the same ob-
jections made above, and so is too much bed cloth-
ing of any kind.  Besides preventing  the  eflluvia
from escaping  from the body, too much clothing
retards the free circulation  of the  blood, and often
produces  a numbness or  coldness in the limbs,
highly injurious.
  The position of the body in  bed, is of consider-
able importance.   Lying on either side, with the
head turned down upon the chest, has a bad effect.
The best position to sleep in, is  upon the back.  In
this position, no  pillows would be needed.  And
cases very seldom  occur  where the head should be
elevated so much as is often done. 
SLEEP.
81
  To insure good sleep, the hours of retiring and
rising should be observed regularly.

       "Early to bed, and early to rise,
       If you would be liealthy, wealthy and wise."

And to the sleeping room, the light of the sun  and
pure air should have free access.  During the night,
and  the coldest weather, the room should never be
perfectly closed.  The bed clothes should be cleanly
and daily exposed  to the  pure  fresh air.   tJnless
the room be very large, no more than two persons
should sleep in one apartment, together, and on no
account should the sick  and the well  sleep together,
nor should children sleep with the aged.
  No part of the apparel worn during the day should
be continued upon the  system  during  sleep.  The
better way is  to have linen  prepared in which to
sleep, which  may be laid  aside in  the morning.
From your bed to your  bath, and then after cleans-
ing the pores, and  invigorating the system with
cold water, the clothing appropriate  to  the  day, is
put on, with far more comfort and satisfaction, than
if it  had been worn  and saturated with  perspira-
tion during the night. 
82
AIR—LIGHT.
              CHAPTER  XII.

                   AIR--LIGHT.

   1. The  air we breathe  should be dry, pure and
cold.   By this air abundant oxygen is  supplied to
the  lungs; muscular  energy is  augmented;  the
appetite is increased;  digestion  invigorated; per-
spiration is less; the urine  more abundant.   Its ben-
efits depend on sufficient exercise being taken to
make the organs react energetically.  But very cold
air is uncongenial to  those who cannot  take active
exercise, as persons debilitated by age or  sickness,
those  of  lymphatic  temperament, and new-born
infants.   The interior congestions determined by
cold inadequately resisted, predispose to inflamma-
tions, and haemorrhages.
  2. Cold, moist air,  sometimes benefits the bilious
and  strong, but  generally it determines  powerful
abstraction of heat;  repels perspiration ; 'produces
rheumatisms,  inflammation  of the mucous  mem-
branes of the lungs, and the gastro-intestinal canal.
Hot, dry air produces muscular weakness, copious
perspirations, diminished secretion from the kidneys,
frequent thirst,  weakened appetite and digestive
powers ;  inaptitude for intellectual as well as bodily
exertion; sleepiness during day,  and sleeplessness
at night.   It  induces cerebral  affections; gastric,
bilious, and   intestinal  diseases.  It  aggravates
hysteria, epilepsy,  hypochondriasis, and insanity. 
AIR--LIGHT.
'83
  3. When it becomes hot and  humid, it  is still
more  unhealthy.   Respiration is more difficult.
The energy of the nervous and muscular systems
is depressed.   This state of the  air is the precise
condition  most favorable to the decomposition of
animal and vegetable substances,  and  to the carry-
ing off of  putrescent  emanations.   Hence,  the
prevalence under these circumstances  of epidemic,
intermittent, and typhoid fevers.   It is uncongenial
to the lymphatic temperament.
  4. In a weaving mill near Manchester, where the
ventilation was bad, the proprietor caused a fan to
be mounted.   The consequence soon became appa-
rent in a  curious manner.  The  operatives, little
remarkable  for  olfactory  refinement, instead  of
thanking  their employer for his  attention  to  their
comfort and health, made a formal complaint to him
that the ventilator had increased their appetites, and
therefore entitled  them to a corresponding increase
of wages!   By stopping the fan a part of the day
the ventilation and voracity of  the establishment
were brought to a medium standard, and complaints
ceased.  The operatives' wages  would but just
support them; any  additional demands by  their
stomachs could only be answered by draughts upon
their backs, which were by no means in a condition
to answer them.   In Edinburg a club was provided
with a dinner in a well  ventilated apartment, the
air  being perfumed as it entered,  imitating in suc-
cession the fragrance of lavender and the orange
flower.  During dinner the members enjoyed them-
selves  as  usual, but were  not  a  little  surprised at 
AIR—LIGHT.
the announcement  of the  provider  that  they had
drunk three times as much wine as he had usually
provided.  Gentlemen of sober, quiet habits, who
usually confined themselves to a couple of glasses^
were not satisfied  with less than half a  bottle;
others, who took half a bottle, now extended  their
potations to a bottle and a half.  In fact, the hotel
keeper was drunk dry. *
  5- The breathing  should  never be obstructed,
either by the bed-clothes at night, nor by handker-
chiefs, &c, worn over the mouth, at any time during
the day.
  6. Next to pure  air, light is  indispensable  to
health, both in our  working and sleeping apart-
ments.   Bed-rooms should always be so situated as
that the  sun may shine into them  sometime during
the  day.  Vegetable, as well  as human beings, de-
prived of light, are blanched.  The former also are
changed in their taste  and other  properties.  The
flesh of  the latter is rendered soft, flabby, pasty,
and sallow.  The tissues are infiltrated with pale
liquids;  the blood abounds unduly in serum; the
fibrine and coloring  matter  are bad.  This is ob-
served in persons who work underground, in  pris-
ons immured in dungeons,'in the inhabitants of nar-
row dark  streets and lanes, in the cretins of the
deep-shaded Alpine .valleys,  and in  the natives of
the polar regions who are for half  the year without
the light of  the sun.  Those who are constantly
exposed to the rays of the sun, or who go entirely
* Wyman's Practical Treatise on Ventilation. 
                  AIR—LIGHT.                85

