A Handbook of Health

What Causes Disease. The commonest and most dangerous accident that is likely to happen to you is to catch some disease. Fortunately, however, this is an accident that is as pre...

Free Air is Pure. As air, in the form of wind, actually sweeps all outdoors, day and night, it clearly is likely to pick up a good many different kinds of dust and dirt, which m...

Why the Eyes, Ears, and Nose are Near the Mouth. If you had no eyes, ears, or nose, you might just as well be dead; and you soon would be, if you had no one to feed you and guid...

Ordinarily, Accidents are not Serious. Accidents will happen--even in the best regulated families! While taking all reasonable care to avoid them, it is not best to worry too an...

1. What is the best insurance against accidents? 2. Why do most cuts and scratches heal quickly, while some others do not? 3. What kind of dirt is dangerous to wounds? 4. If you...

The Popularity of Beverages. For some curious reason, the habit has grown up of taking a large part of the six glasses of water that we require daily in the form of mixtures kno...

The Need of Water in the Body-Engine. If you have ever taken a long railway journey, you will remember that, about every two or three hours, you would stop longer than usual at...

Clothes should be Loose and Comfortable. Man is the only animal that has no natural suit of clothing. Birds have feathers, and animals have fur, or hair, which they shed in summ...

The Energy in Food and Fuel. The first question that arises in our mind on looking at an engine or machine of any sort is, What makes it go? If we can succeed in getting an answ...

What the Skin Is. The skin is the most wonderful and one of the most important structures in the body. We are prone to think lightly of it because it lies on the surface, and to...

Erect Position is the Result of Vigorous Health. Naturally and properly, an erect, graceful figure and a good carriage have always been keenly desired; and much attention has be...

The Brain. We are exceedingly proud of our brain and inclined to regard it as the most important part of our body. So it is, in a sense; for it is the part which, through its co...

Where the Body Does its Real Eating. When once the food has been dissolved in the food-tube and absorbed by the cells of its walls, the next problem is how it shall be sent all...

Kinds of Coal Foods. There are many different kinds of Coal foods, such as pork, mutton, beef, bread, corn-cakes, bacon, potatoes, rice, sugar, cheese, butter, and so on. But wh...

Sources of Starch. The starches are valuable and wholesome foods. They form the largest part, both in bulk and in fuel value, of our diet, and have done so ever since man learne...

Fatigue as a Danger Signal. The chief use of exercise in childhood, whether of body or mind, is to make us grow; but it can do this only by being kept within limits. Within thes...

The Effect of Work upon the Heart. Whatever else in this body of ours may be able to take a rest at times, the heart never can. When it stops, we stop! Naturally, with such a co...

Life is Shown by Breathing. If you wanted to find out whether a little black bunch up in the branches of a tree were a bird or a cluster of leaves, or a brown blur in the stubbl...

Why the Teeth are Important. The teeth are a very important part of our body and deserve far more attention and better care than they usually get. They are the first and most ac...

Importance of the Muscles. It wouldn't be of much use to smell food, if we couldn't pick it up and bite it after we had reached it; or to see danger, if we were not able to move...

The Wastes of the Body. Almost everything that the body does in the process of living means the breaking down, or burning, of food; and produces, like every other kind of burnin...

The Voice, a Waste Product. It is one of the most curious things in this body of ours that what we regard as its most wonderful power and gift, the voice, is, in one sense, a wa...

Generally speaking, our Appetites will Guide us. Our whole body is an ingenious machine for catching food, digesting it, and turning the energy, or fuel value, which it contains...

Why We Cook our Food. While some of all classes of food may be eaten raw, yet we have gradually come to submit most of our foods to the heat of a fire, in various ways; this pro...

The Special Uses of Fruits and Vegetables. We come now to the very much larger but much less important class of foods--the Kindling foods, which help the Coal foods to burn, and...

The Digestibility of Fats. We have now come to the last group of the real Coal foods, namely, the fats. Fats are the "hottest" and most concentrated fuel that we possess, and mi...

What Bones Are. The bones are not the solid foundation and framework upon which the body is built, as they are usually described. They are simply a framework of rods and plates...

