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[Illustration: Book Cover]
HEALTH LESSONS
BOOK I
BY
ALVIN DAVISON, M.S., A.M., PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN LAFAYETTE COLLEGE
[Illustration: Publisher Symbol]
NEW YORK . CINCINNATI . CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
ALVIN DAVISON.
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON.
HEALTH LESSONS. BK. 1.
W. P. 6
[Illustration: Exercise, clean air, and well-chewed food make a strong
and healthy body.]
PREFACE
Scarcely one half of the children of our country continue in school
much beyond the fifth grade. It is important, therefore, that so far
as possible the knowledge which has most to do with human welfare
should be presented in the early years of school life.
Fisher, Metchnikoff, Sedgwick, and others have shown that the health
of a people influences the prosperity and happiness of a nation more
than any other one thing. The highest patriotism is therefore the
conservation of health. The seven hundred thousand lives annually
destroyed by infectious diseases and the million other serious cases
of sickness from contagious maladies, with all their attendant
suffering, are largely sacrifices on the altar of ignorance. The
loving mother menaces the life of her babe by feeding it milk with a
germ content nearly half as great as that of sewage, the anemic girl
sleeps with fast-closed windows, wondering in the morning why she
feels so lifeless, and the one-time vigorous boy goes to a
consumptive's early grave, because they did not know (what every
school ought to teach) the way to health.
Doctor Price, the Secretary of the State Board of Health of Maryland,
recently said before the American Public Health Association that the
text-books of our schools show a marked disregard for the urgent
problems which enter our daily life, such as the prevention of
tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and acute infectious diseases.
Since the observing public have seen educated communities decrease
their death rate from typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and diphtheria from
one third to three fourths by heeding the health call, lawmakers are
becoming convinced that the needless waste of human life should be
stopped. Michigan has already decreed that every school child shall be
taught the cause and prevention of the communicable diseases, and
several other states are contemplating like action. This book meets
fully the demands of all such laws as are contemplated, and presents
the important truths not by dogmatic assertion, but by citing specific
facts appealing to the child mind in such a way as to make a lasting
impression.
After the eleventh year of age, the first cause of death among school
children is tuberculosis. The chief aim of the author has been to show
the child the sure way of preventing this disease and others of like
nature, and to establish an undying faith in the motto of Pasteur, "It
is within the power of man to rid himself of every parasitic disease."
Nearly all of the illustrations used are from photographs and drawings
specially prepared for this book. These, together with the large
amount of material gleaned from original sources and from the author's
experiments in the laboratory, will, it is hoped, make this little
volume worthy of the same generous welcome accorded the two earlier
books of this series.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CARING FOR THE HEALTH 9
II. PARTS OF THE BODY 15
III. FEEDING THE BODY 21
IV. FOOD AND HEALTH 30
V. HOW PLANTS SOUR OR SPOIL FOOD 36
VI. MILK MAY BE A FOOD OR A POISON 41
VII. HOW THE BODY USES FOOD 47
VIII. THE CARE OF THE MOUTH 60
IX. ALCOHOLIC DRINKS 68
X. ALCOHOL AND HEALTH 74
XI. TOBACCO AND THE DRUGS WHICH INJURE THE
HEALTH 78
XII. THE SKIN AND BATHING 85
XIII. CLOTHING AND HOW TO USE IT 94
XIV. BREATHING 100
XV. FRESH AIR AND HEALTH 111
XVI. THE BLOOD AND HOW IT FLOWS THROUGH THE BODY 117
XVII. INSECTS AND HEALTH 127
XVIII. HOW THE BODY MOVES 135
XIX. THE MUSCLES AND HEALTH 144
XX. HOW THE BODY IS GOVERNED 149
XXI. HOW NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS AFFECT THE
BRAIN AND NERVES 158
XXII. THE SENSES, OR DOORS OF KNOWLEDGE 165
XXIII. KEEPING AWAY SICKNESS 174
XXIV. HELPING BEFORE THE DOCTOR COMES 183
INDEX 189
HEALTH LESSONS
CHAPTER I
CARING FOR THE HEALTH
=Good Health better than Gold.=--Horses and houses, balls and dolls,
and much else that people think they want to make them happy can be
bought with money. The one thing which is worth more than all else
cannot be bought with even a houseful of gold. This thing is good
health. Over three million persons in our country are now sick, and
many of them are suffering much pain. Some of them would give all the
money they have to gain once more the good health which the poorest
may usually enjoy by right living day by day.
