Part 11

A third manner in which exercise directly assists the battle of the blood is by increasing heart action and deep breathing. Exercises which accomplish these functions insure an abundant supply of oxygen to the blood and the tissues. In this manner, more heat will be produced in the active tissues, and the blood current will carry this beneficial glow of heat to the most distant parts. This toning up of the “heating system” will be evidenced by the appearance of perspiration. When skin and lung activity are thus increased, the accumulated wastes of the body are quickly eliminated.

The person who takes vigorous exercise in the open air such as playing games like tennis or golf, or who walks vigorously, will have no need for formal breathing exercises. For those, however, who cannot readily obtain outdoor exercises the natural way, the following chest movements and breathing exercises are recommended. They should be taken with the body free from tight clothing, and either in the open air or a well-ventilated room. First, raise the hands above the head as far as they can reach, and then bring them forward and upward several times, and then upward and downward on the side of the head, inhaling on the uplifting of the arms, exhaling on the sinking of the arms. When the arms are lifted above the head, opportunity is given for the air inhaled to reach the upper part of the lungs, parts which in the sedentary person are very rarely used, and where usually the germs of tuberculosis begin their evil work. Arm extension forward, breathing deeply with arms carried sideward and backward, at shoulder height. If those who exercise in their rooms will be careful to breathe only through the nose and will keep the head erect, they will find that the performance of almost any set of exercises will serve also as breathing exercises, since they will increase lung activity.

XIII

BATHING AND CLEANLINESS

The soldiers of the body which carry on for us the battle against disease, old age, and death, have as great and as constant a need of water as do the human soldiers, part of whose equipment is always the indispensable canteen. Water is needed by the body in many ways, but it is especially required by the blood. Water is the solvent in which float the white and red corpuscles of the blood, and the many nutritive elements which the blood carries through the body, and the particles of waste material which it bears to the lungs to be burnt up, or to the other excretory organs to be ejected. By the aid of water, the minute particles of food which are broken up and transformed by the chemical processes of the body are conveyed to the most distant fibre of the intricate human mechanism, wherever repair or new growth is required. No other element of nature could so well carry on this function as water. It is so limpid and mobile that it can move through the most delicate and intricate network of veins, and can find its way by osmosis or percolation into such parts as are inaccessible by openings.

The human body is constantly throwing off water. A large portion is lost by evaporation from the skin, upon which it is poured out by millions of what might be termed little sewer pipes or sweat ducts, for the purpose of washing away impurities from the system. The kidneys remove a considerable quantity, bearing with it poisonous elements in solution, the product of various vital activities. In other ways water is removed from the body, to the amount of about five pints in twenty-four hours. This loss must be made good in order that the requisite fluidity of the blood shall be maintained; and the need of the body is expressed by thirst. Beverages which contain other substances, as flavor, or as part of some mixed drink, are useful as thirst quenchers just in proportion to the amount of water which they contain.

Physiologists point to the evaporation of water from the surface of the human body as being one of the most perfect adaptations of means to ends exhibited in the whole circle of life. The vital activities of the body occasion the constant production of heat. At times the heat is greater than is needed, and would destroy the vitality of certain tissues if it were not speedily conducted away, just as too much heat in a stove would melt the iron of the stove. The evaporation of water from the skin accomplishes this heat dispersal. When external heat is great, perspiration in the normal, healthy person is more active than when external heat is less than that in the body, and, by this provision of Nature, the temperature of the body is maintained at about 100° Fahrenheit under all circumstances, and thus man is enabled to exist under such great extremes of heat and cold as are found in nature.

There are numerous other ways in which water is essential to the process of life within us. The free drinking of water greatly favors the elimination from the system of the products of waste. It hastens tissue change, and encourages the assimilation of food. And apart from its use internally, it has also a very great value as a means of applying heat to or abstracting it from the body for remedial purposes, to say nothing of the functions it performs as a cleansing agent. Of late years the value of water in therapeutics has become generally recognized by the medical profession, and all over the world its use as an active agent has increased. Indeed, in the view of some physiologists, ordinary pure cold water is by far the most powerful and useful of all known healing agencies. It heals not by any strange or occult power, but by co-operating with the natural forces of the body, by aiding to the utmost those physiological processes by means of which the body sustains itself in health, and resists the encroachments of disease by the means of its bodyguard of blood cells, and by maintaining at its high pitch its innate vital resistance. When the Austrian Priessnitz first began the use of water in his mountain village a century ago, the world believed that the wonderful cures he wrought were accomplished by mystical charms or incantations by which he was supposed to communicate to the water its healing power. Modern science, however, has revealed the secret of water’s potency as a curative agent, and hydrotherapy, or curing by water, is now as well recognized as almost any other branch of medical science.