naked, as the New Zealanders, the Mexicans, the
Peruvians, the American Indians, have thick, rough,
freckled, deep-red tawny skins, florid blood, mus-
cular bodies, perfect forms.  These are the united
results of constant insolation and exercise.   The
application of these facts to the physical education
of youth must not be lost.   Lymphatic, scrofulous
children cannot be too much in the open air.   Too
much exposure to the sun, however, especially of
the naked head, produces head-ache, apoplexy, in-
flammation  of the membranes of the brain, and
insanity,
               5* 
86
FARENTS.
             CHAPTER  XIII.

                     FARENTS.

  Children receive their temperaments, their consti-
tutions, dispositions, and, we may add, their  char-
acters, from their parents.  It was no  more true of
Adam, when it was said he " begot a son in his own
likeness," than  it  is now, and always will be, of
every man and  woman who shall become a parent.
The  fact, that children often come into the world
with physical " marks " upon their systems, so strik-
ing as many of them are, would  seem sufficient, of
itself, to impress an unfading conviction of the truth
of this doctrine upon every reflecting mind.  Mental
and physical qualities are transmitted, always. The
habits, dispositions, feelings and passions, of fathers
and  mothers, are transmitted to their offspring.
Volumes  might  be  filled with testimonies to this
point. Diseased parents  cannot,  in the nature of
things, have healthy children. Hence, the necessity
of care, and the utmost vigilance, on the part of all
such as are in the way of becoming parents.   A want
of a knowledge of this la^v of nature, has  been, no
doubt, the fruitful cause of a large proportion of the
still-born  infants, in our  tables of mortality. *
  * Chitty, in his Medical Jurisprudence, puts the number of still-
born, at one in every fifteen. Estimating the population of the
United States at 20,000,000, the number of still-born children in
this country, annually, must b,e nearly 30,000 ! ! 
                   fAKtniS.                  ot

