The art of healthful living

Front matter

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

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Chapter I

THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF PERFECT HEALTH IS A. CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FRESH, PURE AIR, TOGETHER WITH RIGHT HABITS OF BREATHING.

Read the foregoing sentence again and think about it till you get its full meaning. It would be well to commit it to memory, as it would be a constant reminder of the necessity of fresh, pure air and of breathing it in such a way as to get the greatest benefit from it.

Your very life from minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day depends directly upon your breathing. One may live several days without taking water or any other liquid into the system, and hundreds if not thousands of people in the last few years, have fasted or abstained from all foods of every kind for a considerable length of time and in most cases with no apparent injury, even often much benefit, but no human bewmg or animal could live more than a few minutes without breathing. . Since human life can not be sustained without breathing, you surely will agree with me that the kind of air we

8 . HE ART OF HEALTHFUL LIVING breathe and the way we breathe it, must have a great influence on our health.

The purpose of breathing is to purify the blood and supply it with the life giving element, oxygen. About one-fifth of the air is composed of oxygen and four-fifths nitrogen. Oxygen is the life giving element in the air and without it no animal or human being can live only a very short period of time. When the air is taken into the lungs, one-fourth of the oxygen is absorbed into the blood that has been sent to them to be purified and oxygenized. While the oxygen is passing thru the delicate walls of the air cells of the lungs into the blood vessels and mingling ~ with the blood, the impurities of the blood are passing thru the walls of the blood vessels into the air cells and mingling with the air. This change never ceases from birth to death and anything that interferes with it is a serious menace to health if not to life itself.

There are many ways in which these vital processes that are continually occurring in the lungs may be hindered, but the most common is by breathing dead, stale or impure air.

We are a nation of invalids, a nation of men, women and children far below par in Health, Strength, Endurance and Physical Efficiency in General. This is due largely to our spending so much time indoors and making little or no provision for the proper ventilation of the rooms we are confined in.

All rooms or buildings that are closed up tight are filled with stale or dead air, and altho it may not be impure to begin with, yet it is not so refreshing nor Life and Health sustaining as the moving outdoor air.

When you stay in a close room a few minutes, the air begins to become foul from your own breath which is carrying the impurities of the blood from the lungs with every exhalation. You can get an idea of how long it would take you to pollute all the air in a close room by watching your exhalations outdoors on a cold morning.

If several people are in a close room for only a little while, the air becomes impure and unfit to breathe and. of course more and more so the longer they remain in it.

It is slow but certain suicide to spend the biggest part of one’s time for six months of the year or more in unventilated: living rooms, offices or publie buildings. Bad as this is during the day, it is not nearly so harmful as a closed bedroom at night. During the day one is apt to be in and out several times and in this way he or she gets considerable fresh air, but at night most people spend from seven to ten hours in the bedroom and if doors and windows are closed the air is soon polluted and becomes very foul and injurious from their breathing and it gets worse and worse as the night passes. When morning comes the stench from an unventilated bedroom will nearly knock a person down who pokes his head into it and who has been breathing pure air during the night. Just think of it! Breathing your own or someone else’s breath over and over! It is not pleasant to consider this when one realizes that every breath from everybody’s lungs has lost about one-fourth of its oxygen or life giving power and absorbed about an équal quantity of poisonous gas and impurity that is cast into the air with every exhalation. The immediate effect of breathing this impure—poisoned —unbalanced—death-dealing air is a lowering of the vitality and resisting power of the body and when these are - reduced below normal, ailments in some form or other or even serious diseases are very apt to occur.

You can determine the state of your vitality quite accurately by your feelings. When you are full of life, energy, push, vigor aud vim, it is high, but when you are languid, lifeless, unainbitious, and would rather sit or lie around than to do anything else,—your life forces and resisting powers are low and you are much more apt to be attacked by any ailment or disease than when your vitality is kept up to normal.

When one has a good pair of lungs which can readily be developed by proper breathing exercises that we shall give further on in this book, and a good digestion that is almost certain to accompany or follow right habits of eating, the vitality and resisting powers of the body are so strong that there is but little to fear from any common, contagious or chronic disease whatever.

After having read this chapter so far, I believe your good common sense will tell vou that the statements I have made are true, and that you will agree with me that the most important matter for one to consider who would preserve his Health or regain it if lost, is Right Habits of Breathing, Which Means Establishing Correct Lung Action, As Nature Intended, and Supplying the Lungs With Air Fit to Breathe.