THE VALUE OF BATHING

The daily cold bath is one of the best ways of keeping the doctor at a distance. Cold water has the property of increasing vital work of all kinds. When it is applied to the skin “impulses are sent inward that awaken every organ of the body,” says Kellogg. Let us see what takes place: when a person dips his body into cold water, as in sea bathing, or when he steps into the bath at home, the first thing he does, which in fact he finds himself doing involuntarily, is to draw in a deep breath.

“Oooh-h-h!” he says, but he says it with an indrawing breath. The lungs swell out, the heart begins to pound away with unusually increased vigor and strength, and every part of the system is stimulated. Cold bathing and deep breathing are two valuable things which go inseparably together. The deep breathing increases lung activity, and the lungs bring in more oxygen; the heart circulates the blood with greater force, and hence more and better blood is carried to every tissue of the body. The result is a stirring up of the bodily forces, and a distribution throughout the system of a larger amount of highly vitalized and oxygenated blood.

It has been shown definitely that cold bathing increases enormously the number of white blood corpuscles in the blood. Whether this result is accomplished by the birth of new cells, or by the calling forward of cells from remote parts of the body into the general stream of the blood, is not generally known; but the fact remains that counts of the blood cells taken just before and just after the body has been stimulated by cold water show a decided increase in the army of the warrior cells.

The benefit of sea bathing comes not from the salt in the air or in the water, as some people suppose, but simply from the cold water. The reaction from the dip into the cold water, which is brought about by the blood rushing to the surface to supply the heat which has been taken from it by the application of the water, is one of the most valuable of all curative processes. It is this reaction that sends the blood cells scurrying actively throughout the whole fortress of the body.

HOW COLD BATHING AIDS NUTRITION

Another way in which the application of cold water promotes the functions of life is by the stimulation of the secretion of gastric juice which it accomplishes. It thus helps on actively the digestive processes by which food is absorbed and taken into the blood. The liver and the salivary glands are stimulated in the same way.

When applied to the face, cold water stirs up the flagging energies of the brain, by invigorating the blood. A dash of cold water upon the chest produces a stimulation of all the bodily forces, which a tired person will find more valuable than any pick-me-up or tonic or cup of tea, or nip of whisky or other alleged stimulant could possibly be. Applied over the heart, this organ is made to beat with greater steadiness and vigor. Application to the stomach causes increased production of pepsin and acid or gastric juices. Over the bowels it stimulates intestinal activity; over the loins it increases the action of the kidneys. A cold compress, or a douch over the liver will cause increased liver activity. Every organ in the interior of the body may be thus aroused to increased activity by a simple application of cold water upon the skin overlying the organ, for thus a rush of blood will be caused to that particular portion. It is necessary that the application should be brief, three or four seconds to as many minutes. These short cold applications of water to the skin will increase immediately the activity of any sluggish part, or of any organ whose function we wish to increase as a means of aiding the body in its battle against the causes of disease.

The whole nervous system derives benefit from the stimulation of brief cold baths. This is one of the most valuable functions of water. Hydrotherapy has come to be a most valuable adjunct to the treatment of all nervous diseases. A slow stomach may be wakened up and set to doing effective work by a general cold bath taken daily, or by a local application of cold water. A cold water bag over the stomach for half an hour just before meal time is a wonderful appetite awakener, which may be used by persons whose circumstances preclude them from the general cold bath and the exercises which cause a natural desire for food.

The best of all prescriptions for cold feet is to stand in very cold water a half inch deep and rub one foot with the other in alternation for five minutes. Hydrotherapy is the principal curative agent employed in the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, and its branches throughout the world, and in his book “Rational Hydrotherapy,” Dr. Kellogg has presented in a shape that makes the knowledge available to everybody the modes of treatment which may be employed at home. “A good way,” says Dr. Kellogg, upon whom we draw for information in the preparation of this chapter, “is to stand in the bath tub with the cold water faucet open and the plug out.” It will not be long before the feet will be red and will fairly burn with the afflux of fresh, warm blood which will rush to the feet.

