p. 86 | HYGIENIC DECALOGUE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 6, 1900

HYGIENIC DECALOGUE.

A PARISIAN publisher offered a prize for the ten best rules for acquiring and maintaining good mental and bodily health. There were over five hundred competitors. Dr. Decomet won the prize for the following, as translated in the Lancet:—

1. General Hygiene: Rise early, go to bed early; and in the meantime keep yourself occupied.

2. Respiratory Hygiene: Water and bread sustain life, but pure air and sunlight are indispensable for health.

3. Gastrointestinal Hygiene: Frugality and sobriety are the best elixir for a long life.

4. Epidermal Hygiene: Cleanliness preserves from rust; the best-kept machines last the longest.

5. Sleep Hygiene: A sufficiency of rest repairs and strengthens; too much rest weakens and makes soft.

6. Clothes Hygiene: He is well clothed who keeps his body sufficiently warm, safeguarding it from all abrupt changes of temperature, while at the same time maintaining perfect freedom of motion.

7. House Hygiene: A house that is clean and cheerful makes a happy home.

8. Moral Hygiene: The mind reposes and resumes its edge by means of relaxation and amusement, but excess opens the door to the passions, and these attract the vices.

9. Intellectual Hygiene: Gaiety conduces to love of life, and love of life is half of health. On the other hand, sadness and gloom help on old age.

10. Professional Hygiene: Is it your brain that feeds you? Don’t allow your arms and legs to become anchylosed. Dig for a livelihood, but don’t omit to burnish your intellect and elevate your thoughts.