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BIOLOGY

HEALTHY LIVING

BOOK ONE

HOW CHILDREN CAN GROW STRONG
FOR THEIR COUNTRY'S SERVICE

BY
CHARLES-EDWARD AMORY WINSLOW, D. P. H.

PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH, YALE MEDICAL SCHOOL, AND CURATOR
OF PUBLIC HEALTH, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

ENLARGED EDITION

WITH A CHAPTER ON "PHYSICAL EXERCISES"

BY
WALTER CAMP

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO

BY
CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.

[151

DIOLOGY

LIBRARY

TO THE CHILDREN WHO MAY USE THIS BOOK

When I was asked to write a book for you about the wonders
of the human body and the things we can do to keep that body
strong and well, it seemed at first that I must refuse, for, like
every one else, I am very busy in this war time. Gradually,
however, on thinking the matter over I decided that there was
really nothing at all that could be more important to do than
this. We who are working in our laboratories studying about
the human body and its microbe enemies are doing it because we
want to help people to live healthier, happier, and more efficient
lives. How can we be of any use, however, unless we tell every
one what we are finding out, and, particularly, unless we tell
it to you children who will soon grow up to be men and women
and run this United States of ours, and yours?

The more I thought about it all, the more interested I became.
I often speak face to face to classes of school children about
public health; but during the last few months I have been
traveling a good deal on sanitary work connected with the war,
and have been thinking about a much larger audience than could
be gathered in the largest room in the world. I have crossed
the whole of Asia and a good part of Europe, and I have seen
the boys and girls of Russia and Siberia, and the boys and girls
of China and Korea, and the boys and girls of Japan with their
merry smiles and their gay dresses. I have learned that the great
need in all these countries is for more schools and better schools;
and I have realized more than ever how much the great school-
houses in our cities really mean, and the little schoolhouses, too,
out on the ranges of Montana and among the rich cornfields
of Indiana and in the pitch pine forests of Florida. I finally
decided that nothing could possibly be better worth while than
to talk through this little book with so many children whom I

50085?

4 TO THE CHILDREN WHO MAY USE THIS BOOK

have never seen and shall never see and to tell them something
about health.

So I have tried to describe t6 you how the human body is
built and how it works. I have told you something about our
invisible enemies, the microbes, which we must know how to
fight, as our forefathers fought the wild beasts when they settled
this great country. Health means, first of all, running the
living machine, the body, so as to keep it in good working order;
and, second, guarding it against the attacks of these enemies
that may come in to harm it from without.

I have been anxious to make you feel the wonder and the in-
terest of this body of ours, for it is really one of the most wonder-
ful and interesting things in the whole world. Some of the prin-
cipal points which we ought to remember about keeping the body
well are illustrated by stories, for there is nothing that children,
and some of us grown people too, like so much as a story.
Finally, I have emphasized all through this book the fact that
we ought to try to be strong and well, not for our own sakes
but because we are citizens of a great country which needs our
best service. Loyalty to the common tasks of the American
Democracy is the first and the foremost lesson which our schools
must teach; and strength for service — strength physical, strength
intellectual, strength of character and purpose — is the founda-
tion of that loyalty.

Thanks are due to my daughter, Nancy, aged ten years, for
reading the manuscript of this book and criticising it from the
standpoint of the children who may use it. If the book suc-
ceeds in interesting you and in helping you to keep yourselves in
sounder and more vigorous health, I shall be very grateful for
the chance of telling this story of the human body and how
to keep it well.

C.-E. A. WINSLOW.
New Haven, Connecticut,

May, 1918.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to make grateful acknowledgment to the
American Museum of Natural History, New York, for permis-
sion to reproduce Figures 65 and 67; to the American Posture
League for Figure 15; to the Boy Scouts of America for Figures
75, 78, and 79; to the New York City Health Department for
Figures 63, 64, 73, and 80; to the New York City Board of Water
Supply for Figure 76; to Mr. \V. Lyman Underwood of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Figures 69 and 70;
and to the National Association for the Study and Prevention
of Tuberculosis for Figure3 77 and 82.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A WELL-SPENT DAY 9

II. YOUR WONDERFUL BODY 20

III. THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY 31

IV. How THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE 44

V. THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 56

VI. How WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 70

VII. FUEL FOR THE BODY 81

VIII. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FOOD IN THE BODY. ..... 91

DC. KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 99

X. BREATHING no

XI. THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 121

XII. KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY 132

XIII. FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 143

XIV. OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 156

XV. CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH 168

XVI. SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS 179

XVII. STOPPING THE SPREAD OF GERM DISEASE 194

XVIII. THE ARMY OF HEALTH 202

XIX. SOME RULES FOR HEALTH 214

XX. PHYSICAL EXERCISES BY WALTER CAMP 228

MEASURING YOUR WEIGHT 240

INDEX 243

HEALTHY LIVING

CHAPTER I
A WELL-SPENT DAY

How a Boy Became a Knight. — Five hundred years
ago, in England and France and the other principal
countries of Europe, the leaders of the people were a
special class of men called knights. A knight had to
be a soldier, absolutely free from fear. He must always
be true to his king and his country and his friends. He
must be generous and ready to give away anything he
had to those in need. He must always be modest and
courteous in his manner and thoughtful of the feelings
of others. So people came to feel that there was nothing
nobler in the world than to be "a good knight."

It was not easy to become a knight. The boy who
desired this great honor went through a long period of
training. It began when he was seven or eight years
old. He waited on, and helped, the older people in the
household, and was trained there in courtesy and gentle-
ness. As years went on, he learned how to carry him-
self like a soldier and how to use the spear and the
sword, with which men fought in those days. He
learned to ride and swim and climb and jump, and he
trained himself to bear the heavy weight of the suits of
armor which the knights wore in battle. As he grew
older, he learned to endure heat and cold and to go for

io HEALTHY LIVING

a time without food or sleep, so that he might be strong
to bear the hardships of the life of a soldier. At last,

Fig. i. — How a boy of the olden time was made a knight.

after perhaps fifteen years of this training, he was
brought before the king of the country, and as he
kneeled down the king touched him on the shoulder
with his sword and made him a knight.

A WELL- SPENT DAY n

We do not have knights of this kind in America
to-day; but we want boys and girls who will serve our
country as faithfully as the knights of old-time served
their king. We honor men and women who are brave
and loyal, generous and gentle — just as they did five
hundred years ago. It is just as true as it was then that
girls and boys cannot grow up to be good citizens and
faithful servants cf their country, unless they train
themselves to be strong, as well as to be brave and true
and kind.

Perhaps you have thought that people just happen
to be well or ill, strong or weak, and that there is nothing
you can do about it. That is not true, for health and
strength come largely from habits of healthy living.
In order to form such habits, you must know some-
thing about your body and how it works and what you
can do to make it stronger. In later chapters I shall
tell you more about the body and the reasons why
some habits are good and others bad. There are some
things, however, that we all know about, though we
may not always remember to do them. Let us see what
a few of these things are, and how a boy or a girl can
spend a day — say to-morrow, the day after studying
this chapter — so as to build up strength and health for
the knightly service of our country.

Getting Ready for the Day. — First of all, the boy who
wants to be a good knight and the girl who is eager to
grow up into a strong, helpful woman will not, of course,
linger in bed when the time for getting up has come.
In winter it is not easy to step out of the warm bed-

HEALTHY LIVING

clothes into the cold world, but if you set your teeth
you can do it just the same. Then the body should be
made ready for the work of the day by a cold bath and
a brisk rubdown with a rough towel. Just why this is
healthful, and how a cold bath helps you to feel fit and
strong, we shall learn in later chapters. Often one

has to do what one is told
quickly and without asking
the reason; but it is much
nicer to know the reasons for
things and really understand
why they are good. The
teeth must be thoroughly
brushed, and the face and
hands washed, so as to be clean
and fresh for the new day.
There are some interesting
reasons for this, too, which

Fig. 2.— Health habits: brisk wiR leam later? for we

morning exercises. .

do not try to keep clean sim-
ply because dirt does not look well.

Morning Exercises.— ^The arms and the legs that are
so active in the daytime have been limp and quiet
during the night's rest. It is an excellent plan to get
them into good working order by a few simple exercises,
which will be described in a later chapter. If you do
these exercises every morning, and breathe slowly and
deeply while you are doing them, not only your arms
and legs but a great many other parts of that com-
plicated and wonderful body of yours will be helped

A WELL-SPENT DAY

and strengthened. You will find, if you dc this, that
you will grow stronger all the time, and better able to
play games and run and jump and climb ; and you will
find yourself happier and more full of life and energy in
everything you do.

After you have put on your clothes and are ready to
go to breakfast, stop for a minute and think whether
you are holding your body
proudly and well, or whether
you are slouching. See that
your head is up, your shoulders
flat, your knees straight, your
feet set squarely on the ground,
before you set out for your
day's work.

Mealtimes. — Which meal in
the day do you like best? I
think breakfast is perhaps the
pleasantest. It is early morn- Fig. 3 -Health habits: hearty
ing and everything is fresh

and bright and one is almost always hungry then, par-
ticularly if one has had a bath and vigorous exercises.

Sometimes a child, who is not trying to grow to be
a strong man or woman, lies in bed so long and is so
slow in dressing that there is no time for breakfast, and
he just snatches a mouthful or two before running off to
school. This is a very bad plan indeed, for soon that
child will begin to have an empty feeling inside; he
will become cross and fretful and will be stupid in
school work and dull at play. Remember that the body

14 HEALTHY LIVING

needs plenty of food, and no child can be of very much
use to himself or anyone else unless he has started off
in the morning with a good breakfast.

Most children need a little lunch in the middle of
the morning, for it is a long time between breakfast
and luncheon or dinner time. So it is a good plan to
take with you some bread and butter or crackers or
cookies to eat about eleven o'clock.

You will read later in this book about the foods that
make up a good diet for a boy or girl of your age. For
breakfast you should have fruit, cereal, bread and but-
ter, and milk, or other foods equally good. A little
meat or fish or eggs should be eaten sometime during
the day, if possible; but plenty of milk will do instead,
if these things are too expensive. Green vegetables
or fruit should form a part of each of the three meals.
You will learn later what each of these kinds of food
does for the body and why you need them all.

The boys who were training themselves to be knights
in olden days sometimes used to go without any food
for a time, to make themselves hardy. It is good to
be brave about being hungry, but it is not worth while
to injure one's health by going without food just for
this purpose. There is another kind of training, how-
ever, which some children I know need very much.
These children go without food of certain kinds, not
to make themselves hardy but just because they don't
like chicken or carrots or spinach or whatever the food
may be. Often the foods they will not eat are just the
ones they need to strengthen their bodies and make

A WELL SPENT DAY

them grow. Such children should make it a part of
their knightly training to conquer their dislikes and to
learn to eat all the good kinds of food that are set be-
fore them.

Dressing to Go Out. — After breakfast is finished,
there is often a hurry and a scurry to get off to school.
The house is full of cries
of, "Mother, where are my
gloves?" and "Mother, I can't
find my coat."

It pays to take time to find
the clothes you need before
you go out into the chilly air,
if it is winter time or there is
a storm. It may be a bother
to hunt for your things. But
remember that you cannot ex-
pect your body to keep fit and
weU, if YOU do not take care of Fig' ^-Health habits: clothes

to suit the weather.
it. Dressing too warmly is

bad; but wearing coats, warm caps, overshoes, mittens,
and leggings, when the weather is such that you need
them, is not a sign of being babyish but a sign of being
sensible and grown up/

Don't forget, however, to take off coats, leggings,
and mufflers when you go indoors where it is warm.
Rubbers are very bad for the feet, if you forget and keep
them on all day, as some children do that I know about.

Schooltime. — The different parts of the body are like
faithful servants who do our work for us most of the

HEALTHY LIVING

time, even without our having to think about it at
all. Some of these parts, as we shall see, are busy all
day and all night. Others are set to work only now
and then when we happen to need them.

At school and in home-study time we call upon our
very highest servants to help us. .They are the parts

making up the brain, with
which we do our learning
and understanding. You can
make these servants either
good or bad by training them.
If you idle your time away
and lock out of the window
and whisper and giggle, your
brain servants will get the
habit of idleness and inatten-
tion. If you are trying to
make yourself a good knightly
citizen, you will make your
brain servants nimble and
industrious by working — when you do work — with all
your might.

Outdoor Play. — In the afternoon the young knight,
whether boy or girl, will get outdoors if possible, for
there is nothing so good for us as fresh air and sunlight.
Games and sports in the afternoon are just as important
a part of your training as studies in school-time. Al-
most all kinds of exercise are helpful, but particularly
those that bring all the parts of the body into play,
such as running and skating and tennis. Games that

Fig. 5. — Health habits: quiet
and concentration in study
time.

A WELL-SPENT DAY

are played by teams against each other are best of all,
for they not only help you to be physically quick and
strong, but also show you how to play and work with
others. Most of the things that are worth while are
done by men and women working together. If you
keep playing with all your might, all the time, to help
the rest of the team win, with-
out looking for any special
glory for yourself — you will
surely make a good citizen in
after life.

Indoors Again. — In the
late afternoon and after sup-
per, or when it is too stormy
to be out, there are other in-
teresting things to do. Sew-
ing for girls and carpentering
for boys, and story books for
both, are waiting for you,
with many other ways of
passing the time as well. Even in these hours, how-
ever, that little body of yours should not be entirely
forgotten.

In the first place, remember that it needs fresh air
even when you are indoors. If the room gets too hot,
open the window and freshen up the air for a few min-
utes, and you will get more enjoyment from whatever
you are doing and you will do it better.

When you are sitting quietly reading, your habits of
holding your body are being formed, as much as when

Fig. 6. — Health habits: vigor-
ous play in the open air.

HEALTHY LIVING

you are walking or running about. Don't loll and sit
on the middle of your back with your feet on the chair
or sofa. Old people and sick people and tired people
may need to rest in this way, but a child should be able
to sit up, straight and strong.

Don't forget to give your eyes a chance, too. Those
two eyes are among your very best and most useful

servants. Keep them strong
and clear by always having a
good light when you read
or sew.

Bedtime. — At last bedtime
comes. The body that has
worked hard all day must
rest and grow, so as to do
still more to-morrow. Don't
shorten the sleep time that
it needs.

The teeth must be brushed
again. And then — to bed, in
a room with the window open

Fig. 7.— Health habits: a good
night's rest.

to let in the cool fresh air, and off to the land of dreams
with the memory of a well-spent day!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW .

1. What was a knight? What did a boy have to do to become
a knight?

2. Do we have any knights in America? What qualities that
the knights had are still needed to-day?

3. Is it important that girls as well as boys should be strong
and healthy? Why?

A WELL-SPENT DAY 19

4. Is illness ever a person's own fault? Try to think of some
cases in which illness would be the result of bad habits.

5. What are the things that a boy or girl should do before
breakfast to get ready for a good day? How many of them did
you do this morning?

6. George was very sleepy one morning and lay in bed till it
was nearly time to start for school. He drank one mouthful of
milk and took one slice of bread to eat as he ran, and he forgot
the lunch he generally took to school. Tell how you think George
felt during the morning, how he got along in his lessons, and how
well he played in the ball game at recess.

7. Why are games that are played by teams with several on a
side better than games that are played alone?

8. What are some of the things you can do to keep your body
strong and well when you are reading or sewing at home in the
late afternoon or evening?

CHAPTER II
YOUR WONDERFUL BODY

Living Things and Lifeless Things. — What are the
things that interest you most as you walk home from
school or wander about in the woods? Smooth shiny
stones are attractive, particularly if they have bright
colored specks in them. If you are like most children,
however, you find flowers more beautiful than stones—
and there are a great many more kinds of flowers than
there are of stones. Animals are most interesting of
all. Beetles crossing the path, butterflies slowly waving
their wings on a thistle head, frogs in the meadow,
fishes in the stream, squirrels in the trees, or birds
balancing on the telegraph wires, — how fascinating it
is to try to get near them and see what they are doing!

It is the same in the city. It is pleasant to see the
automobiles gliding by and to look up at the buildings
and think how high they are. Most of us, however,
would rather watch a good horse than an automobile;
and the most interesting things to me about the houses
I pass are the cats on the window sills and the dogs
playing about the doorsteps.

The flowers, butterflies, birds, squirrels, cats, and
dogs are all alive; and life is, after all, the most wonder-
ful thing in the world.

The Human Body. — The most wonderful of all kinds

YOUR WONDERFUL BODY

of living things are men and women (and of course
girls and boys). We cannot "run like a deer/' nor is
any man "as strong as a horse/' though we often use
these expressions to mean that a person is unusually

Fig. 8. — There are many fascinating things in the world but none
that are quite so wonderful as the living machines we call ani-
mals and birds and boys and girls.

quick or unusually powerful. When it comes, however,
to things .which need skill and delicacy, no animal can
match us. You have probably seen a conjuror do his
tricks with cards and coins, moving his fingers so
swiftly that you could not guess how he managed to
make something disappear that had been right under
your eye the minute before. Or you have watched a

22 HEALTHY LIVING

good tennis player and wondered at the way in which
he gets just to the place in the court where the ball is
coming, and hits it back so that it barely skims the net
and goes to the one spot where it will be hardest for his
opponent to return it.

The human body is in some ways very much like a
bit of machinery — a watch or a steam engine — but it
can do many things that no lifeless machine will ever
do. We all like to know how machines work; for
instance, how the burning of gasoline in an automobile
makes the wheels go round. We ought to be still more
eager to learn how our own body-machine works. Do
you know why you have to breathe and eat and sleep;
how you move about; how the blood circulates in your
body; and how you learn to do things like riding a
bicycle or playing the piano, which become so easy at
last, though at first you could hardly do them at all?

It is interesting to learn about all the things that go
on inside that body-machine of yours. It is also very
important to learn about them, because when you know
how a machine works, you can make it run well and get
the most possible out of it. The art of keeping the body-
machine in good order is called hygiene.

The Parts of the Living Machine. — One of the strik-
ing things about a machine is that it is always made up
of many different parts, each of which performs some
special part of the work. Think whether this is not
true of the human body. First of all, the body is di-
vided into the trunk, head, arms, and legs. You know
what the arms and legs are for, but it might be in-

YOUR WONDERFUL BODY

Windpipe

Leading to Lungs

_ Esophagus
Leading to Stomach

teresting to make a list of the things you can do with
each and see which list is the longer one.

The trunk contains many important parts of the
body. Some of them are shown in Fig. 9, and we shall
later learn what they are like and what they do. The
head includes the brain, where our thinking and feel-
ing goes on. It con-
tains also the eyes
with which we see, the
nose through which we
breathe and smell, the
ears with which we
hear, and the mouth
and throat and tongue
with which we eat,
taste, and speak.

The body inside is
not solid like a stone,
but is made up of dif-
ferent kinds of living
matter. In your fin- Fig. 9. -Some of the principal parts of

the living machine,
gers, for instance, you

can feel under the skin soft matter with something hard
beneath it; and you know, from having cut yourself
sometime, that in the soft matter there is a red liquid,
the blood.

A living body, then, is made up of different parts, each
having some work to do for the common good. These
parts are called organs.

There is a fable told by the ancient Greek, ^Esop,

Small
-Intestine

HEALTHY LIVING

which illustrates very well the way in which each part
of the body depends upon every other part. Once upon
a time, he tells us, the different parts of the body could
think and talk and act for themselves. The other
organs decided that the stomach was having altogether
too easy a time of it. They were tired of working to

put food into him while he
was doing nothing. So the
hands refused to carry food
to the mouth; the mouth
refused to swallow; the
teeth refused to chew. Very
soon the organs which had
made this agreement among
themselves began to suffer.
All the time the stomach
had been sending food back
to them, and they found
they could not live without
it. At last they concluded
that they could not get
along without the stomach any better than he could get
along without them.

The Organs by Which the Body Moves. — Bend your
finger and notice what happens. It bends at two places,
does it not? These bending places are called joints.
Between the joints, the finger is quite rigid and cannot
be bent at all. This is because the finger is strength-
ened and supported by solid pieces of bone. The bones
are fastened together at the joints in such a way that

Fiz. 10. — The bones of the hand.

YOUR WONDERFUL BODY 25

they can move up and down. Think what the hand
would be if it lacked this bony framework and were
soft and flabby; or if the joints were not there and the
hand were in one stiff piece. Sometimes in certain dis-
eases the joints do stiffen so that the fingers cannot be
moved and the hand becomes almost useless.

The arms and legs are supported by large bones and
can bend only at the joints where the bones meet.
The upper part of the trunk is enclosed in a cage of
bones, which you can feel moving up and down when
you breathe deeply. The brain is enclosed in a box of
bone. These bones help to protect the softer parts
inside. All the bones of the body together make up
the skeleton.

Did you ever wonder how it is that you are able to
move the different parts of your body at all? What
happens inside your hand when you bend that finger
we have been thinking about?

Every movement of this kind is caused by a special
sort of living matter in the body called muscle. The
muscles are fastened at each end to bones. They have
the power of growing shorter; and when they shorten,
they change the position of the two bones to which
they are fastened.

Food and Digestion. — An automobile will not go un-
less it has gasoline to burn or electricity in its storage
battery. A steam engine will not run unless coal is
put in under its boiler. The gasoline, or electricity, or
coal, supplies what we call energy to run the machine.
The body is just the same, in this respect. In order to

HEALTHY LIVING

live and move and grow, it must be given food, for food
is to the body what gasoline is to the automobile or
coal to the steam engine. The more active we are, the

more food we need ; and
without food we become
weak and waste away.

Several things must
happen to our food be-
fore we can use it. It
must be broken up into
a fine pulp by the teeth,
and then swallowed, and
then changed in the
stomach and other or-
gans before it can be
used. The process of

Fig. ii. — An automobile must be sup- preparing the food for

^ uge of the bod jg

called digestion. As

has taught us in his fable, the work of the organs
of digestion is very important for the health of the
body as a whole.

Breathing. — You probably know that the fire in the
kitchen stove will not burn well unless there is a good
draft, or current of air. There is something in the
air called oxygen, which makes a fire burn. If a piece
of burning wood in the fireplace were covered with
ashes so that the air could not reach it, the fire would
soon go out.

The body is like a fire, in the fact that it must have

plied with gasoline in order that it
may run.

YOUR WONDERFUL BODY

oxygen all the time; and this is the reason why we

breathe. We can go without food for hours or even

days, but we cannot live for many minutes without

breathing, or taking in

air. The organs by

which we draw the air

in and get oxygen from

it are called the organs

of respiration. (The

word respiration means

breathing.)

Do you know how
many times a minute
you breathe? Watch
the clock some day and
count your breaths for
a minute.

The Heart and the
Blood Vessels.— The
food is taken in by
certain organs of the
body, and the oxygen
by others. Somehow these things must be carried to
every part of the body, for all the organs need them in
order to keep alive.

The special organs which do this work — the railroad
system of the body — are the heart and the blood vessels.
You know that the blood seems to be in all parts of the
body, for when you cut yourself deeply anywhere the
blood flows. All through the living parts of the body

Fig. 12. — A child must be supplied
with food in order that it may
live and grow. It gets its energy
and strength from the food, much
as the automobile gets its power
from the burning of the gasoline.

28 HEALTHY LIVING

the blood is carried, inside a system of closed tubes,
the blood vessels, which branch like the branches of
a tree, getting finer and finer. Through each tube
blood is moving; and whenever blood flows from a cut
or a scratch, it is because the walls of some of these
fine tubes have been broken.

The blood is driven through these blood vessels by
the heart. This organ beats nearly a hundred times a
minute, each beat forcing blood out into the blood
vessels. Everywhere the blood goes, it carries with it
the food and the oxygen needed by the different parts
of the body.

You can feel your heart beating away as regularly
as a clock ticks, if you put your hand on the left side of
your chest. You will learn in Chapter XI what the
heart is like and how it does its work.

The Brain and the Nerves. — We have seen that a
movement like the bending of your finger is caused by
the shortening, or contraction, of a muscle. But what
makes the muscle contract? When you make up your
mind to bend one special finger, how is the message
carried to the right place?

This task of keeping all parts of the body working
as we want them to work is accomplished by a group
of organs which we call the nervous system. The
brain, where our thinking goes on, is connected with
all parts of the body by tiny white threads called nerves.
It is along one of these nerves that the message goes out
from the brain when you make your finger bend.

The nervous system does much more, however, than

YOUR WONDERFUL BODY 29

merely make it possible for us to move various parts
of our bodies as we wish. All the time, whether we
think about it or not, a great many things are going on
inside our bodies, like the breathing and the beating of
the heart. All these activities are kept going in an
orderly fashion by messages which are constantly
passing from one part of the body to another through
the nerves.

The principal parts, or organs, of the body are:

The bones.

The muscles.

The organs of digestion.

The organs of respiration.

The heart and the blood vessels.

The brain and the nerves.

We shall want to learn a little more about each of
these kinds of organs and how they work, in later
chapters.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Divide all the things you can see in the schoolroom into
living things and lifeless things. Then see what differences you
can think of between lifeless things as a group and living things
as another group.

2. What is the study of hygiene? Why is it important?

3. Can you think of ways in which the body is like some
machine that you know about?

4. Which is better off: a dog with four legs or a man with
two legs and two arms? Why?

5. What is an organ? See how long a list you can make of the
different organs of the body.

30 HEALTHY LIVING

6. Tell in your own words the fable of the stomach. What
lesson does it teach?

7. What are the organs by which the parts of the body are
moved?

8. When are you more hungry: after a hard play out of doors
or after a rainy afternoon spent in the house with a book? Why?

Q. In what way is the body like a fire? Why does a fire go out
when it is covered with ashes?

10. Of what use is the blood to the body?

11. Write a fable like ^Esop's fable of the stomach, telling in
story form what would happen if the nerves decided not to carry
messages to the muscles any more.

CHAPTER III
THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY

The Importance of the Bony System. — If you have
ever been at the seashore, you have probably seen jelly-
fishes swimming, in the water, like clear glassy bells;
and you have perhaps noticed some of these same
jellyfishes washed up on the sand and looking then
like mere lumps of lifeless jelly. They have no bones or
hard parts at all, and outside of the water they are quite
helpless.

Most animals that live and move about in the air,
and many of those that live in the water too, have some
sort of skeleton, a system of hard parts which gives
their bodies firmness. All the animals which can move
quickly and powerfully must have a skeleton, for quick
movement requires the shortening of strong muscles,
fastened at each end to parts that are firm and rigid.

Sometimes the skeleton of an animal is on the out-
side, as in the case of a beetle or an ant; sometimes in-
side, as in the case of the bones in our own bodies.

What the Bones are Made of. — We often think of the
bones as dead things. They are made up, for the most
part, of a mineral lime, which is found in limestone,
but they have living matter in them too. If bones
did not contain living matter, they could not grow;
and if you think about it, you will see that, as a child

HEALTHY LIVING

Skull

Breastbone

•-Ribs

Backbonp

Pelvis

grows, its bones must be growing too. It is important
for children to drink plenty of milk, because milk

contains a great deal of
the lime out of which
new bone is made.

The General Plan
of the Skeleton.— The
general arrangement of
the bones in the hu-
man body is shown in
Fig. 13. You will no-
tice, if you look at this
picture, that in the
central part of the
body (the trunk) there
is a strong backbone,
with the ribs attached
to it in the upper part,
and a pair of flattened
bones which make up
the pelvis below. The
pelvis is a sort of bowl
which helps to support
the soft organs in the
lower part of the trunk.
At the top of the

Fig. 13.— The bony framework of the backbone, in the head,
body' is the skull; and down

the center of the arms and legs there run rows of bones
which branch out into the fingers and toes,

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY 33

The Bones and the Joints. — There are about two
hundred bones in the whole body. They differ very
much from one another in shape and size, according to
the work they have to do. Some of them are fixed
firmly to each other, but at many places the bones are
fastened together in such a way that they can be moved
in certain directions. Such a place is called a joint.
Perhaps you have seen men in the circus who could
put their feet up behind their heads and almost tie
themselves into bowknots. They show us how the
power of bending the joints can be developed by ex-
ercise. In very old people, on the other hand, the
joints sometimes become so stiff that they can hardly
be moved at all. This is one reason why those who are
young and strong should be ready to run errands and
help old people in every way they can.

There is a great deal of difference between the kind
of movements we can make with different joints, de-
pending on the ways in which the bones are fitted to-
gether. Notice the kinds of movements you can make
at your shoulder, your elbow, and your wrist.

The Backbone and the Ribs. — The part of the skel-
eton which keeps the trunk erect is the backbone. It is
so important to the body that it has become a symbol
of strength of all kinds. We say that a person who is
weak and easily influenced has "no backbone, " because
a person without a backbone could not stand up alone
and would be almost as helpless as the jellyfish we were
thinking about a little while ago.

The backbone is not a single bone, as you might

HEALTHY LIVING

think from the name, but a row of more than twenty
separate bones, each one in the shape of a rather thick
ring. These rings are held quite firmly together by
bands of muscle, but these muscles "give" so that we
can bend the body from side to side and from front to
back. Some people can bend the
body more easily than others. Stand
with your feet together and your knees
straight and your arms up over your
head; then see if you can swing your
arms down and touch the ground in
front of you.

The curved, hoop-like ribs form a
cage to protect the important organs
in the upper part of the trunk. They
are joined to the backbone at the back,
and to a bone called the breastbone in
the front. The ribs are attached to the
backbone in such a way that they and
the breastbone together can be raised
and lowered slightly as we breathe.
Breathe deeply and notice how your
ribs rise and fall.

The Skull. — It is very important
that the brain should be protected
Fig. i4.-The bones from any injury. The bones of the
leg and arm. head which form the skull are speciaUy

arranged so as to do this; they. are not movable like so
many of the bones of the body, but are joined firmly
together to make a tight case or box. There are openings

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY

below for the nerves to come in from the trunk, and
openings in front for nerves from the eyes and nose.

The Bones of the Arms and the Legs. — The general
arrangement of the larger bones in the arms and the
legs is shown in Fig. 14. Notice that arms and legs are
built very much on the same plan, the part above the
elbow or knee being strengthened by a single large bone,

Fig. 15. — One boy stands well, one slouches, and one holds himself
with unnatural stiffness. Can you tell which is which?

(Used by courtesy of the American Posture League.)

the part below by two bones side by side. Five rows
of smaller bones run out through the palm of the hand
and the upper part of the foot, into fingers and toes.

Holding the Body Well. — We all have the same kind
of framework in our bodies; but you would hardly think
so to look at the people you meet in the street, or per-
haps even at the children in your schoolroom. Some
are erect and strong and well-balanced on their feet

36 HEALTHY LIVING

so that it is a delight to look at them, while others are
stoop-shouldered and slouching, with bent back and
head run forward. The bones are the same in each
case. It is only that one person has trained his muscles
to hold the bones in place, while the other has let the
muscles grow slack and loose and has become as much
like the jellyfish as he possibly could.

If you hold your body correctly, a line dropped from
the front of the ear should fall within the front half of
the foot when you are standing still. The shoulders
should be flattened, the head up, the knees straight,
the feet set squarely side by side and pointing straight
forward. When practicing a good position, try to
"stand tall." In sitting, the body should be bent only
at knees and waist, the head, neck, and trunk being in
one straight line.

