The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1880-01-28
Golden Rules for Health.

DR.. B. w. Richardson, the English
writer and lecturer on sanitary topics,
has been giving the people of Croydon,
England, "a few golden rules for secur-
ing health at home" In the first place.
whether the house is large or small, he
would say, "Give it light There was
no house 80 likely to be unhealthy as a
dark and gloomy one. In every point
of view light stood forward as the agent
Of health. A few hundred years ago it
became the fashion, for reasons it was
very hard to divine, to place sick people
in dark and closely-curtained bedrooms.
The practice. to some extent, was con-
tinued to this day. When 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 pernicious. 1t might
he we'll, 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 a dark
Cell in which all kinds of impurities
might be concealed day after day, was
an ofense to nature which she ever re,
buked in the sternest manner. In sick
ness 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
sustalner of health.
DR.. Richardson next adverted to the
subject of sleep, and observed that arti-
fetal lights are very injurious The
ever hours after dark that are spent in
artificial light the better and the sooner
They required in the cold season of VIM
ter, when the nights we're 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; OH the shortest day nine hours
was no. overmuch, and for persons who
are weakly ten or twelve hours might
be taken with real advantage. In
winter children should always have ten
or twelve hours of sleep. It was not
idleness to indulge to that extent, but
an actual saving, a storing up of invigor-
ated existence for the future. Such rest
could be obtained only by gong to bed
very early-say at halfpast 8 o'clock or
8. It was wrong at the present season
that they should be at that meeting rob-
bling themselves of sleep. It was az
wrong as ever it could be that our legis-
lature should often be sitting up as they
did, night after night, trying against life
10 legislate for life. It was foolish, too,
that public writer's and editors should be
called on to exercise their craft ut 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 ped rooms, the president insisted on
the necessity of q separate bed for each
person, and said the bed should be neith-
er very soft nor very hard, while the fur
niiure of the room should be as simple as
possible. A great experiment ha6 been
tried on this question with most striking