Part 50

Leigh Hunt says: “Do not imagine that mind alone is concerned in your bad spirits. The body has a great deal to do with these matters. The mind may undoubtedly affect the body; but the body also affects the mind. There is a reaction between them; and by lessening it on either side you diminish the pain of both. If you are melancholy, and know not why, be assured it must arise entirely from some physical weakness, and do your best to strengthen yourself. The blood of a melancholy man is thick and slow. The blood of a lively man is clear and quick. Endeavor, therefore, to put your blood in motion. Exercise is the best way to do it.”

The homely old maxim,--

“After breakfast, work a while; After dinner, sit and smile; After supper, walk a mile,”--

contains a good deal of practical wisdom. Manual labor in the forenoon; cheerful conversation, or music, after dinner; a light supper, at five or six o’clock, and a pleasant walk afterward, will preserve health, and do much to restore it, if undermined. A walk at any period of the day does the body twice as much good if connected with some object that interests the mind or heart. To walk out languidly into infinite space, merely to aid digestion, as rich epicures are wont to do, takes half the virtue out of exercise.

An aged clergyman, who had never known a day’s illness, was asked how he accounted for it. He replied, “Dry feet and early rising have been my only precautions.” In “Hall’s Journal of Health” I find the following advice, of which I know the value by experience: “If you are well, let yourself alone. This is our favorite motto. But to you whose feet are inclined to be cold, we suggest that as soon as you get up in the morning, put your feet at once in a basin of cold water, so as to come half-way to the ankles; keep them in half a minute in winter, or two minutes in summer, rubbing them both vigorously; wipe dry, and hold to the fire, if convenient, in cold weather, until every part of the foot feels as dry as your hand, then put on your socks or stockings. On going to bed at night, draw off your stockings, and hold the foot to the fire for ten or fifteen minutes, until perfectly dry, and get right into bed. This is a most pleasant operation, and fully repays for the trouble of it. No one can sleep well or refreshingly with cold feet. Never step from your bed with the naked feet on an uncarpeted floor. I have known it to be the exciting cause of months of illness. Wear woollen, cotton, or silk stockings, whichever keep your feet most comfortable; do not let the experience of another be your guide, for different persons require different articles; what is good for a person whose feet are naturally damp, cannot be good for one whose feet are always dry.”

In Italy, and all the other grape-growing countries of Europe, people have the habit of drinking wine with breakfast. Cornaro followed the general custom, and he recommends a moderate use of wine as essential to old people. But at that remote period there was less knowledge of the physical laws than there now is. He confesses that he always found old wine very deleterious to him, and that for many years he never tasted any but new wine. Sir Walter Raleigh, who was born only ninety years later than Cornaro, gives the following sensible advice: “Except thou desire to hasten thy end, take this for a general rule: that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice, until thou find that time hath decayed thy natural heat; and the sooner thou dost begin to help Nature, the sooner she will forsake thee, and leave thee to trust altogether to art.”

The late Dr. Warren, in his excellent little book on the “Preservation of Health,” bears the following testimony: “Habitual temperance in regard to the quantity of food, regular exercise, and abstinence from all stimulants except for medicinal purposes, would greatly diminish or obviate the evils of age. It is idle to say that men can and do live sometimes even to great age under the practice of various excesses, particularly under the use of stimulants. The natural and sufficient stimulus of the stomach is healthy food. Any stimulus more active produces an unnatural excitement, which will ultimately tell in the great account of bad habits. The old adage, ‘Wine is the milk of age,’ is not supported by exact observation of facts. For more than twenty years I have had occasion to notice a great number of instances of the sudden disuse of wine without mischievous results. On the contrary, the disuse has generally been followed by an improvement of appetite, freedom from habitual headache, and a tranquil state of body and mind. Those who have been educated to the use of wine do, indeed, find some inconvenience from the substitution of a free use of water. If, however, they begin by taking the pure fluid in moderate quantities only, no such inconvenience occurs. The preceding remarks may be applied to beer, cider, and other fermented liquors. After the age of sixty, I myself gave up the habit of drinking wine; and, so far from experiencing any inconvenience, I have found my health better without it than with it.”

Dr. Warren’s exhortations against the use of tobacco are very forcible. He says: “The habit of smoking impairs the natural taste and relish for food, lessens the appetite, and weakens the powers of the stomach. Tobacco, being drawn in with the vital breath, conveys its poisonous influence into every part of the lungs. The blood, having imbibed the narcotic principle, circulates it through the whole system. Eruptions on the skin, weakness of the stomach, heart, and lungs, dizziness, headache, confusion of thought, and a low febrile action must be the consequence. Where there is any tendency to diseases of the lungs, the debility of these organs consequent on the smoking of tobacco must favor the deposit of tuberculous matter, and thus sow the seeds of consumption.

“Snuff received into the nostrils enters the cavities opening from them, and makes a snuff-box of the olfactory apparatus. The voice is consequently impaired, sometimes to a remarkable degree. I knew a gentleman of the legal profession who, from the use of snuff occasionally, lost the power of speaking audibly in court. Moreover, portions of this powder are conveyed into the lungs and stomach, and exert on those organs their deleterious effects.

