Part 29
Speaking roughly, raw meat of ordinary quality consists of water seventy-five per cent, albumen and nitrogenous matters twenty per cent, and fat five per cent. Although meat becomes more tender by keeping, it is more wholesome while fresh, and freshness should not be sacrificed for a tenderness really due to the beginning of decomposition. The flesh of mature cattle, that is, four or five years old, is more nutritious than that of younger ones. It is a matter of experience that beef and mutton are more easily digested than veal and pork. Veal broth, however, contains more nutritious matter than mutton broth or beef tea. Poultry and wild birds, if young, yield a tender and digestible meat. Fish vary much in their digestibility, salmon, for instance, being utterly unfit for weak stomachs. Crabs and lobsters are notoriously indigestible.
Milk is the sole nourishment provided by nature for the young of man and beast, and contains all food stuffs in the best proportions for the infant’s needs. But milk alone is not adapted to the adult. Supplemented by other food, however, it is invaluable and not appreciated as it ought to be. Cheese is highly nutritious, but not very digestible. Eggs resemble milk in composition, except that they contain less water. The nearer raw the more digestible they are, and the yolk is more so than the white, which, when hard boiled, is the most indigestible form of albumen known. The addition of eggs to baked puddings is of questionable utility, and next to a raw egg, well beaten, in milk or water or in soup or beef tea, not too hot, a light boiled custard is the best form for invalids.
From the earliest ages the grains or cereals have formed a portion of man’s diet. Wheat has always been the most esteemed, and some varieties of it may be grown in every climate except the very hottest and coldest. Barley, rye and oats may be grown much farther north, but are less digestible. Oatmeal cannot be made into bread, rye bread is rapidly being displaced by wheat, and barley has almost entirely fallen into disuse, except for the purposes of the brewer and distiller. In the tropics rice is the chief cereal. It consists almost entirely of starch, and is thus unfit for bread making. Our own corn, which we inherit from the Indians and have immensely improved, is of all the cereals the nearest approach to a perfect food.
Among roots the potato holds the most prominent place. Potatoes are wholesome only when the starch granules, which compose them, are healthy, as shown by their swelling out during boiling, bursting their covering, and converting themselves into a floury mass, easily broken up. They contain from twenty to twenty-five per cent of nutriment, but this is almost entirely starch, and as a food in combination with meat, cheese or other vegetables, they are not equal to rice. Parsnips, beets and carrots are wholesome and nutritious, and should be used much more than they are. Turnips are not so valuable. Cabbages and their kindred have but little food value, although the salts they contain are excellent in the preservation of health. As regards green vegetables in general the importance of having them fresh is not sufficiently realized. When they have been cut some days changes occur just as truly as in animal food, and the freshness should be carefully watched, except with those specially adapted for storing.
Salads are useful in maintaining the health, although many of them are very indigestible, those of radishes, celery and cucumbers among the list. Fruits are prized chiefly for their taste. Grapes alone, among fresh fruits, contain any large proportion of food stuff. As an aid to digestion, however, they all are properly highly prized. Fruits should be fully ripe, but without any trace of decomposition.
Stimulants and condiments of high seasoning have little food value of their own, but they have value as aids to digestion when used moderately, and in making simpler foods more palatable. Alcoholic liquors, whether mild or strong, hardly need to be considered here. It is to be gravely doubted if such beverages are ever necessary or of value in the diet, and in this place we are not considering them from any other point of view.
It is equally difficult to speak positively and generally in reference to tea and coffee. It is safe to say, however, that many people drink these tempting beverages to excess, with harm resulting to themselves from it. Tea and coffee alike act as exciters of the nerve centers, accelerating and strengthening the heart’s action and respiration, causing wakefulness, and increasing the secretion of the kidneys and skin. Tea and coffee are far superior to alcohol in enabling man to resist the depressing influence of fatigue and exposure to cold, and are admirably adapted to the needs of soldiers on the march or men on outdoor night duty. Cocoa, chocolate and their preparations contain some active elements similar to those of tea and coffee, but the proportion of nutritive material is so much greater that they are to be looked on rather as food than drink.
The considerable use of ice and iced drinks is to be avoided. Small quantities are of service in relieving thirst and vomiting, and in cooling the body when exposed to great heat. But since ice causes the mucous membrane of the stomach to become temporarily pale and bloodless, it checks or altogether suspends the flow of the gastric juice. Thus iced drinks at meals interfere seriously with digestion. Observe also that there is no truth in the popular notion that frozen water or ice is always pure. Water is not purified by freezing, and may be even more polluted than it was before.
