Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.Woods, Walter V.
Science
Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.
Woods, Walter V.
Health; Hygiene
=Out-Door Exercises.=--Being free to enjoy the many out-door exercises,
she should spend much time in the open air, making such choice of games
and recreations as will bring into play the largest number of muscles,
and afford the best all-round development, having in view, not only the
securing of health and strength, but also the acquisition of grace and
beauty.
=Gymnasiums.=--If a capable instructor and a gymnasium are at hand,
she should avail herself of both. Supplementing her out-door sports
with these, she will, in a year’s time, unless already afflicted with
some organic ailment or serious constitutional weakness, be so healthy,
strong, and well developed, as to give promise of a long life, free
from the infirmities that so commonly affect the sex.
=Occupations of Men.=--The vital statistics, preserved by many
progressive states and communities, afford opportunity for fruitful
study and comparison. Of all occupations, that of the farmer or
gardener conduces most to health and long life. His independent manner
of living, the pure country air he breathes, the abundant sunshine he
enjoys, the plain, wholesome food he eats, his restful, quiet sleep,
and his freedom from the demands of fashionable life, all combine to
give him health. But this occupation, in itself, probably brings into
play a larger number of muscles than any other single employment.
We cannot all be farmers, but whatever our occupation, there is much
we can do to promote health, and to secure that happiness which is
so largely dependent thereon. Many occupations afford exercise to a
limited number of muscles, and those engaged therein should strive
to find their recreation in the exercise of other muscles, so as to
promote a well-rounded development. Persons who labor in-doors, and
especially those who are confined to close workshops, stores, and
schoolrooms, should have out-door recreation, with pure air and
sunshine.
=Unbalanced Bodies.=--Many lines of mechanical trade afford sufficient
exercise to keep the workman in fairly good health, yet few, if any,
give a symmetrical physical development. The blacksmith and stone mason
usually have strong right hands and arms, while the left are less fully
developed. Nine-tenths of all machinists are right-handed. In nearly
all mechanical industries, the right arm and the back have the larger
share of the work, while the chest and leg muscles and the left arm are
neglected.
=Indifference.=--Some workmen are so indifferent to physical symmetry
that they are not willing to do anything to avert the one-sidedness
resulting from their daily toil, even when convinced that a slight
effort would correct the fault. The argument of increased health and
vigor, and prolonged life, scarcely appeals to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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