KEEP COOL by O. C. Godsmark

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 40.

KEEP COOL.

By O. C. Godsmark

BY ELDER O. C. GODSMARK.

AS THE heated season has now fully come, the question of how to keep cool is one not altogether out of place. When we consider the fact that we are composed of the food we eat and the fluids we drink, it becomes apparent that the nature of this food and drink must, in a great degree, affect our powers of enduring the extremes of heat and cold.

In order that we may pass through the heated season with a moderate degree of comfort, it is highly important that we avoid the use of highly seasoned foods and greasy gravies. The use of pepper, mustard, ginger, pepper sauce, salt in large quantities, and other spices used by so many to make their food relishable, and perhaps to whip along an already worn and lagging stomach, is the very thing to cause us to feel most sensibly the heat and depression of the summer months.

When food, or, rather, condiments of this sort—for they cannot properly be termed foods—are taken into the system, they immediately set up an irritation in the stomach, which calls for large quantities of water or other cooling fluids to allay the inflammation they have there produced. The whole system feels the irritating effect of food thus seasoned, and is fired up to expel the intruder. Were the same amount of pepper, mustard, pepper sauce, or whatever the condiment may be, taken into the mouth, and there allowed to remain for some time, say from one to three hours—the time it remains in the stomach—the irritating effect upon the mucous membrane lining the mouth would be readily realized; and were this to be continued from two to three times each day for some years, we would hardly be surprised at the result. Then how can we expect the stomach and other digestive organs to remain in a healthy condition so long as we compel them to submit constantly to the same treatment? The effect of such a diet, as a rule, is to make the individual peevish, irritable, and nervous; and why should it not be so? The stomach in its irritated condition conveys this irritation to the brain, whence, through the sympathetic system of nerves, it is carried to all parts of the body, affecting the mind as well as the various other organs. Stomach, liver, kidneys, and intestines are all excited to an unnatural degree.

Flesh foods, especially those containing much fat, should be avoided during the summer months. The process undergone by fat taken into the system is so nearly like that seen in the burning of grease of any kind that the result is practically the same,—that of producing an extra amount of heat in the body. In the colder climates, where the people are exposed to the severe cold and rigors of the long Arctic winters, the consumption of larger quantities of fat may be more admissible; but where the heat is to be met and endured, the less of this highly carbonaceous food taken into the system the better, as it only has to be burned up in order to be gotten rid of; and the less we add of this unnatural heat to the body, the more endurable will be the heated season, and the less we will suffer thereby.

Let the food be plain, simple, and free from all irritating condiments. Providence surrounds us, at this season of the year, with a bountiful supply of fruits, grains, and vegetables, of which our Heavenly Father said, "Ye may freely eat." And when these are prepared in a healthful, inviting manner, they form, with milk, the very best diet.

The sponging of the whole body, or a simple wet-hand rub, upon first rising in the morning, relieves the skin of its coating of oily matter that has been deposited during the night and the previous day, and so relieves the body of this extra covering. By thus opening up the pores of the skin, it can breathe more freely, the evaporation take place more readily, and thus tend largely to keeping the whole system in a more comfortable condition.

Attention to some of the simple laws of health, mixed largely with a good degree of straightforward good sense, will do much to alleviate the ills of life and avoid many of the diseases with which we would otherwise suffer. North Adams, Mich.