Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/471

Rh purpose defeated, and the vital energy flags, the sap of life runs to seed. On the same principle an existence of joyless drudgery seems to drain the springs of health, even at an age when they can draw upon the largest inner resources; hope, too often baffled, at last withdraws her aid; the tongue may be attuned to canting hymns of consolation, but the heart can not be deceived, and with its sinking pulse the strength of life ebbs away. Nine tenths of our city children are literally starving for lack of recreation; not the means of life, but its object, civilization has defrauded them of; they feel a want which bread can only aggravate, for only hunger helps them to forget the misery of ennui. Their pallor is the sallow hue of a cellar-plant; they would be healthier if they were happier. I would undertake to cure a sickly child with fun and rye-bread sooner than with tidbits and tedium.

Mirth is a remedy; the remarkable longevity of the French aristocrats, in spite of their dietetic and other sins, can with certainty be ascribed to the gayety of their pastimes; almost any mode of diversion is better than the deadly monotony of our Sabbatarian machine life; even excursion-trains have added years to the average longevity of our city populations. In a temperature of 56° Fahr., Elisha Kane kept his men in good health by devoting a part of the long night to burlesques and pantomimes; but, as a sanitary precaution, dramaturgy was only collateral to the substitution of tea for grog; and the most striking illustration of the hygienic effect of merriment is therefore, perhaps, the experience of Dr. Brehm, the manager of the Hamburg Zoölogical Garden. Having noticed that the monkeys in the happy-family department generally outlived the solitary prisoners, he concluded to try the Swiss nostalgia-remedy, "fun and cider-punch"; but the liquid stimulants proved superfluous: the introduction of a grapple-swing and a few toys sufficed to reverse the shadow on the dial of death, and man by man the quadrumana recovered from a disease which evidently had been nothing but ennui, since the mortuary lists of the last decade showed an almost uniform death-rate throughout the year, except in midsummer, when the monkey-house could be thoroughly ventilated.

Men of a cheerful disposition are generally long-lived, and anything tending to counteract the influence of worry and discontent directly contributes to the preservation of health. Despair can paralyze the energy of the vital functions like a sudden poison, while the fulfillment of a long-cherished hope has effected the cure of many