482 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE 



HEALTH NOTE 



THE HIGH COST OF LIVING — A NOVEL SUGGES- 

 TION. 



We clip the following from the Cleveland 

 Plain Dealer: 



Germany has furnished this country a striking 

 example of the benefits of adopting sanitary improve- 

 ment, and has surprised even her own most optimis- 

 tic advocates by proving that the expenditures that 

 go for bettering community conditions not only pay 

 by protecting health and giving comforts undreamed 

 of to the people, but actually reduce the cost of liv- 

 ing. 



Invariably the proper paving, sewering, and sup- 

 plying of water lines to communities has added to 

 the value' of the property an amount in excess of the 

 cost of the improvements. Even sewage disposal 

 under the present extravagantly wasteful methods in 

 which millions of dollars' worth "of fertilizers are lost, 

 may be considered a paying investment because no 

 city will advance commercially or exist healthfully 

 until some provision is made for the safe solution of 

 this big problem. In like manner the various sys- 

 tems of maintaining proper sanitary conditions, 

 which are operated at an apparent loss, such as 

 cleaning streets, oiling roads, draining swamps, and 

 enfoi-cing proper rules of sanitation, are actually 

 remunerative, because property in such communitip« 

 demands higher rentals, and the people avoid heavy 

 expense due to unnecessary sickness. 



Let me add to the above that we not only 

 reduce the high cost of living by such sani- 

 tary measures, but we add also to the plea- 

 sures and enjoyment of living. The man or 

 woman who is well nourished, has plenty of 

 pure air, drinks only pure water, and has a 

 sponge iDath every day, enjoys life to an 

 extent that thousands of people know noth- 

 ing of. 



THE AIR WE BREATHE. 

 A. I. Root: — Wife and I find many interesting 

 and helpful items in Gleanings. That which has 

 from time to time been written concerning a careful 

 or proper diet, or the preservation of health thereby, 

 is read with much interest; but there is another 

 phase of the subject of perhaps equal importance, 

 about which less has been said; and that is, the air 

 we breathe and the way in which we perform that 

 function. Our beneficent creator has furnished an 

 abundant supply of pure fresh air, and yet a large 

 part of mankind appear to place little value on it, 

 and are apt to make very meager arrangements for 

 maintaining its purity. The fact is, that by far the 

 greater part of men and women only about half 

 breathe — that is to say, very seldom fill the lungs to 

 the bottom, but form a habit of using only the upper 

 part of the lungs ; consequently the dark or corrupt 

 stream of venous blood, as it returns to the lungs 

 for purification, fails to meet with the requisite 

 amount of oxygen, and hence is not changed, but 

 passes on, entailing extra work on the kidneys and 

 other organs of the body, resulting in a poisoned 

 system and the manifold discomforts of ill health. 

 Since the introduction of modern methods of heating 

 houses, that much dreaded disease, tuberculosis, ha? 

 rapidly increased — owing, no doubt, to the lack of 

 proper or of suificient ventilation. Wife and I are 

 near to our three-score and ten. Our children are' 

 all gone to try the world for themselves, and we 

 dwell alone. We sleep in a cold room, with windows 

 up all kinds of weather. We still maintain the 

 youthful glow ; and while our neighbors all about us 



have been greatly afflicted with colds and grip, we 

 have been apparently immune. If people were less 

 afraid of pure air, even if it is not always warm, and 

 would cultivate the habit of deep breathing, it would 

 free them from innumerable ills. Doubtless it is in 

 accord with the will of God that we should under 

 stand and discreetly use the bountiful provision hp 

 has made for our sustenance and comfort while herf 

 below. And now " let us hear the conclusion of the 

 whole matter. Fear God and keep his command 

 ments, for this is the whole duty of man." Abiding 

 in such a state we shall be willing faithfully to 

 occupy until our Lord shall come ; and whether the 

 summons be " at midnight, at the cock-crowing, or in 

 the morning," we shall go joyfully forth to meet him, 

 Barnesville, Ohio. Thomas Dervies 



THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE AS A " HEALTH 

 RESORT." 



We clip the following from some journal. 

 1 he name of which we have lost : 



After living f#r five or six years amid conditions 

 which have produced such a startling reduction in 

 the death-rate, will the men who have dug the Pan- 

 ama Canal be able to find any city in the United 

 States which is sutificiently cleanly and healthy for 

 them to live in? Let us hope, says The Journal of 

 the American Medical Association, that the fen thou- 

 sand Americans, returning to this country after a 

 practical demonstration of what modern scientific 

 knowledge can do to prevent disease, may prove to 

 be the little leaven which will leaven the entire lump. 

 If this is the case, the indirect benefits of the Pana- 

 ma Canal will be incomparably greater than its com- 

 mercial or military value. 



If it is indeed true, as we have continual 

 rejDorts, that our doctors are able to make 

 such a i^lace as the Canal Zone one of the 

 healthiest localities in the whole world, shall 

 we not in time be able to do the same thing 

 in other places where people live, and bring 

 about like conditions ? May God be praised 

 for what is being accomplished in the way 

 of banishing preventable contagious dis- 

 eases. 



FROM "producer TO CONSUMER;" FROM OUR 

 GOOD FRIEND T. GREINER. 



I have finally come to it, namely, bought a hand 

 mill, and have begun to eat my " graham-flour por- 

 ridge " for breakfast. When you have a good mill 

 (mine cost $3.35), and take good wheat, and clean 

 it by hand to get the cockle and chess out of it, and 

 then wash it and afterward thoroughly dry it, yau 

 get a nice clean product, and a good breakfast food 

 at nominal cost. We cook it after recipes given by 

 Terry and in Gleanings, and eat it with about its 

 own bulk of apple sauce and a generous quantity of 

 real .Jersey cream. Probably it tastes good eaten 

 with honey. But people who have never tried it can 

 hardly appreciate how good apple sauce and good 

 cream go with any kind of such breakfast food. 

 Apple sauce and cream (not milk), half and half, 

 alone make a dish fit for a king. But almost all 

 cereals can be made to taste good when eaten with 

 real cream or with good honey. My boys took quite 

 a fancy at once to the home-made graham breakfast 

 dish, and prefer it to shredded wheat, puffed wheat, 

 and some of the other breakfast cereals we have been 

 in the habit of using. 



Your muffins are not so bad either ; but thev are 



