IT

HEALTH AND CONDITION.

T may seem a strange assertion to make, but nevertheless it is a true one, that as soon as a man is born into the world he begins to die, and existence is really a struggle as to how to put off to the latest date the final hour of dissolution. It is a matter of wonder that with so many circumstances against the atom endowed with the spark of life, one or the other of them does not extinguish it in the first hour of its birth. Cold, accident, inherited disease, want of proper management, and the thousand-and-one ailments incidental to infancy are the first to make this assault; and if the period of infancy is survived the multifarious dangers of youth, adolescence, maturity, middle and old age, are waiting to take their place, till at last the citadel yields to that great conqueror to whom the greatest of the earth must bow the knee in submission.

Life, indeed, consists in a series of changes of tissue, and the human economy is simply, as far as its material part is concerned, a machine, and primarily depends on food as the most important factor in keeping it in working order. When I say we commence to die as soon as we are born, I of course mean that certain parts of the body immediately begin to perish; their existence is ephemeral, they come and go, are replenished and decay. They are the dying parts of that system of life which may last a little while, but which must eventually yield to the inexorable law of nature. The nails, the hair, &c., are observable as an instance of this decay. The same rule applies to every other organ and tissue of the body, though it is not palpable to the naked eye. The skin is always peeling. The food that is taken in the one hour nourishes the system and ejects that which was taken the hour before. Perfect health and condition, at whatever time of life we may apply the term, from infancy to old age, depends upon the proper assimilation of the food taken and its natural elimination when it is done with, by the different organs that have to deal with it. Of course, heredity and a few other circumstances must also be taken into consideration in estimating the chances of life. If the exact amount of food necessary to nourish each tissue of the body

were taken daily, having regard to work and other circumstances, and if the economy were kept properly employed, it would mean that the individual would be in the most perfect health and condition, and ought to live to the age of a hundred years or more. But how seldom does this occur ! From some cause or other, more is taken than is necessary to supply constitutional requirements, and the result is that the surplus remains stored, and in some way or other acts prejudicially. If it does not cause absolute illness, it impedes vigour and elasticity and leads to a feeling of malaise and disinclination for work, making one's ordinary occupation a burden. We are tempted to eat when we are not hungry and drink when we are not thirsty, and if we do we must pay the penalty. More than this, in this life, at all events, the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, and the old port drunk by the grandfather yields a crop of gout in the grandson. Stimulant taken to excess in the father transmits the curse to the progeny, and they start in the struggle of life handicapped from the first hour, and, like a race-horse with no stamina, fail early in the race.

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During the period of youth the different organs are so active that it is not often any very great harm arises from surplus food that waste. Nature seems to find some outlet for the used-up material, and the natural elasticity and activity of early life burns up unused waste almost like a furnace. But after youth has passed and the body has arrived at full development a different state of affairs obtains, and it becomes then a serious matter (if robust health and condition are to be maintained) how to equalise the supply to the demand. If more food is taken than the system requires, or food unsuitable to it (the old adage is quite true, that what is one man's meat is another man's poison), it becomes stored in some way or other and clogs the machine either in the form of obesity or gout poison, rheumatism or indigestion, or biliousness, or in many other ways, that mean a departure from absolute health and any departure from absolute health means an increased liability to all sorts of more serious diseases. It is a moot point whether a perfectly healthy body is not unassailable to disease of every kind, and it is certain that a number of individuals may be subjected to, say, the poison of cholera or typhoid fever and may entirely escape, while others, under the same circumstances, fall easy victims. Cases are well known to physiologists where a man may be insusceptible to certain infectious diseases at one time and at another time fall an easy prey to their attack. The inference would be that at the particular time when he was unassailable the constitution was in a perfect state of health,

whereas at another time it was deficient in tone, or in that state of condition that enables it to withstand the attack of disease. I believe that if a person were put in a state of absolute health and sound condition, by dietetic means, he would be safe from an attack of cholera or any other disease that might then be sweeping away thousands. Certain diseases will only take root in congenial soil, the soil of low vitality, if I may so express it. They are like fungi, that require a particular soil and a damp, close atmosphere to spread in. A mushroom flourishes where a rose will die in an hour.

To learn how to attain a state of health that means immunity from attacks of disease, and the consequent attainment, bar accidents, of green old age, is worth all the trouble it entails—indeed, in many cases it is a duty to do this, as the happiness of others may depend upon it.

Now, assuming a person to be out of condition from some cause or other, how is this to be remedied? Of course, in the first place it would be necessary that the diet should be properly adjusted and that its constituents should be such as the particular idiosyncrasies and mode of life demanded; and though this may seem at first a complex question it is really by no means so. In the second place, for a time the individual should undergo a modified system of training,' and this simply means that for a few weeks regular exercise should

