Physiology and health. for primary classes : studies of the human body and of the effects of alcoholic drinks and narcotics upon life and health

Front matter

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.

Preface

Most of our States and Territories now by law require that Physiology and Hygiene be taught in the Pubhc Schools, with special refer-' ence to the effects of Alcoholic Drinks and other narcotics on the human system. Many existing books, prepared to meet the demands of the first enactments on this subject, do not fulfill tha requirements of more recent legislation. The present work is designed to teach the essential laws of health, and to comply fully with the most stringent provisions of the enactments requiring this subject taught, by conforming to their primary object, namely: To have the children instructed as to the nature of Alcoholic Drinks and other Narcotics, and the results of their use, and thus to forewarn them against the insidious poisons that are the constant cause of so much misery and crime,

PREFACE.

As much of Anatomy and Physiology is taught as is necessary to this end. But these sciences do not usurp the space and time that belong to the more important aims* contemplated by the requirements which this book is intended to meet.

The endeavor has been to make the physiological instruction clear and sufficient, — the Temperance teachings thorough, and as radical as the whole truth now revealed by modern scientific investigation.

The work throughout has been more or less prepared and wholly supervised by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, the superintendent of the Department of Scientific Instruction of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the Advisory Committee of the same, to whom the publishers are under great obligations.

New York, August, 1889.

The Senses. — The Eye.— The Ear 92

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

Chapter I. Introductory

1. Did you ever keep a garden-plot? . If so, you found that your flow- ;^y ers or vegetables did well

when you took good care of them, and did ill when you neglected them.

some other garden looked

better than yours, it was because the owner

knew better what to do for it, or worked more than you did. Garden plants do not

thrive without care. 2. Compare the lean and rough-coated horse

of your shiftless neighbor with the sleek, plump horse of a careful, thrifty man, and you will see that animals do not thrive without proper attention.

3. In the poorest streets of the city are many children with dull eyes and sallow faces, who,

if they were properly clothed and fed and

washed, would be rosy and bright. Children

do not thrive well without care.

4. To be well and strong, we must take care of our bodies. In order to take care of them, we must know what they need, what is good for them, and what will injure them.

5. Our appetites are intended to guide us, but they must not control us. The lower

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

animals are governed by their appetites, but human beings must be governed by reason. If we do not know how to take proper care of our bodies, we are in a worse condition than any of the lower animals, for their appetites seldom lead them to do themselves any harm. Ours often lead us astray.

6. One of the most common ways of injuring •the body is by the use of alcohoUc drinks, tobacco, and other poisons. Many grown people even are ignorant of the effects of these substances. People often begin to use them without knowing what harm they are doing themselves. This httle book is intended to teach you how to take care of your health, and to point out to you the harm which comes from taking beer and other alcoholic drinks, and from smoking or chewing tpbacco.

QUESTIONS.

I. — 1. What are the effects of care and neglect on a garden-plot? 2. What are the effects of care and neglect on horses? 3, 4. What are their effects on children ? 5. For what are our bodies intended? 6. What is one of the most common ways of injuring the body? What is the purpose of this book?

CHAPTER IL

OUR FOOD.

I

1. Twice or three times a day you sit down at a table to eat and drink. Every one you know does the same thing. In our manufactories, workshops, and schools thS noon bell is the signal for all to cease working and to go and eat. No matter how important the business or the Study, it must wait while we eat our food.

2. People spend from one to two hours each day in eating and drinking, and sometimes more. It takes all the time of many cooks and housekeepers to prepare food. And the heads of families work hard every day to get money to buy what is needed for meals. We can state truthfully that a large share of the time and labor of the whole world is used in getting and preparing and eating food.

3. Do you know why we spend so much time in this way ? You eat and drink because you are hungry and thirsty, and you enjoy it. Can you remember the time when you were not hungry, and yet your friends urged you to eat something?

We all know that there

are many things that we would enjoy eating,

but we are not allowed to have them often.

So it is not only because we are hungry, or

for enjoyment, that we eat.

4. A tired mother would often omit to get dinner, and cooks would run away from the hot stove, and fathers would stop working many a da}f, if it were only for pleasure that we eat.

