Page:How and Why Library 413.jpg

 appearance, and it gives you an odor that is unpleasant to other people.

To keep really clean and the skin healthy, a warm, full bath with soap and flesh brush should be taken twice a week. The hands and face are outside in all weathers, all the time, so you must get into the nooks and corners of ears, nose, knuckles and finger nails every day. The teeth must be brushed with powder after every meal, and the mouth rinsed. In a warm, moist mouth bits of food quickly decay. You cannot keep your little food grinders and cutters for seventy years unless you take care of them. Your hair must be shampooed as often as every ten days or two weeks. Hair collects dust and oil and perspiration, and dead skin on the scalp, too.

The morning shower or plunge bath in cool water, and a brisk rubbing with a coarse towel, brings the blood to the skin and makes you feel warm and bright and active. It makes you feel sudden changes of temperature less, so you do not "take cold" so easily. Don’t forget the inside bath. Drink a lot of cool, pure water. Drink four to six glasses a day, and more as you grow older. Water washes through all the waste pipes of the body and cleans them. It is best to drink between meals, before breakfast and at bed-time. Water at meal times dilutes the food in the stomach too much.

When they are filled with air, the lungs expand two inches or more. This is a sign that clothing should not be too tight. The lungs go down almost to the waist line. You should breathe deep as well as wide. You cannot do that if you wear a tight belt. Clothing should be warm enough for the weather, but not so heavy that it tires you to carry it. The weight should hang from the shoulders, not from the hips. The shoulders were made to carry burdens. Weight on the hips and waist presses down the stomach, and all the organs below it. Don’t wear shoes in which you can't wriggle your toes. Shoes for children should have straight, broad soles and low or spring heels.

Don’t be afraid of fresh air. Use it all the time. There is plenty of it and it costs nothing. You wouldn’t want to wear a suit of second—hand clothing, would you? Your lungs do not like to breathe second-hand air. They need the oxygen that is in fresh air. (See .) A great many people seem to be afraid of night air. That is all the kind of air there is at night, so you have to take your choice between fresh night air and used night air. Doctors cure people with sick lungs by having them sleep out of doors. You can keep