Health Lessons.

by Alvin Davison.

PREFACE

Scarcely one half of the children of our country continue in school much beyond the fifth grade. It is important, therefore, that so far as possible the knowledge which has most to do with human welfare should be presented in the early years of school life.

Fisher, Metchnikoff, Sedgwick, and others have shown that the health of a people influences the prosperity and happiness of a nation more than any other one thing. The highest patriotism is therefore the conservation of health. The seven hundred thousand lives annually destroyed by infectious diseases and the million other serious cases of sickness from contagious maladies, with all their attendant suffering, are largely sacrifices on the altar of ignorance. The loving mother menaces the life of her babe by feeding it milk with a germ content nearly half as great as that of sewage, the anemic girl sleeps with fast-closed windows, wondering in the morning why she feels so lifeless, and the one-time vigorous boy goes to a consumptive's early grave, because they did not know (what every school ought to teach) the way to health.

Doctor Price, the Secretary of the State Board of Health of Maryland, recently said before the American Public Health a.s.sociation that the text-books of our schools show a marked disregard for the urgent problems which enter our daily life, such as the prevention of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and acute infectious diseases.

Since the observing public have seen educated communities decrease their death rate from typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and diphtheria from one third to three fourths by heeding the health call, lawmakers are becoming convinced that the needless waste of human life should be stopped. Michigan has already decreed that every school child shall be taught the cause and prevention of the communicable diseases, and several other states are contemplating like action. This book meets fully the demands of all such laws as are contemplated, and presents the important truths not by dogmatic a.s.sertion, but by citing specific facts appealing to the child mind in such a way as to make a lasting impression.

After the eleventh year of age, the first cause of death among school children is tuberculosis. The chief aim of the author has been to show the child the sure way of preventing this disease and others of like nature, and to establish an undying faith in the motto of Pasteur, "It is within the power of man to rid himself of every parasitic disease."

Nearly all of the ill.u.s.trations used are from photographs and drawings specially prepared for this book. These, together with the large amount of material gleaned from original sources and from the author's experiments in the laboratory, will, it is hoped, make this little volume worthy of the same generous welcome accorded the two earlier books of this series.

HEALTH LESSONS

CHAPTER I

CARING FOR THE HEALTH

=Good Health better than Gold.=--Horses and houses, b.a.l.l.s and dolls, and much else that people think they want to make them happy can be bought with money. The one thing which is worth more than all else cannot be bought with even a houseful of gold. This thing is good health. Over three million persons in our country are now sick, and many of them are suffering much pain. Some of them would give all the money they have to gain once more the good health which the poorest may usually enjoy by right living day by day.

=How long shall you live?=--In this country most of the persons born live to be over forty years of age, and some live more than one hundred years. A hundred years ago most persons died before the age of thirty-five years. In London three hundred years ago only about one half of those born reached the age of twenty-five years. Scarcely one half of the people in India to-day live beyond the age of twenty-five years. In fact, people in India are dying nearly twice as fast as in our own country. This is because they have not learned how to take care of the body in India so well as we have.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--By right living this woman remained in good health for several years after she was a century old.]

The study which tells how to keep well is _Hygiene_. Whether you keep well and live long, or suffer much from headaches, cold, and other sickness, depends largely on how you care for your body.

=Working together for Health.=--One cannot always keep well and strong by his own efforts. The grocer and milkman may sell to you bad food, the town may furnish impure water, churches and schools may injure your health by failing to supply fresh air in their buildings. More than a hundred thousand people were made very sick last year through the use of water poisoned by waste matter which other persons carelessly let reach the streams and wells. Many of the sick died of the fever caused by this water. Although it cannot be said that we are engaged in real war, yet we are surely killing one another by our thoughtless habits in scattering disease. We must therefore not only know how to care for our own bodies, but teach all to help one another to keep well.