6. We must eat and drink to keep aUve. Some people need little food and others need a great deal. But all must eat something every day. If we should stop eating, we would grow thin and weak and would die very soon. Persons have been known to live more than a month without eating, but most people would die in much less time than that.

u

1. The most of our food grows from the ground. The warm sun shines and the rain falls on the earth, and the grain and the vegetables and the plants grow and ripen, and we gather and store them up.

Grains.

2. Wheat, barley, corn, and oats are seeds. The farmer raises them, and stores a part to sow the following year, and the rest is taken to the miller to be ground. From the wheat comes the flour that we make into loaves of bread. From corn and oats comes the meal that makes cakes and porridge^ and pearl-barley we use in making soup.

3. The Chinese and Hindoos live mostly on rice. Eice is not often ground, but is boiled or made into a pudding. Rye and barley are good food; but the best of all the grains is wheat, and the finest bread is made from wheaten flour.

Vegetables.

4. Most people like potatoes. They are a wholesome and light food when boiled, baked or stewed ; but fried potatoes are not good for every one, because of the fat in them. The sweet potato grows in warm climates, and is rich in taste. It is heavier and less digestible than the white potato.

5. Turnips and beets are roots, hke the potato, and are sweet and good.

6. Lettuce, spinach, celery, and other green vegetables are pleasant to the taste and healthful, but they do not of themselves give much strength.

7. If you had to choose the best two articles of vegetable food, you would select wheaten bread and the white potato, would you not? But it is better to have a variety.

8. Fruits do not contain much solid substance. They have a great deal of juice which is mostly water. If you had to live on fruit entirely, you would not grow fat or strong. But we all like apples, oranges, pears, grapes, and other fruits and berries. And they are very useful. It gives us pleasure to eat them, and they help us to digest other food.

9. It is well to form the habit of eating a httle fruit before breakfast. The old proverb says : " Fruit is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night." That means that apples and some other fruits when eaten in the evening sometimes make a '' lump in the stomach," and give us a restless night and bad dreams. Fruit that is not ripe should not be eaten at any time.

Animal Food.

10. Once or twice a day is often enough to eat meat. In some countries they do not eat it at all. The natives of India i\Q not eat animal food, because they do not think it right to do so. Many people do not eat it because they cannot get it. It is more expensive than vegetable food. The Esquimaux, who live near the North Pole, have to live chiefly on the meat of bears, walrus, and other animals during their long winters. But the people of those countries, where both animal and vegetable food is eaten, like Europe and America, grow larger and stronger than those who live ' on animal or vegetable food alone.

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

11. The best meat to eat is beef. Mutton, poultry and game are good food. Pork is the meat used by many peo- -- - -— . pie during the winter

months. It is not as ^- ^^^

healthful as beef.

12. Fish and oysters we get from the water, and are good when fresh but very bad when stale.

The rule that we must not eat oysters in the months that have not an "r" in them is a good one.

13. Eggs and milk are both animal foods. Eggs must be very good food; for the chick in the egg lives on it for many days before the shell breaks. Then you will find nothing left of the yolk and white of the egg. It has all gone into the chick, which then needs another kind of food.

14. Babies live on milk for months. Sick people often take nothing but milk. It has in it everything that is needed to make the body grow.

Mineral Food.

15. We have to eat a good deal of mineral food. Our bones, for example, are partly made of lime, and we must have lime in our food to keep the bones in good repair and to make them grow. But we could not eat pure lime itself. The lime that we eat is found in our bread and milk, meat and potatoes, and other food. You cannot see it or taste it, because there is very little of it, and it is really a part of the food. But it is certainly there ; we could not live if we did not have it.

16. Salt is the only mineral that we eat pure.

ni

Cooking.

1. Why do we cook our food? It takes a great deal of time. Why do we not eat it raw as animals do?

2. Much of our food we could not eat, if it were not cooked. You would find it difficult to eat meal and flour in that way. And if you succeeded in swallowing a little, it would make your stomach feel badly. A raw potato

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

would be hard and coarse. Raw beef can be eaten, but it is very tasteless.

3. When the flour is made into light and delicate bread, and when the potato is boiled until it becomes dry and mealy, it is ant to the taste easy to eat and

Beef gives out an agreeable smell, and tastes well when nicely roasted or broiled. Cooking makes quite a change in these and many other articles of food.

4. It is easy to spoil good food and make it unhealthful by bad cooking. A good cook can make common and cheap food very wholesome. All girls should learn something about cooking food. A cooking-stove is a more useful thing than a piano.

