The Open-Air Life by Dr. Robertson Wallace

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 24, 1906

The Open-Air Life

By Dr. Robertson Wallace

A GREAT deal of the disease to which man is subject is due to the unnatural conditions of life imposed on him by the march of civilization. The “natural man” was designed expressly for the open-air life, and the process of his adaptation to an intra-mural existence has been both slow and painful, and only the fittest of his kind have survived.

An indoor life means the deprivation to a greater or less extent of such vitally important things as fresh air, sunshine, pure water, and opportunities for abundant bodily exercise. Because of the scarcity of fresh air and the super-abundance of foul, consumption has become a veritable plague in the land; for lack of sunlight, anemia, rickets, the stunting of growth, and lack of vitality are rife; for want of pure water, so necessary to the upkeep of a healthy body (which consists of seventy-five per cent of water), people poison their systems with bad beer and worse whisky; while the important organs of the body become torpid and disordered because the natural machinery is allowed to rust, so to speak, in idleness.

There is reason for believing that the natural man was fairly long lived, simply because he lived a more natural life than is possible for his up-to-date descendants, who have to battle with such modern terrors as influenza, appendicitis, and neurasthenia. And when he died, he died simply, as he lived, without any evidences of that “complication of disorders” so common in these days of high living and not very plain thinking.

Probably the most beneficial and convenient way of obtaining all the benefits of outdoor life is to camp out, and this is a mode of life which appeals strongly as a rule to most young men, possessing, as it does for most of them, the crowning charm of novelty.

Tent life in fine weather is an ideal mode of existence, as it enables one to obtain the maximum of light and air, combined with due protection from the ruder elements. It also, as a rule, entails a certain amount of work, just sufficient to give a keener relish to the hours of idleness which follow. Early to bed and early to rise are among the orders of the day for campers-out, and though early rising per se is not to be counted as a shining virtue, the early riser in the country undoubtedly breathes a strangely exhilarating air which appears to be peculiar to those sunny summer mornings. One of the first effects noticeable in the camper-out is an increase both in appetite and in digestive power, because, owing to the greater purity of the air breathed, oxidization of the tissues is more rapid and perfect, so that the body’s demand for food, as well as its capacity for effectually dealing with it, is greatly enhanced. And pure air not only favors a brisker tissue change, but also facilitates the removal of those many and various products of the combustion of the tissues—the ash and clinker of the human furnace—which, when incompletely removed, are so productive of serious forms of disease.

Another advantage of life under canvas is the prolonged exposure of the body to the health-giving and energizing rays of the sun. The light-colored clothing generally worn by campers-out favors this salutary action of the sunlight, which is dangerous only when its intensity is excessive. It is often forgotten how great an influence is exerted on the bodily tissues by the action of light alone, which is as necessary to the due elaboration of the blood of the human beings as it is to the production of the chlorophyl of the vegetable kingdom. We are well aware how injurious to the healthy growth and development of flowers and fruits is the prolonged exclusion of the sun’s rays, but we are apt to forget, when we immure ourselves by day in sunless offices or warerooms, how proportionately deleterious to our health is the lack of sunlight.

To those who are liable to chest troubles, the open-air life may be especially recommended. Most of the serious affections of the lungs are due primarily to a lack of fresh air, combined with the respiration of poisoned air laden with animal impurities and the germs of disease. Bad air is just as irritating to the lungs as bad food is to the stomach. The stomach, however, is at an advantage in that it can reject food which is likely to prove injurious to the system, whereas the lungs have no such privilege, and must admit the most dangerous impurities which happen to be present in the atmosphere respired. In crowded towns, when even the ventilation of the very streets themselves, let alone the houses, leaves much to be desired, people are poisoning themselves and one another daily, each literally breathing death to his neighbor. Under canvas, all the danger of poisoning by the volatile toxins of human respiration is avoided.

Considering the healthfulness of camp life, its comparative cheapness, and its many other advantages, I am surprised that it is not very much more in vogue than appears to be the case. For healthy young fellows it affords the best means of spending a holiday, the beneficial effects of which must be lasting. It is especially advantageous to those engaged for the best part of the year in crowded shops or offices in large towns, where pure air and uninterrupted light are at a premium. In fine weather it is a form of life well adapted even for the slightly delicate, who can pitch their tents either inland or by the seaside, according to their choice or as the climatic conditions demanded by their own particular case require.—Dr. Robertson Wallace, in The Young Man.