The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-06-20
Written for TIE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.1
BEALTH HINTS
For Old and Young.
BY FELIX L. OSWALD, II. D.,
Author of Physical Education"; Household
Remedies; The Bible of Nature" etc.
CHAPTER XXI.

]
| ious self-torturer) as q highly spiritual gen.
| tleman who passes his nights in a g-wallow."
| An English readers astonishment at the in
congruity of the two ideas can, however. hardly
exceed a Mahometan's surprise at the fact that
the most highly civilized nation of Christian
dom consumes every year some 100000 bar
rels of pork Don't these scientific gentlemen
realize the risk of polluting their own system
with the organic impurities of those filthy
| brutes 2" an intelligent Mussulmao would ask.
Are they not deliberately inviting disease
! especially in the warmer regions of their pig
| infested country2"
Frugality, !. e., abstinence, not from suffi-
Gent or even abundant food but only from
| heat-producing viands of the more indigestible
sort, would, indeed, save each Summer the lives
/ of some four thousand of our fellow citizens,
and save as many millions from the repetition
| of yearly Midsummer martyrdom. In the
| household of Nature, Summer relates to Winter
| as day to night, or waking life to slumber, and,
under normal conditions, would as certainly
| bring an increase of happiness to animated
beings as we'll as to plants-light and warmth
being the sources of all organic well-being. To
millions of our fellow-men the season of length
ened day, with its flowers and fruits, brings
nothing but lengtheaed hours of misery. Con-
formity to the plainest montions of our in
stincts would save them that affection.
And the trustworthiness of those instincts
|
steaks during the season when watermelon
becomes more tempting than all the made-dishes
| of Delmonico. Stick to fruit, rice cold milk,
and light farinaceous dishes; not torture our
| system with hot tea in answer to its appeal for
a cooling drink; rid ourselves of the pitiful
superstition that warm weather makes cold
| spring water dangerous; do not close the win
dow against the cooling night wind, bringing
relief to all things drawing the breath of life ;
| defy the tyranny Of fashion-let your children
run barefoot and wear the lightest linen; in
short, live according to nature for single
week, and see how soon the burden of the OPP
pressive heat will tighten, how appetite and
buoyant spirits will return, how much sweeter
sleep will seem even in the warmest nights.
Then, by way of experiment resume the wonted
routine of hot tea, peppered ragouts and swell
| ter1ng bedrooms, and compare the result with
| that of the hygienie method.
The contrast would tempt one to envy chill
dren of the wilderness. If we could weigh the
nameless discomforts, the WEAKNESS, the phys
| zeal and moral nausea, the unsatisfed hunger
after the freedom and the life-air of the wood
lands, endured by millions of factory children
| shopkeepers counting house drudges-if we
could weigh all their misery against the hard
| ships of savage and half-savage nomads, we
might agree with Jeremy Bentham that, meas
ured by the test of the greatest happiness of
| the greatest number modern civilization is q
very Indifferent success.
With our present domestic habits, the Sum-
mers of the dry, hot, inland regions, where ma
| laria is unknown, are not whit less intoler-
| able than those of the sultry coastlands. Con-
sderations of comfort, if not the fear of deadly
| diseases, should persuade us to curtail the
number of our warm meals, or, in cities at
| least to cook on the cooperative plan las the
Boston people get their favorite dish from
wholesale bean baking establishments in order
to save our sitting-room and studies from the
/ effects which every basement kitchen exerts
on the domestic atmosphere.
For at least FIVE months in the year flesh pots
| might well be dispensed with, as well as all
kinds of concentrated food, for we should not
| forget that warm weather retards the digestion
of caloriic viands by several hours. Besides,
our Summer diet should be more fluid. The
food of our next relatives, the frugivorous FOUR
handlers of the tropics contains about 80 per
cent. of water, and the digestive vigor of the
| Bavarian peasants is due less to the stimulat-
ing elements of their diet than to the quantum
of fluids which help the organism to dilute
those elements.
"How did you manage to dodge disease so
long?" the Emperor Augustus once asked a
centenarian, whom he found wrestling and
boxing in public gymnasium. "IDter mulso,
! forum oleo," said the old athlete-oil for the
skin and mead for the stomach, and the Vene-
tian reformer Cornaro (all of whose relatives
Udu u10Q D6lOT6 tueIT 6lAblcbu year llN6Q To
within four months of century by limiting
his solid diet to one half his daily ration of
| fluids In the neighborhood of the North Pole
it would be a safe plan to reverse those proper
| tions. The naturalist Chamisso speaks of a
| Kamtsehatka hunter who told him that in cold
weather he had often passed a whole week
without diluting his food with anything thin
ner than walrus oil.
Cold air is digestive tonic, and in hard
Winters many of our dietetic abuses can be
practiced with comparative impunity. But we
should remember that our stove-w warmed rooms
surround us with an atmosphere of artificial
Summer, and that even the nomads of the
frozen Canadian prairies are not made happier
byAn exclusive diet of bull beef The vegeta-
riaX school has demonstrated beyond the pos
sibility of doubt that farinaceous dishes
sweet milk, butter and nutritious vegetables
are sufficient in any climate to maintain even a
Woodworking man in perfect health; and the
diet of the stoutest North European peasants
makes it pretty evident that three daily meals
of meat are not absolutely necessary in our
southern lowlands. The long-lived Scandina-
Wan farmers, like the Scotch highlanders, sub.
sist chiefly on dairy products and oatmeal, with
perhaps bit of mutton once week. The
Holstein peasants, who furnish the ablest sea-
men for the Prussian navy, live on milk, rye
bread and pudding, baked fish and eggs, and
use their smoked bacon in compounds rather
than as a separate dish. In Summer roth,
gruetse-a pudding of blanc mango and raspberry
sirup-is almost daily dish. On that diet
they raise the stOutest youngsters our earth ha.
seen since the time of Xenophon who men
tions tribe of chestnut-fed Bythinians with
children nearly as thick as they were long
Flesh-food, in small quantities, is slightly
stimulating, but in larger rations positively ir
! ritating; and l suspect that the proverbia
. nervousness of American dyspeptics has al
much to do with their carnivorous habits a
with their alleged passion for boiling their food
That alcohol has not the least nutritive valu,
has now become a pretty generally recognized
truth but in cold weather many half reformed
I. topers still take an occasional dram to "warn
up" The principle of that practice is a delus
ion, for it has been conclusiYoiy demonstrated
:, that the action of alcohol, after the first mo
mentary glow of its toxic influence, tends t.
decrease the temperature of the system. On
. not less than five different polar expedition
the unquestionable evidence of experience ha
" convinced even prejudiced sailors that tota
abstinence is the best plan for resisting tn
rigor of an Arctic Winter. In cold weathe
there is, indeed, not more pitiful sight than
habitual drunkard shivering in blear-eye,
misery, while young boys face the storm laugh
ing, with unaffected gaiety at any temperatur
that can be counteracted by exercise For heat
producing purposes glass of rich, sweet mill
is worth all the alcohol used outside of spirit
lamp.
Cold, pure air prevents the development O
disease germs and would prevent catarrh a
surely as it will counterfeit indigestion, if w
would but give it a chance and let it disnfec