5. Work that helps to make the children grow, and to keep the grown folks well and happy, is surely worth time and attention.

6. We should eat to hve, and not live to eat. Any one who eats his food merely for enjoyment makes a mistake. He is likely to eat and drink things that are too rich for his stomach, and to cause it some injury.

7. It is foolish and wicked to eat and drink that which does us harm, for the sake of the pleasure it gives us. Very many people injure themselves in this way by using intoxicating drinks.

QUESTIONS.

I. — 1, 2, 3. Why do we spend so much time eating and drinking? 4. Do we eat merely for pleasure? 5. Can we safely go without eating? Do all need to eat the same?

II. — 1. Where does most of our food come from ? 2, 3. What grains do we eat? 4, 5. What vegetables do we eat most of? 6. What green vegetables are pleasant and healthful? 7. What are the two best articles of vegetable food ? 8, 9. What is the chief use of fruits as food. 10. What is the chief use of animal food ? 11. What meats are best to eat ? 12. What is said of fish and oysters? 13. Of eggs? 14. Of milk? 15. What is the use of mineral food?

III. — 1, 2, 3. Why do we cook our food? 4, 5. Why should all girls learn to cook ? 6, 7. What is the best rule for eating ?

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

CHAPTEE III.

DRINKS.

1. What is more beautiful than pure water? And what is more dehcious when one is thirsty !^ It is dreadful to be starving and have nothing to eat, but it is worse to be very thirsty and have nothing to drink. You would hardly believe me if I should tell you how much water there is in your body. But you know that you cannot eat anything unless you first chew it, and mix it with water in your mouth. You know, too, that the blood which flows in every part of your body consists chiefly of water. If we could obtain no water our blood would become thick, our skins would grow dry and leathery, and we should soon die. Water is the best of drinks; and because it is so necessary to us, Nature makes us crave it and enjoy it.

2. Good water may become bad. You would not drink water that had a bad taste or bad smell. You would not drink water that was dirty or had anything distasteful in it.

3. But water may be perfectly clear and sparkling; it may have no foul taste or smell, and still be bad. When water runs near a drain, or cess-pool, or barn-yard, the settlings from these places may soak through the earth and mix with the water, and make it bad without making it look or smell or taste bad.

4. People sometimes poison themselves with bad water without knowing it. The only safe way is to have the barn-yard and cess-pool far away from the well and water-pipes, and to be sure that the drain does not leak.

5. Water sometimes gets poisoned by the

PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH.

lead-pipes through which it iTins. It does not look or taste different, and people go on drinking it until they begin to be sick. They commonly have some pain in the stomach, and sometimes they become paralyzed.

6. Milk, besides being good for food, is a very refreshing drink. A glass of milk with meals is better than a glass of ice-water.

7. Hot coffee and tea are used by grown people, and sometimes they are given to children. But this is not right. Children do not need hot drinks with their food if they are well, and coffee and tea are not good for their stomachs and their nerves.

8. Chocolate and cocoa are better than tea and coffee for children. Sometimes a child who is not well needs a warm drink with meals. "Cambric tea" (milk and hot water sweetened) is very good for such children.

9. Lemonade is refreshing in hot weather, and is wholesome. The juices of other fruits are used to make drinks, which have a pleasant flavor and do no harm. Soda water is a favorite drink. It is sparkUng and pleasant, but the sweet syrups which are used in it leave one as thirsty as before.

10. These drinks are harmless. But there are other drinks used by many people which are poisonous, though their effects may seem pleasant at first. Such drinks have many different names, — cider, beer, wine, whisky, gin, brandy, etc. But they are all alike in one thing. They all contain alcohol, and it is the alcohol in them that makes them injurious.

QUESTIONS.

I. — 1. Why do we need to drink? What is the best drink? 2, 3. How may water become impure? 4. How may we best keep water pure? 5. How is water poisoned by lead-pipes? 6. What animal food is both meat and drink? 7. Should children drink coffee and tea ? 8. Chocolate ? 9. Lemonade and fruit drinks? Soda water? 10. Compare these with harmful poisonous drinks.

CHAPTER IV.

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.

Cider.

1. Green apples are hard and sour. They will he apt to make you sick if you try to eat them. But ripe apples are softer, their juice has a sweeter flavor, and they are good to eat.

