COMMON SENSE AND HEALTH.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9426, 23 April 1909, Page 2

COMMON SENSE AND HEALTH.

“Health and Common Sense” .is the title of a striking new work by Dr. Woods Hatohinson, from which has been deiived the material of the following article. ■ “How old is baby? The fond mother makers answer: “Seven, days.” 1 ‘ Wrbng,” ybq,say. “Baby is exactly the same age as everybody, else in the world ; that in, at least twelve million years.” And then—if yon hate qualified yourself for this argument by reading Dr. Woods Hutchinson—you go oh to explain that baby may be a quarter of a million years old, and that the vital spark in his veins has not been extinguished once m all that long age, He, lying in his cradle, a rosebud asleep, is already the hero of countless fights; he presents the conquering strain of fiity thousand generations. Every curve of little body, every crease ot lus skin, detail of nervous system, unconscious habit of,- movement is the token of a battle won over Fate. J?or we have never lost an ancestor by death. Withont one break, the vital spark Las been handed down, undimmed, from onr earliest ancestor on this planet, the father of all livnig things. In onr innumerable battles witbjieat, cold, wet, hunger and disease we have developed .into the tongbest - most marvellouslyadapted and most ferocious organism that the sun shines Jupoh—one that can flourish, where nothing else can live, and can kill, eht # and wax fat on any living creature, disease germs not excepted. Man, in a word, is the beet fighting animal in the world.'

MAN THE DOMINANT. No animal or bird can endure the extremes of climate like man, or is at home in so many different parts of the world. A dog, it is true, will follow man anywhere, but only when food and* shelter are provided. Nor can any other creature subsist on such a variety of food as man can ,digest. He flourishes on roots, herbs, shrubs, insects, fruits, or fish, on which flesh-eating animals would starve, or he equally pleased with animal or bird flesh on which herbivorous animals would starve. He can pick nuts with the monkey, catch fish with the otter, dig roots with *he wild pigs cat ants’ eggs with- the ant-eater, and grasshoppers with the snake;!? And all this is doe to man’s Band. Because his hand could grasp a stone or a club, man rose on his hind legs and walked and talked. His hand is the most wonderful of all tools. It twists like a monkeywrench, hangs on like a grappling hook,' cracks like a nut-cracker, picks like a tweezer, tears like forceps, grubs like a gopher. This brings ns to the first great lesson of health and common sense. Mao owes all to his hand. Train the child’s hand, then answer the quostiohs that the brain, which the hand builds will ask, and you have true education, education at its best. Give children every kind of handwork that their play-instincts call fbi—and their play-instincts are the deepest and most useful in Hheir nature —aud then brain development will follow as naturally as the night follows day. THE iMVEL OF MUSCLE.

Movement is education, movement is life, aud here follows the second lesson, which is about exercise. l Muscle, controlling movement, makes up about half of our bulb; two thirds of our h&pt is produced by muscles, and molt of our food is i consumed in the muscle cellar The briao is simply a telephone-exchange to carry on the business of muscle, and the only way to nourish it is, through the muscles, which, alone of alljthe tissues of the body, are under the direct control of reason or will. Give an' order to a voluntary muscle, and it obeys, and here is a great danger to health, the muscular system being so peculiarly defenceless and liable to abusa Dr. Woods Hutchinson says that two-thirds of the community get too much muscular exercise and suffer * from it; others suffer because [they do not get enough. The[record-break-ing athlete stapds for a large class of sufferers from over-exercise; while nothing could have been more degrading to the beat in human nature than that grinding {[routine .of muscular effort that;,was the lot of the working classes fifty years ago. The shorter day. i| a step in the right ' direction for . mental, 'moral and physical improvement. During work hours, the destructive forces of the body are Jo excess of the constructive, hut during sleep ' the up-building processes are in excess of the down-breaking; and this is ( the one great positive fact •that has emerged from, all the nega tive theories about sleep which have been the chief result of thirty centuries of study. Sleep, is the recharging of the body’s battery. , SLEEP. “How much sleep shall I take?” Pat comes our anthocity’l answer.* “Ab much as yon can.” This is the new "law of sleep in relation to health. The majority of vigorous adults require about nine -boors’ sleep; women half an honr to an hour more than men of their age. Most of us would be benefited by a good nap after the mid-day.meal, A baby or a young child should have absolutely every minute of sleep it can be induced to take. To rouse children from sleep before thoroughly rested—after the common fashion of boarding school authorities—is little short of criminal. And since night air in all the air there is to breathe at night, bedroom windows should be open, but the temperature of the room should be about 55dega. to fiOdegs. Fahrenheit, if possible. Abundance of fresh air is the; first vital necessity of'all breathing oreaW? know this; hut how do we Jive? We live for choice in vitiated air, with windows closed ; we travel in underground trains, we dine in hermetically-sealed [rooms, and for relaxation we go to a theatre, where, . shoulder to shoulder with one or two thousand other human beings, we breathe and rebreathe the emanations of their lungs, skins and teeth for two three hours. A final idea. The human body is covered with the most wonderful and, beautiful fabric in the world, flexible as silk, resistant as steel, tough as leather, and, beauty of beauties, flushed by some three millions of glands, so that is it absolutely selfcleaning. Therefore, says our doctor, speaking of the bath: “Don’t scrub; seldom use soap; use as much cold water as you can enjoy.”