  1.  The passions.—I use the term passions, to sig-
nify the undue excitement of any one of the mental
faculties.  The following case is in point; it was
communicated  to  me, by  a  gentleman, who  has,
from the first, been well acquainted with the parties.
  "Mr. B----of------, Vt., is now  thirty  years
of age, and  has, from childhood, conversed freely,
with  every  other person,  except his  own father I
When he  first began  to talk, it was noticed, that,
when his father  attempted to talk  with  him, he
invariably turned his  head   the other way, and
has  never once been able to speak to his father,
while looking him in the face, from that time to the
present!   Two months before he  was  born, his
father came into the house  behind his  mother, and
addressed her in very severe and opprobrious lan-
guage.  It very much excited her  combativeness,
and, looking round, she  attempted to reply, but was
literally choked with indignation.   The impression
which her mind made upon the nervous system of
that fcetus, has, now, lasted more than  thirty years,
sufficiently long, certainly, to demonstrate  the truth
of the doctrine I am here attempting to inculcate.
  2. Whatever occupies the mind  of  the mother,
with a certain  degree  of intensity, at particular
times, during the period of  gestation, will be sure to
make an impression upon the  physical  and mental
systems of the  child.   Hence the danger  of  ugly,
or disagreeable objects.   The Lacedemonians were
accustomed to place beautiful statues in the  rooms
with  their pregnant  wives,  and  the same law  is 
88
rAiusfliSi
recognized in the Bible account of  the  patriarch
Jacob.*  During  this  period  conjugal  abuses
should be avoided.   Departures from the law of ab-
solute continence, are attended, always, with mis-
chievous results,  both to the mother  and the child.
  3.  Nursing mothers, should be particularly ob-
servant of these  rules.
  Sir A. Cooper says :—A fretful temper lessens the
quantity  of  milk,  makes it thin  and serous, and
causes  it to disturb  the  child's bowels, producing
intestinal fever and much  griping.  Fits of anger
produce a very irritating milk, followed by griping
in the. infant,  he.   Grief  and anxiety diminishes
the  quantity,  and  alters the quality of the  milk.
Fear has a powerful influence upon this  secretion ;
and terror, which is sudden and great fear, instantly
cuts  off  the supplies of the  infant.  A  few facts
given by Dr.  Carpenter in his "Principles of Hu-
man Physiology,"  will  fully  sustain Sir  A. C.'s
view of this subject.  A carpenter fell into a quar-
rel with a soldier, billeted in his house, and was set
upon by the latter with his drawn sword.   The
wife of the carpenter at first trembled from fear and
terror,  and  then suddenly  threw  herself furiously
between the combatants, wrested  the sword from
the soldier's hand,  broke  it in  pieces, and threw it
away.   During the tumult some neighbors came in
and separated the men.   While in this state of
strong  excitement,  the  mother  took up her child
from the cradle, where it  lay playing, and in the
* Gen. 30 : 37. 
PARENTS.
89
most perfect state of  health, never having had a
moment's illness; she gave it the breast, and in so
doing sealed its fate.  In a few minutes the infant
left off sucking, became restless, panted, and sank
dead  upon  its mother's  bosom.   The physician,
who was instantly called in, found the child lying
in the cradle as if asleep, and with its features un-
disturbed ; but all his  resources were fruitless.  It
was irrecoverably gone.
  A lady having several  children, of which none
had manifested any particular tendency to cerebral
disease, and of which  the youngest was a healthy
infant a few months old, heard of the death of an
infant  child  of a friend  by acute dropsy  on  the
brain.  The circumstances naturally made a strong
impression upon her mind ;  and she dwelt upon it
the more, perhaps, as she happened, at that  period,
to be separated from the rest of her family, and to
be much  alone with her babe.  One morning  shortly
after,  having  nursed it, she laid the infant in its
cradle, asleep, and apparently in  perfect health;
her attention was shortly attracted to it by a noise ;
and, on going to the cradle, she found her infant in
a convulsion,  which lasted but for a few moments,
and then left it dead.
  Mr. Wardrop mentions ' that, having removed a
small tumor from behind the ear of a mother, all
went well until she fell into a violent passion ;  and
the child being nursed  soon afterwards, died in con-
vulsions.   The same author was sent for  hastily to
see another child in convulsions, after nursing a
*• London Lancet, No. 516. 
90
PARENTS.
person who had been severely reprimanded, and he
was informed, by Sir Richard  Croft, that he had
seen many similar instances.  Burdach * records a
case of an infant who was seized with convlsions
on the right side, and hemiplegia (a paralytic affec-
tion of one side of the body) on the  left, on nursing
immediately  after its mother had met  with some
distressing occurrence.
  During the period of gestation, and while nurs-
ing, the laws of life and health  should be observed
with undeviating fidelity.  The strongest sympa-
thies exist between the uterus, stomach, and brains, f
Hence the necessity of  keeping  the nervous system
quiet and composed, by cold-bathing, and by avoid-
ing all those  associations which have a tendency to
disturb the mind.   Pope ascribes all the bad pas-
sions of men to the use of animal food.   And that
the  food  of mothers has  much to  do with the
mental dispositions of  their  offspring, there  can be
no  doubt at all.  Follow the directions  given in
another chapter of this work,  with regard  to diet
and exercise.   Many mothers  suffer  themselves,
and bring unhealthy offspring  into  the  world, for
the want of regular exercise in  the open air, at the
proper time.

