xJhe Gospel of
Good ea.lth
For the Schodl, the Home and the gen¬
eral reader. A simple Treatise designed
to correct the large death rate among
the people both in city and "country.
S&iy ^ ^7. tJ£ea/in<y,
Second Edition.
Printed for the Author.
Copyright
By H. T. Kealing,
1908.
DEDICATION:
Dedicated mainly to the farming and laboring classes
who do so much for the life and happiness of others,
while receiving so little for themselves in return.
CONTENTS.
Page
Preface 7
Chapter telling some things about the body 9
Elements of the Body 9
Great Men in Bottles 10
Chapter telling how long we ought to live 11
Living till Your Time Comes 11
"Expectation of Life" 13
Chapter telling the elements oe healthy life 14
Air 14
Oxygen Purifies 15
Carbonic Acid Gas Kills 15
Consumption from Bad Air 16
What Is Pure Air 18
How Breathing Poisons Air 18
Air Poisoning in Churches 19
Air Poisoning by Lights 19
Air Poisoning by Stoves 20
How to Ventilate in the Easiest Wa}' 20
Church and School Ventilation 21
Value of Deep Breathing 21
Things to Remember 22
Chapter on sunshine 23
Tribute to Diogenes 23
Sunlight and Life 24
The Nature of Sunlight 25
Fungi 26
Sunlight as a Remedy 28
Tonic Effects of Sunlight 28
Things to Remember 29
Chapter on water 30
Water and Life 30
New York and Philadelphia 31
6
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Proof that Bad Water Kills 32
In the Country 32
Organic Impurities, Mineral Impurities, Hard
Water 33
Moving Water Self-purifying 34
How to Purify Water 35
Bathing 36
Things to Remember 37
Chapter on food 38
Food Classified 39
Appetite as a Food Guide 41
How Much Should a Man Eat? 41
Effects of Overeating 43
Breads and Cereals 44
A Few Food Suggestions 45
Food as Medicine 46
Cooking and Life 47
Hints on Cooking Meats and Vegetables 48
Bread and Eggs 49
Food Adulterations 50
Flies and Insect Pests 50
Chapter on dress and housing 52
Dress and Life 52
Hardening 54
Housing 54
Chapter on exercise 56
Object of Exercise 57
Chapter telung about patent medicine and alcohol 58
A Human Drugstore 58
Fancy and Fact 59
Chloroform in Cough Medicine 60
The Real Trouble 61
Alcohol 63
Afterword 63
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
The first edition of this little book consisted of three
thousand copies, all of which have been sold. The demand
proves that such a work, written in simple style and
covering only such things as will help the people to live
long healthy lives, is wanted. In this new edition almost
the whole book has been re-written, unnecessary matter
left out and new matter inserted; so that the author
believes it is the simplest and most practical adviser on
health the plain people can have in their homes. It is1 not
a physiology—tthere are plenty oif them; it is a health
book pure and' simple, intended to fit the pocket and
can be consulted as a watch.
The matter has been so arranged that it can be used
as a text-book in schools, or as1 a reference book in the
home equally as well. The author's main thought, as
he prepared this revision, was to adapt it especially to the
Farmer's Improvement Society, with its thousands of
memJbers, and the other thousands which its rapid growth
shows it will soon have.
No movement within the last decade means so much
to the farming classes as this umtrumpeted organizaticn
founded in the village of Oakland, Texas, by the sincere
humanity-loving, sacrificing action of Robert L. Smith, the
Abomben-Adhem of his kind.
It is because, to advance the principles for which the
Farmer's Improvement Society sitands, strong, clean
healthy bodies, capable of doing and enduring all things,
(7)
8
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
are absolutely necessary, that the author emphasizes the
value of some book that will tell the man or woman who
has not studied physiology wha>t to do to insure health
and escape untimely death.
Nothing is touched in these pages except what is neces¬
sary to teach what we must do to be saved physically.
Whether he knows why or not, a man should always know
whait to do. This is the aim of "The Gosipel of Good
Health." Let those who can, find out after they have been
helped, why certain things helped them. The first thing
is to apply the means; if, then, they never discover any
-more, they will still be in possession of all <the benefits
of their action. It is also hoped that the simple facts
here introduced will be taught in the country schools just,
as other facts are taught, so that the values of ventilation,
food, su'n.shins, water, bathing, cooking, dress, housing and
exercise shall all be matter-of-course knowledge with the
smallest child, as well as with the most unlettered man.
These things belong to common existence and should not
depend upon education for dissemination. Learning to
live is the first step in all learning.
If, also, these subjects are taken up in local meetings
and in annual Convocations and discussed, with or without
demonstrations, under the lead of some competent teacher,
it will not be long before the health of whole families will
toe improved and the death rate reduced.
That these aims may be realized and the people blessed
is the prayer and desire of
THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER TELLING SOME THINGS ABOUT
THE BODY.
"Great Caesar dead and turned to clay
May stop a hole to keep the wind away."
The average man weighs about 154 pounds, and over
two-thirds of this is water; or, to s'tate it a little mora
particularly, in a man weighing 154 pounds, 116 pounds
would be water and the other 38 pounds solid mjatter.
Of this 38 pounds, 24 pounds would be flesh and fat,
and 14 pounds' would be bone, or mineral matter.
In a man of this size, there should be 20 pounds of
blood, three-fourths of which, or 15 pounds, should beTwater.
Now, we have just said that that portion of the body
which is not water is flesh, fat or bone; but that is not
going far enough, for these are themselves made up of
gases and mineral substances, which must be in the food
we eat. It is very necessary, therefore, to know what
these elements, as they are called, are.
There are about thirteen of them: carbon,
sulphur, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, ^'the6 Bod°y
calcium, magnesium, iron, chlorine, oxygen,
fluorine, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The
last five are gases.
There are small quantities of other solids, or elements,
such as silicon, lithium, and mercury, but we need not
pay particular attention to them here.
Everything we know about our bodies goes to show that
David was right when he said that "We are fearfully and
(9)
IlOW TO LXVE LONGES.
wonderfully made"; for the way all the dead substances
named have been put together into a living substance
is the greatest miracle in the universe. Every element
found in the human body is in the ground you walk over
day by day. If you could see this temple of yours torn
down and piled up by the chemist or druggist, here is
about what you would see: half a barrel of water, five
bottles of gas, and thirteen bottles of solids and salts.
That would not look much like Shakespeare, or Abraiham
Lincoln, or Booker T. Washington, would it? Yet that
is just what they would look like in the drugstore. If you
begin to put these elements together in the right way,
you will have 80 pounds of muscle, 22
pounds of bone, 18 pounds of fat, 7 pounds
P1"6®* Jfen of skin, 3 pounds of brain, 20 pounds of
in Botties. ' ^. *
blood and internal organs and a consid¬
erable "hank of hair," as Kipling says.
Dr. Latson makes the following interesting statement
of what an analyzed man would make if his body was put
to commercial uses:
"The body contains enough fat to make about one hun¬
dred candles, enough, soap to keep its own surface clean
for a month, enough sugar to do for a family meal, and
enough salt to supply the family for a month. It con¬
tains only a little iron, just about enough to make a couple
of small nails; but it has enough hydrogen gas to fill a
balloon that would actually lift the owner into the clouds.
The human body also contains enough carbon to make
about three thousand lead pencils, or in the form of a hod
of coal enough to keep a blazing fire going for an hour
or two."
These facts are not given simply because they are in-
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
11
teresting, but in order that you might see the reason ior
some things we are going to say further on.
CHAPTER TELLING HOW LONG WE
OUGHT TO LIVE.
" More life, and fuller, that I want."
Science and the Bible agree substantially that the nor¬
mal life of an average man ought to be about three score
and ten, or seventy years; and the fact that so many do noc
live to that age is a pretty fair index to the number who
do not take care of themselves, or whose fathers did not.
Careful living will do much to overcome natural weak¬
ness. It is neglecting the weak spot in our con¬
stitution that so often kills.
It is all very well to say that every one will life till his
time comes; but you need to remember that your time is
like Indian-rubber:—you can stretch it or shorten it by the
amount of pull you put upon it. Doubtless
you have heard) of a sliding scale of Living
wages, in which the price of labor rises Till Your
or falls in agreement with the rise and Time Comes,
fall of other things. Well it is just so
with your life; it can be shortened! either by a bullet or a
billet, and sometimes by a biscuit; or it can be prolonged
to your full three-score and ten, if you observe the laws of
health.
There is a law governing the life and death of man; it
is this law which makes it possible for life insurance
companies to take risks and become wealthy in doing
12
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
so. Dr. Southwood Smith says, "Mortality is subject to
a law, the operation of which is as regular as that of
gravitation." This law has been discovered by long
years of close and continued observation among all classes
of civilized people in every land. The study of this sub¬
ject began over two hundred years ago, and has continued
until to-day; now a man can figure as accurately upon
his expectation of life as he can upon his expectation, of
reaching a given place on the railroad at a given time
when he is seated on a moving train and holds the time
card in his hand.
It will be of interest and advantage to our readers to
state a few basic principles and facts concerning the
natural expectations of life for people of different ages and
employments, as revealed by a scientific study of vital
statistics.
The experience of the world seems to agree upon the
following as being generally true:
People live longer in the country than in cities
Women have a better chance of life than men.
The first five years of life show the greatest death rate.
Out-door labor is healthier than indoor labor.
Farm laborers and carpenters live longer than persons
engaged in other trades.
People who drink alcoholic drinks die sooner than ab¬
stainers; whiskey drinkers die sooner than beer drinkers;
those who drink both whiskey and beer die sooner than
those who drink only one of these.
Low altitudes are less healthy than high.
The death rate among Negroes is much greater than
that among whites in the United States.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
13
The expression, "Expectation of life,"
is used by insurance men to show how "Expectation
long any person of a given age may of Life."
reasonably expect to live. Experience
shows that this period is somewhat longer in the United
States than in England.
In spite of accidents, contagious diseases and such un¬
usual things, it is found that about the same number of
deaths in a hundred persons will occur in a year. You can
readily see also that your chances for living get smaller the
longer you continue to live. This has been so well worked
out that a trained man knows just about what to expect.
