Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/2032

1826, after the digestion of the morning meal is accomplished, and before they are tired out with the fatigues of the day.

Hot Baths,— by which are meant those of a temperature of from 85° to 105° F., are chiefly used in the treatment of ailments and diseases as powerful stimulants. Every parent should remember that a hot bath, causing free perspiration, followed by wrapping up warm in bed with blankets, will often save children and adults from severe attacks of illness, if promptly resorted to after exposure to cold or wet.

Cold Baths are invaluable aids in promoting and preserving health, if properly used in suitable cases; but may become dangerous agents, causing even fatal results, if employed by the wrong individuals, at improper times, or with excessive frequency. If an experimental cold dip the first thing in the morning, followed by a brisk rubbing with a loofah and drying with a rough towel, produces a healthy glow and a feeling of exhilaration, the practice may be safely followed every day for at least eight months in the year. But if the skin turns blue, or headache, languor or sickness follow, the practice must be given up.

Sea-Bathing is one of the best means of strengthening the system, either to prevent the development of actual disease, or to restore the original vigour to a constitution recovering with difficulty from the effects of some debilitating malady.

Many delicate women and children are not strong enough to endure the shock of cold sea-baths from the beach; for them a bath of warm salt water, taken comfortably at home, is invaluable.

Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue, or excitement of any kind. Women should avoid bathing at such times when it would be under conditions liable to endanger their health. Children and elderly persons should use warm or tepid baths, never below 70° F.

Food.—Nothing is more important to physical well being, and consequently to the attainment of long life, than the two evidences of a healthy stomach, which the immortal dramatist has linked together in the oft-quoted saying of Macbeth:

If we consider the amount of ill-temper, despondency, and general unhappiness which arises from want of proper digestion and the assimilation of our food, it seems obviously well worth while to put forth every effort, and undergo any sacrifice for the purpose of avoiding indigestion and the bodily ills which result.

It would be as reasonable to expect a locomotive to run without plenty of fuel as expect the human body to perform its daily labour without a sufficient supply of suitable food, properly masticated, swallowed, digested, assimilated and carried by the blood to nourish the various organs and tissues of the system, as they hourly wear out and are hourly replaced.