376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



comfort of a full belly and expand all the time in the warm atmos- 

 phere afforded us by clothes, wind-protected dwellings and artificial 

 heat — particularly so in the winter, when the health of the business 

 man deteriorates. Cold is not comfortable, neither is hunger, there- 

 fore we are led to ascribe many of our ills to exposure to cold, and 

 seek to make ourselves strong by what is termed good living. I main- 

 tain that the bracing effect of cold is of supreme importance to health 

 and happiness, that we become soft and flabby and less resistant to 

 the attacks of infecting bacteria in the winter not because of the cold 

 but because of our excessive precautions to preserve ourselves from 

 cold ; that the prime cause of " cold " or " chill " is not really exposure 

 to cold but to the over-heated and confined air of rooms, factories and 

 meeting places. Seven hundred and eleven survivors were saved from 

 the Titanic after hours of exposure to cold. Many were insufficiently 

 clad and others wet to the skin. Only one died after reaching the 

 Carpathia, and he three hours after being picked up. Those who died 

 perished from actual cooling of the body. Exposure to cold did not 

 cause in the survivors the diseases commonly attributed to cold. 



Conditions of city and factory life diminish the physical and 

 nervous energy, and reduce many from the vigorous health and per- 

 fectness of bodily functions which a wild animal possesses to a more 

 secure, but poorer and far less happy, form of existence. The ill 

 chosen diet, the monotony and sedentary nature of daily work, the 

 windless uniformity of atmosphere, above all, the neglect of vigorous 

 muscular exercise in the open air and exposure to the winds and light 

 of heaven — all these, together with the difficulties in the way of living 

 a normal sexual life, go to make the pale, undeveloped, neurotic and 

 joyless citizen. Nurture in unnatural surroundings, not nature's 

 birth-mark, molds the criminal and the wastrel. The environment of 

 childbood and youth is at fault rather than the stock ; the children who 

 are taken away and trained to be sailors, those sent to agricultural pur- 

 suits in the colonies, those who become soldiers, may develop a physique 

 and bodily health and vigor in striking contrast to their brothers who 

 become clerks, shop assistants and compositors. 



Too much stress can not be put on the importance of muscular 

 exercise in regard to health, beauty and happiness. Each muscle fills 

 with blood as it relaxes, and expels this blood on past the venous valves 

 during contraction. Each muscle together with the venous valves 

 forms a pump to the circulatory system. It is the function of the 

 heart to deliver the blood to the capillaries, and the function of the 

 muscles — visceral, respiratory and skeletal — to bring it back to the 

 heart. The circulation is contrived for a restless mobile animal; 

 every vessel is arranged so that muscular movement furthers the flow 

 of blood. 