The habit of holding the body properly is important,
not only for the general appearance of the body,
but for health and strength as well. In a stooping,
slouching body, the inner parts are crowded together
and injured so that they cannot do their work well.
Boys and girls who have the habits of clasping their
hands behind their backs, folding their arms tightly
in front, or placing the hands on the hips with the
thumbs forward are very likely to be round-shouldered
and flat-chested.

Setting-up Exercises. — One of the very first things
that a recruit must do when he enters the army is to
take special exercises, called setting-up exercises, which
will train him to hold his body properly. It would be

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY

Fig. i6a.

Fig. i6c.

Fig. 1 6. — Setting-
up exercises,
No. I.

(a) Arms upward bend.

First, ^.ird, and fifth

positions.
(//) Arms outward extend.

Second position.

(d) Arms backward and
downward extend. Sixth

position. Fig. i6b.

well for every one of us to take some simple
exercises of this kind on getting up each
morning. For a child of ten to twelve
years of age, the following exercises are
recommended by Profes-
sor W. G. Anderson, Di-
rector of the Gymnasium
at Yale University. More
extensive exercises of a
similar kind are described
(p. 228) in a chapter by
Mr. Walter Camp,

NUMBER I. — i. Arms
upward bend. (Fig. 160.)
2. Arms outward ex-
tend. (See Fig. 166.)

Fig. i6d.

3. Arms upward bend, as in first position.

4. Arms upward extend. (See Fig. i6c.)

HEALTHY LIVING

Fig. 1 7 a.
Fig. 17. — Setting-up exercises, No. II.

(a) First position.
(6) Second position.
(c) Third position.

tips back of the neck
with elbows back. (See
Fig. 176.)

3. Raise the finger
tips above the head
again as in the first
exercise and then force
them backward, out-
ward, and downward.
(See Fig. ijc.)

5. Arms upward
bend.

6. Arms backward
and downward ex-

^ tend. (See Fig. i6d.)

NUMBER II.

1. Swing the arms
slowly backward, side-
ways, and upward
until the finger tips
touch above the head.
(See Fig. iya.)

2. Bring the finger

Fig. 17 b.

Fig. 1.7 c.

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY

Fig. i8fl. Fig. 186.

Fig. 18. — Setting-up exercises, No. Ill: the swimming exercise,
(a) Second position. (6) Third position.

NUMBER III. THE SWIMMING EXERCISE.

1. Stand with the feet apart sideways and the

body bent slightly forward, keeping the head
raised and the eyes upward.

2. Bring the hands together in front of the

waist, carry them upward and forward close
to the body past the neck and face, and as
far forward and upward as possible. (See
Fig. i8a.)

3. Turn the palms outward, separate the hands,

and swing the arms backward, outward, and
downward, as a person does when he swims.
(See Fig. 186.)

4. Again let the finger tips meet in front of the

waist.

40 HEALTHY LIVING

Repeat this exercise five or six times. Take the move-
ments slowly. Always keep the chest arched, the eyes
up, and the head back a little.

Things that Prevent Us from Holding the Body Well.
Sometimes a bent or deformed body is the result of
bad habits of sitting, formed perhaps in school. See if
the desk and seat at school are so arranged that you can
sit comfortably at your work with your back straight.
If not, ask the teacher if your seat cannot be changed or
the chair raised or lowered. If your chair is too high
or too near your desk, so that you have to bend your
shoulders over or twist your body sideways to get at
your work, it may do you real harm.

Tight clothing also is bad for the body. Shoes that
are too tight, and shoes that have high heels, injure
the foot itself and interfere with the proper 'carriage
of the body as a whole. It was once the rule in China
to bind up the feet of girl babies tightly so that they
could not grow, and it is very sad to see the women
walking unsteadily, on feet so small and misshapen they
hardly look like feet at all. The Chinese of to-day have
for the most part given up this horrible custom, and
we ought to be as sensible as they and wear shoes that
are big enough to let our feet develop properly.

The Story of the Young Prince and the Robber Chil-
dren.— A story is told of a young prince who was once
traveling with some of his courtiers to a distant city.
The party was set upon in the forest by robbers, who
killed all the attendants and carried off the prince as
a prisoner. They took off his fine clothing and made

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY 41

him pile wood and carry water and do the rest of the
work of the camp, just as their own children did.

The governor of the city heard from people in the
forest about the kidnapping, and he sent out soldiers,
who drove off the robbers and brought all the children

Fig. 19. — The young prince is identified among the robber children
by the kingly carriage of his body.

in the camp to the governor's palace. The young
prince told the soldiers who he was and thanked them
for rescuing him. The robbers' children, however, were
as bad as their parents. As soon as the real prince had
spoken, one of them cried out, "That is not true. He
is not the prince. I am the prince." And another said,
"No, I am the prince;" and another, and another.

42 HEALTHY LIVING

Prince and all were dirty and clothed in rags. No one
in this city had seen the prince since he was a baby,
and the soldiers were much puzzled to know what to do.

The governor of the city, however, was an old man
and very wise. He had all the would-be princes brought
before him. After looking at them all for a moment,
he went up to the real prince and said, "Your Highness,
I know that you are the prince because you hold your-
self like a king; and I know that these others are the
children of the robbers because they slouch and crouch
like thieves, as they are."

If you were kidnapped, as the prince was, could any
one tell you from one of the robber children by the
way you hold yourself?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Of what use are the bones in your body?

2. What kinds of animals can you think of that have their
skeletons on the outside? What kinds, that have their skeletons
inside their bodies, as we do?

3. What is one reason why the habit of drinking milk is a good
one for children to form?

4. Name the principal parts of the skeleton.

5. What difference is there between the movements of the
arm at your shoulder and the movements of your lower arm at
the elbow when you keep your upper arm still?

6. How is the backbone made up?

7. What bones move when you breathe deeply?

8. What are some of the important differences between the
bones of the skull and those of the arms?

9. What are the principal things to remember about holding
the body well when standing? When sitting?

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BODY ^ 43

10. Eleanor thought a great deal about her clothes and always
wore shoes that were too small for her; but she never thought
much about holding her body well. Clara was not vain; she
wore sensible shoes, and exercised every morning. There was a
play at the school and one of these girls was to play the part of
a princess in it. Tell which one you think was chosen, and ex-
plain why.

12. Tell the story of the prince and the robber children.
What lesson does it teach?

CHAPTER IV
HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE

The Muscles and How They Do Their Work. — You
have learned in Chapter II that the organs which move
the different parts of the body are called muscles.
You have learned, too, that a muscle is joined to two
bones or other hard parts of the body, and that when
the muscle shortens, it brings nearer together the two
parts to which it is fastened.

Suppose that you have a short but very wide and
strong rubber band, and that you fasten it at one end
to a shutter and at the other end to the wall of the
house. The band would shorten and pull the shutter in
toward the wall. This is an illustration of the general
way in which a muscle acts. The rubber band, how-
ever, would pull on the shutter all the time, while our
muscles shorten and pull only when it is necessary that
some movement should take place.

The way in which the muscle bends the arm at the
elbow is shown in Fig. 20. This big muscle, which is
called the biceps muscle, runs from the shoulder down
the length of the upper arm and is fastened to the
upper part of the forearm just below the elbow. The
muscle is shaped like a spindle, and when the arm is
straight, it is stretched out and loose. When you bend
your arm, it becomes short and thick, as an elastic

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE 45

band does when it shortens or contracts. Since the
ends of the muscle are fixed to the shoulder and the
forearm, this shortening tends to pull the bone in the fore-
arm toward the shoulder. Press your left hand tightly
on the upper part of your right arm. Bend your right
arm slowly up, and if you have well-developed muscles,
you can feel the biceps muscle thicken and swell up.

Fig. 20. — How the biceps muscle bends the arm.

The muscles are in many cases fastened to the bones,
or other parts which they move, by strong bands called
tendons. In the drumstick of a chicken you can see
the tough whitish tendons which connect the muscle
with the bone at its lower end; and the meat of the
drumstick above, like all other kinds of lean meat that
we eat, is the muscle itself.

Different Kinds of Muscles. — There are hundreds of
different muscles in the body, and all together they

46 HEALTHY LIVING

make up about half its weight. They differ very much
among themselves in shape and size, according to the
special work they have to do. The legs and the arms
are almost solid masses of muscle, except for the bones
inside, while the trunk is enclosed back and front in
great sheets of muscle.

The muscles in the legs by which we make the move-
ments of running and walking are large and powerful,
but the biggest muscles of all are the ones in the back
which men use when they lift heavy weights. One of
these back muscles weighs several pounds.

Every flickering of an eyelid and every change in
the expression of the face is brought about by the con-
traction of tiny muscles in the skin."

Our Unseen Servants. — Once upon a time there was a
little girl who had an illness which lasted for years and
kept her in bed so that she could not go out and play
with other children. Her parents were wealthy, and
she had everything that money could buy; but she never
left her room and she rarely saw any one but her mother
and her father and her nurse.

At last the doctor who was caring for this little girl
succeeded in curing her so that she could walk about
and was gaining strength every day. When she was
allowed to come downstairs, you can imagine how inter-
esting and exciting it was, after she had spent all those
years in one room. You can imagine, too, how many
surprising things she saw, things that would seem very
natural to you, but to her were new and strange. One
of these surprises came when she passed through a door

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE 47

into a room containing a big black stove, with steam
coming out of some pots which a tall, cheerful woman
was stirring.

"Excuse me," said the child, "but what is this room
and who are you?"

"This is the kitchen," replied the woman with a
smile, "and I am the cook who prepares all your meals."

Just then a man with a big shovel walked through the
kitchen. "Who is that?" whispered the child.

"That is the choreman who is going to attend to the
furnace so that you may be all snug and warm up-
stairs."

There was a ring at the doorbell and a boy handed in
some meat from the butcher's for dinner; and another
left some tea and sugar; and another, some of the little
girl's clothes from the laundry, all smooth and white.

She went upstairs to her mother, with her eyes shining
with excitement, and cried out, "Oh, Mother, I never
thought where all the things came from that I had in
my little room upstairs. All the time the cook and the
choreman and the butcher's boy and the grocer's boy
were working for me, so that I might have all the things,
I needed."

Are not the muscles and other organs of the body
somewhat like the cook and the choreman in this little
girl's house, faithful servants working for us all the
time without our realizing how much their service
means? You can feel your biceps muscle as it bends
the elbow. You can think of the movements of many
other parts of the body which the muscles bring about,

48 HEALTHY LIVING

and which they accomplish for you when you wish it.
There are a great many other muscles, however, which
work for you without any effort of your will at all;
muscles whose action you could not stop even if you
tried. The muscles used in breathing, for instance,
contract about twenty times a minute, day and night,
sleeping or waking, day after day, week after week,
year after year. There are muscles in the walls of the
blood vessels, muscles in the walls of the stomach, and
in many other organs of the body. They are all nec-
essary for the working of our body-machine, and, like
the little girl who had been ill, we should be very grate-
ful that we have such faithful servants to do all that is
necessary for our good.

Strong Men of Old Times and of To-day.— In old
times the Greeks used to tell many beautiful stories
about great men with much more wisdom and power
than real people have to-day. One of these great men,
who was said to have done mighty deeds upon the
earth, was named Hercules. According to the story,
he was so strong that he could kill a lion with his hands.
His most famous feat, however, was the securing of
some wonderful apples made of gold. He traveled into
far-off countries in search of these golden apples and
at last found that the one person who could get them
for him was the mighty giant Atlas. The Greek legend
says that Atlas stood at the end of the earth with his
feet in a forest and his head in the clouds, holding up
the sky on his shoulders. Atlas was quite willing to
get the apples, but what was to be done about the sky?

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE

Why, Hercules could hold it on his own great shoulders,
to be sure, while the giant strode over land and sea to
the Garden of the Hesperides, where the apples were to

Fig. 21. — Hercules holding the sky on his shoulders, while the giant
Atlas goes to pluck the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.

be found. So it was arranged; and although Hercules
tottered a little and shook down a few stars, he held up
the sky safely till Atlas came back. How Atlas was in-
clined to take a little vacation and leave Hercules in his
place, and how Hercules got the sky off his own shoul-
ders and on the giant's again, you must read some day

50 HEALTHY LIVING

in a charming book by Nathaniel Hawthorne called
Tanglewood Tales.

It is not only the Greeks who were fond of tales of
strong men like Hercules. The peoples of Northern
Europe had a god called Thor (from whom our Thurs-
day or Thor's day is named), who did great deeds, killing
evil beasts and bad giants with a mighty hammer.
All nations have had their old-time heroes, men of
strength and courage; and they were right in admiring
them and telling about their doings so as to make
other people want to be like them.

There are no giants and not many lions to be killed
in our world to-day. There is, however, plenty of work
to be done, which needs strength almost like that of
Hercules and which is more useful to the world than
the finding of golden apples. In war time men must
still be ready to defend their country; and in peace
there is work to do that is scarcely less important.
The coal that is burned to keep us warm in winter,
and to run locomotives and drive the machinery in
factories, must be dug out of the mines by human
muscle. In other mines men are getting out the iron
from the earth. In the factories the iron is made into
steel — the steel that builds our tall city buildings and
our railroads and the great guns for our army. The
tall buildings themselves must be built, and the rail-
roads must be laid, and when they have been finished,
the snorting locomotives must be driven over them,
pulling their long trains of cars behind. The men who
do these things must be strong in muscle, and they

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE 51

must be brave as well as strong. It is no uncommon
thing for the miner or the railroad engineer or the man
who places the steel in a tall building to lose his life
from a fall or an accident of some other kind.
How to Grow Strong.— Strength of body is a fine

Fig. 22. — Strong men and brave men are needed to-day to mine coal
and iron, to make steel, to build railroads and tall buildings. The
men in the picture are placing the steel for a "sky-scraper" in
the City of New York.

thing if it is used, not to bully and take things by
force, but to help and defend the weak and to do the
heavy work of the world.

" Oh it is glorious

To have a giant's strength; but tyrannous
To use it like a giant." — SHAKESPEARE.

52 HEALTHY LIVING

Every boy and girl owes it to our country to be as
strong as he or she can, to develop all the muscles so as
to be ready to do any work that may come, and ready
to help the old and the ill who cannot do for themselves.
Some people are naturally stronger than others, but
we can all strengthen our muscles by exercise. When a
muscle is unused, it becomes soft and flabby. When it
is used, it grows more and more powerful. So by
exercising, each one of us can grow stronger and more
fit for useful service every day.

Many of us may not be called upon to do work that
needs muscular strength and endurance; but we all have
some work to do in the world, and success in any kind
of work depends on being well. Exercising the muscles
not only strengthens the muscles themselves but
helps all the other parts of the body. When you run
a race or take some other active exercise, you breathe
more deeply, your heart beats faster, the blood flows
more swiftly through the different organs, and after
exercise your appetite is better and your sleep is
sounder. Exercise is essential, then, not only for
strength but also for the health of the body as a whole.

Good Kinds of Exercise. — Roller skating, bicycle
riding, ice skating and coasting in winter, baseball,
prisoners' base, and all sorts of running games, swim-
ming, climbing trees, and long walks — these are the
things that make the muscles grow strong and the
cheeks rosy, and that keep the heart and the lungs in
good condition.

Above all, games that children can play together are

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE

good. Such games, in which one team challenges an-
other team, not only develop physical strength but
also teach you how to do your best, not for yourself
but for the team, and to work side by side with others
for a common end. Some one once said that the vic-

Fig. 23. — Outdoor play helps to make the body strong.

tory of Waterloo, the great battle in which the English
defeated Napoleon, was won on the playing fields of
Eton (a famous school where most of the English
officers had studied when they were boys).

Keeping in Training. — If we want to be strong and
welt, we must not only do all we can to develop our
bodies by exercise, but we must also avoid anything

54 HEALTHY LIVING

that will directly harm them. There are many bad
habits which may injure the health. Sitting up too
late at night, eating too much or too little, and nibbling
at candy between meals are examples of habits formed
by children which have injurious effects upon the health
and strength. As you grow older, you will learn that
among grown people there is one habit of this kind that
is more harmful than perhaps any other — the use of
what are known as alcoholic drinks, such as whiskey,
brandy, wine, ale, and beer. These drinks all contain
a poison called alcohol, some of them having only a
little of it, and others a great deal.

People who use alcoholic drinks are sure to be
poisoned by them. It is important for every one
to remember that the use of even a slight amount
of alcohol makes people less able to do physical
and mental work. Studies made by scientific men
in recent years have proved this. Therefore, men
who play football or row at college and have to
be all the time at their best are never allowed
to use alcoholic drinks, and according to the law
of our country no such drinks can be served to
any soldier or sailor in the uniform of the United
States.

We can be sure that what is bad for the athlete and
the soldier is bad for everyone else, and the safest rule
for those who would keep strong and well is to use no
drinks of this' kind at any time.

HOW THE PARTS OF OUR BODY MOVE 55

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Describe the way in which the biceps muscle does its work.

2. What is a tendon? Where have you seen one?

3. What are some of the things done for you by the unseen
servants inside your body?

4. What was the story told by the Greeks about Hercules?

5. Tell some of the ways in which strong men are useful in the
world to-day.

6. George and Albert and their little sister Jennie lived in the
country. George liked to ride the farm horses and to swim in
the creek, but Albert was lazy and spent most of his time
whittling or playing marbles. One day when they were all three
walking by the bank of the river, Jennie went too near the edge
and fell into the swift, deep water. Tell what you think hap-
pened next.

7. What games are you fondest of? Which of these games
do you think help most to make strong, fine men and women?

8. What is meant by the saying that the battle of Waterloo
was won on the playing fields of Eton (see p. 53)?

9. Why were college athletes not allowed to use alcoholic
drinks?

10. Why were the same rules applied to soldiers?

CHAPTER V
THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY

How Messages Travel in the Body. — Reach out your
finger and touch something on your desk or on the
table near you; then think a little about what must
have been going on in your body to make that simple
movement possible. You will say you moved your
own finger; but how did you do it?

You have learned that the actual movement of the
finger was the result of the action of muscles in the
finger itself and of others in the hand and arm. If you
studied Chapter II carefully, you will remember, too,
that the muscles contracted because a message was
sent out through a slender thread called a nerve. The
nerve carries such messages very much as a telephone
wire carries messages from one place to another. The
nerves are to be found running all through the different
organs of the body. They give the signal that sets one
part or another in action.

There is another sort of message which must be car-
ried in the body, the message which tells you what is
going on in various parts of it. If, for instance, you
prick your finger, you feel the pain. Perhaps you may
think it would be better if there were no nerves in the
body to bring in this particular kind of message. Think
about it a little, however, and see if it is not a good

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 57

thing that, when any part of the body is hurt, you feel
a pain at once.

How the Parts of the Body Work Together.— Most of
the movements we make, require the action not of a
single muscle alone but of a number of different groups
of muscles, which must all work together in just the
right way. When you walk, a great many slight move-
ments must be made to keep the body balanced. If
you have ever watched a baby learning to walk, you
will realize how difficult a task this really is. When
you run fast, you will notice that your breathing be-
comes deeper and that your heart beats faster. You
will learn later why this is necessary. All such activ-
ities, which take place in perfect balance without your
thinking of them at all, are brought about by messages
going back and forth in the body along the nerves.

In old times when a general was fighting a battle,
the only way in which he knew what was going on in
different parts of the field was by watching from a hill-
side. He received news of more distant places from
messengers who would come galloping up, their horses
dripping with foam. Often a battle was lost because
news of some sudden attack of the enemy came too
late to send reinforcements to the spot. To-day every
part of the battle line is connected with the general's
Headquarters by field telephones, so that the whole
army can work together as a unit to advance here or
give way there, as the progress of the battle de-
mands.

The nerves serve the body much as this telephone

58 HEALTHY LIVING

system serves the army, making it possible for all its
parts to work together for the common good.

Fig. 24. — A field telephone by which the various parts of an army
may be kept working harmoniously together.

The Brain and the Spinal Cord. — All the messages
from the army field telephone system we have been
thinking about, come in at last to Headquarters, where
the commanding officer sits and directs the whole battle.

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 59

The Headquarters for the human body is the brain,
and it is from the brain that the messages go out when
you make up your mind to do something and then do
it. This important organ is a mass of living matter
which fills the skull. Large bundles of nerves come into
it from the eyes, the nose, and the ears. It is connected
with the organs in the lower part of the body by means
of the spinal cord, a thick cord of substance much like
that in the brain itself. The spinal cord extends down
through the center of the backbone (which is also called
the spinal column). The backbone, you remember, is
made up of bones shaped like rings, and it is through
the centers of these rings that the spinal cord passes.
All along its course, bundles of nerves enter it from the
various organs of the body.

Reflex Actions. — In order to understand a little better
how the nervous machinery of the body works, let
us consider what happens in one particular case. Sup-
pose a hot dish just out of the oven is placed on the
table and you reach out to take hold of it. As soon as
you touch the plate, you feel it is hot; but before you
have time to think about it at all, you draw your hand
quickly away. How was this action brought about?

In the first place, a message came over a nerve from
the tip of the finger that touched the hot dish, bringing
in the news that something was wrong. In the spinal
cord the news was passed along until it reached the
nerve going out to the muscles of your arm. This nerve
sent out word to these muscles to contract and pull
your arm away. There are always two parts to such

60 HEALTHY LIVING

an action, which is called a reflex action. First, a
message comes in, telling of something that has hap-
pened outside. Second, another message goes out
and starts an action that will save some part of the
body from harm or discomfort.

The particular reflex we have been speaking about
does not have to be learned. Any child will draw its
hand away from something that is hot. There are

Brain

Outgoing Message

to Muscle <~J

Incoming Message from Finger

Fig. 25. — How the nerve messages travel in a reflex action.

many other reflex actions which must be learned by
practice, but which, once they are mastered, become
natural and easy. You have perhaps learned to skate
on roller skates or ice skates, or to ride a bicycle. You
remember that at first it was very difficult to do these
things. You could not skate, for instance, more than
a few steps without falling down or holding some
one's hand. Gradually it became easier and easier,
and now perhaps you can skate off without thinking
about it at all. It is just as easy as walking.

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 61

Learning to skate is really learning to balance your-
self. When you bend or lean too far forward or side-
ways, you save yourself by an unconscious movement
the other way. Every movement of this kind is a re-
flex action. You train the nerves by practice so that
when a message comes in that the body is bending
too far, the order will go out, quick as a flash, to the
right group of muscles. These muscles will act so as
to swing out the arm or leg, or to bend the body forward
or backward just enough to get in balance again.

There is one other kind of nervous action that you
ought to understand, and one other long word that you
must learn, the word inhibition. Reflex actions are
not always useful; sometimes they must be checked or
controlled. Suppose the hot plate we have been think-
ing about was not too hot for you to pick it up, but was
hot enough to be quite uncomfortable after you had
carried it halfway across the room. As the heat got
into the fingers, some children by a simple reflex action
would drop the plate on the floor and break it. I hope
you would not drop it, however. You would check the
reflex if you could, and stand the pain till you had put
the plate down in some safe place. In such a case, the
nerve message telling the muscles to drop the plate
would be overruled by another message from your
central nervous system saying, "Stop! Don't do it.
We can hold on a little longer." Such an order to stop
is an inhibition.

Inhibitions are usually hard at first, but they can
be learned by practice. Some children, for instance,

HEALTHY LIVING

have the habit of picking at their lips or their fingers
or any place that has been cut or bruised. If they try,
however, they can soon learn not to do this unsightly
and dangerous thing. They can form an inhibition
which, after a time, will keep their fingers away from

Fig. 26. — What habits, good or bad, do you think these two girls
have formed, judging by what you can see in the pictures?

such places, as naturally and unconsciously as if they
had never had the bad habit at all.

Good and Bad Habits. — Most of the things you do,
from the time you get up in the morning till you go to
bed at night, are done by -unconscious habit, by reflexes
and inhibitions which have been trained by practice.
You do not have to make up your mind to put your
clothes on in the morning or to brush your hair (I hope).
You just do these things without thinking about them
at all. You do not have to wonder how to get to school.

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 63

You walk down the familiar streets without a moment's
hesitation.

Since habit plays so large a part in our lives — grown-
ups as well as children — it is very important indeed to
form good habits and not bad ones. One girl may be
always cheerful and pleasant, another cross and dis-
agreeable. One boy may be courteous and considerate,

Fig. 27. — Which of these two boys do you think will grow up to be
the more useful citizen?

another rough and rude. It is all a matter of the kind
of reflexes and inhibitions they have practiced. It is
just as easy for most people to be cheerful and polite
as cross and grouchy; the difference is merely in the
habits they have formed. A child who has by prac-
tice learned to be punctual and obedient is just that
much better off than one who has not; just as a child
who has learned to ride a bicycle and skate is better off
than one who can only walk and run.

Truthfulness is a habit; courage is a habit; unselfish-
ness is a habit. All through our lives happiness and

64 HEALTHY LIVING

success for ourselves and those about us depend very
largely on whether we have formed in youth the habit
of being honest and brave and kind. You know that
a soldier cannot be sent into battle until he has been
trained; and this training means not only making the
muscles strong and fit, but much more. It means learn-
ing habits of neatness, punctuality, obedience, courage,
and self-sacrifice. Every boy or girl who wants to
serve our country can be training himself or herself
now by forming the habits which will make a good
citizen in the days to come.

The Story of the Boy Who Walked around Mont St.
Michel. — In France there is a high and very steep rock
with a church on the top of it, called Mont St. Michel.
Once upon a time when bitter wars were going on,
this rock was captured by the enemy, and the leader
of the invading army made his headquarters in the
chapel on its top. Here he ordered brought to him the
citizens who had been taken prisoners, and among them
one of the principal men of the village, M. de Brette-
ville and his little son, Louis. The cruel captain threat-
ened to have de Bretteville thrown from the wall over
the rock to punish him for his loyalty to his own people
and to his religion, for this was a war between people
of different religious beliefs. De Bretteville would not
yield, and neither he nor his brave son showed any
fear.

"I have a good mind to throw you after him," said
the captain to the boy.

"You would not make me a coward if you did," said

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 65

Louis, "and I would gladly leap off the wall myself if I
could save my father's life by doing it."

One of the other officers whispered something to the
captain, and he turned quickly to the boy. "We will
see how brave you really are," he said. "There is
a narrow ledge of rock outside the wall. If you can
walk around the rock on that ledge, I will set both you
and your father free."

"No, no," cried de Bretteville, "I will not have
it. I would rather a hundred times be killed my-
self."

"It shall be so, whether you like or not," replied the
captain, "or I will have both you and the boy thrown

over."

"Will my father be freed if I make the attempt,
whether I get round safely or not?" asked Louis.
"He will; you have my word on that."
"Then I am ready," said Louis. He took off his
shoes and stockings and was lifted over the wall so that
he stood on the narrow ledge outside, with hundreds of
feet of steep jagged cliffs below. The shelf of rock on
which he had to walk was in places only a few inches
wide, and he could keep from falling only by clinging
to bits of projecting stone or roots and branches of
bushes growing between the rocks. Step by step he
made his way onward, never looking downward into
the terrible chasm, but carefully and skilfully selecting
the places to put his feet and to hold on with his hands.
Even the soldiers watched every step with eager anxiety,
hoping that the brave lad would succeed — and perhaps

HEALTHY LIVING

you can imagine the suffering of his father while the
minutes slowly passed.

'Louis came at last to a place where there seemed no

hope of getting far-
ther, for the ledge be-
came narrower and
narrower and he could'
see that ahead it disap-
peared entirely, leav-
ing nothing but a
smooth wall of rock.
To turn back was im-
possible, for he was
already on a ledge only
a few inches wide.

Slowly and carefully
the boy looked down-
ward along the face of
the cliff. About three
feet below, he saw a
jutting point of rock
from which another
ledge extended on
around the corner of
the cliff. He measured with his eye the distance down-
ward and forward, saw that there was a holly bush
growing out from the rock just at a good place to give
a handhold, — and then he jumped. He landed safely
with his feet on the ledge and the holly branches in his
hand. The rest of the way was easier, and at last, after

Fig. 28. — How Louis walked round the
wall at Mont St. Michel.

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 67

what had seemed like a year, but was really only fifteen
minutes, Louis was again clasped in his father's arms.
They were both saved, saved by the courage and de-
votion of a boy.

I always remember Louis de Bretteville and the cliffs
of Mont St. Michel when I think of habits. It was the
habit of strong muscles and well-trained nerves, and
above all the habit of coolness and courage and the
habit of loving service, that made it possible for him
to do this splendid deed.

Rest and Sleep. — The nerves and the brain require
rest, just as any other part of the body does. If you
try to concentrate on one thing too long, you soon be-
come tired, and your work should be arranged so that
this will not happen. Short periods of hard work, with
rest or play or some other kind of occupation between,
will enable a child to accomplish most in the long
run.

The most complete kind of rest we can get is that
which we find in sleep. A child of your age should have
about ten hours of sleep each night. If you do not
get this much on account of late evening work or play,
you are pretty sure to suffer from it in the end.

Alcohol and the Nervous System. — Something was
said in the last chapter about the effect of alcohol upon
muscular work. Those who want to excel at physical
games must avoid alcohol, but alcoholic drinks are even
more harmful to the nerves than to the muscles. In
fact, the reason why alcohol interferes with running or
jumping or any other athletic exercise is probably more

68 HEALTHY LIVING

because it affects the nerves which control the muscles
than because it hurts the muscles themselves.

Alcohol interferes particularly with the inhibitions,
so that even when it is used in very slight quantities,
the reflexes are slower, the body is more clumsy and
the mind more cloudy. People who use it in consider-
able amounts say and do things they would never
think of saying or doing if they had not taken alcohol.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Tell what happens in the body when you pick up a pencil
from your desk in school.

2. Sometimes the nerves become diseased so that they do not
bring in messages of pain when some part of the body is injured.
What serious harm might happen to a person who had such a
disease as this?

3. What part of the body is like the field telephone used in
the army?

4. What is the brain and what is the spinal cord? Tell where
each is located in the body.

5. John stepped into his bath one morning and found the
water very cold. He jumped out again almost as soon as his
feet touched the water. What went on inside his body?

6. What reflex actions can you think of, besides the ones
described on page 59 and in Question 5?

7. Why does it get easier and easier to ride a bicycle as you
practice more and more?

8. The boy mentioned in Question 5 knew that a cold bath
was really good for him. So after drawing back at first, he forced
himself to get into the cold water and splashed about and had a
£ne time. How did he control the reflex that made him jump out
first? What is such a control called?

THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF THE BODY 69

g. What is a habit? Make a list, first of all the good habits,
and then of all the bad habits you can think of.

10. Tell in your own words the story of the boy who walked
round Mont St. Michel. Why was Louis able to do what he did?

11. Why do we need sleep? Keep a record of your bedtimes
and getting-up times for the next week and see how much sleep
you are getting.

12. What is the effect of alcohol upon the nervous system?

CHAPTER VI

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE

Spying Out the Enemy. — In war, men are sent up
in airplanes as observers, to find out what is going on
behind the lines of the enemy. These airplanes have
been called the eyes of the army and the navy. They
are compared to our eyes, because it is largely by
means of the eyes that we find out what is happening
in the world about us.

