486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the inhumed celery-plant or the wide-spreading, spindling sprout of a 

 cellared potato. Here in New York, and in London, Paris, and Ber- 

 lin, the typhus sick are removed from the hospitals and placed in tents 

 open to air, and purified by the radiance of the health-giving sun- 

 beams. If thus potent for cure, how irresistible for prevention ! 



Exercise. The Greeks made exercise a part of education, and the 

 athlete, if not also a philosopher and a poet, or a tragedian and ora- 

 tor, was at least esteemed as highly by the community. Exercise was 

 a part of every one's life, a business, a pleasure, and a necessity. 



Till quite recent days, there were no lazy people, no gentlemen, 

 none inactive. War and its martial exercises, labor and its attendant 

 fatigues of the body, the chase and its toils, housewifery, the fabrication 

 by hand of all the necessities of life these healthy exercises have been 

 done away with by excessive wealth, the fashion of indolence, and 

 steam appliances. Work being now denounced by fashion, and dele- 

 gated to servants, the women of the country have no severer toil than 

 playing the piano and dancing, with an occasional saunter in the 

 street on a very fine day. Consequently, the languid blood flows 

 through unstimulated veins, resembling the stagnant, slime-covered 

 waters of an undisturbed canal. 



The city man, if very vigorous, priding himself upon his powers, 

 walks down to his business from 8 to 10 a. m., and occasionally back 

 again, in a gentlemanly manner, which means not fast enough to be 

 ungraceful, or to moisten his shirt-collar. During the interval between 

 these periods, he sits or stands at a desk or behind a counter. If there 

 is a box to be opened, a bale of goods to be sent aloft, or put into a cart, 

 he calls the porter. Possibly he takes a half-hour turn with some 

 Indian clubs or dumb-bells, in the house, and, of course, where fresh 

 air is tabooed. If he has means, he gets a trotter in a motionless 

 buggy, and over a level road he walks six miles, and then trots fast two 

 miles in great excitement, using his arms and possibly his lungs with 

 some vigor. This is the exercise of the modern athlete, philosopher, 

 and business-man. 



Clothing. The anti-imaginative character of the nineteenth century 

 sets aside the fanciful ideas of the origin of clothing being due to a sud- 

 den outburst of modesty. It undoubtedly originated from the exigen- 

 cies of climate ; it was a shelter from the burning sun and a protection 

 from cold and wet. By degrees, this original design became forgotten, 

 and fashion, driving out both original necessity and created modesty, 

 usurped the control of dress, and, like most conquerors, has endeavored 

 to eradicate every possible trace of its original design. Health and 

 comfort and life are disregarded as much as possible. The young 

 child is so dressed as to expose its dimpled arms and its sweet ampli- 

 tude of neck, and sent to walk, no matter how chill and blustering the 

 weather, with its plump legs unstockinged and bare. 



But the improvement in manufactures and the general adoption of 



