BY E. F. BENSON text decoration and text decoration EUSTACE H. MILES. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. 31, West Twenty-Third Street 1903 colophon, K PRINTED BY KELLY’S DIRECTORIES LTD., LONDON AND KINGSTON....

The following pages contain certain rules and suggestions concerning health, and certain simple and sensible ways in which it may, we hope, be acquired and maintained at a very small expense of time and self-denial, by a large number of people who are naturally accustomed to feel not very well. The book is founded on notes made by its two authors who, though they lead for the most part very different lives, are agreed on certain broad principles of health herein set forth. One of them, for insta

Among the many notable discoveries made by the Anglo-Saxon race during the nineteenth century there is none more curious, none perhaps which will turn out to have been more concerned with the well-being of the race itself, than that which we may broadly call the discovery of Athletics. In itself this discovery was natural enough, since the love of sport, the pitting of the wit of man against animals, or against his fellows, has always been strongly inherent among us; but after thirty years of th

Without for the moment taking into consideration those millions of London who stifle in crowded slums, on insufficient or unsuitable food, and many of whom have inherited from birth some taint of constitution, and concerning ourselves for the moment only with those within whose reach, broadly speaking, are all the expedients known for insuring health, we should find it curious and probably depressing to ascertain, if we could, what proportion felt well , given they had no definite cause of ill-

It will not in this chapter be necessary to go at all deeply into the physiological effects and changes wrought in the body by exercise, but at the same time for those interested in the subject it will be well to sketch in the merest outline the general effect of exercise, and give the reasons why (a rule so universal as to be considered as practically without exception) those who take exercise, especially when they take it in air, where there is a sufficiency of oxygen, are in better health tha

Dogmatism on any subject is dangerous: in matters of food it is fatal. One man’s meat is literally another man’s poison, and because one of the writers knows that personally he can digest without the slightest discomfort a heavy supper, sleep the sleep of the just, and rise cheerful and hungry for breakfast, he would be making a great mistake in recommending such a course for a dyspeptic person, with a view to the strengthening of his digestive processes. In fact, if a naturally dyspeptic person

It is not our intention to speak in any special manner about prescribed remedies for different ailments, since our concern is with the general standard of health and fitness rather than with temporary ailments, for which in many cases some special treatment is the most convenient remedy. But our object being to show how by a proper mode of life the body may be put into a state of health in which it is the least likely to need any help from drugs or special treatment, it would be clearly out of p

Among all the millions of outside agencies that go to build up and strengthen, or if improperly used to undermine, the health of the human body, there is none so constant in our environment as air. At intervals it is necessary to eat and to sleep. At intervals it is equally essential for us to have light; but the use of air goes on from birth to death; completely deprived of it only for a few minutes we die, and it is largely because breathing is so obviously and always essential, because except

The late Sir Andrew Clark once said that he never knew anyone die from insomnia, though he knew of many who had died from trying to cure it. To a man who really suffers from insomnia, perhaps, this is but doubtful consolation, but in any case the latter half of this great doctor’s remark is valuable. For probably more poison is taken to remedy insomnia, and on the whole with worse results, than in the alleviation of any other disease which flesh is heir to. Drugs, especially narcotics, are the m

It is impossible to make the simplest movement of any kind without the conscious or unconscious direction of the mind, so inextricably are the two bound up together; and from the earliest times physicians, both spiritual, mental and physical, have known that the soul can be reached through the “subtle gateways of the body.” This aspect of training, the importance, that is, of the cleanly health of the body, and its prompt and unrebellious obedience to the will, which is con cerned with this ques

The excuse for this chapter in a book written (as set forth), not for the athlete primarily, but for the average man, who is hopelessly incapable of prominence or great excellence in any one branch of athletics, lies in the fact that such a vast number of people nowadays play games, and are so anxious on certain days to do their best at them in some competition, that quite a fair percentage of readers will, it is hoped, pick up a hint or two which may serve them in good stead at that trying mome

We have already spoken of the constant need of light, in order that the body may be healthy, and have suggested some simple rules about the use of heat, either in Turkish or ordinary baths. But these natural aids to health may, as we have said, be used as directly remedial agents in case of disease, or to correct existing bodily defects. Much scientific investigation has lately been made into the healing properties of electric light, whether used merely as light, or, as some hold, to put externa