A great many of our actions are the direct result of
something that is going on outside the body. You
move toward the fire because the room is cold. You
run out to the kitchen because there is a delicious smell
of gingerbread or cookies there. You hurry to school
because the bell is ringing for the last time.

How do you find out that the room is cold or that
there is a good smell in the air or that the bell is sound-
ing? Why, you feel the cold and smell the gingerbread
and hear the bell, of course, you say. It is not quite a
matter of course, however; it is one of the most remark-
able things about the human body — this power of find-
ing out what is going on in the world about us. Try to
think how many different ways you have of finding out
what is happening, and what the different objects in
the room are really like.

The Story of Helen Keller. — We can understand

better the importance of this power of learning what

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 71

is going on about us by thinking of the true story of a
little girl — now a grown woman — named Helen Keller.
When Helen was less than two years old, she had a
terrible illness which left her without the power of
seeing or hearing or speaking. She could smell the
flowers in the garden, but she did not know what they

Fig. 29. — Airplanes are called the eyes of the army and the navy.

looked like. She could feel the jar of the shutting of a
door and the shaking of the floor made by footsteps,
but she could not hear a voice. She clung to her mother's
dress as her mother went about her work, and learned
many things by the sense of feeling. She found that a
shake of the head meant "No" and a nod "Yes";
that a pull meant "Come" and a push "Go." She
learned that other people did not communicate in this
way, but did something with their lips, for her fingers
could feel the movements of her mother's lips. But

* '' * i , ' **•

72 HEALTHY LIVING

she tried in vain to make some sound by moving her own
lips. She learned to do little things about the house,
and at five she could fold and put away the clean clothes
when they came home from the laundry and pick out
her own clothes from the rest. As she grew older, how-
ever, the sense of being unable to express anything
except by the simplest signs became almost unbearable.
She felt as if she were shut up in a prison.

When Helen was seven years old, her parents found
for her a teacher from a school for the deaf and dumb
in Boston. The deaf and dumb have a language by
which they talk to one another by signs made with the
fingers. This teacher, Miss Sullivan, after playing with
Helen's doll for a little while, spelled out into her hand
the letters d-o-1-1 in this sign language. Helen quickly
learned to make these movements, though she had no
idea at first that they meant anything at all. She
learned to spell out other words; and at last one day
when she felt the water from the pump running over
her hand, and Miss Sullivan spelled the word w-a-t-e-r,
she grasped the idea that everything had a name and
that she could express the name by her fingers. By
these movements of the fingers she could at last break
down the wall between herself and all the world outside.

After this, Helen made rapid progress. She was soon
able not only to talk by the finger language but to read
books. There are books especially prepared for the
blind, in which the letters are raised so that it is pos-
sible to feel their shapes. After some years Helen
learned to speak. She did this by feeling the movements

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 73

of the tongue and lips of a person who was making the
sound of a particular letter, and imitating the move-
ments with her own lips and tongue. At last this girl

Fig. 30. — Helen Keller. As a girl, though deaf,
dumb, and blind, she learned to talk and to
read *^ith her fingers and graduated from
Radcliffe College.

made such wonderful progress that she succeeded in
graduating from Radcliffe College. By the use of a
typewriter, she wrote a book about her life and her
education, a book which you must some day read, in
order to realize what this blind and deaf girl accom-

74 HEALTHY LIVING

plished and what a blessing you have in the possession
of your powers of hearing and sight.

The Sense Organs.— The power of learning about
things in the world around us depends on special organs
at the ends of the nerves which are called the sense
organs.

The most complicated of these sense organs are the
eyes with which we see and the ears with which we
hear. There are also special sense organs of taste in
the tongue and of smell in the upper part of the nose.
Organs of touch, and organs by which we feel heat
and cold, are scattered all through the skin.

The Eyes and How We See with Them.— The eye

itself is a sort of hollow

with a bundle of nerves
running from it into
the brain.

At the front of the
Fig. 31. — The structure of the eye. in- . ,

eyeball is a window,

through which the light enters the eye. This window is
the dark round opening in the middle of the eye, which
is called the pupil. Around this window is a circular
curtain, the iris, which is the colored ring you can see
in a person's eye between the pupil and the white part
outside.

If you will look at the eyes of a person who has been
in a dark room, you will find the iris is only a narrow
band and the pupil is quite large. On the other hand,
if one has been out in the bright sun, the iris will be wide

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 75

and the pupil small. We need all the light in a dark
place, so the iris curtain draws back to let in as much
as possible. But in bright light the curtain closes
around the pupil, so that the eye will not be injured
by too much glare.

Just behind the iris is a part of the eye called the lens.
This is made of a substance like 'glass, which makes a
picture — of whatever you look at — on the extreme back
of the eye, the retina. You have probably seen a
stereopticon or magic lantern, and you know that the
glass lenses inside it throw on a screen a big picture
of the slide that has been put behind the lenses. In a
similar way, the lens in the eye makes upon the retina
a little picture of the part of the room in front of you.
From the retina, the nerves carry to the brain messages
telling about what you see.

Helping the Eyes to do Their Work Well.— The
eyes are delicate and complicated organs and very often
they do not do their: work quite perfectly i

Many children have poor eyesight, without knowing
it. They may be able to read a book well, but the
writing on the blackboard seems blurred. Such children
are called near-sighted; they can see things well that
are close to their eyes but not things that are far off.
Other children, called far-sighted, can see well across
the room, but their eyes hurt when they read or sew.
Often children are backward in their studies and are
perhaps thought to be stupid, when 'really the trouble
is only with their eyesight.

If the eyes do not see clearly, there is a constant

76 HEALTHY LIVING

strain on them. The result is often a headache and
sometimes indigestion and other troubles that you
would never think had anything to do with the eyes
at all.

If the writing on the blackboard looks blurred, your

O F L C

A P E O R

IT P R T VZ B

Fig. 32. — See whether you can read the upper line when some one
holds the book up 30 feet away, the middle line 20 feet away, the
lower line 15 feet away. If you cannot, you need glasses.

eyes must be at fault. If you have to hold a book very
close to your eyes when you read, there is something
wrong. If your eyes hurt after you have been reading
for a while, if your eyes are red and inflamed, or if
you have many headaches, there is probably some-
thing the matter with your eyes. You should have
them examined at once by a physician trained in this

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 77

work. If he finds anything wrong, he will fit you
with eyeglasses, which will make up for the defects
of your eyesight and enable you to see clearly.

It is quite wonderful what the effects of eyeglasses
are on the children who need them (and at least one
child out of every five does need glasses). The books
and the blackboard come out clearly; discomfort and
headaches vanish. Often a child who was dull in the
schoolroom and listless on the playground becomes one
of the best pupils and one of the j oiliest children in the
school.

Keeping the Eyes in Good Condition. — Whether
you wear glasses or not, it is very important to take
good care of the eyes. Be sure that you do not injure
them by using them in an improper way. Many chil-
dren do serious harm to their eyesight by reading or
sewing too long at a time, or by using the eyes in a
dim light. In the late afternoon it is easy to go on
reading without noticing how fast the light is failing,
and the eyes may be seriously strained by this prac-
tice. It is harmful, too, to read by a flickering un-
steady light or in a railroad train or street car where
the print is constantly jiggling about.

Too bright a light may be just as harmful to the
eyes as one that is too dim. One should always avoid
facing toward a window or a lamp or sitting in such a
position that there is a direct glare of sunlight on one's
work or the pages of one's book.

The proper position in reading or sewing is to sit
with the light coming from above over the left shoulder.

HEALTHY LIVING

The book or work should be held about twelve inches
away from the eyes. Lying down while you read brings
an unnatural strain on the eyes.

The Ear and How We Hear. — The outer organ
which we ordinarily speak of as the ear is just a sort of
trumpet to catch the sound. The most important part
of the ear is inside and quite out of sight. The ear

that we can see out-
side opens into a
tube, at the end of
\vhich is a thin
membrane, some-
what like a piece of
paper, called the ear
drum.

When a person
speaks to you, or
when some other
noise is made, the
air is set to moving
in waves, like the
waves that spread
over the surface of a pond when you throw a stone into
it. These waves strike the ear drum and make it quiver,
or vibrate, in a certain way. As the ear drum quivers,
it sets up a similar movement in a liquid inside the ear
itself. The movement of this liquid in turn affects the
ends of nerves in the ear, which carry to the brain the
messages that are called sounds.

Guarding against Diseases of the Ear.— From the

Fig. 33. — How the light should be
placed and how you should hold
your book when reading.

HOW WE LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE 79

back of the throat there is a tube that runs up to the
inside of the ear behind the ear drum. Sometimes
when a person has a cold in the head, germs may work
their way up from the throat through this tube into
the middle ear, and painful disease and even deafness
may result. Any stopped-up feeling or rumbling in the
ears, earache, or a discharge from the ears is a sign that
something is wrong. The doctor should be consulted
at once before the trouble becomes serious.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Why are airplanes called "the eyes" of the army or
the navy? Could they be called "the ears" of the army just
as well?

2. Tell all the things you know about a banana. Then tell
what organs in the body helped you to find out these
things.

3. Who is Helen Keller? What has she done?

4. If your eyes were closed, how could you tell when some one
opened the window of the schoolroom? Could you tell if your
ears were stopped up, too? Suppose it were a cold day outside.
Could you tell, then, if your eyes were closed and your ears
stopped up?

5. Make a picture of the eye as it would look if it were cut
in two.

6. What is the lens? What is the retina? What is the use of
each?

7. What difference is there between the eye of a person who
has been in a dark room and one who has been out in the bright
sun? How is this difference caused?

8. Lucy always has a headache after reading for a long time.
George can never make out clearly what the teacher writes on

8o HEALTHY LIVING

the blackboard. What is the matter with each? What ought
to be done about it?

9. What can you do to keep your eyes in good condition?

10. What is the ear drum? Of what use is it?

11. Susan had a bad cold and afterward an earache. What
had probably happened?

CHAPTER VII
FUEL FOR THE BODY

The Energy in Foods. — We have learned in Chapter
II that the body needs food to keep it going, just as an
automobile needs gasoline or a locomotive needs fuel.
The energy of the body, the strength which moves the
arms and legs, keeps the heart beating and the other
organs working — this energy all comes from the food.
From the food, too, the body gets its heat, just as the
heat of a house comes from the coal put into the fur-
nace.

Children need food also to make the body grow bigger
and stronger. Year by year, as the child grows up,
his weight should increase, and the change in weight
is a very good measure of his general health. The table
on page 241 will help you to find out the number of
pounds you ought to weigh.

Do you remember that the first thing Robinson
Crusoe did was to swim out to the wreck and get some
biscuits to eat and some bread and rice and cheese?
Do you remember how he shot goats and gathered
grapes to eat, and how glad he was when the barley he
had planted came up so that he could make some
bread? He knew that he could not keep alive on the
desert island unless he provided food for himself.

The body gets a great deal of energy when we eat

HEALTHY LIVING

certain kinds of food, while from others it can get very
little. You would have to eat several whole tomatoes,
for instance, before you could get as much energy as
one lump of sugar would supply. The men and women
who study foods and the food needs of the body have

Fig. 34. — Each of the portions of food shown in the picture will give
the body about the same amount of energy. They include: an
ordinary serving of beans, 3 lumps of sugar, i large banana,
ii double peanuts, i large egg, i potato, i chop, 2 slices of bread,
i orange, 2 apples, 2/3 of a glass of milk, i pat of butter, and
an average serving of oatmeal.

a way of measuring the amount of energy supplied by
foods. They measure the energy of foods in calories;
and they have arranged all the common foods in classes,
according to the amount of energy they will supply.

FUEL FOR THE BODY 83

The Importance of Different Kinds of Foods. — In or-
der to be well and strong, it is not enough to have a cer-
tain total amount of food energy. We must have also
a proper variety of foods. The body needs certain
special things which we can get from some foods and

ig- 35- — A group of New York schoolboys being served with luncheon
in an experiment to determine the best diet which can be provided
for a child at a given cost.

not from others. You could not keep healthy long if
you lived on nothing but twenty dishes of cereal a day
or twenty pats of butter or twenty potatoes, even
though you might get the food energy you need.

There is a very important kind of food called pro-
tein (pro' t£ in), which is found in eggs and meat and
beans, but not in sugar or butter or cereals, and only
to a slight extent in bread. You need a certain amount

84 HEALTHY LIVING

of these protein foods. You need, also, lime and iron and
other things which are found in fruits and vegetables,
and to a less extent in cereals and meats. Milk is the
most perfect food we have, for it contains all the dif-
ferent kinds of nourishment our bodies require. Every
child should drink a pint or more of milk each day.

In addition to the ordinary liquid foods, such as
milk, it is important to drink plenty of water, for the
body needs an ample supply of water in order to keep
in good health. Every child should drink at least three
glasses of water a day, and more in hot weather.

Bering's Voyage into the Arctic. — Bering Sea, about
which you will study in your geography, was named
for a famous Arctic explorer, one of the adventurous
men who sailed into the unknown northern seas to
find out about the strange frozen countries near the
North Pole. On June 4, 1741, he set out on one of
these voyages of discovery in a ship called the St. Peter,
with a crew of seventy men, and with another ship,
the St. Paul, as a companion. On June 20, while they
were running into the Gulf of Alaska, a heavy storm
drove the St. Paul to the southward, and the St. Peter,
after cruising about and waiting for a time, pushed on
alone to the north. More heavy storms drove the ship
two hundred miles out of its course, and October found
Bering still in the neighborhood of the Aleutian Islands.
As he once more tried to make his way north, he met
a new difficulty. His men began to fall sick. The
disease began with extreme weakness " making the vic-
tims spiritless and indifferent to everything, preferring

FUEL FOR THE BODY 85

to lie down and die rather than to move about." Two
deaths occurred, and at last Bering had to give up and
return home with scarcely enough well men in the crew
to sail the ship.

The disease from which these men suffered is called
scurvy. We know to-day that it was caused by a very
simple thing — by the fact that the diet of canned and

Fig. 36. — Explorers in the frozen North used to suffer severely
from a disease called scurvy, which was due to the lack of fresh
fruits and vegetables in their diet.

preserved foods on which these men lived, though it
contained plenty of energy, was lacking in certain special
things that are necessary to keep people well. Scurvy
was a very common disease in old times, not only in
the Arctic but on all long voyages in which fresh foods
could not be obtained. On recent polar expeditions
and on long sea voyages to-day, scurvy is practically

86 HEALTHY LIVING

unknown, because fresh meat or vegetables or fruit
juices are provided to supply the special kinds of foods
that will prevent that disease.

Where Your Foods Come From. — Men in Florida
and Oregon have planted orange groves and apple
orchards that you may have fresh fruit for your break-
fast. Others have cultivated oat fields in the Middle
West, and still others have worked in the mills to pre-
pare from the oats the cereal you need. Still others
have grown the wheat and made the flour from which
your bread was mixed. Sugar beets have been grown
in Michigan, and dairy farms have been operated in
your own state, that your cereal might be sweetened
and your glass of milk kept full. Your cocoa may have
been brought from South America, and your rice per-
haps from Japan on the other side of the Pacific.

You need all these things, and many more, in order
to keep healthy. You ought to try your best to learn
to eat, and to like, all the different kinds of good foods
that are brought into your home from the near and the
distant regions of the earth.

An Ideal Diet. — Three good meals for a child of ten
or twelve years of age would be about as follows:

A good breakfast would include:

1. Some fruit (an orange or an apple, a baked

banana or stewed prunes).

2. A well cooked cereal (oatmeal is the best).

3. Two slices of toast or bread and butter.

4. A glass of milk.

A soft-boiled egg may be added, if desired.

FUEL FOR THE BODY 87

For dinner there should be :

1. A helping of meat or fish or omelet or scrambled

eggs.

2. A baked potato.

3. A helping of spinach, carrots, peas, or some

other green vegetable.

4. Bread (not too fresh) or crackers and butter.

5. A glass of milk or a cup of cocoa.

6. A simple dessert (such as corns tarch pudding-

junket, baked custard, or rice pudding).
A good supper would include :

1. A bowl of some thick soup, or milk toast.

2. A simple salad of fresh fruit or vegetables, if

possible.

3. Bread and butter.

4. A baked apple or some stewed fruit.

Food Saving in War Time. — As a result of the ruin-
wrought in the fertile fields of France, Belgium, Russia,
and Roumania by the great war and because so many
millions of men have had to spend their time in de-
fending their countries instead of cultivating the
soil, the world supply of food has run very short in the
last few years. We in the United States who had a
surplus did our best, during the war, to save all the
food we could for the people of Europe, who needed it
so badly.

The habits we learned then are many of them habits
that it will be good to keep up in peace times. During
the war we tried particularly to save wheat, meat, fat,

HEALTHY LIVING

and sugar, for these were the foods most needed by the
people of Europe. It is still a good plan, for our own
pocketbooks and for our own health, now that the war
is over, to be careful not to waste any good food, such
as scraps of bread or bits of meat and fat. It is a good

Fig. 37. — The wheat fields of America fed the French and the Belgians
and the English as well as ourselves during the Great War.

thing to use fish and eggs and particularly milk instead
of meat at some of our meals, to eat corn bread and
potatoes sometimes in place of wheat bread, and to
use no more butter and sugar than we really need.

Some Food Habits to be Avoided. — The digestive
system of the body works best if we eat at regular

FUEL FOR THE BODY

times. Meals should be served at the same hour
every day, and no food should be taken except at
mealtimes. Nibbling between meals is a bad habit.
If a child is hun-
gry in the middle
of the morning, a
glass of milk and
some crackers may
be made a regular
fourth meal.

The bad food habit
which children are
most likely to form
is the eating of too
much of certain high-
ly flavored foods —
pickles, sweets, and
the like. The result
of this is that they

Fig. 38.— Herbert C. Hoover, Food
Administrator of the United- States,
who was in the charge of the cam-
paign to save food for the starving
people of Europe during the World
War.

have no appetite left
for the good nour-
ishing foods — bread,
cereals, meat, milk,
and vegetables.
Fried foods, rich fat meats, and pastry are bad
for children, except in very small amounts. Tea,
coffee, and other stimulants should of course be
avoided. They may do harm to grown people, and
they are very harmful for children.

go HEALTHY LIVING

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Why do you need food?

2. Look carefully at the pictures in Fig. 34 and see which of
the foods shown there yield a given amount of energy from
the smallest amount of food. Of which foods would you have
to eat the most, to get a given amount of energy?

3. Why is milk a good food? How much milk should you
drink each day? About how much do you drink each day?

4. Why did Bering have to turn back from his Arctic explora-
tion? What do Arctic explorers do nowadays to avoid such
difficulties?

5. Write down what you eat for breakfast, dinner, and supper
for the next two or three days, and see how closely it corresponds
with the list of foods on pages 86 and 87.

6. Why has the world been in such great need of food since
the great war began? What should Americans do about it?

7. What should we eat instead of meat? Instead of wheat
bread?

8. George is very fond of sweets and sucks a piece of candy
every time he gets a chance. What do you suppose happens
when George sits down at the 'dinner table? What do you think
will be the effect on his health?

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FOOD IN THE BODY

Preparing Food for the Body. — You eat a great many
different kinds of foods during the day — liquid foods
such as milk, soft foods such as cereals, and perhaps
some quite hard foods like nuts or hard crackers. You
know that in some way these foods supply the energy
for your daily life and that they are even built up into
the organs of your body. You are growing, year by
year and month by month, and every part of your body
is getting bigger. The food you eat supplies the mate-
rial for this growth; but it is not at all an easy thing to
change oatmeal and poached eggs and milk toast into
the muscles and nerves of a boy or girl.

The food, after being swallowed, passes into a tube
called the alimentary canal, and before it gets really
into the blood where it can be used, it must pass
through the walls of the alimentary canal. In order
to do this, the food must all be changed to a liquid
form.

This process of changing the food so that the body
can use it is called digestion. It is brought about by
the action of the digestive juices, which are liquids
prepared in the walls of the alimentary canal and in
special organs connected with it. These liquids have
the power of changing the foods in such a way that

HEALTHY LIVING

Mouth

Pharynx

they can be passed through the walls of the alimen-
tary canal and taken into the blood.

The action of the digestive
juices may be shown by a
simple experiment. Take two
glass test tubes, and in each
put a piece of meat and a
little water. To the second
test tube add some of the
digestive juice extracted from
the stomach of a calf.1 After
the tubes have stood for
half an hour in a warm
place, the meat in the first
tube will look just as it did
at the beginning, but the
tube containing the diges-
tive juice will look cloudy
and soft and the liquid will
be discolored. This shows
that the meat is being dis-
solved, or changed into liquid
form, by the digestive juice.

You can easily observe
the action of one of the
digestive juices in your own
body. Chew a piece of bread very slowly and thoroughly
and see if you can notice a change in taste. While you
chew, a digestive juice in the mouth becomes mixed

1 A solution of pepsin and two per cent hydrochloric acid.

Small
Intestine

Fig. 39. — The alimentary canal
and its principal parts.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FOOD IN THE BODY 93

with the bread. The starch in the bread is changed
to sugar by the juice. Do you not notice that the
bread tastes sweeter as this change takes place?

Parts of the Alimen-
tary Canal.— The dif-
ferent parts of the
alimentary canal are
so important that you
ought to learn the
names of the principal
ones, even though some
of these names are long
and hard to remember. Fig-4a'

The general arrangement of the parts of the alimen-
tary canal is shown in Fig. 39. The food, after it is
swallowed, passes first down a long slender tube called
the esophagus into a large bag or sac called the stomach.
From the stomach, the food passes gradually out into
a long coiled tube, the small intestine, and from the're
into a larger tube, the large intestine.

Digestion in the Mouth. — Two important steps in the
process of digestion are taken in the mouth before the food
is swallowed. First of all, it is broken up and softened
by the action of the teeth. Secondly, it is mixed with
the digestive juice of the mouth, which begins the diges-
tion of the food by changing the starch in it to sugar.

It is very important to chew the food thoroughly
before it is swallowed, if the rest of the digestive system
is to be kept in good working order. The stomach is
meant to digest soft, well chewed pulp, and if solid

94 HEALTHY LIVING

•

food is forced down in lumps, there is likely to be
trouble. You remember, from ^Esop's fable that was
discussed in the second chapter of this book, how the
stomach depends on the other organs of the body to help
it in its work. One of the principal things it depends
upon is the vigorous and thorough action of the teeth
upon the food that is to be sent down to it for digestion.

Another reason, though a less important one, for
thorough chewing of the food is the fact that the food
tastes much better and we enjoy it more if it is eaten
in this way. If you have been in the habit of bolting
your food, at your next meal try eating it quite slowly
and chewing it thoroughly. See if you do not get more
pleasure out of it.

Digestion in the Stomach. — The stomach is so large
in comparison with other parts of the alimentary canal
that it serves as a sort of storehouse for food. We need
such a storehouse because the food, eaten in large
amounts at mealtimes, must be digested slowly. It
passes gradually from the stomach to the intestines.
But though the storehouse is large, it cannot store the
food of an over-hearty meal without making trouble.

In the walls of the stomach, there are strong muscles.
These muscles, by contracting, keep the food moving
round and round so as to break it up into a thin paste.
At the same time more digestive juices are added to the
food (particularly the kind of juices that dissolve meat,
as shown in the experiment described on page 92).

After the food has been churned up in this way, and
the digestive juices have acted upon it for a time, it

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FOOD IN THE BODY 95

is squeezed out from the stomach into the small in-
testine. The last of the food taken at an ordinary meal
passes out of the stomach and into the intestine about
four hours after it is eaten.

Digestion in the Intestines. — We have seen how nec-
essary the stomach is as an organ of digestion. The
small intestine plays an even more important part
in the process. This portion of the alimentary canal is
slender, but it is very long. The food takes ten or
twenty hours to pass through it.

In the course of its passage through the small in-
testine, the food mass is mixed with more digestive
juices. Some of these juices come from the walls of the
intestine itself. Some come from two organs, the liver
and the pancreas, which pour them into the intes-
tine. By the time the food has passed through the
small intestine, most of the digestible matter in it has
been changed into a liquid form.

Meanwhile the digested foods are being absorbed,
or taken in, through the walls of the alimentary canal
into the blood in the blood vessels. On one side of the
thin wall of the alimentary canal is the food, now di-
gested and made liquid. On the other side of this wall
is the blood. The food passes through the wall into
the blood by a process called absorption. As the
small intestine is very long, there is ample time for
all the digested food to be absorbed there.

In the large intestine there is little more that needs
to be done, except to store the undigested waste mate-
rial until it is dischargecL

HEALTHY LIVING

The Wastes of the Body. — There are two kinds of
wastes that must be regularly gotten rid of by the body.
One kind is the undigested material from the alimentary
canal. The other wastes are formed in the organs them-
selves in the course of their daily activity. Some of the

Fig. 41. — A calm and happy frame of mind helps to make
digestion easy.

wastes of this second kind are discharged into the air
which we breathe out. Some are discharged in the
perspiration formed by the skin. Some are discharged
into the alimentary canal by the liver, a large organ
which lies just above the stomach and empties into the
small intestine; and the rest are gotten rid of by way of
the kidneys.
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs which take

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FOOD IN THE BODY 97

out water and certain waste materials from the blood
and discharge them into a pouch called the bladder.
The fluid formed by the kidneys is called the urine.
The bladder should be emptied about six times a day.

Keeping the Digestion in Good Working Order. — If
the digestive machinery is to be kept in good working
order, it is of course necessary that it should not be
supplied with too much food or with the wrong kind
of food. It is also important not to exercise violently
just after eating, for that prevents the digestive ma-
chinery from working properly. A cheerful, pleasant
frame of mind helps to make digestion easy. Mealtimes
should be times for pleasant talk and leisurely enjoy-
ment, not for the hurried snatching of a bolted meal.

Another thing that is very important for the health
of the digestive system and the body as a whole is the
emptying of the large intestine by regular movements
of the bowels. If the undigested food remains too
long in the large intestine, it decays, and poisons are
formed. These poisons may be absorbed into the body.
A great many people have headaches and feel tired and
half sick from this cause. A movement of the bowels
at least once a day and at a regular time is one of the
most useful health habits that can be formed.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. What is digestion? Why is digestion necessary?

2. When a person experiences pain or discomfort as a result
of overeating, we call it indigestion. Why?

3. What do the digestive juices do? Give an example.

98 HEALTHY LIVING

4. What are the principal parts of the alimentary canal?

5. Eleanor takes her time at the table, laughs and talks and
•chews her food thoroughly. Peter, who is generally late to meals,
bolts his food and runs away as soon as possible. Which do you
think will have the better digestion when they grow up? Why?

6. What processes of digestion go on in the mouth?

7. What can you learn from the picture on page 93 about the
harmfulness of eating too much at one meal?

8. What happens to the food in the stomach?

9. What happens to the food in the small intestine?

10. Of what use is the liver?

11. What are some of the things that you can do to keep your
digestion in good order?

CHAPTER IX
KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION

The Uses of the Teeth. — Do you know what kind of
teeth a dog or a cat has, and how they differ from the
teeth of a cow or a horse?

The teeth of the dog and the cat are sharply pointed,
so that they can be used for tearing and cutting. The
teeth of the horse are flat and are made for grinding
things into a pulp. In each case the teeth are of just
the kind needed to work on the kind of food the animal
eats. A dog lives chiefly on animal food, such as meat,
which must be torn into shreds before it is swallowed.
The horse, on the other hand, lives on oats, hay, and
similar foods that do not need to be torn up, but must be
ground into a fine pulp. We can generally tell what kind
of food any animal eats by merely looking at its teeth.

Which kind of teeth do you have in your mouth?
Look in the mirror, or pass your tongue over them,
and you will see (or feel) that you have both kinds.
This is just what might be expected, since you eat
both animal foods and vegetable foods, like bread and
cereals. In the front of your mouth are cutting teeth,
not just like the pointed teeth of the dog, but having
a long sharp edge which serves the same purpose; while
at the back are flat teeth for grinding, which do the
same sort of work as the teeth of the horse.

ioo HEALTHY LIVING

The teeth form a very important part of the diges-
tive system, for unless the food is well broken up and
mixed with the digestive juices of the mouth, it will
reach the stomach in lumps and will be very hard to
digest.

The First and Second Sets of Teeth. — There is one
very curious thing about the teeth — and that is the fact

that we have, each
of us, two distinct
sets of teeth, one for

'Flat '

Grinding use as children and

Teeth

the other set for the

rest of our lives.

A very little baby
has no teeth that
_ . vou can see, but just

Sharp Cutting Teeth,

soft red gums. The
Fig. 42. — The arrangement of the perma-

nent or second set of teeth. teeth> however, are

there down below

the surface, though very small. Soon they begin to
grow and push out through the gums. By the time
a baby is two years old, it usually has all its first set
of teeth — twenty of them — and these are the teeth a
child uses till it is more than five years old.

At about the age of six years, the first teeth begin to
loosen and come out; and soon after each one of the
first set drops out, one or more of the second or per-
manent set of teeth grows in its place. There are
thirty- two of these permanent teeth, and most of them
grow out between the ages of six and twelve. The

KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 101

last four teeth sometimes appear when a person is
twenty years old or more. They are called the "wisdom
teeth," because when one gets to be as old as twenty,
one ought to be quite wise.

The Parts of the Tooth.— The part of the tooth that
we see in the mouth is squarish or flattened, according
to the kind, and is called the crown. It is covered with
a very hard smooth substance, called enamel. Beneath
the surfaces of the gum are the roots, which are pointed
ends, one, two, or three to
each tooth. The roots hold
the teeth in place, some-
what as a root holds a plant
firmly in the ground (see
Fig. 43). The crown of the Fig. 43. — The parts of the teeth

tooth is mostly hard dead ^ve and below the g™

matter, but in the roots

there are nerves and other kinds of living tissue.

The Value of Good Teeth. — A straight, clean, shining
set of teeth is always pleasant to look at. It is also a
help in keeping the whole body in good health. If
the teeth are strong and sound, their work of preparing
the food for digestion by thorough chewing is much
more likely to be well done. When people grow old,
the teeth often fall out and have to be replaced by false
ones. The better care we take of our teeth, the longer
we shall keep the ones that Nature gives us.

The Microbes and Tooth Decay. — The teeth seem so
hard and strong that you might think they were the
very last parts of the body likely to become diseased.

102 H£;\LTHY LIVING

Yet, curiously enough, there are very few organs that
give us so much trouble as our teeth.

Diseases of the teeth are usually caused by very tiny
plants or animals called microbes, a word which means
a little living thing. We shall learn more about microbes
in Chapter XIV. They are very small indeed, so small
that thousands of them could be on the point of a pin
without your being able to see anything there at all,
even with your sharp eyes. The microbes can be seen,
however, with a special instrument called a microscope.
You probably know what a magnifying glass is and
how, by looking through it, you can see small things
that would be quite invisible with the eye alone. A
microscope is a very powerful magnifying glass; and
by looking through such a glass at one of the bits of
food left clinging between the teeth, you could see great
numbers of microbes, such as are pictured on page 162.

