HEALTH,
HAPPINESS,
and LONGEVITY.


Health without Medicine, Happiness
without Money,

THE RESULT,

LONGEVITY.


BY

L. P. McCARTY,

Author of the Annual Statistician and Economist,
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.


SAN FRANCISCO:
CARSON & CO.,
210 POST STREET.

HEALTH HAPPINESS AND LONGEVITY.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1890, by

L. P. McCARTY,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

Price, in Flexible Covers, $.75 Price, in Paper Covers, .50

ADDRESS, L. P. McCARTY, 814 Cal. St., S. F., Cal. OR THE BOOK TRADE GENERALLY.

CARSON & CO., Wholesale Agents, 210 Post St., SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

PREFACE.

To assert that the average man can enjoy health without medicine, happiness without even money, and longevity too, is a broad and sweeping declaration. In fact, we expect to have opposition from those who have not tried the formula laid down in the following pages.

To keep yourself in health without medicine is what we intend to convey; and we assert that but little or no medicine is necessary to reach that condition. To have happiness without any money (in the present condition of society) is not what we claim, but that more happiness can be extracted from a competency than by more or less.

To live to good old age means with us 80 to 120 years, to increase with future generations, when order, regularity, sobriety, cleanliness, and love for the whole human family, shall be paramount in the political, moral, and intellectual world.

The author is living on thirty years of made land. In other words, according to medical diagnosis, he should have died thirty years ago! Hence he desires to put before the unhealthy, unhappy, and short-lived human race the result of his experience of half a century. Having battled with a score of diseases, a number of which were claimed to be absolutely incurable—having freed himself entirely of them all—having been completely restored to health and happiness, he honestly believes that he has a convincing right to be heard.

You can now prove for yourself.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

This book was not written at one sitting or many, but it is the culmination of several years' preparation. While the first part is the result of thorough reasoning and experience, the second is a collection of the best modern data on prominent diseases and their remedies, with our own annotations. Both sections represent thoughtful and painstaking labor. Even if you are so bold as to maintain that you possess health, happiness, and are sure of longevity, we believe you cannot fail to find practical, valuable truths in these pages. Whether you are an editor, merchant, lawyer, doctor, minister, or day-laborer, we hope at least to entertain you. Are we right? Read and judge.

From the mythological times of Æsculapius down to the present day, votaries of medical science have been compounding, diagnosing, and prescribing for helpless, suffering humanity. For many ages this condition may have been a necessity, but in the light of our present civilization, sound common sense is the best physician. That doctors cannot be trusted to be right in every instance or even in a majority of them is shown by practical experiments. They certainly are well proved to be an inharmonious crowd by the experience of a Boston Globe reporter, who recently called upon ten regular physicians on the same day, and described his symptoms in exactly the same language to each. He received ten prescriptions, of which no two were alike, and a majority were utterly inconsistent each with the other. Nellie Bly, the famous lady writer of the New York World, had a cold and went to over fifty of the city's leading physicians, in October, 1889, asking them to prescribe for her. They did, and among the collection there were no two alike, and many diametrically opposite in nature and effect!

In a lecture recently delivered before the Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, Cal., on the subject of "Quacks and Quackery," by Prof. L. C. Lane, the speaker said: "Every good thing in the world has been counterfeited, and in these advanced times the work is so well done that it takes an expert to detect the true from the false. Everything is now more or less adulterated, especially the food we consume. The three great professions also of theology, law, and medicine, have been and are grossly counterfeited, especially the latter, which opens up the widest field for imposture."

As the above quotations, without an explanation, might convey the idea to the reader that the author considers that doctors, dentists, and specialists are no longer a necessity, I will say, Under the present state of society, they are not only indispensable, but absolutely a necessity. When you are ill, and do not know what is the matter with you, or if you know the nature of your ailments, and do not know a remedy, seek a first-class physician; take his advice in every particular until he either cures you or you are convinced he cannot. I am not a prophet, nor the son of one, but I will venture an opinion that before the close of the next century, the position of the minister, teacher, and physician will be filled by one and the same person. The teacher then will fill the most exalted position on the earth. He will not only instruct how to navigate the air without collision, but how not to catch cold at 30,000 feet elevation in your shirt sleeves, and who and what is God. His school-house will sit upon the most elevated spot in his district, with light reflected from all four sides; it will be at least fifty feet from the floor of his school-room to the ceiling; and in place of a steeple, there will be a dome, containing a 100-inch refractor telescope, and with the extra timber not used for a steeple, the seats will be made more comfortable, and pure filtered water will be supplied for the pupils to drink.

It is granted that the majority of mankind appreciate health, desire happiness, and expect longevity. With this as an incentive, why not strive to win the prize? Do not depend on the doctor, do not think some drug must be applied or imbibed for every ill; there are other methods.

Perhaps we can aid you to the true enjoyment of life if you will impartially weigh our argument. Here is an editor suffering from nervousness. He consults a physician, who hands him an opiate so that he can sleep. Better if he had given up all thought of his paper and battles of words, on leaving his office, and allowed his throbbing, weary brain a deserving rest. Then the cells of this brainy tissue would cease to be gorged with blood, and sleep would positively follow. Again, there is a clergyman every Sunday beseeching his flock to obey the commandments of the Bible; while every day, through carelessness, he is breaking the laws of health. If an all-wise Being gave us our bodies as homes of our souls, did he not mean that we should promote the happiness of the soul by providing for it a healthy residence? What logic and strength exist in a religion that does not countenance such philosophy? The majority of mankind admire a well-developed physique. The minister wishes and prays to influence the masses of men. Can he reach them effectively, can he point to himself as an example, can he sway them by any reasoning or eloquence, when he himself has a husky voice, a pallid face, and a weakened figure? Indeed, the cowled, decrepit monk could lead the world in the darkness of the middle ages; but in the brightness of the nineteenth century his scepter is powerless.

