32 The Bulletin. 



Sometimes we forget that it is not just air we want — it is fresh air, air 

 with plenty of oxygen in it, air to which the sunshine has given its golden 

 touch. It would take too long here to explain just why oxygen makes for 

 good red blood, and how that good red blood helps us to resist disease, but 

 write this on your book of health: Have no shut room in your house; faded 

 carpets are better than faded health; never allow a day to go by, winter or 

 summer, in which at least one window of each room is not opened for a while. 

 Do not believe that the air is not purest when it is raining. Does not God 

 know what is best when he sends the gentle rain from heaven to wash out its 

 particles of dust and its gases and impurities. 



Then there is that old superstition of night air being bad. Sit down and 

 think it over and then decide whether or not you want every bedroom window 

 open at night. Again, do not forget that there are everywhere germs and 

 microbes, so small that it takes a powerful- microscope to see them. For the 

 good of our health it is good for many of these germs to die, and few of them 

 can live longer than thirty minutes in the sun and wind. Therefore put your 

 feather beds and pillows to sun, and you are not apt to wonder "how Lucy 

 got the scarlet fever so long after Willie was well. She must have gotten it 

 somewhere else." 



Water. Ah, the Creator knew what was best for his children when he gave 

 it in abundance. Take a glass of it first thing in the morning, for it flushes 

 out the intestines and, being somewhat of a shock to it, spurs it to action, often 

 making pills less necessary. Hot water is a good stimulant and cold is a tonic. 



OUr third member of the "trinity," a well-balanced diet, is too long a sub- 

 ject to discuss here other than to say there is nothing more important in the 

 household. 



Once there was a time when the wisest of the savants of the world did not 

 dream that there were animals and plants so small that our eyes would not 

 see them. Now we know that there are, for even an ordinary microscope will 

 reveal some of these germs or microbes to us. Some of them are our friends, 

 but they are of vital interest to us, because they are sometimes responsible for 

 our crop failures, for the spoiling of our foods, and because they are the cause 

 of many diseases. To learn the causes of diseases is to prevent them. 



Tuberculosis is caused by a germ that may live in almost any part of the 

 body. In the hip it may be called hip disease; the skin, lupus; the spine, 

 spinal disease; then there is scrofula, white swelling, quick consumption, etc., 

 but the germ, wherever or however it may have entered the body, usually 

 finds its way to the lungs, where it is called consumption. So prevalent is this 

 consumption that one out of every four persons between the ages of fifteen to 

 forty — the age at which they are useful to the world — die of it; one out of 

 every seven deaths in the United States is due to it ; so dreaded is it that it is 

 called the Great White Plague, and a congress of the world's greatest doctors 

 was recent "y held to try to save us from it. 



It is contagious, and we get it by repeated contact with the person who has 

 it, with the place he has occupied or with the things used by him. It may be 

 cured at first, when we make ourselves think it is only a cold or bronchial 

 trouble, but it is well-nigh incurable when it has made deep ravages. 



For the patient, give him plenty of fresh air and sunshine, letting him live 

 out of doors by day and sleep in the breezes by night. Do not fear draughts, 

 simply protect him from any directly on him. Give him all he can eat of 

 milk, eggs, fresh fruit, nuts, good, tender, rare beef, and, instead of the usual 

 three meals, let him take something nutritious but easily digested every two 

 hours, if possible. Also give him regular rest and, if there is not a tendency 

 to hemorrhages, regular exercise also. So many sick people are inclined to 

 settle down and neglect it, when they are not able to perform their regular 

 work. 



I might supplement this with be cheerful when with him and do not spend 

 one cent for advertised cures. Don't kiss him. Tuberculosis is frequently 

 spread through the sputum, so the main point in prevention is to destroy the 

 spit, for it has millions of these tiny living germs in it. Let the patient spit 

 in rags and burn them, or if that is not possible soak them in five per cent 

 carbolic acid, and after boiling hang them out exposed to the sun. If he spits 