Hot water can be used in conjunction with cold water, since heat tends to lessen vital work, and so heat may be employed when it is desired to diminish organic activity. Pain is one direct evidence of excessive activity. Heat is nature’s great remedy for internal pain. Heat cuts off the influence of cold and at the same time diverts the blood to the surface of the body. Cold, on the contrary, usually increases pain when the seat of it is some internal organ. Sometimes heat and cold are applied at the same time, as for a toothache, for instance, when a hot fomentation is applied to the cheek and an ice bag to the neck under the jaw. Pain in the pelvis is almost always relieved by a very hot foot bath or leg bath, which relieves the congestion by diverting the blood into the legs, and thus removes the condition which was responsible for the pain.

THE CARE OF THE TEETH

It appears to be a fact that in the United States the profession of dentistry, both mechanical and medical, has been carried to its highest point. No doubt Americans will cheerfully assure themselves that American brains and “bustle” are responsible for this condition. But the truth can not be quite so comforting; the great development of dentistry in this country must be due to the demand for it; and the demand for it evidences a state of affairs that is far from reassuring.

So rapid has been the increase of degeneration of the teeth in modern times, that many physiologists have seriously asked the question, “Will the American race become toothless?” To-day, while artificial teeth are manufactured from such a variety of substances and sold at such a variety of prices, it would seem that Americans are becoming a race of “store teeth” men and women.

As with all other branches of hygiene, dentistry is now beginning to discover the ideal of _prevention_; recognizing that the sanitary care of the mouth is a more important object that the most cunning imitation of teeth, or the most ingenious masterpieces in bridge and crown work. Under the leadership of a man who will be recognized in the future as a pioneer in the cause of health, Dr. D. D. Smith, of Philadelphia, a large and rapidly growing body of dentists have formed what is termed the Prophylactic School, the development of which will result not merely in the prevention of a great deal of disease of the teeth and mouth, but of all the body. Physicians in general, and even most dentists, have only begun to recognize the part which the mouth plays in the causation of diseases.

At the present time, there are, roughly speaking, about 14,000 dentists in the United States, who annually extract twenty million teeth, manufacture and insert three million artificial teeth, and hammer into the cavities of diseased teeth at least three tons of pure gold, to say nothing about the many tons of mercury, tin, and other metals employed in fillings. When the principles of the Prophylactic School spread, it is safe to say that while the importance of the dentist will become even more generally recognized than it is to-day, nevertheless he will pull fewer teeth, and use less gold and other metals. The principle upon which Dr. Smith, and his rapidly growing band of followers, build their work, is an intelligent recognition of the fact that there are in the human mouth to-day, as has been the condition through all the centuries, highly malignant features of general infection and causes of numerous diseases which until now have been wholly unperceived and neglected. The ordinary physician tells his patient to poke out his tongue, when he looks for an index to that patient’s general condition of health, but he does not look above or below or around or about the tongue, where, in a great number of cases he might find not merely the symptoms but the cause of his patient’s ailment.

“THE VESTIBULE OF LIFE”

To show some of the common mouth conditions that make it almost an ideal medium for bacterial culture, we quote the following paragraph from Dr. Smith, adding the fact that his statement is one with which all up-to-date physicians concur:

“The mouth, with its large extent of dentate surface, becomes quickly infested and infected with all manner of bacterial formations, decomposing particles of food, stagnant, septic matter from saliva, mucous and sputum, not infrequently with pus exudations from irritated and inflamed gum margins, gaseous emanations from decaying teeth and putrescent pulp tissue, salivary calculus (tartar), nicotine, and the chemical toxins, or poisons, of decomposition which result from a mixing of mouth secretions, excretions and food remains in a temperature constantly maintained at the high normal of ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. While this may seem a formidable array, it fails to prevent any of the sources of infection connected with untreated teeth; and incredible as it may appear, these conditions are found not in the lower classes alone, but in general mouth conditions in high and low born, fastidious and boor, king and peasant.”

“Try to estimate the amount of poisonous products that would be generated if such a surface were smeared over with the various foods from the dining table, and these allowed to decompose,” says Dr. Alfred C. Fones,[2] “and a fair idea may be obtained of the amount of decomposition that is taking place in unsanitary mouths. Nor is this simile forceful enough, for the food in the mouth is in one of the most favorable environments known for the activity and virulency of germ life, so that the products generated would be far more numerous, more poisonous and irritating in every action, than such products from food decomposing in the open air.”

[2] In his essay “Clean Methods, The First Law of Hygiene.”

