All dwellings should be well lighted and ventilated. Never stop up your grate or fire place in summer. In and around all dwellings should be kept clean, and lime should be freely used. Do not crowd people in a room, for lung troubles will surely follow. Each person requires a certain quantity of fresh air per minute, and too many persons in the same room will cut off this necessary supply. Take all of the out door exercise you can get, and stay as much amid the wholesome air of the country as you can. Do not buy cheap food, because it is cheap, but always have an eye to quality. Musty meal, tainted meat and other half decayed and decaying food have carried many a person to a premature grave. Be careful about your drinking water. Use that of the best wells and springs. Never use water which has stood over night in a bed room. It is so much poison. See that your food is properly prepared, as health depends largely upon the observance of this rule. Boiled, stewed or roasted food is always preferable to fried. Have plenty of vegetable food, and as little animal as possible. All bed rooms and bed clothing should be constantly thoroughly aired, whether used or not. So should parlors. Let some member of the family thoroughly post himself on all matters pertaining to buying and cooking food, the laws of health, &c. In fact these things should be discussed daily in the family that all may understand them. The meal hours should be the jolliest of the day. All at the table should combine in jest and joke, as well as in giving valuable suggestions and information. The children should take part also. You can not be too careful about your dress. Have respect more for comfort than for fashion. Teach your children this principle, and it will not be long before finger and earrings, dangling chains, bracelets, and such other relics of barbarity will be thrust aside by common sense. The lowest savage bedecks his person with trinkets and gewgaws. The average festival and night meeting where people huddle together are fruitful of disease. The inhaling of this bad air is equal to a serpent's bite. Carry method into your life and home. Have hours of prayer, reading, sleeping, conversation, writing, working, &c. More people die of want of sunlight and pure air than of any other cause, even war. When a person's clothes catch fire, smother the fire with blankets or clothing. From a few drops to a teaspoonful of coal oil is a splendid remedy for croup, colds in the breast and like complaints. Saturate sugar with the oil and it is easily taken. A weak gargle of salt and water is a good remedy for sore throat. Colds in the head may be cured by bathing the feet in very hot water and wrapping them well. A little mustard added to the water will prove beneficial. A teaspoonful, each, of salt and mustard in water will prove effectual where poison has been swallowed. It must be taken at once. Dash water into the eye to remove dust. Don't rub the eye. Burns and scalds may be relieved by dipping in cold water or flour. If you are severely cut, tie a string tightly both below and above the wound until the doctor arrives. Very ugly warts have been cured by small doses of sulphate of magnesia, or three grains of epsom salts taken morning and evening. Mix 5 grains of carbolic acid and one ounce of glycerine. Rub the scalp thoroughly at night and wash out in the morning, and your worst case of dandruff will be cured. Clean stoves when cold with any stove-polish mixed with alum water. It is said that snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils will cure a catarrhal cold. Ceilings that have been smoked by a kerosene lamp should be washed off with soda water. Drain pipes and all places that are sour or impure may be cleansed with lime water or carbolic acid. Strong lime may be used to advantage in washing bedsteads. Hot alum water is also good for this purpose. Lemon juice and sugar, mixed very thick, is useful to relieve sore throat and coughs. It must be very acid as well as sweet. To sweep carpets use wet newspapers wrung nearly dry and torn to pieces. The paper collects the dust but does not soil the carpet. It is said if feather beds and pillows be left out in a drenching rain every spring and afterward exposed to the sun and air on every side until dry, they will be much freshened and lightened. Medicine stains may be removed from silver spoons by rubbing them with a rag dipped in sulphuric acid and washing it off with soapsuds. Stains may be removed from the hands by washing them in cold water, to which a little sulphuric acid has been added; use no soap. |