This knowledge is the protection of life insurance com¬
panies.
The table below shows how long one ought to live after
reaching the ages indicated in the first column.
Table Showing Expectation of Life During Each Ten Year
Period from the Ages of Ten to Seventy Years.
Age Time You May Expect to Live
From 10 to 20 45.8 years
From 20 to 30 39.1 years'
From 30 to 40 32.1 years
From 40 to 50 24.9 years
From 50 to 60 17.7 years
From 60 to 70 11.4 years
The figures in the above table are ten year averages
made by the writer from the American Experience Tables
of Mortality, and may be relied on, as they contain the
experience of seventeen of the oldest and largest insu¬
rance companies in America.
With these figures as a guide as to how many years we
are rightly entitled to before we go hence, we may con¬
clude that every death short of the expected period is
14
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
somebody's fault, if not somebody's crime. The respon-
siblity may not be in the person dying, for physical weak¬
ness may come from ancestors; but it is more often the
fault of the sufferer himself, in not living right.
Let us now consider how we may lengthen our lives
to the fullest span and build up strong healthy bodies.
CHAPTER TELLING THE ELEMENTS OF
HEALTHY LIFE.
•'That is thy charge; then to the elements."
There are seven things absolutely essential if a man
wants to live long—seven physical things. They are: AIR;
SUNLIGHT; WATER; FOOD; DRESS; HOUSING; EX¬
ERCISE.
People partially deprived of one or more of them may
linger, but can hardly be said to live in the full and robust
sense.
The vital functions of the human body are Respiration,
Circulation, Digestion, and Excretion; and the proper
exercise of these functions depends upon the wise appli¬
cation of the seven elements just named. We shall take up
each in order.
Out-door air, or air as it exists in a
Air. natural state, is composed of nitrogen,
oxygen, and a small amount of carbonic
acid. By measurement, there are about 4 parts of ni¬
trogen to 1 part of oxygen; to put it differently, in 5 pints
of air there are 4 pints of nitrogen and 1 pint of oxygen.
Nitrogen is used to weaken the oxygen, which, in its full
strength, would burn us up.
Oxygen is the gas in nature which causes wood to burn,
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
15
iron to rust and vegetable matter to decay. All these
processes are really burning, only rusting and decaying
are so much slower than what we ordinarily call burning
that we do not readily see the identity.
Now, when the blood goes through the body, it
gathers up all the waste and dead matter in the veins and
brings it back to the lungs io be burned up, just as the
garbage of the city is disposed of; it is the work of the
oxygen of the air, which meets the im¬
pure blood in the lungs, to burn up the Oxygen
impurities, changing the blood from a Purifies,
black muddy stream to a bright red life-
giving current. But the result of this purifying of the blood
is the formation of carbonic acid, a gas which is a deadly
poison. It is thrown off every time we breathe out the
air we have taken into the lungs.
Suppose a person should be confined in an air-tight
room full of good fresh air; with every breath taken in
he would use up a lungful of oxygen, and with every
breath he expelled he would throw back into the room
a certain amount of carbonic acid.
This would continue till all of the pure
oxygen was gone and the room was full of
the poisonous gas. What wouLd then hap¬
pen? Why, he would die in a few min¬
utes. Indeed, that is precisely what hap¬
pened in the Black Hole of Calcutta, in 1756, when 146
English prisoners were cast into a room only twenty feet
square, cut off from air, and left all night. "When the
prison was opened next morning all but twenty-three were
dead, and the survivors were saved with great difficulty.
Carbonic
Acid Gas
Kills.
16
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Not long ago we read of the death of some unfortunate
Frenchmen caught in a submerged submarine boat, because
they used up the supply of oxygen in the air-chamber before
the boat could be raised. In a small way, this is exactly
what tends to happen every time people shut themselves
up in an unventilated bed-room and sleep there all night;
the oxygen is used up gradually and replaced by carbonic
acid till finally every breath, instead of refreshing the body
and purifying the blood, actually poisons the system, and
the individual awakes in a worse condition than when he
went to bed. He feels jaded and stupid, but blindly attri¬
butes it to overwork or nervous trouble. The writer has
frequently seen four men, and sometimes six, occupy a
small, unventilated bed-room all night, when the odor, to
one entering from the outer air, was so offensive that the
wonder was how the occupants could be unaware of the
staleness. If, now, we consider that this consumption of
oxygen is greatly hastened and aggravated by hot stoves
in wiruter and gas or kerosene lamps at night, the wonder
is that more people do not become ill and die than is the
case.
and fatal ailment among them. Do you suppose Mr. Lincoln
gave out the disease by issuing the Emancipation Procla¬
mation? No. Well, what has caused the change? Simply
this: in slavery, the Negro was out in the open air from
two-thirds to three-fourths of his time, working in the
fields; at night he slept in open cabins which freely ad¬
mitted the night air that some people are so afraid of now.
Consumption
from
Bad Air.
Every person has heard the remark that,
in slavery, consumption was almost un¬
known among Negroes; and every person
knows that to-day it is the most common
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
17
To-day, he houses himself in half of his time, either in
some stuffy little house or in some sealed up crowded
church or dance hall, cutting off God's pure aiir as much
as possible and breathing the breath of another man in¬
stead of the breath of heaven.
Wouldn't you think it a disgusting proposition if some
friend should offer you meat that he had already chewed?
Or some of his saliva to moisten your food, or his tooth
brush to clean your teeth? Horrible thought! you cry;
and yet you use his second-hand air with much pride and
many bows. You joyfully make your lungs an orphan asy¬
lum for his cast-off germ© of consumption, and wonder why
the Lord cuts off your life of usefulness while even the
alligator piles up fifty or sixty years of existence. The
explanation, in all reverence, is that God can't help you
half so much as you can help yourself. He made carbonic
acid poisonous, and if you insist on breathing it instead of
the oxygen He gave you to breathe, you must be poisoned.
It is a question of free agency.
If proof that consumption is caused by bad air were
necessary, it is found in the fact that the leading hospitals
of the world are using the open-air treatment, compelling
patients to live out-of-doors day and night; the result is
that fifty per cent of the cases, if not too far gone, get
well. 'Wihy wait, we ask, till we take the disease by
breathing impure air, and then go to a hospital to get
cured by the very fresh air that is all around us at the
old home? Then again, how many of the poor consump¬
tives are able to go to a hospital up in the Adirondack
Mountains to get cured, even if they knew about it,
which most of them do not? Better stay cured by not
getting it.
18
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Pure air contains about 4 parts of nitro-
What is gen, 1 part of oxygen, and a small fractional
Pure Air? part of carbonic acid, together with traces
of other substances too small to be noted
here. It would take 2,500 parts of air in the natural state
to contain 1 part of carbonic aciid, which, as we have said,
is poisonous to animal life. This quantity is so small that
it is not injurious to the health; but where there is more
than one part of carbonic acid to 500 parts of air, it is very
unhealthy. Now, the amount of this gas in each breath we
throw out of our lungs is over 21 parts in 500, enough to
kill anything that breathes. To render this air harmless,
it must be weakened by being mixed) with pure air enough
to bring it down to 1 part of carbonic acid to 500, or more,
parts of air. This is accomplished by ventilation.
A man takes about 18 breaths a minute.
How Breathing *n each breath he throws out about 2-3 of a
Poisons Air. pint of poisoned air. This amounts to 1 y2
gallons per minute, or 90 gallons per hour;
enough to render unfit for use more than twenty times that
much pure air, or 1800 gallons.
A bed^room 10 feet long, 10 feet wide and 10 feet high con¬
tains 7,500 gallons of air. Now if you will divide this 7,500
gallons that the room contains by the 1,800 gallons tainted
every hour by one man's breathing, you find that in 4
hours the whole roomful has been tainted. In 8 hours,
supposing the man goes to bed at ten and rises at six, he
will have breathed every gallon of air in that room over
twice. That is bad enough; but when four men sleep in
the room, as is not uncommon, each one must breathe this
poison over and over eight times. Surely a person must
be a pretty strong fellow to stand much of such living with¬
out getting a free ticket to the Promised Land.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
19
In the day time, during warm or pleasant weather, of
course, our houses are thrown open and are well aired;
but in cold weather and at night the pure air is shut out
and the seeds of consumption and death are planted in
our lungs.
But even if you heed what is said here
about always having a place open to let
fresh out-door air into your houses, what Air Poisoning
good will it do if you are to go into a in Churches-
crowded church with the doors shut tight
and every window down while puff after puff of rank
poison is being sent out at every breath of a crowd of all
sorts of people? Right here is where our preachers and
teachers need to lead the people. Why will men and
women who know better let people "caitch" their death
in tight crowded churches and schools, week after week,
when the lowering of a window or the opening of a door
would save precious lives. The person who does not care
for our bodies cannot care much for our souls. Until we be¬
gin to correct these evils, we must expect <to see our loved
ones fade away with consumption. It is a sin to lay such
a death on God; we did it ourselves, and the preacher who
allowed it and preached the funeral afterwards, helped
to do it.
Remember, anything that destroys oxygen in a room is
dangerous to your health. Some of the things that do this
are, (1) your own breathing; (2) lights, such as candles,
kerosene lamps and gas; (3) stoves and heating apparatus.
Of the effects of breathing in a closed room, we have
already spoken. -
Any kind of a light, except electric, uses
up oxygen and thus robs the air of what Air Poisoning
the lungs need. Besides, most lights by Lights,
give off odors and substances which
20
how to live Longer
are unhealthy and dangerous. Two candles will give off
as much of the poisonous carbonic acid gas as one man's
breathing; so that if you are reading in a lighted room by
yourself, it is the same as if two men were breathing
that air. A lamp that burns poorly or smokes will use
up and poison as much air in an hour as four men will.
This is too important to forget.
A great deal of damage to our health
Air Poisoning is done by the way We usually heat our
by Stoves. rooms. The old-fashioned fire-place is the
best way to heat a house, because it draws
all the impure air out of the room up the
chimney, while fresh air comes in to take its place; but
unfortunately, it is the most expensive and wasteful way
to heat. Fully 90 per cent of all the heat goes out of the
chimney; therefore, people have come to use stoves more
and more. These are very unhealthy for several reasons.