Health, Happiness and Longevity seem to be all that is required for mortal man. They are the foundation, the superstructure, and the apex respectively of the great Pyramid of life. Who would desire more than the possession of perfect health, the realization of happiness, the achievement of ripe old age, retaining all the pleasurable attributes of Perfected Manhood, experiencing all these until called upon to surrender this present house of clay for a more advanced state, whatever that may be? Such degrees of soundness, felicity, and age, which we have mentioned, are within the reach of all who desire them, if they will observe the rules implied in the following terms, arranged in the order of their importance: Regularity, Cleanliness, Temperance (or moderation), Morality, and Self-control. It is safe to state the proposition that there is not one in a thousand of those induced to peruse this humble effort, who will not claim to possess one or more of the foregoing virtues, while a fair minority will urge that they are characterized by all of them.

That your egoism may not get the better of you in the start and bias you before reading my talk, I will frankly say that there is hardly a person living to-day who is either regular, cleanly, temperate, moral, or self-controlled. It is a fact that some have made fair efforts in those lines of action, but we shall attempt to prove that not any have perfected themselves in a single attribute above mentioned. With us, regularity, cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control are so interlaced as to become synonymous terms, the perfection of any one of which means the consummation of all, while their master could laugh at sorrow, pain, and even death, for through long years they would pass his door and forget to knock. Just in proportion as we approximate these virtues, correspondingly will our lives be prolonged and our happiness intensified. Fear will not prostrate us because

"Death rides on every passing breeze, He lurks in every flower."

As modifying the foregoing partially, let us understand, however, that it is possible to have health and longevity to a wonderful degree without cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control, on one vital consideration. That is, the continual exercise of regularity. Here we have the corner-stone of the whole structure of health, the cardinal first law. But can we be happy without the generous employment of all these virtues? Obviously and fortunately, we cannot. Health is also the chief desideratum to happiness. As disease creeps through the physical frame, as aches and pains increase and torment our bodies, our doubts supplant faith in the Source of all goodness.

After a quarter of a century's constant devotion, in sackcloth and ashes, as it were, attempting to free the body from the shackles of pulmonary consumption, and growing gradually worse during the whole period, the majority of devotees, we think, would begin to inquire, "Are our prayers lacking sincerity? or is the Source of goodness at this time otherwise occupied? or may it not be that this for which I ask, I must seek by personal action?" We will try this self-helping method; if success comes, we will return to the same altar with a more exalted idea of a higher Source. Cleansed of our maladies, we will have a clearer perception of who and what is God.

CHAPTER II.

If you were induced to smile at the close of the last sentence, it shows that you are not lost to all sense of appreciation—but quietly put on your sober cap for a moment and read a few facts on vital statistics. The average length of life up to twenty years ago was 33 years, now it has reached about 34.8 years. This has not been caused by the whole world becoming more healthful—indeed, some portions of the earth, including sections of the United States, have retrograded, and the former limit of mortality has been lowered—but by the health of a number of organizations, sects, and individuals who have increased their standards of regularity, cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control. Thus the average rate of mortality has been raised nearly 2%. An interesting fact which is new to the majority of persons is this, that the whole sect of Friends, or Quakers, live an average of 58 years per individual. In the thirty-two years from 1850 to 1882 they raised the average six years, or about one year in five. With this ratio, which is itself increasing, the plurality of Quakers will be centenarians in less than two hundred years—in half that time if assisted by the world at large. By the foregoing it will be seen that the whole organization of Friends live 70% longer than the general age allotted to mankind, which includes them to make up the universal rate. Another noticeable feature in connection with the Quakers' life is this, the deaths among them average 18 in every thousand; in the general population, 22 per thousand; while the amount given to charities per inhabitant in that sect is $7.78, and in the total population the average is $1.46. Why this difference in longevity to so marked a degree?

The prohibitionist will give this reason, that the Friends dissipate less; the religionists will say they are more truthful, more godly. While each of the aforementioned reasons have a healthful tendency, there is a more scientific conclusion, for it is a well-known fact that there are thousands of cases of longevity of men and women who lack every moral principle, and dissipate all their lives. The scientist comes to our rescue. He tells us that the Quaker's life is prolonged by his methodical way of living, evenness of temperament, wearing the same weight of clothing, allowing nothing to furrow the brow, regularity of sleeping, drinking, exercising, and eating. He takes no food or drink into his stomach above 100° or below 50° Fahr. Boiling hot soup and frozen ice-cream are unknown in a Quaker family. This might convey the idea that ice-cream is foresworn by them. Not entirely so. They use the same good judgment in that as in every other indulgence, allowing the cream to rise in temperature from 10° to 15° above the freezing point, to soft consistency, before it is taken into the stomach. Dr. Ufflemann, a German physician of authority, draws some important conclusions from his own experiments and those of others. The rules laid down are briefly:—

1. That, in general, a temperature of food which approaches that of the blood is most healthful.

2. For quenching the thirst the best temperature is from 50° Fahr. to 68° Fahr. Americans prefer about 40°.

3. The gulping down of ice-water or hot coffee, etc., means eventually a stomach damnation.

4. The use of very hot and cold substances, following or alternating, is injurious to the teeth.

5. Ingestion of cold food and drinks lessens the bodily temperature, whether it be normal or febrile.

6. Cold food and drinks increase the tendency to cough, by causing, reflexly, a congestion of the bronchial vessels. Hence persons with bronchial disease ought not to indulge in cold drinks.

