194 ANSWERS TO PRACTICAL QUESTIONS 



power who can afford to be angry. The richest can not afford 

 it many times without insuring the penalty, a penalty that is 

 always severe. What is still worse of this passion is, that the 

 very disease it engenders feeds it, so that if the impulse go 

 many times unchecked it becomes the master of the man. B. * 

 W. RICHARDSON. 



46. Are not amusements, to repair the waste of the 

 nervous energy, especially needed by persons whose life is 

 one of care and toil ? 



Yes, cheerful recreation is necessary in proportion to the 

 severity of toil and care. ^Nothing will replenish heavily-as- 

 sessed brain capital like occasional rollicking merriment. 



47. Is not severe mental labor incompatible with a 

 rapidly-growing body ? 



Decidedly. A rapidly-growing child should never be over- 

 burdened with mental labor. Youthful prodigies seldom develop 

 into solid, "level-headed" adults. Every extra demand upon 

 the youthful brain, beyond its normal power of healthy endur- 

 ance, is subtracted with usury from its future reserve stock. 



48. How shall tve induce the system to perform all its 

 functions regularly ? 



By uniformly obeying all the laws of Hygiene. 



49. How does alcohol interfere with the action of the 



nerves ? 



(See Physiology, p. 208.) 



Alcohol has the same effect upon the nerve-cells that 

 water or ashes has upon a coal fire. Apply water in small 

 quantity, and your fire will burn more slowly ; apply a large 

 enough bucketful, and it will cease to exist. When the cook 

 rakes up the ashes and covers her fire before going to bed, she 

 performs the same physical experiment as her master who 

 soothes his nerves with alcohol before retiring at night. But 

 the cook would be very late with breakfast if she trusted to 

 such a fire to cook the bacon, and the work accomplished by a 

 brain affected by alcohol is both small in quantity and inferior 



