Dealth.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2055, 15 April 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Dealth.

Health and Eating*

The most perfect regimen of the healthy exercise of thought is such as would be advised for a growing boy, viz.:—Frequent small supplies of easily soluble mixed food, so as to furnish the greatest quantity ofnutriment without overloading the stomach or running the risk of generating morbid, half assimilated products, for it is essential to the intellectual direction of the nervous system that it should not bo oppressed by physical impediments. The presence in the stomach or blood of imperfectly assimilated nutriment impedes its functions an close proportion to theiFamuunt, so that notonly the constituents but the mode of administering food must come into the calculation. Jl/'jjh firx rnitor mm, studH lihritiir (a full stomach makes a dull brain), is an old proverb, the application of which saves many a brain and many a stomach from being worked against the grain. Kcst from brain work twenty minutes before meals, entire abstinence from it during meals and rest again till the weight has passed from the stomach are essential to the reconcilement of physical exertion with bodily health. The physiology of the action of alcohol has a very important bearing on the physical management of the mental functions. Alcohol has the power of curbing, arresting and suspending all the manifestations of the nervous system, so that we feel its influence on our thoughts sooner than on any other part of the system. Sometimes it brings them more completely under our command ; controls ami steadies them ; more often it confusesanddisc mncclsthem, ami f hen breaks off our [lower over them altogether. When a man has tired himself by intellectual exertion a moderate otuintlt.y>.f nleholiestimulant taken with fowl acts as an amesihetic, stays the wear i t tie; system which is going on, and allows the nerve force to be turned to the due digestion of the meal, lint it must be followed by rest from toil, ami is in essence a paid of the -mu ■ I ivatinciu which induces rest —it is an artificial rest. To conf inin' (o labor, anil at the same t ; mc take an amesthctic is a physiological inconsistency. The drug merely blunts the useful feeling of weariness, and prevents it from acting aa a warning. There is no habit more fatal to a literary man than that of taking stimulants between meals: the vital powers go on wearing out more and more without their cry for help being perceived, and in the end break down irrevocably. " The aim of the diet should be ” (to quote the words of John Milton) to preserve the body’s health and hardness, to render lightsome, clear and not lumpish, obedience to Ibo mind, to the cause of religion and our country’s liberty, when it shall require from hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover their stations.” 1 1 is especially when the mind of genius is overshadowed by the dark clouds of threatened insanity, of hypochondriasisor of hysteria, that a rational mode of life preserves it.

Health Rules for the Aged— in discussing the causes of premature old age in mature life, that eminent authority, Dr. 1!. W. Richardson, points out that indulgence in excessive emotion, passion or bad habits anticipate age. Uric', vain regrets over w'hat might have boon, hatred, jealousy, intemperance, unchastity, all have this effect, and ‘hose who wish to prolong their lives to a green old age in reasonable health and vigor, should avoid them with the utmost cave, but when, as it must, old age, has really come, its march towards final decay may be delayed and the way made smoother by attention to those rules of conservation by which life is sustained with t he least friction and waste. The prime rules for this purpose, Dr. Richardson suggests, are To subsist on light but nutritious diet, with milk as the standard food, but varied according to season. To take food in moderate quantity, four times in the day, including a very light meal before going to bed. To clothe warmly but lightly, so that the body may in|all seasons, maintain its equality of temperature, To maintain an interest in what is going on in (he world, and to take part in reasonable labors and pleasures, as though old age were not present. To take plenty of sleep during sleeping hours. To spend nine hours in bod at the least, and to take care during cold weather that the temperature of the bedroom is kept at sixty degrees f. To avoid passion, excitement, luxury.

Simple Diet.— Healthy living is underall circumstances and for all people very largely a matter of health and custom : but no "one who has experienced, the ease and comfort with which a good day’s work may be accomplished under a tropical sun when the midday meal consists of nothing more substantial than a slice of bread and half a dozen small hunches of grapes, will deny the advantages which accrue from a liberal infusion of the vegetable clement into a hot weather dietary. We here cannot always enjoy the flavor of an orange, ripened to perfection on the tree, during the stroll before our breakfast hut during the summer months we can add to the meal some of the garden fruits whose best usci we are apt to overlook. At luncheon again, fruit and salad will advantageously form the staple of the i.miv. The habit of eating fruits with cream or milk enables us to introduce into the system a good supply of light ami easily assimilated nourishment, with more case and pleasure than attends the inges.ion of some of the gro'-.r forms of food. Dinner is best taken win a Ihe brunt of the day’s work is over, and shoidd he the must substantial meal. I’.nt at dinner fruit is almost invariably 'dieted at (he wrong time. The desert might well take the place of the soup. Certainly the most unphvsiological and undesirable time for attempting the digestion of raw fruit ;s at the cud of a substantial meal ; and it is not the digestive powers only which Would benefit by a reversal of our customs in this respect. fashion and tradition, however, are Imres not to he modilied at once; aud perhaps it will not be until the unremunerative character of some of our older branches of agriculture Inis driven the farmer to adopt fruit-glowing on a large scale, that we shall allow ourselves to appreciate the advantages of that ilietetie programme which year after year nature patiently unfolds before our eyes.

A Common Cause of Dyspepsia,

J hi' habit, has grown to be common in our large cities, where men live at a distance from their business places, and therefore take a light lunch every day during the week. When Sunday comes they have leisure for breakfast and a little exercise during thelforenoon, then have a royal dinner at two o’clock, and perhaps la/,y lounging and “ lying oil,” as it is called, during the afternoon. They thus eat twice as much on Sunday as they do other days. The appetite is just as good as it would be if tbc\ were engaged in their ordinary occupations. but the needs of the system are no; halt so great when a person’is idle as when he is actively or laboriously engaged in business, and the result is that Monday is a blue day to very many. It is a dav of headaches and ill feeling, anil by Wednesday peihaps they get back into their normal track again, and by Saturday are ready for anotherstutlingim Sunday. We believe that dyspepsia in eitv men originates in nineeases’out of ten in the, practice of over- eating and taking little exercise on Sunday.