Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
Keep the body warm at all times. If it is difficult to keep warm, go to
bed and use enough covers, having the windows open enough to supply
fresh air. At night use artificial heat in the foot of the bed. If
hot-water bottles, warm bricks or stones are used, they should be quite
large; otherwise they become cold by two or three o'clock in the
morning, when heat is most needed. If a large receptacle, such as a jug,
is used to keep the water in, the bed clothes are lifted off the
patient's feet, and this is often a great relief.
No special food is suited to break all fasts on. It is necessary to
begin with plain food in moderation. Overeating or eating of
indigestible food at this time may result in sickness and even in death.
If the faster lacks self-control, the food should be brought to him in
proper quantities by the attendant.
If the fast has lasted but two or three days, no special precautions are
necessary, except that the first few meals should be smaller than usual.
As indiscretions in eating compel nearly all fasts it is necessary to do
a little better than previously, or the fast must be repeated. It is
best to live so that fasts are not necessary.
If the fast has been prolonged it is best to begin feeding liquid foods.
What shall we feed? That depends on the patient and circumstances. The
juice of the concord grape is not good for it ferments too easily. Many
of those who are compelled to fast or else die have been so
food-poisoned, and their digestive organs have been in such horrible
condition for years that they have been unable to eat acid fruits. This
is especially true of those who consume large quantities of starch.
Sometimes they are unable to eat fruit for a while after the fast. At
other times the irritability of the digestive organs disappears while
food is withheld. For such people broths and milk may be employed.
The juice of oranges, pineapples, California grapes, cherries,
blackberries or tomatoes may be given. The tomatoes may be made into
broth and strained, but nothing is to be added to this broth except
salt. Stout people should do well on fruit juices. They are not to be so
highly recommended for very thin, nervous people, for fruit juices are
both thinning and cooling. Milk is very useful, and may be given either
sweet or clabbered or in the form of buttermilk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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