GOLDEN RULES FOR HEALTH.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2193, 30 March 1880, Page 3

GOLDEN RULES FOR HEALTH.

Dr B. W. Eichardson, the English writer and lecturer on sanitary topics, has been giving the people of Croy don, England, “ a few golden rules for securing health at home.” In the first place, whether the home is large or small, he would say “ Give it light.” There was no house so likely to be unhealthy as a dark and gloomy one. In every point of view light stood forward as the agent of health. A few hundred years ago it became a fashion to place sick people in dark and closely-curtained bedrooms. The practice, to some extent, was continued to this day. When a person went to bed with sickness, it was often the first thing to pull down the blinds of the windows, to set up dark blinds, or, if they were, Venetian blinds,to close them. On body and soul alike that practice was simple pernicious. It might he well, if light was painful to the eyes of the sufferer, to sheild the eyes from the light, or even shut the light off from them altogether, but to shut it out of all the room, to cut off wholesale its precious influence, to make the sick room a dark cell in which all kinds of impurities might be concealed day after day, is an offence'to nature which she ever rebukes in the sternest manner. In sickness and in healthin infancy, youth middle age, old age—in all seasons, for the benefit of the mind and the welfare of tlio_ body, sunlight is a bearer and a sustainer of health.

Dr Richardson next adverted to the subject of sheep, and observed that artificial lights were very injurious. The fewer hours after dark that are spent in artificial light the better, and the sooner they went to rest after dark the better. They required in the cold season of winter, when the nights were long, much more sleep than they did in the summer. On the longest day in the year seven hours of sleep was sufficient for most men and women who were in the prime of life ; on the shortest day nine hours was not overmuch and for persons who are weakly ten or twelve tours might be taken with real advantage. In winter children should always have ten or twelve hours’ sleep. It was not idleness to indulge to that extent, but an actual saving, a storage up of invigorated existence for the future. Such rest could be obtained by going to bed early—say at half-past 8 o’clock or nine. It was wrong at the present season , that they should be at that meeting robbing themselves of sleep. It was as wrong as ever it could be that our Legislature should often be sitting up as they did, night after night, trying against life to legislate for life. It was foolish, too, that public writers and editors should be called on to exercise their craft at a time when all their nature was calling out to them, “ Rest.” He might be accused of folly in saying these things, but he was standing by nature and speaking under her direction. , Turning next to the question of beds and bedrooms, the president insisted on the necessity of a separate bed for each person, and said the bed should be

neither very soft nor very hard, while the furniture of the room should be as simple as possible. A great experiment had been tried on the question with the most striking results. At the Industrial School at Ancrley every scholar had his own bed, and the wise authorities there —who had improved the health of the children under their charge until the mortality was reduced to three in one thousand annually—told him that few things had contributed so much to the grand result they had achieved as the one practice of having a separate bed for every child. A daily bath with cold water in summer and tepid water in win ter was necessary to the health of every person. Eveiy effort should be made to maintain an equal temperature in houses a temperature of 60 deg. Farenheit being the best—and there should be a system of complete household cleansing once a year. He would have his colleagues to descant on ventilation, good food, good air, and other accessories to health, and though by their united efforts they might not essay to lead them to Salutlaud and its hundred years of happy life, they would go with them a long way toward even that promised commonwealth of health and long life.