CLOTHING AND ITS RELATION TO HEALTH
Having considered thus briefly the matter of food and its relation to health, the question of clothing and personal hygiene now rises for attention. Besides serving for covering and adornment and guarding the body from injury, the use of clothing is to help in preserving the proper animal heat in spite of external changes. In health the normal temperature of the body, ninety-eight to ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit, is invariable. In order that this temperature shall be maintained with the least strain on the vitality, the clothing should be such that heat is not readily conducted to or from the body.
Cotton and linen keep off the direct rays of the sun and favor the loss of heat from the body, but being bad absorbers of moisture they are apt to interfere with evaporation from the skin, and cause dangerous chills. Linen and cotton are good conductors of heat, especially the former, and do not readily absorb moisture. Silk and wool are bad conductors. Wool has also a remarkable power of so completely absorbing moisture that it feels dry when cotton or linen would be wet and cold. Its value as a non-conductor, retaining internal heat and excluding external heat, is shown by the fact that we wrap ice in blankets to keep it from melting, and cover teapots with woolen “cosies” to keep them from getting cold. These qualities together render it the most perfect material for clothing under all conceivable circumstances.
The young and the old, the rheumatic, all persons liable to colds or weak in lungs, or who have suffered from kidney diseases, those who are exposed to great heat or cold or are engaged in laborious exercises, ought to wear woolen next to the skin and, indeed, everyone would be better for doing so. Rheumatic persons and those liable to cold feet will find it a great luxury to sleep in blankets in winter instead of sheets, and young children who are apt to get uncovered at night should wear flannel night-gowns next the skin in the winter and over cotton ones in the summer.
The color of clothing is a matter of little importance in the shade, but in the sun the best reflectors are coolest, such as white and light grays, while blue and black are the worst, absorbing the most heat. Dark colors also absorb odors more than light colors do. Indeed, for every-day use light-colored garments of whatever material, provided it can be washed, are to be recommended, though dark colors are too often preferred because they do not show the dirt. What woman would like to wear a cotton waist and skirt six months without washing? Yet it would not be half so dirty as the more absorbent dark woolen dress that she would wear as long without a scruple.
Beds and bedding are likewise elements of importance in the general health, although not always sufficiently considered. Soft, and especially feather, beds are weakening. The harder a bed, consistent with comfort, the better. Good hair mattresses are the most wholesome. Coverings should be light, porous enough to carry off the evaporations from the body, and yet bad conductors of heat. Most blankets are too heavy, and thick cotton counterpanes are heavy without being warm. Flannel night-dresses are much preferred to cotton at all times, both for comfort and for health. Warmer in winter, they obviate the chill of the cold sheets; while in summer they prevent the more dangerous chill when in the early morning hours the external temperature falls, when the production of internal heat in the body is at its lowest ebb and the skin perhaps bathed in perspiration—a chill which otherwise can be avoided only by an unnecessary amount of bed clothes.
THE BATH AND ITS IMPORTANCE
The dirt of the skin and underclothing consists of the sweat and greasy matters exuded from the pores, together with the cast-off surface of the skin itself, which is continually scaling away. The importance of frequent bathing will be better appreciated when we remember what are the functions of the skin, and the amount of solid and fluid matter excreted thereby. The quantity varies greatly according to the temperature and moisture of the air, the work done, and the fluids drunk, but is probably never less than five pounds or half a gallon daily, and with hard labor and a high temperature this amount may be multiplied many times. From one to two per cent of this consists of fatty salts, without taking into account the skin scales.
A good cistern, spring or well of wholesome water is a positive necessity on every farm. A bath-tub and its frequent use are quite as essential to the welfare of the farmer.
In the cities, where soot and dense coal smoke soil linen and mulch the lungs and air passages, there is necessarily a greater regard for cleanliness on the part of the inhabitants than may be observed in the country, where the agencies which oppose cleanliness are of an entirely different composition and productive of different results.
The farmer during the summer season is lightly clad—a straw or hickory hat, a strong shirt, a pair of overalls, socks and heavy shoes constituting his bodily protection. The absence of underwear—sometimes socks—is excused upon the ground that the lighter the harness the less energy is diverted from the performance of work.
Clothed as he is, the farmer when working in the fields or engaged in any farm work, soon not only gets his clothing soiled, but the pores of his skin fill with particles of dust and this retards their normal and vitally necessary functions. No vocation in life makes frequent bathing unnecessary. Farmers and miners, perhaps more than any other class of laborers, who are continually in contact with the earth, need the elevating influence, physical and spiritual, of a daily bath.