The Body-Automobile. If you were to start to-morrow morning on a long-distance ride in an automobile, the first thing that you would do would be to find out just how that automo...

1. What is the "Lookout Department" of the body, and how is the work of this department distributed among the members? 2. Describe the inside structure of the nose. 3. In what s...

1. How may "catching" diseases be prevented? 2. What are disease germs, and how are they named? 3. How do disease germs grow? 4. Why should patients with the "diseases of childh...

1. Why is "caged air" dangerous? 2. How is outdoor air kept clean and pure? 3. What is air made of? 4. In what ways do people poison the air? 5. How do plants help to clean the...

1. Why do we need a system of nerves? 2. What do we mean by motor nerves? by sensory nerves? 3. How is the central system like a telephone office? 4. What does the word ganglion...

1. Where does the real "eating" take place in the body? 2. How is the food carried to these parts? 3. What does the name "artery" mean? 4. What are veins? 5. If you examine bloo...

1. Why is water necessary in the body? 2. How does the body take in water other than by drinking it? 3. Why is this water sure to be pure? 4. Why is drinking water likely to be...

1. What are the uses of the skin to the rest of the body? 2. In what two ways does the skin clean itself? 3. What should we specially avoid in washing or scrubbing the skin? 4....

1. How long can an animal live without eating? 2. How long can an animal live without breathing? 3. Why is your body like a sponge? 4. What are cells? 5. How do they get their f...

1. How can you prove that beverages are not real foods? 2. What is tea? What is coffee? What are chocolate and cocoa? 3. Why are tea and coffee, if stewed, bad for the digestion...

1. How much of the body will muscular exercise develop? 2. Why should exercise and play be in the open air? 3. What is fatigue and what does it mean? 4. Name some games that are...

1. Give four reasons why the teeth are important. 2. To take proper care of the teeth, what other parts of the mouth need attention? 3. Draw a picture of a tooth and label the c...

1. What is muscle? How much of your body weight is made up of the muscles? 2. What two kinds of muscles are there? 3. How do muscles change in shape? 4. What do we mean by volun...

1. Why is it bad for you to study or exercise while you are eating, or right after eating? 2. How does overwork, or over-training, affect the heart? 3. What kind of play or exer...

1. Describe the arches of the feet and tell what they are for. 2. Describe the kind of shoe you ought to wear. 3. Do you grow while asleep? 4. How much sleep do you need? 5. Are...

1. Name four processes that take place in the living body. 2. What two kinds of waste do these processes cause? 3. What is the name of the "body smoke"? 4. How is the body smoke...

1. How is the voice a waste product? 2. What are the conditions required to make a good voice? 3. Are great singers usually strong? Why? 4. How was the windpipe made into the vo...

1. What is the necessity of fruits and vegetables in our dietary? Why especially in summer? 2. Give some idea of the food value of fruits as compared with bread and meat. 3. Nam...

1. What are the bones? 2. Make a rough sketch of the human skeleton. 3. In what sense are the bones the tools of the muscles? 4. How are the bones of the skull arranged? 5. Give...

1. Why are fats slow of digestion? 2. If they are so valuable as "coal foods," why do we not eat more of them at a meal? 3. Give some reasons for carrying fats as food supply on...

1. Explain the name "starch-sugars." To which class of fuel-food might we say that they belong? 2. Why are they cheaper than meat? 3. Why must these foods be ground and cooked?...

1. Why is the skin so important? 2. Name some of the things that it does. 3. How many layers has it? Describe each. 4. What glands are found in the skin? 5. What is sweat, or pe...

1. What changes occur in food when it is cooked? Describe some of the changes. 2. What are the advantages of cooking meats and vegetables? 3. Why is it necessary that food shoul...

1. Name and describe our most common meats. 2. When is pork a valuable food? 3. Why do we digest it slowly? 4. Why should we eat fish only once or twice a week? 5. What food-stu...

1. If we call the body an engine, what is the fuel? what is the smoke? what are the ashes? 2. Why and how far can we rely upon our natural desires and appetites for food? 3. How...