New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-05-05
Gslden Rules for Health.

writer and lecturer on sanitary tOPlcSs
has been giving the people Of Croydon,
Eng, ga few golden rules for securing
health at home.'' In the first place,
whether the home is large or small, he
would say, "Give it light. There was
no house so likely to be unhealthy as q
dark and gloomy one. In every point
of view light stood forward as the agent
of health. A few hundred years ago it
became q fashion, for reasons it was
very hard to divine, to place. sick peo-
pie in dark and closely-curtained bed
rooms. The practice, to some extent,
was continued to this day. When q
person went to bed with sickness it was
often the first thing to pull down the
blinds of the windows, to set up dark
blinds, or, if there were Venetian
blinds, to close them. On body and
soul alike that practice was simply per-
nicious. It light be well, if light was
painful to the eyes of the sufferer, to
Shield the eyes from the light, or even
shut the light off from them altogether,
but to shut it out of all the room, to
cut off wholesale it's precious influence,
to make the sick room dark cell in
which all kinds of impurities might be
concealed day after day, was an offense
to nature which she ever rebuked in
tie sternest manner. In sickness and
in health-in infancy, youth, middle
age, old age-in all seasons, for the
benefit of the mind, and the welfare of
the body, sunlight was bearer and
sustainer of health.
DR.. Richardson next adverted to the
subject of sleep, and observed that arti-
fetal lights were very injurious. The
fewer hours after dark that are spent in
artificial light the better, and the sooner
they went to rest after dark the better.
They required in the cold season of
winter, when the nights were long,
much more of sleep than they did in
summer. On the longest day in the
year seven hours of sleep was sufficient
for most men and women who were in
the prime of life; on the shortest day
nine hours was not over-much, and for
persons who are weakly ten or even
twelve hours mi ght he taken with real
advantage. In winter children should
always have ten to twelve hours of
sleep. 1t was not idleness to indulge to
that extent, but an actual saving, a
storing up of invigorated existence for
the future. Such rest could be OBJ
tanned only by going to bed very early
say at half-past light OF clock or nine.
It was wrong at the present season that
they should be at that meeting robbing
themselves of sleep. 1t was as wrong
as ever it could be that our Legislature
should often be sitting up as they did,
night after night, trying against life to
legis]ate for life. It was foolish, too,
that public writer's and editors should
be- called on to exercise their craft at a
time when all their nature was calling
out to them "Rest." He might be
accused of folly in saying these things,
but he was standing by nature and
speaking under her direction.
Turning next to the question of beds
and bedrooms, the President insisted
on the necessity of a separate bed for
each person, and said the bed should
be neither very soft nor very hard,
while the furniture of the room should
be as simple as possible. A great ex-
pertinent had been tried on this ques-
ton with most striking results. At the
Industrial Schools at Anerly every
scholar had his or her own bed, and
the wise authorities there-who had
improved the health of the children un-
der their charge until the mortality
was reduced to three in one thousand
anEually-told him that few things had
contributed so much to the grand re.
suits they had achieved as the one prac.
tice of having separate bed for every
child. A daily bath with cold water
in the summer and tepid water in win.
ter was necessary to the health of ev-
cry person. Every effort should be
made to maintain an equal tempera-
ture in the house, temperature OF
sixty degrees Fahrenheit being the best
and there should be a system of COM
plete household cleansing once year.
He would leave his colleagues to descant
on ventilation, good food, good air and
other accessories to health, and though
by their united efforts they might not
essay to lead them direct to Southland
and its hundred years of happy life,
they would take those persons who
would go with them long way toward
even that promised commonwealth OF
health and long life.