Health-culture

Preface

“ T)HYSICIAN, heal thyself ! ” This inward monition JL first started me on the special path of investigation which has led to the results recorded in these pages. In my youth I was an active, vigorous athlete, but before I was thirty an injury to the leg, accompanied by blood poisoning and followed by varicose veins, rendered all strenuous exertion painful, and condemned me in an everincreasing degree to a sedentary life. As a consequence, I gradually grew fat and scant of breath ; my digestion was disturbed ; I suffered from hemorrhoids, and was troubled with a tendency to chill diseases. While my health was in this state I was appointed to lecture on anthropology, in addition to my course on zoology, at the Royal Polytechnic School, Stuttgart. Conformably to my invariable rule to proceed not merely theoretically, but also practically, in whatever I undertake, I determined to choose for my lectures on anthropology the subject of “ Health Culture.” But here it seemed to me, sick man as I was, that my lecturing on health was as though a bald-headed person should extol the virtues of a patent “ hair restorer,” and this feeling inspired my endeavour to heal myself with the energy requisite to the success which I have achieved.

IV.

Preface.

My success, however, was not attained all at once, and the various short essays, printed in their chronological order, which appeared in the earlier editions of this work, afford to some extent a chart of the route by which I gradually arrived at the reforms embodied in my Sanitary Woollen System.

Since these essays were written, the popularity of my reforms has advanced with giant strides, and the experience of many thousands of wool wearers in every country and climate under the sun has added new and valuable information as to the hygienic worth of my System, which has the happy faculty of attracting the enthusiastic interest — I had almost said affection — of those who adopt it.

The present book is practically divided into two parts, the first containing a detailed description of my Clothing and Bedding Reform, and the second, various short essays dealing in a popular manner with questions of hygiene which are of general interest.

The Company which represents my System in the British Empire, has received many gratifying testimonials, but, I would draw especial attention to the experiences of Mr. Stanley, in Africa, and of Miss Marsden, in Siberia. They will be found on pages 158-159 of this volume, and they afford striking evidence in favour of my contention that the Sanitary Woollen Clothing is eminently adapted for wearing in hot countries, as well as in cold, and, a fortiori , in our changeable European climates.

G. JAEGER, M.D.

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