In the food particles, these microbes grow and in-
crease in numbers very rapidly. As they grow, they
change the food and spoil it, so that it smells badly.
The destruction of food or other substances by microbes
is called decay. Some of the microbes that grow in
food masses on the teeth form chemical poisons, which
eat into and decay the hard enamel of the teeth them-
selves. In the little cavities that are produced in the
teeth, more food gathers, and more microbes grow, and
more chemical poisons are formed. These substances eat
into the tooth deeper and deeper, until finally the poisons
formed by the microbes, and perhaps even the microbes
themselves, reach the living tissue inside the tooth.

KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 103

It is unpleasant to think of having such things as this
going on inside your mouth, and the results are quite
as unpleasant as you might expect. Bad teeth often
give the mouth a very disagreeable odor, even when
the decay has only just begun. As the process goes on,
the teeth become sensitive, and chewing is neglected,
which of course is bad for the digestion. When decay
reaches a certain point, real toothache begins, as a
result of the work of the poisons formed by the mi-
crobes. If you have had a toothache, you know how
painful it is; and if you have not, I hope you may never
learn. Even the toothache is not always the worst of
it. Sometimes the microbes get into the soft tissue at
the root of the tooth, and the poisons which they form
are carried by the blood all over the body. Or the
microbes themselves may pass through the blood to the
heart or some other organ. If this happens, serious and
even fatal disease may follow. Microbes can grow in
the mouth or in the intestines without doing any harm;
but if they grow inside the organs of the body, they
always cause illness. So you see that tooth decay may
really be a very dangerous thing, and we ought to
guard against it with every possible care.

Guarding against Tooth Decay. — The chewing of
ordinary tough foods is good for the teeth. Vigorous
use polishes their surfaces and keeps the muscles that
move them in active condition. We should not, how-
ever, crack nuts or bite very hard objects, for that may
chip off the enamel.

The most important precaution we can take against

104

HEALTHY LIVING

the dangers of tooth decay is the regular use of the
toothbrush. If the teeth are kept thoroughly clean,
the microbes will never get a chance even to start their
evil work.

The best possible thing to do is to brush the teeth
carefully after each meal, so as to remove any bits of

food just as soon as they
have collected. If we
cannot always do this,
we should brush the
teeth at least twice a
day, night and morning.
The brush should be stiff,
but not too hard. It
should be applied sys-
tematically, not only to
the flat tops of the teeth
but to the fronts and
backs as well.

Some people brush
their teeth along the sides from the back to the front
of the mouth, and some brush up and down, from the
gums to the crowns of the teeth.

The best way of all is to hold the brush in the position
shown in Fig. 44, press the bristles firmly against the
teeth, and give the brush a slightly rotary (round and
round) motion. When the outside surfaces at each
side and in front have been well cleaned, the inner sur-
faces should be treated in the same way. Then the
crowns of the teeth should be brushed thoroughly.

Fig. 44, — How to hold the tooth-
brush.

KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 105

Finally, after the brushing has been completed, the
mouth should be rinsed several times. You will find
that you can do this by forcing water between and
around the teeth with the aid of the lips and tongue.

The Brushes' Quarrel. — Once upon a time a little girl
thought she- was waked up one night by a noise of voices
in the kitchen. It seemed to her that she pushed the
kitchen door open softly and that this was what she
saw and heard.

The moonlight was shining quite brightly through
the kitchen window, and sitting in a ring on the floor
were all the brushes and brooms in the house. They
were having a vigorous argument as to which one
ought to be king. The broom was presiding at the
meeting, because he was biggest; but it had been agreed
that the one that was most useful in the household
ought to be the king, and each was presenting arguments
why he should be the one.

The hearthbrush declared that ashes from the fire-
place made more dirt in the house than everything else
put together, and that his work of keeping them back
on the hearth and preventing them from being blown
about was the most important thing a brush could
possibly do.

Mr. Broom, the chairman, put in his word. "There
is nothing at all in the Hon. Mr. Hearthb rush's claim. "
(The broom was always very formal and polite.) "The
open fires are only lighted in certain rooms and at cer-
tain times; but there is dirt in the house always and
everywhere. I am the one who has to keep it clean

io6

HEALTHY LIVING

from attic to cellar, in July as well as in January, and
my work is therefore most important of all."

The bottle brush and the
sink brush applauded this
(by rubbing their bristles
against each other) ; but the
clothesbrush jumped into
the center of the circle,
very much excited, and
gave the discussion a some-
what new direction. "It is
true that Temporary Chair-
man Broom probably moves
more dirt in a year than
all the rest of us put to-
gether," he said, "but I

Fig. 45. — Should the toothbrush be king of all the brushes?
claim it is quality of work, not quantity, that ought to
count. Mr. Broom is trusted for the heavy work of

KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 107

cleaning floors and stairways, but when they want a
really good job done, when they want the clothes they
wear to be spic-and-span, they call on me."

" The re is a great deal in what Brother Clothesbrush
has said," interrupted a handsome silver-mounted hair-
brush, "but his argument counts much more for me
than it does for himself. The clothes are more im-
portant than the carpets, but the head is more impor-
tant than the clothes, and I have by far the greatest
work of all to do."

There was silence for a moment, and it almost looked
as if the hairbrush would carry the day. Suddenly a
tiny little figure ran out into the moonlight, and a high
squeaky voice cried out, "Wait a bit, wait a bit, until
you have heard a plea from me, the Toothbrush. The
clothes are more important than the carpet, and the
head than the clothes, I agree. But the inside of the
head is far more important than the outside."

"If Mr. Clothes Brush or Mr. Hairbrush is neg-
lected," he went on, "our masters and mistresses will
look untidy, but they will not get ill ; while if I were not
used, there would be toothache and misery and illness
as a result. I am the one who ought to be king of the
brushes."

There was a great hubbub and noise, some taking
little Mr. Toothbrush's side and some opposing him;
but just then the dreamer woke up and never knew who
was finally chosen king.

The Dental Care of the Teeth.— The toothbrush is
certainly one of our best friends, but even the regular

io8 HEALTHY LIVING

use of the toothbrush cannot be expected to defend
the teeth completely from our microbe foes. Every
now and then decay begins on a small scale, even in
well-cared-for mouths. It is important that the teeth
should be regularly examined by a dentist in order to
detect this decay and treat it before it has gone too
far. If the teeth are examined three or four times a
year, they can be kept sound very easily and with no
pain. The dentist can also straighten teeth that are
crooked, which often improves a child's looks and his
health very greatly. Early and frequent dental care
before the teeth decay will spare many painful hours
afterward. It is for this reason that most schools
provide for the systematic examination of the teeth of
the children, and there are few things that the school
doctor and the school nurse do which are more impor-
tant than this.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. What is the difference between the teeth of a cat and the
rteeth of a horse?

2. A deer eats grass. What kind of teeth do you think it has?

3. What kinds of teeth have you in your mouth? How many
of each?

4. What is the crown of the tooth? What are the roots?
Why is one part called a "crown" and the other a "root"?

5. What are some of the advantages in having a good set of
teeth?

6. What are some of the things you can do to keep your teeth
in good condition?

7. What are microbes? What do they do to the teeth?

8. George thought it was a bother to brush his teeth and he

KEEPING THE TEETH IN GOOD CONDITION 109

never brushed them unless his mother was watching and told
him to. What do you think happened in his mouth?

9. Describe the best way to brush the teeth.

10. Who do you think ought to have been chosen king of the
brushes? Explain your choice.

11. Sally's mother took her to the dentist regularly three
times a year. Jane never went except when she had a toothache.
Which do you think spent more hours with the dentist?

CHAPTER X
BREATHING

The Importance of Breathing. — When some one has
asked you what you were doing, you have probably
often answered, "Nothing." That was not quite
accurate, however, was it? There are some things you
are doing all the time, and one of the most important
of these is breathing.

In and out, in and out, the air goes every minute of
the day and night, whether you are working or playing
or sitting still or asleep in bed. Put a watch on the table
before you, and count the number of breaths you take
in one minute. Then multiply the number by 60 to
see how many times you breathe in an hour, and mul-
tiply that product by 24 to see how many times you
breathe in a day. All through your life this must go
on. If breathing stopped for a very few minutes, the
whole machinery of the body would stop too.

The Organs of Breathing. — Where does the air go
that you breathe in so many times a minute? If you
will look at Fig. 46, you will see.

The air, drawn in through the nose, passes first into
the upper part of the throat, for the nose opens into
the throat, as you can see by the picture. From the
lower part of the throat there are two openings.
Through the opening at the front, the air is drawn into

BREATHING

the windpipe; and at
the back there is an
opening into the esoph-
agus, by which food
passes to the alimen-
tary canal. The wind-
pipe (see Fig. 47) runs
down a little way
and then divides into
two branches, called
bronchi, which lead to
the lungs. The two
lungs are the prin-

Esophagus

Windpipe.

Fig. 46. — How the air passes from the
nose to the windpipe.

-Larynx

cipal organs of breathing, or respiration. It is through
the nose, throat, and windpipe that the air we breathe
passes down into the lungs.

The lung is made up, for
the most part, of a great
>— windpipe number of small air cham-
bers. All of these cham-
bers are connected
with the windpipe.
You have just seen
that the windpipe
is divided into two
bronchi; these two
bronchi subdivide
again into many fine
branches that go to
Fig. 47.— The lungs and the windpipe, all parts of the lungs.

H2 HEALTHY LIVING

In the walls of the branches and of the tiny air
chambers is a network of fine blood vessels. The blood
flowing through these blood vessels is separated from
the air in the lung by a very thin layer of living matter.
Through this thin layer, substances in the air may pass
into the blood, and substances in the blood may pass
out to the air.

The Air We Breathe. — What is there in the air that
the body needs?

The air seems like nothing at all. We cannot see it,
and can feel it only when there is a wind or some other
force to set it in active motion. Yet the air is a very
real substance, or mixture of substances.

We live in an ocean of air and depend upon it for our
life, just as fish live in the water and die when taken
out of it. Some things, like salt and stones, are solid ;
some, like water and syrup, are liquid; and some that
move about freely, mixing with the air and often, like
it, invisible, are gases. You know about the gas that
comes into our houses in pipes and is burned for heat
and light. This is only one kind of gas. The substances
in the air are gases, too.

The Good Fairy Oxygen. — When illuminating gas
burns, there is a chemical action going on between two
gases; the illuminating gas that came in through the
pipe combines with a gas, called oxygen, in the air of
the room. Wherever anything burns, it is this gas,
oxygen, which is at work. If a candle flame were cov-
ered over with a tight glass jar, the candle would go
out as soon as it had used up all the oxygen of the air

BREATHING 113

inside the jar. For the activities of the living matter
in our bodies, we need oxygen, just as the candle flame
does. The first object of respiration is to supply oxygen.

Fig. 48. — When men go down into deep parts of mines where
there may not be enough oxygen to breathe, they take
with them a canary bird, which is very sensitive to poor
air, so that its distress may warn them of the danger.
If the air is bad, the men can put on the masks hang-
ing in front of them, and breathe oxygen from the bag
slung over their shoulders.

It is this gas which passes from the air chambers of the
lungs into the blood, as we breathe.
The more you learn about oxygen, the more you

U4 HEALTHY LIVING

will feel that it is almost like one of the good fairies in
the story books. You cannot see it, but it is every-
where about us. Whenever any one strikes a match
or lights a fire, Oxygen is at work making the flame
burn. The fire of logs around which some band of
travelers gathers for warmth in the frozen north, and
the great blast furnaces of Pittsburgh where steel is
made for mighty ships and for guns, owe their heat and
their power to Oxygen. It is Oxygen which makes pos-
sible the life of every living thing, from the green slime
on the bark of a tree to the tree itself, and from the
tiniest insect up to the elephant or man.

Objects of Respiration. — Getting oxygen into the
body is only one of the objects of breathing. It is
almost equally essential to get rid of certain wastes
formed in the body itself. Chemical changes are going
on all the time in living matter, and waste substances
are being formed, which would injure the body if they
were not carried away. One of the most important of
these wastes is a gas called carbon dioxide, which is
carried away from the different organs by the blood and
finally gotten rid of through the lungs.

In the walls of the tiny air spaces of the lungs, there
is a thin layer of living matter with blood on one side
and air on the other. Oxygen passes in from the air to
the blood, and carbon dioxide passes out from the blood
to the air.

In this way the air in the air chambers of the lungs
would, of course, become all the time poorer in oxygen
and richer in carbon dioxide, if it were not changed.

BREATHING 115

Our constant breathing in and out is necessary in order
to change the air in the lungs, to bring in fresh oxygen,
and carry off carbon dioxide.

Besides carbon dioxide, a good deal of water is
given off to the air in the lungs. On a cold day we
can see this water condensed as moisture from the
breath.

The Old Well. — Two boys were once playing ball
on a farm in eastern Connecticut when the ball, which
had been thrown a little wild, bounded into an old,
unused well and disappeared. The boys peered over
the edge and threw a stone in. They could tell by
the noise as it struck that there was earth and not
water at the bottom.

The walls of the well were made of rough stone; and
although it was quite deep, Edward, the elder boy,
who was strong and active, thought he could climb
down by getting his toes in between the stones and
holding on to the old well rope, which was made fast
at the top. He had kicked off his shoes when the
younger brother, Robert, had a sudden thought. " Wait
a minute, Ed," he said, "let us be sure first that the
air is all right."

He ran to the house and brought back a candle and
some matches and a long piece of string. The boys'
father, who was passing, joined them to see what was
going on. He helped them cut a groove around the
candle, tie a string in the groove, light the candle, and
let it slowly down into the well. When it was nearly
at the bottom, — all at once the candle went out!

HEALTHY LIVING

"Well, boys, what does that mean?" asked their
father.

"Why, it means that there was not enough oxygen
down at the bottom of the well to keep the flame burn-
ing," cried Robert in excitement, "and if Ed had gone

Fig. 49. — The boys and their father let a candle down into the well
to see if there is oxygen enough to keep the flame burning.

down, there would not have been enough for him to
breathe and he might have died."

"Right you are," said his father. "There is plenty
of oxygen in all ordinary air, even in crowded rooms;
but in old wells and cesspools and the lower parts of
mines, where decay is going on, the air sometimes con-
tains a great deal of carbon dioxide and not enough

BREATHING 117

oxygen to support life. You have studied physiology
to good purpose, Bob, I see, and I will give you a new
League ball for your good sense and judgment."

How the Breathing Movements are Made. — The
machinery by which the breathing movements are
made and the air is drawn into the lungs is one of the
most interesting things about the human body.

The lungs lie in the chest, in a space bounded on the
sides by the ribs and below by a very large muscle
called the diaphragm (see Fig. 9). The diaphragm is
shaped like a big saucer upside down.

Each time we take a breath, two things happen. In
the first place, the muscles cf the ribs contract so as
to pull the ribs upward and outward, which makes the
chest space larger from front to back and from side to
side. This is the movement we see as we watch the
chest rise when a person breathes deeply. At the same
time, the diaphragm contracts so as to pull its center
downward (flattening out the inverted saucer); this
makes the chest space larger from top to bottom.
The walls of the lungs are elastic, and anything that
makes the chest space larger will make the lungs grow
larger, too. As they grow larger, they draw air in
through the windpipe from the throat.

These two sets of muscles contract and relax each
time we breathe. What 'is more wonderful still, they
change so as to regulate rate and depth of breathing
to meet all the changing conditions of our life. When
you run, for instance, the muscles that are working
hard need more oxygen and make more carbon dioxide

Ii8 HEALTHY LIVING

that must be got rid of. So without any planning on
your part, the muscles of breathing do more work, and
the breaths come more quickly, and the lungs are filled
more completely.

The Hygiene of the Breathing Organs. — A full use
of the organs of respiration is essential for the health
of the body. Anything which hinders the chest move-
ments or cramps the lungs is likely to prevent the full,
deep breathing which we need in order to keep well.
Wearing tight clothes and sitting or standing' in a
slouching position have, therefore, a bad effect on the
breathing organs.

It is an excellent plan to take a few exercises in deep
breathing every morning. Hold your head up and
your body straight. Then raise your arms slowly at
your sides as you breathe in, and let them slowly fall
as you breathe out.

You should always breathe through the nose and not
through the mouth. " In passing through the nose, the
air becomes warmed, and dirt particles in it are taken
out, because they stick to the moist surfaces of the nose.
Breathing cold air and dust-laden air directly into the
throat through the mouth is a dangerous habit. If you
cannot breathe comfortably through your nose, there
is something wrong, and you should go to a doctor for
examination. The doctor will know how to remedy
the difficulty, and you will be able to work and play
and study better when you breathe properly through
the nose.

The walls of the breathing organc are very soft and

BREATHING 119

delicate, and microbes often grow upon them, as they
do in cavities of the teeth, and cause disease. When
this happens in the nose or the upper part of the throat,
we may call it a cold in the head or a sore throat. If it
occurs in the branches of the windpipe (the bronchi),
it is bronchitis ; if in the lungs themselves, pneumonia.

In the back of the throat are two roundish organs
called the tonsils, which you can see on each side as
you look into the mouth. These organs are particularly
liable to be diseased, the trouble which results being
called tonsilitis.

We can avoid these diseases by keeping the microbes
that cause them out of the mouth and nose, as far as
possible, and by keeping the nose and throat and other
organs of respiration so healthy that they can resist
any germs which do come along. Both these subjects
will be discussed in detail in a later chapter.

The Organs of Speech. — At the top of the windpipe,
just below the point where it connects with the throat,
is a small but very important organ, called the larynx
(see Fig. 47). The larynx has in it two bands called the
vocal cords, which make many of the sounds of speech.
The cords vibrate in certain ways, like the strings of a
violin or a piano. If you place your fingers on your
throat under the chin when speaking, you can feel the
larynx moving. The larynx does not do all of this work,
however, for many of the sounds of speech are made
with the Tips, teeth, and tongue. Say over the letters
of the alphabet and see which ones require the use of
these various organs.

120 HEALTHY LIVING

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. How does the air get into your lungs when you breathe
properly through your nose?

2. Why is it bad to breathe through the mouth?

3. Give two examples of solids. Of liquids. Of gases.

4. Why are the men in Figure 48 carrying a canary bird?

5. What happens in the lungs when we breathe?

6. What is the diaphragm?

7. How is the air drawn into the lungs?

8. Why do you breathe hard after you have been running
fast?

9. What are the tonsils? What diseased condition may occur
in them?

10. In what different ways are the sounds of speech made?

11. What movements do you make when you say each of the
following letters: B, D, K, L, S3 V, Y?

CHAPTER XI
THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

The Blood and the Blood Vessels.— The food for
the various organs of the body is taken in through the
walls of the intestines, and the oxygen through the
walls of the lungs. Somehow the food and the oxygen
must be carried about the body to all the different
organs; and you have learned in Chapter II that it is
the blood which does this work.

If you could trace one of the tiny blood vessels in
the lung, you would find that the stream it carries joins
with another and flows into a larger vessel; and that
joins with others and flows into a still larger one; and
so on, until finally the combined stream from both the
lungs pours into the heart. The heart is a hollow organ,
about the size of the fist, which lies in the chest between
the lungs (see Fig. 50). From the heart, the stream
flows out again through a big blood vessel that measures
nearly an inch across. This blood vessel branches into
finer ones, which in turn branch into still finer vessels;
and in these the stream flows at last to the most distant
parts of the body, to the top of the head and the soles
of the feet and the tips of the fingers (Fig. 51).

The blood vessels that carry the blood into the heart
are called veins. Those by which the blood flows out
from the heart are called arteries.

122

HEALTHY LIVING

You know how fortunate a city is that is situated on
the shore of a river, so that steamers can bring to it
food and clothing, wood and coal, and the other things
its people need. The blood serves the organs of the
body as the river serves such a city, for through every
organ the blood is constantly flowing as a stream of
life, laden with the food and oxygen the body needs.

Veins.

rieries

'hod Vessel
of the Lung

arge
Artery to

Lower
Part of

Body

Fig. 50. — The heart and some of the principal blood vessels.

The blood serves another very important purpose, too,
for it not only brings to the organs the oxygen and food,
but it carries away the wastes which the organs are
forming all the time and which they must get rid of, if
the body is to keep well.

The Cells of the Blood. — You may wonder per-
haps if there is anything in the blood stream corre-
sponding to the ships which sail on a river and
carry goods to the city on its banks. There are;
and by using a microscope such as was described on

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

123

Vein

erics

Fig. 51. — The blood vessels of
the hand.

page 102, we can see the ships

that sail in the blood stream.
We cannot very well see

the blood actually flowing

through our own blood ves-
sels even with a microscope;

but it is possible to see the

blood flowing in the vessels

of certain animals which

have a very thin, transparent

skin. The foot of a frog, for

example, has a very delicate

skin between the toes; and if

the frog's foot is held under

a microscope, one can see a wonderful sight. The thin

part of the foot between the toes is full of small blood

vessels; and each of these, under the microscope, is

seen to be crowded with little
round discs, like those which
are drawn in Fig. 52. They
are not still and quiet, how-
ever, as you see them in the
picture, but are rushing past
at a great speed and tum-
bling about in the stream, as

Fig. 52.-The oxygen-cany- they are carried along by the
ing cells of the blood, as blood flow. These tiny ships
they appear under the are the red cells of the blood,
microscope in the tiny It fa ^ ^ ^ ^^
blood vessels of the foot

Of a frog oxygen from the lungs to the

124 HEALTHY LIVING

other organs, and in the tissues exchange the oxygen for
carbon dioxide. They carry the carbon dioxide to the
lungs, where they give it up and take on a new cargo
of oxygen in its place.

These red cells are so abundant in the blood that
they give it the red color. The liquid in which they
float is not red at all, but a yellowish straw-color.

There is another kind of cell in the blood stream
which might be likened to a warship, since we have
compared the red cells to merchant ships. These are
larger and less numerous than the red cells. As they
are whitish in color, they are called the white cells.
They attack and destroy harmful things, like disease
germs, which enter the blood. When we "get over"
an attack of influenza or typhoid fever or a cold in the
head or some other disease, it is largely because of the
activity of these white cells in defending the body
against its enemies.

The Work of the Heart.— It takes a great deal of force
to drive the blood through these fine channels all over
the body, and this force is furnished by the beat of the
heart.

The heart is a hollow chamber with very heavy
muscular walls. It is all the time expanding and con-
tracting with a regular beat, which one can hear by
putting the ear to the left side of a person's chest. At
each expansion blood is drawn in from the veins, and
at each contraction it is forced out into the arteries.

The waves of pressure set up by the beating of the
heart are carried all the way along the arteries. When

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 125

the doctor puts his finger on the large artery in your
wrist to feel your pulse, what he is really doing is to
count the beats of the heart as they are recorded by
these waves of pressure in the artery.

Richard the Lion-heart. — The heart is a wonderful
organ, beating all the time about once every second,
and driving the life blood out to all parts of the body.
It is such an important part of the body that we often
speak of a man who is very good and noble as being
" great-hearted," and of one who is very gentle as
"kind-hearted."

There was once a king of England, Richard the First,
who was so brave and such a great soldier that he was
called "Cceur-de-Lion," which is the French for "the
Lion-heart." He won this name because he was so
brave that it was thought that he must have a heart
something like that of the bravest and fiercest of beasts,
the lion. You will read all about him some day, how
he led his army into the Holy Land to try to reconquer
Jerusalem from the Turks, how he performed many acts
of personal bravery, and how on his return he was taken
prisoner by an Austrian ruler.

For a long time no one knew where Richard was im-
prisoned; but according to one story, he was at last
found by a faithful minstrel, named Blondel, who had
been with him in the Holy Land. Blondel disguised
himself and wandered all through Germany and Aus-
tria, singing one of the king's favorite songs under the
walls of every castle. He hoped that when he got to
the place where Richard was, the king would hear him

126 HEALTHY LIVING

and know that a friend was near. At last BlondeFs
patience was rewarded, for as he was singing at the
foot of a tower, Richard's voice took up the next verse
of the song in reply. Blondel carried home to England
the news of where the king was, and through him Rich-
ard was restored to his throne and his country. Blondel
must have been somewhat of a Lion-heart himself, if
that kind of heart always goes with courage.

Harvey's Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.
— A long, long time after Richard Cceur-de-Lion
reigned, there was another king of England, Charles
the First, who had a court physician named William
Harvey. It is to Harvey that we owe the discovery
of how the blood circulates, for even the wisest people
before Harvey's time did not know as much as you
know about it — if you have studied this chapter care-
fully.

Scientific men three hundred years ago knew that
blood flowed out through the arteries and in through
the veins to the heart. But many of them thought that
the blood which went out of the heart never came back,
and that the blood which came in was being made
fresh all the time from the water and food in the
alimentary canal. Harvey was a man who thought
things out for himself. As an illustration of his studious
habits, it is said that one day when he was placed in
charge of the king's children during a battle in which
his royal master was engaged, he sat with them under
a hedge calmly reading a book all the time the battle
was raging. He did more than think and read, however.

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 127

He studied nature at first hand, and particularly the
actual structure and behavior of the human body. He
found out that the same blood forced out by the beat
of the heart through the arteries comes back again to
the heart through the veins, and is thus kept in a true
and constant circulation.

How the Blood Supply to Different Organs is Regu-
lated.— The various organs of the body need different
amounts of blood at different times. When you are
running or playing actively, for example, your muscles
are working hard, and they need more oxygen than
when they are at rest; they also make more carbon
dioxide that must be carried away. In order to meet
this need, the heart beats faster, so that the blood with
its freight of oxygen will go faster through the muscles.
This more rapid beat after active exercise can easily be
measured by noting the increase in the rate of the pulse
beat at the wrist.

It is not only the rate of the heart beat that varies.
The blood vessels also adapt themselves to changing
needs. The walls of the arteries are not stiff and hard
but elastic, and in these walls there are tiny muscles
which make the vessels smaller when they contract and
larger when they expand. When a muscle or any other
organ is active, the walls of the arteries in that par-
ticular part grow larger, so that more blood can flow
through it. Think how wonderful is this arrangement
by which the needs of all parts of the body are met
without a thought or a care on your part.

The Body Temperature. — Another very important

128 HEALTHY LIVING

thing which the blood vessels do for us is to help to
regulate the body temperature.

When you have been outdoors in winter, your hands
and your cheeks often feel cold; but if a thermometer
such as the doctor uses were placed in your mouth, it
would register between 98° and 99° in January, just as
it would in August. This is a very remarkable thing—
that the body should keep its temperature just the same,
whether the air around it is below zero or nearly 100°.
We can make machines, like the incubators used in
raising chickens, which will do this; but they do not
work nearly so perfectly as the human body does.

Have you ever wondered where the body gets its
heat, in the first place? You know, when you get
into bed in winter, how cold the sheets are, and how
nice and warm they get, after you have been under the
covers a little while. All this heat has been formed in
your body. As you have learned in Chapter VII, the
heat of the body is made from the food. A great deal
of this production of heat goes on in the muscles, and
when the muscles are actively exercised, you are likely
to get overheated.

How the Body Temperature is Regulated. — In order
that the temperature of the body shall remain about
the same all the time, the amount of heat given off
from the body through the skin must just equal that
which is formed inside the body. In cold weather,
you might expect that the body would lose heat very
rapidly and that the blood flowing through the skin
would become chilled. The muscles in the blood vessels

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 129

of the skin, however, take care that this shall not hap-
pen. They contract and make these vessels so small
that very little blood can pass through them, and so
the heat of most of the blood is kept shut up in the
inner parts of the body.

When one is in a very warm room, on the other hand,
the body has hard work to get rid of its heat. Then
all the blood vessels of the skin expand, so that as much
blood as possible is allowed to flow through and be
cooled by the outside air. The cheeks become flushed
in a hot room, and the whole body becomes pink in a
hot bath, because of this enlargement of the blood
vessels of the skin.

There is another change that takes place when the
air is warm, which helps a great deal in regulating the
temperature of the body. All through the skin there
are tiny organs called sweat-glands. They pour out
sweat, or perspiration, as soon as there is danger that
the body may become overheated. The moisture thus
produced evaporates and cools the skin. You can see
that the evaporation of moisture cools the skin, if you
wet your finger and then hold it up in a breeze.

In sickness these arrangements are upset, and the
temperature of the body often changes. If it goes very
much above 99°, we say the person has a fever. If one
feels half-sick or out-of-sorts, it is a very good thing
to have the temperature taken, by putting a special
kind of thermometer in the mouth, to see if one has
fever. Often the rise in temperature is the first sign
that an attack of some disease is beginning.

130 HEALTHY LIVING

Alcohol and Tobacco and the Circulation. — The

organs of circulation, the heart and the blood vessels,
are among the most important of all the organs of the
body, and anything which harms them will seriously
injure the health of the body as a whole. Both the
heart and the blood vessels are especially sensitive to
the effect of any poisons taken into the body, for such
poisons get into the blood and come into direct contact
with their delicate walls. In old people, the walls of
the arteries become hard and brittle and do not do their
work well. The use of alcoholic drinks is likely to in-
crease this hardening of the arteries, making people old
before their time.

Smoking, particularly in young people, affects the
heart and makes its action irregular. Boys and men
who are training for athletic teams are never allowed
to use either alcohol or tobacco.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. What is the work which the blood does for the body?

2. What is the difference between an artery and a vein?

3. What would happen if the heart stopped beating?

4. In what ways may the cells in the blood be compared to
the ships on a river?

5. What is the work of the white cells in the blood?

6. When the doctor feels your pulse, what can he tell about
the action of your heart?

7. Who was Richard Cceur-de-Lion? What does the name
" Cceur-de-Lion " mean?

8. What did Harvey discover?

9. Why does the heart beat faster after you have been exer-
cising hard?

THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 131

10. Why is the body warm?

11. Why do you fell warmer just after exercising briskly?

12. What changes take place in the blood vessels of the skin
when you go from a warm room into cold outdoor air? Why is
this necessary?

13. Why is it a good plan to have your temperature taken
when you feel out-of-sorts?

CHAPTER XII
KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY

What the Skin Does for You. — Of what use is the
soft pink skin which covers the body? First of all,
the skin is like a delicate suit of armor, which fits the
body very closely and protects it against germs and
other outside dangers. If you break the skin, microbes
may easily get in and cause serious disease; and if it
were not for the skin, the muscles and other soft, moist
organs inside would dry up and perish.

There are a number of other things which the skin
does for us, as you have learned in earlier chapters.

It is through the tiny sense organs and nerves of the
skin that we learn, by touching and feeling, a great
deal about the things we handle, whether they are
hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth. It is by
means of the blood vessels in the skin that the heat
formed in the body is given off; and by the changes in
the amount of blood passing through these vessels (as
described in the last chapter), the amount of this heat
loss is controlled and the temperature of the body as a
whole is kept between 98° and 99°. The skin, too,
plays an important part in getting rid of the wastes of
the body by means of the sweat-glands, which pour
out these wastes in the form of perspiration.

All together, you see that the skin is a very important

132

KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY 133

part of the body. Everything possible ought to be done
to keep it healthy, so that it will do its work well.

