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(2b) Clothes.—The Circulation, and How to Keep the Body Warm.—Simple account of how the heart and lungs act. Clothes to be warm and loose—no pressure. Test for tight lacing: if measurement round the waist is more with the clothes off than when stays are worn. Danger of dirty clothes next the skin—re-absorption of poison; danger of wearing the same underclothing day and night; best materials for clothing—why flannel is so valuable; danger of sitting in wet clothes and boots—too little air causes more chills than too much; the body not easily chilled when warm and well clothed.
(2c) Food.—The Digestion, and How to Nourish the Body.—Simple account of how food is digested and turned into blood. Worse food (well cooked) and fresh air better than best food (ill cooked) without fresh air. Diet, not medicine, ensures health. Uses of animal and of vegetable food. Danger of all ill-cooked and half-cooked food. Nourishing value of vegetables and whole-meal bread. Danger of too little food and too much at the wrong times. Dangers of uncooked meat, specially pork, diseased meat, decaying fish, unripe and over-ripe fruit, and stewed tea.[1] Vital importance of cooked fruit for children, stewed apples and pears, damsons, blackberries. Value of milk as food. [Don't sell all your milk.] Influence of diet upon constipation, diarrhœa, indigestion, convulsions in children; small changes of diet promote appetite and health.
- ↑ In one county it is a common habit to add a spoonful of tea every day to the teapot, and empty it out only, say, once a month, stewing the tea all the while.