2. Sometimes men make a bad use of their apples. They grind or crush them, and press out the juice, and let it stand in barrels or tubs. It is then called cider. Apple-juice when treated in this way quickly changes to a dangerous drink.

3. What makes it change? Something that is called a ferment. You cannot see a ferment with the naked eye, it is so very small.

4. If you ever looked through a microscope, you saw that it made a tiny speck of dust look very large. Men have seen the ferments by looking at them through the microscope, and have watched what they do.

5. In this way it has been found that the ferments are so hght and small that they can float in the air, and that they often rest on the skins or stems of fruit, though we do not see them with the naked eye.

6. When the juice of the apple is pressed out, these ferments at once get into it and change it. They do this by turning the sugar of the juice into something else.

7. How does sugar get into the apple-juice?

No one puts it in as you put sugar into your "cambric tea/' but as the apples ripen the sugar forms in them. The sweetest and ripest apples have the most sugar in their juices.

8. When the juice of apples is pressed out, the ferments turn the sugar into a gas* that bubbles out to the air, and into a clear Uquid that stays in the cider. That clear liquid is called alcohol. It is a poison. It makes the cider a poison.

9. A poison may not quickly kill a person who takes only a little at first. But it is the nature of a little poison to injure one's health. Enough will kill whoever takes it.

10. Alcohol is a very bad poison, because it makes one who takes a little, in such a drink as cider, want more, and if he takes more he wiU want still more. It is the nature of alcohol to make a person not care if he does wrong. Often it makes those who drink it wish to do wicked and evil deeds.

11. Alcohol generally forms in cider in about six hours after the juice has been pressed out of the apples. If the weather is cold the fer-

* Carbonic acid gas.

28 VNION SERIES, NO. i..

ments will not work as fast, and it will be longer before alcohol forms.

12. Each day after the cider is made, there will be more and more alcohol in it, as the ferments turn its sugar into that poison. The person who keeps on drinking cider each day after it is made, will get more and more alcohol. When the ferments have turned most of the sugar in the cider into alcohol, it is called "hard cider."

13. Ferments cannot change dry sugar into alcohol. They do not change the sugar in the apple-juice to alcohol while that juice stays in the apple.

14. There is no alcohol in apples or other fruits or vegetables as these ripen for us to eat. When apples decay or rot, they are not fit to eat. But this is not because there is alcohol in them. Their decay is not caused by the ferments that turn the sugar in cider into alcohol.

15. You have learned that the ripest and sweetest apples have the most sugar in their juices. Can you tell why more alcohol will form in the juice that has been pressed out of ripe, sweet apples than in that from sourer or greener fruits?

16. Once people did not know that the ferments turn the sugar in the pressed-out apple-juice into alcohol. They did not understand that alcohol is a poison. They thought that as apples are good cider must be good also, but that is not true.

17. It is the nature of cider to make its drinkers want more. Cider has made many drunkards. It makes those who drink it cross and ugly-tempered, and often cruel and careless about doing right. You should not drink cider, because there is alcohol in it. If cider is left in a warm place long enough, the alcohol in it will turn to an acid. After that it is no longer called cider but vinegar. There is no alcohol, in vinegar.

QUESTIONS.

I. — 1, 2. What poisonous drink is made of apples ? 3, 4. What changes the apple-juice to a dangerous drink ? 5, 6. How do the ferments act? 7. How does sugar get into the apple-juice? 8. How is the alcohol formed ? 9, 10. What is the nature of alcoholic poison? 11, 12. Does the alcohol keep increasing in cider? What is hard cider? 15. What apples make the most alcohol? 16, 17. What is the effect of cider-drinking ?

CHAPTER V.

WINE-BEER-DISTILLED LIQUORS.

I Wine.

1. As grapes ripen sugar forms in their juices, just as it does in the juice of apples.

2. Ripe grapes are a healthful fruit and very pleasant to eat. There is no alcohol in them. But if the juice of grapes is pressed out, the ferments will get in and will soon turn the sugar in such grape- juice to a gas that will pass in bubbles out of the liquid, and to alcohol that will stay in it. When the juice of grapes is pressed out it is called wine. The ferments will quickly turn the sugar in such a juice to alcohol.