The habits of indulgence in alcoholic drinks, tobacco, opium, and other narcotics or stimulants, have less to do than is generally supposed with longevity, but much to do with happiness, while their abuse or irregularity determines all for health, happiness, and longevity combined. Temperance men and moralists will take issue with me, and undertake to prove that any quantity, no matter how small, of either alcohol, tobacco, or opium will shorten life; but the facts will not sustain the assertion. It is the irregularity with which the body is treated, either by outward application or bathing, in eating, sleeping, or excess in all vices. For health, a regular gratification in the full list of vices is better than having no vices—such as are so termed by the world—and being irregular in everything else. While I do not believe in practising any form of vice, yet the man who takes six drinks of alcoholic spirits in reasonable quantities at fixed intervals each day, smokes six cigars—two after each meal—chews three ounces of tobacco with the same punctuality every day, eats his meals slowly and at stated periods, sleeps from 8-1/2 to 9 hours per night between the same hours, will outlive the man who neither smokes, chews, or drinks, but does eat and sleep irregularly, and lies awake all night hating his neighbor for his immoralities. He gets thin and haggard, followed by all the weaknesses to which his system is heir; while the other man, with his evenness of nature, habits, and dissipations, enjoys health, becomes fat, and lives to the proverbial good old age.

Here, then, my reader, we have the explanation why a man may live through dissipation all his life, and then die only by accident at 80 or 100 years of age. A beggar, miser, or hermit may by degrees contract the habit of filthiness, non-bathing, scantiness of food and improper clothing, with such regularity that he will outlive all his friends and relatives, and be chronicled at his death as one of the centenarians. As an interesting fact, we state that in 1888 a beggar, aged 84, in Perth, Hungary, tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Danube because he was no longer able to support his father and mother, who were 115 and 110 years old respectively! Poisons may be taken in infinitesimal doses for a while, then increasing by degrees until twenty grains of morphia or strychnia may be taken at a single dose without immediate injury. There is at least one case of positive record in Colusa County, of this State.

In closing this chapter we wish to call attention to a reasonable result of true system, or regularity. Here is a convict in the State prison. Before he was incarcerated his health was imperfect, and he wore a sallow, dejected look; but behold him after six months of strict penitentiary discipline; he is a well man, fat and sleek—no longer a semi-invalid. There are exceptions, but they are due to melancholy generally. A soldier after he enlists, unless he is exposed to the constant privations of protracted war, throws off most defects in his physique. You must know the cause; it is the compulsory regulation of diet and clothing. Cleanliness and regularity are forced upon them, showing it to be just what they needed.

CHAPTER III.

The detail of how I treated each of the maladies might not interest the reader, and is too long a story to relate in this work. The principal things done in each case, however, will be chronicled under their proper heads in the second part of this work. See index. I do not now smoke, chew, nor drink intoxicants; the latter I did to a limited degree, and the former to excess, for a number of years, up to the close of 1869. On the 31st day of December of that year—the day I smoked my last cigar—I bought twenty-five cigars and smoked twenty-three of them. My cigar bill that year averaged $2.50 per day, and ran as high as $4.00. Having dissipated, and had nearly every form of disease, I speak from my own thorough experience and not from that of anyone else. Why should not my story, then, have a beneficial influence? If any man knows how he can improve the welfare of his fellows, it is his duty to spread the information. True it is that many of the quasi reformers, or informers, are cranks or dreamers; but we wish the fact distinctly understood and appreciated that we come not under that category. We raise no false standard; we send forth no untried hypothesis. There is a man in a New England State who annually lectures on agriculture, writes special and general articles for the country papers on the most improved methods of farming, appears before legislative committees as a successful tiller of the soil. But, alas! what superficiality is contained in this man's brain. His house is a barn, his garden a chicken-yard, his orchard a forest, and his meadow a pasture. There are like phantasmagoric geniuses interested in the health question. We simply say, Trust them not. Shun them and their advice as you would the presence and enticings of a bunco steerer. But you will get impatient to learn in what consists cleanliness, regularity, and temperance if I do not proceed. Indeed, I think I can hear some of you say, "I neither chew, drink, smoke, eat irregularly, or miss my stipulated number of hours in bed; yet I have all manner of aches and pains, and many lingering maladies." If such be the case, you do not understand the true principle and its practical application of cleanliness. A word here in regard to bathing. There is no doubt we all should bathe at least once a day. It should be done either at retiring or rising. If a warm or hot bath, at night; if cold or sponge bath, in the morning. Of course, if a person is not accustomed to a cold sponge bath, or is quite nervous, he must not attempt it too strongly at first. Commence and advance by gradation. Almost anything can be done to which an individual is unaccustomed if regular steps are taken towards the end, and not one leap. Whether it be beneficial or destructive, invigorating or poisoning, gradation will accomplish the end.

Madame Patti, who always has been obliged to take the greatest care of herself, gives this warning, which may not be out of place: "Take plenty of exercise, take it in the open air, take it alone, and breathe with the mouth closed. Live on simple food; all the fruit and rare beef you want, very little pastry, a glass of claret for dinner, coffee in moderation, but never a sip of beer, because it thickens the voice and stupefies the senses. Keep regular hours for work, meals, rest, and recreation, and never under any circumstances indulge in the fashionable habit of eating late suppers. If you want to preserve the beauty of face, and the priceless beauty of youth, keep well, keep clean, keep erect, and keep cool." Without being didactic, let me detail to you a few things you should and should not do; and all of which I carry out to the letter:—

Adopt some style of clothing so that even if you change the color the weight will be about the same.

Wear no overcoat, overshoes, nor gloves; in their place wear a sufficiently heavy suit when it is warm, so as to have enough on when it is cold. By wearing a chest protector fore and aft of the lungs, made of chamois and flannel, over the under-garment and under the shirt, you will never take cold through your lungs.