HOW MOUTH INFECTION SPREADS

Mouth infection, due to the teeth, sees its most critical period during that of childhood and early youth, a period in which the mouth under present conditions is almost entirely without intelligent care. Children’s mouths, says Dr. Smith, are frequently veritable crucibles in which are generated chemical agents and compounds highly detrimental to the teeth themselves, and not less to the general health of the child. The poisons arising from decaying food particles and decaying teeth themselves, vitiated salivary and mucous secretions, germ life upon the teeth and gums, and breaths loaded with emanations from stagnant septic material, all with the high temperature of ninety-eight degrees, insinuate into the general circulation of the blood a constantly increasing infection, which will later on find expression in many diseased conditions, and often in chronic and fatal disorders. It may appear, as it commonly does, in stomach or kidneys, in lungs or nervous system, in heart, brain, or skin, in any organ or tissue, indeed, to which mouth toxins are directly or indirectly conveyed. Experience has shown that it is not only possible, but entirely practicable to arrest and prevent teeth diseases in the mouths of children, and at the same time to keep the mouth aseptic or free from germ life.

Not only does an infected mouth work havoc to the body of which it is the vestibule, but it spreads disease about it. The original experiments of Koninger have shown that in a room where there is no current of air perceptible, a person coughing or sneezing can scatter germs to a distance of more than twenty-two feet. They are conveyed through the air by means of little droplets of saliva. These globules are microscopic balloons, having a bubble of air in the center, and remain in suspension but a short time. Ordinary breathing will scatter these droplets to a considerable distance, but, of course, their germ-carrying capabilities are most marked during coughing and sneezing. The more microbes the mouth contains the greater the danger of infection. Washing the mouth has the effect of decreasing the microbes of such diseases as diphtheria and consumption, and other bacilli susceptible of being scattered abroad in these salivary droplets. Placing the hand or a handkerchief over the mouth prevents the emanation of droplets charged with bacilli. So well is this fact of droplet germ infection recognized, that in many operating rooms no one present is allowed to speak during operations. Chronic headaches, neurasthenia, constipation, coughs and colds, and many other grave troubles, have all been helped and many times cured by “oral prophylaxsis” or proper mouth treatment.

The practical application of the discoveries and recommendations of the new school of dentists can be expressed very simply and briefly, and if followed out, will undoubtedly prove of tremendous service to the white cells in the battle of the blood. It must be remembered that proper mastication of food, which we have seen to be a leading principle of the new hygiene, cannot be carried out unless you have a good and healthy mouth. Five brushings a day at home is the ideal and proper care for every mouth, for those who eat through the ordinary routine of three meals a day. The first thing in the morning the teeth should be thoroughly brushed with tepid water to remove the decomposed mucous and saliva produced in the mouth during sleep. After eating the teeth should be cleansed with the help of a dentifrice. The thorough removal of grease is a chemical process, not to be accomplished by mere brushing, and therefore requires a solvent such as is contained in a good dentifrice. Such duties soon become habits; and if they are based upon common-sense, the health which they will bring will more than compensate for the trouble involved.

XIV

A UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH

There have been frequent references in this book to the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and to Dr. J. H. Kellogg, its superintendent. We have written here of the art of staying well, but many people are sick, and are in need of special advice and assistance; to such we believe that we can do no greater service than to tell them of this Sanitarium and its work.

The institution is not a commercial one; its founder is one of the great humanitarians of the time, as well as one of the great scientists. None of its thousand odd men and women workers receive more than a bare living for their services, and the institution is legally so constituted that all its profits must be turned into the work. Therefore, we hold it to be a public duty to spread as widely as possible the facts relating to it. Mr. Horace Fletcher has called Battle Creek the “Mecca of Health.” More aptly still, the Sanitarium has been named a “University of Health”; and no image could be more essentially true.

For, while the people at Battle Creek realize that the record of the institution for more than forty years in curing sick people is one to which they may point with pride, yet in their view this good work is but a trivial thing in comparison with their principal object, which is the conversion of those who come to them to be cured, into home teachers and missionaries of the truths of right living. It is wonderful to observe to what a great extent success has already rewarded their efforts, to see the signs which indicate the growth of public interest in their work.

Dr. Kellogg took charge of the institution which is now known as The Battle Creek Sanitarium thirty-two years ago. The institution at that time was a small two-story building, known as a water-cure or health institute, with three or four cottages and twelve patients. With the changing of the name and management, and the application of scientific methods, a new era of prosperity began, and the work has steadily progressed ever since.

The Battle Creek Sanitarium was the first attempt to assemble in one place all rational means of treating disease in combination with the regulation of diet and habits of life, and giving special emphasis to physiologic or natural methods of cure. The institution has for many years been recognized as the leading establishment of the sort in the world.