HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 35 



the tissues about it, when a bit of dirt gets under the eyelid. 

 One of the means commonly employed to determine whether 

 the body as a whole is in a disturbed and unnatural state 

 is by " taking the temperature" of the body. Any con- 

 siderable departure of the body temperature from normal 

 is cause for concern. Usually, if the temperature is approxi- 

 mately normal, any illness experienced is likely to prove a 

 temporary rather than a serious disturbance of the bodily 

 functions. 



The small tube of the clinical (klin'-I-kal) thermometer 

 used by physicians is very much narrowed and almost closed 

 just above the bulb. The mercury in the bulb when warmed 

 is crowded up through this narrow opening, and can be 

 made to return only by jarring the tube. Since the mercury 

 reading is always the highest point (temperature) reached, 

 the instrument is one form of a maximum thermometer. 



SUMMARY 



Sickness and health are conditions of the body. To regain health 

 after having been sick necessitates the restoration of the bodily condi- 

 tions upon which health depends. Medicines are only an aid in bring- 

 ing this about. The bodily processes alone can restore impaired health. 



Pain is nature's warning that something is wrong in the affected 

 part of the body, and it may be considered a call not only of distress 

 but for relief. In the body as in the care of machinery inattention to 

 parts Out of adjustment may ruin the mechanism. The removal of 

 the cause of an ailment constitutes the only hope of keeping the body 

 well and fit to do its work. No intelligent treatment of one who is ill 

 is possible without knowledge of the cause of the illness. 



Good health should be the rule, and sickness the exception, in well 

 regulated living. Intelligent efforts to avoid whatever harms the 

 body, and wisely to direct one's manner of living, is ordinarily the 

 price that must be paid for good health and long life. 



There are times when the harm from use of medicines to deaden 

 pain and give relief from suffering is less than the exhaustion from 

 enduring the pain. It should be fully understood, however, that such 

 relief is temporary, and is not in any sense a cure of the ailment. So 



