Health, or, How to Live

VALUABLE EXTRACTS. GATHERED FROM THE LAWS OF LIFE

ABOUT DIET AND OTHER THINGS. — The writer of the following letter wished an answer, and as she did not give her name, I can only reply through the Laws, which is perhaps as well. HHTL 387.4

“I have long felt the necessity of light to enable me to do my duty in my family as a mother, and have now commenced reading the ‘Laws of Life.’ It seems to me if I could be convinced of what is the best food and drink for my children, I would furnish it to them. THUS far I have tried to please their tastes, perhaps more than any thing else. If I should keep them on two meals a day, and those consisting of Graham bread and pudding, they would think mother was really cruel. However I think I could get along with that, but what should I do with my friends when they come to visit me? Our relatives, with multitudes of others, visit us, expecting something good to eat, of course, and I, of course, have had a little pride in getting them something rather extra. If I were very poor I could say that I could not get the means to treat company as I wish, and I should be excused; but if I should say I have changed my manner of living for the sake of health, I should be asked no doubt, ‘Where did you get your directions?’ and if I should reply, ‘From the Laws of Life,’ they would probably say to me — ‘I am astonished that you should take that Journal! Don’t you know that the editors are infidels? etc. HHTL 387.5

“ ‘You are aware, no doubt, that people will say what they choose, but still I do not care so much about that, as I do to know and do what is right. I had about made up my mind that it was as well to eat temperately of all the good things of earth, as any way, but have not been really satisfied with the idea after all. I looked in the paper to see if I could find any recipes for Graham bread, pudding, crackers, etc., but could not find any. Would it be asking too much of you to print some of these recipes in your paper? If we are to have but two meals a day, what hours are we to take those meals at? ’ HHTL 388.1

“This mother already sees the result of the practice of endeavoring to please the tastes of her children. The more a child or grown person does this, the more fickle will the appetite become, and nothing but the richest foods, and a great variety at that, will satisfy. Is it not really more cruel to children, to cherish so false and morbid an appetite in them, and be constantly indulging them, than to keep them to simple food, thus cultivating in them a relish for the plainest and most wholesome dishes? Mothers must be their own judges of their conduct toward their children, and not allow the children to judge for them. HHTL 388.2

“In regard to the entertainment of friends, I think it quite right that they should have such dishes placed before them as will enable them to get along comfortably and pleasantly. Still I should not care to have friends visit me with the sole object of getting something good to eat. Though articles are placed upon the table which are not considered proper to eat ordinarily, the children will not be likely to be troubled by them, if the parents set them a good example, and keep to their accustomed diet. This I think may be done without any offense whatever to visitors, particularly when they are told that it is for ‘conscience’ sake. If they ask how the conscience comes to be quickened on those points, there need be no hesitation in replying that it is by reading the Laws of Life, for I should hope that no person, who has read this Journal three months in succession, could fail to understand that we are not infidels, but are Christians, — not only theoretically, but that, at least, we earnestly aim to be such in our daily lives and conversation, and in the advocacy of the Health Reform.” HHTL 388.3

FOOD. — The combinations of cookery are exceedingly unhealthy, and provoke disease to a great degree. The kitchen and the drug-shop, the cook and the doctor, are co-workers. One furnishes capital, the other trades upon it. If you would have long life in the land, you must simplify your tastes. No stomach can stand the drafts made on it by modern cookery, and this the doctors know right well. Add to this that the nerves of taste act healthily on simply-prepared food, and so make all the special senses acute, while complicated and rich food prevents their action, and so deadens them. It is a fact worthy attention, that very few young men — to say nothing of older men — have unperverted taste. They cannot discern the natural qualities of substances unless under strong appeals to the organs exercised. The power to discriminate delicately is gone. And what is true of the sense of taste is equally true of the other four senses. Highly seasoned food, hot drinks, the use of snuff, smoking, drinking spirituous liquor, use of flesh-meats, constant and uninterrupted use of condiments — salt, pepper, spices, etc. — all help to break down the discriminative power of smell, sight, hearing, and touch. Man, who has his reason to aid him as an animal, and therefore is bound within the compass of his animal nature to excel animals lower than himself, is greatly their inferior. In a large degree this is owing to perversion, and lies within the compass of his sensual indulgences. I speak to you positively, because I am conversant with both sides of the question practically. In my own person I have felt the effects; in the persons of others I have observed the effects. Take the senses under cultivation and arrange dietetic relations with them. On the one side treat them with the following daily bill of fare, and watch the result: HHTL 389.1

“BREAKFAST. — Ham and eggs or beef-steak, pork-steak, mutton-chop or chicken, potatoes, pickles, pepper, mustard, vinegar, salt, and catsup, hot rolls, raised bread, buckwheat cakes (hot) butter, and molasses, tea or coffee, chocolate, milk, and sugar. HHTL 390.1

“DINNER. — Boiled victuals, consisting of pork, beef, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beets, and turnips. HHTL 390.2

“Roast-beef or boiled mutton, pot-pie, chicken-pie, or cold boiled ham, with vegetables salt as the ocean, and saturated with old butter. Dessert: mince-pie, whose crust is lard, and salt, with a little flour stirred in and baked — and called pastry. HHTL 390.3

“SUPPER. — Tea and toast, hot biscuit, butter-cake, cheese, cold and sliced meat, mustard, salt, pepper, vinegar, sugar, and milk. HHTL 390.4