First of all, they dry out the air so that it becomes op¬
pressive and parching. We can correct this somewhat by
putting a can of water on the top; secondly, a stove turns
some of the oxygen of the air to carbonic acid; thirdly,-
stoves do not draw out the impure air as much as a fire¬
place does. You can never forget the bad stuffy smell of
a room in which there is a hot stove.
The important thing is to learn how to overcome all
these disadvantages and still be comfortable in cold weath¬
er and have light after dark. It must
How to Venti- done by ventilation; that is, you must
late in the find a way to let in fresh out-door air fast
Easiest Way. enough to keep the in-door air pure
without making the room cold and uncom¬
fortable.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
21
A room ten feet high, ten feet wide and ten feet long
will hold 1000 cubic feet of air, and as each person needs
about 3000 cubic feet of fresh air an hour, such a room
should have the air changed three times1 in that period.
If there are more people in the room, the change of air
must be correspondingly more rapid. Now, this change
must take place without producing draughts. How can it
be done?
The simplest way to ventilate a room is to drop the
upper sash of your window a little, if you can; if it is
not movable, then raise the lower sash a little. This
makes two openings, one at the top or bottom, as the
case may be; the other between the sashes in the middle.
Through one opening the foul air will go out, and through
the other the pure air will flow in.. The higher the wind,
the smaller the opening needs to be. To prevent the air
blowing directly on you, it would be well to put a board
slanting upwards at the opening between the sash and
window frame. This will give the cold air an upward tilt
so that it will become warmed before it descends.
All churches and school-houses should
have an opening high up in the gable end
for ventilating, but when they have not, Church
then use the window method, even if and School
somebody has to move from the window Ventilation,
to avoid the draught.
No matter how inconvenient it is, see that you gert
ventilation. Remember: No person who does not get
fresh out-door air constantly in large quantities can expect
to live out half his days.
Learn to take deep full" breaths, for
oxygen is what you want, and the more Value
air you take in, the more oxygen you get. of Deep
In a common breath, you do not use all Breathing,
of your lungs; but in a full breath, you
22
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
call into activity all the unused air cells. This, in time,
increases the size of the chest ajndi helps to make you proof
against consumption.
The lungs can hold about one and one-third gallons, but
in a common breath, you take in only about two-thirds of
a pint, or one-sixteenth of what is possible. Put all your
lung capacity to work.
In health and when not excited, a man breathes eighteen
times a minute, or once for every four heart beats. The
total amount of air taken in is something like sixty bar¬
rels a day. By breathing exercises, it can be made much
more.
Have trees around your house; they not only furnish
shade and beauty, but they consume the poisonous carbonic
acid gas your lungs throw off, turning it back into pure
oxygen again. A man and a tree, therefore are brothers
and help each other. This is co-operation in nature.
Remember that oxgyen is life; carbonic acid
Things to is death.
Remember. Oxygen comes from the outdoor air; car
bonic acid from indoor air.
The fuller the breath yon take, the more oxygen you get.
Closing up your room opens up your grave.
Oxygen kills consumption; carbo?iic acid kills men.
Always keep at least one window open, flight and day.
You catinot have a draught through one opening, so don't
fear.
Consumption comes from a living germ called a microbe.
It isfoutid in the spittle. If a consumptive spits on the floor
and it dries, the microbes will float about the room and be
breathed in by some other person, giving that person con¬
sumption. Therefore do not spit on the floor.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
23
Take more care a?id-less medicine.
Cold weather is no excuse for keeping out fresh air.
Have your roof and floor tight even if your windows rat¬
tle.
The fapanese put on thick coats and open their houses iti
cold iveather. They are a very healthy people —at least the
Russians thought so. Don' t stay i?i a church unless it is
ventilated. The gospel without air is death.
CHAPTER ON SUNSHINE.
"Get out of my sunshine."
The story of Diogenes is over two thou¬
sand years old and certainly the saying
attributed to him as used at the head of tQ Qj^g^gg
this chapter is too generally known to
be novel; but the writer finds sufficient
excuse for bringing the old philosopher into a twentieth
century audience in the fact that he was the Apostle of
Sunshine—not cheerfulness, figurative sunshine—but liter¬
al sunshine—the very thing we are to consider in this
chapter.
His father was a defaulting banker and he himself a
rowdy, or man about town, a combination not unknown at
the present day. But when Mr. Diogenes, Sr., was sent to
jail, his son quit his meanness, stopped sleeping all day
and eating all night, and took to regular habits and sun
baths in a tub.
He was the Booker T. Washington of his day, for he
was a practical man, holding that nothing was good that
could not be used, and nothing useful that did not come
24
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
in its proper time and order. He put sensible living be¬
fore literature, money before music, and practice before
precept. But best of all, and the thing which gives him
a right to a place in this little book where space is so
scarce, is the fact that he took good care of his health from
the time he reformed till he died ninety years of age. He
wore coarse clothes and ate plain food; slept on the
ground in the open air; rolled in the hot sand in summer,
and hugged a snow man in winter.
He lived in his tub, which is the smallest one-room
cabin on record and the healthiest, for it did not interfere
with his oxygen or his sunshine. It may add interest
to his character to know that he was a slave; but so great
was his spirit that when he was put up for sale, he said,
"Sell me to some one who needs a master."
The story goes that Alexander the Great, having heard
of Diogenes, visited him as he sat in his tub-house taking
his usual sun-bath, and asked:
"What can I do for you, Diogenes?"
"Get out of my sunshine," was the reply.
This brings us to our subject—Sunlight.
Long ago, the value of sunlight was so
Sunlight fully recognized in England that the law
and Life. prevented one man from building his
house in such a position as to cut off an¬
other man's light. It is a pity that such
a law has not prevailed all these years in our great Amer¬
ican cities where skyscrapers and sunless tenement houses
have doomed thousands to darkness and death. In the
last few years New York has passed a law compelling
every house builder to give each room in his building
access to outside light and air; but think of the untold
THE GOSPEL OP GOOD HEALTH
25
thousands who lhave died before the stupid lawmakers
saw the point!
It would not be true, of course, to say that sunlight is
just as necessary to life as air, for people have existed
for years in unlighted dungeons; but it certainly is true
that sunlight is necessary to a full term of healthy living,
and that many of the diseases men suffer come from the
absence of this element. Every one will recall that the
death of Toussaint L'Ouverture was caused by taking him
from the accustomed light and air of his beloved Hayti
and casting him into the dark dungeon of Anjou. Others
have lived in such dungeons for many years, in spite of
being cut off from the light; but their pitiful pallor, weak¬
ness and helplessness when released have shown how much
of health, vigor, and happiness depends upon the sun.
Sunlight is the only perfect light. Noth¬
ing looks the same when seen by such
Thg Nsturfi
artificial illumination as comes from gunlight
candles, kerosene lamps or electric lights
as it does when the sun shines on it. You
well know that the real color of a piece of cloth cannot be
told by artificial light; you always want to examine it by
dlay.
Then again, you know how well it makes the sick man
feel when he can sit in the sun awhile; you never saw him
get any such benefit from sitting under the lamp-light. A
plant deprived of sunlight will die; grass under a plank
will turn white; potatoes in a cellar will grow towards the
window where the light is. Taking the things of common
experience, then, even if the matter had never been studied
scientifically, we should reach the conclusion that sunlight
was necessary to the best development of all kinds of life,
26
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
vegetable and animal. But science comes and clinches
this conclusion by revealing scores of hidden facts proving
the same thing.
The sun has three main uses: it gives light, supplies
heat and acts chemically. All of these functions are im¬
portant and, in fact, we cannot definitely tell the dividing
line; but we do know this: that in a ray of white light
composed of the seven colors, the quality that makes it
possible to take photographs is found next to the violet
color. These photographic rays are called actinic or chem¬
ical. These rays, or for all that we know, some other un¬
discovered ones, also exert an influence over both animal
and vegetable life, as we shall show. We speak of other
undiscovered rays because scientific men are adding to our
knowledge on this subject every day. It was only a few
years ago that Professor Roentgen astonished the world
by discovering a ray capable of piercing through flesh and
revealing the bones in a living body, or enabling us to see
the money in a closed purse by looking through the skin
of which the purse was made. No one, therefore, can be
sure that we know all that is to be known about light; but
we may, at least, seek to inform ourselves on what is al¬
ready known, especially as it relates to our health and long
life.
Low, damp places without sunlight produce a vegetable
growth of an inferior kind, such as mildew, seen on clothes;
mould, seen on old shoes in damp dark
places; mushrooms, found in wet pieces
Fungi" of soil where it is low and shaded, and
other species more or less well known.
Altogether, there are said to be nearly, or quite, 30 000
different varieties of this kind of low vegetation. The
name fungi has been given to them. Most of them flourish
THE GOSPEL OP GOOD HEALTH
27
in dark places. You know that common blue mould, as
seen on old bread and old shoes, is found in dark places
like pantries and cellars; and this may be taken as typical
of the habits of most kinds of fungi. Everybody recognizes
that places where mould and mildew are found are un¬
healthy, and that the first thing to do is to let m the sun¬
light. This alone will kill the fungi and make the place
healthy. Stick a pin there, if you please.
There is another class of fungoid life called by the doc¬
tors bacteria; they differ from the kind we have just men¬
tioned in attacking living animals. They are the cause of
most of the diseases men have, such as intermittent fever,
malaria, consumption, pneumonia, yellow fever, cholera,
small-pox, skin diseases and lockjaw. It is impossible to
escape bacteria, for they are found everywhere. The air is
full of them, we take them in by the million every time
we breathe; and the particles of dust that rise when a
room is swept are crowded with them.
Some of these bacteria are our friends; -they make us
healthy, and we could not live without them, but those that
interest us now are those that give rise to sickness.
Wherever there is' a piece of ©our or fermenting food, or
any decaying substance, there you will find the kind that
are enemies to health. Usually, in speaking of the bacteria
that cause disease, we call them microbes, because they
are so small.