Keeping Clean. — The skin of the hands and face
collects dirt of all sorts, and it takes a great deal of
attention, as you know, to keep it fresh and clean.
The other parts of the skin that are covered by the
clothes need almost as much care, because the perspira-
tion, if not removed by
thorough washing, gives
the body and clothes an
unpleasant odor. The
whole body ought to
be bathed once a
day whenever possible,
though in cold weather
it will do in the morn- Fig. 53.— Two boys' heads: which
ing to splash the water do ?™ think is the pleasanter

to look at?
over face, neck, chest,

arms, and the upper part of the body, and then rub
the skin thoroughly with a rough towel. A real bath
with warm water and soap should always be taken,
however, once or twice a week.

The finger nails and the hair grow out from the skin
and are really parts of it. They require very special
care to keep them tidy. It is unpleasant to see a child's
finger nails with a deep black border, or his head looking
as if he had just slept in a hay loft. Mr. Nailbrush
and Mr. Hairbrush could really have found a good deal
to say for themselves in the argument which was
quoted in Chapter IX.

134 HEALTHY LIVING

It is necessary to keep the hair well brushed, not
only for appearance's sake, but to keep the skin of the
scalp healthy; and the hair should be thoroughly washed
with warm water and soap at least once a month.

Warm and Cold Bathing. — Warm water is, of course,
the best for cleansing, but cold water is good for the
skin in another way. It 'is bracing and stimulating,
and it helps to train the blood vessels of the skin to do
their work well. A person who takes a cold bath every
morning is much less likely to catch colds than one
who has not stimulated his blood vessels in this way.

Some children who are not strong cannot stand cold
baths. If a cold bath leaves a person tired and the
skin pale, it is likely to be dangerous. A cold bath
followed by brisk rubbing with a rough towel is good
for most people, however; and many a child who shrinks
from cold water as if it were poison, can train himself
so that he enjoys it in a little while. One of the great
secrets of keeping the skin healthy is to accustom it to
cold so that it can bear cold readily — provided one
does not get so cold as to cause a harmful chill.

How Clothing Helps and Harms the Skin. — In severe
climates, like that of the northern part of the United
States, we have to take a good deal of trouble to protect
ourselves from extreme temperatures. When we go out
into the winter air, we dress up warmly in clothing
made of wool cut from the backs of sheep out on the
western ranges, or perhaps in a leather jacket made of
the skin of an animal, or a coat made of skin and
fur. All this is necessary because in very cold weather

135

KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY

the body could not keep up its temperature of g
and would become chilled so that illness and perhaps
even death might result, if it were not protected by
warm clothing.

The body loses heat very rapidly when it is damp.
It is, therefore, dangerous to have the shoes or the

Fig. 54. — What is wrong about this picture?

clothing wet. After playing in the snow or being out
in the rain, one should change to dry things at once on
coming into the house.

It is almost as bad, perhaps quite as bad, for the
clothing to be too heavy as not heavy enough. Many
people make themselves weak and sickly and unable
to resist even moderate cold by wearing too heavy
clothing.

One of the most dangerous things one can do is to

136 HEALTHY LIVING

get heated by sitting indoors or by playing hard out-
doors and then to sit down in a cold place with no extra
wraps. Clothes should be light for indoors or for violent
exercise, and coats or wraps should be put on for out-
doors or for sitting still.

Fresh Air. — Just as some people harm themselves by
wearing heavier clothing than is really needed, so a
great many people injure their health by keeping the
rooms in which they live too warm. The still hot air
of a close living room or schoolroom or office makes
people dull and sleepy. They do not feel like working
or playing. Their blood vessels get weak and flabby,
so that when they go where it is cold, as they sometimes
must, they feel the chill and very easily catch colds
and other diseases.

The air of a close room smells stuffy, which is not
very pleasant; but the really serious thing is that it is
usually overheated. The temperature of the school-
room or the living room should never get above 68°. In
the schools of certain cities, a large thermometer is set
up on the front of the teacher's desk in each classroom,
with a big red mark opposite 68°, so that the teacher
can see when the room is getting too hot. It is a good
thing to have the thermometer in this conspicuous
place, and it would be still better if some one could
invent a thermometer that would ring a bell at 68°
and discharge some bad smell into the air when it
got above 70°. Then the windows would have to
be opened.

Fresh air — that is, cool moving air — is essential to

KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY 137

the health of the skin and the skin blood vessels and to
the comfort and health of the whole body.

Ventilation. — We shut oursdves up in heated build-
ings in winter in order to keep warm; and if we are not
careful, we get too warm, and our health may be se-
riously injured, both by the heat itself and by the sud-
den shock we feel when we go out into the chill outer air.
The remedy for this is to introduce all the time a supply
of moderately cool fresh air; this process is called ven-
tilation.

In a living room where there are not many people,
plenty of air will get in — if it is cold outside — through
cracks in the window frames and floors and other
places. But where a great many people are crowded
together, as in a schoolroom, it is generally necessary
to provide some special way for the air to enter. Every
human body produces about as much heat as a candle
flame, and you can see that if the schoolroom were
closed up tightly and a candle were burning in each
seat, the room would heat up quickly.

In letting the air in through the windows, we must
be careful to avoid a direct draft of very cold air on
the people who are sitting near them. Cool air is good
and moving air is good, but just as in the case of bathing
and clothing, we must be careful not to overdo it.
There are several things that can be done to prevent
dangerous drafts of this kind. If the steam radiators
in a schoolroom, for example, are placed along the
wall under the windows, they will warm the incoming
air. If sloping glass plates, called window-boards, are

HEALTHY LIVING

placed inside the window at the bottom, they will shoot
the cool air up and mix it with the rest of the air in the
room, so that it will not 'strike directly against any one.
In ventilating with windows, always remember that
the air should have a place to come in and a place to go
out. Warm air is lighter than cold air and tends to
rise. So if a window is open a little at the top and a

little at the bottom, or if
one window is open at
the top and another at
the bottom, the cool fresh
air will come in by the
lower opening and the
warm stale air will pass
out by the upper one.

In many schoolrooms
and factories and in most
lecture halls and theaters,
where a very great many
people are crowded to-
gether, it is necessary to
provide more fresh air than we can get by opening win-
dows. In such cases, the outside air is drawn in at the
basement by great revolving fans, is warmed a little,
and is then forced up to the rooms through big pipes
built into the building.

Outdoor Life. — No kind of ventilation can make
the air in our houses and schools quite as good as the
air outdoors, where the sun shines and the wind blows.
Every child who wants to get the most out of life while

Fig. 55- — A good way to arrange
the window so as to ensure
good ventilation.

KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY 139

he is a child, and to be strong and well when he grows
up, should play in the open air as much as possible,
except when it is very cold indeed or when it is rainy.
There is plenty of time for reading and sewing and
other indoor occupations in wet weather and in the
late afternoon; but swimming, roller-skating, bicycling,
baseball, and other games in summer, and skating,
coasting, and playing in the snow in winter are better
than books, while the sun is shining.

In the sleeping room, the windows should always be
open, wide open in summer and open a few inches even
in the coldest weather, for you cannot really get the
most rest out of your sleep time unless there is cool air
moving about you. Many people find it pleasant and
healthful to sleep out of doors on a sleeping porch or
balcony and, where this is possible, it is a very good plan
to follow.

Nancy's Dream. — Once upon a time a little girl
named Nancy dreamed that she and her friend, Vir-
ginia, were walking together through a wood in winter.
Soon they came to a high rocky cliff that rose up among
the trees, and in the middle of the cliff was a cave.
A red light shone out of the mouth of the cave; and as
they drew nearer, holding each other's hands because
they were just a tiny bit frightened, they saw that a
big fire was burning inside. About the fire, little figures
were moving. When two or three of them came out
to see who was passing, the children were not frightened
any longer, for they saw that the people who lived in
the cave were little Mountain Elves. The Elves came

140 HEALTHY LIVING

up to Nancy and Virginia and bowed very politely,
almost touching the ground with their tall, pointed caps.

"Won't you come in, pretty children/' they said,
"and rest by our fire? You can lie on soft couches of
pine needles in the warm cave, and we will sing you
to sleep with our sweet mountain lullabies."

"That sounds pleasant," said Nancy, "and it is very
polite of you to ask us."

"Wait a moment, though," said Virginia. "Who
are these coming?"

They all looked around, and who should come troop-
ing through the wood but a whole party of Snow
Fairies, dancing and leaping and frolicking, with little
shiny crowns of snow crystals in their hair.

"Come and play with us, children," they cried,
" Come out and romp in the snow. We will chase you
and roll you over and pinch your cheeks with the frost,
till they shine as pink as round apples in the autumn.
Our hearts are as light as the snow that the wind drives
before it, and we sparkle like the show crust when the
sun shines on it through the forest."

"I want to play with the Snow Fairies," cried Vir-
ginia joyously.

"No," said Nancy, "it is cold and I shall stay in the
cave." This was a dream, remember. In real life
Nancy and Virginia were such good friends that nothing
would have separated them; but in the dream Virginia
went off to play with the Snow Fairies and Nancy
dozed in the cave of the Mountain Elves.

Late in the afternoon Virginia and the Fairies came

KEEPING THE SKIN HEALTHY 141

storming back, and the light of the sun was in their eyes
and the breath of the wind was in their dancing. And
Virginia cried, "Oh, Nancy, we have had the most
wonderful time. We have played tag among the trees
on the smooth snow crust, and we have coasted down
the hills and built snow houses in the hollows. I never
had such a beautiful day in my life. What have you
done, Nancy?"

But Nancy, having done nothing at all but doze over
the fire, felt dull and cross and sleepy. So when she
woke up after the dream was all over, she made up her
mind she would go out and play with the Snow Fairies
instead of staying by the fire, when she had the chance
next time.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Name four different things that your skin does for you.

2. Cold baths are generally taken in the morning and warm
baths at night. See if you can think of any reason for this.

3. The parts of the body that are covered by the clothes do
not come in contact with dirt outside. Why do they need
washing?

4. Describe the heads of the two boys shown in Fig. 53. Tell
what you think their clothes and hands probably look like, and
what their habits probably are.

5. Why are cold baths good for the skin? How can you tell
whether your bath is too cold?

6. Why should wet clothes be changed as soon as possible?

7. What should be the highest temperature of the school-
room? What happens if the schoolroom gets too hot?

8. What is ventilation?

9. How should your sleeping room be ventilated?

142 HEALTHY LIVING

10. Find out how your schoolroom is ventilated. If there is a
special system of ventilation in the building, find out the loca-
tion of the registers for letting the air in and out.

11. Eleanor took a cold bath and a brisk rubdown every
morning. She played outdoors as much as she could. She wore
wraps when it was cold, and took them off at once when she
came into the house. Susan hated cold water, and wore heavy
clothing all the time, and sat huddled up over the fire reading
in a close room most of the afternoon. When an epidemic of
grip broke out in the school, which one do you think caught it?
Explain why.

12. Tell the story of the Snow Fairies and the Mountain
Elves in your own words. What lesson did Nancy learn from
her dream?

CHAPTER XIII
FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS

The Story of William Tell.— Freedom is one of the
things for which we Americans care more than for life
itself. Again and again the Stars and Stripes have gone
into battle for freedom, from the time our nation was
born in 1 776 until we entered the greatest of all wars for
liberty in 1917. So we like to hear stories of other
peoples who have fought for freedom against heavy
odds; and one of the best stories of this kind is about
William TeU.

About six hundred years ago, according to this story,
the Austrian emperor had sent his soldiers into certain
parts of Switzerland to rule over the land. His governor
in one part of the country, according to this story, was
a man named Gessler, who oppressed the unhappy
Swiss people with every kind of cruelty. Among other
wicked and foolish acts, he set up in a certain town a tall
pole with an Austrian cap on the top of it, and he or-
dered that every one who passed should uncover his
head before the Austrian cap, as a sign of reverence for
the emperor.

There was a party of brave Swiss who were not willing
to submit to the tyrants, and among them was a famous
bowman named William Tell. (There were no guns like
ours, in those days. Men fought with crossbows,

143

144 HEALTHY LIVING

which shot arrows instead of bullets.) Tell and his
little son walked past the pole one day and did not
take off their caps to pay respect to Austria. They
were quickly arrested by the soldiers; and Gessler
thought of a cruel punishment, which he hoped would
frighten the people and make them submit. He bal-
anced an apple on the boy's head and said to the father:
"I hear you are a great shot with the crossbow. Let
me see you cut that apple in half with an arrow. If
you miss it, I will have you put to death."

Gessler thought that both the boy and his father
would be frightened, and that Tell would either kill
his own son or miss entirely. But the boy stood up as
firm as a rock and smiled bravely at his father; and
William Tell himself aimed coolly and hit the apple right
in the middle, so that it fell in two pieces, without a
hair of his son's head being injured. A great shout of
joy went up from the people. As the gallant archer
turned away, a second arrow fell from his belt.

"What was that second arrow for?" asked the gov-
ernor.

"To have shot you, if the first had slain my son,"
replied William Tell.

For this bold reply he was arrested again; but he
escaped and later he killed Gessler with one of his swift
arrows. According to the story, this was the beginning
of the long war in which the Austrians were finally
driven from Swiss soil, so that Switzerland became free,
as she is to this day.

Some Enemies to Freedom. — Freedom, of course,

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS

145

does not mean that each of us is free to do just as he
likes without consideration for the good of other people.
A man who is free is one who can do what he believes
is right, so long as it does not harm any one else. The

Fig. 56. — William Tell was able to hit the apple on his son's head and
defy the tyrant because both he and the boy had strong muscles
and steady nerves.

things that Gessler wanted William Tell to do were
foolish and wicked. We are all glad the Swiss fought
successfully against the Austrians; and we Americans
will always be ready to fight against any one who tries
by force to make weaker peoples do what is wrong.

There are other things, however, that rob people of
their freedom, besides kings and emperors. There are

146 HEALTHY LIVING

men and women in the United States to-day, men and
women in your own state and town, who are not free.
Do you know what it is that makes them slaves, that
keeps them from doing what they know is really good
and right?

You have learned in an earlier chapter something
about habits — how easy it is to form them, and how
hard it often is to break them after they are formed,
whether they be good habits or bad. It is bad habits
that rule over these people we have been thinking of,
as Gessler tried to rule over the Swiss, — the habit of
eating or drinking or smoking some particular thing
that is bad for them, that they know is bad for them
but have not the strength of character to give up.
When a man says, "I cannot get along without my
coffee," or "I must have a cigar, for I cannot work
without it," or "I am no .good without my glass of
wine or of whiskey," — he is not a free man but a slave
to a bad habit. It is part of the duty of a good Amer-
ican to keep himself free from such habits, as well as
free from tyrants of the human kind.

Tea and Coffee. — The fact that tea and coffee some-
times become tyrants does not mean that such drinks
are necessarily bad. For grown people, particularly
when they have been working hard, a cup of tea or
coffee is often a good thing. Tea and coffee are what
are called stimulants, that is, they make a person who
is tired feel fresher and more vigorous for a time.

The use of stimulants, however, is something like urg-
ing on a tired horse. Sometimes when there is just a

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 147

little way farther to go, we may have to do it; but if
a tired horse is driven too far, he will break down. If a
tired body is forced to work too hard, it is likely to
break down, too. Above all, it is very dangerous to
depend on stimulants so that we grow to need them all
the time, and cannot work or enjoy life without them.
Then one has become a slave, which a real American
will never be.

A child has no necessity for stimulants at all. Older
people may sometimes be so tired that they need them,
but no healthy child ever does. A child is much more
sensitive to the harmful effects of tea and coffee than
a grown person; and the use of these drinks may do
children serious harm.

The Tobacco Habit.— Another of the habits for
which people sometimes give up a good share of their
freedom is smoking.

The use of tobacco is more objectionable than the
use of tea and coffee. Smoking is an expensive habit,
for a good deal of money is burnt up in the course of a
year in the form of cigars or cigarettes. It is an un-
pleasant habit for those who do not share it, since it
fills the air and the clothes and the hair of every one
in the room with stale-smelling smoke. It is a habit
which may do serious damage to the health. People
who smoke a great deal injure the soft, delicate surfaces
of the nose and throat and are likely to have a nasty,
dry cough as a result. They injure their digestions and
their hearts; a heavy smoker cannot exercise actively
without panting and puffing, because his heart is usually

148

HEALTHY LIVING

not strong enough to supply the needs of his muscles
fully. They injure their nerves and their brains. The
hand of a hard smoker often trembles as a result of
this action upon the nerves. Boys and men who are

Fig. 57. — Men and boys who are members of athletic teams are never
allowed to use alcohol or tobacco.

training for rowing and football and other athletic con-
tests are never allowed to smoke.

As in the case of tea and coffee — only much more so —
the danger from tobacco is most serious in youth.
Grown people can smoke a little without harm, provided
they do not form so strong a habit that they are no

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 149

longer free to stop when they wish. For children and
young people, tobacco is always harmful. No boy who
wants to be strong and well, a successful man and a
good citizen, will touch it in any form.

Medicines and When to Use Them. — When you
are ill, the doctor is sent for, and sometimes perhaps
he gives you medicines. These medicines, or the sub-
stances they contain, called drugs, are given for par-
ticular effects they have on the body, to remedy some-
thing that is going wrong. For instance, if a person is
very .ill and his heart is weak, a stimulant drug may
be given to make the heart beat more strongly. Only
the doctor can know when drugs should be given,
what ones to use and how much of each; and even
doctors nowadays do not use drugs nearly as much as
they used to.

Yet some people who ought to know better take
medicines without asking the doctor at all, medicines
perhaps which are sold at the drug store with labels
claiming that they will cure all sorts of diseases. Such
medicines are almost always useless. Many of them
are absolute frauds, put up simply to cheat people out
of their money; and others contain dangerous drugs
which may do very serious harm.

The most dangerous of all medicines are certain drugs
which affect the brain and nerves, and which people
get in the habit of taking and soon cannot get along
without. The most unfortunate people on earth are
those who have lost their freedom by becoming slaves
to certain of these drugs.

150 HEALTHY LIVING

The only safe rule is never to use medicines or drugs
of any kind, except under the doctor's orders.

Alcohol as a Drug. — There is one harmful drug which
many people have unfortunately used more or less
regularly in their daily life. This drug is alcohol, which
is present in wines of various kinds and ale and beer,
and in much larger amount in " strong drinks," such
as rum, gin, brandy, and whiskey.

Alcohol is not a stimulant, like tea or coffee. It
does not wake a person up, but rather puts him partly
to sleep. At first it affects only certain parts of the
brain and particularly the inhibitions which you learned
about in* Chapter V. What do you think will be the
result if something happens to make the inhibitions
work less effectively? A person who has taken a drug
of this kind would be likely to do things and say things
that he would have too much sense and judgment to
do or say if he were not under its influence, would he
not? That is just the effect of alcoholic drinks if they
are used in excess; and a very little may be an excess
for many people. So the alcoholic drinks are excellent
examples of things that take away the freedom which
is the privilege of every American citizen, the freedom
to do always what one really believes to be right and
proper to do. No one who is under the influence of
alcohol is a free man.

The Effect of Alcoholic Drinks on Health. — When
alcoholic drinks are used in excess, they do direct dam-
age to many different organs of the body. They may
injure the delicate walls of the stomach. They damage

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 151

the liver and the kidneys. They cause disease in the
heart and the walls of the blood vessels. These effects
are so serious that people who drink a large amount
of alcoholic liquor — and also those who drink only
moderate amounts but do it as a regular thing year
after year — do not live so long, on the average, as those
who are free from this habit.

Alcoholic Drinks and Success in Life. — Long before
alcohol shows its effect upon the health of the liver
and blood vessels and the other organs mentioned, it
begins to influence the nerves and brain, and through
them lessens the power to do any sort of hard and skilful
work. Even a single drink of the stronger alcoholic
liquors affects the quickness of a man's nerves and the
accuracy of his actions. He becomes a little bit slow
and a little bit clumsy.

The world nowadays has not much use for slow and
clumsy people. In the factory and in the office, a man
or a woman must think quickly and act quickly; and
the one who will get to the top is the one who can do
the work best and in the shortest time. So most of the
large employers of labor long ago decided not to em-
ploy men who drank alcoholic liquor. Many railroads,
for instance, forbade their men to use alcohol at all.
Think what might happen on a railroad if the engineer's
brain were not perfectly clear and his hand perfectly
steady. The lives of the people on the train may de-
pend on his seeing a signal and stopping at the right
moment; and those lives will be in danger if he has
clouded his brain by drinking alcoholic liquor.

152

HEALTHY LIVING

It is not only personal success that a man gives up if
he becomes a slave to the habit of using alcohol. The

Fig. 58. — The safety of hundreds of people depends on the
sureness and the quickness of the man who drives the
locomotive. If he should weaken his power of control
by the use of alcoholic liquor, all their lives would be
in danger.

railroad engineer who wrecks his train because he was
not sober is himself one of hundreds who may perhaps
be killed as a result. Whenever we do any of our work
badly, it hurts some one else.

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 153

The Cost of Alcohol. — The habit of using alcoholic
drinks is a very expensive and a very wasteful habit.
It wastes health, on account of the direct damage done
to the drinkers. It wastes time and energy, on account
of the poorer work they do. It wastes the money which
it costs to build and keep up the factories where the
alcoholic drinks are made. It wastes the valuable food
substances which are used to make them.

Wines are made from grapes, by pressing out the
juice and letting it stand and ferment. Fermentation
is a change of the sugar in the grapes into alcohol and
other substances, and this change is brought about by
the action of microscopic plants called yeasts (like the
yeast in a yeast cake). Most alcoholic liquors, except
wines, are made in a similar way from grains of various
kinds. You know that when the Great War began there
was not enough grain in the world to feed all the people
who needed it; so that in Belgium and France and
Russia there were many people who were very hungry.
It was clearly a poor plan to take the grain that men and
women and children needed to keep them alive, and
turn it into alcoholic drinks which could only do harm.

Alcohol in War Time and After. — When a nation
goes to war, every one must work harder and better
than ever before for the common good. The men in
the army, the men and the women in the factories and
on the farms and in the shipyards, the women who are
saving food at home and working for the Red Cross, —
yes, and the children, too, in the Junior Red Cross, —
every one must do his or her very best. There is no

154 HEALTHY LIVING

room any more for people who are made slow and
stupid by the use of alcohol.

So, very early in the Great War which began in 1914,
Russia stopped the sale of strong alcoholic drinks.
Then France and England passed laws to limit the use
of strong drinks. They knew that no nation can do
anything with all its might if its people are dulled by
alcohol. America came into the war, and the same
thing happened here. President Wilson stopped the
making of strong alcoholic drinks during the war, and
the Congress at Washington passed an amendment to,
the Constitution of the United States which forbade
the sale of all kinds of alcoholic liquors and which,
having been agreed to by more than three-quarters of
the states, became a part of the Constitution.

These lessons learned in war time as to the harmful
effects of alcohol will not be forgotten. As a result of
the war, it seems likely that millions of people will be
freed from the habit cf using alcoholic liquors, a habit
which has perhaps done more harm in the world than
even tyrannical emperors and kings.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Tell the story of V/illiam Tell and the tyrant, Gessler.
What lessons does it teach?

2. What sort of things, besides tyrannical kings, may rob
people of their freedom?

3. What is a stimulant? What happens if stimulants are
used too much?

4. What are some of the objections to the use of tobacco?

5. Two high school boys were training for an athletic team.

FREEDOM FROM BAD HABITS 155

Their captain had warned them not to smoke. One of them did
as he was told, but the other had formed the habit of using
cigarettes and went on using them in secret. Tell which one
was the freer of these two boys, the one who did what he was
told or the one who did not, and explain why.

6. Why is it foolish to use medicines without asking the doc-
tor?

7. What effects does alcohol have on the activities of the
body?

8. Explain why it is dangerous for a man who drives an auto-
mobile to use alcoholic drinks.

9. What are wines made from? What are beer and whiskey
and most other alcoholic drinks made from? What better use
could be made of the materials from which these drinks are
manufactured?

10. Why did most of the great nations limit the use of alco-
holic drinks in war time? Do the same reasons apply in times
of peace?

CHAPTER XIV
OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES

Daniel Boone, the Indian Fighter. — Did you ever
think that the place where you now live was once upon
a time deep forest or open prairie, with no houses or
farms but only wild beasts and a few Indian huts?
Perhaps it is a great city now with tall buildings and
trolley cars; or it may be a pleasant countryside of
rich farms and peaceful villages. A hundred years ago,
however, — or two hundred or three hundred, — it was
all wild country. The first explorers were in constant
danger from the forest creatures and the Indians, and
they knew they might have to fight for their lives and
the lives of their families at any hour of the day or
night. Perhaps you have seen pictures of the Puritans
in New England going to church on a Sunday morning,
each man with his gun on his shoulder, ready in case
an Indian attack should come.

After the Atlantic states had been settled, the white
men pushed farther and farther west. In each place
the brave pioneers took possession of the new lands at
the risk of their own lives. One of the most famous
of these pioneers was Daniel Boone. He was born more
than a hundred and fifty years ago in Virginia; but he
soon sought for adventure in the unknown lands to the
west. He and five other companions pushed out into

156

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 157

the wilderness of what is now Kentucky. Boone was
taken prisoner by the Indians, but made his escape and
lived for nearly two years in the forest, part of the time
alone and part of the time with his brother, who had
followed him from their home. The Boones were mighty

Fig. 59. — Daniel Boone, pioneer fighter of wild beasts and Indians.
The microbes must be fought to-day, as the bears and wolves
were fought a hundred and fifty years ago.

hunters and trapped and killed bears and other wild
animals, so as to make furs out of the skins.

In 1775 Daniel Boone went out with a large party
and built a fort of logs at the place now called Boones-
borough. Three times this fort was attacked by the
Indians, and the last time there were four hundred and
fifty of them against Boone's little force of fifty men.

158 HEALTHY LIVING

Can you imagine the wooden fort with narrow loop-
holes through which the guns of the white men were
pointing, as the Indians came dashing out of the forest
to the attack? No enemies had any terrors, however,
for Boone and his companions. They beat off the
Indians> even though they were nine to one against
them; and after this the fort at Boonesborough was
never attacked again.

We ought always to remember gratefully these brave
men who went out into new lands and killed the wild
beasts and cut down the forests so that we could have
farms and villages and cities and enjoy them in peace.

Our Enemies of To-day. — We do not have to fight
wild animals any more. Daniel Boone and other
pioneers have driven them away, so that we can live
in peace so far as they are concerned. There are still
enemies about us, however, in every city and town and
country village. You never hear your father say that
Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones has been killed by a bear, as
Daniel Boone 's children must have sometimes heard
their father say when he came home from hunting.
But you do sometimes hear that Mr. Jones or Mr.
Smith has died of typhoid fever or tuberculosis or
pneumonia. It is against these diseases that we must
fight, as our great-grandfathers or great-great-grand-
fathers fought against wild beasts in earlier days.

There are some kinds of sickness that we cannot
avoid. When a person grows old, he gradually becomes
less and less vigorous and at last is sure to suffer from
sickness of some kind. In youth and even in childhood

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 159

certain people are naturally not so strong as others.
There is another class of diseases, however, which are
not the result of any necessary weakness of the body
but are caused by something which comes from out-
side, an enemy just as real as the Indians who attacked
the fort at Boonesborough; and such diseases can be
avoided.

The enemies which cause the diseases we are thinking
about are the tiny living things called microbes or
germs, discussed in Chapter IX. They are so small, you
remember, that we cannot see them at all, except by
using a very powerful microscope. They are smaller
even than the cells of the blood that were described
on page 123. Yet it is these microbes that cause
some of the commonest diseases from which people
suffer — from colds to diseases like tuberculosis, — and
sometimes they produce great epidemics that kill hun-
dreds of thousands of people, as the influenza did in
1918. Such microbes kill more people in the United
States in one year than the Indians ever did in the
whole history of the country.

Fighting the Microbes of Disease. — You have prob-
ably seen a jar of jelly or preserves that had become
spoiled, with patches of mold on the top of it. This
mold is a microbe, which grows in masses so large that
you can see them; and microbes produce disease very
much as the mold microbe spoils the jelly. Each kind
of microbe causes its own particular sickness — one,
diphtheria; another, measles; another, scarlet fever;
another, whooping cough. When a child has diphtheria,

i6o

HEALTHY LIVING

for instance, it is simply because the germ of diphtheria
has gotten into his throat and is growing there and poison-
ing his whole body. If we could keep out the microbes,

Fig. 60. — Louis Pasteur, the great Frenchman
who discovered that microbes were the cause
of many of our deadliest diseases.

that child would never have diphtheria; and in the case
of many such diseases, we have learned how to protect
ourselves very effectively from these invisible enemies.
The man who first showed how to conquer the dis-
eases caused by microbes was a great Frenchman

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 161

named Louis Pasteur (pas tur'). Fifty years ago no one
knew the cause of typhoid fever or tuberculosis or any
of the other diseases of this kind. People fell sick,
sometimes one or two at a time, sometimes by hun-
dreds and thousands, and there was little that any one
could do to protect them. It was like fighting against
Indians that you could not see at all. What chance
would there be if invisible enemies could shoot off their
arrows at you, and you could never tell where they were
and could never see them to strike back?

It was Pasteur who first revealed to us our microbe
enemies. By the use of the microscope, he found that
in the bodies of animals and men suffering from cer-
tain diseases tiny living germs were growing. At first
no one would believe that they had anything to do
with causing sickness; but Pasteur worked patiently
on and showed that in each of these diseases there was
a special kind of microbe, and that this particular
microbe was, in each case, the cause of the disease.

Microbes as Friends and Foes. — There are many
different kinds of microbes, and only a few can pro-
duce disease. There are microbes all about us, a few
floating in the air, a few in the water we drink and the
food we eat, more in the dust on the floor, a great many
in the earth in the garden, and a great many in the
mouths and alimentary canals of people and of animals.
Most of them are entirely harmless, and some, as we
shall see, are really good friends of ours.

The Bacteria. — The commonest kind of microbes are
called bacteria. They are really very small plants;

162 HEALTHY LIVING

and if you were to look at them under the microscope,

they would look something like the things you see in

Figure 61. You never would think they were living

plants, would you? They look like little sticks or balls,

and are so small that 400,000,000 of them could be

packed into a single grain of granulated sugar. Yet

j* they are really alive.

j-> / *t^ ^/* I Some of them can

\ S x *,* v\ move about, and under

^ 1 f \ the microscope you

can see them swim-
ming along quite mer-

rily-

when bacteria are

living in something
which they can feed
upon, they grow larger

and larser> tm finally

' each one splits in half,

Fig. 61— The shapes of some of the and you have two

commoner kinds of bacteria, as they microbes where there

are seen under the microscope. wag only Qne ^^

While they are doing this, they are destroying the sub-
stance they are feeding on, and often they change its
appearance and its smell and its taste, so as to "spoil"
it, as we say. The decay of meat, the souring of milk,
the molding of jellies and preserves, are all the result
of the action of the bacteria or other microbes which
are growing in them. If there were no microbes, food
would not spoil at all. When your mother puts up

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 163

preserves, she heats the jars and the preserves them-
selves, so as to kill all the microbes that may be there;
and if the preserves do not keep, it is because some
of the microbes were not killed or others got in after-
ward.

