The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1903-12-18

victims Of indoor life, OF food.
boiling, OF over-work and of worry.
| have often wondered what would
happen TO the human race IL il
should suddenly adopt sleeping !
out.of-d0ors, yentilating dwellings,
factories, and schools, taking
proper time for meals, learning
the art Of relaxation and the habit
OF equanimity. 1t Is certain thatl
life would be longer,and also fuller.
Professor Shiler, Of Harvard, say > (
that the normal duration OF life
tor mammals Is five times the
growing period. Horned cattle
take about four years 10 mature,
and they live about twenty. /
Horses take five or six years, aud
live nearly thirty Elephants ma
ture In forty, and live two hundred
years. Man, according TO Profes.
sor Shiler's criteria, takes about
thirty years to come to his full
maturity, and by this calculation |
ought tn live to be a hundred and /
fl ty. This may never happen aud
may be physiologica!ly impos sible
but we have wandered so FAR from |
nature that there is certainly |
room for much Improvement be-
tween the forty-one years which is
the average lifetime OF an Ameri-
can and the hundred ard fif
years just mentioned.
Before any great progress can
be made, however, our change Of
habits must be radical, however
gradually adopted. We m us t
open our bedroom windows wider,
and atthe top rather than at the
bottoms. We must substitute elec-
trio lights for oil and gas, one jet
of which is the equivalent of three
or four persons in its power to
vitiale the air. We must learn
anew what pure air is and insist
on having it. rot only at home
but in our offices, our clubs, thea
ters, churches, and sleeping-cars,
and, above all In our factories and
our schools. We must lengthen
our lunch hours and our hours OF
sleep and recreation. We shall
find that our work will go better
aud faster, and more will be ac-
compished in the end. We must
take up seriously, and religiously
even, the cultivation Of healthy
meutal attitudes and the conse-
quent elimination Of fear, anger,
depression, and other morbid
states. We must be "born again"
Such thorough change OF heart
must Of necessity come slowly.
An important force to bring it
, about is the desire OF parents to
bring up their children with the
advantages OF modern hygiene.
But tho parents themselves must
r first learn what that hygiene is
: To show them is one Of the tasks
o OF the new sanatorla.
Z. We see, then, that the moderr
r crusade against consumption
S means more than appears on tn,
S surface. 1t means, TO be sure, tn
+. saving OF the lives Of many afillct
D. ed with the "great white plague,
n but it means, further, a cOntinus
a. lessening in the number thu
d, afflicted. 1t means the destructio
m Of billions OF our microscopic foes
Is and the strengthening OF our ply
n. siological defenses against then
a 1t means more attention by ou
" medicol schools and family phys
lt clans to hygiene and preventiv
id medicine, and less to drugs.
means that tuberculosis will 500
Il be dethroued from its position
r. chief OF the diseases, and ultimate
lie ly eradicated altogether. 1t mean
20 that other diseases will follow
ID that, as Pasteur has said, "it is 1
70 the power Of man to rid himself G
n every parasitic disease Itmean
70 that human life will be longer,an
st what is better, healthier, happier
le and more useful. 1t means tha
Is together with physical health will
vt come increased mental, moral, an
n spiritual health. 1t means, /
r. short, that long step will hav
10 been taken toward the regeneratio
10 OF the world.