3. Because alcohol is a poison, it makes the wine which contains it also a poison. Some wines are nearly one-quarter alcohol, others less. The more alcohol there is in any kind of wine, the more poisonous it makes the

wine.

Home-made Wine.

4. People sometimes make wine at home from grapes or berries, and think there is no alcohol in it because they put none in. They are mistaken ; the ferments change the sugar to alcohol in the home-made wine as they do in other wines, and the alcohol makes it an unsafe drink.

5. It is the nature of wine, like that of cider,

to make one who drinks it want more. The

appetite for wine has led many people to ruin.

If you never drink it at all, it can never

hurt you.

Beer.

6. There is alcohol in beer.

7. Beer is made from grain, generally from barley. Grain is dry ; it is mostly starch. It has no sweet juice to be squeezed out as grapes and other fruits have.

8. How can a drink that has alcohol in it be made from dry grain? It cannot until the starch in the grain is turned to sugar.

9. Barley, as you have learned, is a seed.

When it sprouts, its starch will turn to sugar. This sugar feeds the little roots and leaves of the new plant, until it is strong enough to get its food from the moist earth and air.

10. To make beer the brewer wets the grain, and keeps it warm and moist until a little sprout starts on each grain. If you should chew such a grain you would find it sweet, because its starch has turned to sugar. The brewer next heats it, so that all the little sprouts are killed. It is then called malt.

11. He mashes or grinds this malt, and soaks out its sugar in a good deal of water. This makes a sweet liquid. The brewer next puts in yeast, which is one kind of ferment. The yeast quickly changes part of the sugar to alcohol. The alcohol stays in the beer and makes it a poison that no one should drink. Hops are sometimes put in. They give the beer a bitter taste.

12. There is no alcohol in barley. This grain is sometimes made into pearl-barley to thicken soup. In some countries people grind barley and make it into bread and barley- cakes. When used in such ways it is a good food.

But when barley or other grain is made into beer, it is worse than wasted. There is enough alcohol in such beer to poison whoever drinks it.

13. It is the nature of beer to make those who drink it want more and more beer. It is also the nature of beer to make its drinkers dull, stupid, and wicked.

14. A boy who drinks beer will not be able to learn his lessons as well as one who never takes it at all. The beer will make his mind stupid. It will make him careless about doing right, and sooner or later it may lead him to do some very wicked deed.

Home-made Beer.

16. People sometimes boil roots, barks, and herbs in water, and when this cools they add sugar and yeast, and then let it stand in a warm place. In a little while froth and bubbles of gas will come to the top. Then we may know that the sugar in the liquid is being turned to alcohol. This is called " home-made beer." It is not a safe drink, because it has alcohol in it.

Distillation.

16. You have learned that it is the nature of the alcohol in beer, wine or cider to make those who drink it want more. To get the drinks that contain more alcohol, men heat cider, wine or beer until the alcohol in them turns to vapor. That vapor looks like steam, and rises above the heated Uquor as steam rises above boiling water.

17. You have seen steam puff out from the spout of a tea-kettle. If you tried to catch the steam in a cold cup, you saw that it turned to drops of water. In the same way the vapor that passes out of the pipe of a kettle, when an alcoholic liquor is over the fire, will turn to drops of a liquor very strong with alcohol. In this manner brandy, rum, whisky and gin are made from such weaker liquors as wine, cider, and beer.

18. The process of making stronger alcoholic liquors in this way, from weaker ones, is called distillation. Brandy, rum, whisky, and gin are about one-half alcohol. They are called distilled liquors. They ruin those who drink them more quickly than beer, wine, or cider. But the drinker of beer, wine, or cider often gets just as much alcohol, because he drinks so much more.

Alcoholic Appetite.

19. If you were asked what is one of the first bad things about a little alcohol in any liquor you would certainly answer, — '^The power a little alcohol has to make a person want to drink more, until he drinks enough to ruin himself.'' The person who cares so much for beer, cider, wine, or any other liquor that contains alcohol, and who keeps on drinking it, making himself stupid and drunken with it, is called a drunkard.

20. An appetite for alcohoUc drinks is very hard to resist, and leads to sure ruin. Wine, brandy, cider or any liquor of this kind should never be put into puddings, sauces, jellies, pies, or any kind of food. It may lead those who take them to hke alcoholic liquors.