A natural question would be: Since these disease germs
are found everywhere, how is it that everybody does not
contract some of the diseases they cause? Simply because
these germs cannot live in any body whose system is in
good order. One man will breathe in the germs of con¬
sumption. and take the disease; another will breathe them
28
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
in, but he will not be affected. That is because, in the
first man's case, his physical condition was poor and the
microbes attacked the weakest part; in the case of the
second man, the physical condition was so perfect that the
germ could find no nourishment and therefore died. In
this fact lies the secret of protection.
Experience has taught us that high sur-
Suniight As roundings with plenty of sunlight are the
a Remedy. greatest enemies fungi, bacteria, or mi¬
crobes (call them by any of these names)
can have. Just as mould breeds in the
dark and damp, so will it die if you throw open your closets
and cellars to the sun. On a mountain or a high plateau,
you will find plenty of sunshine and there you get rid of
malaria, because the germ loves darkness rather than
light. Physicians, in compelling consumptive patients to
take outdoor air, make them take it on the sunny side of
the house. Heavily timbered lands where the sun cannot
reach the soil are nearly always sickly, especially if the
altitude is low; but where the timber is cut away so that
the light can shine in, these same places become healthy.
While some microbes thrive in the light, the dangerous
ones, as a rule, grow best in darkness. Is it not clear,
then, that the motto of the health-seeker should be, "Turn
on the light and turn up the microbe?"
But there is another reason for having
Tonic Ef- plenty of sunlight in the home besides
fects of the fact that it destroys the bacteria that
Sunlight. produce disease; it has a tonic effect upon
our bodies themselves, builds them up,
gives a healthy tone to all of our organs and prepares the
system to resist and throw off any germs that naturally
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
29
attack a weakened or debilitated body. Certain chemical
effects are produced in our bodies by sunlight as surely as
changes take place in the vegetable world by the same
agency. You can no more raise a robust, red-blooded child
out of the light than you can a strong green potato vine.
Some of those actinic rays that take photographs or make
X-ray pictures, or make freckles in the pug-nosed country
boy, or tan the skin of the farmer, act also on the vital
organs and aid digestion, circulation, respiration and excre¬
tion, both through the skin and the internal organs.
One of the best things about farm life is that it keeps
men out in the. sun so much. The person who would leave
the farm to escape the sun is offering a part of his life
for a shade. The price is too high; it is a worse bargain
than Esau made with Jacob.
In a ray of sunlight are found the following powers: to
enable us to see; to give color to leaves, fruits and flowers;
to act chemically on mineral and animal substances; to
produce electric currents; to stimulate the body; to throw
off dead matter faster; to give added tone and strength to
the whole system.
Nothing is a substitute for sunlight.
Very few disease microbes can live in the light.
Never live in a house that has dark rooms.
A house light, dry and dusty beats one dark, damp and
musty.
The sun-burnt man is the God-blessed man. .
Mould and mildew are advertisements for Things to
an undertaker. Remember.
A low shady lot makes a good burial spot.
Outdoor work is the healthiest.
Sunlight was the only kind Methuselah had, and he be¬
came 969 years old.
30
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Wherever moss and live-oaks grow, look out for malaria.
Sun your bedding once a week at least; it won' t get sun¬
burned.
Clothes that are not washable ought to go out on the
clothes line as often as the underwear.
The sun may fade your carpets, but the sun's absence will
fade you—take your choice.
CHAPTER ON WATER.
"Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
We come now to the third of the seven essential things
to long and strong life—water.
Most people think that if water is clear, it is pure. There
never was a greater mistake. Did you ever stop to con¬
sider that water with strychnine in It is clear? That
ought to dispose of the clear-pure theory. The mistake
is a natural one, however, for all pure water is clear;
hence people ordinarily suppose that all clear water is
pure, which mistake has led to many a death.
There are two distinct classes to be
... . reached in this discussion of water and its
Water
and Life. relation to life and health: (1) those liv¬
ing in cities and dependent upon water
works systems for their supplies; (2) those
living in the country and drawing their supply from wells,
springs, lakes, brooks and rivers.
Water for ordinary use should have no color, no smell
and no taste. It may not be pure even then, but it cannot
be pure without these qualities. Rain-water caught after
a shower has fallen for some time is as pure as water
can be found in Nature. It contains1 air and traces of am-
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
31
monia. The first water that falls in a rain washes the dust
and impurities out of the air, and is consequently not fit to
drink. In cities like New Orleans, dependent upon rain¬
water caught in large tanks or cisterns and kept for drink¬
ing purposes, the first water that falls1 should not be al¬
lowed1 to run into the cistern. Even with that precaution,
mosquitoes and various kinds of organic matter render the
water unfit to drink, besides supplying breeding places for
the little pests that spread malaria and yellow fever, unless
the cistern be carefully screened.
But most cities depend for their water supply on rivers
or great lakes. Where the latter is true, the problem of
supplying pure water is not so difficult, for lake water, if
taken far enough from the shore, is fairly pure; but cities
obliged to draw their water supply from rivers have a very
serious question to deal with, owing to the pollution of
the stream above them by the drainage of the sewage and
refuse of other cities into the river. New
York City has been fortunate in having the New York
Croton river as its source of supply, the and Phil-
water of that stream being unusually pure adelphia.
and kept carefully guarded from pollution. i : '
On the other hand, Philadelphia draws its water from
the Schuylkill, whose banks are lined with numerous towns
and cities which pour their refuse and effete matter into
that 'Stream, to be pumped into the homes of the unfortun¬
ate dwellers in the Quaker City. The result, as might have
been expected, has been a heavy death rate, especially from
typhoid fever and other enteric ailments. It is no uncom¬
mon thing for 120 deaths from typhoid fever to be reported
per week. These cases are directly traceable to the water.
The city is now building filters, and wherever one has
32
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
been completed and put into use, the health of the section
of the city served by it has been greatly improved.
It is authoritatively stated that typhoid
Proof That deaths in the city of Munich were reduced
Bad Water from 21 to 6.4 per 10,000 persons by filtra-
Kills. tion; Berlin from 9.2 to 2.9 per 10,000;
while Albany, New York, has diminished
its typhoid death rate by 75 per cent, by the same means.
A striking proof of the part water plays in the matter of
health was given in the city of London during the cholera
epidemic of 1853-4. There were two water companies sup¬
plying the city at the time, one drawing its supply from
the upper portion of Thames river, where it was com¬
paratively pure; the other drawing its supply from the
lower portion of the same river, where the water was
defiled by the sewage of many cities. Four thousand peo¬
ple died of the epidemic. When an investigation was made,
it was found that among those that used the foul water, 130
deaths occurred among every 10,000 persons, while only 37
deaths occurred among every 10,000 persons who used the
purer water; in other words, where impure water was used
there were three and half times as many deaths as oc¬
curred when better water was provided.
Of course, the fact is recognized that in cities having
water works, the individual citizen has no control of the
kind or quality of water furnished. If it is pure and good
he may count himself fortunate and be grateful; if it is
polluted and unhealthy, the best he can do is to adopt some
means of purification. Of this we shall speak later.
In the country it is different. There the
In The people get their water from wells, springs,
Country. brooks or lakes. It is true that water
from these sources is not so apt to be
poisoned by organic matter coming from
human sources, but there are other impurities to bs
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
33
guarded against. For instance, wells left open to falling
leaves, insects, dust and growing plants speedily become
unfit for use; so likewise is it with springs which are not
protected. Brooks and lakes are subject to this contam¬
ination also, and to the additional one of the washings of
the surface during rains, and the droppings of animals
frequenting the basins.
We have spoken of organic impurities . . .
... „ Organic Impuri-
several times. It may be well to explain ties. Mineral
that by these are meant those coming Impurities,
from decaying animal or vegetable matter, Hard Water,
such as dead leaves, dead animals and
all kinds of excretion. There is also another kind of im¬
purity called mineral which must be guarded against in
drinking water. This consists of the different salts and
acids which water is likely to hold dissolved in it, such
as lime, soda, potash, magnesia, etc. Every housekeeper
knows what it is to have hard water. Well, this hardness
is caused by lime in the water. The lime comes from the
earth through which the water runs, especially if it be
chalky earth. Such water is easily known by the fact that
it will not lather, a'nd on being boiled, leaves a white crust
of lime on the inside of the tea-kettle. It is injurious to
the health in two ways: first, when taken as a drink, it
tends to produce gravel, or stone in the bladder; and when
used in cooking, it is combined with the food and is gen¬
erally supposed to make the bones over-brittle, leading to
stiffness, withering andi early old age. Water from wells
and springs is usually hard owing to its coming from the
interior of the earth where these mineral beds are.
Where people draw their drinking supply from standing
ponds or lakes, mineral impurities or less, but organic
34
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
contamination is greater owing to the main water feed
coming from surface drainage. The result is an infusion
of dead leaves, animal offal, insects, dead bodies, garbage
and suspended s'and, mud and clay. It is really a cold
tea of death, getting stronger and deadlier every day it
stands. Aside from its danger as a drinking fluid, it fur¬
nishes a breeding place for the mosquito whose bite pro¬
duces fever and ague. The water of brooks, rivers not
artificially polluted, and other bodies of running water is
safer to use than any kind of standing surface water; for
it is found that moving water tends to
purify itself by bringing the impurities
Moving Water cons-tantly to the surface where the sun-
Seif-purifymg.
light and oxygen decompose them into
hai-mless substances. When Chicago built
the great canal which turned the filth of the Chicago river
into the Mississippi, the people of St. Louis strongly ob¬
jected on the ground that it would render the water unfit
for use; but it was soon seen that by the time the water
reached St. Louis, the constant motion audi exposure to air
and light had purified it so that it was about as pure as
before the canal was built. At the same time Chicago's
typhoid death rate decreased from 15.9 to 4.6 per, 10,000
inhabitants. Where the stream is shallow, the purifying
process goes on more rapildy. Other things being equal,
therefore, a running source of water supply is to be pre¬
ferred to a standing one.
If water were a luxury, it would be safer to do without
it, since it is so difficult to get it pure; but it is a necessity
for which there is no substitute; so, if we cannot get it
pure, we must do the best we can to make it so.
