Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and HygieneHarris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Science
Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene
Harris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Rural health; Sanitation, Household
The warm bath is perhaps, on the whole, more popular than the cold, since
it is preferred usually by children and women, and is practiced by a
considerable proportion of adult males. It is unquestionably somewhat
enervating, and at best fails entirely to give the agreeable stimulation
experienced by those who take a cold plunge. It is, however, to be
preferred in those instances where cold water produces disagreeable
effects, and if the bath be not too long continued it is followed by no
ill results. Persons who become lean under cold baths not uncommonly take
on flesh when they begin to use warm ones. It is unquestionably true that
the latter is to be preferred in hot climates.
The sea bath is invigorating not only from the water being cool, but as a
consequence of the pleasurable excitement with which it is attended. Its
greatest disadvantage lies in the fact that there is a tendency to overdo
it, many persons remaining in the water for hours. Ten or fifteen minutes
is as long as the average person should indulge in sea-bathing, and it is
a question if even those who are young and vigorous should remain in the
water longer than half an hour.
Bathing of any kind should be indulged in before meals, the best time
being before breakfast in the morning.
_Care of the Teeth._--Nothing in connection with the subject of personal
hygiene is of more importance than keeping the teeth properly cleansed.
The fact is not generally appreciated that sound teeth stand in a most
intimate relationship with good health, and that disastrous consequences
are sure to follow sooner or later where these most important structures
are neglected.
While it is true that in a person of vigorous health one or two decayed
teeth do not, as a rule, occasion obvious trouble at once, ill effects
are sure sooner or later to be felt. For one thing, a person without good
teeth cannot chew his food well. Those who begin by neglecting what at
first are slight defects in the teeth seem to acquire in the course of
time a sort of habit of doing this, and ultimately disregard and fail to
have corrected the more serious diseases of the dental structures.
Nothing is more common than for the practicing physician to find patients
with one or more teeth partially gone, or, even worse, with only the
exposed roots remaining.
Where cavities exist, food is constantly forced into them, and undergoing
decomposition, the breath of their owner becomes foul, and portions of
decayed food mixed with multitudes of bacteria are constantly swallowed;
sooner or later there inevitably follows under such circumstances
catarrhal conditions of the stomach, which reaches a point in some
individuals where the health is seriously threatened. Not only do bad
teeth produce trouble in the way just mentioned, but there is every
reason to believe that germs that produce disease--particularly those
that cause consumption--not uncommonly find their way to the interior of
the body through the resulting cavities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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