The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1874-10-24 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH.  THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY READING DR. LYON PLAYFAIR'S ADDRESS.  Two important addresses have been delivered lately. One was spoken :It Belfast before the British Association, by Professor Tyndall, a man of splendid power, upon the probable physical origin of life and mind, in which, after tracing matter through every conceivable state and condition, until it has disappeared entirely and nothing left but a form of thought, the Professor returns to say that what he looked for has c,mpletely escaped him. And after all has been granted, matter and its motion, with the "field of space and track of time" for operation, yet no adaptation, no development, no evolution, is possible until the ethereal element of life is introduced from heaven upon the plane of infinite operation.  The other address was given before the Social Science Congress, in Glasgow, by Dr. Lyon Playfair, upon a subject of much greater importance to all, but the few who are given to occult and metaphysical thought. The subject was upon how much health depends upon the law of cleanliness. The breadth and depth of the subject cannot be easily over-rated, and cannot be too much thought upon. The idea of health embraces so much, not alone physical strength, but mental and moral strength, it encloses all that is in real or true heroism—a fine taste for all that is truly enjoyable, and a proper balance of all the organic functions. The senses are all keen and unperverted. Proper food alone gives pleasure; in fact, health means a pure and completely harmonious action between all the bodily functions and the surrounding circumstances. Instead of saying health depends upon cleanliness, I would say health is cleanliness; every form of filth is disease in some form or other.  A healthy body cannot breathe at ease in an air thick with impurity either physically or morally. What do the words quoted by Dr. Lyon Play. fair, "wash, and he clean," imply, physically? They mean a clean house, a clean body, and a clean mind.  A clean house is one in which pure air circulates freely in every room by night and day. "Fresh air is an element of health, manners, and morals." "To live without it is slow suicide—to deprive others of it approximates to homicide." To breath unclean air is to vitiate he blood, and that produces m mbid and diseased states of body, and by the action of poisonous blood upon the brain, it induces weak and worthless conditions of mind. In a clean house everything is removed that would give off impure odour of any kind, or that would in any way effect a refined taste for fitness. Much might be said in detail here, but space will not allow it. Especially allusion might be made to the law affecting sleeping rooms.  Next comes a clean body. To be clean in the proper sense is within the reach of all. Almost the whole of good manners consists in personal cleanliness. A man may be inoffensive in his manner of action, in other Ways; but, if he cannot be looked at, or come near without the sense of sight or smell being offended by him, or if he cannot enter a room without rendering the air unpleasant, he breaks the laws of both health and manners. We have no right to make the air impure for others to breathe by our bad habits, nor to offend against the law of pure taste 131 I,eing dirty in appearance.