Have good, thick-soled boots—and always of the same thickness—and you will not take cold through your feet.

Have a hat always of the same weight, and that should be light, with ventilators in the top or sides. If you do not wear your hat at the lunch table, or in your place of business, you will not catch cold in your head.

A large list of accessories accompany the above:—

Never sit at your desk or home fireside with the same coat which you use on the street. In its place have one 50 per cent lighter for such occasions and positions.

Never sleep in your under-garments, nor in any other clothing that you carry during the day. The reason is strong and obvious. Your covering in the course of the day receives all the perspiration and surface deposit of the skin, which amounts to considerable in sixteen hours. This must have a chance to escape or be absorbed by the air. The amount is only increased by wearing the same garments at night. Have a good warm night-shirt, and a clean one at least every week.

Do not sleep in a room without having the windows down from the top to some extent. If there be six, lower three of them.

If you sleep with a companion and do not know anything about animal magnetism, find out through someone who does know. Ascertain which of you is more positive, and govern yourself accordingly. I find best results for me in sleeping with my head north, and on the west side of a negative companion. This principle of magnetism is too little observed. Yet it applies to all persons at all times. Naturally some individuals are more magnetic than others, that is, more positive. Usually, if not always, the more masculine, swarthy, is the more positive, while the light-haired and eyed are negative. Sleep invariably with your head towards the north if you are positive, towards the west if you are negative, but never in any case towards the east or south.

These conclusions are based wholly on scientific reasons, and anyone who understands physics will see the cogency of our statements.

As a preventative against anything that has once been in my stomach rising and remaining on the tongue, I use a piece of ordinary whalebone to curry it every morning, from end to end. This will tend to purify the breath, sweeten the mouth, and aid mastication.

My tooth brush, after using, is so thoroughly cleansed and dried that anyone acquainted with the facts would hardly believe it had been used.

There are millions of particles of dust, atoms, microbes, or any other name you may use, that collect upon your person and clothing hourly. If your garments be tattered and torn, or patched and glazed, this will not shorten your life or lessen your appetite; but I assure you, if you will use up a 15-cent whisk-broom twice a year, in brushing yourself from head to foot before each meal, there will be less to fall upon your food, and thus find its way to your stomach, and your days will be prolonged in exact ratio.

CHAPTER IV.

Another case of excessive politeness is when a gentleman or lady continues chatting ten minutes in the hall after he or she must go immediately. Then at the door after they have walked out, you, in dressing-gown and slippers, stand on the cold marble step in a driving fog for twenty minutes more, to hear the latest gossip—too polite to slam the door in their faces, or excuse it as an accident.

But the politeness that kills faster than any other is that of the consumptive, bronchially-affected, or catarrhal patient. He will sit at the table, or in company, and, out of pure politeness, swallow the mucus and other impurities that arise in his throat—too polite to use a cuspidor or excuse himself by withdrawing to another room or the open air, and clear his throat. A great many people are accustomed to expectorate into their handkerchiefs. This is a baneful practice. Just as soon as that gets dry which they have thrown up from their lungs, innumerable microbes of deadly effect escape and do extensive harm. Avoid this habit and use the cuspidor or step out-of-doors. It is not unreasonable to believe that 50 per cent of all the consumptives would recover if they would, by care and cleanliness, see that no particle of mucus once away from the lungs should ever go back down the throat, and observe other points regarding apparel and cleanliness mentioned in the first part of this work.

We have already devoted some space to what we should and should not do. All that, however, is but a small part of a life which will continually experience health, happiness, and longevity. We trust you do not simply read these statements not intending to test their value. It is not unlikely that many of you from your course or line of business will find it eminently difficult to absolutely follow our instructions. Be that as it may, come as approximately as you can, and there will positively result an improvement in your physical condition, a progression in your happiness, and a realization of longevity. The remainder of this chapter will be occupied by a program, or rather set of formula of what is necessary to aid you in keeping well, living long and happily.

Keep your bowels open and regular in action. This you can do, if irregular or constipated, by taking a few drops of water in your right hand every morning and rubbing the bowels in a circular motion from right to left, until a friction is produced and the moisture gone. From six to ten separate passages of the hand over the bowels is usually sufficient, and the object will be accomplished. Each day this is repeated; in a very short time you will be all right in this particular, and will not require even this effective medicine. You must be aware that a score of maladies are kept at bay by the regularity of the bowels. This fact cannot be too strongly impressed on mankind in general. It is very seldom indeed that you come upon a man who is well with a bad digestive apparatus; but, again, he who possesses a strong stomach and is moderate and regular in eating is almost invariably characterized with a vigorous constitution. Disease finds no place to locate upon or in him. There is no doubt the American people eat too fast, and that is why so many die so soon. The system is worn out when it should be ready to do its best work. If all the men and women in this country would eat 50% slower they would live 25% longer. Of this we have no doubt—nor do you, reader.

Sleep eight hours every night, between the same hours, as nearly as possible, in a room well ventilated from the top of the window. If your room is small you will require more ventilation than if it is large; in this case use more clothing on the bed. If possible have a bowl or basin of water uncovered in the room, but the next morning do not either drink or wash your face in the water that has stood exposed all night. To drink it is slow suicide; to wash in it is unhealthy.