  * Physiologie, p. 522.
  11 always  use the term brains (not brain) because there are
two, distinct brains, in every head. 
INFANCY."
91
             CHAPTER  XIV.

                    INFANCY.

  The best food during the first  nine months, or a
year after birth, is the mother's milk, of course.  But,
when this is forbidden by disease, or death, a young,
healthy, wet nurse should be provided.   When the
infant has a full  supply of  its mother's milk, it
should not be fed with anything  else.
  Avoid too much nursing; never nurse the infant
to keep it  from crying.   Its stomach, like every
other organ, wants periodical  rest.   As a  general
rule, infants should be gradually weaned between
the ninth and twelfth month.  After the breast of
the mother,  the next best food is good cow's milk ;
from cows that are fed on grass or hay, and which
are known to be healthy.   It should not be boiled,
but may be given with pure ground rice,  cooked;
sago, arrow-root, and bread.
  Avoid  sugars, sweetmeats, and  all kinds of
"soothing syrups."  If sugar be given with  their
food,  let it be added at the time the food is taken.
  From fifteen months, and upward, other vegetable
food may be given,  but only at their  meal times,
which should be observed regularly.
  From birth they should  be subjected to bathing,
night and  morning, with tepid water at first, but if
the child be healthy, within  a week or two, cold 
92
INFANCY.
 water may be  used with  great benefit.  When the
 weather permits they should have free access to the
 open air.
   The dress should be  merely  sufficient to keep
 them  warm.   The more loose and free the better.
 The fastenings should  be with  tape,  or  buttons.
 Have no  curtains about their beds, and  see that
 their faces are not covered  or muffled while  sleep-
 ing.
   Intelligent parents who understand the  laws  of
 health will avoid  the following, among other bad
 habits :—
   1.  Covering the head  of the  infant with caps.
 The head  should be left bare, and always kept cool.
   2.  Compressing the  chest and  abdomen with
 "swaddling bands."  There is  no  need of this
 practice, and it has often caused serious mischiefs.
   3. Leaving the  arms and chest without any cov-
 ering,  in cold weather.
   4. Rocking  children in  cradles, and  hoisting
 them about by the arms.
   5. Premature attempts to cause them to walk.
 " Bow legs" are produced in this way.
   6. Such  words and actions as tend to excite their
 combativeness.  When they are  ill-natured, they
 should be diverted, not punished.
  7. The force of associations is  as strong  in chil-
dren as adults.   And hence, regular hours for their
meals,  the movement of the bowels, and rest, are
as necessary as when the system becomes matured
with age. 
childhood.                 93
              CHAPTER  XV.

                    childhood.

   1. One of the great evils common to childhood in
this country,  is over-feeding.  The  quantity and
variety,  as well as  the quality of the food  taken
into the human  stomach, must,  in  all cases,  be
regulated by  an  enlightened judgment.   This we
do not look for in children, and hence the necessity
of parental oversight, in relation to their diet.
   2. Physical  and  mental exercise.  The former
should be not  only allowed, but encouraged, while
the latter is repressed, or at least left for time to
develope.  They should not be compelled to  labor,
nor fatigued with  effort, but allowed as much re-
creation  as their natures  seem to require.   Many
children, especially in our  cities, are  put to  study
and compelled to  attend school, long before their
brains are sufficiently matured to endure  the tax
which is imposed upon them.  No definite rule can
be laid down to meet each case;  but generally, it
has a very bad effect to compel children to a course
of lessons in  reading, before they are four or five
years of age.   What they  learn as an amusement
is  a different thing, altogether.
  3.  Dress.   Except in the  case of very  feeble
children, with cold extremities, they should not be 
94
childhood.
clothed with  woollen  next the skin.  Their shoes
should be large, and broad at the toes.
  The habit of allowing girls and boys to wear
their hair very long,  is attended with bad  conse-
qmnces in many cases, 
YOUTH.
95
             CHAPTER  XVI.