Let me next call your attention to THE PROBLEM OF VENTILATION.

Let us begin with the home. You may think this matter of ventilation is not much of a problem and it is not in the warm or hot days of Spring and Summer, as everybody then, for the sake of comfort simply throws the doors and windows wide open and the indoor air is quite as sweet and pure as it is outdoors. But when the chilly days of Autumn come a great many people close every door and window and keep them closed as much of the time as possible till the warm days of Spring return. And not only are doors and windows closed, but I have been in many a home where even the keyholes were stopped up, so determined were the people who lived therein to keep every vestige of fresh air out No wonder the people who live or exist in homes as nearly hermetically sealed as they can possibly make them, are sick about half the time and half sick all the time. It could not be other-

RIGHT HABITS OF BREATHING il wise unless there was a special dispensation of Providence in their behalf and J am not inclined to think that the Laws of Nature are ever made null and void to accommodate the transgressor of them, no matter how earnestly he or she may desire or plead for such a favor. Man’s safety lies in finding out what these Laws of Nature are as they apply to him and meeting their requirements as nearly as our modern wncirvilization will permit.

We are so far off the right track these days that it is estimated that at least T0 per cent. of the people of the United States are below par in Health, Strength and Endurance and I’m afraid that as a nation we are getting worse rather than better in these respects. What’s the matter? A good many things, but I doubt if anything else has done so much that has been so detrimental to our physical welfare as a nation, as our indoor life und breathing the dead, stale, impure, rotten, disease-breeding, death-dealing, vitiated air that is encountered all too often im our homes, churches, schools, stores, offices, cars, theatres and picture shows.

A Hundred Years Ago, when nearly everybody lived in log houses, often quite as open as rail pens, there was little need for any special means of ventilation, but nowa-davs with our well-nigh air-proof homes it is very different. We simply must ventilate or take the disastrous consequences of our folly. But how shall this be done in the cold weather? The best way in the daytime, perhaps, is to keep a window lowered a few inches from the top on the opposite side of the room from which the wind is coming. This will insure a fairly good supply of air in the home during the cold winter days. Of course it will take a little more coal to keep up the proper temperature in ventilated rooms than will be required in rooms with doors and windows closed, but coal bills are a good deal cheaper than doctors’ and undertakers’ bills. Tf you would have the best of Health, you simply must have air fit to breathe both day and night, in the coldest as well as in the warmest weather. It is well to remember that the cold air of winter is made impure by your breath just the same as the warm air of summer.

Another ‘way to get a fair supply of fresh air into sitting rooms, dining rooms and kitchens on cold winter days without unpleasant drafts, is by raising the lower sash about four inches and putting a close fitting board from side to side under it. This leaves a space of an inch or more between the upper and lower window-panes where the fresh air can constantly enter and from which no unpleasant drafts will be noticed even when the wind is blowing hard against the windows so arranged. Two or more windows fixed in this way in each room gives fair ventilation for three or four people during the day when they are in and out several times, but it would not be sufficient at night; vet much better than no ventilation at all. This is an excellent way for those who have been sleeping in close rooms to begin ventilation in cool or cold weather. An open fireplace or grate is a splendid ventilator, and when there is a fire in it, the foul air is constantly being cast out thru the chimney.

With a window dropped two or three inches from the top or two or three with the three or four inch boards fitted closely under them, and an open fireplace with a constant fire, there need be no particular anxiety about the ventilation of living rooms during the day. If you have furnace, steam heat or stoves, more attention to the matter will be necessary to get proper ventilation in the home during the day than when there are open fireplaces or grates. A close room with a stove in it and that stove closed up tight to hold the heat is a very unhealthful place for anybody to spend an hour, and vet thousands and thousands of people all over this country are spending three or four hours or more per day in just such rooms. No wonder they get catarrh, throat and lung trouble of every kind, including tuberculosis, and that a large perbes A

* centage of our adult population dies every year from the latter disease.

Let me say right here, that of all the consumptives of this country, I seriously doubt if one could be found who was a Full, Deep, Natural Breather, and who Habitually Breathe pure air during the day and slept in a thoroughly ventilated room at night, previous to contracting the disease—unless it was due to Poor Nutrition.

