33 Human Physiology, 



spirits, and their delicate nerves are always injured by tea or 

 coffee. Chocolate is too heavy, heating, stimulating, and bili- 

 ous, and even the mildest cocoa is doubtful. Milk, water, and 

 the juices of fruit are the proper drinks of childhood; and soft 

 pure water, drank when they are thirsty, is the most grateful to 

 an unperverted taste, and all that is really required. To avoid 

 an unnatural thirst, the food of children should be almost 

 entirely free from salt. Fresh butter and mild cheese in mode- 

 ration. 



Temperature is important. The infant should never chill, 

 and never be kept too warm. There is a golden mean of 

 absolute comfort and vigorous health. Its daily baths, tepid 

 at first, may be cooled according to its reactive power, until a 

 quick cold bath, with vigorous friction after it, will be a luxury. 

 Through childhood, the clothing should be light in colour and 

 very porous, so as to admit light and air to the skin; just 

 enough protection against chill, but never " coddling " or 

 oppressive. Let warmth be supplied rather by exercise than 

 extra covering. Clean clothing, especially that next the skin, 

 by night and day; daily bathing in cold water, or in warm 

 water followed by cold, with brisk friction; sleeping on hard 

 elastic beds with cool, light, porous covering; active and varied 

 employment, and not too much reading or study, or confine- 

 ment in hot close rooms; natural conditions, and gentle, 

 affectionate companionship, and the religion which teaches the 

 Divine Fatherhood and the great blessing of Immortality 

 these are the conditions of a healthy and happy childhood, 

 which lay the foundation for a long and useful and therefore 

 happy life. 



What I have said of infancy and childhood applies, in its 

 principles, to every age. Health is natural to man, as to every 

 organised being; and the conditions of health are found in a 

 simple conformity to nature. Through life we need the light 

 of the sun, for light is the great element of life to plants and 