=A Lesson from War.=--The mention of war makes those who know its terrors shudder. Disease has caused more than ten times as much suffering and death as war with its harvest of mangled bodies, shattered limbs, and blinded eyes. In our four months' war with Spain in 1898 only 268 soldiers were killed in battle, while nearly 4000 brave men died from disease. We lost more than ten men by disease to every one killed by bullets.

In the late war between j.a.pan and Russia the j.a.panese soldiers cared for their health so carefully that only one fourth as many died from disease as perished in battle. This shows that with care for the health the small men of j.a.pan saved themselves from disease, and thus won a victory told around the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.--The Surgeon General who, by keeping the soldiers well, helped j.a.pan win in the war against Russia.]

=The Battle with Disease.=--For long ages sickness has caused more sorrow, misery, and death than famine, war, and wild beasts. Many years ago a plague called the _black death_ swept over most of the earth, and killed nearly one third of the inhabitants. A little more than a hundred years ago yellow fever killed thousands of people in Philadelphia and New York in a few weeks. When Boston was a city with a population of 11,000, more than one half of the persons had smallpox in one year. Within a few years one half of the st.u.r.dy red men of our forests were slain by smallpox when it first visited our sh.o.r.es.

Before the year 1798 few boys or girls reached the age of twenty years without a pit-marked face due to the dreadful disease of smallpox.

This disease was formerly more common than measles and chicken pox now are because we had not yet learned how to prevent it as we do to-day.

=Victory over Disease.=--Cholera, yellow fever, black death, and smallpox no longer cause people to flee into the wilderness to escape them when they occasionally break out in a town or city. We have learned how to prevent these ailments among people who will obey the laws of health.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3.--One of the thousands of st.u.r.dy red men which smallpox slew before we learned how to prevent the disease.]

Until the year 1900, people fled from a city when yellow fever was announced, but now any one can sleep with a fever patient and not catch the disease, because we have learned how to prevent it. Nurses and doctors no longer hesitate to sit for hours in the rooms of those sick with smallpox because they know how to treat the body to keep away this disease. By studying this book, boys and girls may learn not only how to keep free from these diseases, but how to manage their bodies to make them strong enough to escape other diseases.

=As the Twig is bent so the Tree is inclined.=--This old saying means that a strong, straight, healthy, full-grown tree cannot come from a weak and bent young tree. Health in manhood and womanhood depends on how the health is cared for in childhood. The foundation for disease is often laid during school years. The making of strong bodies that will live joyous lives for long years must begin in boyhood and girlhood.

In youth is the time to begin right living. Bad habits formed in early life often cause much sorrow in later years. It is said that over one half the drunkards began drinking liquor before they were twenty years of age and most of the smokers began to use tobacco before they were twenty years old.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. What is worth most in this world?

2. How many people are sick in our country?

3. How long do most people live?

4. Why do people not live long in India?

5. What is hygiene?

6. How many more deaths are caused by disease than by war?

7. Give some facts about smallpox.

8. Why do we have no fear of yellow fever and smallpox now?

9. Why should you be careful of your health while young?

10. When do most smokers and drinkers begin their bad habits?

CHAPTER II

PARTS OF THE BODY

=Regions of the Body.=--In order to talk about any part of the body it must have a name. The main portion of the body is called the _trunk_.

At the top of the trunk is the _head_. The arms and legs are known as _limbs_ or _extremities_. The part of the arm between the elbow and wrist is the _forearm_. The _thigh_ is the part of the leg between the knee and hip.

The upper part of the trunk is called the _chest_ and is encircled by the ribs. The lower part of the trunk is named the _abdomen_. A large cavity within the chest contains the lungs and heart. The cavity of the abdomen is filled with the liver, stomach, food tube, and other working parts.

=The Plan of the Body.=--All parts of the body are not the same. One part has one kind of work to do while another performs quite a different duty. The covering of the body is the _skin_. Beneath is the red meat called _muscle_. It looks just like the beef bought at the butcher shop which is the muscle of a cow or ox. Nearly one half of the weight of the body is made of muscle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4.--General plan of the organs of the body.]