The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-08-20

Pertha Won Hillern says:f Regarding
the body ns u piece OF exquisitely COM
plicated machinery. it presents in the
act of walking its most beautiful per-
lection. Whatever nature is going to
do for the repair of an injured system,
she will do doubly then. With straight
ened back. head erect, lungs expanded,
the great system of veins and arteries
in best position for the unimpeded ebb
and flow of the blood, the heart
pumping the "nourishing fluid" with
greatet force and regularity into the
extremities, the lungs taking in fuller
drafts of fresh air, natures agent for
repairing the losses of the body, are in
full activity, and preparations are be-
ing made for her more remote meas
ures. A healthy appetite il being en-
couraged which will demand the food
needed, while what is more to the pur-
pose, the body is being put into cendi-
ton to assimilate that food; the mus
cles are making demands upon the
nerve-fuid, which, if pent up, hberates
itself by nervous paroxysm, or
fortunes the body under the various
forms of hysteria, or nervous, diseases.
In many persons there is tendency
to great excitability, or morbid depres-
sion, approaching insanity, or liable to
lead to that For such, il would be
difficult to overestimate the beneficial
effects of walks directed by and in the
companionship of friend strong
enough to resists the contagion of
nervousness. This companion should
have a firm will and an inventive mind,
capable of devising interesting motives
for the walk, that the patient may have
some engrossing object for the mind to
center and steady itself upon, that it
may not recur to and dwell upon NOR
bid ideas. The task of entertaining
and calming such a mind, which might
be impossible within doors, will require
far less effort during walk i'll the
open air. The steady movement of
walking with an even step has great
control over the nerves; temporary in
sanity may be relieved or cured by this
means; above all, that which comes
from an overtaxed brain, or nerves
strained and exhausted by anxiety
There are many forms of dyspepsia
which occasion the most painful suffer
ing, and which are almost sure to yield
to habit of daily walks. Yet it is
frequently the case that one may have
so naturalized the system to bad air
that too strong a draught of fresh air
will produce headache and nausea,
such as result from any other stimu-
liant.
The effect of country air upon those
who are city-bred, above all the pow
erfully stimulating air of the sea, will
often produce these distressing symp-
toms, but they are the symptoms of
breaking away from the bondage of
diseased conditions. If, then, head
ache and nausea result from walk. do
not give up the habit, but take gentler
means for acquiring it Begin with a
less distance, and add to that gradual
ly. To accomplish cure of any dis
ease requires more exercise than one
can spare the time for under ordinary
conditions, but the cure once effected,
the ground may be held 10y very little
exercise.
Often, when enc has quiet work to
do within doors, in those spring and
fall days when 1T Is too cold without
fire and uncomfortable with one, brisk
walk of few minutes will put the body
in condition to secure its own comfort,
and the time thus sacrificed is more
than made up by the brain being left
undisturbed by forced attention to the
body; so in very hot days few min
utes' exercise in the open air will make
! the shade within doors more comforta-
BILE.
Whoever will take the trouble to no.
tice will find that among those placed
in the same proximity to contagious
diseases very few of those who habitu-
ally take exercise in the open air con-
tract the disease. Walking, by elevat-
ing the tone of the general system, de-
prives the germs of their power to gain
active control. Another point may be
remarked, that certain changes of
weather are sure to produce nervous
distress in many people. They seem
to be IS entirely under the control of
certain atmospheric conditions as ba-
rometel; and again and again have 1
found that a good walk, taken as soon
as the symptoms of nervous attack
showed themselves, would entirely avert
! it; the regular movement of the mus
cles in the open air seeming to act aft
er the fashion of lightning conductor,
| to prevent the accumulation of the i'm
ponderable fluids of the body in the
] great nerve centers. Great pain and
loss of time may be spared, in case of
sprain, by exercise, taken at once. L
have seen the most violent sprain
walked away with no other remedy
whatever.