From a moral and hygienic standpoint the matter of cleanliness, which is next to godliness, is of great importance, and it is fine evidence of intellectual progress and spiritual growth when men use more water and soap at the end of the day’s work.
For purposes of cleanliness a bath without soap and friction is perfectly useless, and warm water is more effectual than cold. The shock of a cold plunge or sponge bath, however, has a powerful invigorating influence on the nervous system, and helps it guard against the risks of catching cold. The purpose of health and cleanliness alike will be best served by the daily bath with cold water and once a week with warm.
Speaking of cold baths, we may take note of a popular error as to what this means. The temperature of the body is always a little under one hundred degrees F. If, then, in summer, a bath at sixty degrees F., or forty degrees below that of the body, is considered cold and gives the desired amount of shock, it will do the same in winter, and to insist on plunging into water still colder than that is, to say the least unreasonable. The cold bath, then, is one at forty degrees below the temperature of the blood, and is the same in January as in July. To bathe in water from which the ice is broken, as some do, is a result of misunderstanding or folly, and may be followed by dangerous consequences.
It is dangerous to bathe after a full meal, and also when fasting. An hour or two after breakfast is a good time, but if one wishes to bathe earlier, a bit of food should be taken first. Again it is dangerous to bathe when exhausted by fatigue, but the glow of moderate exercise is a decided advantage. A light refreshment and a short run or brisk walk are the best preparations for a swim, which should not be prolonged until fatigue and chill are felt, and should be followed by a rub-down, speedy dressing and a quick walk home.
When the resisting and rallying power and the circulation generally are weak, as shown by shivering, coldness of the extremities, and sense of exhaustion, river or sea bathing should be given up. So, too, persons whose lungs and hearts are weak, and above all those who have any actual diseases of those organs, should not attempt it. There is a general tendency among those who enjoy outdoor bathing to stay in the water too long. Boys in summer remain for hours at lake or river side, most of the time in the water. This is an exceedingly weakening practice. Half an hour is ample for all the benefit that can be derived from such a swim, and a longer time in the water is apt to be distinctly injurious.
HOT WEATHER BATH SUGGESTIONS
A good health preservative, especially in summer and in warm climates, is to sponge the body with water which contains a small amount of ammonia or other alkali. The ammonia combines with the oil or grease thrown out by the perspiration, forming a soap which is easily removed from the skin with warm water, leaving the pores open and thus promoting health and comfort.
SLEEP AND ITS VALUE
No general rule can be laid down as to the number of hours which should be passed in sleep, since the need of sleep varies with age, temperament, and the way in which the waking hours have been employed. The infant slumbers away the greater part of its time. Young children should sleep from six to seven in the evening, until morning, and for the first three or four years of their life should also rest in the middle of the day. Up to their fourteenth or fifteenth year the hour of retiring should not be later than nine o’clock, while adults require from seven to nine hours. Some can do with two or three hours less than this, but they are so few that they offer no examples for us to follow.
Insufficient sleep is one of the crying evils of the day. The want of proper rest of the nervous system produces a lamentable condition, a deterioration in both body and mind. This sleepless habit is begun even in childhood, when the boy or girl goes to school at six or seven years of age. Sleep is persistently put off up to manhood and womanhood.
Persons who are not engaged in any severe work, whether bodily or mental, require less sleep than those who are working hard. Muscular fatigue of itself induces sleep, and the man who labors thus awakes refreshed. But brain work too often causes wakefulness, although sleep is even more necessary for the repair of brain than of muscular tissue. In such cases the attention should be forcibly withdrawn from study for some time before retiring to rest, and turned to some light reading, conversation or rest before going to bed. A short brisk walk out of doors just before bed time may aid the student in inducing sleep. Drugs should be avoided.
After a heavy supper, either sleep or digestion must suffer, but the person who goes to bed hungry will not have sound and refreshing sleep. If one works after supper, through a long evening, he should eat a light lunch of some sort an hour or two before bed time.
Ordinarily persons do best to retire at ten or eleven, and the habits of society which require later hours are to be regretted. Brain work, however, after midnight is most exhausting, and though sometimes brilliant, would probably be better still if diverted to earlier hours. Whatever be the explanation, it is an undoubted fact that day and night cannot be properly exchanged. About one or two o’clock in the morning the heart’s action sinks, and nature points to the necessity for rest. Sleep in the day time does not compensate for the loss of that at proper time, and slumbers prolonged to a late hour do not refresh the mind or body as does sleep between the hours of eleven and six or seven, the normal period for rest.