Our bodies are chiefly water, as we showed a few pages
THE GOSPEL OP GOOD HEALTH
35
back. It requires a certain amount of water taken into
the system each day to furnish the liquid elements needed
to make up our bodies and dissolve the solid food we take
in. To drink too little means liver and kidney troubles;
to drink enough when it is not pure may mean typhoid
fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, diphtheria or malignant sore
throat. This brings us to the practical question: How shall
we get pure water to drink?
The first thing to do is to have the water analyzed, but
as very few people, especially those living in the country,
will take the trouble to do this, the following suggestions
are made:
1. Wherever there is cause to suspect
the purity of the water, or where it is How to
very hard, boil it. This will throw down Purify
the lime, kill injurious animal life and Water,
render harmless; decaying organic sub¬
stances. The boiled water must be kept covered, or it
will absorb impurities again from the air. For the same
reason, water should never be kept standing in a bed-room,
as it takes up the matter we breathe out and becomes unfit
for use.
2. Filter it. If you cannot find a filter you can make one
by placing in a vessel alternate layers of sand and charcoal
through which the water is allowed to seep and flow out.
This will catch all mud, floating particles and mechanical
adulterations, leaving the water clear and free from every
thing except the minerals that have been dissolved, and
these are not the things that do the most harm. Filtration
is the method now being used in most of the great cities
to purify their water.
3. Allow the water to settle. This is done by permiting
36
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
it to remain perfectly still for an hour or two till all sand,
clay and chalky substances fall to the bottom. The clear
water can then be drawn or dipped carefully from the top
for use. A little powdered alum will assist in settling the
water.
The first two of these methods are the best, and, if used
regularly, will do much to keep the family healthy.
So far, we have said nothing about bath¬
ing, for its necessity is so well known
Bathing. that it ought not to be mentioned, but for
the purpose of making up the record, we
do say: bathe. Whether in hot water or coldi water, hard
water or soft water, salt water or fresh water, clear water
or muddy water, tub water or river water, bathe.
It is no use to tell the average farmer to bathe once a
day, especially in winter, for he will not do it; but any
man who will not bathe at least twice a week, ought to
have the good grace to become a hermit so as to have a
monopoly of his own redolence.
The politeness of bathing lies in our neighbor's nose;
the philosophy of it lies in our own health, since it keeps
the pores of the skin open to assist the lungs in throwing
off the waste matter of the body, for the skin is chief
assistant to the lungs. So important is this office of the
skin that if a body be covered with varnish so as to stop
up all the pores, the person will die. Not only does the
skin cast off perspiration and oily matter, but it throws
off carbonic acid also, thus doing a part of the work of
the lungs. Bathing keeps it free to do this.
If you are to build a house, be sure to have a bathroom
in it. It is more important than the parlor.
Bathe in cold water, not warm, It will make you feel
THE GOSPEL OP GOOD HEALTH
37
better, and is sure to improve your health and vigor.
Always rub down hard with a coarse, rough towel after
a bafh. A warm bath makes you feel lazy; a cold one
makes you active. If you do take a hot bath, don't go out
into the cold air immediately afterwards, as you are likely
to catch cold. After a cold bath, there is no such danger
Do not take a bath right after a meal. Wait at least
one hour; two would be better, for then the blood would
be through helping the stomach to digest the meal, and
can go to the skin to warm it up.
In out-door bathing, such as ocean, river or creek swim¬
ming, do not stay in till the skin begins to wrinkle or
shrivel. Twenty minutes is about the right length of time.
Not all clear water is pure.
The bedroom is no place for drinking water to be kept.
Hard water is not healthy.
Rain water towards the end of a shower is
the purest obtainable in Nature. Things to
Boiling purifies water by killing germs. Remember
Filtering purifies water by catching all
undissolved particles.
Settling purifies water by removing the particles too heavy
to float.
Wells and springs should be covered.
Wherever there is a case of typhoid fever or diphtheria,
lay the blame on the water.
Sometimes the impurity comes from ice put into the water.
Wells near barnyards, cemeteries, water closets and trash
piles are dangerous, no matter how clear or cold the water.
Drink a glass of water every morning on rising. It
washes out the mouth, throat and stomach.
38
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Water ordinarily cool is better than ice water.
A glass of unsweetened lemon water is good for a bilious
stomach and bad breath.
CHAPTER ON FOOD.
"Upon what meat doth this Ceasar feed?''
The ancients thought that the stomach was the seat of
the soul and of the affections, and even to-day it is a
common saying that the best way to reach a man's heart is
through his stomach. The writer does not accept either
of these opinions, but one thing is certain: the stomach
is the seat of the most of man's physical troubles. We
ought to have a good deal of sympathy for the dyspeptic
who declared he couldn't see how a cow could be so kind
and contented with four stomachs, when he was as cross
as a bear with only one. We are going to examine' into
that matter right now.
The stomach is for holding food, and food is for giving
strength, health and life to man. Where it does not do
so, something is wrong.
The amount of benefit we get from eating depends upon
three things: the kind of food, the way it is cooked, the
stomach receiving it.
In considering the kind1 of food, it is necessary to remem¬
ber that there are about thirteen elements in the human
body which must be supplied by the food we eat. They
are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sul¬
phur, chlorine, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium,
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
39
iron and fluorine. If we fail to use food, containing these
elements and all of them, to that extent we starve the
body.
Speaking in a general way, food may be Food
divided into two classes: that which con- Classified,
tains nitrogen, called nitrogenous, and
that which contains no nitrogen, called non-nitrogenous.
The nitrogenous foods, such as lean m'eat, fish, eggs, beans
and peas, are the main producers of blood and muscle; the
non-nitrogenous foods, such as sugar, starch and fats, are
heat producers.
If we know what each article of diet contains, we shall
then know what to eat to give the body what it requires to
nourish and develop it.
Sometimes food is divided into the following classes:
(1) The watery group, because of the amount of water
they contain. This group includes water and the different
drinks, besides such solids as have a large percentage of
water in them, as potatoes and cabbage.
(2) The sugar group, which includes sugar, starch, gums,
ripe fruit, vinegar, etc.
(3) The oily group, including all fats and oils, such as
butter, fat meat, nuts, cream, etc.
These three groups do not contain any nitrogen, and are
therefore non-nditrogenous. As has been stated, their main
function is to fatten and keep up the heat of the body.
Next we come to (4) the proteid, or albuminous, group,
the best representative of which is the white of an egg.
Lean meat, the gluten which makes flour pasty or tough
when made into dough, and the caseine of cheese belong
to this group. This is the blood and muscle-forming group,
awl' as such is of the first importance. The rery name
40
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
proteid means first. This fourth, class is highly nitroge¬
nous.
It must not be forgotten that the foods we have just
mentioned are all organic and are necessary for the produc¬
tion of soft animal tissue such as skin, flesh, fat, blood,
nerves, and the softening of bones; but the body must have
mineral substances also to give hardness to the bones, the
teeth, the nails, as well as color to the blood, etc. These
must be supplied by the food; consequently we have group
(5) The saline, or mineral, group. Under this head we
may bring common salt, and all food containing iron, sul¬
phur, phosphorus, potassium and the other minerals that
enter into the make-up of the body. Among the articles
which contain these minerals may be mentioned the yolk of
eggs, containing iron; the whites of eggs, containing sul¬
phur; fish, containing phosphorus; and so on.
Note one tiling: though the different food elements have
been gathered into one or another group, several of these
elements are to be found in one article. For instance, milk
contains all the elements necessary to sustain life, and for
that reason Nature has made it the infant's food before he
is able to eat anything else. The egg alsq has in it albu¬
men, which is nitrogenous, and sulphur and iron, which are
minerals, to say nothing of other substances. In selecting
a well-balanced ration for feeding all parts of the body we
do not find it necessary to eat so many different things;
we (have only to select those few articles containing all
the elements in the right proportions. Let us now con¬
sider that.
What has been said above about the different groups
and food elements is intended for those who wish to know
the reasons spilac-tina1 on a rh'pt rat,h fir fhnn *>notrtier
THE GOSPEL OP GOOD HEALTH
41
For those who simply wish to know what to eat, without
caring to make a close study of the subject, we now take
up the more practical part of the subject.
Appetite was given as a guide to the
food' the system needs, and it would be Appetite as
a Food
perfect, were it not for the fact that we Guide,
have abused it so much that it has been
vitiated and become diseased. In this respect it is like
conscience, which was designed to be a perfect moral
guide, but has been abused so long that it cannot always
be depended on to sanction the right thing. Appetite does,
however, make many valuable suggestions as to the food
we require. For example, we like butter on bread because
while bread has sugar, water, gluten, starch, and mineral
matter, it is lacking in fat, and this butter supplies. We
like beans cooked with bacon becaus'e the meat furnishes
the needed fat. Here are a few other combinations that
out appetite calls for because one is the supplement of
the other:
Milk with fruit and all kinds of cereals.
Meat with bread and vegetables.
Codfish with potatoes' and butter.
No two men require exactly the same amount of food to
keep them in good condition. It depends upon the man,
the state of his health, his work and the climate in which
he lives. We may, however, strike a fair average for men
under the same conditions of life. How Much
The British Government allows each Should a -<n
sailor 26 ounces of vegetables, and 9 Eat?
ounces of salt meat, or 4 and 1-2 ounces of fresh meat,
with sugar and cocoa as a daily ration. It allows each
soldier one pound of bread and three-fourths of a pound
of meat per day.
42
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Prisoners at hard labor are allowed about 36 ounces of
food, but only a little of it is meat.
In America, laboring men eat, on an average, 45 or more
ounces of food, a very large part of which is meat; but it
is generally conceded that we over-eat in this country, es¬
pecially when it comes to meats and fats. Strange to say,
though the object of fats is to create heat, more fat meat is
eaten in the South, where it is hot, than in any other part
of our country. Here is a case where the appetite has been
educated to do wrong. The case of the young Esquimaux
who ate 35 pounds' of food, mainly fat meat and tallow can¬
dles in a day, has some excuse when we consider the severe
cold of the Artie regions; though we may well wonder
wihere he put it, seeing that the adult human stomach is
usually only about 12 inches long and 4 inches wide.
As a matter of fact, we eat too much even when we eat
the right food; then, we eat many things which the system
does not call for, and which are positively injurious. We
are thus guilty of the double sin of overloading our best
servant in the one case and poisoning it in the other.