Some Helpful Microbes. — Some kinds of microbes
are really helpful to us. The taste of butter is the result
of the action of bacteria growing in the cream from
which the butter was made. The flavor of cheese is
produced by other microbes. Vinegar is made from
apple juice by the action of microbes. Above all, the
microbes which live in the soil are very useful indeed
in helping to make the soil rich and fertile so that plants
can grow in it.

In far-northern Iceland, people used to believe that
there were two sorts of elves or fairies. The White
Elves were good fairies, who helped bake the bread and
churn the butter, who found things that were lost,
and sometimes swept the floor and tidied up a room
that had been left in disorder overnight. The Bad
Elves, on the other hand, were mischief makers, who
hid and broke things about the house, pinched the cat's
tail to frighten it when it was asleep, and led people
astray at night in the marshes by showing false lights
where there were no houses at all. The microbes are
really somewhat like these invisible fairies. We cannot
see them, but they are all about us. Some of them
are our friends, like the ones that make cheese and
work in the soil; some are our enemies, like those that
spoil foods and those that cause disease.

164 HEALTHY LIVING

Where the Disease Microbes Come From. — Most
plants and animals have a special sort of place where
they live, and we never find them anywhere else. Cer-
tain fishes live in the sea. Other kinds of fishes can
live only in fresh-water lakes. Certain birds, like the
sea-gulls, are found only near the ocean. Certain kinds
of insects live under stones or in old decaying logs,
while others fly about in the sunny meadows. It is
very much the same with the microbes. Some can live
in earth, others in water; and the kinds that cause
sickness generally live and thrive only in the human
(or animal) body.

This is one of the great lessons that we have learned
from the work of Pasteur: that the germs of disease do
not come from the air or the soil but from the bodies of
people. We know now why diseases of the kind that
are caused by microbes are "catching." When we say
some one has "caught" cold, we mean that he has been
near some one else who had a cold, and that the mi-
crobes that cause a cold have been passed from one
person to the other. Measles, scarlet fever, whooping
cough, diphtheria, typhoid fever, pneumonia, tuber-
culosis, and many more are diseases that are "catching"
or contagious.

The person from whom you "catch" one of these
diseases need not necessarily .be ill himself. Sometimes
if one is strong and well, the germs of a certain disease
may get into his throat, for instance, and live there
for a while without making him ill. Yet this person
can pass on some of these germs to some one else who

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 165

is not so strong, and the seconcl person may fall sick
as a result. Well people who have the germs of dis-
ease growing in their bodies in this way are called
carriers, because they carry the microbes about with
them.

Disease germs can live for a little while on things
that have been handled by a sick person or a carrier —
in food, for instance, or on handkerchiefs. Soon, how-
ever, they will die, unless they get into the body of
another human being, where they can begin to grow
again. Now you can see how it is possible to prevent
these diseases. Since every cold in the head, every
case of measles, scarlet fever, or any other sickness of
this kind, is caused by the passing on of germs from
one person to another, we can stop the disease by pre-
venting the spread of the germs.

How the Disease Microbes Pass from One Person
to Another. — There are three principal ways by which
the invisible germs are passed from one person to
another; and if you understand these three ways, you
can do a great deal to keep yourself and other people
about you safe from their attacks.

First of all, the microbes may be passed from one
person to another by direct contact or touching. Sup-
pose your father has a cold and you kiss him. You
will probably get the cold germs on your lips, and very
soon you may come down with the cold, in your turn.
When he coughs or sneezes, a fine spray of moisture is
thrown out from his mouth, and in these drops of water
there will be the germs which were growing in his mouth.

166 HEALTHY LIVING

If he sneezes behind Bis hand and then touches your
hand, and your hand goes to your mouth or nose, the
germs will be passed on to you, in a more roundabout
way but still by contact.

A second way in which disease germs often find their
way from one person to another is by means of water
or milk or some other food. If a man who is suffering
from some germ disease coughs over a milk pail, the
microbes from his mouth may be mixed up with a
whole batch of milk at the dairy and may be carried to
hundreds of people as a result.

Finally, the germs of some diseases are carried from
one person to another by insects, such as flies and
mosquitoes.

We sometimes speak of these three ways of spreading
disease as the Three F's — Fingers, Food, and Flies—
Fingers meaning all the various ways by which germs
pass from one person to another by contact; Food, the
spread of the germs by different foods; and Flies, the
carrying of disease microbes by flies and other insects.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Who was Daniel Boone and what did he do?

2. What enemies are there in your town against which you
will have to fight? Are there any men in the community who
are leading in this fight, as Boone and his companions led in the
fight against wild beasts?

3. Which do you think is more dangerous: a bear or a disease
germ? Give your reasons.

4. What causes food to spoil? How can the spoiling of food
be prevented?

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES 167

5. Who was Pasteur and what did he do?

6. What are some of the good things that microbes do for us?

7. What really happens when a person "catches cold"?

8. What are some of the diseases caused by microbes? Which
ones have you had?

9. Can you catch a disease from a person who is not sick him-
self? Explain.

10. In what three general ways do disease germs pass from
one person to another?

11. Does a person who is careless about catching diseases
harm any one besides himself? Explain.

CHAPTER XV

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH

The Wooden Horse of Troy. — Once upon a time the
armies of the Greeks were at war with a people called
the Trojans, who lived in the powerful city of Troy.
For a long while the Greeks camped outside the walls
of the city and tried to capture it, but the Trojans
with spears and arrows and great stones drove them
off and killed some of their bravest leaders.

At last Ulysses, one of the wisest of the Greeks,
thought of a plan by which to capture the city through
a trick. The Greeks pretended to be giving up the
attack, and their ships sailed away and hid behind an
island near by. The Trojans, thinking the war was
over, poured out of the city where they had been shut
up and eagerly examined the deserted camp of the
Greeks. In this camp they found a very strange thing,
an enormous wooden horse.

They were curious about this horse, for no one could
think what it might be for. Some wanted to bring it
into the city as a prize; others were afraid and advised
that it be left on the seashore. At last they were per-
suaded that it would be a fine thing to have the wooden
horse in the city. So they managed with great difficulty
to get it inside the walls and ended the day with feasts
and rejoicing.

168

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH 169

Now this is what the clever Greeks had done. The
great horse was hollow, and inside it were Greek soldiers.
In the night when the Trojans were all asleep, these
soldiers came out and opened the gates of the city to
the rest of the Greeks, who had sailed back and landed
again after nightfall. In this way the mighty city of
Troy was at last taken.

What do you suppose this story has to do with
keeping well? Just this. The disease germs are our
enemies, just as the Greeks were the enemies of the
people of Troy. We can keep them out, just as the
Trojans could have kept out the Greeks; but very often
we do what the Trojans did. We bring the enemy into
the city; we put the germs of disease right into our own
mouths. Let us see how we can be on our guard against
doing anything so foolish.

The Camp of the Enemy. — The Trojans knew that
the wooden horse had been made by the Greeks and
left by them in the camp, and they ought to have been
on the watch for some danger from it. Where should
we look for our enemies, the disease microbes, so that
we may not let them get into our bodies?

You learned in the last chapter that these disease
microbes always come from the bodies of other people.
In most cases, it is the discharges from the nose and
throat in which our invisible enemies lie hidden. The
spray thrown out in coughing and sneezing, the matter
coughed up, and the material that soils the handker-
chief— these are the original sources of infection. Any
one who has a cold or any other sickness should take

170

HEALTHY LIVING

the greatest care to avoid spreading these discharges.
People should always cough or sneeze in a handkerchief
and not in some one else's face. They should not kiss
other people or shake hands with them when suffering
from any germ disease. They should not leave soiled

Fig. 62. — Faithful guardians of the public health.

handkerchiefs about or handle unnecessarily anything
that other people may have to handle afterward.

In some diseases, like typhoid fever, the germs are
in the discharges from the bowels and bladder, and this
is the reason why every one should take the greatest
care to wash the hands thoroughly after using the toilet.

Your Busy Fingers. — The fingers are among the
busiest and most useful parts of your body. Writing,

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH 171

sewing, playing the piano, carrying things, and holding
things — there are few waking hours when they are not
serving you. In the course of the day they handle
many things, and many of these things are dirty.
Nearly everything you touch has microbes on it. Most
of them, of course, are harmless germs; but often there
will be other kinds that have come from some person
who was coming down with a disease or who was a
carrier of the germs of disease. Then if you are not
careful, those busy fingers of yours may play the part
of the wooden horse and carry the enemy right to your
mouth, or to the piece of bread or the apple that is
going into your mouth.

This is the reason why older people are right in saying
to you so often, "Wash your hands, Johnny," or "Your
hands are dirty, Susan." It is not simply that they
are fussy about your looks, though dirty hands are not
very pleasant to Look at.

Above all, it is important to wash those busy fingers
very carefully before handling food that is to go into
your mouth. There is no rule more important than
the rule that The hands should be thoroughly washed
before you eat. It does not matter whether your hands
look clean or not. There might be millions of germs
there, without your being able to see them. The next
time that it seems a bother to go and wash your hands
before lunch or before eating an apple, remember the
Trojan horse. Don't let the microbes play a trick on
you. Scrub them away with warm water and soap.
Do a good thorough job of it, and then wipe your hands

172 HEALTHY LIVING

on a clean towel. All the good of the washing may be
undone if you use a towel that some one else has used,
for then a good supply of his germs may be rubbed on
your hands, just at the time when you think they have
been cleaned.

The Mouth as the Gateway to the Body. — Since it is
generally by way of the mouth that the germs of disease
find their way into the body, we ought to guard our
mouths just as carefully as the Trojans guarded the
gates of their city, before they made their great mis-
take about the wooden horse.

There is no more disagreeable trick, and no more
dangerous trick, than the habit many children have of
picking at nose or mouth and putting into the mouth
pencils, pins, money, marbles, and all sorts of dirty
things. Just think a little what the history of some of
these things may have been. The pencil was perhaps
used last by another child who had the same bad habit
of putting things into his mouth. He may have been
coming down with diphtheria, and if so, you will put
the germs of diphtheria right into your own mouth if
you put the pencil there. Or the penny may have been
dropped on the street and may have rolled through a
place where the germs of tuberculosis had been dis-
charged by a consumptive who had spit on the side-
walk.

You never know when things like this may happen.
It is absolutely impossible not to handle many things
that are dirty; but you can keep them from your lips.
The only safe rule is : Let nothing go to your mouth except

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH

173

Fig. 63. — Food in a pastry shop exposed to pollution from flies and
dust and handling.

Fig. 64. — The same shop with the food properly protected.

174

HEALTHY LIVING

clean food and your toothbrush. Let nothing go to your

nose except a clean handkerchief.

Clean Food. — It is very necessary, of course, that the

food which is to go into your mouth should itself be

clean and free from
harmful microbes.
Food that has been
handled by a sick
person or a carrier
may easily pass the
disease germs on to
some one else. Milk
has often spread dis-
ease to hundreds of
people at a time; and
so has water, in cases
where it has been pol-
luted by sewers empty
ing into the stream
or pond from which
the water was taken.

Fig. 65.— The use of a common drink- A person who is
ing cup is one of the best ways to feeling ill should never
pass germs from one mouth to ^^^ food ^ ^

another.

to be eaten by other

people; and since one may be a carrier without know-
ing it, the hands should always be washed before pre-
paring food.

In buying foods, particularly fruits and other foods
that are eaten raw, it is a good plan to avoid those that

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH 175

are exposed in the open street, or in the store, to flies
and dust. Think where the fly that walks over a fine
bunch of grapes may have been walking last! In many
cities the law requires that all such foods must be kept
under glass or covered in some other way. The same
care should be taken after the foods have been brought
home, for a fly in your kitchen may be just as danger-
ous as a fly in the grocery store.

Spoiled foods are likely to contain germs that make
people ill, and so it is important that foods should be
kept in a cool place and not kept too long. Chopped
or minced food should be watched carefully, for it is
particularly apt to decay. If any food is the least bit
spoiled, it should be thrown away.

Since the most dangerous kind of dirt is the material
from the mouth of another person, a drinking glass or
cup that has been used by some one else is always a
dirty thing. Even when it looks quite bright and clear,
you would find a great many microbes on the rim where
it had touched the lips, if you examined a little piece of
the rim under the microscope. Don't be a foolish
Trojan and put germs that may be dangerous into
your mouth, by using a drinking cup that has been
used by others. If you have not a glass of your own
and there is no bubble fountain in school, you can
learn to make a very good drinking cup out of paper
by folding it as shown in Fig. 66.

Raw Foods and Cooked Foods. — It was a very clever
man (or woman) who first invented cooking. Cooking
not only makes the food taste better and makes it easier

i76

HEALTHY LIVING

to digest, but makes it safer to eat and much less
likely to carry the germs of disease. The heat applied
in most methods of cooking will destroy any disease
germs which might be present. If there is any doubt
about the drinking water, it can be made quite safe
by boiling it.

Raw milk has probably caused more cases of disease
than any other food (except water), for it may carry

A Piece of Paper
7 Inches Square

Fold I> on F

OK the Line

4~ C

/rtsert A. in
PoubleFoldo/C

fold B Back antt
Open atony f/ieLineE F

Fold C on E overD*

Fig. 66. — How to make a paper drinking cup.

disease germs not only from milkers and people at the
dairy but also from the cow itself, since cows often
suffer from tuberculosis. The way to make milk ab-
solutely safe is to pasteurize it. This word, as you
would guess, comes from the name of Pasteur. Pas-
teurizing milk means that it is heated to a temperature
a little below boiling and kept hot for about half an
hour. If this is done carefully, any disease germs will

CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH 177

surely be killed, without harming the taste of the milk.
In most cities you can buy good pasteurized milk; but
where you cannot, the milk can easily be made safe at
home. The bottle of milk should be set in a deep
pan of water, and the water should be heated just to
boiling. Then let the pan stand for half an hour,
after which the milk should be taken out and quickly
cooled.

Not all the foods we eat can be made safe by cooking.
In fact, it is quite necessary for our health that we
should eat some raw foods, since cooking destroys cer-
tain food substances the body needs. Raw foods —
lettuce, celery, apples, pears, and the like — should be
carefully washed before eating.

The Care of Cuts and Wounds.— The Greeks might
have entered Troy, not through the gateway, but
through a hole in the wall, if they could have found one.
Just so, harmful microbes may get into our bodies
through a cut or a wound anywhere on the surface of
the body. The skin is like a wall which keeps the
microbes out; but if it is broken, there is always likely
to be trouble. When you cut yourself in any way, the
place should be washed with clean warm water and
then protected from dirt by a clean gauze bandage.
If the cut is a bad one, it should be dressed as quickly
as possible by a doctor; but if it is a little one and your
mother has taken a Red Cross course, perhaps she can
put a little iodine on and then dress it herself. In any
case, the place should be watched carefully. If it be-
comes painful and red and angry, it means that danger-

178 HEALTHY LIVING

ous germs are growing there, and the doctor should be
consulted immediately.

Of course, you children who have been learning
about microbes would never think of picking at a cut
or a scab of any kind, because you will understand how
easily such picking may infect the wound with just
the kind of germs you want to keep out.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Tell the story of the way in which the Greeks took the city
of Troy.

2. Explain what the wooden horse of Troy has to do with the
spread of the germs of disease.

3. Describe some of the ways in which disease germs are
carried from one person to another.

4. Think of all the things you have touched with your ringers
since you last washed your hands. Could any of them have been
soiled with material containing the germs of disease?

5. How often should you wash your hands? Why?

6. George did not want to wash his hands before lunch be-
cause they looked perfectly clean. Explain why he was wrong.

7. What are some of the things we should be careful about,
in buying and keeping foods?

8. How can milk .be pasteurized? What does pasteurization
do to the milk?

9. Susan was constantly borrowing pencils and other things
from the children near her in school, and she had the bad habit
of putting everything she handled into her mouth. Her teacher
said, "That child is a danger to every other child in the room."
What did she mean?

10. What should be done when you cut your finger? Why?

CHAPTER XVI
SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS

The Fly Family. — When the flies buzz about on the
window pane and tickle your face in the early morning
and bother you at mealtimes by running over the sugar
and getting into the jug of cream, did you ever wonder
where they come from? They are neighbors of ours and
often uninvited guests in our houses and at our tables.
We ought to know a little about their habits, so that
we may find out whether they should be welcome
guests or not.

Mother Fly has quite a large family, a hundred or
more children at a time. She lays her eggs — tiny white
eggs so small that you can just barely see them — in
horse manure about stables if she can find it, or in
almost any kind of decaying material. Then she flies
away. In about a day the eggs break open, and out
of each one comes — what do you suppose — a little fly?
Not at all. There comes out of each egg a tiny white
worm (just as there comes from the egg laid by a butter-
fly, not a butterfly but a caterpillar).

The fly maggot or larva,1 as the little worm is called,
crawls about in the manure and feeds upon it. It
grows and thrives on this unpleasant food, till after
four or five days it is about three-eighths of an inch long.

1 A single maggot is called a larva, more than one, larvce (lar've).
Pupa is pronounced pu'pa; and pupa, meaning more than one, is pu'pe.

179

i8o

HEALTHY LIVING

Then it burrows down into the ground underneath, or
out into the dry edges of the manure pile, and there its

Fig. 67. — The giant model of a fly in the American
Museum of Natural History, New York. The
artist who made the model is putting the
finishing touches to his work.

skin splits open and uncovers a little brown thing like a
seed, which is called a pupa.1 In just the same way, as
perhaps you may have seen, a caterpillar (which is the
larva of a butterfly) changes into a pupa.
JSee Note on page 179.

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS 181

Inside the pupa case, the young fly sleeps for four
or five days more. At last the brown pupa skin splits,
just as the skin of the larva did, and there comes out
a full grown fly, just like its mother. It wriggles up to
the air and soon flies away, to seek out your sugar bowl
or cream pitcher and have a meal.

Is the Fly a Good Neighbor? — Now that you know
the history of the Fly children, I think you can make
up your mind for yourself whether they are desirable
guests at the dinner table or not.

A fly's feet seem quite dainty and small. If you
looked at them under a microscope, however, you would
see that they have claws and soft sticky pads on the
end (by the use of which the fly can walk on the wall
or ceiling just as easily as on the floor). On these claws
and pads there is plenty of room for microbes. It has
been found, by the men and women who study germs,
that thousands of microbes are actually carried by these
tiny feet from the filthy places where flies live. It is not
pleasant to think that even one fly has been tracking
his dirty feet over our food. Worst of all, however, is the
fact that every now and then the fly has been walking
where there were germs of some special disease like
typhoid fever; and if these germs are carried to the
food, an outbreak of disease is very likely to result.

Little babies often suffer in summer from diseases of
the intestines. Studies made in New York City showed
that half of this kind of sickness could be prevented by
keeping flies out of the baby's room and away from its
food.

182

HEALTHY LIVING

Fighting the Fly. — From these facts you will realize
that in every town and every school and every house-
hold there must be a
vigorous fight made
against the Fly Family.

Sometimes people
who want to get rid
of flies try to do it by
killing them by hand.

Fig. 68. — If you think where the fly
may have been last, you will want to
keep him away from the dinner table.

We hear now
and then about
"Swat-the-
Fly" campaign.
Fly killers are
often useful to
get rid of the
flies that are actually in our houses, though sticky fly
paper is generally more effective. But we can never
destroy all the flies indoors if they are coming in freely
from the outside. So doors and windows should all
have tightly fitting screens in summer; and remember
that a screen door is not very useful if it is held open
while a child stands on the step and talks to some one
outside — as I have seen some children do.

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS 183

A great many flies can be caught in traps. A fly trap
is usually a cage of wire netting, which has inside a
cone of wire, with a large opening at the bottom and
a small opening at the top. Underneath the lower
opening of the cone is placed a bait of some food that
flies like. The flies which come to feed on this bait will
fly and crawl up through the cone into the cage. Once
inside, they do not know enough to find the hole and
get out again.

The best way of all to fight against the Fly Family
is to prevent the fly babies from growing up at all in
the neighborhood of our houses. If stable manure is
kept in tight covered bins, and if refuse of all kinds is
cleared away from back yards and open lots, there will
be no places for flies to breed.

Mrs. Mosquito and Her Habits. — There is another
summer neighbor of ours whom we ought to know
something about, and that is Mrs. Mosquito, who buzzes
about our beds at night and gives us the bites that itch
and sometimes smart so painfully.

Mrs. Mosquito is much more cleanly in her habits
than Mrs. Fly. When she starts her family off in life,
she seeks, not a manure pile, but a pool of stagnant
water, or a slowly running stream half choked up with
weeds, or perhaps an old rain barrel, or even a tin can
in the back yard in which a little rain water has col-
lected. She lays her eggs on the surface of the water,
for her babies live in water, as Mrs. Fly's children live
in decaying matter. The larvae which hatch out from
Mrs. Mosquito's eggs are little brownish creatures with

184 HEALTHY LIVING

tufts of hair on their bodies. They are often called
"wigglers," because of the way they swim about in the
water by jerking their bodies from side to side.

After a week or so these larvae, like those of the fly,
change to pupae. The mosquito pupae are not motion-
less like the fly pupae. They can still jerk themselves
about in the wrater. They do not eat, however, but
rest quietly at the surface, unless they are disturbed.
After a few days they change again. The pupa skin
splits up the back and the grown-up winged mosquito
comes out. For a few minutes it stands on the old pupa
skin to dry its wings and then it flies away.

Why Mosquitoes are Dangerous. — We all know that
mosquitoes are a nuisance because they sting us and
keep us awake at night. You might not think they
would do any harm, however, since they breed in pools
and streams instead of in dirty places as the flies do.
Yet some kinds of mosquitoes are even more dangerous
than flies in spreading the germs of disease.

In many parts of the United States, and in most of
the warmer countries of the world, a disease called
malaria is common. The germ which causes this dis-
ease lives in the blood and attacks the red cells, which
carry oxygen to the different organs. This germ is
carried from one person to another by a mosquito. The
insect bites a person who has the malaria germ in his
blood. In sucking out the blood, the mosquito sucks
out also some of the malaria germs. Then it bites a
second person and introduces the germ into his blood,
giving him the disease in turn.

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS

185

Long ago it was noticed that malaria was generally
found in the low lands near streams and swamps, and
people thought there was something mysterious in the
air of such places that caused the disease. Now we
know that what made the air unhealthful was simply
the mosquitoes which were flying in it; and the
reason why mala-
ria occurred near
swamps was be-
cause there was
stagnant water
there in which
mosquitoes could
breed.

Only certain
kinds of mosqui-
toes can carry
malaria in this
way; and you can
easily tell the dif-

Fig. 69. — Resting position of the common
mosquito (right) and the malarial
mosquito (left).

ference between the malarial mosquitoes and the ordi-
nary kinds. The wings of the malarial mosquitoes are
spotted, while the wings of the commoner kinds are not.
The position of the malarial mosquitoes, when resting
on the wall, is different, too. They hold their bodies
out in a straight line from the wall, while the common
mosquitoes sit in a sort of hump-backed position, as
you can see by looking at Fig. 69.

Even the larvae of these two sorts of mosquitoes can
quite easily be distinguished. The larvae of the malarial

i86 HEALTHY LIVING

mosquito, when they are at rest in the water, lie flat
against the surface, while the larvae of the common
mosquito hang at an angle with the surface, their tails
only touching it.

How to Get Rid of Mosquitoes. — Screens will help
to keep mosquitoes, as well as flies, out of our houses.
But with mosquitoes, as with flies, the best thing to
do is to prevent the insects from breeding at all. We
can do this by draining the marshlands, by digging
ditches through which the water can flow out instead
of standing in little pools. We can clear small streams
of weeds and grass so that the water will run rapidly,
for Mrs. Mosquito will not lay her eggs in water that
is flowing fast. We can empty our old barrels and tin
cans and all such collections of water, so that there
may be no place where the little wigglers can live.

Sometimes when it is not possible to drain away
marshy pools in which mosquitoes might breed, oil is
sprayed over the pools. As oil is lighter than water, it
spreads out in a very thin layer over the top and kills
the mosquito larvae. The breeding of mosquitoes may
often be stopped by putting fish into a pond, for many
kinds of fish will eat up mosquito wigglers (see Fig. 70).

How America Built the Panama Canal. — One of ths
great things our country has done, of which all Ameri-
cans are proud, is the building of the Panama Canal.
You have probably learned in your geography about
this famous canal, which cuts through the Isthmus of
Panama between North and South America and makes
it possible for ships to pass directly from the Atlantic

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS

187

into the Pacific, without going all the way around
Cape Horn, as they used to do.

Long ago the French tried to build a canal across
this isthmus. One of the chief reasons why they did not
succeed was that their workmen fell sick of malaria and
other diseases, and particularly of one very terrible

Fig. 70. — Goldfish eating mosquito wigglers. These two fish de-
stroyed 98 wigglers in four minutes.

disease called yellow fever. No one knew at that time
what caused either malaria or yellow fever, and there
was therefore no way to protect the people who tried to
live and work in warm countries, where these diseases
prevailed.

At last it was found out that malaria, as we have seen,
is spread by the bite of a certain mosquito. A group
of American army doctors, headed by Walter Reed,

188 HEALTHY LIVING

then went to Cuba, where yellow fever was common,
to try to learn how to control it. They soon proved
that yellow fever, too, is spread by a mosquito, but by
a different kind from the one that carries malaria.

That sounds very simple, perhaps; but it was not at
all an easy thing to prove. The doctors suspected that
a special kind of mosquito carried the germ of yellow
fever. It was necessary to let these special mosquitoes
first bite people sick with yellow fever, and then bite
other well people, and see whether these well people
would become ill. It was a brave thing to do, to take
an almost certain risk of getting such a disease — as
brave as anything our soldiers have done in the trenches
in France. The men who were bitten by the mos-
quitoes which carried the germ developed yellow fever,
and one of them, Jesse W. Lazear, died of it. By
their heroism, they showed the world how yellow fever
was really caused, and therefore how it could be con-
trolled.

It was soon after this that the United States began
its attempt to build the Panama Canal. In view of the
discoveries made in Cuba, it was clear that it was
the presence of mosquitoes which made Panama
such a dangerous place. So Dr. W. C, Gorgas (who
later became the head of the Medical Corps of the
whole United States Army) was sent to Panama and
placed in charge of a campaign against these insects.
He was so successful that he wiped out yellow fever
on the Isthmus, and nearly abolished malaria as well.
The great canal was built; and one of the chief things

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS

189

that made it possible to build it was the knowledge of
how to control yellow fever and malaria.

Other Insect Bearers of Disease. — There are many
other insects which may spread the germs of dis-
ease, particularly in
the warm countries of
the Tropics. In the
trenches and in over-
crowded army camps,
there are sometimes
diseases caused by lice
— diseases which used
to be very common
everywhere in old
times, when people
did not keep as clean
as they do nowa-
days. It is important
that the greatest care
should be taken al-
ways to keep the head
and body and clothes Fig- 7i-— William Crawford Gorgas,
, A, conqueror of yellow fever and

Clean, SO that these malaria at Panama; Surgeon Gen-

dangerous insects may eral of the United States army.

not find a chance to develop.

How Children can Help to Fight the Mosquito and
the Fly. — Children can do many things to help in the
fight against the mosquito and the fly. Every good
citizen is anxious to rid his neighborhood of these pests,
but older people are often too busy to hunt about and

HEALTHY LIVING

find out where their breeding places are. Boys and
girls, with a little help from their teacher or some other
older person, can soon learn to recognize fly maggots
and mosquito wigglers. Then they can organize scout-
ing parties to find the manure piles and rubbish heaps
where the flies are developing, and the pools and rain bar-
rels and other places from which the mosquitoes come.

If Boy Scouts or other groups of children will hunt
.out the insect pests in this way and report to their
scoutmaster or parents or teachers where the trouble
lies, the breeding places can often be done away with
and the whole neighborhood made pleasanter and safer
to live in.

An Evening Talk. — One evening in midsummer
Mrs. Mosquito was sitting on the wall of the barn,
just under the eaves where it is warm and pleasant.
All at once there was a great buzzing, and Mrs. Fly
came flying along and settled down beside her, very
much hurried and out of breath.

"Good evening, my dear. You seem a little flus-
tered," she said to the newcomer politely, "Is any-
thing the matter?"

"Everything is the matter, indeed," replied Mrs. Fly
in a tone of bitter disgust. "I have just been chased
out of the house by a little girl with a fly-killer. I don't
mind that so much, because she never could get near
me. I took care of that. But inside the house every
single bit of food was covered so that I could get nothing
to eat. The lid was on the sugar bowl and a napkin
over the top of the cream pitcher."

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS

191

"It's too bad," Mrs.
Mosquito answered
feelingly. " I have had
a hard time, too. I
have been looking all
day for a good place
to lay my eggs so that
my babies could grow
up happily, and if you
will believe it, I could
not find a single one.
The swamp behind the Tr. , , ,-,,

r f rig. 72. — Mrs. Fly and Mrs. Mosquito

barn has been drained, decide that Cleanville is no place
and there is a tight for them.
cover on the rain barrel, and these wretched Boy Scouts
have even taken away the old tins by the fence at the
end of the orchard, which used to be full of water after
every rain. Life is very difficult nowadays."

"Yes, and it's all the fault of those same Boy Scouts,"
broke in her friend, still bursting with indignation.
"They found some of my brothers and sisters feeding

quietly and peaceably
in the manure pile.
They told their father
about it, and now he
keeps the manure in
a tight bin. And
they have cleaned up
the rubbish pile at
the end of the gar-

IQ2 HEALTHY LIVING

den. Mrs. Mosquito, this is no place for a poor
insect to get a living any longer. Let us move to
the next town and see if things are not better
there."

"I believe you are right," said Mrs. Mosquito. "I
believe you are right. Cleanville has no attraction for
insects any longer. We will leave it to the human
beings, and we will carry our malaria and typhoid germs
to some other place, where the people are kinder and
more hospitable." •

So they flew off together through the twilight; but
everybody else in Cleanville said that the Boy Scouts
had been doing a good summer's work.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. What stages does the fly pass through before it becomes
full-grown?

2. What harm may a fly do by walking over a slice of bread
on the table?

3. In some neighborhoods there are always a great many flies
in summer, and in others there are scarcely any. What do you
suppose is the reason for this?

4. How does a fly trap work?

5. Why does malaria occur in swampy regions?

6. Through what stages does a mosquito pass before it be-
comes full-grown?

7. How can you tell a malarial mosquito larva from the com-
mon kind? How can you tell a full-grown malarial mosquito
from the common kind?

8. When are mosquitoes likely to be most common: in a rainy
summer or a dry one? Why?

SOME UNDESIRABLE NEIGHBORS 193

9. Give one reason why America succeeded in building the
Panama Canal while the French failed.

10. Who discovered how yellow fever is caused? How was
this discovery made?

11. How can you help next summer in fighting against insect-
borne disease?

CHAPTER XVII
STOPPING THE SPREAD OF GERM DISEASE

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button? — You must
sometimes have played the game in which a button is
passed about a circle of children from one hand to
another, while a child in the center tries to guess where
the button is.

