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Read book online Β«A Handbook of Health by Woods Hutchinson (readnow TXT) πŸ“•Β».   Author   -   Woods Hutchinson



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tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">127 Rowing is a Splendid Exercise for Heart and Lungs

131 The Great Essential to Lifeβ€”Air

134 Diagram of the Air Tubes and Lungs

137 "Improving their Wind"

145 The "Dark Room" Danger of the Tenements

146 Ventilating the Pupils, as well as the Classroom

147 A Well-Aired Classroom

148 A Healthful Arrangement of Windows and Shades

151 A Healthful Bedroom

152 Disease Germs

153 A Vacuum Cleaner

155 Exercise in the Cold is a Good Preventive of Colds

156 A Year of Consumption on Manhattan Island

157 Consumption in Chicago

159 A Report-Form from a Health Department Laboratory

160 A Sign that Ought not to be Necessary

161 A Comparative Death-Rate from Contagious Diseases

163 A Tuberculosis Tent Colony in Winter

165 An Outdoor Classroom for Tuberculous Children

169 The Layers of the Skin

171 The Glands in the Skin

181 Results of Tight Clothing

183 A Comfortable Dress for Outdoor Study in Cold Weather

185 As a Tonic, Swimming is the Best Form of Bathing

200 The Urinary System

205 The Muscle-Sheet

206 Use of Muscles in Bowling

207 Use of Muscles in Football

207 Patella and Muscle

211 The Human Skeleton

212 The Spinal Column

213 A Ball-and-Socket Joint

213 A Hinge Joint

214 Lengthwise Section of Bone

214 Cross Section of Bone

218 The Nervous System

229 The Position of the Body is an Index to its Health

230 Imprint of (1) Arched Foot and (2) Flat Foot

231 The Result of Wearing a Fashionable Shoe

234 Callus Formed around a Fracture

242 A Trained Body

245 Tug of War

246 The Giant Stride

248 School Gardening

249 A Wasted Chance for Public Health

250 An Obstacle Race

251 The High Jump

256 Adenoids

257 Mouth-Breathers

260 The Apparatus of Vision

263 A School Eye-Test

265 Disinfecting a Baby's Eyes at Birth

267 The Apparatus of Hearing

272 The Vocal Cords

278 Teethβ€”A Question of Care

279 A Tooth

282 The Replacing of the Milk Teeth

284 A Tooth-Brush Drill

290 The Winning Fight

291 Death-Rate from Measles

294 Death-Rate from Diphtheria and Croup

298 Bill of Health

301 Germs of Malaria

302 Culex

302 Anopheles

304 Oiling a Breeding Ground of Mosquitoes

310 An Educational Fly Poster

311 A Breeding Place of Flies and Filth

321 A Tourniquet

325 Poison Ivy

328 The New Method of Artificial Breathing

PLATES IN COLOR

facing 110 Diagram of the Circulatory System

facing 198 Diagram showing General Plan and Position of Body-Machinery

A HANDBOOK OF HEALTH CHAPTER I RUNNING THE HUMAN AUTOMOBILE

The Body-Automobile. If you were to start to-morrow morning on a long-distance ride in an automobile, the first thing that you would do would be to find out just how that automobile was built; how often it must have fresh gasoline; how its different speed gears were worked; what its tires were made of; how to mend them; and how to cure engine troubles. To attempt to run an automobile, for even a ten-mile ride, with less information than this, would be regarded as foolhardy.

Yet most of us are willing to set out upon the journey of life in the most complicated, most ingenious, and most delicate machine ever madeβ€”our bodyβ€”with no more knowledge of its structure than can be gained from gazing in the looking-glass; or of its needs, than a preference for filling up its fuel tank three times a day. More knowledge than this is often regarded as both unnecessary and unpleasant. Yet there are few things more important, more vital to our health, our happiness, and our success in life, than to know how to steer and how to road-repair our body-automobile. This we can learn only from physiology and hygiene.