An ordinary man not doing active work should not eat
more than 3 to 3^ pounds of food per day; if doing active
work, he needs from 6 to 6% pounds a day; that is, he
needs about one-twenty-fourth of his weight in food each
twenty-four hours. At that rate, he eats the weight of his
own body in twenty-four days.
Dr. Hutchison, quoting from others, ishows that if a man
could call before his eyes all the things he has eaten in
his lifetime, he would see 30 oxen, 200 sheep, 100 calves, 200
lambs, 50 pigs, 1200 chickens, 300 turkeys, 263 pigeons, 260
fish, 30,000 oysters, 5,745 pounds of vegetables, 243%
pounds of butter, 24,000 eggs, 9,000 pounds of bread, 3,000
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
43
gallons of tea and coffee; to say nothing of fruits, sweet¬
meats and water.
With, our farmers the sheep, lamb, pigeons, fish and
oysters would give place to more pigs, for the Southern
farmer's main meat diet is fresh pork or bacon.
Probably the most noticeable and acute
effect of overeating is some form of indi- Effects of
^ ° Overeating,
ftestion. The stomach, being unable to
control muscularly the great mass forced into it, becomes
paralyzed and throws up the job; it cannot secrete enough
of the digestive juices to change the food into blood, and
fermentation (as shov/n by bleaching), inflamntion as-
shown by cramps), irritation (as shown by diarrhoea),
and general nervous prostration, take place.
- The next effect is seen in biliousness. It is ascertained
that the amount of bile secreted by the liver increases ac¬
cording to the amount of food put into the stomach. When
this amount is more than can be used, or than is needed to
combine the water and fats in the stomach, it remains in
'the system to poison it, giving rise to billious fever, yellow
jaundice and other serious diseases. The kidneys, too, be¬
come deranged and poison the body with uric acid, result¬
ing, many cases, in Bright's Disease, which is almost cer¬
tain death.
These are only a few of the penalties that come upon us
from over-eating, but surely they are serious enough to set
us to thinking.
To eat so as to keep the body healthy one must have in
mind two things; (1) that which contains the most of what
will nourish and build up muscle, blood and bone; (2) that
which can be soonest and most easily digested.
Measured by these tests, pork is the worst meat the
44
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
farmer can eat. It takes five hours and a Quarter nearly
half a farmer's work day—to digest.
Beef digests in four hours; mutton, in three hours and a
quarter. Cabbage is the hardest vegetable to digest, tak¬
ing four hours.
Though a favorite Southern combination is bacon and
cabbage, it is a bad one.
Cabbage is also a very poor food to nourishing qualities,
as most of it is water and waste matter. For instance,
one pound! of beans will furnish 12 ounces of nourishing
food, but it would take about 15 pounds of cabbage to sup¬
ply that much nourishment; that is to say, you get only
about four-fifths of an ounce of nourishment to each pound
of cabbage eaten. That, it seems, is a little too much, quan¬
tity for the amount of quality.
need. Set it down as a useful rule that a few essential
articles at a meal are better than a great variety of rich
highly seasoned things. Ask the man with the gout about
it.
The food first in importance for the grown people is
bread. It is called the staff of life, not because the poets
say so, but because science proves it.
A French scientist ascertained that 1 pound of bread
is equal to 3 of potatoes, 10 of cabbage, 7 1-2 of turnips
5 of carrots and spinach.
In a grain of wheat, the basis of flour bread, about one-
half is starch, while the other half consists of sugar, oil,
Breads and
Cereals.
Among the great number of
things which have been placed
in the world for us to eat, we
should select a few which best
combine the elements our bodies
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
45
gluten, albumen and salt; these are added to, of course,
in the make-up.
Oats makes a good cereal, but cannot be made into
bread because it will not stick together; in other words,
it has no gulten. Rye and barley are nourishing.
Common corn is the most fattening of the bread-stuffs,
and corn bread is the kind most commonly used by the
Southern farmers. It is healthy, and when eaten crumbled
in a bowl of rich sweet milk, is hard to beat as a food
and fattening for children.
Muffins, dough-nuts, pastry and batter-cakes are not so
healthful, because they are tough, close and doughy.
Fresh bread is harder to digest than stale, because the
latter is more crumbly and easily mixed with the juices
of the mouth. For the same reason toast is good.
For the purpose of creating tissue and strength, the fol¬
lowing are to be highly recommended:
beans, peas, cheese, codfish, lean meat, ^ Few pood
oatmeal and eggs. Suggestions.
To enrich the blood by adding iron,
beef, spinach, asparagus, yolk of egg,
apples, strawberries, red cherries, etc.
To fatten: potatoes, smoked ham and bacon, lima beans,
cereals, nuts, rice, milk, sugar, butter, and oils.
It is possible to get all of the elements we need without
the use of meat, and it is advisable that we use far less
of it than we do, because the tough fiber makes it one of
the hardest things to digest in the lists of foods. Espe¬
cially is fat meat hard to digest because the juices of the
stomach seem to be unable to handle it without the assist¬
ance of bile, which, when secreted too largely, leads to
biliousness.
46
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Meat should be eaten sparingly. Veal is unhealthy;
mutton is good; most white meat, such as chicken, is good;
pork is not easily digested; fish, especially those caught
in clear water, are excellent; crabs and lobsters are risky;
oysters, raw, are fine.
Coffee and tea are injurious, giving artificial stimulation,
but afterwards leading to constipation. Milk and cocoa,
or chocolate, are excellent foods.
Spices and high seasoning of all kinds debauch the appe¬
tite and irritate the stomach, thus often making suitable
food hurt us by inducing us to eat too much.
Candy and sweets do more harm than good, because
they decay the teeth, take away the appetite for plain food,
and fill the body with adulterations, some of which are
actually poisonous.
Hard boiled eggs are not good, taking three hours and a
half; fried eggs require the same time. Raw eggs take
only one hour and a half.
Boiled irice 'digests in one hour. It, however, does not
give much muscle, being really all starch.
If there is anything wrong with a man's system and he
can correct it by the food he eats rather than by medicine
he ought to do so. Now, this can often
Food as done.
Medicine. For soothing the nerves use celery,
lettuce and onions.
For producing sleep, use onions, lettuce and apples.
For rheumatism and gout, use celery, spinach and dan¬
delions.
For the liver, use tomatoes, artichokes, rhubarb and
apples.
For the kidneys, use spinach, dandelions and apples.
the gospel op good health
47
For the complexion, use cucumbers and: carrots.
For asthma, use carrots.
For diarrhoea, use blackberries.
For malaria, use cranberries.
The advantage of using these vegetable correctives in¬
stead of patent medicines is that there are no bad after¬
effects, no injurious drugs and opiates to lay the seed of
another disease to cure the one you have. They are medi¬
cines compounded by God Himself.
Notwithstanding all that has been ©aid about proper and
improper food, bad cooking can ruin the
good effects of the best. There would be an°d kUfe
more Christians in the world if there
were more good cooks,.—cooks who knew
why a thing should be cooked one way rather than an¬
other, and could cook it that way. The South is famous
for its "good" cooks, but unfortunately much of their fame
arises from high seasoning and their ability to make
indigestible food taste so good that we ate too much. Very
few of the finest Virginia cooks know anything about
what elements different articles contain, what the system
needs, and how to cook a thing to get the most nourish¬
ment out of it. Some of these matters we have tried to
make clear in this little book. We wish to give a few hints
on cooking now before we close the subject.
Almost any food article is made more digestible by
proper cooking, because the tissues are softened and many
disease germs are killed thereby. A good cook is a great
man.
Cooking has a very remote history; it arose from the
desirability of softening the food fibers so that they might
be more easily digested, and also that the temperature of
what we eat might be more nearly that of the stomach.
48
HOY/ TO JLIYB LONGER
Seasoning food came later. The Greeks grew to be great
cooks. One of them, Athenaeus, became as famous for
his writing on cooking as Isaak Y/alton did later for
what he wrote about fishing. This old Greek quotes
some lines which are good enough and true enough to be
repeated here they are:
'•To roast some beef, to carve a joint with neatness,
To boil up sauces, and to blow the fire,
Is anybody's task; he who does this
Is but a seasoner and broth-maker;
A cook is quite another thing. His mind
Must comprehend all facts and circumstances;
Where is the place, and what the time of supper;
Who are the guests, and who the entertainer;
What fish he ought to buy and where to buy it."
The ancients cooked their meats by roasting or boiling;
they did not fry it. Frying is the most unhealthy way of
cooking anything, for it puts a crust on the surface that
makes it very hard for the stomach to digest. Never fry
your food if you seek health and good digestion; boil or
roast it.
The proper way to boil meat so as to keep all of the
juices in it is to put it into water already
Hints on Cook-boiling, as this hardens the albumen on
ing Meats and the outside at once and keeps the juices
Vegetables. from running out. If, however, the ob¬
ject is to make soup, then the meat must
be put into cold water and allowed to heat slowly; in this
way the substance escapes into the water making it rich
and nutritious. Meat to be roasted should be thrust
into a hot oven. The rule for boiling fresh meat is
to allow 20 minutes to the pound, except in very cold
weather, when 20 minutes extra should be allowed.
Salt meat has had its pores closed already by the proc-
the gospel of good health
49
cess of curing, and therefore, after soaking for two hours
in cold water, should be put into cold water and brought
to the boiling point. The following time is usually al¬
lowed: For a 16-pound ham, 4 hours; a 16-pound tongue, 2
to 4 hours; a 16-pound pig's head, 2 hours; a 4-pound piece
of bacon, 2 hours.
Boiled vegetables are done when they sink. Cabbage
should be put into two waters. a piece of common boda
jthe size of a marble will help the boiling of cabbage and
peas, if the water is hard. Vinegar rubbed over meat be¬
fore cooking will make it tender.
Meat from which soup has been made has little nourish¬
ment and is hard to digest. It is better to make it into
hash cut very fine or shredded.
It is not our intention to tell how to Bread and
make good bread; this is not a cook-book. Eggs
and if it were, no man can make a book
cook. Books can give you ideas, but they cannot give you
instinct, and that is what makes the great cook.
