328 Human Physiology. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE CONDITIONS OF HEALTH. 



Birth The Care of Infancy Diet of Infancy and Childhood Tempera- 

 ture and Clothing Influence of Light Pure Air Ventilation Size 

 of Rooms Ventilation of Towns Duty of Architects Sanitary 

 Police The Natural Food of Man Stimulants and Intoxicants 

 Clothing and Shelter Bathing Sleeping Work Society Chastity 

 Religion Righteousness . 



THE first condition of health, is to be well-born. It is the 

 inheritance of a good constitution, moral, mental, and physical. 

 Health and longevity, as I have shown, are hereditary; and 

 many parents give a low vitality, or weakened nervous power, 

 to their offspring. Children are also born with the seeds ot 

 death in their constitutions, in the inheritance of depraving 

 and exhausting passions, or in the various modifications of 

 scrofula. By good birth we have the rich inheritance of health 

 of body, health of mind, and that moral constitution which is 

 the best guarantee of a peaceful, happy, healthful, whole, or 

 holy life; a sound, pure, firm constitution from our progeni- 

 tors, which it is our duty to hand down unimpaired to our 

 posterity. 



Next to a good birth is the proper care ot infancy and child- 

 hood. The babe requires absolute cleanliness, so that no atom 

 of the waste matter of its body can be inhaled or re-absorbed 

 to poison it for all our excretions are poisons to ourselves and 

 others. It needs also pure fresh air, an abundance of light, 

 and pure, nourishing food. It should never be smothered in 

 close rooms, nor in clothing. When the face of an infant is 

 covered ever so lightly it is compelled to breathe its own breath 

 over again, like people in crowded or un ventilated rooms, for 