The spread of germ diseases in a family, or in a school,
or in a city, is somewhat like this game. A person who is
coming down with the disease, or is a carrier, brings in
the germs and passes them on to some one else, and so
it goes on from one to another. Only there is this dif-
ference. You can pass the button to only one person
at a time. The disease germs, on the other hand, are
constantly growing and increasing in numbers, so that
they may spread from one person to half a dozen others,
and from each of these to half a dozen more.

If the first boy who had the button put it into his
pocket and kept it there, instead of handing it to any
one, there would be an end of the game. In the same
way, if the first child who is coming down with a dis-
ease were prevented from passing his germs on to some
one else, there would be no more of that special kind of
sickness among his friends and schoolmates. This is
just what the Board of Health is always trying to

do: to find cases of germ disease and take care of

194

GERM DISEASE 195

them so that the germs may not spread to someone
else.

How to Prevent the Spread of Disease Germs. — In
unusual or very deadly diseases, like smallpox and
plague, the sick person is taken to a special hospital,
where he can be cared for without danger. In most
diseases, however, it is proper for the person to stay
at home, if he can be kept in a separate room where no
one goes, except his mother or nurse or whoever takes
care of him.

Everything that comes out of this room which may
contain the germs of the disease, such as bedclothes,
handkerchiefs, forks and spoons, glasses and cups,
should be boiled in water to kill the germs. The per-
son in charge of the sick room should take the greatest
care always to wash her hands thoroughly with warm
water and soap, or with a special solution provided
by the doctor to kill microbes. Otherwise, she may
easily carry the germs on her hands to the rest of the
family.

A child may often have diseases like whooping cough
or an ordinary cold in the head, without being sick
enough to be in bed or even shut up in the house. In
such a case, the child himself is the one who must try
to protect other people, by taking care that the dis-
charges from the nose and throat are not passed along
to others.

Wherever a case of a germ disease occurs, the Board
of Health puts up a placard at the door of the house
or of the apartment, to warn people that there is

196 HEALTHY LIVING

danger inside; and every one should of course keep
away from a house where such a placard has been
posted.

Danger Signals. — Most germ diseases are particularly
"catching" just at the beginning, before the child or
older person feels sick enough to go to bed and send
for the doctor. We ought to be on the watch for the
early signs of such diseases, either in ourselves or in
other people, just as the players in the button game
watch each other to see the conscious look on the face
of the one who has the button in his hand.

Here are some of the signs of the beginning of an
attack of a germ disease:

Coughing Watery eyes

Sneezing Headache

Running nose Rash or spots on the skin

Sore throat Weak, tired feeling

Hot, feverish feeling Vomiting

On a railroad track the train men sometimes hold out
a red flag, or at night a red lantern, to warn a coming
train that the track is not clear and that the train must
stop. Any one of the things in the list above is a warn-
ing sign that something is wrong, like the red flag held
out to stop the train.

These signs generally mean a cold in the head or a
sore throat which will probably be over in a few days.
They may, however, mean something more serious,
like influenza or scarlet fever. So we should keep away,
as much as possible, from any one who shows any of
these signs of sickness.

GERM DISEASE

197

Watching People
Who have been Ex-
posed to Germ Dis-
eases.—Particular care
should be taken to
watch people who have
been exposed to a germ
disease — people, that
is, who have been near
a sick person and are
therefore very likely to
have taken the germs
into their bodies.

When you catch a
disease, like measles,
from some one else,
you do not come down
with it right away.
For a few days or per-
haps a week or so,
nothing happens at all,
as far as any one can
see; and then at last
the coughing or the
sneezing or the run-
ning nose or the fever
begins. All the time something was really going on;
the germs were growing and multiplying in your body
until there were enough to make you feel really sick.

The doctors know how long it takes for the germs of

Fig. 73.— The Board of Health has
placards posted to warn every-
one away from a house or an
apartment where there is a dan-
gerous case of communicable
disease.

I98 HEALTHY LIVING

each disease to develop in the body in this way. In
many cases the Board of Health makes children who
have been exposed to a germ disease stay out of school
and away from other children, until this time is over
and it is certain that they are not coming down with
the disease themselves.

Keeping Disease Germs out of the Schoolroom. —
Many of the commoner germ diseases are particularly
likely to affect children, and so it is very important to
keep such germs out of the schoolroom, where they
may do so much harm. The simplest way to do this is
to watch carefully for children who are coming down
with some sickness and to send them home.

In most cities there are school doctors and school
nurses who are always on the look-out for such signs of
disease. It is their duty to examine any children whom
the teacher may think are not well, to see if they have
a germ disease and if they should be kept out of school
until they are no longer dangerous to others.

Your Own Responsibility about Germ Diseases. —
You children who are studying this book are old enough
to know what responsibility means. I am sure you all
try not to do anything that may hurt any one else
needlessly. Now all of us, children and grown people
alike, have a responsibility about the spread of germ
diseases.

You can never tell how much harm may come from
the passing on of the germs of disease from one person
to another. What is only a little cold in the head in one
may prove very serious in another. So if you have any

GERM DISEASE 199

of the signs of the germ diseases mentioned on page 196,
you ought to take the greatest care not to expose other
people to any danger. That means that you ought not
to go to school (unless the school doctor says it is all
right to do so) or play with other children. In your own
family, you ought to take pains not to cough or sneeze
in other people's faces, not to kiss or fondle other people,
and not to touch food they are to eat or things they
are likely to handle.

Above all, if you are ill, you should take the greatest
care not to play with babies or very young children or to
go anywhere near them. Germ diseases are much more
serious for babies than for older people. "A little cold
in a big person may be a big cold in a little person/'
some one has said; and it is a very true saying.

Why Alfred did not have the Measles. — Alfred was
a baby about eight months old, and Anna, his elder
sister, who often took care of him, thought he was a
very cunning baby indeed.

One day she heard her father say to her mother, "Do
you know that there is a great deal of measles about?
I hope the baby does not catch it. He is so delicate that
it might go very hard with him." Anna made up her
mind that he should not be sick if she could help it.

When she took Alfred out in his carriage, she was
very careful to keep away from houses which had the
Board of Health sign MEASLES on them, and not to
stop and speak to any children she knew, if they were
coughing or sneezing. One day as she was passing the
home of her friend, Ellen Ramsay, she saw Ellen sitting

2OO

HEALTHY LIVING

on the doorstep looking rather miserable and using her
handkerchief a great deal.

"Hullo, Anna/' she cried out, "come in and play
with me. And let me hold Alfred for a little while.
I think he's very cute."

"No, I don't dare to," replied Anna, backing away.

Fig. 74. — "No," replied Anna, "I am not letting anyone
come near him for fear he will get the measles."

"I'm not letting any one come near him, for fear he

should get the measles."

"Oh, come on! I haven't anything but a little cold."
"You don't know whether you have or not, Ellen,

and I'm going to take the baby away, to be sure. Good-

by. I hope you'll feel all right to-morrow."

"'Fraid Cat, 'fraid Cat," sang out EUen; and as

Anna went on up the street, the tears came into her

GERM DISEASE 201

blue eyes, for she knew she was not afraid for herself
and it was hard to be called a coward.

About two weeks later Anna heard her father and
mother talking about the measles again. "Do you
know the whole Ramsay family have it? And the baby
is very sick. They fear it may not live. Ellen got it
first and gave it to all the rest. It's lucky Alfred has
escaped, isn't it?"

Anna never told them it wasn't "luck" at all, but
her own good sense and the courage to do what she
knew was right, that had saved Alfred.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Compare the game of "Button, Button, Who's Got the
Button" with the spread of a germ disease.

2. What precautions should be taken by a person in charge
of a child sick with scarlet fever, so as to prevent the disease
being carried to others?

3. Make as long a list as you can, from memory, of the com-
mon signs of the beginning of an attack of a germ disease.

4. Susan had measles. Her brothers were perfectly well, but
they were kept out of school for two weeks. Why?

5. How do the school doctor and the school nurse help to
prevent outbreaks of disease in schools?

6. What are some of the things you should be careful about
when you have a cold? What may happen if you are not?

7. Tell the story about why Alfred did not have the measles.

8. Patrick had a sore throat and a headache and felt feverish.
He was an ambitious boy, however, and wanted to go to school
just the same. Was he right? Tell what might happen if
he did.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE ARMY OF HEALTH

An Army to Fight Disease. — When a nation goes to
war, it must depend for safety upon its army and navy.
The soldiers and sailors have been trained to fight the
enemy on land and sea, and their officers have studied
the business of war, so that they know how the campaign
should be carried on and just how the forces of the
nation can be used to most effect.

In peace time and in war time, too, there is always
a fight going on against the microbes that cause disease.
Do you know about the special army that fights this
war?

There is such an army, an army of men and women
who spend their lives in protecting you and me from
our invisible foes. They are the men and women
employed by the Boards of Health of town and city
and state and by the United States Public Health
Service at Washington.

In a war, every good citizen must do all he can to
help the government. The army and the navy alone
cannot win, if men and ^omen all over the country
are not doing their part, by making guns and building
ships and growing grain and helping the Red Cross
and buying Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps.

It is just the same in the war against disease. The

202

THE ARMY OF HEALTH 203

Board of Health cannot keep us safe, if we do not help
by doing our part, every one of us. We are going to
learn in this chapter about some of the things that the
Board of Health is t tying to accomplish, for we cannot
help if we do not understand something about the tasks
of the health officer and his doctors and nurses and in-
spectors.

Keeping the City Clean. — One of the things that the
Board of Health has to do is to see that the city is kept
clean. If there is a heap of decaying refuse in a back
yard, for instance, or if there is a broken drain in the
cellar, a letter or a telephone call should be sent to the
Board of Health. An inspector will come and see what
is wrong; and if the condition is harmful, he will have
it remedied.

' Many conditions of this kind, with which the Board
of Health must deal, have really 'very little to do with
health. They are merely things that from their smell
or their appearance are offensive. Such things are
called nuisances. On the other hand, some nuisances
are very important indeed from a health standpoint,
such as badly built open closets, manure piles which
may breed flies, and pools of stagnant water which
may breed mosquitoes.

The Board of Health does not wait to be called in by
the complaints of the citizens. Its men are all the time
on the lookout for bad conditions, either indoors or out.
They are constantly visiting tenements, schools, fac-
tories, and theaters, to see that they are well lighted
and have plenty of fresh air, and that there are no

204 HEALTHY LIVING

conditions dangerous to the health of those who use
them.

Where the Water Comes from and Where It Goes. —
If you live on a small farm, you probably know very
well where the water comes from. Perhaps you have
to go out sometimes and draw it from the pump and
bring in a pailful. If you live in the city, however,
you have very likely never thought about it at all.
When you want some water, you just turn on the tap
and never think how the water always happens to be
there, ready to flow out when you need it.

The water for a city comes from some lake or river
or from large wells. It is often necessary to go many
miles away to find the water, and to build great pipes
to carry it to the city. The water for New York City,
for instance, is brought in a water pipe so big that a
large motor truck could easily drive through it (see
Fig- 75). When such a pipe reaches the city, it branches
into smaller and smaller pipes that run underground
through the streets, and on at last to your house and
up to your bathroom. Some one must see to the
building of this water system, and some one must
watch it all the time to see that the water is pure and
good and that nothing harmful or poisonous gets
into it.

Besides the water pipes, there is another set of pipes
in the streets, to carry off the waste water after it has
been used. They are called sewers; and these, too,
must be laid carefully and kept in good repair. The
dirty water that flows in them, called sewage, must

THE ARMY OF HEALTH

205

be disposed of in some way, so that it will not create a
nuisance or endanger health.

Guarding Our Food Supply. — Other foods, as well
as water, must be carefully watched, so that they may
not carry the germs of disease. So the Board of Health

Fig. 75. — A section of the great pipe or aqueduct which brings drink-
ing water into New York City, in process of construction.

sends men out to see that everything is clean at the
farms from which milk is sent in to the city. Other
men inspect the stores where milk is sold, and the stores
where all other kinds of food are sold, to see that they
are kept in good condition and that no people who are
sick with germ diseases are allowed to handle the milk
or the other foods.

206 HEALTHY LIVING

Caring for Those Who are Suffering from Germ
Diseases. — Above all, it is the duty of the Board of
Health to watch over the people who are actually
suffering from germ diseases, so as to prevent, if pos-
sible, the further spread of the germs. As soon as a
doctor finds that one of his patients has a disease of
this kind, like diphtheria or scarlet fever or measles or
whooping cough, he reports it at once to the Board of
Health. The Board of Health then sees that the case
is cared for, so that the rest of the family and other
people outside will not be in danger.

In the case of many of these germ diseases, the Board
of Health can supply the doctor with special prepara-
tions, called vaccines and sera, which will cure or
prevent disease of this kind. One of these prepara-
tions is smallpox vaccine, which is rubbed into the
skin of the arm to prevent smallpox — once a very
common and terrible disease. Every child ought to be
protected by smallpox vaccination. In the same way,
older people can be protected against typhoid fever by
typhoid vaccine. Any one who is so unfortunate as
to catch diphtheria can be cured by the use of another
of these preparations, called diphtheria antitoxin.

The War against Tuberculosis. — There is one germ
which is such a very serious enemy of mankind that the
Board of Health has special officers trained to fight
against it. This disease is tuberculosis. It is a long
word, but every one should know something of what
it means.

The germ of tuberculosis lives most often in the

THE ARMY OF HEALTH 207

lungs. The person who has the disease generally grows
weak, thin, and feverish and has a cough. The germ
is coughed up and spit out, in getting rid of the matter
that gathers in the throat. One way of stopping the
spread of tuberculosis is by teaching people who have
this disease not to cough or spit carelessly, and teaching
other people not to put into their mouths things that
may be soiled with these germs.

Another very important way of stopping tuberculosis
is by helping people to keep their bodies in a generally
vigorous state of health, so that when the germ of
tuberculosis does come along, it cannot gain a foothold.
This germ is not really a very powerful one, and a
person who is in thoroughly good health very rarely
has this disease at all. It is people who are tired out or
have had some other sickness, or those who do not
have enough to eat, who catch it. Even people who
have caught it can generally get well again, if they
lead a thoroughly healthy life.

The Board of Health in many cities tries to teach
every one about this disease, so that all can be on
guard against it. It provides special places, called
dispensaries, where people who feel unwell or have a
cough can go, to see if they have tuberculosis. It also
provides special hospitals, where people can be cured.
If a person can find out at the beginning that he has
this disease, he can almost always get well under
proper care. He may have to go to a hospital; or he
may be able to stay at home, if he does just what the
doctor orders and has plenty of fresh air and rest and

208 HEALTHY LIVING

good food. It is only when the disease has gone too
far that it is dangerous; and since people found this
out, the fight against tuberculosis has gone on steadily
and successfully.

Guarding the Health of School Children. — Almost
all diseases are like tuberculosis in this: that they are
most easily cured at the beginning, before the trouble
has gone very far. If you make a hole in your stocking,
it will be easy for Mother to mend it at first. If you
let it go for several days without telling her, it will get
bigger and bigger, and finally perhaps there will be
nothing to do but to throw the pair of stockings away.
It is just so with diseases. At first, the trouble can
generally be cured; but if you wait too long, it may be
too late.

This is why the Board of Health (or in many cities
the School Board) has doctors and nurses in the schools
to examine the children. These doctors and school
nurses test the children's hearing and their eyesight,
and look at their teeth and their throats, to see if any-
thing is beginning to go wrong and ought to be remedied.

Every child ought to see clearly, near by and at a dis-
tance, to have keen hearing, to sleep soundly and eat
heartily, and to be full of the feeling of health and vigor.
If you are not like this, if you have headaches or fre-
quent colds, or sensitive teeth, there is something
wrong. It is probable that the trouble can easily be
remedied. In such a case, your mother should have
a doctor see you, or your teacher should have the school
doctor see you, for almost all children can be well and

THE ARMY OF HEALTH

209

vigorous, if little troubles are cured at the beginning
and if the right habits of life are formed.

The Public Health Nurse. — You children will prob-

Fig. 76. — Children who have tuberculosis can gen-
erally be cured by going to a sanatorium where
they can live most of the time outdoors and be
under proper medical care.

ably go to school for several years more and will be
learning new things all the time. When you finally
leave school, perhaps you may think you know all
there is to know! This will not be so — not even if you
go to high school and college, and go on studying till

210 HEALTHY LIVING

you are a full grown man or woman. There will always
be new things to learn; and the wise person keeps on
learning as much as he can all through his life.

This is particularly true in health matters. New and
better ways of fighting diseases and keeping people
healthy are being found out all the time. So perhaps
the most important of all the things the Board of
Health does is to teach — not only children in the
schools but grown people, like your fathers and
mothers, — how to keep well.

The Board of Health does this by lectures and ex-
hibits, by printing and giving away leaflets, and in
many other ways. Perhaps the best way of alt is by
means of Public Health nurses. These nurses go out
through the city, showing the people with germ diseases
what they can do to keep from giving the diseases to
others. They show the people with tuberculosis how
they ought to take care of themselves, in order to be
cured. They show the mothers just the best way of
taking care of their young babies, so as to keep them
well. The Public Health nurse is one of the most
efficient officers in the army that fights against
disease.

Janet's Argument. — Janet lived in a small city called
Healthville, and her Uncle Jim and his children lived
in a much bigger city, Richtown, about an hour's ride
away on the train. Janet was very fond of her cousins
and was delighted when she heard they were coming
to pay her a visit. It seemed a long time till they
arrived, and you may be sure she was all ready and

THE ARMY OF HEALTH 211

watching at the door when Uncle Jim and the two little
girls came up the street.

As soon as the visitors had come in and taken off
their things, they sat down to talk, for Janet's mother
and father had not seen Uncle Jim for a long time.
He explained that there was a very bad epidemic of
diphtheria in Richtown, so that all the schools had been
closed; and that he had brought the children for a long
visit, until the epidemic was over and it was safe to take
them home.

Janet and her cousins were so happy in thinking of
the good times they were to have together, and so
busy in planning for all the things they were going to
do, that Janet did not hear what the grown-ups were
saying for a long time. When she did listen again,
Uncle Jim was talking, as he often did, about what a
fine place Richtown was. This was one thing about
Uncle Jim that Janet never liked; for she thought
Healthville, where she lived, was the nicest place on
earth.

"We have just built a new hotel, fourteen stories high
and fireproof," Uncle Jim was saying. "With the
Opera House opposite, the Central Square is a fine
sight. Now that we have the Carnegie Library and
the new High School and all the Parks and Boulevards,
there isn't a finer city in the whole Middle West."

"Well, there's one thing we have in Healthville that's
better than Richtown, Uncle Jim," said Janet eagerly.

"What's that, child?" he asked smiling, as if he was
quite sure she was mistaken.

212 HEALTHY LIVING

" Our Board of Health/' answered Janet. "You have
so much diphtheria that your fine schools are all closed.
But our teacher told us our Board of Health was so
good that there hadn't been a case of diphtheria in the
school in five years. Libraries and opera houses aren't
any good if you are sick; and if you are well, you can
have a good time anyway."

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. What are some of the duties of the Board of Health?

2. Why are badly built outside closets, manure piles, and
pools of stagnant water dangerous from the standpoint of
health?

3. See if you can think of any nuisances in your town that
ought to be called to the attention of the Board of Health.

4. Find out, if you can, where the water supply of your school
comes from.

5. What are vaccines and sera? Give three examples of dis-
eases in which they are useful.

6. How can tuberculosis be prevented?

7. Is there a school doctor or a school nurse, or both, in your
school? If so, what do they do?

8. Why do even grown people have to keep learning all the
time about health matters?

9. What do you think of Janet's argument about the supe-
riority of Healthville?

10. If Janet was right, what is the most important thing any
town can do for its 'citizens?

CHAPTER XIX
SOME RULES FOR HEALTH

The Dream of John Paul Jones. — One of the most
famous figures in the War of the American Revolution
was John Paul Jones, the first of America's naval heroes.
He was born in Scotland, the son of a gardener. There
is a story that, in his boyhood, he was one day lying on
a rock in the warm sun after a swim in the ocean. He
fell asleep and dreamed a curious dream. He dreamed
that he was the captain of a ship and was fighting a
great naval battle. Guns were roaring, the air was full
of smoke, and on the mast over his head floated a
strange flag with red and white stripes on it and stars
in a square in the corner. He told a friend, an English
naval officer, about this dream. His friend replied that
he hoped John Paul might some day command a ship,
but that it would not be under such a flag as he de-
scribed because there was no flag like that in the world —
and there was not at that time.

John Paul loved the ocean, and he went to sea as
apprentice, or helper, when he was only twelve years
old. Before he was twenty-five, he became captain of
a merchant ship. In 1773, two years before the War
of the Revolution, he came to America and made his
home in Virginia. He saw, as many people did, that
the American states (at that time colonies of Great

213

214 HEALTHY LIVING

Britain) must soon become independent. It is even
said that he told George Washington long before the
war began: "Remember, when it comes I shall be
ready.'7

When the war did come, John Paul was indeed ready.
He was placed in command of a small fleet of American
and French ships, with which he fought most gallantly
against the British. His greatest battle was that in
which his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, vanquished the
Sera pis. According to the story that some people tell,
the captain of the Serapis was the very man to whom
John Paul had told his dream many years before. If
so, he must have been surprised to be beaten by a ship
flying the very flag that little John Paul had dreamed
about so long ago, while the United States were still
under the British flag.

Serving the Stars and Stripes. — I do not suppose any
of you have had a dream just like that of John Paul
Jones. I think, however, that many of you must have
had some sort of dream of serving your country and
your flag. You have seen the Stars and Stripes flying
from almost every house, and have thought of our
soldiers fighting under that flag in France, and have
planned that when you grow up you will do great
things for your country, too. Even if it is never nec-
essary for you to fight or to nurse the wounded in war,
your country will need your loyalty and your devotion,
to do her work in peace and to help with all your might
to make the United States of America a greater and a
nobler and a better country.

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH

2I5

When John Paul Jones saw the war coming, he could
tell Washington that he was "ready." That is what
your country wants you to be to-day, ready for what-

Third
Liberty loan
Campaign
BOY SCOUTS
OF AMERICA

Fig. 77. — The motto of the American boy and
the American girl is "Preparedness for
our country's service."

ever she may call you to do. She wants you to be
ready in heart: unselfish, devoted, brave, fair, honest.
She wants you to be ready in mind: quick, thoughtful,
well trained, full of knowledge. She wants you to bq

2i6 HEALTHY LIVING

ready in body: strong and sound and full of abounding
health.

Do not think of health, then, as just something for
yourself. If you lived alone on a desert island like
Robinson Crusoe, you might have a right to say, "Oh
well, I don't care. I'd rather have indigestion or catch
cold than bother." As it is, you are a part of your
country. Think of the Stars and Stripes and what you
can do for the flag when you grow up. Be ready, as
John Paul Jones was ready, when your country needs
you.

Keeping the Body Fit. — Let us see what the most
important things are that you ought to do, in order to
keep your body strong and well and ready for your
country's service. You have learned about most of
them in this book, but it will be helpful to set them
all down in order here.

1 . Hold Your Body Well. The first essential of health
and strength is to hold the body well, with the back
straight and the head high. No good soldier slouches.
Stand well, sit well, walk well.

2. Exercise Your Muscles. The muscles grow with
use. In certain diseases something happens to the
nerves, so that a leg or an arm perhaps cannot be used.
Such a leg or arm shrivels up and grows small and weak.
On the contrary, a child who uses his muscles, grows
stronger all the tune. Don't be lazy. Exercise till you
are tired, and each day you can do a little more than
the day before. Learn to swim and to ride, if you can.
Learn to play all sorts of athletic games, and partic-

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH 217

ularly those games, like football and baseball and
basket ball, that involve team play and teach you to
cooperate with others for the common good.

3. Keep Your Skin Healthy. Health, as we have
seen, depends in large measure on the condition of the
little blood vessels in the skin. Don't sit in a room
that is too hot. Don't wear clothing that is too heavy.

Fig. 78. — The boy who learns to swim may be able to save his own
life and that of others when an accident occurs.

On the other hand, don't get chilled. Take a cold
bath in the morning, if you find that you feel brisk and
toned up after it.

4. Breathe Fresh Air. Breathe deeply and get plenty
of good air into your lungs. Sleep all the year round
with your windows open. Play in the fresh air out-
doors as much as you can.

5. Get Sufficient Rest. Don't forget that your body
and your brain need rest as well as exercise. Get a

218 HEALTHY LIVING

good long night's sleep, so as to feel fresh and vigorous
for the next day.

6. Eat Wisely. Learn to like all kinds of good foods,
and particularly drink plenty of milk and eat all the
fresh fruits and vegetables you can get. Don't eat too
much candy or pastry. Eat slowly, and don't eat much
between meals. Drink plenty of water. Many chil-
dren do not drink as much water as the body needs.

7. Avoid Poisons. Don't let your body be poisoned
by decayed food in your intestines. Have a regular
movement of the bowels at least once a day. Re-
member that tobacco should not be used until you are
full grown, if at all, and that alcoholic drinks always do
harm.

8. Keep Clean. Keep your teeth sound and strong
by regular, thorough brushing. Keep your nails and
your hair clean and neat.

Guarding against Germ Diseases. — If you follow
the rules outlined above, your body ought to be strong
and healthy and fit for any service. All the strength
and health may disappear in a few hours, however, if
the germ of some disease gets in and makes a successful
attack. So there are other precautions that you ought
to remember, in guarding against these unseen enemies
of yours.

1. Guard the Gateway of the Mouth. Keep out of the
mouth everything that is not clean. That means fingers
and everything except clean food and the tooth-brush,
for you can never be sure that other things are clean.

2. Eat Clean Food. Eat only clean food; that is, food

SOME RULES FOk HEALTH

219

that has been cooked or thoroughly washed and has not
been handled by any one with unclean hands, or by any
one who is ill . Do not eat food that is the least bit spoiled.

Fig. 79. — Every Boy Scout must know
how to help in case of an accident.

3. Eat with Clean Hands. Always wash your hands
thoroughly before coming to the table and before eating
between meals. Always wash your hands after using
the toilet.

4. Fight against Insect Pests. Do all you can to help
in the war against insect pests. Help to kill flies and

220 HEALTHY LIVING

mosquitoes and to do away with the filth and stagnant
water in which they breed. Keep flies and mosquitoes
out of the house, and keep flies away from food.

5. Avoid Infection. Do not run needless risk of
catching colds or other diseases by being with people
who are ill, unless there is some good reason why you
must. Do not kiss people who are ill or handle the
things they have handled, unless it is necessary.

6. See the Doctor in Time. If you do not feel quite
well, ask to see the school doctor. It may save you
a serious illness and may safeguard many other people,
if you consult the doctor in time. If you do not feel
well, keep away from babies and small children, so as
to protect them from possible danger.

Accidents. — Accidents sometimes happen to every
one, and it is important to know what to do when an
accident occurs.

1. Cinders or Dust Particles in the Eye. Very often,
for instance, a piece of fine dust or a cinder gets into
your eye. The most natural thing to do, perhaps, is
to rub your eye, but this only makes the pain worse.
Sometimes the cinder can be seen on the surface of the
eye, and some one can get it out on the corner of a clean
handkerchief. Sometimes if the eye is kept closed for
a few minutes, the tears will wash it out. Blowing the
nose will sometimes help. If the eye still hurts after
these things have been done, you should go to some
older person and let him try to get the cinder out.

2. Cuts and Scratches. Any child who plays as a
healthy child should, will sometimes get scratched or

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH 221

cut. The great thing to remember in such a case is
to keep the place clean, so that harmful germs may not
get in. If the cut is a little one, it should be washed
out thoroughly with clean water and covered with
clean gauze. If the cut is a bad one or a deep one, such

Fig. 80. — Prompt treatment of a cut or a sprain or a bruise will
often prevent suffering and injury.

as is made by a rusty nail, it should always be dressed
by a doctor. The bite of an animal is particularly
dangerous, since the teeth of an animal are always
dirty. Remember that any scratch, however slight,
should be shown to the doctor if it grows red and hot.

3. Bruises and Insect Stings. Bruises will be less
painful if a cloth wrung out in cold water is placed over

222 HEALTHY LIVING

them. Insect stings can be relieved by putting ammo-
nia on them, and, to some extent, by plastering a little
wet mud over the place that has been bitten.

4. Poisons. You ought to be very careful indeed
never to take any medicine, except what your parents
or the doctor give you. Never drink anything out of a
bottle or anything that some one has left standing in
a glass, even if it looks clear like water. Many of the
medicines used when people are ill would be deadly
poisons if taken by a child, or by any one else, except in
just the amount and the way the doctor orders.

5. Frostbites and Chilblains. If your fingers or ears
or nose should get frostbitten in winter, remember not
to go near the fire or into a hot room for a while, as a
sudden change from ccld to hot makes the pain much
worse. The thing to do is to rub the part that has been
frozen with snow or very cold water, until the blood
has come back and the flesh begins to sting and burn.
If you have those painful itching swellings called
chilblains, you should never put your feet near the fire
or over the register.

6. Burns. The best thing to do for a burn is to cover
the place with vaseline or with a paste made of baking
soda and water. This will make the pain much less.

If a blister forms, don't pick it off and run the risk
of getting harmful germs in, but let it heal naturally.

If your clothing should catch fire, don't run, because
the air will make the fire burn faster. Lie down and
roll on the floor to smother it, and wrap yourself in a
rug or coat or shawl, if you can find one. The cloth

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH

223

should be wrapped from above down, so as not to drive
the flames up toward the mouth.

Above all, when an accident occurs, keep cool. Don't
lose your head, but think out the right thing to do and
then do it.

Safety First. — We want every American boy and

Fig. 81. — Thousands of children lose their lives every year by
playing in the street.

girl to be brave enough to risk his or her life if necessary;
but we do not want any one to risk his life carelessly
or foolishly.

i. Street Accidents. It is not courage but foolishness
to run and play in the street in front of automobiles
and trucks. Thousands of children are killed in this
way every year. Stealing rides, coasting in the street,
and roller skating in the street are all dangerous amuse-

224 HEALTHY LIVING

ments. Many children do these things and escape,
but every now and then one is killed. You may be
that one.

2. Accidents from Fire. Another thing that children
should be very careful about is fire in any form. I
hope you never play with matches or make bonfires,
unless you are with some grown person, for much dam-
age and the loss of many lives is due to carelessness of
this kind.

3. Accidents in the Water. Water is almost as dan-
gerous as fire. If you cannot swim, keep away from
bridges and steep banks where you might fall in.
When you are in a boat, sit quietly and don't take the
chance of upsetting everybody on board.

4. Accidents from Wires. Never touch wires hanging
from poles or trees. There may be an electric current
passing through them which would give you a fatal
shock.

Modern Health Crusaders. — Richard the Lion
Heart, about whom you read in Chapter XI, and the
other brave soldiers who went "out long ago to try to
free the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Turks, were
called Crusaders. So we give the name "Crusaders"
to any group of people who band themselves together
to fight against some evil thing. A crusade for health
and against disease is one of the things in which we all
ought to be concerned. So a short time ago an organiza-
tion of children was formed called "The Modern
Health Crusaders," and it is said that a hundred thou-
sand children are now enrolled. Each child who wants

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH

225

Statements of Chores

r. I washed my hands before each
meal to-day.

