p. 719 | HEALTH NOTES by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 5, 1901

HEALTH NOTES.

By L. A. S.

A PERSON should so dress that he will not have to think anything about his clothes when he has them on; and the same rule will apply in eating. Eat such things as will give you no occasion to think about your meal after it is finished. The point is that our minds are to be occupied with greater and higher themes. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink.”

ONE of the very best rules for avoiding disease is expressed in two words — keep clean. Keep your premises clean; keep your house clean; keep yourself clean. To keep your house clean there is nothing better than soap and water, used freely and thoroughly. Soapsuds is one of the very best antidotes for germs. Keep yourself clean by a daily bath, and don’t forget that internal cleanliness is as essential as external cleanliness. By internal cleanliness is meant the prevention of the system from becoming clogged. When the skin, the liver, and other excretory organs become inactive, the impurities in the system are partly thrown off through the mucous membranes within the body, producing irritation and congestion. The person whose system is clogged is almost certain to be a sufferer from catarrh. But do not take drugs to regulate the system. Take plenty of water between meals, eat plenty of fruit, avoid all kinds of pastry and greasy foods, and take plenty of exercise. This, in a normally healthy person, will be sufficient.

IT is important to keep away from disease germs, but it is no less important to have a barrier in your system to keep the germs away from you. More people escape disease by having this barrier against disease, than escape it by keeping away from places where disease breeds. The fact is that disease germs of nearly every kind are floating in the air, and no person can expect to keep entirely clear of them. That very common disease, tuberculosis, for example, is much more liable to be contracted by a breaking down of the barrier which a healthy state of the system affords against the germs, than by contact with a tuberculous patient or with any dangerous source of infection; though, of course, any person is more liable to contract consumption in such places than elsewhere. But it should not be imagined that to be safe against this malady one has only to keep away from the victims or plague spots of the disease, without giving particular care to bodily health. The greatest danger arises not from a locality, but from a condition. When the system is run down from starvation or disease, or the mucous membranes of the lungs or intestines are inflamed or in an unhealthy state from whatever cause, the person’s condition is one which invites the disease to fasten upon him. The germs which are always present in the air find a weak spot where the conditions are favorable to their propagation, they fasten upon it and begin to multiply, and ere long the victim finds himself on the road to a consumptive’s grave, without having been near any particular source of infection. In a healthy system the conditions are never favorable to the propagation of disease germs; the vitality of the body resists them; and while this might not be sufficient to ward off the most contagious diseases, it is undoubtedly the best safeguard one can have against many of the diseases which are recognized as due to the presence of a specific organism or “germ.” L. A. S.