Health.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2038, 4 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Health.

Health Foods.

The day is cold and dark and dreary indeed when one does not find in an exchange a fresh theory upon the proper kind of food for human consumption, together with authoritative directions for its proper preparation. The amount of unadulterated ignorance displayed by some of these writers would he more startling to the careful reader were he competent to pronounce judgment with certainty, but the fact is that the world moves so slowly in the matters of diet and medicine that there is to-day not one authority on either whose words arc believed by a very large constituency. One crank will tell you that bread made from white flour is like lead in tiic stomach, and should be discarded entirely, the coarse meals—rye, corn and oat—being used instead of it. Another will enlarge on the value of mushgruel and porridge from oatmeal, rye or corn meal, and will prove to his own satisfaction that mush is the only fit food, in connection with fresh fruit, for the human stomach. Then comes the oracle who says that mush is not even fit for animals and is poison to the human race. He tells you to eat fermented bread only after it lias been baked two days, and says that rye and oatmeal stirred up in water and baked in thin layers make the only bread lit for eating. He tells you that meat is very bad for you, particularly in summer, but if you will cat it, confine yourself to certain kinds. The soft-brained vegetarian bops into the ring with his war cry against meat food, and tells you that rice, sago, tapioca, vegetables and fruits are the proper diet, and the only one to insure health and long life. To him all flesh is poison, fish, fowl or beast. Like his predecessors he has winter and summer diets. The meat man comes along witli his forcible demonstrations that meat and wheat bread in winter and fish in summer, with a select list of vegetables, constitute the only truly healthful list of regular tri-daily visitants to the stomach of the people. There are various side issues, such as milk diet, rare or burned meats, boiling, baking, frying, steaming etc., which enter into all ttiese arguments to some extent, and the careful student of these wonderfully formed theories on diet is at last driven to the desperate course of the man who believed everything he read, and cut off. one by one, each separate article of food ami drink, until he had reached a point whore water and dried pea flour wore the only things lie consumed. He had read an analysis of water which proved it to be full of disease germs and poisonous animaicuhe. and learned from another source that peas container! so much starch that any preparation thereof consumed for a certain time would turn the stomach into the laun dry attachment. This capp'd the climax; the weary seeker after a healthful diet burned the scrap hook which lie had filled with dietetic theories and lived thereafter upon everything which pleased his palate, regardless of consequences. While it is true that some people thrive upon food that would sicken others, and quite as true that certain breads are unwholesome, certain meats harmful. and certain modes of cookery sure to render the food indigestible, the sensible portion of the world's inhabitants have come to the conclusion that the correct way to feed is with such diet as is most desired by the individual. All feel at times the desire for a change of diet, and there are few who cannot secure this at will—certain very palatable dishes are undonbtably very unwholesome—but, there is no master so arbitrary and imperious as the human stomach, and so long as there is a world with people in it, this must remain a fixed fact, so that until tlie millenium arrives people will eat what they please, dietetic theorists to the contrary notwithstanding^^

TeteflkUes. physical cau The hair, the to the inand is to by diet, go nil the year with the clogged, ami they rayeover JBoenefit to be obtained at the water cure, limply because they do there what they neglect at home—bathe regularly, systematically and particularly. It is. of course, absurd to prescribe certain baths as infallible cure-alls. What will do for a robust person will kill a frail one ; but the general rule of frequent ami judicious bathing may he laid down. Then comes fresh air. The windows of a bouse should bo numerous and opposite, and there should be patches of tiod's sunlight on the floor instead of the .'esthetic gloom so depressing to the young, who arc to be carefully trained. The writer would urge gymnastic exercises first,ahead of tireckand Latin, and a romp in the green fields before any number of volumes of lure. Let the young people drink in the blessings of health wifhin easy reach. Last week"the writer overheard a very much dressed damsel conversing on the street corner with a vouth.

" I scarcely know what it is to walk,” she said, and I do so dislike exercise.” The close observer took in the cramped features, the heavily powdered skin, with the sallow color looking through : observed the tightly drawn face veil which pinned down the eyelashes, and shuddered as the eye fell upon the pinched waist and narrow shoulders : and this passed for good looks ! A girl need not be coarse to be vigorous. nor masculine to have muscles, llershouldcrs should be thrown back, her eye keen and her color good. It is a crime to lose one’s teeth at forty ; a disgrace to have constant headache at twenty : an indigestion is no more a part of earthly lot than is small pox. Go to any lunch parly, and watch the delicate women tax their stomachs: and yet they wonder why they are not well. True, we may inherit certain organic troubles from indiscreet ancestors, such is the inconvenience of cntailmeut; but we can 'top further transmission. Mad breath might to be looked upon as worse than soiled hands, and yet you would scarcely excuse a lady the latter neglect.

Value of Sanitary Precautions.

According to the Annul* of Iti/i/'i iir, they have not had a case of smallpox for one year past in Philadelphia, If the Health Ofiicer of the city receives in his morning mail notice of a case of smallpox (suspected), he at once sends word to the vaccine physician of the district to visit the suspected house and neighborhood, and vaccinate all who arc not evidently well protected, by this operation, against the disease. The agents of the board arc at once dispatched to thoroughly disinfect the suspected premises, and to inquire into and insist, upon the premises being placed in proper sanitary conditions. Later in the day the proper ofUcer, when he reports, is sent to investigate the nature of the case reported. The result is that, whether the case be smallpox or not. vaccination and disenfection are secured. The neighbors of the doubtful case are sufficiently frightened to cheerfully submit to the necessary precautions: aiid as a grand and glorious result, this great city has passed one_ whole year without, a case of smallpox. This can be said of very few large cities, if of any, in the world. There'never lias been a time in the history of this city when her preparations to battle with this disease were so good, and wc see that wc have accomplished that which sanitarians always tell us oau br accomplished. We have dirty water at least; we have badly paved streels; wc want sewers; but we have not had smallpox. Wc emphasize this fact, because it is eii" ■.uragiii'-r I" lle.-e who labor tor (he old.be. I. and it i- th- pr. -iieli la.' i - i b.ii will enable us b> Convince the pc.'[lie "! th ■ belieUeeilij'.' of s.illllati<.|l.