                    YOUTH.

  1. Sending youth  away from  home, where their
habits of bathing, exercise and  diet cannot be at-
tended  to  by their  parents  or  guardians,  is  the
fashion, but a very bad one  indeed.  The writing
benches of most school-houses throughout the coun-
try, are so  constructed, that it is impossible to sit
up straight on them, and in this  way  spinal curva-
tures, and  its attendant evils are the horrible re-
sults.  Writing  desks should, in all cases, be ele-
vated nearly as  high as the  shoulders, so that the
chest may not  be  cramped  over  while  sitting at
them.  In  the case  of  girls, confined from  month
to month, on benches, and at desks like the above,
more cases of stooping, round shoulders, and spinal
curvatures have been brought on, than have been
produced by any other one cause.  This habit of
stooping contracts the chest, compresses the lungs,
and disposes to  pulmonary consumption.  To cor-
rect it, elastic shoulder braces should be worn, and
the practice broken up which has led to it.
  According to Dr. Orpen, one of the most effectual
means of removing stooping, and even of checking
incipient lateral curvature of the spine, is by mak-
ing the patient carry weights on the head, gradually
augmented ; this compels all the  muscles,  by which
perpendicularity is produced and  preserved, to exert 
96
YOUTH.
themselves, and by this  exertion they  grow: and
as the body cannot be allowed either to bend for-
ward or to either side, the muscles  gradually pull
all the bones and ligaments into  their proper posi-
tion, and  keep them, as  well as themselves, in due
posture.   In fact,  lateral curvature is  caused by
disproportioned  strength, or exertion  of different
lateral sets of  muscles, and by relaxation  of liga-
ments, and can only be cured  by producing a con-
trary state, by  exercise and a well balanced perpen-
dicularity of spine; never solely by either artificial
machines nor  by mere  rest.  The  peasantry  in
those parts of the country where  it is the custom to
carry burthens on the head, are remarkable for their
erect stature and ease of motion.
  2. Choosing occupations"for children  without re-
gard to  their  physical  and mental capacities, is
highly objectionable.  Could anything  be more in-
consistent than putting  a feeble young man with
small muscles and a large brain,  to  the trade of a
stone-cutter or a blacksmith 1   Or putting a young
man with full chest, large bones, and strong consti-,
tution, to the occupation of a shoemaker or jeweller ?
  In the case of both sons and daughters, the great
evil has been  in separating physical from mental
exercise.  When they are put to school,  they are
required to do  nothing  but exercise the  cerebral
system;  and when put to trades, the mind is ne-
glected.   Study and physical exercise should, in all
cases, go  together.   And when parents fail to give
this  information among their very first lessons, they
omit the first, and one of the most important of all
the duties they owe  to their children. 
OLD age.
97
            CHAPTER  XVII.

                  OLD AGE.