The General Plan of the Human Automobile is Simple. Complicated as our body-automobile looks to be, there are certain things about the plan and general build of it which are plain enough. It has a head end, where fuel supplies are taken in and where its lamps and other look-out apparatus are carried; a body in which the fuel is stored and turned into work or speed, and into which air is drawn to help combustion and to cool the engine pipes. It has a pair of fore-wheels (the arms) and a pair of hind-wheels (the legs), though these have been reduced to only one spoke each, and swing only about a quarter of the way around and back again when running, instead of round and round. It has a steering gear (the brain), just back of the headlights, and a system of nerve electric wires connecting all parts of it. It gets warm when it runs, and stops if it is not fed.

TO ATTEMPT TO RUN AN AUTOMOBILE WITHOUT KNOWING HOW WOULD BE REGARDED AS FOOLHARDY TO ATTEMPT TO RUN AN AUTOMOBILE WITHOUT KNOWING HOW WOULD BE REGARDED AS FOOLHARDY

There is not an unnecessary part, or unreasonable "cog," anywhere in the whole of our bodies. It is true that there are a few little remnants which are not quite so useful as they once were, and which sometimes cause trouble. But for the most part, all we have to do is to look long and carefully enough at any organ or part of our bodies, to be able to puzzle out just what it is or was intended to do, and why it has the shape and size it has.

Why the Study of Physiology is Easy. There is one thing that helps to make the study of physiology quite easy. It is that you already know a good deal about your body, because you have had to live with it for a number of years past, and you can hardly have helped becoming somewhat acquainted with it during this time.

You have, also, another advantage, which will help you in this study. While your ideas of how to take care of your body are rather vague, and some of them wrong, most of them are in the main right, or at least lead you in the right direction. You all know enough to eat when you are hungry and to drink when you are thirsty, even though you don't always know when to stop, or just what to eat. You like sunny days better than cloudy ones, and would much rather breathe fresh air than foul. You like to go wading and swimming when you are hot and dusty, and you don't need to be told to go to sleep when you are tired. You would much rather have sugar than vinegar, sweet milk than sour milk; and you dislike to eat or drink anything that looks dirty or foul, or smells bad.

These inborn likes and dislikesβ€”which we call instinctsβ€”are the forces which have built up this wonderful body-machine of ours in the past and, if properly understood and trained, can be largely trusted to run it in the future. How to follow these instincts intelligently, where to check them, where to encourage them, how to keep the proper balance between them, how to live long and be useful and happyβ€”this is what the interesting study of physiology and hygiene will teach you.

CHAPTER II WHY WE HAVE A STOMACH WHAT KEEPS US ALIVE

The Energy in Food and Fuel. The first question that arises in our mind on looking at an engine or machine of any sort is, What makes it go? If we can succeed in getting an answer to the question, What makes the human automobile go? we shall have the key to half its secrets at once. It is fuel, of course; but what kind of fuel? How does the body take it in, how does it burn it, and how does it use the energy or power stored up in it to run the body-engine?

Man is a bread-and-butter-motor. The fuel of the automobile is gasoline, and the fuel of the man-motor we call food. The two kinds of fuel do not taste or smell much alike; but they are alike in that they both have what we call energy, or power, stored up in them, and will, when set fire to, burn, or explode, and give off this power in the shape of heat, or explosions, which will do work.

Food and Fuel are the Result of Life. Fuels and foods are also alike in another respect; and that is, that, no matter how much they may differ in appearance and form, they are practically all the result of life. This is clear enough as regards our foods, which are usually the seeds, fruits, and leaves of plants, and the flesh of animals. It is also true of the cord-wood and logs that we burn in our stoves and fireplaces. But what of coal and gasoline? They are minerals, and they come, as we know, out of the depths of the earth. Yet they too are the product of life; for the layers of coal, which lie sixty, eighty, one hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the earth, are the fossilized remains of great forests and jungles, which were buried millions of years ago, and whose leaves and branches and trunks have been pressed and baked into coal. Gasoline comes from coal oil, or petroleum, and is simply the "juice" which was squeezed out of these layers of trees and ferns while they were being crushed and pressed into coal.

How the Sun is Turned into Energy by Plants and Animals. Where did the flowers and fruits and leaves that we now see, and the trees and ferns that grew millions of years ago, get this power, part of which made them grow and

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