Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-07-09
Health Items.

debility IS usually appned.
One of the great and increasing evils
of imperfect mastication is decaying
teeth. 1t is law of all vital organisms
that every structure or post must do its
own work or die.
Corsets are the degenerators of one sex
as much as tobacco and liquor are the
enemies of the other.
ladies suffering from nervous debility
in summer should beware of over-exer-
cising. The fault with too many invalids
is that they overdo when irving to re-
cruit, and thus seriously retard their i'm
provement.
Domestic animals that are permitted to
live normally never have decaying teeth
Women healthfully and happily en-
ployed are not usually in iii health.
Hannah More wrote eleven books after
the age of sixty. Sarah J. Hale is now
eighty-five, and still editing.
The influence of Imagination on the
vital functions has always been recog-
nized, and it was this recognition that
enabled the ancient physicians to be so
successful with charms, amulets and in
carnations.
Parasols, except in the middle of the
day during the heated term" are per
nicious things, as are the wells with
which so many fashionable ladies shade
their faces.
The most prevalent error in private
houses is insufficient ventilation of bed
rooms. Young children and infants.
though born with fair organizations, are
often rendered puny and scrofulous by
sleeping in unventilated rooms.
The sugar insect (which is the cause of
that tormenting skin affection known as
"grocer's itch'') is found in nearly all the
brown sugars of commerce. More than
100000 have been found in a single pound
of "merchantable" sugar.
The error of regarding dyspepsia as a
local disease instead of a constitutions
infrmity leads to the mischievous pracl
tice of local medication. Dyspepsia is
but name for universal physical dete-
rioratiOn.
Water drinking between meals should
be according to thirst. 1t is a mistake to
load q weak stomach with cold water on
the theory that it is tonic. AS habit
it is we'll to take tumbler, or part of
one, of pure, soft water after dressing in
the morning.
The temperature of baths should al
ways be regulated by the temperature of
the patient.
1t is said by those who have taken pains
to inform themselves on the subject that
there is no country in the world, civilized
or savage, where bad teeth are SO gener-
ally the rule, and good ones so rare an
exception, as the United States.
If seats were properly constructed per-
sons would sit upright, for the reason
that it would be the most comfortable
position. It would be painful to sit
otherwise. The chairs, benches, sofas,
pews or other seats should fit the small
of the back, the curves of the hips and
the whole length of the thighs as accu-
rately as a well-made shoe is shaped
to the foot, or harness to the body of
horse.
The prevalent custom on the part of
most women of wearing the hair twisted
into a mass on the top or back of the
head, and the more modern and still
more pernicious custom of loading the
head with false hair, or substances re-
sembling it, is a frightful source of head
ache, and indirectly cause of dyspepsia
We have in the United States 10000 drug
shops and $4,000 physicians furnishing
the supplies and prescribing the doses;
hence, in view of this fact, it may be a
fair question for a debating society
whether there is more dyspepsia pro-
cured by drug medication than by all
other causes combined.
Old cheese is we'll known to be one
of the most indigestible articles that was
ever swallowed in the name Of food.
Says the old distich:
Cheese is surly elf
Digesting all things but itself.
1t is impossible for any child whose
mother has diminished her breathing ca
pacity by lacing to have sound and
vigorous organization. If girls will per-
sist in running their vital organs as they
grow up to wOmanhood, and if women
will continue this destructive habit, the
race must inevitably deteriorate.
Erectness is one of the most obvious
laws of the vital machinery. Yet almost
every one is crooked. Blessed are the
upright" physically as well as morally.
The only method which has ever proved
effectual for preventing or curing con-
sumption is to keep the lungs expanded
as much as possible. For this purpose
breathing tubes, spirometers, blow-guns,
lifting machines and other gymnastic
contrivances have been found useful.
All kinds of food which are only semi
solid, or composed of solid particles diff
fused in water, as buildings, steWs,
mushes, gruels, soups, ETC., should always
be taken with dry bread, hard crackers,
green apples, or something similar, and
eaten very slowly.
A deleterious practice, common in our
large cities especially, is the excessive use
of iCe-cream and soda water.
Everybody has fine teeth in the East.
Women there at ninety have perfect
teeth, and seldom one under fifty loses a
single incisor or cuspid, or even molar.
Tobacco using directly and fearfully
lessons the breathing capacity. This is
one reason why tobaccC-users require
more sleep than others, other circum-
stances being equal.
Tobacco using, in young persons, has
the same effect in diminishing the breath
ing capacity that tightlacing (Which is
alarmingly on the increase AGAIN. has.
Examples are, indeed, sadly frequent on
the thOroughfares of our great cities of
young ladies who have DESTROYED more
than One-half of their breathing capacity
by this disgraceful habit of tight-lacing.
Their wan, expressionlesS faces, harsh.
contracted features, with bilious discolor-
ations of the skin, proclaim, in language
that cannot be mistaken deficient respi
ration. And the counterpart of these
appearances and indications NAV be
seen in numerous young men who
promenade the streets behind lighted
cigars.
For bathing purposes, as for drinking
and cooking, there is great, difference
between pure and hard water.
A ,,rO,,,;ra,,+ caI7Cp of the nreva1nrca