How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habits by Samuel Roberts Wells (epub read online books txt) 📖

beauty, and personal comfort as it is to decency; and without health and that perfect freedom from physical disquiet which comes only from the normal action of all the functions of the bodily organs, your behavior can never be satisfactory to yourself or agreeable to others. Let us urge you, then, to give this matter your first attention.

1. The Daily Bath.

To keep clean you must bathe frequently. In the first place you should wash the whole body with pure soft water every morning on rising from your bed, rubbing it till dry with a coarse towel, and afterward using friction with the hands. If you have not been at all accustomed to cold bathing, commence with tepid water, lowering the temperature by degrees till that which is perfectly cold becomes agreeable. In warm weather, comfort and cleanliness alike require still more frequent bathing. Mohammed made frequent ablutions a religious duty; and in that he was right. The rank and fetid odors which exhale from a foul skin can hardly be neutralized by the sweetest incense of devotion.

2. Soap and Water.

But the daily bath of which we have spoken is not sufficient. In addition to the pores from which exudes the watery fluid called perspiration, the skin is furnished with innumerable minute openings, known as the sebaceous follicles, which pour over its surface a thin limpid oil anointing it and rendering it soft and supple; but also causing the dust as well as the effete matter thrown out by the pores to adhere, and, if allowed to accumulate, finally obstructing its functions and causing disease. It also, especially in warm weather, emits an exceedingly disagreeable odor. Pure cold water will not wholly remove these oily accumulations. The occasional use of soap and warm or tepid water is therefore necessary; but all washings with soapy or warm water should be followed by a thorough rinsing with pure cold water. Use good, fine soap. The common coarser kinds are generally too strongly alkaline and have an unpleasant effect upon the skin.

3. The Feet.

The feet are particularly liable to become offensively odoriferous, especially when the perspiration is profuse. Frequent washings with cold water, with the occasional use of warm water and soap, are absolutely necessary to cleanliness.

4. Change of Linen.

A frequent change of linen is another essential of cleanliness. It avails little to wash the body if we inclose it the next minute in soiled garments. It is not in the power of every one to wear fine and elegant clothes, but we can all, under ordinary circumstances, afford clean shirts, drawers, and stockings. Never sleep in any garment worn during the day; and your night-dress should be well aired every morning.

5. The Nails.

You will not, of course, go into company, or sit down to the table, with soiled hands, but unless you habituate yourself to a special care of them, more or less dirt will be found lodged under the nails. Clean them carefully every time you wash your hands, and keep them smoothly and evenly cut. If you allow them to get too long they are liable to be broken off, and become uneven and ragged, and if you pare them too closely they fail to protect the ends of the fingers.

6. The Head.

The head is more neglected, perhaps, than any other part of the body. The results are not less disastrous here than elsewhere. Dandruff forms, dust accumulates, the scalp becomes diseased, the hair grows dry, and falls off and if the evil be not remedied, premature baldness ensues. The head should be thoroughly washed as often as cleanliness demands. This will not injure the hair, as many suppose, but, on the contrary, will promote its growth and add to its beauty. If soap is used, however, it should be carefully rinsed off. If the hair is carefully and thoroughly brushed every morning, it will not require very frequent washings. If the scalp be kept in a healthy condition the hair will be moist, glossy, and luxuriant, and no oil or hair wash will be required; and these preparations generally do more harm than good. Night-caps are most unwholesome and uncleanly contrivances, and should be discarded altogether. They keep the head unnaturally warm, shut out the fresh air, and shut in those natural exhalations which should be allowed to pass off, and thus weaken the hair and render it more liable to fall off. Ladies may keep their hair properly together during repose by wearing a net over it.

7. The Teeth.

Do not forget the teeth. Cleanliness, health, a pure breath, and the integrity and durability of those organs require that they be thoroughly and effectually scoured with the tooth-brush dipped in soft water, with the addition of a little soap, if necessary, every morning. Brush them outside and inside, and in every possible direction. You can not be too careful in this matter. After brushing rinse your mouth with cold water. A slighter brushing should be given them after each meal. Use an ivory tooth-pick or a quill to remove any particles of food that may be lodged between the teeth.

There are, no doubt, original differences in teeth, as in other parts of the human system, some being more liable to decay than others; but the simple means we have pointed out, if adopted in season and perseveringly applied, will preserve almost any teeth, in all their usefulness and reality, till old age. If yours have been neglected, and some of them are already decayed, hasten to preserve the remainder. While you have any teeth left, it is never too late to begin to take care of them; and if you have children, do not, we entreat you, neglect their teeth. If the first or temporary teeth are cared for and preserved, they will be mainly absorbed by the second or permanent ones, and will drop out of themselves. The others, in that case, will come out regular and even.

