The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1873-03-12
The Secret Of Keeping Good Health.

uc OpTli'Suefu C"t"" o"S o. ALI
George Catlin the lately deceased
American painter, has left US a thin
octave of less than y hundred pages,
entitled "The Breath Of Life" in
which he develops Theory of hoalth
formed and matured by him during
his long sojourn among our Western
Indian tribes, of which The above
motto is the key. Finding no cases
IF infant mortality or physical de-
formity among our 'aborigines, and
satisfied from personal observation
that this has not resulted from any
custom of killing off the puny and
unpromising births, he set to work to
ascertain the causes of this exemption
from thoss ills Of civilized life,. and
thinks he has done it by discovering
hat aim. vt always by day, and uni
formIy by night, the lndians kept
their mouths Shut. They have the
universal impression that this is es.
sential to health and good physical
development; and they form their
babies to the habit of breathing
through their uostrls when asleep. by
pinching their mouths closely togeth.
or, This, and the pure air of, uncon-
fined lives, is Mr.. Catlin's explanation
of the facts which so strongly i'm
pressed him in contrast with the con-
dition of things which he had left be-
hind among the whites. He himself
went amoug these tribes confirmed
but learning their methods of
nourishing the lungs with the atmos-
phere, be forced himself into the same
practices, ard regained u. state OF
comfortable and long protracted vigor
His treatise is packed with lnstan-
cos, and is profusely illustrated with
the oldest facial contortions and con-
his pencil. His idea is that
the apertures of the nose are formed
for the express purpose of cleaning
the air of its impurities, thus fitting
it to be taken in to the respiratory
organs If ftaken through the mouth
all these IMPURITIES 20 into tho lungs,
and breed all kinds of disease. Night.
mare and unrefreshing sleep are
:aused by breathing through the
mouth. Snorers generally have this
,abit. These people do not know
hat their mouths are open, for they
shut them inst tantly on awaking. But
he dryness of tho mouth and,throat
ellis tho story, as tho saliva thus is
exhausted. Sleeping on the, back is
not injurious or unpleasant if the
mouth is closed: The Indians sleep
thus, with their heads raised 80 as to
incline the teeth to meet. No pillows
is bad usage, letting the head sink
to horizontal line with the body;
but the fashionable square pillows are
also very hurtful, which elevates the
shoulder with the head. Babies
should never be kept closely to their
during the night, the smoth-
ering the warmth inducing the habit
Of opening the mouth 10 breathe.
Nor should their faces be covered in
sleep for the same reason. They DO
not need warmth as much as free,
fresh air. The Indians understand
all about this, and in their native sep.
aration from the whisky drinking
Of their white neighbors, they
would seem to have been about as ex-
empt from bod ly ailment as the wild
of their prairies.
Mr.. Catlin very likely has ca, a,ried
bis pot notion fully as far as it will
bear when he says that curvature of
The spine, idiocy, deafness, polypus in
the nose, malformation and neuralgia,
and three-fourths of the physica, de-
Formities and premature deaths, from
to old age, are caused. or
greatly aggravated, by these wrong
modes of sleeping.