How necessary, then, that we cultivate deep, full breathing and avoid, so far as possible, the stale, impure, breath-poisoned air all too common in our homes, stores, offices, schools, churches and other public buildings. We shall deal with the nutrition problem in following chapters.

Next, let us consider the PROPER VENTILATION OF SLEEPING ROOMS.

From the standpoint of Health, there is nothing else that we can do that will have so much bearing on our physical welfare,— except supplying ourselyes with good, wholesome food,— as the proper ventilation of our sleeping rooms twelve months in the year.

Did you ever consider that we spend about one-third of our lives in our bedreoms? These ought to be the airiest and most sanitary places about the house and those who have due regard for their Health will try to make them so.

Perhaps there are not many people now-a-days that know anything at all about the value of fresh, pure air and the preservation of their Health, who do not open a window or two or door a bit to let the fresh air into their sleeping rooms, but many of these do not get the full supply of pure air that everybody needs when sleeping. Bad yy | 7 as impure or stale air is for us thru the day, it is much worse during the sleeping hours at night.

Let anyone sleep several nights in succession in a room with but little or no ventilation and then the same number of nights sleep in a well ventilated room and note the great difference in the feelings. How much more one is refreshed and how much better he or she feels in every way after the nights in a room well supplied with plenty of fresh, pure air. This experiment would probably cure nine people out of every ten of the very disastrous practice of breathing dead, stale or impure air while sleeping. The air in a sleeping room ought to be as fresh and pure as the outdoor air, but how shall we make it so? By opening the windows aide, unless the weather is very cold or stormy and then they will not need to be opened more than two or three inches to give good ventilation. By all means drop the bedroom windows from the top if possible, as you are not nearly so apt to feel a draft when the windows are opened in this way. Where there are roller blinds or curtains, you can prevent the rustling, rattling noises and unpleasant air currents near the floor by lowering the blind or curtain holder from four to six inches. This allows the air currents to pass over the top of curtain or blind and the draft is scarcely ever noticed by the occupants of the room.

These suggestions are intended more especially for those who have been sleeping in close rooms and who now see the necessity of proper ventilation. Others who have been in the habit of keeping their sleeping rooms open probably drop or raise their windows much more than is suggested here. We throw our windows wide open, even in the coldest weather, unless it is stormy, and like to feel the cold, refreshing air blowing over our faces.

People who sleep in open rooms as we do are practically speaking immune from colds, la grippe, catarrh, bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia and tuberculosis when the nati RIGHT HABITS OF BREATHING” 15 ural laws of health are complied with fairly well in other respects.

Of course, it takes more cover to keep folks warm and comfortable who sleep in very open rooms, but usually these can easily be secured.

If windows can not be opened from the top, then raise them from the bottom. Just set a chair or screen between the window and the bed and ‘throw a quilt or something else over it to keep the draft from you if it is unpleasant.

Many consumptives have been cured during the last few years by putting them outdoors or in tents to sleep, and others, observing the good (that comes to these unfortunate sufferers from this practice), have adopted it as a means of avoiding this scourge, or to benefit their health in some other respect, and as a rule they are very enthusiastic over the innovation. In every city and in almost every town and village in the country there are families who have outdoor sleeping porches. 1 heartily endorse them and am convinced that diseases, especially of the nose, throat and lungs, will decrease among. all families in direct. ratio to the increase of outdoor sleeping places.

The Human Race Thrives best in the Open, and the More We Shut Ourselves Up Day or Night in the Close Rooms of Modern Homes, the More Diseases We Are Subject to and the Worse They Go With Us. We Simply Must Have the Fresh, Pure Air Continually, or Be Forever Ailing or Far Below Normal in Health, Strength, . Endurance and Physical Efficiency in General,

So ventilate your living rooms and bed chambers and live a more healthy, happy, efficient and much longer life, or keep them closed, be forever ailing and die before you have lived half the days that Nature allotted you. Its up to you.

Remember, a bedroom is not ventilated where a door only is opened into another close room.

In many offices and stores of this country there is no sign of ventilation, and were it not for the fact that the doors are opened frequently, where any considerable business is transacted, and the fresh air allowed to enter, they would become very unhealthy places indeed for the employees during several months of the vear. Emplovers who have the welfare of their helpers at heart, surely will do their best to make their business houses and offices as sanitary as possible and this can never be done without proper ventilation.