  It was, probably, in  ages past, when the habits
of our ancestors were more simple, and when they
lived to much more advanced  ages  than  now,"that
the proverb was originated, " Once a man and twice
a child."  At present, it is certain that an immense
proportion of the human family do not live to reach
a state of manhood ; and of those who do, how few
the number who live down to ripe old age !   The
reasons are to be found in our habits.  " Soonest
ripe, soonest rotten."  Stimulating food and drinks
push the system forward into a state of precocity,
which soon exhausts the vital powers, and  we die
before we have " lived  out half our days."   And
when we find our lives thus shortened, and that we
cannot live any longer, we very piously attribute
our disease and death to the God of Heaven, whose
laws we have violated in our habits of eating, drink-
ing and exercise, just as really as if  we had com-
mitted the crime of murder!
  Can any intelligent, candid  mind  suppose, for
one moment, that it is God's will that one hundred
thousand human beings should be still-born, annu-
ally 1  Or that a majority of  all the human beings
born alive, should die before they are five years old 1
Or, what is still worse, that all  that are  born, and 
98
OLD AGE.
live to a state of maturity, a mere fraction should
be permitted to live down to a comfortable old age 1
Alas !  that men can believe in  such a God !   It is
just as much the will of the Deity  that human
beings should live " three score years and ten," as
it is that they should live at  all.   And all might
reach that period, and even far beyond it, were all
the laws of  God developed  in  human physiology,
faithfully obeyed.
  1. Beyond the meridian of life, as the body ad-
vances in age, less food and exercise are necessary.
  2. The system needs more  rest, and the mind
should be free from care.
  3. The rules laid down in the preceding pages,
with regard to living, especially, diet and bathing,
should be faithfully followed; and when  this is
done from infancy up to manhood, when there  are
no accidents nor unavoidable  disturbing causes in
the  way, the result will be health, happiness, and
a "  GREEN OLD AGE ! " 
CAUSES OF ILL-HEALTH.            99
           CHAPTER  XVIII,

              CAUSES OF ILL  HEALTH.

  There are many cases of ill health beyond the
control of those who are doomed to suffer; such as
the bad conduct or ill-health of parents, neglect of
children, &c., &c.   Of these our limits do not per-
mit us to speak here, but merely of such causes as
may be avoided, and of which all should have more
or less knowledge.

                      A I R.
  1. Changes in the atmosphere.   One of the most
common causes of obstructed perspiration, or catch-
ing cold in this country, is the changeableness of
the weather, or state of the  atmosphere.   With us
the degrees of heat and cold are not only very dif-
ferent in the seasons of the  year, but often change
almost from one extreme to another in a few days,
and sometimes even in the course of one day.  That
such changes must  affect the state of the perspira-
tion, is obvious to every one.
  The best method of fortifying  the  body against
the changes of the  weather, is to be  abroad every
day.   Those who keep within doors are most liable
to catch cold; such persons generally render them-
selves so delicate as to feel even the slightest changes 
100
CAUSES OF ILL  HEALTH.
in the atmosphere, and frequently are afflicted with
pains, coughs, oppressions of the breast, &c.
  2. A current of  cold  air upon a part or parts  of
the system, while  in a state of perspiration.
  3. Wet clothes.  The danger from wet apparel con-
sists in keeping it  on the body after you have ceased
exercising.  It is  impossible for people who fre-
quently go abroad, to avoid sometimes being wet.
But the danger may generally be lessened, if not
wholly  prevented, by changing the  clothes soon;
when this cannot  be done, they should  be  kept  in
motion  till they are dry.

                DWELLING HOUSES.
   1. Many houses are  so  situated,  that the sun
cannot shine into many of the rooms.   The light of
the sun is necessary to health.*
   2. Others are situated near rivers, which fall and
leave their banks  to exhale miasmi and disease, for
all such to inhale as live in their immediate vicinity.
   3.  Houses newly plastered, or painted, inside.
  4. Cellars that are damp, or in which the water
collects a part of the year.
  5. Cellar kitchens, or  sleeping rooms, one side of
which are below the surface of the ground.
  6. Different  families  crowded together in one
tenement.