“INCIDENTALS — under medical advisement. — Salts or senna, castor-oil or pills, blue and black; calomel, jalap, opium, Dovers’ powder, morphine, arsenic, quinine, podophyllyn, lobelia, strychnine, colchicum, dog’s liver, rattlesnake’s poison, whiskey, brandy, gin, gums, resins, pitches, turpentines, essences, essential oils, blisters, burning, or scarifications to the skin. HHTL 390.5

“Admirable arrangement! Does it not appear so to you? A horse thus treated would have his sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling rendered perfect; do you not think he would? That you have the catarrh at eighteen, and cannot tell by smell a rose from a toad-stool; that at thirty-five you wear spectacles, at forty a wig, at forty-five have not a tooth in your head, unless a dentist has put it there: that at fifty your legs are like drum-sticks, and your hands are tremulous with palsy — is not owing to the food you have eaten, and the drinks you have drunken, in your opinion, is it? HHTL 390.6

“Your doctors say for you, ‘that food and medicine are related; that the latter is the jackal to the lion. How can one eat relishable food without the after-clap of unrelishable medicine?’ ‘The ailments you suffer’ say these wise men, ‘are not caused by your gluttony, your wine-bibbing, and beer-swilling, and your drug-taking, but by God, HHTL 391.1

“ ‘Who moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. ’ HHTL 391.2

“Such is medical divinity — it is the theology of the still and the stall, and paves the way to the abode of devils till the track is like a turnpike. Now take the other bill of fare. HHTL 391.3

“Let me run a contrast; Peaches against pork, apples against beef, plums against mutton, strawberries against tallow, cream against lard, unleavened bread against leavened bread, course flour against fine, water against teas and coffee, potatoes, peas, beans, against pound-cake and preserves, keen taste, good appetite, against pepper, salt, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne, and many other things which only the Genius of all evil, habited gastronomically, knows and impels to be mixed with your food. Is not the contrast great? HHTL 391.4

“Oh, heavens! that the fable of Circe should be made good at our tables; that then and there she should work her horrible transformations till you, who ought to be gentlemen, are all nigh swine. If you would but discard the doctors who are dummies, and the dummies who are doctors, and take an upward open-countenanced look at Nature, one glance of her eye would insure your lives more safely than any bevy of doctors you could gather. HHTL 391.5

“WORK. — If you will live and not die, toil. Are you ashamed of labor? Then I am ashamed of you, and so is God ashamed of you. Next to a sinner who is accursed, the Almighty abhors a drone. His benignities, like special favors, like sunlight through a cloudy sky, gather about the head of the worker. Do not be afraid of work. It is honorable, it is refreshing, it is ennobling, enlivening, redemptive. If you are a thinker, work; if heirship to great possessions is yours, work. No matter what pursuit you follow, work; work daily, habitually, persistently, in the open air. Dig dirt. It is a better alternative than any living man carries in his saddle-bag, it regulates the stomach, rouses up the liver, equalizes the circulation, strengthens the muscles, invigorates the mind, calms the passions, purifies the soul, and adjures and exorcises the fiends who haunt men, better than all the medicines invented. It is life, soul, heart, mind, might, and strength to a man, especially if followed by recreation. I do not mean by it playing the fiddle, that is fun; nor selling cloth and measuring tape from behind a counter for ladies, that is employment; nor studying law, that is instruction; nor studying to be a doctor, that might be folly; but I do mean by it that which makes the sweat flow, which makes the muscle like iron, which compels one to fight against the sun till he is tanned nut-brown like a gypsy. HHTL 391.6

“The human being does not live who is not bound by his constitutional laws, obedience to which wraps up his very life, to work the soil he treads till the smell of the earth comes up into his nostrils, more grateful by far than frankincense and myrrh. God is great, and tombstones are his witnesses. God is just, and model men, beautiful women, rosy-cheeked children, are his testimonies. HHTL 392.1

“But working the earth, digging in the ground, is not only necessary to bodily vigor and robust health, it is equally needful to brain — if body and brain may be contra-distinguished. Brain-sweat is the most exhausting sweat; tires out nature quicker, kills sooner than any sudoriferous flow. What steady marchings there are from the ranks of thinkers to the grave! The sound of the bell — tomb! tomb! tomb! is heard at midnight, noon, and at dawn of the day. Not because they think, for the brain is made for thought; but because they do naught else but think, except in a wrong way. If they knew enough to offset thought by thoughtlessness, care by carelessness, the responsibilities of a man by the ease of the child; if life were industry diversified to them by play instead of hard monotony and dull routine, the benefits would be incalculable. HHTL 392.2

“DO NOT TAKE DRUGS. — If you are sick, get well by proper means. Be content to get well naturally. If you must die, do so rationally. I should prefer to die rationally than to die scientifically. Death may come, would come, to us all in a manner greatly to be preferred over his present method of approach, if we would let him. We force him to his terrible aspects. We transform him from an angel into a horrible devil. The horrors of the death-bed may be in the physician’s pocket. He drops them into your drink, covers them up in stewed apples, disguises them in liquor, coats them over with sugar. As far as possible he cheats your eye, your ear, your smell, your taste. But all this is a sham. He gives you the horrors. Let alone his poisons if you wish to get well; deal not in his drugs, if you wish to die with a bright eye, a clear mind, a heart at ease and a spirit triumphant.” HHTL 393.1