Bread is nearly half water. In too many cases, the other
half is lead. To be wholesome, bread does not have to be
white, but it ought to be light. It ought not to be eaten
hot. It is healthier stale than fresh. Hot rolls are the
devil's cannon balls.
Eggs in their raw state, or when slightly boiled, are an
almost perfect food; when, cooked hard, they are fit only
for fools and railroad lunch-stands.
There is nothing better than rare eggs for yellow jaun¬
dice, as they possess the power of doing the work of bile
in combining water and fat into a digestible emulsion.
Poached eggs are excellent also, but fried eggs, even when
rare, are not to be recommended.
This is an ago of adulteration. In milk, ■ we find water
50
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
and chalk; in flour, (ground beans, alum, chalk, bone-dust,
plaster of Paris and clay) in sugar (flour
Food sand) in red pepper, (brick-dust, red
Adulterations orcher and salt) in mustard, (pea-flour and
linseed meal) in coffee, (chicory, acorns,
sawdust, and horses' livers) in chocolate, (mutton-suet,
chalk, red earth and plaster of Paris) in vinegar, (water
and sulphuric acid) in pickles and green-colored fruits,
(copper) and so on throughout the chapter. Some of these
are rank poisons, such as sulphuric acid and copper. As
so many pickles, olives, gooseberies, greengages and other
bottled fruits are used, it is well to warn our readers to
suspect any of these that are bright green of being made
so by copper. The matter may be easily tested by adding
a little ammonia to the liquid; it will turn blue if copper
is present.
We have spent considerable space on the various phases
of cooking, because of the importance of the subject;
but now we must turn to other things, in the hope that
enough has been said to lead to thought and investigation.
Simply fix in your minds the truth that the cook is the
household doctor, whose duty it is to keep people well, and
you will have a proper idea of the nobility of the profession,
realizing that Voltaire uttered the truth when he said,
"Every cook is a divine mortal!"
Before closing tihis chapter we wish
Flies and In- to cal* your attention to the danger to
sect Pests human health from insect pests. While
this is not directly a question of food,
we discuss it here because some of these insects, especially
house-flies, infect the system through food, by alighting
upon it and leaving germs.
The warning against allowing flies to swarm in your
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
51
houses cannot be made too solemn. It is deadly. The
poor little baby that wasted away and died might be alive
to-day, if you had wiped the molasses1 from its mouth
and driven the flies away.
Cleanliness is not only next to godliness, it is essential
to health. FiLth breeds death. Eating with unwashed
hands was an offense against the Jewish ceremonial law
in the time of Moses; it is to-day an offense against the
laws of health, for therein may lurk the seeds of your
death through disease germs introduced into your body.
Chief among the dangers which unclean surroundings
bring to a house are the swarms of flies that alight upon
food and leave disease germs from their feet. The fly
that alights upon your lip may have just come from the
stable, andi the one that so gleefully wipes' his feet upon
your bread or rice may have spent the day with a tuber¬
culous patient next door, or with his fellow flies in a cess¬
pool. It is in this way that consumption and typhoid
fever are frequently carried.
Never allow flies', therefore, the free run of your house.
Screen the windows with fine wire and have wire doors.
Drive the flies cut and kill, by fly poison or pepper, those
that do not go out. These precautions may save many
lives and many expensive doctor's - bills.
For similar reasons, you should wage unceasing war on
mosquitoes and other insect pests, for each is the specific
agent of some sickness in the family. Mosquitoes are
spreaders of malaria and yellow fever. Since Americans
have begun to destroy or screen off mosquitoes on the
Isthmus of Panama, yellow fever has not appeared there;
and in several sections of the United States where malaria
once was deadly, the people now are free from it because
of the draining ot jiojsquito swamps. Keep out flies and
52
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
mosquitoes and you will keep out many of the ills that
now beset you.
CHAPTER ON DRESS AND HOUSING.
"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the I<ord God make coats of skin
and clothed them."
*******>*
"Follow this fair lady wherever she doth go,
And where she houses, come and let me know."
For the sake of brevity and because protection from the
weather is the object of both, we may treat of dress and
housing in the same chapter.
This is neither a treatise on style nor architecture, hence
we must be excused from paying attention to beauty of
dress or building. Our purpose is purely practical, as the
character of the quotations prefacing this chapter deafly
indicate.
God saw that the fig leaf afterthought
Lif^SS SnC' Adam and Eve was too full of holes
to stand the winter outside of Eden,
and too tender to bear the strain of work; so He, with HiS
own hands, made them a dress of skins as better adapted
to meet both these ends. Only the question of comfort
and decency was considered—the very things that we most
frequently forget these days.
The American climate, even in the extreme South, is very
changeable, and any sensible mode of dress ought to take
that into notice. Instead of the tight lacing that is squeez¬
ing the life out of our women, if they would put on chest
protectors and woolen underwear till all danger of sudden
the gospel of good health
53
cold spells was over, we should have fewer orphans' and
fewer heartaches.
Most of the cases of consumption begin in a cold caught
by a sudden chilling of the body. The pores become
closed and extra work is laid on the poor lungs, which al¬
ready have twenty-four hours hard work on their hands.
The result is, they break down, and the disease germ,
which is always on watch, steps in and slowly eats the suf¬
ferer up. Then we shake our fists in the face of God and
sulk. It is criminal; it Is suicide; and to lay it on God is
bearing false witness.
Wool was made for protection; cotton was made for
show. Put on the cotton goods, if you will, and look
pretty, if you can; but wear something underneath that will
keep the temperature of the body even, in spite of the daily
changes. Put on your flannels early and take them off
late. Wear thick-soled shoes'. It is better to be a live clod¬
hopper than a dead fairy.
Some people go thinly clad on principle,
claiming that it hardens them. Have Hardening
you ever seen a mummy? He is
hardened, but he is dead too. It is true that people strong
enough to stand unusual exposure do become stronger by
being exposed. Among savage tribes you rarely find a
person weak or sickly, and yet they expose themselves to
cold and wet; but the reason all the living savages are
strong is because all the weak ones are dead. Did you ever
look at it that way? You may belong to the weak side;
perhaps your mother or your brother did. Think this over,
and put on some warm woolen undershirts this fall.
Remember another thing—an overcoat is a necessity.
Two coats are better than any one, no matter how thick it
is; fnr between the two there is always a layer of air that
54
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
acts just like the air between the outer wall of a house and
the plaster in keeping in heat.
Never throw off clothing when you are perspiring from
exercise. Never lie down to sleep without some light cov¬
ering. Never let wet clothing dry on you in a draught.
Women should never go out in the evening without a wrap.
Of course, all clothing should be clean.
The house we live in should be warm
Housing. enough in winter, andi cool enough in
summer to keep us comfortable, and its
air pure enough at all times to keep us healthy. It need
not be a big or a fine one, but it ought by all means to be as
clean as oare and elbow-grease can make it. There ought
to be a room or two for sleeping, one for eating and one
for social purposes; that is, the humblest home ought to
have at least three rooms. It ought to have a front and a
back door; windows sliding up and down on cords, so as
to open top and bottom for ventilation. The floor ought to
be close so as to prevent the cold air from entering. And the
roof ought not to leak. These are bed-rock requirements.
Then whatever in the way of comforts, conveniences and
beauty can be added, such as wall paper, pictures and car¬
pets, should be supplied. If the occupant is able to ceil the
walls and overhead, it will make the house much warmer
in cold weather, much cooler in warm weather, and much
more attractive all the time. Once for all, let it be said
that the old death-trap of a cabin with one door to go in
and none to go out; one glassless, wooden-shuttered win¬
dow for keeping out the light; a sag-bellied floor whose
gaping cracks resemble the slicing of a piece of baked fresh
pork, and a pepper-box roof for playing peep-eye with the
stars, must go if the man is to stay. Consumption, pneu¬
monia and rheumatism are bound to sweep us away as
The gospel of good health 55
fast as we are born if we do not begin to use common sense
in these matters.
If a man is a renter on a farm or elsewhere, he ought to
make it perfectly plain that his remaining depends upon
decent, comfortable and healthful housing. Landlords are
not expected to see after a tenant's health out of pure be¬
nevolence; it must be made to their interest. If you are
a valuable tenant and will not live in a shack, it will be to
the landlord's interest to keep you by building you better
quarters. We take too many bad things for granted and
consequently do not seek to better them.
If you are the owner of your home, as you ought to be,
then there is absolutely no excuse for exposure. In such
a case, every picket ought to be on the fence, and paint
should make everything shine with newness from house
to hen-coop.
No wonder boys leave home so early in life. A boy who
would not leave some homes by early moonlight proves
that it hurts his feelings to be considiered human. The
stations on the railroad of life should be in the following
upward order: Health, Happiness Heaven.
Too many people have only two stations on the route:
Hut Hades, with no way-stations between.
Most of these remarks on housing so far have had spe¬
cial reference to farm life, but we do not forget that a ter¬
rible condition exists in our cities where respectable color¬
ed people are forced to live in alleys and tough districts
because landlord Christianity is a failure. There must be
no letting up in our efforts to establish our right to "live
according to our means, our character and our taste.
Evidence is not lacking to show that
the Negro has taken up the writing of Hopeful Signs
his own condition. In Texas the Farmers'
56
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
Improvement Society, organized by Prof. R. L. Smith,
is teaching 'the black farmers of the South the les¬
son of better living in a material as well as a moral sense.
AH such movements—city and/ country—will meet in time,
if the Negro is made according to the recipe for making
real men, and then the stork will fly into their doors as
fast as ever, but the raven of undue mortality will quit his
place above the "bust of Pallas," and the census man will
no longer be the undertaker's statistician.
CHAPTER ON EXERCISE.
"A man must often exercise, or fast, or take physics, or be sick."
In the above quotation from Sir William Temple, he put
exercise first and physic last among the means of staving
off sickness. That is the right order, too.
Fortunately for the Negro, his economic condition has,
up to the present, compelled him to" take all the exercise
he needed; he has to work all day and every day to live.
