How to Live a Century by B. F. Richards

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 15, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 11.

How to Live a Century

By B. F. Richards

HOW TO LIVE A CENTURY. No. 7.

PURE air is food for the lungs, as bread is food for the stomach; and an inexhaustible supply of it has been furnished, fresh and free, to every living creature. It is possible for a person to live a whole month without solid food; but when deprived of fluid to drink, life becomes extinct more quickly; but when deprived of air, the person can live only a few moments.

All through life's journey, from the first breath in infancy to the last act of respiration in old age, air is an absolute necessity.

This vitalizing element, with its invigorating influence, can be heard playing in the tree-tops, whizzing around the corners of the house, and we feel it fanning our own cheeks; it is everywhere, rushing along on errands of mercy, imparting life to man, plant, and beast.

Air is a life-preserver; it is the particular friend of man; and he who barricades the doors and windows against this life-saving friend, gives a cordial invitation to disease and death to enter.

Open the doors and windows, and let the sun shine in, and let the wind blow through the rooms every morning, for they are disinfectants performing labor of a sanitary nature. Breathe long and deep; fill the lungs to their utmost capacity with pure air several times each day, and keep the home well ventilated night and day; and remember that when night comes on, all the air you have, in or out of the house, till the next morning, is "night air," and you can not bottle day air enough within the sleeping-room to last through the night; so by all means let the air circulate through the room, and thus keep a fresh supply of this life-giving element constantly with you.

More fresh air is required during sleep than when awake, for increased quantities of poisonous products are given off from the lungs and skin at this time; so each respiration renders the air in an unventilated room more unfit to be breathed again.

Keep the windows sufficiently open so the fresh "night air" can come in from one side, and the impure air can go out through the other. The upper sash should be down one inch and the lower sash up one inch for each person sleeping in the room. A lamp burning in the room should be counted as equal to one person, and a gas jet equal to six or more persons, according to size of burner. It is suicidal for any person to sleep or live in an unventilated room, for when deprived of pure air, the person will die sooner than from being robbed of any of the other life elements.

The writer has seen many instances where vines covered with heavy foliage were growing before the windows of the sleeping-room, for the express purpose of keeping out the sun. The sun, like the air, is a powerful agent, prolonging the life of the human family by burning and in other ways destroying the enemies that are lurking about in our pathway. So, in place of shutting the sun out, remove every obstruction, curtain, blinds, and vines, and let your friend shine in.

Sunshine and fresh air make cheerful homes, and, combined with wholesome food, pure water, and cleanliness of the body, make cheerful

people; and cheerfulness inspires activity, like the sparkling brook, as it glides so gracefully over its pebbly bed, proving a blessing to everything within its reach, and making living objects happier for having passed that way.

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Prov. 17:22. Be cheerful always, in the home and away from it; "look on the bright side," and cultivate a desire to make others happy, and happiness will not be a stranger to you.

Carlyle said: "Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous,—a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."

If we would live to a "ripe old age" we must entirely abandon the use of tobacco in all of its forms; also the use of alcoholic beverages, for they are enemies, dangerous in character, stealthily undermining the foundation on which life depends.

One of the most common causes of nervousness and dyspepsia is tea and coffee; there are 3,000,000,000 pounds of tea, and 1,000,000,000 pounds of coffee consumed annually. Tea and coffee waste vital force, impair digestion, and affect injuriously the nervous system; they break down the delicate house in which we live, and prevent the builders from repairing the same, and, if allowed to continue in their work of obstruction and destruction, the house will surely become uninhabitable and useless.

B. F. RICHARDS.