In the morning scrape the tongue with a strip of whalebone, as before mentioned; brush the teeth with a good stiff clean tooth-brush, up and down, but not across; note this latter proposition, there is reason for it. By perpendicular brushing the bristles or hairs get in between the teeth, where much sediment is left, and the gums are not made sore. This is the best method also to prevent tartar forming. Gargle the throat with clean water three or four times; then, if you have it at hand, drink about three swallows of cool filtered water; if not near go thirsty until it is. Never take a drink of water, whether you be sick or well, without first gargling the throat with at least one swallow and spitting it out. Do you think filtering of reservoir or general city water is necessary? If not, then make a microscopic examination, and any skepticism will be entirely removed. It is a prominent fact in science to-day that almost all diseases and troubles are started or promulgated by microbes and bacilli. There are often enough of these in one swallow of water to poison a whole family. Then take a moist towel and apply it to every part of your body; follow this with a vigorous rubbing with a dry towel. A sponge bath is recommended by many physicians. This is all right for the first time, but from that on the sponge begins to get foul, not from necessity, but because not one person in fifty will wash and thoroughly dry the sponge. In any other case it is a disease breeder. Perforated with so many cells and passages, intricate and numberless, it is not surprising that it should be the residence of much that is dangerous.

During the time of your bath you should close the windows of your room to exclude the cold draughts—in any part of the country where the atmosphere moves over two miles per hour—but not the sun. After this lower or raise your window to the height or level of the eyes, and proceed to enjoy a breathing exercise. This is done by first exhausting all the air from the lungs through the mouth, then inhale, slowly, through the nasal organs to the full capacity of the lungs. Do this three times or more each morning. If your lungs are not too weak, tap with your fingers on your chest while it is inflated. This will tend to develop your capacity of breathing wonderfully. The gentle percussion thus effected is quite exhilarating. Practice yourself also in holding your breath for a prolonged interval, but always draw in air through your nostrils; they strain out all impurities.

You are now ready for your breakfast; but, perhaps you say, I am a workingman and have not the time. To such I would reply: I go through all these duties in one hour's time, and if belated I accomplish it in forty minutes. If I have to take a train at 5 a. m., I see that I am called at 4 a. m., at least, and enjoy my regular time for toilet. I would advise those of you who think you have not time, to go to bed that much earlier. Even if you are to travel, by using my method of preparation you will not experience that tired, disagreeable, restless feeling that will otherwise come. You all know how intensely that feeling acts to destroy all your pleasure until the day is half over and it is worn away. Employ common-sense ways and you will be as fresh at 6 as at 12 o'clock. Your lips will not be blue, your skin cold, your teeth unclean, your mouth dry, your eyes red, and your whole self out of sorts as it were.

CHAPTER V.

Some foods are particularly muscle formers, others produce fat, and still others brain and nerve, while most of the common articles of diet combine these uses in varying degrees.

But the question to cover our entire physical needs requires to be broadened into this: What combination of food will best nourish the body? Even then the answer must be modified to suit individual cases, for the digestive power differs greatly in different persons. Moreover, there is an interdependence between the different bodily organs and tissues, so that the body must be built up as a whole. If one part lacks the whole suffers, and if one part is overfed the others will be underfed.

Thus a person who becomes unduly fat loses in muscular fiber, either in quantity or quality. One who overfeeds the brain loses in muscular strength. So, too, muscular development may be carried to such excess as to impoverish the brain, and also to reduce the fat of the body below what is necessary both as surplus food laid up for emergencies, and as a protection against sudden changes of temperature.

The best food for producing muscle, therefore, must, while being duly appetizing, contain a large per cent of nitrates for the muscles, of phosphates for the brain and nerves, and of carbonates for the fat.

Of nitrates, beans stand at 24 per cent, then peas at 22, cabbage and salmon at 20, oats at 17, eggs and veal at 16, and beef at 15.

Of phosphates, salmon stands first at 7, then codfish at 6, beef and eggs at 5, beans and veal at 4, and cabbage, peas, and oats at 3.

Of carbonates, butter stands at the head at 100, rice at 80, corn and rye at 72, wheat at 69, oats at 66, peas at 60, beans at 57, and cabbage at 46.

Fresh codfish fried in fat or served with butter gravy about equals beef in all respects, and so do eggs fried in fat. But we must add:—

The mere eating of food cannot make muscle. The muscles must be called into vigorous daily exercise, yet without overdoing.

Excessive eating is weakening, and must be avoided. It is the amount digested and assimilated that tells, not the quantity taken into the stomach.

All the laws of health must be steadily observed. We are in favor of a diet that excludes meat entirely; and once a day should be the excess of those who indulge in the flesh-eating luxury. A suspicion that there is a difference between merely getting food down into the stomach and its digestion, is abroad, and that a peach, an orange, an apple, a spoonful of flour, or something similar, which is digested, is really better for a man than a beefsteak, which simply passes through the alimentary canal. See "Food" for further consideration of vegetarianism.

For breakfast have any of the numerous preparations of mush, such as oatmeal, cracked wheat, and germea, every other day some kind of fish; of the miscellaneous, potatoes baked or boiled, eggs poached, boiled, or omelette, and natural fruit; of drinks, water, filtered or boiled, and not below 56° Fahr., milk, pure and sweet but not cream, cocoa, chocolate, tea, or coffee. These are good and beneficial in the order they are placed. The following from the N. Y. Medical Record is invaluable information:—

"Stimulants (drink most healthful).—Milk heated to much above 100 degrees Fahrenheit loses for a time a degree of its sweetness and density. No one who, fatigued by over-exertion of body or mind, has ever experienced the reviving influence of a tumbler of this beverage, heated as warm as it can be sipped, will willingly forego a resort to it because of its being rendered somewhat less acceptable to the palate. The promptness with which its cordial influence is felt is indeed surprising. Some portion of it seems to be digested and appropriated almost immediately, and many who now fancy they need alcoholic stimulants when exhausted by fatigue will find in this simple draught an equivalent that will be abundantly satisfying and far more enduring in its effects. There is many an ignorant overworked woman who fancies she could not keep up without her beer; she mistakes its momentary exhilaration for strength, and applies the whip instead of nourishment to her poor, exhausted frame. Any honest, intelligent physician will tell her that there is more real strength and nourishment in a slice of bread than in a quart of beer; but if she loves stimulants it would be a very useless piece of information. It is claimed that some of the lady clerks in our own city, and those too who are employed in respectable business houses, are in the habit of ordering ale or beer at the restaurants. They probably claim that they are 'tired,' and no one who sees their faithful devotion to customers all day will doubt their assertions. But they should not mistake beer for a blessing or stimulus for strength. A careful examination of statistics will prove that men and women who do not drink can endure more hardships, and do more work, and live longer, than those less temperate."

