Sunday 29 August 2010

For the Good of Your Health

Some health tips from the Lancet of 1854 (via the Leisure Hour):

LAWS OF HEALTH

  • Children should be taught to use the left hand as well as the right.
  • Coarse bread is much better for children than fine.
  • Children should sleep in separate beds, and should not wear night-caps.
  • Children under seven years of age should not be confined over six or seven hours in the house, and that time should be broken by frequent recesses.
  • Children and young people must be made to hold their heads up and their shoulders back while sitting, standing, or walking.
  • The best beds for children are of hair, or, in winter, of hair and cotton.
  • From one to one pound and a half of solid food is sufficient for a person in the ordinary vocations of business.
  • Persons in sedentary employments should drop one-third of their food, and they will escape indigestion.
  • Young persons should walk at least two hours a day in the open air.
  • Young ladies should be prevented from bandaging the chest.
  • We have known the worst diseases, terminating in death, which began in this practice.
  • Every person, great and small, should wash all over in cold water every morning.
  • Reading aloud is conducive to health.
  • The more clothing we wear, other things being equal, the less food we need.
  • Sleeping-rooms should have a fire-place, or some mode of ventilation besides the windows.
  • Young people and others cannot study much by lamp-light with impunity.
  • The best remedy for eyes weakened by night use, is a fine stream of cold water frequently applied to them.
The Lancet.

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