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CHAPTER XXV.

HINTS ON HEALTH.

THE universal remark of travelers visiting America, as well as the universal complaint of Americans themselves, relates to the ill health of the fairer portion of the community. Look where you will, go to any, city in the vast Union, the remark and complaint will be made everywhere. With every natural advantage of climate, yet from North to South, East to West the cry resounds.

Foreigners, admiring the dark-eyed girls of the southern states or the blondes of the northern ones, will remark, with comments upon beauty :—

"But she looks delicate, poor thing!-Not strong? Ah! I thought not, none of the American women are, and how soon these young beauties fade!"

It seems to me, amongst the subjects treated of in my present work, that a few words on health will not come amiss.

"Light and sunshine are needful for your health. Get all you can; keep your windows clean. Do not block them up with curtains, plants, or bunches of flowers; these last poison the air, in small rooms.

"Fresh air is needful for your health. As often as

you can, open all your windows, if only for a short time in bad weather; in fine weather, keep them open, but never sit in draughts. When you get up, open the windows wide, and throw down the bed-clothes, that they may be exposed to fresh air some hours, daily, before they are made up. Keep your bed-clothes clean; hang them to the fire when you can. Avoid wearing at night what you wear in the day. Hang up your day-clothes at night. Except in the severest weather, in small, crowded sleeping-rooms, a little opening at the top of the window-sash is very important; or you will find one window pane of perforated zinc very useful. You will not catch cold half so easily by breathing pure air at night. Let not the beds be directly under the windows. Sleeping in exhausted air creates a desire for stimulants.

"Pure water is needful for your health. Wash your bodies as well as your faces, rubbing them all over with a coarse cloth. If you cannot wash thus every morning, pray do so once a week. Crying and cross children are often pacified by a gentle washing of their little hands and faces-it soothes them. Babies' heads should be washed carefully, every morning with soap. No scurf should be suffered to remain upon them. Get rid of all slops and dirty water at once. Disease, and even death, is often the consequence of our own negligence. Wash your rooms and passages at least once a week, use plenty of clean water; but do not let your children stay in them while they are wet, it may bring on croup or inflammation of the chest. If you read your Bibles, which it is earnestly hoped you do, you will find how cleanliness, both as to the person and habitation, was

taught to the Jews by God himself; and we read in the 4th chapter of Nehemiah that when they were building their second temple, and defending their lives against their foes, having no time for rest, they contrived to put off their clothes for washing. It is a good old saying, that cleanliness is next to godliness. See Heb. x. 22.

"Wholesome food is needful for your health. Buy the most strengthening. Pieces of fresh beef and mutton go the farthest. Eat plenty of fresh salt with food; it prevents disease. Pray do not let your children waste. their pennies in tarts, cakes, bull's eyes, hardbake, sour fruit, &c., they are very unwholesome, and hurt the digestion. People would often, at twenty years of age, have a nice little sum of money to help them on in the world, if they had put in the savings' bank the money so wasted. Cocoa is cheaper and much more nourishing than tea. None of these liquids should be taken hot, but lukewarm; when hot they inflame the stomach, and produce indigestion.

"We are all made to breathe the pure air of heaven, and therefore much illness is caused by being constantly in-doors. Let all persons make a point, whenever it is possible, of taking exercise in the open air for at least an hour and a half daily. Time would be saved in the long run by the increased energy and strength gained, and by the warding off of disease."

Let it not be supposed that it is not the duty of every young lady to take due care of her health, and to preserve in all its power of utility every portion of vigor which has been bestowed on her.

With many young ladies, it appears to be a maxim to

do everything in their power to destroy the health which is so much wanted in the real business of life, and which forms so important a requisite to happiness. In the first place, as to hours-they never leave the ballroom until utterly exhausted, and scarcely fit to crawl to bed. The noon-day sleep, the scarcely touched breakfast, that most important meal, are followed by preparations for the succeeding night's pleasures, or in headaching morning calls, driving about in a close carriage, or lounging on a sofa, in an over-heated room, reading novels.

Dressing follows; the warm wrapper or dress is thrown aside; over the tightly drawn corsets is fastened a flimsy dress, with an inch of sleeve; the neck laid bare; thin stockings drawn on, in place of thick ones, and the consumption-seeker goes forth to the ball-room again.

"At times, you miss from the gay assemblage some former ornament-you inquire about her-she has taken cold. Inflammation of the lungs, caught it in an accidental draught of air by one of these fair half-dressed beings, carried off, not long since, one of the gayest and fairest of the belles of the season-after an illness of three days.

"Preservation of the health ought, from an early stage of existence, to be enforced as a duty upon the young. To walk daily; to have daily recourse, in summer, even twice a day, to the sponging with cold water, or the shower-bath;-to eat sufficiently of plain, nutritious food; to keep the mind calm-these are duties;they should be habitually exercised. Care should be taken not to come out heated, with a shawl just pinned

across the shoulders, from a heated room.

Where there is delicacy of the lungs or windpipe, yet not sufficient to render a withdrawal from evening parties necessary, the use of a respirator at night is desirable. It is usual to have recourse to this valuable invention only when dis ease is actually existing as a preventive, it is neglected. Yet, preserving the temperature of a warm room, it is an excellent precaution, and can easily be assumed when the shawl or cloak is put on. The atmosphere of a city is destructive where there is any pulmonary delicacy, and who shall say, where there is not pulmonary delicacy? In this climate, there is a tendency to it, more or less, in almost every family,—at all events, it is too easily induced in our predisposed constitutions, by cold, aided by the debilitating effect of heated rooms and an artificial mode of existence, and accelerated also, most decidedly, by bared shoulders. For, in this climate, it is scarcely ever safe to lay bare that portion of the frame, the back and chest in which the lungs are seated; and, although custom may greatly lead to diminish the injurious effects, the sudden chill may strike, and may never be recovered.

"During every season, certain colds,' coughs, and 'feverish colds.'

people have 'head These are produced

by certain states of climate acting on certain states of constitution. At particular seasons such complaints abound-at others they abound still more; and again, from some singularity, they prevail so much that people say, there is an Influenza.

“Influenza has been long known in the world. It has often visited Europe; and made its appearance on