If you must eat meat for breakfast, have your steak rare, mutton chops well done; if fish, always well done; and if each are fried, use butter, not lard—the same applies to everything else that has to be fried. All meats are sweeter and more healthful broiled than fried. Of bread, for health, natural graham comes first; and, in order of nutrition, corn, corn and wheat mixed, rye, and wheat. They should be taken cold and at least twenty-four hours after baking. If the midday meal is a lunch, all dishes should be cold. It can be made up largely from dishes left over from the morning meal, such as cold cracked wheat with milk, natural fruit; add nuts, sauces, jellies, and prepared fruit.

If dinner is taken at noon instead of lunch at that hour, any one of the score of vegetable soups are first in value; all other kinds are secondary; let there be from three to six kinds of vegetables cooked; any of the drinks mentioned for breakfast may be used, but none of them iced; cold bread, and no pastry unless an open pie with unshortened undercrust. An excellent morsel for dyspeptics is sea biscuit dipped in cold water and then placed in a hot oven from three to five minutes. If meat is to be a portion of this meal, you can have beef, mutton, or venison, roasted or broiled, the former rare, and the two latter well done. Provided dinner is enjoyed at the close of the day, it should occur before 5:30 p. m.; if at midday, then the lunch meal can be renamed supper, and can be partaken of as late as 6 or 7 p. m. Let there be no eating two meals for Sundays and holidays, and three for other days, or indulging in them at later hours in the morning and earlier in the evening; for this irregularity will detriment more than many kinds of improper food.

Do not eat fresh pork, for this and every other kind of swine flesh is an abomination. Eat no kidney, liver, or tripe; deal sparingly with fowl and all the bird family. Outside impure water and uncleanliness, there can be but one cause for skin diseases, eczema, boils, and the dread leprosy, which is the eating of pork, kidney, liver, duck, etc. If the lion indiscriminately kills and eats all kinds of flesh, and thereby is made ferocious, if the lamb is rendered passive and inoffensive by grasses and grains, then what the swine or different domestic fowls eat must have something to do with the make-up of the flesh of their bodies. The hog is the most filthy animal of that nature, while chicken and duck are the most so in the line of fowls used by man for food. It is offensive but true that they will not only eat but relish both their own and man's excrement.

We cannot use space foolishly, if we show plainly why pork should be abandoned. Did you ever stop to think on what most swine live? Swill is the most common term for it. Anything and everything that is the refuse of a boarding-house will they eagerly devour. Give them rotten apples and potatoes, full of innumerable microbes, and they will relish the repast. Place them in a dung heap—they will root, and eat much of what they find. Now all meat, all flesh and tissue, is made from what an animal or person eats—if he doesn't eat he grows thin and starves. Then the hog's flesh is made from elements derived from swill, decayed substances, and everything either cooked, uncooked, or even digested, that man is through with or has cast off. You who eat pork relish that which once you have refused to eat—only in another form. Can you enjoy this meat when you consider all this? Surely its use means bad health and contamination. Skin diseases and poor complexions are found almost entirely among those who live on these improper foods. Again, even if you feed swine on clean corn, milk, and water, we ascertain by careful experiment and examination that pork is most susceptible to bacteria of almost any meat. Better boycott it altogether. Leprosy and skin troubles are found largely among pork-eating people—such as the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, where there are 749 lepers. On the other hand, Jews, who everywhere are marked with clear skins, avoid pork. In Constantinople there are 250 lepers, in Crete upwards of 3,000, and quantities in the islands of eastern Mediterranean Sea, and 1,000 in Norway. These places are all characterized by the great amount of pork, and duck too, that they consume.

Other things not good for invalids, and will make strong persons invalids, are: Fried potatoes, hot cakes, warm bread, pound cake, green cucumbers, and rich pie-crust. Eat only those things that will excite the salivary glands to assist digestion. The walls, not the center of the alimentary canal, need attention.

Have your soup cool enough so that it will not cause tears in your eyes when you swallow—same with your coffee, tea, and other warm drinks; take no ice drinks; if you are used to having water only with your meals, drink it warm with sugar and milk, and not hot. If you are obliged to live in a second-class boarding-house or restaurant, and are obliged to take one of three meals each day at such a place, insist on having a napkin. Use it first to wipe your glass for water, then follow by polishing every utensil set before you for use at your meal. If note is taken of the napkin before and after each meal, you will be able by a mathematical calculation to tell just how much real estate did not belong to you.

How you should eat: Begin with one swallow of cool water. Eat slowly; take full 20 minutes for a hurried meal, and 45 minutes when you have the time. If you eat beefsteak, have it rare; if mutton chops, have them well done; if fish, well done and brown; if potatoes, first choice, baked; second, boiled; third, stewed or mashed. Never eat decayed vegetables or fruit; have them fresh or do without them. At table, see that the conversation is pleasant and mirthful. Should any of the younger members of the family insist, at each meal, in changing this order of things, cause them for a short season to sit at a separate table in the kitchen, until this sort of disease—for disease it is—may be cured. Nothing retards digestion, brings dyspepsia, or creates neuralgia, to such extent as a sullen disposition. We will end this chapter with a remarkably bright paraphrase on the ten commandments, which we recently ran across:—

THE TEN HEALTH COMMANDMENTS.

