HOME COMFORT. 67 



marriage, and above ail others, may be placed good health. Life 

 without health is a burden ; life with health is joy and gladness. It 

 is a fearful responsibility, both to men and women, to marry if they 

 be not healthy, and the result must, as a matter of course, be misery. 

 How needful is it, therefore, that all necessary instruction should 

 be imparted to every young wife, and the proper means shown by 

 which she may preserve her health. 



To PRESERVE HEALTH. To maintain health, a young married 

 woman ought to take regular and systematic out-door exercise, so 

 far as it can be done without interfering with her household duties. 

 Walking expands the chest, strengthens the muscles, promotes 

 digestion, and exhilarates like a glass of champagne, but unlike 

 champagne never leaves a headache behind. If ladies would walk 

 more than they do there would be fewer lackadaisical, useless, com- 

 plaining wives than we now see, and instead of having a race of 

 puny children we should have a race of giants. 



HOUSEHOLD VENTILATION. To preserve the health of herself 

 as well as of the family a married woman must attend to the venti- 

 lation of her house. Ninety -nine out of every hundred bed-rooms 

 are badly ventilated, and in the morning after they have been slept 

 in are full of impure and poisoned air. Impure and poisoned air, 

 foi the air in any room that is occupied becomes foul and deadly if 

 not perpetually changed if not constantly mixed, both by day and 

 by night, with fresh, pure, out-door air. Many persons, by breath- 

 ing the same air over and over again, are literally poisoned by their 

 own breaths. This is not an exaggerated statement alas, it is too 

 true. For ventilation, open the windows both at top and bottom, 

 that the fresh air may rush in one way while the foul air goes out 

 the other. This is letting in your friend and expelling an enemy. 



PERSONAL CLEANLINESS. To preserve health a young wife 

 should bathe regularly and thoroughly. " There is nothing," says 

 Dr. Chavasse, " more tonic and invigorating and refreshing than a 

 cold ablution. Moreover, it makes one feel clean and sweet and 

 wholesome ; and you may depend upon it that it not only improves 

 our physical constitution but likewise our moral character,, A dirty 

 man has generally a dirty mind." 



NOURISHING DIET. To preserve health a woman should have 

 a nourishing diet, and especially a substantial breakfast. She must 

 frequently vary the kind of food, of meat especially, as also the 

 manner of cooking it. Where a lady is very thin, good fresh milk, 

 if it agrees with ner, should form an important item of her diet. 

 The meagre breakfasts of many young wives who eat scarcely any- 

 thing is one cause, unquestionably, of so much sickness among them, 

 and of so many puny children in existence. 



SLEEP. To preserve health a wife should have seven or eight 

 hours of sound, refreshing sleep. Sleep is of more consequence to 

 the human economy than fooa, and nothing should be allowed to 

 interfere with it. And as attendance on large assemblies, balls and 