=How long shall you live?=--In this country most of the persons born
live to be over forty years of age, and some live more than one
hundred years. A hundred years ago most persons died before the age of
thirty-five years. In London three hundred years ago only about one
half of those born reached the age of twenty-five years. Scarcely one
half of the people in India to-day live beyond the age of twenty-five
years. In fact, people in India are dying nearly twice as fast as in
our own country. This is because they have not learned how to take
care of the body in India so well as we have.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--By right living this woman remained in good
health for several years after she was a century old.]
The study which tells how to keep well is _Hygiene_. Whether you keep
well and live long, or suffer much from headaches, cold, and other
sickness, depends largely on how you care for your body.
=Working together for Health.=--One cannot always keep well and strong
by his own efforts. The grocer and milkman may sell to you bad food, the
town may furnish impure water, churches and schools may injure your
health by failing to supply fresh air in their buildings. More than a
hundred thousand people were made very sick last year through the use of
water poisoned by waste matter which other persons carelessly let reach
the streams and wells. Many of the sick died of the fever caused by this
water. Although it cannot be said that we are engaged in real war, yet
we are surely killing one another by our thoughtless habits in
scattering disease. We must therefore not only know how to care for our
own bodies, but teach all to help one another to keep well.
=A Lesson from War.=--The mention of war makes those who know its
terrors shudder. Disease has caused more than ten times as much
suffering and death as war with its harvest of mangled bodies,
shattered limbs, and blinded eyes. In our four months' war with Spain
in 1898 only 268 soldiers were killed in battle, while nearly 4000
brave men died from disease. We lost more than ten men by disease to
every one killed by bullets.
In the late war between Japan and Russia the Japanese soldiers cared
for their health so carefully that only one fourth as many died from
disease as perished in battle. This shows that with care for the
health the small men of Japan saved themselves from disease, and thus
won a victory told around the world.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--The Surgeon General who, by keeping the
soldiers well, helped Japan win in the war against Russia.]
=The Battle with Disease.=--For long ages sickness has caused more
sorrow, misery, and death than famine, war, and wild beasts. Many
years ago a plague called the _black death_ swept over most of the
earth, and killed nearly one third of the inhabitants. A little more
than a hundred years ago yellow fever killed thousands of people in
Philadelphia and New York in a few weeks. When Boston was a city with
a population of 11,000, more than one half of the persons had smallpox
in one year. Within a few years one half of the sturdy red men of our
forests were slain by smallpox when it first visited our shores.
Before the year 1798 few boys or girls reached the age of twenty years
without a pit-marked face due to the dreadful disease of smallpox.
This disease was formerly more common than measles and chicken pox now
are because we had not yet learned how to prevent it as we do to-day.
=Victory over Disease.=--Cholera, yellow fever, black death, and
smallpox no longer cause people to flee into the wilderness to escape
them when they occasionally break out in a town or city. We have
learned how to prevent these ailments among people who will obey the
laws of health.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--One of the thousands of sturdy red men which
smallpox slew before we learned how to prevent the disease.]
Until the year 1900, people fled from a city when yellow fever was
announced, but now any one can sleep with a fever patient and not
catch the disease, because we have learned how to prevent it. Nurses
and doctors no longer hesitate to sit for hours in the rooms of those
sick with smallpox because they know how to treat the body to keep
away this disease. By studying this book, boys and girls may learn not
only how to keep free from these diseases, but how to manage their
bodies to make them strong enough to escape other diseases.
=As the Twig is bent so the Tree is inclined.=--This old saying means
that a strong, straight, healthy, full-grown tree cannot come from a
weak and bent young tree. Health in manhood and womanhood depends on
how the health is cared for in childhood. The foundation for disease
is often laid during school years. The making of strong bodies that
will live joyous lives for long years must begin in boyhood and
girlhood.
In youth is the time to begin right living. Bad habits formed in early
life often cause much sorrow in later years. It is said that over one
half the drunkards began drinking liquor before they were twenty years
of age and most of the smokers began to use tobacco before they were
twenty years old.
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
1. What is worth most in this world?
2. How many people are sick in our country?
3. How long do most people live?
4. Why do people not live long in India?
5. What is hygiene?
6. How many more deaths are caused by disease than by
war?
7. Give some facts about smallpox.
8. Why do we have no fear of yellow fever and smallpox
now?
9. Why should you be careful of your health while young?
10. When do most smokers and drinkers begin their bad
habits?