Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
I am not sure that there is
not something in the theory that their soil has less iron in it, being
so intensively cultivated, and that our food is consequently stronger
than theirs; at all events, they eat more frequently and more
copiously than we do. It seems to me that both the men and the women
show it in their faces and figures. They are a heavy, puffy, tumbling
lot after forty; and with my prepossessions on the subject I am
inclined to put it down to irregular eating, to too much eating of
soft and sweet food, too much drinking of fattening beverages, and
much, much too little regular exercise, and to the fact that they are
still infants in the matter of personal hygiene. Dressing-gowns,
slippers, proper care of the teeth and hair, regular ablutions,
changing of clothes, all these dozens of helps to health are patiently
neglected. It is just as troublesome to take care of yourself, to
groom your person, to be regular in your habits, and restrained and
careful in your diet as to take proper care of a horse or a dog. It
shows a rather high grade of persistent prowess in a man just to keep
himself fit, to keep himself in working or playing health. Without the
drilling they receive in the army in these matters, one wonders where
this population would be.
The doggedness, the patience of the German is notable, but the
alertness, vivacity, the energy easily on tap, these are lacking both
among the men and the women, and, as it seems to me, for these easily
apparent reasons. There are more rest-cures, rheumatism, heart, liver,
kidney, anaemic cures in Germany, and to suit all purses, than in all
Anglo-Saxondom combined, even if subject territories are included. In
Saxony alone, which is not renowned for its cures, the number of
visitors at Augustus Bad, Bad Elester, Hermanus Bad, Schandau, and
some seven others has increased from 13,000 ten years ago to 30,000 in
1910.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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