HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 78

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.

A LECTURE FOR "WOMEN. DR TRTJBY KING'S ADDRESS. No. I. Th* Burns Hall was crowded on the 14th inst. when, ip response to an invitation, Dr Truby King delivered a lecture on "Physical Culture in ReJation to Health and Happiness." Dr King, -who was introduced by Dr Nisbet, said that some months previous to that he had bean asked by Mrs Nisbet to give an evening lecture to the First Church Young Women's Club, and he had assumed at the time that it would mean a small audience of perhaps from 50 to 100 afc the outside, and he was very much impressed by the gathering which , had come together. It seemed to him an important and a hopeful sign that the clergy ■were taking such a great and growing interest in the physical vfsllbeing of humanity, The intimate association between body, mind, and morals was no longer questioned. The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking recently at a health society's meeting in London, had said it was essential that people should recognise that the highest mental, moral, and religious stature could only be attained by paying due heed to the natural rights and recreations of the •body. Going back in the history of our religion, we found in the Old Testament a remarkable hygienic code, "and it was during the period- cf decadence, and in the darkness of the "middle ages, that the body cam© to be looked upon a foe to all that was best- and highest in humanity. 'Among the- Greeks in 400 be. Socrates expounded a liberal and enlightened view of the association of a healthy hody with a healthy mind and spirit. THE YOUTH CHARM IDES. In the first Dialogue of Plato, where the youth Charmides> is supposed to go to Socrates with a headachs, Socrates says: "I daresay that you have heard' ■eminent physicians say to a patient, who comes to them' -with bad* eyes, that they cannot cure his eyes by tb.DmsGlv.ss, but that if his eyes are to be cured his head must be treated. Then, again, they say that to think of curing the head alone, and not the rest cf the body also, is the height of folly; and, arguing in this way, they apply their methods to the whole body, and try and treat the whole and the part together. So neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without- the soul. Andl this, he said, is the reason why the cur© of many diseases is unknown to the' physicians of Hellas; because they are agnorant of the whole, which ought to be studied also, for the part can never be well unless the whole is well. . -. . This, 'he said, 16 the great error of our day' that physicians separate the soul from the •body. DON*T wnKCK THE MACHETE. Coming down to our own time, the lecturer referred to the wisdom and comirton ssnse of Oliver Wendell Holmes in this matter, and spoke in particular of his book '^Tho Mechanism in Thought and -Morals, as showing the proper attitude to assume towards the claims of the body ■Reference was made to a simile used by Oliver WeiKfcH Holmes in another connection, and which the lecturer thought speeiauy applicable in reference to the illtreatment 1o which our bedies were often /hough tlessly subjected through disobedience ro the primary laws- of Nature and tto reriu,renwnts of living organisms. Oliver WemfeU Holmes pointed to the insenpuon placed on boxes containing the ingenious imschanieal toys so commSn in prance, and the inscription was. " II Re iaut pas brutaliser la machine" (•'You must not brurahse the machine"). Yet that was precisely what we did with our bodies -Narrow-minded people were apt to regard any reference to the intimate association ftotween body, mind, and morals, as savouring of materialism ; yet if we might judge Irom om- own human feelings towards a child who wantonly neglects or destroys somo clever contrivance, paying no heed to our infractions or the directions on the •box— if the Creator had any analogous feelings then we muit assume that it cannot be pleasing to the Almighty that we should show the contempt for His handiwork implied in the neglect of proper attention to the laws of hfe and the preservation of ■health— For are not your bodies the tempks of the Holy Ghost?" ,„ . . '' Writing recently in the Contemporary Bjsvww, Mr HotbfaU' had said that no education was worthy of the name which thi ZOZ OOnX nn rr u CO ? nn £ s that . the fust claim was the health of the pupils. He eaid further that, while !t was nosbible for peonle of large means to lead a tolerable existence 3 .n spite of ill-health, "to the vast majority ill-health meant ' unemploya.bleness '— unemployableness meant morbid thought and Feeling, and morbid thought and 'fcelin"meant loafing, vice, and crime." No one ' •who had g-ivcn any thought to these sub- ! jects in relation to such problems as hos- ! pitals, asylums, gaols, and slums could come t© any other conclusion but that more than naif our disabilities in these respects were due to avoidable ill-health. | Tine first lantern elide illustrated the essential bases of healthy animal life I considered in the broadest way. All mam- | malsj needed essentially food, "exercise, and rest; further, there had to be certain rhythms or regular habits. The question of the influence of habits on life and health }vould bo dealt with by Dr Sydney Allen j in next month's lecture. By " Food" he meant all the materials needed for the nutrition, growth, and working of the 'body — viz., Air, Water, and Food ordin- } arily so-called. The special subject j on which he himself had undertaken | to speak was " Exercise in Relation to Health and Happiness " : but he djd not j use the term " exercise" in the ordinary j narrow acceptation of mere muscular j exercise, though that always involved a good deal more activity than the mere J exercise of the muscles themselves. Ho j ■was using the term " exercise " in the , broad sense as including the work of the whole bodily mechanism. It should be) realised that, even in regard to muscular ' action, only a very small proportion indeed, was attributable to the direct stimulation* of the will, even v-hen we were dealing

