Health, Happiness, and Longevity: Health without medicine: happiness without money: the result, longevityMcCarty, Louis Philippe
Science
Health, Happiness, and Longevity: Health without medicine: happiness without money: the result, longevity
McCarty, Louis Philippe
Hygiene
=Food.=--Of all the fruits we are blest with, the peach is the most
digestible. There is nothing more palatable, wholesome, and medicinal
than good, ripe peaches. They should be ripe but not overripe and half
rotten; and of this kind they may make a part of either meal, or be
eaten between meals; but it is better to make them a part of the regular
meals, says _Hall's Journal of Health_, a medical authority. It is a
mistaken idea that no fruit should be eaten at breakfast. It would be
far better if our people would eat less bacon and grease at breakfast
and more fruit. In the morning there is an arid state of the secretions,
and nothing is so well calculated to correct this as cooling, subacid
fruits, such as peaches, apples, etc. The apple is one of the best of
fruits. Baked or stewed apples will generally agree with the most
delicate stomach, and are an excellent medicine in many cases of
sickness. Green or half-ripe apples stewed and sweetened are pleasant to
the taste, cooling, nourishing, and laxative, far superior, in many
cases, to the abominable doses of salts and oil usually given in fever
and other diseases. Raw apples and dried apples stewed are better for
constipation than liver pills. Oranges are very acceptable to most
stomachs, having all the advantages of the acid alluded to; but the
orange juice alone should be taken, rejecting the pulp. The same may be
said of lemonade, pomegranates, and all that class. Lemonade is the best
drink in fevers, and when thickened with sugar is better than syrup of
squills and other nauseants in many cases of cough. Tomatoes act on the
liver and bowels, and are much more pleasant and safe than blue mass and
"liver regulators." The juice should be used alone, rejecting the skins.
The small-seeded fruits, such as blackberries, figs, raspberries,
currants, and strawberries, may be classed among the best foods and
medicines. The sugar in them is nutritious, the acid is cooling and
purifying, and the seeds are laxative. We would be much the gainers if
we would look more to our orchards and gardens for our medicines and
less to our drug stores. To cure fever or act on the kidneys no
febrifuge or diuretic is superior to water-melon, which may, with very
few exceptions, be taken in sickness and health in almost unlimited
quantities, not only without injury but with positive benefit. But in
using them the water or juice should be taken, excluding the pulp, and
the melon should be ripe and fresh, but not overripe and stale. While,
undeniably, a mixed diet is the best for man, there is a mistaken
notion, which prevails to a great extent, that meat should largely enter
into the same. As a consequence, much more is eaten than is needed or
can properly be disposed of in the system. Never eat meat oftener than
once a day, and very sparingly in summer. Men of sedentary habits might
with safety for several days at a time during that season live on
vegetables, fruits, milk, breadstuffs, and foods of like character,
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