The Funny Side of Physic Part 101

WATER.

Then, aside from cooling and nourishing the skin and the system through the pores, cleanliness and health demand oft and repeated ablutions of the whole body. In order that the perspiration may be un.o.bstructed, it is absolutely necessary to wash the whole surface of the body in water, and on account of the _acid_ and oily substance collecting on the skin, using a small quant.i.ty of alkali, as soap or soda in the water, and thus, by good brisk rubbing, using the hand in preference to a cloth or sponge, thoroughly cleansing the little mouths referred to, else their action is r.e.t.a.r.ded and suspended. This should be done daily during the summer season.

This is a simple process, indispensable to health, and the unwashed can hardly believe what beneficial results follow such a plain course, or know the healthful influence or the comfort derived from a frequent use of pure water.

Those who bathe thus daily seldom take colds. During the winter, in cold climates, weekly or semi-weekly bathing may suffice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT COSTS NOTHING."]

A statesman, in seeking an ill.u.s.tration of the difference between price and value, very happily hit upon water, which costs nothing, and yet is of inestimable worth. Water, next to air, is the most indispensable of all the productions of nature. "Unlike most good things providentially supplied for our use, it is hardly capable of abuse. The more common danger to be feared is from too little, not too much, water.

"Simple a thing, however, as it may be to quench the thirst from the running stream, or the mountain spring, there are but few people who know how to drink. Most people, in the eagerness of thirst, swallow with such avidity the welcome draught, that they deluge their stomachs without proportionately refreshing themselves. The slowly sipping of a single goblet of water will do more to alleviate thirst than the sudden gulping down of a gallon. It is more frequently the dryness of the mouth, during hot weather, than the want of the system, which calls for the supply of fluid. When larger quant.i.ties, moreover, are poured into the stomach than are required, that organ becomes oppressed mechanically by the distention, and the digestion is consequently weakened."

The prescribed ablutions of the Jews and Mohammedans have not only a spiritual but a hygienic value. "The washing of the body not only whitens the outside of the sepulchre, but purifies the internal organs, and renews the spiritual man as well.... Hence, when the body becomes foul by the retention of worn-out and corrupt material acc.u.mulated on the surface and the interior of the structure, it becomes a cage suitable only for the dwelling of unclean birds, and no others will descend and make their nests therein. It is a vessel fitted to receive only the lower pa.s.sions and feelings of human nature.

"Public bathing-houses are as important a means of grace as our poorly ventilated churches, and many an unhappy soul would be brought nearer to heaven by a judicious application of soap and water than he could be by listening to a sermon about that of which he comprehends little and cares less."--_Rev. W. F. Evans's "Mental Cure."_

SOAP VS. WRINKLES.

How much younger and fresher the wayworn traveller or the outdoor laborer looks after a thorough washing of the face and hands only. Many who complain of "bird's claws" and wrinkles might murmur less if they made a thorough use of warm water and "old brown windsor soap," or better, the true castile soap. Nearly all the soap sold at groceries for castile is spurious. A good druggist will have the desired article, and for rough, chapped skin nothing is better, not even glycerine.

Then wash out the furrows of fine dirt that gather in the _little_ wrinkles, and it will surprise some folks to see how, thereby, they have reduced the size of their wrinkles. It is like cleansing an old coat!

G.o.d'S SUNSHINE.

Next to air and water in importance to health and happiness is sunlight.

O, "let there be light" in your houses, that there may be light in your hearts also!

Our houses should be so constructed and located that the sun may shine into every room some time during the day. Too many build houses and live in the rear. The hall and large parlors are usually situated in front, to the south or west, throwing the sitting, dining, and working-room--kitchen--in the shade. Let the cheering, life-giving influences of G.o.d's dear blessed sunshine flood the working, sitting, and, particularly, the sleeping rooms. He or she who sleeps in a room from which the sunshine is totally excluded will be pale, weak, tired, and die prematurely of consumption. Try a plant in such a room. It soon turns pale and sickly. Just so your children and yourself. I have such patients daily. Medicine cannot subst.i.tute sunshine.

Throw open the blinds, dash aside the curtains, and let in the light and sunshine to your homes and hearts. Never mind the carpets; they may be replaced, but you and your children, never! Save your health, if _you ruin an old carpet in so doing_!

Cholera, dysentery, scrofula, nervous diseases, and consumption prevail more extensively in narrow and darkened, as also in the shady side of streets; also in darkened prisons and hospitals.

A heavy heart walks in dark and cheerless apartments. The cheerful, happy man, the joyous, contented wife, the beautiful, healthy children, dwell and rejoice in homes where flows full and free the pure air and the life-keeping, health-giving sunshine.

Christianity is more likely to take up its abode with the latter. There only green leaves and beautiful flowers can gladden the sight and exhilarate the senses.

Air, water, sunlight! "These three." Don't neglect them. So shall you live long, live healthy, and at last die happily!

x.x.xII.

HEALTH WITHOUT MEDICINE.

How shall I stay life's sunny hours?

For though the summer skies are clear, Foreboding thoughts steal o'er my heart, And autumn sounds oppress my ear.

While heart with hope beats warm and high, And pleasures drink in summer bowers, I know that autumn frosts will come-- How shall I stay life's sunny hours?