“The worst form in which tobacco is employed is in chewing. This vegetable is one of the most powerful of narcotics. A very small portion of it--say a couple of drachms, and perhaps even less--received into the stomach might prove fatal. When it is taken into the mouth in smaller portions, and there retained some time, an absorption of part of it into the system takes place, which has a most debilitating effect. If we wished to reduce our physical powers in a slow yet certain way, we could not adopt a more convenient process. The more limited and local effects are indigestion, fixed pains about the region of the stomach, debility of the back, affections of the brain, producing vertigo, and also affections of the mouth, generating cancer.”

Too much cannot be said in favor of frequently washing the whole person in cold water, or, if not entirely cold in winter, at least as nearly so as it can be without producing a chill. It operates both as a purifier and a tonic. The health in all respects greatly depends upon keeping the pores of the skin open. Attacks of rheumatism might often be warded off by this habit. The washing should be in a warm room, and followed immediately by a smart rubbing with a coarse towel.

When wounds, bruises, or cracks in the skin become inflamed and feverish, there is no application better than a linen rag, doubled six or eight times, wet with cold water, and bound on with a thick, dry, cotton bandage, which completely covers it. Inveterate sores will be healed by a repetition of this application. The same is true of sore throat; but the wet cloth should be carefully and completely covered with dry woollen, so as to exclude the air. When removed, it should be done soon after one rises in the morning; the throat should then be plentifully sponged with cold water, and wiped thoroughly dry. There is danger of taking cold after the application of hot or warm water; but it is not so with the use of cold water.

It is a great preservation to the eyesight to plunge the face into cold water every morning, and wink the eyes in it while one counts thirty or forty. In order to do this, one must draw in the breath when about to plunge the head into the water, and hold the breath while it remains there. It seems difficult to do this at first, but it soon becomes easy. It is well to repeat the operation six or eight times every morning. In cold weather, put in warm water enough to prevent a painful chill.

Before retiring to rest, great care should be taken to remove every particle of food from between the teeth with a tooth-pick of willow, or ivory, and cleanse the mouth very thoroughly by the use of the brush, and rinsing. It is more important at night than in the morning; because during sleep an active process of fermentation goes on, which produces decay. It is an excellent plan to hold a piece of charcoal in the mouth frequently. It arrests incipient toothache and decay, and tends to preserve the teeth by its antiseptic properties. If chewed, it should not be swallowed, except occasionally, and in small quantities; and it should never be rubbed on the teeth, as it injures the enamel.

Old people are generally reluctant to admit that the present generation is wiser than the past; but in one respect all must allow that there is obvious improvement. Far less medicine is taken than formerly; and more attention is paid to diet. Still, people by no means pay sufficient attention to the good old maxim, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Nature gives us kindly warnings, which we thoughtlessly neglect. When the head aches and the skin is hot, we often continue to eat hearty food, merely because we like the taste of it; and the result of this imprudence is a fever, which might have been easily and cheaply prevented by living two or three days on bread and water, or simple gruels.

Fruits are among the best as well as the pleasantest of remedies. Fresh currants agree with nearly all dyspeptics, and are excellent for people of feverish tendencies; cranberries also. The abundant use of apples is extremely conducive to health. The free use of grapes is said to cure liver-complaints, and to be in other respects salutary for the system. Linnæus tells us that he was cured of severe rheumatism by eating strawberries, and that he afterward habitually resorted to them when he had an attack of that painful disease. Captain Cook has also recorded, that when he touched at an island where strawberries were in great profusion, the crew devoured them eagerly, and were cured of a scorbutic complaint, which had afflicted them greatly. Lemonade and oranges are recommended for rheumatism; vegetable acids in general being salutary for that disease. Mother Nature is much kinder to us than we are to ourselves. She loves to lead us gently, and the violent reactions from which we suffer we bring upon ourselves by violating the laws she is constantly striving to teach us.

“How shall I manage to be healthy?” said a wealthy invalid to the famous Dr. Abernethy. “Live on sixpence a day, and earn it,” was his laconic reply.

THE INVALID’S PRAYER

O thou, whose wise, paternal love Hath cast my active vigor down, Thy choice I thankfully approve; And, prostrate at Thy gracious throne, I offer up my life’s remains; I choose the state my God ordains.

Cast as a broken vessel by, Thy will I can no longer do; But while a daily death I die, power I can in weakness show; My patience shall thy glory raise, My steadfast trust proclaim thy praise.

WESLEY.

* * * * *

Trials make our faith sublime, Trials give new life to prayer, Lift us to a holier clime, Make us strong to do and bear.

COWPER.

THE OLD PASTOR AND HIS SON.

FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

In the little village of Heim, Gottreich Hartmann resided with his old father, who was a curate. The old man had wellnigh outlived all those whom he had loved, but he was made happy by his son. Gottreich discharged for him his duties in the parish, not so much in aid of his parent’s untiring vigor, as to satisfy his own energy, and to give his father the exquisite gratification of being edified by his child and companion.

In Gottreich there thrilled a spirit of true poetry; and his father also had, in his youth, a poet’s ardor, of like intensity, but it had not been favored by the times. Son and father seemed to live in one another; and on the site of filial and paternal love there arose the structure of a rare and peculiar friendship. Gottreich not only cheered his father by the new birth of his own lost poet-youth, but by the still more beautiful similarity of their faith. The father found again his old Christian heart sending forth new shoots in the bosom of Gottreich, and moreover the best justification of the convictions of his life and of his love.