Enquire Within Upon Everything Part 88

xii. Let Excess in the use of ardent and fermented liquors and tobacco be avoided.

xiii. Let a Poor Diet, and the use of impure water in cooking, or for drinking, be avoided.

xiv. Let the Wearing of wet and insufficient clothes be avoided.

xv. Let a Flannel or woollen belt be worn round the belly.

xvi. Let Personal Cleanliness be carefully observed.

xvii. Let every cause tending to depress the moral and physical energies be carefully avoided. Let exposure to extremes of heat and cold be avoided.

xviii. Let Crowding of persons within houses and apartments be avoided.

xix. Let Sleeping in low or damp rooms be avoided.

xx. Let Fires be kept up during the night in sleeping or adjoining apartments, the night being the period of most danger from attack, especially under exposure to cold or damp.

xxi. Let all Bedding and clothing be daily exposed during winter and spring to the fire, and in summer to the heat of the sun.

xxii. Let the Dead be buried in places remote from the habitations of the living. By the timely adoption of simple means such as these, cholera, or other epidemic, will be made to lose its venom.

[THE LOVELIEST BIRD HAS NO SONG.]

909. Rules for the Preservation of Health.

910. Fresh Air.

Pure atmospheric air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and a _very_ small proportion of carbonic acid gas. Air once breathed has lost the chief part of its oxygen, and acquired a proportionate increase of carbonic acid gas.

_Therefore_, health requires that we breathe the same air once only.

911. Diet and Exercise.

The solid part of our Bodies is continually wasting, and requires to be repaired by fresh substances.

_Therefore_, food which is to repair the loss, should be taken with due regard to the exercise and waste of the body.

912. Water.

The fluid part of our bodies also wastes constantly; there is but one fluid in animals, which is water.

_Therefore_, water only is necessary, and no artifice can produce a better drink.

913. Proportion of Food and Drink.

The fluid of our bodies is to the solid in proportion as nine to one.

_Therefore_, a like proportion should prevail in the total amount of food taken.

914. Sunshine.

Light exercises an important influence upon the growth and vigour of animals and plants.

_Therefore_, our dwellings should freely admit the solar rays.

915. Bad Odours.

Decomposing animal and vegetable substances yield various noxious gases which enter the lungs and corrupt the blood.

_Therefore_, all impurities should be kept away from our abodes, and every precaution be observed to secure a pure atmosphere.

916. Warmth.

Warmth is essential to all the bodily functions.

_Therefore_, an equal bodily temperature should be maintained by exercise, by clothing, or by fire.

917. Exercise and Clothing.

Exercise warms, invigorates and purifies the body; clothing preserves the warmth the body generates; fire imparts warmth externally.

_Therefore_, to obtain and preserve warmth, exercise and clothing are preferable to fire.

918. Ventilation.

Fire consumes the Oxygen of the air, and produces noxious gases.

_Therefore_, the air is less pure in the presence of candles, gas, or coal fire, than otherwise, and the deterioration should be repaired by increased ventilation.

[SO THE LOVELIEST WOMAN MAY LACK VIRTUE.]

919. Clean Skin.

The skin is a highly-organized membrane, full of minute pores, cells, bloodvessels, and nerves; it imbibes moisture or throws it off, according to the state of the atmosphere and the temperature of the body. It also "breathes," as do the lungs (though less actively). All the internal organs sympathize with the skin.