The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1917-04-23

against the udIhCHcu cell VI lSAOI-
ance within which we allow ourselves
to stife.
We raise our children in ignorance
concerning fundamental principles of
existence, and allow them to learu
their sacred origin in the foulness Of
coarse jokes or in the company of UNI
fit playmates.
We allow them to grow into boy
hood and girlhood, we send them to
school, and they learn how to parse
the Latin verb "amo" and maybe the
French "aimer," they are taught how
to draw pretty geometrical figures
(all of which is commendable), but
they are never taught that the stom-
achs they have are the engines of their
body, they are never skilled in keep
ing healthy, they are never warned
against contracting diseased.
We have seen college graduates, m4n
with learned diplomas in Latin, who
could not tell you the. difference be-
tween the functions of the liver and
those of the kidneys, who didn't know
the elementary rudiments of SANTA
ton, and whose road to health had
been culled from past sicknesses and
depended entirely upon chance and
luck. These men will in all probable
ity die prematurely, victims of hygi-
enic ignorance-and you're just like
them.
No man and no woman should be
allowed to finish the high schools OF
our country without having been drill
ed, trained and schooled in physiology,
sanitation, dieting, preventive disease
measures, and every other aid by
which he might be able to stretch his
life into few more years. Yet, the
most of us eat more than is necessary,
never knowing how many calories we
consume, by helpful energy, or put into
surplus fat, and break our stomachs
trying to digest an impossible burden.
No wonder, as some one recently
remarked, the average length of lives
seems to be shortening.
Each individual can help himself.
Your body is a wonderful machine.
The provisions for health and strength
are marvellous. It's only when you
break and smash all kinds of rules
that you get sick-you were not in
tended for disease.
Your life was given to you to en-
joy; you were created for happiness,
not misery; your physical architect
aimed at perfection. Past neglect of
health laws and past excuses by an
cestors may have made your heart
weak, may have made your lungs dam
gerous, may have made your limbs
faulty, but even you can remedy your
condition some by rejecting strictly
the forbidden, and conserving what
strength you have received. Proper
exercise, regular habits, rest and re-
tcreation mixed with active work would
accomplish much in the improvement
of your physique, in your feelings, ami
lengthen your days.
More than that-you can help the
race yet to inhabit the earth. By
right living and careful living you
can TRANSMIT better health than you
received; by supporting health-mak-
ling agencies in your community you
can improve the surroundings In
which others will dwell. and by in
telIigent application you can do much
towards creating public sentiment
that will force the careless to be care
full when other peoples lives and hap
piness are concerned. You can cooper
ate in cleaning your community from
all dirt and filth that are apt to spread
| disease, and you can drive away many
| of the ills that now come to mankind.
Medical science has improved ii
many ways since they used to bleed
mankind for various diseases. They
have learned how typhoid fever comes,
and they know that the fly brings it
with filth. They have trailed the ma
lalial mosquito, and even in tropical
cities enforced sanitation has wiped
out that malady Scientific men have
given you an anti-toxin for smallpox,
they can inoculate you against ty-
phoid, and surgery is working miracles
every day.
What have you done to help science
in it's battle against old age? How
have you encouraged men to battle
for the prolongation of your life i,
Have you scoffed when they said, don't
use a public drinking cup? Did you
laugh when the signs were posted