  * Animals, such as dogs and birds, have been known to sicken
and die during an eclipse of the sun. 
CAUSES OF ILL  HEALTH.
101
                     DIET.
  1.  Food, badly cooked.
  2.  Too many kinds of food at once.
  3.  Unripe and  diseased  fruit,  whether  in  its
natural state, or cooked.
  4.  Green vegetables, such as corn, squashes, &c.
  5.  Irregularity in the time of taking the meals.
  6.  Eating too often.  The meals should  be  six
hours apart, and nothing taken between them.
  7.  Eating too  fast.  Americans are proverbial
for the rapidity and  hurry in which they swallow
their  food.  The  /taste in  which  many laboring
people and servants are compelled to take their
meals, is a burning shame to all who aid in uphold-
ing that state  of  things which has brought about
this destructive habit.
  8. Eating animal food after it has begun to decay.
   9. Late suppers, or eating just before retiring to rest.
   10. Eating confectionaries, condiments,  wafers,
&c.
   11.  Unwholesome  drinks, such  as  tea, coffee,
chocolate, beer, cider, wine, vinegar, bad water and
intoxicating liquors.
   12. Poisons—such as patent nostrums, medicinal
drugs, chalk, slate-pencil, pickles, and dirt of vari-
ous kinds.
   13. Diseased animal food.  A large proportion of
the animals slaughtered for market, are diseased,
and  unfit for food.
   11.  Hot drinks and hot food of any kind.
   15.  Want of wholesome food.
   16.  All kinds of pastry. 
102
CAUSES OF ILL  HEALTH1.
                   CLOTHING.
  1.  Tight  lacing,  tight  cravats,  garters,  small
shoes or boots.
  2.  Wearing woolen next the skin.
  3.   Too much clothing, and, rarely, too little.

                    SLEEP.
  t.   Want of sufficient and regular sleep.  Of this
many are deprived, who are forced to begin at their
labor at an unseasonable hour in the morning, and
to prolong it till late at night.   Ten hours  out of
the twenty four is as much as the system can endure,
regularly, without injury.
  2. Sleeping with  the  head bent  over  upon the
chest.  The best position in which to sleep, is upon
the back, without a pillow.
  3. Sleeping with  the  arms extended above the
head.
  4.  Sleeping in a bed surrounded with curtains.
  5.  Sleeping in rooms where the sun never shines.
  6. Sleeping in  small rooms  with a number of
other persons.
  7. Sleeping with the sick.
  S. Sitting up late, or watching.
  9. Sleeping in the linen  worn during the day.
  10." Lying in  bed, after  the time to rise, in the
morning.
  11. Sleeping  in damp beds, when the  system is
chilled with cold. 
CAUSES OF ILL HEALTH.
103
               LIGHT OF  THE SUN.
  1. Exposure of the head to the rays of the sun,
  2. Working by candle light, or in mines, cellars,
and places where the sun never shines.
  3. Looking too intensely at the sun, or for a long
time at any other strong light,

            EMPLOYMENT--EXERCISE.
  1. Indolence!  Hence the far famed  recipe for
dyspepsia, u Live on a sixpence a day, and earn it.°
  2. Want  of relaxation from  labor.  Both body
and mirrd need rest.
  3. Violent  labor, especially  immediately  after
meals.
  4. Sitting, or  working in a recumbent posture.
Holding the head forward, stooping  so  as to bring
the shoulder-blades upward and forward.
  5. Want of' regulur exercise in the open air.
  6. Working in factories,  and places  where the
lungs inhale an impure atmosphere.
  7. Standing for  a long time  with  the feet in the
water.
  8. Lifting beyond the strength.
  9. Riding in chaises or carriages which bring fhe
motion upon the chest and lungs.
   10.  Rowing has a tendency to bring on  spinal
<ourvature.
             BAD HABITS,  PASSIONS, &>C.
   X. Solitary  sexual   excitements.  Those  who
transgress  this law, do so at  the  peril  of their
health.,  both of body  and  miud.   Derangements 
 104          CAUSES OF ILL HEALTH.

 and  diseases the most  terrible follow  in  the  train
 of sexual abuses.   The system  is  not sufficiently
 matured, in  this country, to allow of lawful sexual
 indulgence, before  twenty  one years  of  age, as a
 general rule.
   2.  The undue excitement of the sexual organs,
 even among married people, is an evil, and a fruitful
 cause of barrenness, uterine weakness, besides the
 still-born which it occasions, and the terrible conse-
 quences which show themselves in  the dispositions
 and conduct of children born of such parents.
   3.  Mental excitements, extravagant joy, fear, love,
 hope, grief, and despair.
   4.  Disagreable associations.  Husbands and wives
 who  do not live  happily together, and neighbors
 who  are  constantly exciting each other's combat-
 iveness.
                   RECREATION.
   1.  Want of variety in the mental exercises. A11 the
 faculties should be exercised at the  proper time, in
 perfect harmony.
   2. Want of amusement, music and mirth.