Old persons require, as a rule, less sleep than those of middle age, just as they require less food, because their nutritive processes are less active than when they were younger, and perhaps because their mental efforts also are less forced and attended by less exertion and more deliberation. Women, generally speaking, require more sleep than men, at least under like circumstances, apparently because in their case the same efforts involve greater fatigue.
VENTILATION OF BEDROOMS
Rooms which are to be slept in after having been occupied during a whole evening must be thoroughly ventilated before the occupant prepares for bed. Doors and windows must be thrown open for several minutes, the gas or lamp put out, and the air completely changed, no matter how cold it may be outside. This is the only way to obtain refreshing sleep. On going to bed the usual ventilating arrangements should then be followed, but the great point is to change the air thoroughly first.
REGULARITY OF HABITS
The importance of regularity and punctuality in every circumstance of daily life is not sufficiently realized. The more often and regularly any act is performed the more automatic it tends to become, and the less effort, whether mental or physical, attends its performance. This is a matter of daily experience and observation, and is true not only of mental work and manual or mechanical exercises, but of the organic functions of the body. Quite apart from the harm done by too frequent eating or too prolonged periods between meals or want of rest, the brain finds itself ready for sleep, the stomach for digestion and the bowels for action at the same hour every day, when these acts are performed with unbroken punctuality, and the strain upon the system to adjust itself to new conditions is therefore reduced to a minimum.
_GENERAL HEALTH CONDITIONS_ _Guard Your Water Supply—How Diseases Are Classified—How to Prevent Contagion—Care of the Sick Room—Disinfection, Its Importance and Its Methods—Period of Isolation or Quarantine—Duty of All Households Where Sickness Has Invaded, to Guard Others Against Its Spread._
Man cannot preserve his health entirely by his own caution as to his food and personal habits. His surroundings enter into the matter at all times. By this is meant the house in which he lives, its situation and conditions, as well as the community itself. Fortunately, in this country we have not yet become so overcrowded as to forbid ordinary care in the matters of drainage, light, ventilation and other requisites. Americans should congratulate themselves that their ample country and general prosperity enable them to regulate their food, their habits and the conditions around them in high degree. At the same time the fact that these things are so generally within our control places upon us the obligation to do what we can for the community to maintain the general health.
Let us note now, briefly, some points of primary importance in the conditions that assure general health. Air, warmth and light must be provided for the dwelling. In cities we cannot always choose, but in smaller communities and in the country we can in large degree control such things for ourselves. Some things require only to be suggested to be clearly understood. A house should stand where the character of the soil and the contour of the surface will provide the best drainage. Hollows should be avoided. When a house is built on a hillside the ground should not be dug out so that a cliff rises immediately behind. Trees may afford valuable shelter, not only from cold winds, but from fogs. But it is not generally wise to have them close around a dwelling, at least in large numbers, since they impede the free circulation of the surrounding air, and retain dampness beneath their shade. In the country a house may be sheltered from cold winds on the side from which they prevail, by trees. Exposure of each side of a house in succession to the rays of the sun helps to keep the outer walls dry, to warm it in winter and to aid ventilation in the summer. The north wall may be made with advantage a dead wall, and ventilating pipes and soil pipes may be carried up through it, but chimneys carried up through a north wall, being warmed with difficulty and apt to smoke, should not project but be built inside the house. Attics with slanting ceilings and dormer windows are cold in winter and hot in summer.
Once occupied, the most important thing in the house is fresh air. The most common impurity in the atmosphere of rooms is carbonic acid gas, which is thrown off by the lungs of the occupants, and must be disposed of by ventilation in order that health shall be assured. The lamps or gas lights used in the room likewise give off carbonic acid, which is formed at the expense of the oxygen of the air, the vital element, which we require to breathe. Crowded rooms, or any rooms improperly ventilated, become tainted in this manner, and the headaches and faintness which we experience under such circumstances are direct and natural results of carbonic acid poisoning. School rooms are particularly trying upon pupils and teachers, unless their ventilation is especially guarded. It is considered that the proper degree of purity in the air of a room can be maintained only by introducing at least 2,500 cubic feet of pure air per hour for each person, this being a virtual minimum. In mines it has been noticed that the men require not less than 6,000 cubic feet per hour, and that when the quantity falls to 4,000 cubic feet there is a serious falling off in the work done. Manifestly the better and tighter the building the more need there is for special means of ventilation.