Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
Last night I went to a dinner party at eight. I ate and ate a great
variety of palatable foods that Nature Back never knew. After two hours
of eating I imbibed for two hours the tobacco smoke of the gentlemen
who made up the party. I knew that eight o'clock was too late for me to
begin eating, that two hours was too long to eat, that the tobacco of
others was bad for my health and for to-day's efficiency. All this I
knew when I accepted the invitation to dinner. I went with no intention
of preventing others from smoking or of lecturing my host or his chef
or his guests for the unhygienic practices of our day. Yet the physical
ills were more than offset by certain definite gains to the school
children of New York that will result from last night's meeting.
Natural law was abated in part. But I declined certain dishes that
would not agree with me, helped myself sparingly of many dishes,
avoided tobacco and wines, and by a three-mile walk in the open air, a
bath, and a good long night's sleep have almost recovered my right to
talk of the sacredness of natural law.
Nature Back says I should not have gone to this dinner. But I was
compelled to go. I know I am going to others. I cannot do my work
unless I overdraw my current health account. Nature Fore tells me that
effective cooeperation with others will frequently require me to eat at
the dinner hour of others, to retire at others' sleeping time, to wear
what others will approve, to violate natural law. But Nature Fore also
tells me how to build up a health reserve so that I can meet these
emergencies without endangering my health credit.
Nature Back demands "dress reform." Nature Fore tells me that I can
march in step with my contemporaries without either attracting
attention or discrediting and affronting natural law. Passion for the
natural has effected numerous reforms in dress, diet, and social
habits, until commerce provides a natural adaptation of practically
every fashion. With regard to few things is it necessary to-day for any
one who reads magazines to do violence to bodily health for fashion's
sake. We may wear what we will, eat what we prefer, decline what is
unnatural for us, without inviting censure. The debauches of those
unfortunate people who live an unnatural, purposeless existence, affect
such a small number that their laws need not be considered here.
Natural law makes obedience to itself attractive; hence commerce is
rapidly learning to cater to distaste for the unnatural. With few
exceptions, only temporary concessions to unnatural living are required
in order to dress and act conventionally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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