                     BATHING.
   1.  Want  of cleanliness.   Cold  water should be
applied to the head and face, twice  a day, at least.
  2. The pores of the skin should be cleansed with
pure cold water, daily.
  3. The cotton  worn  next  the skin  should be
changed every night and morning, and always kept
clean. 
CAUSES OP  ILL  HEALTH.
105
                 MISCELLANEOUS.
  1. The teeth should be kept clean, and when de-
cayed should be removed.
  2. The mouth and nostrils should be rinsed with
cold water, daily.
  3. Resisting the calls  of nature for relieving  the
bladder and bowels, is very injurious to health.
  4. Inhaling dust, of any kind.
  5. Inhaling the fumes of tobacco, heated oil, and
other offensive gasses, not  excepting that of nitrous
oxide, or sulphuric ether.
  6. Over taxing any one  of  the mental  faculties
with study.
  7. Breathing.  The breathing  is quickened and
shortened, by stooping and  contracting the chest,
which  tends  to pulmonary  consumption.  Long
and deep inspirations should be taken frequently,
in cold pure air, holding the breath as long as pos-
sible, and in this way,  by throwing the  shoulders
back, the chest will  be expanded, and sufficient
room be left for the heart and lungs to perform their
appropriate functions.
  8. Abuses of the headandhair.  Suffering the hair
to grow very long;  daubing it with hog-oil and other
greasy  mixtures; wearing tight hats, caps, &c, and
" doing up the hair" in an unnatural position, so as
to cause soreness in the  scalp,  head-ache, &c.
  9. Finger rings, so tight as to impair the circula-
tion.
  10. Holes and sores made in the ears artificially.
  11. Chewing india-rubber, camomile-flowers, or 
106          CAUSES OF ILL HEALTH.

any other substance except good food, at the regu-
lar meal  time.
  12. Taking urine into the stomach as medicine.
  13. Obstructing  the  breath by  bed-clothes,  and
wearing bandages over the mouth. 
SItiNS OF  GOOD HEALTH.
107
             CHAPTER  XIX,

              SIGNS OF  GOOD HEALTH.

  As persons may be affected with disease without
thinking about it,  or even knowing it. so they may,
also, enjoy perfect health, without  being conscious
of it.  Indeed, as  a general thing, perhaps that  is
the best  state of the system, in which the mind  is
not compelled-to bo occupied with  the  thoughts  of
pain, or  any irregularities, in any of the functions,
either of body or mind.  But, to enable all to judge
accurately, we give the following signs of good
health:—
  1. Regular, slow, and deep breathing.
  2. Slow, and regular pulse.  The pulse is  modi-
fied  by  the  age,  sex,  temperament,  state  of  the
mind, &tc.   Other  things being equal, a slow, regu-
lar pulse, indicates good health.
  3. Sound,  and  regular  sleep.   Sleep  without
dreams.
  4. Regular evacuations, bowels, bladder, uterus,
&c.
  5. Steady, agreeable perspiration.
  6. Equable temperature.   A  hot head, and cold
hands and feet, indicate disease.
«r 
10S
SIGNS  OF  GOOD HEALTH.
  7  Good appetite—one which  regularly  gives  a
disposition for wholesome, unseasoned food.
  8. When wounds heal,  rapidly.
  9. Little, or no thirst.
  10. Little, or  no expectoration, or salivation.
  11. Sound teeth.
  12. The perfect use of the five senses, sight, hear-
ing, taste, smell, and feeling.
  13. Disposition to rise early in the morning.
  14. Freedom from  adipose  matter.   "Fat" is a
state of disease, or indicative  of one.
  15. Resistence of disease,  ability of the system
to ward  off disease, (so to speak) when attacked
by  those  agencies likely to  disturb  the  nervous
energies.
  16. When the propensities  are  strong, and veil
controlled.
  17. Self possession—a  quiet mind in  times of
excitement.
  IS. Ability to endure,  and to  labor,  physically
and mentally, without fatigue.
  19. The  natural color,  that is,  the  color in the
cheeks, according  to  the temperament, age, sex,
&c,  which  indicates health.
  20. Constant sense  of feeling well, especially in
the morning. 
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