He has not found it necessary to belong to a yacht club,
to play polo, hockey, croquet, tennis, or golf to get a chance
to stretch his muscles. And after all, honest toil is the
best form of exercise. Still there is growing to be a class
of clerks, stenographers, and business men who need to be
reminded that, with the passing of physical exertion for
bread-winning, they should keep it up for health-holding.
It will not hurt any one, whether student or day laborer, to
learn a few gymnastic movements for the development of
the body. All exercise hastens the vital processes, such
as breathing, blood circulation and digestion. Unless, how-
the gospel of good health 57
ever, it is taken regularly and with a definite object,
you are in danger of taking none when you feel lazy, and
too much when the boss of the job is standing near. If
your chest is flat, learn what muscles' control it, and exer¬
cise is* worth all the stoves, hot rocks, and hot-water bags
arms, or the legs, know what to do and dio it. Women, es¬
pecially, need this advice. Girls in school need it.
Remember that, in cold weather, heat produced by exer¬
cise is worth all the stoves, hot rocks, and 'hot-water 'bags
in the town. Gold feet show poor circulation and sug¬
gest vigorous bodily motions to set the blood in quicker
flow. Cold hands warmed by swinging the arms feel
better than any other kind of warm hands, and they stay
warm longer, too.
Never exercise right after a meal, for then the blood is
needed in the stomach to digest the food, and exercise
draws it away.
Never begin exercising suddenly or too vigorously. Like
any other machine, the body must have time to get up
steam. Warm up gradually. Go at it intelligently. Keep
it steadily. Send the rich red blood bounding under
velvet skins till every dimple and every mountain of
eager and able muscle shall issue the assurance, "I am
able."
The object of exercise is to make us
breathe and perspire faster, thus burn- Exercise
ing up the waste matter in the body
muscles. Exercise is necessary to health and strength,
but it must be properly taken.
Farmers and out-door laborers get all the exercise they
need and under the best circumstances, too; but students,
seamstresses, teachers barbers and others like them,
need to take more exercise than they get in their oc-
58
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
cupations. Base-ball, foot-ball, foot races and gymnastics
should be taken at school; while special forms of exer¬
cise should be given adults who live mainly in the house
and do what is called sedentary, or sitting-down, labor.
If you know any part of your body is particularly weak,
learn how to exercise that part more than others.
CHAPTER TELLING ABOUT PATENT MEDICINES
AND ALCOHOL.
It has been the general custom to violate
A Human nature's laws at pleasure and then buy
Drug Store. a bottle of medicine, to correct the ills
that result; and that, too, without hav¬
ing the least idea of the drugs composing these medicines,
or their effect upon the general system. You simply com¬
plain of being sick, and some silly friend tells you of
something that he took for relief when he was sick; you
rush to get it and take about half a bottle, when another
friend tells you of something else that is much better.
You get that also, and, in order not to lose the money
spent or the first bottle, you proceed to use first one and
then the other preparation, till a third friend tells you of,
another remedy that he can recommend. You get that
also. By this time, not only is your body diseased, but
your imagination has become unhealthy, too, and you are
in danger of becoming a chronic medicine taster, trying
every thing you hear of and, for a little while, imagining
the gospel op good health
59
each one helps you. Remember, please that all this time
you do not know what ails you, nor what the medicine
you are taking is composed of; you simply know that,
when you get up in the morning, you feel tired and un-
refreshed that j^our tongue is coated; that your back is
stiff, or aches; that your head is dizzy; that you have a
cough; that your breath is bad; that you are constipated,
or that you have cramps.
Nothing can convince the average man, under these cir¬
cumstances, that his liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, spleen, ap¬
pendix, intestines, blood and lymphatics
are not all out of order; and he is a clam- Fancy and
oring applicant for any opiate, stimulant, Fact,
purgative, alterative, diuretic or cardiac
that he sees advertised or hears recommended. He will
drench himself with Gump Root, Bile Buster, Kidney
Candy, Tasteless Tongue Tablets, Cough Controller, Pink
Pancreatic Pills, or Buncombe's Back-bending Belladonna
Bandages, till he is thrown in bed, and when he finally
gets on foot again, instead of realizing that he drugged
himself sick, he finally believes the patent medicines
saved his life.
As a matter of fact, the poor fellow has been filling his
body with the most active poisons and deadly nerve de¬
stroyers, and is surely breaking down a naturally strong
system and committing slow suicide. In fact, if some other
person should dose him secretly with these same drugs,
and it was discovered after the victim's death, the doser
would be tried in the courts of the land, and probably
convicted for murder by the administration of slow poison.
If it did not lay him open to suit for damages, the
writer could name a popular patent medicine that is gen-
60
HOW TO UYE LONGER
erally used for coughs, and which, does stop them for a
time; but it is because of the chloroform the remedy con¬
tains1. The patient simply is chloroformed into a nerve
deadness that stops the irritation that causes one to
cough; just as soon as the effects wear off, the cough re¬
turns and the process must be repeated
Chloroform continually. The cause of that cough is
in Cough not touched; but the nerves are being
Medicines. destroyed day by day, so that in a few
years the patient is a physical wreck and
dies of consumption—all caused by the very medicine he
took to cure him.
The ministers of the Gospel can do much to stop the
general and excessive use of patent medicines to cure
trivial and temporary ailments that are caused by indis¬
cretions, and that can be removed by simply obeying the
dictates of common sense in the matter of exposure,
over-eating and exercise. Many a preacher these days car¬
ries around with him a bottle of medicine for his throat,
stomach, or back. If his own bottle happens to be for¬
gotten or becomes empty, he borrows a dose of the
medicine some brother preacher happens to have, no
matter whether it is the same kind or not; all that is
necessary is for the brother to tell him it is the best
thing in the world.
Now, as a matter of fact, if you examine into the cause
of most of the afflictions of these men, whafrdo you find?
Why, that they are constantly traveling and overloading
their stomachs with "big dinners" consisting of chicken,
beef or pork, and sometimes all three; rich salads, which
the Southern cook knows so well how to prepare; deviled
the gospel of good health
61
crabs and lobsters; cucumbers and cabbage; peas and
potatoes; hard-scrambled eggs; beets and
butter-beans; pickles and preserves; then -yhe Real
piss r-rhubarb pies, mince pies, apple Trouble,
pies, peach pies, green grape pies, black¬
berry pies, strawberry pies, lemon pies; then cakes—angel
cake, devil cake, silver cake, gold cake, fruit cake, pound
cake, sponge cake, bad cake, sad cake and glad cake; then
ice cream—vanilla, chocolate, lemon and strawberry; then
nuts.—hickory nuts, hazel nuts, chestnuts, walnuts, pecans
and butternuts; then finally coffee to go on top of iced
lemonade or ice water.
Of course, the man becomes sick, but who is to blame?
and how did it come about? Instead of resorting to medi¬
cine to tone up the system and prevent a return of the
trouble, is it not clear that if the man would have more
care as to what he eats and how he acts after eating, he
would have no further trouble of that kind? Most as¬
suredly he will have cramps and colds and backaches as
long as he is so foolish as to violate all the simplest laws
of his being. What are nerves for if they do not resent
such treatment?
Now, a good thing to remember is that Self-doctors
no one is capable of judging the medicine Worse Than
a sick person needs except a regular None
practicing doctor; and no doctor will
practice on himself when he is sick, he gets another doc¬
tor. Just Why a man should think he knows enough
medicine to practice on himself when he doesn't know
enough to practice on another man is not easy to answer.
But perhaps some one will answer that he knows what
62
HOW TO LIVE LONGER
patent medicine to take because his symptoms are exactly
those described on the bottle. Poor fellow! Doesn't he
know that one of the hardest things a doctor has to do is
to tell which one of a dozen different complaints is the
cause of a certain pain?
A backache can come from many different causes; so
can a headache; so can a cramp; so can any pain. Rub¬
bing an aching back with liniment when it comes from
kidney trouble isn't likely to help any one except the
druggist who sold the liniment. Taking a chloroform
cough medicine for a cough caused by consumption is
simply greasing the slope to the grave.
Accept and act upon the rule to take no medicine till
you have been thoroughly examined by a competent doc¬
tor; and remember that three-fourths of all youj- pains
and troubles come from wrong habits, wrong food or bad
air, and can be cured without any medicine if you will
remove the cause.
Patent medicines owe their wide use more to the igno¬
rance of the people than to the merits of their drugs.
Many of them are popular because they have a large
quantity of alcohol in them. If you will take a patent
medicine, at least get a competent doctor to tell you which
one to buy.
Alcohol. As our last word, because it is the most
important and we wish the last impres¬
sion to be concerning it, we leave a special warning
against using, either for medicine or pleasure, alcoholic
drink, the thing that is the greatest curse in the whole
world.
This book would lose much of its value if it did not
warn you against using whisky, brandy, wine, beer, or any
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH
63
of the alcoholic drinks. They are poisonous and dan¬
gerous, for the appetite for them grows till they master
you, degrade you and ruin you. People who drink them
are the first to take disease and the least likely to recover.
Alcohol causes indigestion, liver troubles, kidney disease,
insanity and death. It is this fact that makes1 the church
and the home against it. Never touch it.
Not even the smallest child who reads this book needs
to be told what it does to make men and women act dis¬
gracefully and disgustingly. It takes the money you need
for the support of the family, it takes away your brain
power, your shame, your pride, your morals and your
humanity. It makes the quiet man boastful; the kind man,
cruel; the mild man, quarrelsome; the clean man, dirty;
the busy man, a loafer; the wealthy man, a pauper; the
upright man, unreliable; the Christian, a ,hypocrite; and
turns Abels into Cains. "Touch not taste not, handle not
tlia unclean thing."
AFTERWORD.
It is not polite to leave a friend without saying good-bye,
even if you have detained him a long time. The writer
knows the limitations of this book, but he knows its value,
too, to tens of thousands of worthy people whose lack of
information is their worst fault; in an unpretentious way
he is trying to help them where they most miss help—in
the way to health and life. Simplicity, so far as the sub¬
ject permitted, has been the effort here; and sincerity in
the interest of brothers and sisters beloved, has attended
without effort.
May God bless the thought of these pages, and may a
loving motive apologize for a faulty execution.
Robert W. Woodruff
Library
EMORY UNIVERSITY
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