CHEERFULNESS.--GOOD ADVICE.--REV. FRANCIS J. COLLIER ON CHRISTIAN CHEERFULNESS.--WHAT G.o.d SAYS ABOUT IT.--WHINING.--LOVE AND HEALTH.--AFFECTION AND PERFECTION.--SEPARATING THE SHEEP AND GOATS.--THE FENCES UP AND FENCES DOWN.--SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.--ACTION AND IDLENESS.--IDLENESS AND CRIME.--BEAUTY AND DEVELOPMENT.--SLEEP.--DAY AND NIGHT.--"WHAT SHALL WE EAT?"--A STOMACH-MILL AND A STEWING-PAN.--"FIVE MINUTES FOR REFRESHMENTS."--ANCIENT DIET.--COOKS IN A "STEW."--THE GREEN-GROCERIES OF THE CLa.s.sICS.--CABBAGES AND ARTICHOKES.--ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE DIET.

CHEERFULNESS.

I place cheerfulness next, in the catalogue of essentials to long life and happiness; before "diet," for, unless a man eats cheerfully, nothing will agree with him; and if he be constantly cheerful, nothing that he eats will injure him.

"How shall I be cheerful when all the world goes wrong with me?" asks the diseased and despondent man or woman.

Put on cheerfulness as a garment. a.s.sume it. Try my suggestion. Use a little hypocrisy with yourself. Go before your gla.s.s, if necessary, and a.s.sume a cheerful countenance. Keep it up, and before long you will be astonished to find that Mr. Melancholy don't like it, and begins to withdraw his sombre person. Keep on "keeping it up," and the most happy results will soon follow your exertions.

Try the reverse, and melancholy will return. This is cheap medicine.

"[R]--A cheerful face, taken daily, feasting."

CHRISTIAN CHEERFULNESS.

The following prize essay was written by Rev. Francis J. Collier:--

"_Cheerfulness as a Medicine._--Perhaps nothing has a greater tendency to cast gloom over the spirit than _disease_. The mind sympathizes with the body as much as the body with the mind. Their union is so intimate, so delicate, so sensitive, that what affects the one necessarily affects the other. Each to a certain degree determines the other's condition. If the mind is joyful, its emotion is betrayed by the expression of the body. 'A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.' But if the body is injured, or the physical system deranged, the mind at once suffers, and forthwith droops into sadness. It becomes, therefore, your Christian duty, if you have health, to study the laws of your physical being; to compel yourself both to labor and to rest; to avoid unnecessary risks or exposure; to abstain from injurious indulgences; to be prudent, temperate, chaste, and, by every proper means, to try to preserve what is so essential to your spiritual comfort. If you have lost this boon, strive to regain it. Think not, speak not, all the while about your malady. Suppress moans and complaints. They are always disagreeable to others; they can never be beneficial to you. Count your mercies, and not your miseries. Try upon your body the stimulus of a cheerful spirit. It may not insure your recovery, but it will certainly produce a pleasant alleviation. 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit dryeth the bones.'

"_Borrowing Trouble._--Forebodings of evil rob the mind of cheerfulness.

'Ills that never happened have mostly made men wretched,' says Tupper.

Casting our glance ahead, we see 'lions' in the way; difficulties which we are sure we can never overcome; griefs under whose heavy weight we shall be utterly crushed. Not satisfied with our present troubles, we borrow misery from the future. The Holy Scripture instructs us to do otherwise.

'Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.'--Prov. xxvii. 1. 'Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'--Matt.

vi. 34. And then it gives us a golden promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.'

"The life of many Christians is a life of constant sadness and gloom. They seem to be entire strangers to all the happiness of earth and all the hopes of heaven. Their faces commonly appear as sombre as the stones which mark the dwelling-places of the dead. Their feelings are better expressed in sighs than in songs. Unhappy themselves, they make others unhappy. They come and go like clouds, shutting out the sunshine from cheerful hearts, and for a while casting upon them shadows cold and dark.

"Arise, O, desponding one! Quit your tearful abode in the valley of gloom, and come and make your dwelling on the bright hill-top of cheerfulness.

Look up! look up! and behold the sun shining through the clouds, and the stars through the darkness."

WHINING.

This is a habit opposed to cheerfulness, and producing contrary results.

It is half-sister to scolding, and equally as obnoxious. Don't fret and whine. It makes you look old and cross. The disease soon becomes chronic if indulged in. It is a disease that not only the doctors know at sight, but every one can read it in the face of those thus afflicted. "O, what a cross face that lady has got!" I heard another female exclaim but yesterday, as they pa.s.sed on the street. You cannot hide it; then don't induce such a look.

Somebody has written the following, which so completely expresses my ideas of the matter, that I quote the item verbatim:--

"There is a cla.s.s of persons in this world, by no means small, whose prominent peculiarity is whining. They whine because they are poor; or, if rich, because they have no health to enjoy their riches; they whine because it is too shiny; they whine because it is too rainy; they whine because they have 'no luck,' and others' prosperity exceeds theirs; they whine because some friends have died, and they are still living; they whine because they have aches and pains, and they have aches and pains because they whine, no one can tell why.

"Now, we would like to say a word to these whining persons. Stop whining.

It's of no use, this everlasting complaining, fretting, fault-finding, scolding, and whining. Why, you are the most deluded set of creatures that ever lived.

"Do you not know that it is a well-settled principle of physiology and common sense that these habits are more exhausting to nervous vitality than almost any other violation of physiological law? And do you not know that life is pretty much what you make it and take it? You can make it bright and sunshiny, or you can make it dark and shadowy. This life is only meant to discipline us, to fit us for a higher and n.o.bler state of being. Then stop whining and fretting, and go on your way rejoicing."