■with so-called voluntary muscles. Like the rest of tha organs, the muscles were driven mainly from without, by currents coming in from the outside world through the various sensory nerves ; but especially stimulation through the skin by contact with the changing open air and sunlight, ' and stimulation through vision by light and the changing pageant of the outside world. i In general when people speak of exeecisk they mean essentially " voluntary motor exercise" (exercise of muscles through the •will) ; but . sensory functioning, sensory exercise, is ev«n more important, becaxisc this is what " runs us," this is the main ! source of the- stimulation of all our bodily I machinery, including even the voluntary muscles, which, though under the control of the will, do most of their work and are kept in tone without the intervention of thought, or even the arousing of consciousness. As for the essential vital organs (nerve-centres, hsart, lungs, digestive and excretory organs, etc.), they depend for their activities almost entirely on the stimuli coming to them through, the sensory nerves. One cannot possibly overstate the advantages of active, open-air life. Most of our physical disabilities come from living in houses and not outside them ! THE DUTY Of HAPriXESS. Most people realised more or less now : that light did not all turn back at tbe surface of the body, but 'that some of it penetrated and passed through, subtly affecting- the work of the organism in its passage. No one could be normal or healthy who did not take a reasonable amount of exorcise and recreation. Recreation was commonly used as synonomou^ wirh pastime or enjoyment, but this, as Romanes pointed out, was not its true or deeper meaning. What our forefathers meant ( by recreation was something which they , felt uncreated them. There were many t forms cf pastime or enjoyment which were • not recreation in this sense, in that they ' d : d not rebuild and renew parts temporally more or less exhausted through work. This rebuilding or recreation was the essential point to keep in view. Recreation shculd bs regarded as one cf the first Duties of life, and not as mere pastime. There were many people narrow enough i to look upon anything not directly utilitarian as a waste of time ; but then there were many people so narrow that they did not recognise Happiness also as one of the Duties of iife. This was admirably put by Stevenson : — j There is no duty we so much underi raite as the duty of being happy. By | being- happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown often to ourselves, or when they ! are disclosed «urpripe nobody so much as the benefactors. The other day a j ragged, barefooted boy ran down the streets j after a marble with so jolly an air that | he sat everyone he. passed into a good j humour. One of these persons, who had been delivered from more than usually black thought-, stopped the little fellow and gave him some rroney with this remark: "You &cc what sometimes comes of looking pleasant." . . . For my own part, I justify this ■encourasement of smiling rather than tearful children. I do not wish to pay for tears anywhere but on the stage, but I am prepared to deal largely with the opposite com modity. A happy man. or -woman is a better tKing to find than a £5-note. He or she is a radiating fecus of goodwill, and t'i-eir entrance, mto a room_ is as though another candle had been lighted. We nead not care whether they could orove the forty -s^vt; nth proposition of Euclid; they do a better thing than thai: fch.sy practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the Lrvablennss of Itiie. The lecturer a^ain rercdri'ded his hearers that, as he had already pointed out, the- natural foundation cf happiness was health. With good® health. whatever troubles had to bs i»et, it was perfectly imoossible for anyone to remain for long unhappy.

(To be continued.')