2. I drank a glass of water before
each meal and before going to bed
to-day.

3. I brushed my teeth in the morn-
ing and in the evening to-day.

4. I took ten or more slow deep
breaths of fresh air to-day.

5. I played outdoors or with win-
dows open more than thirty
minutes to-day.

6. I was in bed ten hours or more
last night and kept my window
open.

7. I tried to-day to sit up and stand
up straight, to eat slowly, and to
attend to toilet and EACH need of
my body at its regular time.

8. I took a full bath on each day of
the week that is checked (x).

Total number of chores done each day

FIRST WEEK

TUE

WED

THU

FRI

SAT.

Name of Child

-did Health Chores as indicated by the above

x marks , making a_lotal of.-^.f.*7- ---- Chores in the first week.

Signature of Child

SignatMre «/ Parent

Fig. 82. — A daily chart of Health Chores for Health Crusaders.

526 HEALTHY LIVING

to join is given a card like Fig. 82. Every day at bed-
time his father or mother checks off each of the eight
chores (given on the left of the card) that the child has
done that day. At the bottom for each day is given
the total number of chores done for that day. To be
a Modern Health Crusader, a child must do at least
forty of the chores a week.1

I hope every child who has read this book will be
at heart a Health Crusader. It does not matter, per-
haps, whether you belong to the organization or not.
It does matter, however, that you should want to be
strong and well and fit for your country's service, and
that you should want to help every one else to be strong
and well for the same purpose. That is what being a
Modern Health Crusader really means.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Who was John Paul Jones? Tell the story of his dream.

2. What kind of people are needed to serve our country?
What sort of things can you do to keep yourself fit for your
country's services?

3. Alfred could not throw either very straight or very hard,
when he was little. He practiced every day and at last he could
throw a baseball farther and straighter than any other boy in
school. What had been happening in his body while he was
practicing?

4. Why is a girl who plays outdoors and sleeps with her bed-
room window open more likely to be useful to her country than
one who has lived most of the time in overheated rooms?

1 For further information about Modern Health Crusaders write to
the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuber-
culosis, 105 East 22d Street, New York City.

SOME RULES FOR HEALTH 227

5. What are the six rules given in the text for guarding against
germ diseases?

6. What is the wrong thing to do when a cinder gets in your
eye? What are some of the good things to do?

7. Explain why it is that a cut or a scratch should be washed
clean and covered with gauze. What kinds of wounds should
always be dressed by a doctor?

8. What is the proper thing to do if your nose is frostbitten?

9. Eleanor played too near the stove and her dress caught
fire. She screamed and started to run downstairs. Luckily her
brother heard her and quickly threw her down on the floor and
wrapped her in a rug. Why was what she did dangerous, and
what he did wise?

10. George had a habit of crossing the street in the city be-
tween the cross streets, running and dodging between the auto-
mobiles. When he was told it was dangerous, he said he had
never been run over yet. Was that a good argument? If not,
why not?

1 1 . What is a Modern Health Crusader? What does the word
crusader mean?

12. What are the health chores that a Health Crusader has
to do? How many of them did you do yesterday?

CHAPTER XX

PHYSICAL EXERCISES AND HOW THEY HELP YOU
TO BE STRONG AND WELL

BY WALTER CAMP

Health in War and Peace. — You have all heard of the
splendid work done by American men and women in the
great World War, and you are all interested in knowing
how to make yourselves able to do work just as great
when you grow up, although we hope it will not be on
account of another war. Every man who went into the
army and navy, every woman who did continuous and
effective Red Cross or other war work, had to be physi-
cally strong and well. In other words, in order to be use-
ful, one must be in good physical condition; and I am
going to show you how you can secure this for your-
selves.

Some Rules for Health. — Boys and girls should re-
member that although their parents take care of them,
those parents cannot possibly look after them all the
time and see that no harm befalls them. If they do
something that Nature does not approve of, they them-
selves will have to pay the price. No one can bear pain
for them, no matter how sympathetic he may be. For
this reason, there are many things that children should
learn early. Here are a few of the most important of

them:

228

PHYSICAL EXERCISES 229

If you get wet, don't sit down in your wet clothes,
but keep moving until you have a chance to change
them.

When you are heated, don't sit down in a draft or
cool off suddenly, but put on a coat or wrap.

Get nine or ten hours of sleep in a room with the
windows open, or else on a sleeping porch.

Keep clean and always wash your hands before eating.

Don't drink water from old wells or other places that
may be polluted.

Brush your teeth at least twice a day.

Don't eat candy between meals. A reasonable
amount of candy will not hurt anyone unless it takes
the place of more wholesome food.

Don't hurry through your meals.

Don't wear tight clothes, such as tight shoes, tight
collars, or tight gloves.

Don't read in a bad light. Rest the eyes every now
and then by looking up from the book.

Don't lose your temper. Getting angry injures the
health.

Don't eat when you are tired out, and don't eat
when you are cross or angry. You ought not to be
either cross or angry; but if you are, take time to cool
off before you eat.

These are all just common-sense things which your
parents or teachers tell you daily. But you are, after
all, the ones who must pay attention to them, for you
are the ones who will suffer if you do not.

In addition to all this, play your games. The boy

23o HEALTHY LIVING

or girl who stands on one side and does not play is not
only losing pleasure but is likely to lose health as well.

Set-up Exercises. — Finally, there are a few exercises
or games that will help every boy to become stronger
and better at his games and his work. They will also
help every girl to become graceful as well as healthy.
They are the same exercises in a modified form that the
boys who went into the army or navy took every day.

These games we call " set-up" exercises. They are
exercises to make the body grow properly, to make you
stand properly, to enable you to have good lungs and
a good heart, and to have, as you grow up, a better
chance for that health and enjoyment which is the best
part of life. I have taken the form of " set-up" that
was used very largely in naval stations and aviation
fields, and have adapted the exercises so that you, too,
can get the benefits of them and know that you are
helping your country by giving it a chance to have
stronger boys and girls. With the descriptions below,
and with the help of teachers or parents or big brothers,
any child can easily learn to do these exercises.

WINDING UP THE CLOCK

The first of the exercises we will call "Winding Up
the Clock," because, if you do it properly, you will
make circles with your hands, while your shoulders feel
as though they were turning, and your shoulder blades
feel as if they were almost meeting at the back.

Always stand squarely on the feet with heels sep-
arated about 5 inches, and feet pointing nearly straight

PHYSICAL EXERCISES

231

Fig. I.

forward, arms hanging easily
at the sides, chest slightly
raised, and head up.

FIRST EXERCISE. Raise
arms sideways to horizontal
position. Turn the palms
upward and force the arms
back as far as possible. While
in this position, count slowly
from one to four, and at each
count describe a complete
circle about 12 inches in diameter, the arms remaining
stiff and pivoting from the shoulders. Then reverse
the direction of the circles, and do another four. See
Fig. I.

PLAYING THE BIRD

The second of these exercises we will call "Playing
the Bird/' for the motions, as you will easily see, are
like those of a gull's wings, the arms and hands being
lifted up to an angle of about 45 degrees and then
lowered until they are horizontal. At the same time
you go up on your toes and breathe in, filling the lungs
as the arms go up, and letting the breath come out
again as arms and feet go down.

SECOND EXERCISE. Raise arms sideways to hori-
zontal. While taking a deep breath, raise the arms to
an angle of 45 degrees, and also raise the heels until
you are resting on the balls of the feet. Then, while
you slowly let out the breath, come back to the original

232

HEALTHY LIVING

position, feet flat on the floor, arms horizontal. Be
careful not to raise the arms more than 45 degrees, or
return them to below horizontal. Do this four times.
See Fig. II.

UNDER THE Low BRIDGE

The third exercise we will call "Under the Low
Bridge." When you follow the directions, you will

Fig. II.

Fig. III.

find that you are stooping down with your fingers
pressed against the back of your head, but that you
are looking up as if you wanted to make sure that you
would go safely under the bridge.

THIRD EXERCISE. Raise arms, as before, to hori-
zontal. Place hands behind the neck, index fingers
touching, elbows forced back. While in this position,
bend the body slowly forward from the waist as far as
possible. Keep the head up as you go down, so that

PHYSICAL EXERCISES 233

the eyes are still looking forward or toward the leader, if
you are doing the exercise with a group of other children.
Return to upright position, and bend backward just a
little. Do not make these movements jerky and do not
hurry through them. Repeat the whole movement,
bending forward, then straightening up, then bending
backward four times. See Fig. III.

DRINKING THE AIR

We will call the fourth exercise "Drinking the Air,"
for that is what it really is. By following the directions,
you curl your fists up under your armpits, at the same
time drawing in the breath and letting the head and
shoulders go back until you are looking up straight in
the air. Then, as you put the arms forward and com-
mence to bend down, you breathe out, letting the air
go slowly out of your lungs while the hands and arms
go back past the body and up as high over your back
as possible.

FOURTH EXERCISE. (A) Raise arms, as before, to
horizontal. Move the right foot sideways 12 inches
from the left. Slowly bend the fists and lower arms
downward from the elbows. Then curl the fists upward
into the armpits, bending the head backward mean-
while until you look upward at the ceiling. Take a
deep breath as you bend the head back. Let the air
begin to come out slowly, as you return to the original
position, head erect, fists still in the armpits. See
Fig. IV A.

(B) Then without resting, still letting the breath

234 HEALTHY LIVING

come out, extend the arms straight forward from the
shoulders, palms down. Let the arms begin to fall and
the body to bend forward from the waist, head up,
eyes to the front, until the body has bent as far as
possible, and the arms have passed the sides and been
forced back and up as far as they will go. Another

Fig. IV A. Fig. IV B.

deep breath should be taken slowly as you curl your
arms again, and exhaled as they come down once more.
Do the whole exercise (A and B) four times. See
Fig. IV B.

SWIMMING THE CRAWL

The fifth exercise we will call " Swimming the Crawl,"
that is, swimming the crawl stroke, for, as one arm and
hand go up in the air, the other arm and hand slide
down the side of the body.

FIFTH EXERCISE. Raise arms sideways to horizontal.
Turn the left palm upward; then raise the left arm and
lower the right, until the right is down close to the side,

PHYSICAL EXERCISES 235

and the left is straight up overhead. Slowly bend the
body sideways to the right from the waist, the right
arm slipping down the right leg to or be-
low the knee, and the left arm bending in
half a circle downward over the head, until
the fingers touch the right ear. Return to
original position, with arms horizontal,
and go down the other way, the left arm
slipping along the left leg, the right arm
bending downward in half a circle over
the left ear. Do this four times. See
Fig. V.

PLAYING THE FROG Fig. v.

The sixth exercise is called "Playing the Frog."
Here, extending the arms sideways straight out from
the shoulders, keeping the back straight and standing
on the toes, you go down, gathering the legs under you
just as the frog does when he is preparing to leap. You
should be careful to keep on the toes and to keep the
body well balanced.

SIXTH EXERCISE. Move the right foot sideways until
the heels are about 12 inches apart. Raise arms to
horizontal. Rise on the ball of the foot. Bend the
knees and, with the weight on the toes, lower the body
almost to the heels, keeping the trunk as nearly erect
as possible. Return to original position, knees straight,
and let the heels go down to the floor. Do this four
times. See Fig. VI.

236

HEALTHY LIVING

SWAYING IN THE GALE

We will call the seventh exercise "Swaying in the
Gale," for when your arms are extended straight up
against the ears, and your hands are clasped, the body
is like the mast of a ship. You sway your body around
in a circle, as the mast of a ship sways in a gale.

SEVENTH EXERCISE. Raise arms to horizontal.
Stretch the arms straight above the head, interlock the
fingers, arms touching ears. Then, the arms being still
straight up, describe a complete circle about 24 inches
in diameter with the interlocked hands, the body bend-
ing only at the waist. Do this three times.

Then repeat the movement three times, in the op-
posite direction.

Go through the entire movement slowly and
steadily, bending the body chiefly from the hips.
See Fig. VII.

Fig. VI.

Fig. VII.

PHYSICAL EXERCISES 237

SOWING THE WHEAT

The eighth exercise we will call "Sowing the Wheat/'
Keeping the arms extended and turning at the hips,
you first place one hand on the ground, bending the
knee on the side towards which you go down, and keep-
ing the other knee straight. Then, having touched the
ground with one hand, you swing up and, turning the
body, place the other hand on the ground in the same
way, bending the other knee.

EIGHTH EXERCISE (A). Move the right foot until the
heels are about 12 inches apart. Raise arms to horizon-
tal and turn the body to the left from the
hips, the arms remaining horizontal until
the face is to the left, the right arm
pointing straight forward, and the left
arm straight backward. See Fig. VIII A.

(B) While in this position, bend the
body from the waist, so that the right
arm goes down until the right fingers
toucty the floor midway between the feet,
and the left arm goes up. The right knee
must be slightly bent to accomplish this. Fig* Vm A"
See Fig. VIII B. Return to the original position,
body erect, arms horizontal.

Reverse the movement, turning the body to the
right this time until the left hand points straight for-
ward. Then bend downward until the fingers of the
left hand touch the floor. Return to the original
position.

238 HEALTHY LIVING

After you have mastered the exercise,
you can go through it (A and B) in one
continuous motion.

Repeat the whole exercise (A and B),
first to the right, then to the left, four
times.

LEARNING TO FLY
The ninth exercise is called "Learning

to Fly. In this exercise you lift the
arms straight up over the head, taking
in a good breath at the same time. Then you begin
to lean forward at the waist, letting the arms come
down past the hips. At the same time you let out
the breath from the lungs and carry the arms back
above the shoulders as you did in the exercise of " Drink-
ing the Air." By this time, the breath is out of the
lungs, and as you bring the hands down past the hips
and out in front of you, you begin to inhale. Then you
spread the hands and arms apart, out to the horizontal,
taking in a little more breath. By the time you finally
lift the hands directly above the head, as in the first
motion, you have a full breath of air in the lungs.

NINTH EXERCISE. Raise arms to horizontal, taking
in a slow breath; then upward until they are straight
overhead. Let them fall forward and downward, while
the body bends forward from the waist, until the arms
have passed the sides, and been forced upward and
backward as far as possible, just as in Exercise 5, Fig. V.
Remember, as you bend forward, to keep the head

PHYSICAL EXERCISES 239

up, and the eyes to the front and let the breath come
out.

Straighten the body upright again with the
arms overhead, drawing in the breath. Lower
the arms to the horizontal position, with the
palms turned downward, and the arms and
shoulders forced hard back. Then bring the
arms out to horizontal, and begin the move-
ment again by raising them as before.

Repeat this entire movement slowly four
times, forcing the air out of the lungs as the
body bends forward, and filling the lungs again
as the body straightens. See Fig. IX.

MEASURING YOUR WEIGHT

The Child Health Organization of America is trying
to help the children of this country to grow strong and
well by keeping watch of then: weight and comparing
it all the time with the growth that the really healthy
child should make. The two tables (pp. 241, 242) 1 show
just what the weight should be for a boy or girl of a
particular height. Get your mother or your teacher to
help you measure your height and weight. Then find
your height in the left-hand column of the table and
read across the table to the column with your age at
the head of it. The figure you find there is the number
of pounds you ought to weigh.

The United States Bureau of Education in Washing-
ton is very much interested in this campaign for the
regular weighing of the children. It is trying to get
" a scale in every school" and to have each child weighed
once a month. A record should be kept in the class-
room (on forms which can be obtained from the De-
partment of Documents, Washington, D. C.) of the
weight of each child for each month; and monthly re-
port cards should be sent home for the parents to keep.
In this way, growth is made a sort of friendly competi-
tion in which all the children of America can take part.
"The children play the game; the teachers umpire; the
parents keep score/'

Prepared by Dr. Thomas D. Wood, and copyright, 1918, by Child
Health Organization.

240

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT TABLE FOR GIRLS

Height 5 6 7 8 9 10 n 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Inches Yr. Yr.Yr.Yr. Yr.Yr.Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr.

34 35 36

36 37 38

38 39 40

40 41 42

42 42 43

44 45 45

46 47 47

48 48 49

49 5°

S2 53

54 55

53 54

56 57

58 59

61 62

64 65

67 68

69 70

72 73

76 77

IOO

IO2

I04

106

101

102

104

106

108

I09

104

106

107

109

114

109

112

117

118

119

117

118

119

120

121

122

117

119

120

122

I23

124

125

119

121

122

124

126

127

128

124

126

127

128

129

130

126

128

130

132

133

134

129

131

133

135

136

137

134

136

138

139

140

138

140

142

143

I4O

145

I48

149

About What a GIRL Should Gain Each Month

Age: 5 to 8 6 oz. 14 to 16 8 oz.

8 to 1 1 8 oz. 16 to 18 4 oz.

ii to 14 12 oz.

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT TABLE FOR BOYS

Height 5 6 7 8 9 10 n 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Inches Yr.Yr. Yr.Yr.Yr.Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr. Yr.

35 36 37

37 38 39

39 40 4i

41 42 43

43 44 45

45 46 46

47 47 48

48 49 5°

5°

51 52

53 54

55 56

58 58

60 60

62 63

64 65

67 68

7° 71

77 74

77 78

9°

IOI

IO2

104

106

108

1 10

100

IO2

104

106

109

113

116

105

107

109

114

115

117

119

113

117

118

119

120

122

I2O

122

123

124

125

126

125

126

127

128

129

130

132

133

134

J35

134

135

136

137

138

139

138

139

140

141

142

143

142

144

X45

146

147

149

150

151

152

154

J55

iq6

i57

About What

a BOY Should

Gain

Each Month

Age:

5 to 8

6 o

to 16

. 16 oz.

8 to 12

. . 8 oz.

16-

to 18

. 8oz.

INDEX

A star (*) after a page number indicates an illustration.

Absorption, 95.

Accidents, prevention of, 223, 224;
what to do, 220-222.

Air, and health, 112, 217-218;
effect of good, 17-18 *; good and
bad, 136; outdoor, 138; rule for
breathing fresh, 217.

Airplanes, 71 *.

Alcohol, and nervous system, 67-
68, 148 *; and success, 151-152 *;
as a drug, 150; cost of, 153;
effect on circulation, 130; effect
on health, 150; in war time, 153-
154; use of, a harmful habit, 54;
wastes grain, 153.

Alimentary canal, 91, 92 *, 93.

Antitoxin, 206.

Arms, arrangement of bones in,
34 *, 35; structure of, 25.

Army-telephone system, 58 *.

Arteries, function of, 121.

Automobile, like the human ma-
chine, 26 *.

Backbone, function of, 32.
Bacteria, study of, 161-162 *.

(See Disease Germs, Microbes.)
Bathing, to make ready for day's

work, 12; reasons for, 133, 189;

warm and cold, 134.
Bering's voyage into Arctic, 84-85.
Biceps muscle, function of, 45 *.
Bladder, 97, 170.
Blood, 23, 122, 124; cells of, 122,

123 *, 124; circulation of, 28,
121-130.

Blood vessels, railroad system of
body, 27; regulation of size of,
127; system of, 121, 122 *, 123 *;
walls of, 127-129.

Board of Health, 194, 195, 198;
duties of, 204-212.

Body, care of (see Bathing); com-
pared with machinery, 22; how
to strengthen by food, 14; how
parts move, 44; how parts work
together, 57; keeping fit, 216-
218; need for rest, 18; parts of,
22; posture, 13, 35 *, 36, 40, 216;
preparing food for, 26, 91;
wonders of, 20, 21 *.

Bones, 24, 34, 35; composition cf,
32.

Boone, story of Daniel, 156-157 *.

Boy Scouts, 63 *, 190, 191 *, 215 *,
219 *.

Brain, and nerves, 28; and spinal
cord, 58' function of, 16, 23;
parts of, 23.

Breakfast, need of a good, 14.

Breastbone, function of 34.

Breathing, 110-119; diseases of
organs, 119; how movements are
made, 117; hygiene of organs.
118; object of, 113; organs of,
27, iio-in; reason for, 26.

Bretteville, story of Louis de, 64-
68.

243

244

INDEX

Bronchi, in *.

Bronchitis, 119.

Bruises and stings, 221 *.

Brushes' quarrel, story of the, 105,

106 *, 107.
Burns, 222, 223.
Button, button, who's got the

button, 194.

Carbon dioxide, 114; in blood, 124.
Carriers, human, 165, 174; insect,

166.

Cells, 122, 123 *, 124.
Chilblains, 222.
Cinders in eye, 220.
Circulation, process of, 127.
Circulatory system, effect of al-
cohol and tobacco on 130; work

of, 127-129.

City, keeping clean, 203.
Cleanliness, 133*, 170*, 168-178,

203, 219.
Cleanville, story of how Mrs. Fly

and Mrs. Mosquito leave, 191 *,

192.
Clothing, and weather, 15 *; how it

helps and harms the skin, 135 *;

keeping clean, 189.
Coffee, 146, 147.
Cold in the head, 119, 124, 165,

195; cause of, 159.
Consumption. (See Tuberculosis.}
Contact, microbes spread by, 166.
Crown of teeth, 101 *.
Crusaders, Modern Health, 224.
Cup, how to make a paper drinking,

175 *; use of a common drinking,

174*, 176.
Cuts, care of, 177, 178, 220, 221 *.

Danger signals, 196.
Day, getting ready for, n; well-
spent, ii.

Diaphragm, 23 *, 117.

Diet, experiment to determine

best, 83 *; a good, 14, 86, 87.
Digestion, 26, 91, 94, 95; and

happy state of mind, 96 *, 97;

in gooding working order, 96 *,

97-
Digestive ju'ces, 91; action of, 92,

93-

Diphtheria, 159.

Diseases, and Board of Health, 206;
army against, 202; as enemies,
158; carried by flies, 166, 181;
contagious, 164; tropical, 189.

Disease germs, keeping out of
schoolroom, 198; keeping out of
the mouth, 172; preventing
spread of, 194, 195; responsibility
about, 198; rules for guarding
against, 219; watching people
exposed to, 197 *; caring for
those who suffer from, 195.
(See Microbes.)

Dispensaries, 207.

Dressing, according to the weather,

15*-
Drugs, 149; alcohol as a drug, 150.

Ear, drum, 78; function of, 23, 74;

guarding against diseases of, 79;

how we hear, 78; structure of, 78.
Eating, wisely, 218; with clean

hands, 219.
Enamel of teeth, 101.
Enemy, spying out, 70.
Energy, 25.

Esophagus, 23 *, 93, in *.
Exercise, and games, 16; kinds, 52;

morning, 12; setting-up, 36, 37-

39*, 228-239; why muscles

need, 216.
Eyes, and eyeglasses, 76 *, 77J de-

INDEX

245

fects of, 75, 76, 77; function of,
23; keeping in good condition,
77; structure of, 74 *, 75.

Fable of the organs of the body, 23.

Far-sightedness, 75.

Fermentation, 153.

Fever, 129; scarlet, 196; typhoid,
124, 170; yellow, 187.

"Fingers, food, and flies," 166.

Fire, safety from, 224.

First aid, 219 * 220-222.

Flies, development of, 179, 180*;
and disease, 166, 181; feet of,
181; fighting against, 182, 189-
191; traps for, 183.

Foods, and growth, 81; and health,
218; amount and kind of, 14,
as fuel, 26 *; clean and pure,
174*, 175, 176*; cooked, 176;
conquering dislike of, 15; decay
of, 175; energy in, 81, 82*;
germs spread by, 166; ideal, 86,
87; preservation of, 175; saving
in war time, 87, 88 *; uncooked,
176, 177; variety of, 83 *; where
they come from, 86.

Food supply, guarding the, 205,
206.

Freedom, enemies to, 144-146.

Frostbites, 222.

Gases, 112.

Germs, 159; in wounds, 177. (See

Disease Germs, Microbes.)
Glands, sweat, 129.
Gorgas, William C., 188, 189 *.

Habits, and citizenship, 64; of using
stimulants and tobacco, 146, 147;
good and bad, 62 *, 63 *; of cool-
ness and courage, 67; of eating,

88, 89; of healthy living, n, 12 *,

16*, 17* 18*.
Habit-forming drugs, 149.
Hair, caring for, 107, 133*, 134,

189.
Hands, bones of, 24 *; structure of,

25; washing, before eating, 171,

219.

Harvey, William, 126.
Head, a part of the living machine,

22.
Health, an army of, 203-212; and

food, 14, 218; and habits of

living, n, i2*-i6*, 17*, 18*;

and your country, 216; guarding,

208, 209; public, 204-212; rules

for, 213-227; soap and water as

guardians of, 170 *.
Health crusaders, 224-226; chores

of, 225.

Hearing, 74. (See Ear.)
Heart, 23 *; function of, 27, 28,

124, 1 27; structure of, 121, i2«*.
Hercules, story of, 48, 49 *.
Hoover, Herbert C., 89 *.
Hygiene, definition, 22.

Infection, avoiding, 220.

Influenza, 159, 196.

Inhibition, 61.

Insects, and disease, 166, 181, 189;
fighting against pests, 219.

Intestines, 23 *; digestion in, 95;
large, 93; small, 93; how to pre-
vent diseases of, 181.

Iris, 74 *.

Janet's argument, story of, 210-211.
Joints, function of, 24; definition

of, 33-

Jones, story of John Paul, 213,
214.

246

INDEX

Keller, Helen, 70-74, 73 *.
Kidneys, 96, 97.
Knees, structure and use, 34.
Knight, how a boy became, 9, ip *.

Larva, of fly, 179, 180; of mosquito,

183, 185.

Larynx, in *, 119.
Lazear, Jesse, 188.
Legs, structure of, 25; arrangement

of bones in, 34 *, 35.
Lens, 74 *, 75.
Life, the most wonderful thing in

the world, 20.
Light, when reading or sewing, 18,

78*.
Lion-Heart, story of Richard the,

125-126.
Liquid, 112.
Liver, 23 *, 95, 96.
Lunch, in the morning, 14.
Lungs, 23 *, ii i; structure of, m-

112.

Maggot. (See Larva.)

Malaria 184, 185, 187.

Measles, and microbes, 159; signs
of, 196; story of why Alfred did
not have, 199-200 *.

Medicines, taking, 149, 220.

Microbes, 102, 159; and tooth de-
cay, 101; as friends and foes, 161;
fighting the microbes of disease,
159, 160, 161; helpful, 163; how
spread, 165, 166; on flys foot,
181; on skin, 132; source of, 164,
169. (See Disease Germs.)

Microscope, 102.

Milk, a good food, 84; danger from,
174, 176-177; pasteurization of,
176, 177.

Mont St. Michel, story of, 64, 65,
66 *, 67.

Mosquito, and malaria, 184, 185 *;

and yellow fever, 188; control

of, 186, 187 *; danger from, 184;

fighting against, 189-191; habits

of, 183..
Motto of American boy or girl,

215*.
Mouth, 23; digestive juices in, 93;

guarding against letting germs

into, 172, 173 *, 219.
Muscles, biceps, 44; exercise of,

216; function of. 25; how they

work, 44 *.

Nails, keeping cean, 133.

Near-sightedness, 75.

Nerves, carriers of messages, 28,

56.

Nervous system, function of, 28.
Nose, function of, 23; letting germs

into, 174.

Nuisances, public, 203.
Nurse, Public Health, 209-210.

Old people, 159; helping, 33, 52,

63*.
Organs, of resprat'on, 27, iio-m,

118; of speech, 119; principal

parts of body, 23 *, 29.
Outdoor life, 138.
Oxygen, 112, 113 *; in blood, 124;

in old wells and cesspools, 116;

necessity of, 26; the good fairy,

114.

Pain, cause of, 57.

Panama Canal, 186, 187.

Pancreas, 95.

Pasteur, Louis, 160 *, 161.

Pasteurization of milk, 176, 177.

Pelvis, function of, 32.

Perspiration, 129, 132,

INDEX

247

Play, indoor, 17; outdoor, 3, 5, 16,

17*, i39-
Pneumonia, 119.
Poisons, 222; in food, 218, 219.
Prince and robber children, story

of, 40. 41 *.
Protein, 83.
Pulse, 125.
Pupa, 180, 181, 184.
Pupil, 74.

Quarrel, slory of the brushes', 105,
106 *, 107.

Reed, Walter, 187, 188.
Reflex action, 59, 60 *.
Respiration, in; object of, 114,

115; organs of, 27.
Rest, and health, 218; and sleep, 67.
Retina, 74 *, 75.
Ribs, 32.
Richard the Lion Heart, story of,

125-126.
Roots of teeth, 101 *.

Safety First, 223-225.

Scarlet fever, and microbes, 159;

signs of, 196.
Scurvy, 85 *.

Sense organs, 74; heat and cold, 74.
Sera, 206.

Servants, story of our unseen, 46.
Serving our country, 52, 87, 88,

153, 202; rules for keeping fit

for, 214, 215, 216, 217.
Sewage, 204.
Sewers, 204.
Sight, 74.

Skeleton, 25; general plan of, 32 *.
Skin, as organ of excretion, 132;

care of, 133; function of, 132;

how to keep healthy, 217; mi-
crobes on, 132.

Smell, 74.

Snow Fairies and the Mountain
Elves, story of the, 139-141.

Soap, as guardian of health, 170 *.

Solid substance, 112.

Sore throat, 119.

Speech, organs of, 119.

Spinal cord, 58.

Stimulants, 146, 147.

Stomach, 23 *, 93; digestion in, 94;
size of a child's, 93 *.

Street accidents, safety from, 223 *.

Strong men, needed, 51 *.

Study, how to, 16 *.

Sweat glands, 129, 132.

Swim, learn to, 216, 217 *.

Taste, 74.

Tea and coffee, 146, 147.

Team play and work, 17.

Teeth, brushing the, 12, 18, 104;
decay of, 102-104; dental care of,
107, 108; diseases of, 102; kinds
of, 99; structure of, 101; tem-
porary and permanent, 100 *.

Tell, story of William, 143, 145 *.

Temperature, regulation of body,
127-129.

Tendons, definition and use of, 45.

Throat, 23.

Tobacco, 147, 148 *; effect on cir-
culation, 130; effect on nerves
and brains, 148.

Tongue, function of, 23.

Tonsilitis, 119.

Tonsils, 119.

Toothbrush, how to use, 104 *; im-
portance of, 107.

Touch, sense of, 74.

Training, keeping in, 52.

248

INDEX

Troy, the wooden horse of, 168.

Trunk, 22, 32.

Tuberculosis, and milk, 176; cause

of, 159, .207; symptoms of, 207;

war against, 206, 209 *.

Ulysses, 168.

United States Public Health Serv-
ice, 202.
Urine, 97.

Vaccines, 206.

Veins, function of, 121.

Ventilation, 139; methods of, 137,

138*.
Vocal cords, 1 19.

Wastes of the body, 96.

Water, accidents in, 217 *, 224;

as guardian of health, 170*;

danger from polluted, 174.
Water supply, 204, 205 *.
Weight, 240-242.
Well, story of the old, 115, 116 *.
Whooping cough, 159, 195.
Windpipe, 23 *, 1 1 1 *.
Wine, 150, 153.
Wires, accidents from, 224.
Wooden horse of Troy, 168.
Work, how to, 16 *.
Wounds, care of, 177, 178.

Yellow fever, 187.

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