The Air That Children Are Compelled to Breathe for Several Months In the Year in Many of the School Rooms of This Country Is to Blame for Fully One-Half If Not Two-Thirds of the Diseases That Attack Them in the Cold Weather, Unless Their Sickness Is Due to Bad Air at Home. Wedo not mean to ever allow our boys to attend a school where the ventilation is not carefully looked after, for we put their health above everything that they could learn in the stuffy, breath-poisoned air of any school room.

The Churches are not much better ventilated, as a rule, than the school rooms, and like the latter, are often regular hot-beds of disease. Surely you have noticed the ereat prevalence of colds, coughs, la grippe, and often pneumonia and other serious diseases that accompany or follow revivals. These are due principally to insufficient fresh, pure air where a great number of people are crowded together. In many localities of the South the custom is to hold the revivals in the Summer time, and from the standpoint of Health it would be a great improvement were this plan adopted in the North.

Bad as the air is in many churches and schoo] rooms, yet we find it much worse in the average picture show. These places of entertainment and amusement are usually the most popular resorts in any town, where hundreds of people spend an hour or two almost, every evening in the week. I frequently visit them myself in various places, but rarely ever enter one that is well ventilated.

In View of the Fact That the State and Nation Is Aroused Over the Great Prevalence of the “Flu” and the- Unparalleled Death Rate Due to This Terrible Scourge, the People Have a Right to Demand That All Publie Buildings Should Be Put in the Most Sanitary Condition Possible and the Most Essential Things to Look After Are Proper Ventilation, Heat and Cleanliness.

About a quarter of a century ago, I learned that I could counteract to a great extent the bad effects of the impure air that [ had breathed in public buildings or private homes, by practicing deep, full breathing a few minutes after I got outdoors. I have made a regular habit of this ever since, and heartily commend it to you. Just take from ten to twenty deep, full breaths slowly and exhale after each as long and smoothly as possible. This is an excellent thing for people in general, who spend much time indoors, to do whenever they step outside.

Next let us consider further the very important matter of

RIGHT HABITS OF BREATHING.

It has been stated by good authority that on an average men breathe abeut two-thirds the air they should and women only one-half as much as is needed to keep them in the very best physical condition. If this be true, and T am convinced that it is, how necessary that everybody learn to breathe as Nature intended and then practice enuf daily to keep the lungs active and healthy, for the Very Best Health, Strength and Endurance Are Out of the Question Unless the Lungs Are As Well Developed and As Active As Nature Intended Them To Be. So learn to breathe full and deep continually, just as healthful children and all animals do. If you have lost the habit by wearing tight clothing about the waist and lower chest, or sitting with your back in the shape of a rainbow, you can acquire it again by loosening the clothing that hinders, sitting and standing as advised in the chapter on Right Habits of Exercise, and by practicing faithfully the Deep Breathing Exercises given further on. We practice the latter almost every day and urge you to do the same. If you do those exercises right, the time will surely be well spent.

You may ask what I mean by Natural, Full, Deep Breathing that is mentioned so often in this book, and that you are advised to make a habit of, so I will try to explain the matter to you and make it perfectly clear. By Natural Breathing is meant that which has not been interfered with, perverted or changed from infancy on. It is full, and deep and involves every part of the lungs in each inhalation and exhalation. All parts of the chest, but especially the lower ribs, are expanded when the breath is taken in and relaxed or contracted when it is expelled from the lungs.

By Full, Deep Breathing is meant the same as Natural Breathing, only more breath is consciously drawn into the lungs than would otherwise enter them, even tho the

breathing be perfectly normal. ;

In Natural Breathing not only the lower ribs but the abdominal muscles are expanded with every inhalation and contracted with every exhalation. The diaphragin is also involved in these movements. J/f you acill watch the breathing of a horse, cow, cat, dog or healthy child iho has never been cramped down over a desk at school nor bound up in tight clothing about the aeaist or lower chest until the breathing is perverted, vou can get an exact. idea of what is meant by perfectly Natural breathing and this you should imitate until it becomes a habit with you again, | if you find on self examination that you are breathing in any other way.

It will take considerable time, practice and patience to re-establish natural breathing when lost, but it will be well worth all the effort it costs you many times over.

It Is a Deplorable Fact That a Majority of Women, Even ‘the More Intelligent and Better Educated Ones Who Ought to Know Better, Seem .to Breathe Almost Entirely With the Upper Lobes of the Lungs. If you are a close observer whether man or woman, you will agree with me in this statement. In natural breathing there is scarcely any action noticeable in the upper front chest, but with womankind, so far as one may determine by observation, this is the only part of the chest that seems to move at all in respiration.

