Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-04-03
Some Useful Hints ON Lite and Health.

Recently, forty eight gentlemen were admitted
TO the degree of M. ID. in the Pennsylvania Medi-
cal College; when the occasion was rendered
available TO the delivery of very valuable and
interesting address by DIR. B. Howard Rand. The
observations which fell from this gentlemans
lips at the time and place referred to- are so full
OF truth and so harmonious with the principles
we have enunciated in these columns, on the sub
jects of human life and health, that we are in
duced to give copious extracts, without one word
of apology. Speaking of the average duration
of human life, DR.. Rand thus commences:
at has been ascertained that within the last
two hundred yelrs the average duration of human
life has increased from eight to forty years, and
the mortality from diseases diminished in fifty
years full fifty per cent. Much of this is to be
attributed to the increased cleanliness and com
forts practiced and enjoyed by individuals Much
as has been done, however, more remains for man
to do. The list of deaths from the preventable
diseases is still terrible and the number of those
who perish not from disease itself. but from bad
domestic management, although under the most
judicious medical treatment, too large to be re-
garded without deep regret
The speaker then enumerated a number of
cases, in which the amount of mortality had been
considerably lessened by proper attention to drain
age, public cleansing, &c He then continued:
"But this IS not all. There is a large class of
diseases that are preventable, not by measures
addressed to the community, but to individuals.
We can scarcely doubt that by proper attention to
air, food, cleanliness, sunlight and clothing, con-
sumption, scrotuld, scaratina diptheria, cholera,
typhus, dysentery and their allies, might be
eradicated. and the average duration of human
life Heightened many years beyond the present
rate"
Inregard to the younger generation, the learned
gentleman said:
"Let children spend the first ten years of their
life in romping i'm the fresh air. Let the boys and
girls be taught athletic games and exercises; as
they grow older-ball playing, boating, boxing,
fencing, wrestling. swimming, and gymnastics
generally. Then their six or eight hours study
will be none too much. Tmd people will object
10 these exercises; noses get broken and teeth
knocked out by balls, and boys get drowned while
swimming or boating What if they do? Acct
dents viii happen to man, and if boy is to be
kept from all harm he had better be put in a band
box. 1t is better to have broken nose and
tooth, or two legs, with full chest and ford
health, than to have both perfect and die of con-
sumption, orliye wretched dyspeptic. More are
drowned for want of knowledge of watercraft than
from accidents in its use. | am a believer in the
school of muscular Christianity, so ably advo-
Gated by Dr. Arnold, Chas. Kingsley, and the
author of Tom Brown at Oxford"
Passing to the defcct in female education, DR.
Rand made some pertinent remarks-among them
the following:
when you meet with such cases, sickly dolls,
(and you will meet with thousands of them) do
not palter with medicines, throw physic and books
to the dogs, and by fresh air. sunshine, beef beer
and exercise, you will make robust woman of
the choleretic girl"
In allusion to another evil. the speaker thus
observed
FINALLY, gentlemen, you will have much to do
i'm correcting evils of close rooms, both public
and private. On first going into house in which
is assembled large party, the senses revolt at
the hot and unhoisome atmosphere 1t is only by
use the lungs draw in without effort the filthy but
invisible poison. THERE'S hardly dozen well
ventilated churches in the country, and many are
but enlarged black holes Here the congrega-
ton sits, stupid and depressed from carbonic acid
taking in the poisonous carnations from the
bodies of hundreds around. Thousands of un
conscious martyrs have thus gained their souls
salvation by their bodies DEATH