Checking the Waste: A Study in ConservationGregory, Mary Huston
History
Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation
Gregory, Mary Huston
Conservation of natural resources; United States -- Economic conditions
Sleep is a necessary part of good hygiene. It promotes health and
prevents disease. It is largely in sleep that the system renews itself,
that growth takes place, that waste products are thrown off, and the
body repairs its wastes. No less than eight hours for grown persons and
ten for children should be employed in sleep. Late hours and sleepless
nights are the frequent cause of nervousness, eye strain, nervous
prostration, and the beginning of brain troubles and insanity.
Bathing is also necessary to good health. The pores of the skin play a
large part in carrying off the wastes of the body, through the
perspiration, and if these become clogged, this poisonous material
remains in the system. We have all noticed how a bath refreshes and
gives tone to the entire body by opening the pores.
The skin is composed of minute scales, arranged in layers like fish
scales. The tiny crevices between these form a lodging place for dirt
and germs. If these remain, our own bodies are constantly exposed to
their infection, if they drop off, as some are constantly doing, we may
spread the contagion to others. This is strikingly illustrated by
scarlet fever, smallpox, and similar diseases where these minute scales
are the sole source of contagion.
Exercise is another necessity of health. Regular physical culture in a
gymnasium will develop any muscle or part of the body almost at will,
but if this be not possible much can be accomplished in developing the
body by simple work. Gladstone found health in chopping wood, Roosevelt
in a daily tennis game, and President Taft in golf. Many find it in
gardening or farming. These all help to develop vigorous bodies.
Anything which brings into moderate play any set of muscles, which
increases the circulation, or stimulates the secretion is beneficial.
House-work, which, in its various forms, brings into use all the muscles
of the body, is a wholesome exercise for women. Those who do no
house-work seldom substitute for it any other active exercise, and many
diseases which are caused by deposits of waste tissues that are not
thrown off by the body, are the result.
Rest--recreation--pleasure--these are as necessary to health as
anything else, but the American people are slow to learn the need of
them. We hear much of nervous prostration as an American disease. It is
due to a variety of causes,--high living, late hours, ill-ventilated
rooms, and climate; but chief of all the causes is the long hours of
work under strong pressure. Work done in a hurry and without rest may
accomplish many things, but it invariably causes a corresponding loss of
nerve force. Fatigue, by checking bodily resistance, gives rise to all
kinds of poisons in the system. Every part of the body feels the ill
effect of continued exhaustion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account