Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-06-18
SINS OF HEALTH-SEEKERS.
How the Woman Who Goes to the Summer
Resort Defeats Her Purpose.


against the body are committed as DUR
ing the months that are supposed to be
dedicated to the special pursuit OF the
goddess of health, and there are no
sinners SO grievous as those very per-
sons who spend these months in the
whole intent and purpose of getting
physical benefit therefrom. An lntelli
gent woman physician remarked grave
Iy in the presence of the writer, not
long ago, on the long list of vacation
disorders that came to her each year
as the result of imprudence and ignor-
ance on the part Of women during their
idle months at the summer resorts. 1t
is against some of the gravest and most
glaring of these errors that this epistle
IS directed.
In the first place, she begins her sins
this woman at the watering place
long before she gets there, in planning
the gowns she shall take with her.
There are too many of them, to begin
with, and they are too elaborate, and
they fit her too snugly, most of them,
and she wears them in a reversed order
from the rational one. In the morning
when she gets up she puts on cloth
riding dress or flannel boating dress or
tennis dress, If she is voting, and
plays tennis-something, at any rate,
that is long of sleeve and high of bodice
and she wears this often until high
noon, yet high night finds her with bare
arms and throat and shoulders, sitting or
walking on the wide piazzas, while the
temperature has lowered from 100 to
200. In other ways than this
there is an unequal distribution of
warmth over the surface of the body
land no one cause of the diseases incl
dent to warm weather is so operative as
this While she clothes the upper part
of the body in an undergarment of silk,
or, if she be very wise, of thin wool, the
amount of clothing that she wears de-
creases in direct ratio from the trunk to
the feet. These go clad in the sheerest
of silken hose, and the thinnest of kid
slippers or low shoes, while the lower
part of the limbs must depend for their
warmth upon the single thickness of
silken gauze that covers them; and all
this is especially true in the evening,
just when the most protection is need
ed, for during these hours, at least,
when she is boating or riding, she will
cover her ankles with leather
and interpose an adequate lay
er of leather between the soles
of her feet and the ground.
For another thing, she wears her gar
ments too tight for the greater share of
the tme-so tight that she cannot give
free play to the magnificent pair of lungs
which the Creator would have given her
if she had not directly interfered with
His intent. Even underneath the de-
Eghtfully loose folds of her boating
blouse and her tennis blazer it is fair to
infer that she has not loosened the girth
of her waist, and so she goes on with the
bad work of the winter, COMPRISING the
ribs and lungs, setting her heart to going
in heavy, irregular thumps, instead of the
steady, even beat of health, and making
her nose red and here eyes trimmed with
pale pink.
Perhaps largely dependent upon these
errors in dress is a second grave sin
which she commits, especially if she is
past the first impulse to activity, that of
youth This is the sin of not taking suf-
as much distinctive part of the summer
watering place as the piazza itself or the
head waiter. II is to be supposed that
the piazza woman is there for the bene-
fit of her health. And SO the inference
is a fair one that her health is profited
IN some vague way unknown to hygienic
science by her sitting from morn till
noon, and from noon till dewy eve,
counting the threads in some wonderful
bit of fancy work and comparing lace
stitches with some other piazza patient.
One can hardly be accused of eXaggera-
ton in making the statement that the
average fair health seeker at the summer
resorts gets only about one-third as much
exercise asis necessary for the preserva-
ton of her health. What she should
do if the summer outing is intended to
give her any capital for the other
months of the year, is to adopt some
varied and suitable system of exercise
from which nothing, not even the
severest weather, should divert her
She should climb or row, or ride or
play tennis. Best of all, if she can, let
her exercise have some objective point in
mental as we'll as physical culture. There
is no thought SO well worth entertaining
in the walk for recreation or for exer-
else as the thought that the wayside
flower or marvellous shell can tell her
if she knows how to look at it with see
ing eyes. And she can carry back with
her something more than vague mem
ory of the delights of her strolls if she
has learned how to use pencil or camera
enough to make some definite transfer
of the spots that pleased her most. The
best Of all possible physical culture is
that which has not physical culture con-
sciously as its object, but which comes
as the result of physical activity, under
taken simply from pure love of the
activity itself, as children dc.
And as to the times of taking exercise,
there is something to be said. Nothing
can be better than early morning exer-
se-exercise before breakfast, if one is
so inclined-but some slight food should
precede the ride, or the walk, or the dip
into the surf A biscuit and few swa1-
lows of milk or Of coffee should be
taken; not enough to take away the
edge Of the appetite for breakfast, but
just enough to guard the system against
the exhaustion that follows the taking
severe exercise on an empty stomach.
Next TO the health-seeker's sin of in
dolence, and even graver than that in
its effect upon her health, is her COM
mon sin of overeating. Everything
tempts to this. The abundance and va
riety of food offered, the stimulation of
the appetite by the change of air, and,
not the least, the having little else to
think of. And so the piazza-woman sins
first by eating too much, and second by
eating too great a variety of foods.
If she really wants to have her sum-
mer rest of permanent benefit to her, she
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