"1. Thou shalt have no other food than at meal-time.

"2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any pies, or put into pastry the likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not fall to eating it or trying to digest it. For the dyspepsia will be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that eat pie; and long life and vigor upon those that live prudently and keep the laws of health.

"3. Remember thy bread to bake it well; for he will not be kept sound that eateth his bread as dough.

"4. Thou shalt not indulge sorrow or borrow anxiety in vain.

"5. Six days shalt thou wash and keep thyself clean, and the seventh thou shalt take a great bath; thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days man sweats and gathers filth and bacteria enough for disease; wherefore the Lord has blessed the bath-tub and hallowed it.

"6. Remember thy sitting-room and bed-chamber to keep them ventilated, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

"7. Thou shalt not eat hot biscuit.

"8. Thou shalt not eat thy meat fried.

"9. Thou shalt not swallow thy food unchewed, or highly spiced, or just before hard work, or just after it.

"10. Thou shalt not keep late hours in thy neighbor's house, nor with thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his cards, nor his glass, nor with anything that is thy neighbor's."—New England Farmer.

With the use of the foregoing as a guide, and ordinary judgment in the affairs with your fellow-men, life will run smoothly, happiness will follow, and a long life be the result.

CHAPTER VI.

It took me 30 years, 25 of which I spent ascertaining the way. If someone could have informed me, as this book does you, I would have enjoyed full health twenty-five years earlier than I did. Anyone observing the rules I have recounted can restore a broken-down constitution in less than 5 years—yes, even if one foot is already in the grave! Soon you will begin to lift it out, and it will be a long period before you will take that step again. I do not exaggerate when I state that I had both feet in the grave. Fortunately, however, my head was above-ground, and I began to reason how to get the rest of myself away. The secret was discovered, the causes set to work, and finally the end achieved. To use another figure, my coffin had many nails already driven in it when I secured a clincher, pulled them all out, and then split up the old wooden hulk to make fires with which to start the steam of my new energies.

All of my time is employed. I do some sort of laborious work every day to start my blood coursing vigorously, and open the pores of my skin. By a proper adjustment of my under-clothing, I prevent a cold, and am always ready with a good appetite when meal-time comes. I have never studied Anatomy, Medicine, or Surgery, know but little about the niceties of the English language, but I have studied the Materia Medica of myself, and am aware of just what is beneficial and what is injurious for me.

There is a duty each individual owes to his fellow-man, each municipal corporation to its citizens, and each State and general government to those over whom they preside. Every individual should strive to see how much distress he can relieve during his short stay on this earth; how few thorns he has to place in the pathway of others, and how many drops of oil he can pour on the disturbed waters of the ocean of life.

Accidents that are preventable, caused by carelessness, laziness, and ignorance, cost more money, suffering, and life than viciousness and incendiarism, in the ratio of 3 to 1. Every man who builds a mill, manufactory, or a business block, makes his own rate of insurance.

A slight variation in the construction of a building, the omission of certain details, the wrong location of hazardous machinery or materials, or the neglect of cleanliness and order, may very seriously affect the fire hazard, and consequently the rate of insurance which must necessarily attach to the property.

The Fire Losses in the United States amount to $125,000,000 per annum, and the great mass of this enormous loss is chargeable to bad construction of buildings, the lack of necessary apparatus for extinguishing fires, and carelessness in the management of property. The unavoidable losses are few in number; the avoidable, many. Insurance companies restore no value, repair no loss; they can only distribute the loss throughout the community. Careless, ignorant, annihilative, is the term to be applied to 75% of the fire losses. The destruction of life by accidents, where immediate death follows, in the United States is large; but, in comparison with those that assist in shortening life, they are about in the ratio of 1 to 100. Only such persons as have undoubted integrity, coupled with order, cleanliness, and carefulness should be allowed to insure their property, and this should be restricted by law. A certain sect in our population that now have to be charged from 50 to 100% more for insurance than other people, should be stricken from the list of the insured, until they have by personal action abolished this difference in risk.

When the time comes that only such persons as attend to all the details of cleanliness and prevention of the loss of property and health can be insured, the cost will be reduced 50%. Until we are willing, or educated up to that point, to protect our neighbors' lives and property as if they were ours, we must expect to pay this 50% more for everything we have, use, drink, eat, and wear. Longevity will be restricted in the same proportion. Hundreds of accidents would be prevented by proper care. Throwing foolishly the match, cigar, cigarette, etc., any and everywhere, causes great loss of property, and often life; the unthinking eat oranges and bananas in the street and cast underfoot the rinds and skins to cause the next moment the dislocation of a limb, or broken skull. Over 500 accidents have occurred in this city alone during the last 5 years, occasioned by some sort of vegetable or fruit refuse lying upon the pavements; fatal results, though not all immediate, happened to 15 persons, and a number were maimed for life. Broken bottles and glass thrown into the street and on the sidewalks bring about at times frightful accidents to both man and beast; and if a correct report could be had from each livery-man and teamster in this regard, it would startle the most inhuman of our race.

