Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-05-25

spring Of every human pleasure.
The Greeks defied health, IMPLYING it,
like every other good and blessing known
TO man, in the guise of woman. She was
legendized as the daughter OF Esculapius.
the god of medicine, and was ~worshiped
with him. She sat by the side OF Apollo,
the type of manly vigor, and herself the
Improvisation of female loneliness, was the
companion OF Pallas, the Goddess of Wis
dom, and of Cytherea, Queen of Love.
Among the sisterhood of deities none was
more fair and honored than the divine by
eeia. Young and old crowded her temples.
rejoicing that through her favor the world
was SO brightand joyous, and life such sweet
lingering on earth. Alas! how has she
faired in modern times? Her statues have
fallen from their pedestals, her beautiful
temples have crumbled into ruins, her
faith discarded and her precepts scorned!
A few v~otaries of the sweet goddess have
preserved the secrets Of her cult, and with
encouraging success have sought to re-es-
tablish her fanes and light once more the
sacred fire upon her affairs.
Foremost among the new propaganda OF
this old faith is the American Public
Health Association. The seven gentlemen
who assembled in the rooms OF the New
York Board of Health on the 18th of April,
1872, have good reason to be satisfied with
their preaching of the gospel of health. At
Long Branch, at Cincinnati, at New York,
at Philadelphia, at Baltimore, at Boston,
at Chicago, at Richmond, at Nashville, at
New Orleans, and at Savannah, they and
their jealous coadjutors ound multitudes
of willing converts.
Are the rites this deity's service imposes
solemn hyperdulia, ~recondite mysteries,
only to be mastered by q trained priest
hood? Far from it. Health is natures
simplest faith. Its liturgy can be written
in the prattle of children and the common
places of the peasant. Its laws are fixed,
irreyocable, eternal. This do, and thou
shalt live and be happy: Do that and thou
shalt surely suffer and die.
If health is but the outcome OF self-evi-
dent truth: if long life, unalloyed happi-
ness, ~ecstatic pleasure, are put the recon-
pense for simply walking in its broad paths:
and premature decay, pain and sorrow, and
unqualified desire the certain penalties Tor
wandering in the tangled by-ways that
stretch away far from it in unknown lines,
why should any need be taught that where
in their interest lies? This is the great
mystery of humanity. Why, having ears
they hear not, and eyes they see not. In
every age men have rushed where angels
have not sought to tread. While the SAM
tartan begins his teaching abashed at the
simplicity of the lessons he has tojnculcate,
knowing, on,the other hand, the stubborn in.
credulity of the world, he realizes the
magnitude of his undertaking.
4 perverted religious sentiment is respon-
sible for this disregard Of the body's welfare:
A system which teaches that the physical
man is the enemy of an independent, i'm
material personality, called soul or spirit
that the flesh is inherently rotten, vile and
sinful-that the more beautiful its contour
the more sensitive and delicate its organ
ization, the more surely it leads its psychic
prisoner towards the gates Of hell and eter-
nal damnation, had but one corollary, that
il were good to despise, degrade and morufy
this earthly thing, which is all we know as
self - which we call latneI'
mother, brother, sister, chiid.
Naturally these earnest s~trivers after spirit:
ual salvation immured this carnal foe, OF
which they could not rid themselves and
live, in converts, monasteries and hermit
cells, and passed their lives in a long cru
SADIE against the pleadings of their senses.
They welcomed pain, the protest of out
ragged nerves; they endured hunger, the
crv of the thin blood for food; they suf-
fered cold, because it ~antagonized every
sense of pleasure; they wallowed in filth
in defiance Of their educated humanity.
Tie modern Christian, like tho older Bud.
dhist, waxed in self-complacent holiness as
he tortured, deformed and degraded his
body, preparing the way Tor fiendlsh IN;
GuisitOrs, who, in the name OF God and
Saviour, tore off the sin-cased flesh OF gem
tie maidens with red-hot pinchers, and
sought to appeaSe the vengeance OF a
Heavenly Father by impaling uubelieving
babes. Rather the pagan's homage OF that
Maker, in whose image he has been fash
toned, by clarifying that masterpiece OF
creative power, the human body-that mar
yelous mechanism called man. What
mortal handiwork can rival this. in the
mysterious intricacy OF its parts? h
other object on earth or in the heavens ap.
proaches in beauty that elimination of
grace and lovelinesS-the female form?
Grant the soul a distinct identity, can it
have q grander temple than this house not
made by hands, and should not this be
guarded from pollution with jealous care
it's avenues closed to every unclean thing
the Shiny reptile of disease allowed no
hiding corner in its secret chambers-the
sacred fire of health kept burning o its
affairs, daily deCked with fresh thank offer
ings?
1t is only my present purpose to ask
YOUR attention TO the culpable neglect
which has been the natural consequence of
the degradation of the body, and to urge
upon you, in the interest of every living
being, in the interest of every organized
community, in the interest of the whole
hnman race, the importance of beStowing
the most earnest thought upon the sub
ject of physical culture. All that
ficatiOn find expression through the body.
Thought, will, emotion, sensation depend
upon the normal action of normally con-
stituted organic molecules. Hence, to
think intelligently, to feel acutely, the
chords on which these. harmonies are rung
must be in perfect tune. The aggregate &C
tons of the various organs and apparatus
of the body, which We call life, if harmo.
NOUS and without jar, are what We mean
by health. Dim the eye, deaden the ear,
silence the speech and benumb the touch,
and what will remain to us of the bright
world? Widen the avenues to the senses,
let in the flood of light and sound, develop
the capabilities Of the physical man, and,
as he communes with new spheres, he
grows in mental stature.
1t behoovcs us, therefore, to cultivate this
garden of the soul, in which il lives and
thrives-to develop this mortal frame to its
utmost, that all those attributes Of man.
hood, which are alone possible through its
fundamentally, may be exercised in their
highest intenSity-not only tor the we'll
being and happiness Of the individual, but
for the welfare and higher development Of
the whole race. Rich estates and noble
titles are valueless requests beside the heri-
tage of health. The youth who can boast
an ancestry free from the stain of trans
mitted' disease has a prouder blazon on his
banners than the lOrdling whose feeble
frame bears the indelible mark of con-
stitutional contamination. Invalid pa
rents beget invalid offspring and these
other weaklings, like themselves, whose
puny descendants ramify over an entire
country. How great, then, should be the
concern of the community in the physical
condition OF its individual members. The
man, scared through folly,
ignorance or sin, does not bear his living
burden alone to the grave, but shares it
with his wife and child. 1t leaps the
threshold of his home. The blight spreads
from household to family, to vicinage, to
race. The muddy stream poured into the
ocean meets others from like polluted
sources-each aiding the other in marring
the purity of the broad waters. The physi-
cal deterioration evidenced in certain local.
ities-notably in America-by the paucity
of children; the abstention from outdoor
life; the ~incapacity for athletic sports, and
the high mortality rate, is only temporarily
retarded by foreign importation. While the
hreadip0 IF caftln iS carafu1lv fnutarad ond