1 Investigation by Dr. Morgan into the history of 294 "University Oars" shows conclusively that even severe training gives a long life average. He has followed up with personal inquiries the 294 “University Oars " mentioned above, and he finds, as was to be expected, that since 1829, when his list begins, some have died, some have been killed, some have fallen into ill-health, but 238 survive to describe themselves as hearty and strong. Of the deaths (39 in all) 11 were from fevers, 7 from consumption, 6 from accidents, 3 from heart disease, and lesser numbers from other special causes. Now, it is heart disease which is especially attributed to athletic sports, and it is a surprise to find statistics showing that their patrons have suffered from it rather less than the rest of the population, and much less than the sailors whom we are so solicitous to keep in good health. The death of two by drowning in attempting to save others, and three by gun-shot wounds, shows the possession of energy and unselfish courage, seldom the characteristics of a broken invalid. The cases of the seventeen who do not furnish a good account of their health are mostly somewhat vague. Among so many, several must have hereditary tendencies to disease; others say their medical attendants trace no connection between their complaints and previous muscular exertion, and in such a long period as forty years innumerable evil influences must have been in action; while in some families it seems traditional always to speak of their health as only moderate, and in others to look back upon the exuberances of their youth as follies. So that seventeen is in fact a small number to be occasionally falling into the hands of the physician. The best test of the value of anything is to reduce it to Arab c numerals, and pounds, shillings, and pence, as insurance offices act by our consti

be taken daily, so as to keep the skin acting and circulate the blood, and thus brace up the muscular and nervous systems. A certain number of hours should elapse between the meals, and these should be carefully apportioned with regard to their constituents and quality. Only three meals should be taken daily, and the best hours for these would be-breakfast 8 or 9 A.M., lunch or dinner 1 or 2 P.M., high tea or late dinner 7 or 8 P.M.: nothing but fresh fruit or liquid to quench thirst being taken between meals.

In preparing for the moors, or for the thorough enjoyment of partridge shooting, or for any pursuit requiring endurance, the reduction of fat should be carried on until the body only retains a little more than the normal quantity, and the amount of exercise should be gradually raised to that necessary for a fair day's sport. Many a sudden death has occurred on the moors and in the hunting-field through neglect of these precautions, for there is nothing more dangerous than to take violent exercise day after day before the heart and nervous system are toned up to it.

The pain in the back and side which hunting and sporting men often experience at the beginning of the season, arises generally from imperfect expansion of the lungs, due to want of condition.

In ordinary breathing the muscles of the trunk are strained in the effort of expiration during exercise, and the rules that I have here laid down would obviate this.

Where this occurs in ladies, the use of the dumb-bells and exercise -walking and riding, or tricycling, gradually increased from day to day, will soon remedy the fault; and of course tight lacing should be avoided.1

tutions. Dr. Morgan has applied this test to the 294 cases under consideration. According to Dr. Farr's life tables the expectation of life at 20, the average age of University oarsmen, is 40 years. But the survivors have still an expectation of life of 14 years before them, and this must be added on, while a calculated allowance must be made for those who have died, and an estimate also deducted for the seventeen lives who reckon themselves damaged. The whole calculation is too long to be gone into here, but the result is decidedly favourable; for, taking the experience as it stands, the expectation of life of each individual comes out, not 40, but 42 years. So that any insurance office which had taken them all at ordinary rates would be making a handsome profit and exhibit a good prospective balance-sheet. The conclusion is inevitable that for young men in good health very severe athletic training strengthens the constitution and lengthens life.

No girl who tight laces can retain her beauty long. The compression of the different organs whose free play is necessary to health soon tells, and a pale, pasty complexion and general want of tone result. Indeed, these are by no means, bad as they are, the worst penalty the votary of fashion pays for the questionable honour of looking like a wasp.

The occupation of the fairer portion of creation being, as a rule, more sedentary than that of men, it is even more essential for them to learn the few rules that lead to the attainment of perfect health, and the preservation of symmetry of form and beauty. The proper enamel for the complexion is health, and the proper way to keep the figure within the lines of beauty is by diet and exercise.

An excess of fat is not hid by tight lacing, or by the wiles of the fashionable dressmaker. In truth, she only makes it more prominent. All adventitious aids to beauty advocated by the charlatan or the quack in the way of cosmetics only destroy it. The sulphurous atmosphere of London makes the use of bismuth and all other skin enamels very palpable in a few hours after they are put on, by giving them the peculiar leaden blue tint so observable, alas ! too often.

Very simple rules indeed are necessary to insure health and condition, and these rules can be carried out without interfering with the comfort or the mode of life from day to day. It may be broadly put in this way-that to insure proper condition the human animal requires a little more of tissue-forming food, and a little less of heatforming food, or the converse, according to the requirements of the system and the work that has to be done.

In this way the balance of supply and demand may be kept as nearly even as may be. Further than this, a little consideration must be paid as to the mode of life. A man or woman leading a sedentary life requires a little different kind of food from one who does a large amount of physical work, and it is an incontrovertible fact that health and condition cannot be attained without a certain amount of exercise. The horse offers the best illustration of what diet and exercise will do, and for health and usefulness fresh air and exercise are as important a factor in the attainment of proper condition as food. If a horse is brought in from grass fat and out of condition, and is put in the stable and fed on corn and hay, he will rapidly part with his surplus substance and become high-spirited and active, but if he is not properly groomed and exercised he will not gain the condition that is essential for hard work and continued health: and what exercise and grooming will do for a horse it will also do for a man. I think everyone who keeps horses will agree with me when

1 Of late years massage has attracted a great deal of attention, and really it does for the human being what grooming does for the horse, for grooming is really massage, and is undoubtedly a great adjunct to health and condition. An extremely handy appliance for this purpose is the “Massage Rubber,” which can be procured from Mr. E. Crutchloe, of Albert Chambers, Victoria Street, Westminster. The use of this in the case of people who are unable to take active exercise, either in walking, riding, or any other way, will undoubtedly tend to conduce to robust health and keep the skin acting healthily.