The tax-payer has a tendency to be selfish when he is really doing himself severe injury. It is a case of reflex action. In passing along a thoroughfare he sees a banana skin lying on the sidewalk. He cannot possibly stop or trouble himself to push it into the gutter. Almost immediately another man comes along, steps on the skin, slips, breaks his leg, and is carried to the hospital. He remains there a month, supported by the city, that is, by money paid by the same tax-payer. In this manner, and other ways, can every man act, both selfishly or unselfishly. If selfish in passing this by, it is sure to come back on him a hundred-fold to the original trouble required. His unselfishness will consist in saving his fellow-men from danger by removing the cause. Indeed, he will be selfish if he casts it off for the sake of decreasing his taxation, but such selfish unselfishness will be gladly excused.

Garbage thrown out of back doors or under neighbors' steps creates contagion, and in time the thoughtless individuals fall a prey to their own carelessness. Three out of every five men and five out of every hundred women are ruptured as a result of their own or somebody else's recklessness.

On the top of nearly every house in the section where artesian water is used, there is a tank to receive water for various purposes about each dwelling; much of this is employed for drinking and culinary uses. Without any attempt at a sensation, we pronounce this box or tank a death trap! There is not a clean one in this whole great city, that has an outside exposure, and 9 out of every 10 are reeking with filth. Having had occasion to investigate several I am convinced that they average alike. If so, there are at least 500 tons of concentrated filth playing the part of filters in the tanks of this city alone at this writing! And there is every reason to believe that this city is as clean as the average. Provided this is so, there is enough of such refuse in the United States to dam the Mississippi River many times and build a levee across Lake Erie.

Health officers may keep their own tanks clean in the future, but if individuals desire health and abolition of the need of Health Boards, let them keep their own tanks, back yards, streets, and pavements neat. Municipal corporations should prevent by law the throwing of any kind of rubbish into the streets, and make it a misdemeanor for the proprietors allowing any of their mercantile houses, work-shops, or residences to be found filthy, and there are thousands of them in this city. To avoid accidents, every man, woman, and child should be compelled to pass to their right on the street. Every person in every city not having a legitimate vocation in the eyes of the law, nor an income from property or money in the bank, should, if criminally inclined, be sent to the House of Correction. If poor and willing to work, they ought to be put to work in the public streets and in the parks, to beautify them, for the benefit of the frugal classes. No begging should be allowed, under penalty of imprisonment. That a city may escape being overrun by country tramps, their entrance should be quarantined.

To stop contagion, public crematories should be established and cremation of the human and animal bodies be compulsory. If the principal church and secret organizations will now change their rituals so as to permit of the incineration of the bodies of their deceased members, the world will have advanced 100 years before the close of this century and the average duration of life at that date will have increased from 34.8 to 40 years. It is needful that the false sentiment regarding the disposition of our dead should undergo a complete revolution. There could probably be no better aid to this end than a general investigation of the mortuary records of the towns and cities of the globe, by proper officials, the facts and discoveries of whom should be given all possible publicity. An hundred or so years ago this was not so much a matter of importance as now, with a greater and increasing density of population, by virtue of which a great portion of the habitable earth is fast becoming a mass of putrifying corruption, that will involve at no distant time the world in pestilence, woe, and desolation.

The recent official return on the condition of the London cemeteries is, or should be, sufficient to cause all reasonable persons to cry out for the crematory. In Brompton Cemetery, with an area of twenty-eight and three-fourths of an acre, there have been buried in less than fifty years one hundred and fifty-five thousand bodies. In Tower Hamlets Cemetery, with twelve acres less, in about the same time, the number is two hundred and forty-seven thousand.

When it is remembered how perfectly unfitted the soil of these districts is for burial purposes, together with the means so largely employed for preventing speedy decomposition, one may readily imagine the danger that menaces those above this still-increasing mass of sub-pollution.

Multiply the condition of the London suburbs by several hundred thousand more, and then ponder the product! Talk about sanitary regulations, when our public health laws are violated thus, and the air and water poisoned as a result of the superstitious custom of body burial! When pestilence stalks abroad, it is said to be planetary influence or divine wrath! The following from the Springfield Republican will indicate the current of public opinion:—

"That the custom of burying the dead is bound to be superseded by more scientific and economical methods, especially in the centers of population, may be seen in the reanimation of the old scheme of desiccation by New York capitalists. These men are not yet ready to accept cremation. Their project is to build mausoleums as substitutes for cemeteries, where the body will be subjected to the absorbent action of currents of pure, dry air, which will prevent decomposition, and, by thoroughly exhausting the body of moisture and gases, carry away all germs of disease. These air currents, thus laden, will then pass through furnaces, where all noxious elements will be destroyed. The lifeless form will be reduced in weight about two-thirds and nearly one-half in size. Resting in a sepulcher, it may then be preserved for an indefinite period. As explained in detail, with particulars of the beauty of the buildings thrown in, this scheme has advantages compared with the undesirable method in vogue, though it is less thorough and simple than cremation. A promoter of the enterprise in speaking of the desiccated body says that 'although shrunken, still, with the semblance of life, it is an object that the eye of affection can look upon without a shock, and the sanitarian can think of without a shudder.' In essence, however, the scheme is simply a concession to a public, not yet educated to the idea of cremation. While appropriating enough of the latter system to solve the question of public health, it caters to the human sentimentalities in preserving at half size the dead form. Upon these sentiments, summed up as the 'instinct of humanity,' the promoters of the new system base their hopes of profit. Besides advancing in its favor all the arguments used for cremation, its friends add that in the desiccating process no danger can exist of suspended animation escaping notice."

Public fountains should be established in every other block of cities or towns having over 1,000 inhabitants, with best-devised filters known, so that both man and beast could enjoy pure water to drink, free for the taking. During epidemics it should be not only compulsory in municipalities to have water filtered in each house before drinking, but it should be boiled. Every house ought to have a filter. If you cannot afford a $40 one, you can secure one for 40 cents.