This restricted, abnormal method of breathing is very injurious’ and one so handicapped can scarcely hope. to enjoy the best of health or endurance until it is corrected, —but as with nearly all unnatural and unhealthfut habits it can be overcome. Just loosen tight or restricting clothing abvut the waist and lower chest and then expand these parts of the body as much as possible while inhaling, in the breathing exercises of this book. Beginners will get satisfactory results quicker in re-establishing natural activity in these cramped, bound-up muscles by practicing deep, full, lower chest or abdominal breathing while lving down than when - standing or sitting up.

Hosts of children get the habit of upper chest breath- — ing as well as round shoulders, flat chests and craned necks from being allowed to sit in a cramped, drooped position over desks for several hours a day, year after year, at school. This is a very common habit in almost ‘every school room I ever visited, and I am sure is the cause of most of the ungainly figures that so many of the schoolboys and girls have developed.

In the name of common sense and justice to our boys and girls, why don’t we give the necessary time and attention to their Physical Training, while in our public schools, that is absolutely necessary to insure their very best physical welfare in future life?

It has been estimated that of the twenty millions of children and young people in the public schools of this country, Fifteen Millions of Them Have Something Wrong With Their Bodies. PARENTS and TEACHERS, what do you think of that? Of all the children that look to you for their present guidance and future welfare, threefourths of them are said to be growing up with something wrong with their bodies in some respect or other. Just think of it’ Do you suppose that the seventy-five per cent. of our boys and girls who are growing up Physically Deficient can do as good work in school or will have an equal chance for success after school days aré over as the normal, healthy ones? And don’t you think something should be done, and done speedily before more irreparable harm results, to insure the proper ’hysical as Well as Mental Training of the boys and girls while in our public schools? J certainly do, and I don’t believe that anything else could be taught them in the same length of time necessary for Proper Physical Training that would do them as much Permanent Good or be of greater setisfaction to them in future life.

From my many years’ experience in teaching hundreds of children Physical Training, I am convinced from results accomplished that a very large percentage of all the frail, weak, puny, unhealthy, round-shouldered, flatchester, craned-necked, knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, flatfooted, stiff, awkward and ungainly boys and girls that can be found in almost every school in the land, can be id G Which ole This Kind of Training Is missin I 8 ‘ "Saadaidd to the Pupils Who Attend It. 3 ae

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CHAPTER II. Right Habits of Eating---When to Eat

THE SECOND ESSENTIAL OF PERFECT HEALTH IS RIGHT HABITS OF EATING.

In the foregoing Chapter I have tried to make clear to you the absolute necessity of a constant supply of fresh, pure air both day and night, from the beginning to the end of the year, and also the importance of practicing Deep, Full Breathing daily if you wish to enjoy the Very Best of Health all thru life down to a ripe old age. Surely you will not neglect these important suggestions.

My Purpose in This and the Three Following Chapters is to give you the information and practical suggestions that will enable vou to correct any mistakes that you may be making in your Eating Habits, and in this way help you to acquire or retain a good digestion which is the next step on the Highway that leads to Perfect Health.

If these suggestions are heeded and you make a regular habit of eating according to rules herein given, the chances are ten to one that you will never have any trouble with your stomach, if it is in a normal, healthful condition now, but if it is not performing its functions properly, it will only be a short time till an improvement will be noticed and by and by the whole digestive system will

WHEN TO EAT bie be working properly and give no more trouble so long as the teachings of this and other chapters of this book are faithfully observed.

Just Here I Wish to State That I'm No Food Crank and have no cranky notions to spring on you. The information I offer for your consideration and benefit in this book is ‘the best and most helpful that I have been able to find and prove to be true in more than thirty years’ study of the food problem and other matters that pertain to the Health of the body. a

Some of our most noted food specialists, men who have made a long and careful study of the various articles of diet in common use, and their effects on the body, tell us that from seventy-five to ninety per cent. of all the diseases that afflict us comes from a acrong selection, a wrong combination or a wrong proportion of our daily foods and the manner in which we eat them. IT think they have their per cent. a way yonder too high, but do not doubt that much of the disease and weakness of the human race is caused by errors in eating.