Beware of the teeth-powders, teeth-washes, and the like, advertised in the papers. They are often even more destructive to the teeth than the substances they are intended to remove. If any teeth-powder is required, pure powdered charcoal is the best thing you can procure; but if the teeth are kept clean, in the way we have directed, there will be little occasion for any other dentrifices than pure water and a little soap. Your tooth-brushes should be rather soft; those which are too hard injuring both the teeth and the gums.

8. The Breath.

A bad breath arises more frequently than otherwise from neglected and decayed teeth. If it is occasioned by a foul stomach, a pure diet, bathing, water injections, and a general attention to the laws of health are required for its removal.

III.—EATING AND DRINKING.

Whatever has a bearing upon health has at least an indirect connection with manners; the reader will therefore excuse us for introducing here a few remarks which may seem, at the first glance, rather irrelevant. Sound lungs, a healthy liver, and a good digestion are as essential to the right performance of our social duties as they are to our own personal comfort; therefore a few words on eating and drinking, as affecting these, will not be out of place.

1. What to Eat.

An unperverted appetite is the highest authority in matters of diet. In fact, its decisions should be considered final, and without the privilege of appeal. Nature makes no mistakes.

The plant selects from the soil which its roots permeate, the chemical elements necessary to its growth and perfect development, rejecting with unerring certainty every particle which would prove harmful or useless. The wild animal chooses with equal certainty the various kinds of food adapted to the wants of its nature, never poisoning itself by eating or drinking any thing inimical to its life and health. The sense of taste and the wants of the system act in perfect harmony. So it should be with man. That which most perfectly gratifies the appetite should be the best adapted to promote health, strength, and beauty.

But appetite, like all the other instincts or feelings of our nature, is liable to become perverted, and to lead us astray. We acquire a relish for substances which are highly hurtful, such as tobacco, ardent spirits, malt liquors, and the like. We have "sought out many inventions," to pander to false and fatal tastes, and too often eat, not to sustain life and promote the harmonious development of the system, but to poison the very fountains of our being and implant in our blood the seeds of disease.

Attend to the demands of appetite, but use all your judgment in determining whether it is a natural, undepraved craving of the system which speaks, or an acquired and vicious taste, and give or withhold accordingly; and, above all, never eat when you have no appetite. Want of appetite is equivalent to the most authoritative command to eat nothing, and we disregard it at our peril. Food, no matter how wholesome, taken into our stomachs under such circumstances, instead of being digested and appropriated, becomes rank poison. Eating without appetite is one of the most fatal of common errors.

We have no room, even if we had the ability and the desire, to discuss the comparative merits of the two opposing systems of diet—the vegetarian and the mixed. We shall consider the question of flesh-eating an open one.

Your food should be adapted to the climate, season, and your occupation. In the winter and in northern climates a larger proportion of the fatty or carboniferous elements are required than in summer and in southern latitudes. The Esquimaux, in his snow-built hut, swallows immense quantities of train-oil, without getting the dyspepsia; still, we do not recommend train-oil as an article of diet; neither can we indorse the eating of pork in any form; but these things are far less hurtful in winter than in summer, and to those who labor in the open air than to the sedentary.

Live well. A generous diet promotes vitality and capability for action. "Good cheer is friendly to health." But do not confound a generous diet with what is usually called "rich" food. Let all your dishes be nutritious, but plain, simple, and wholesome. Avoid highly seasoned viands and very greasy food at all times, but particularly in warm weather, also too much nutriment in the highly condensed forms of sugar, syrup, honey, and the like.

If you eat flesh, partake sparingly of it especially in summer. We Americans are the greatest flesh-eaters in the world, and it is not unreasonable to believe that there may be some connection between this fact and the equally notorious one that we are the most unhealthy people in the world. An untold amount of disease results from the too free use of flesh during the hot months. Heat promotes putrefaction; and as this change in meat is very rapid in warm weather, we can not be too careful not to eat that which is in the slightest degree tainted. Even when it goes into the stomach in a normal condition, there is danger; for if too much is eaten, or the digestive organs are not sufficiently strong and active, the process of putrefaction may commence in the stomach and diffuse a subtle poison through the whole system.

Hot biscuits; hot griddle cakes, saturated with butter and Stuart's syrup; and hot coffee, scarcely modified at all by the small quantity of milk usually added, are among the most deleterious articles ever put upon a table. While these continue to be the staples of our breakfasts, healthy stomachs and clear complexions will be rare among us. Never eat or drink any thing HOT.

Good bread is an unexceptionable article of diet. The best is made of unbolted wheat flour. A mixture of wheat and