Dripread - Book

process itself. All it needs is a little encouragement
and it will accomplish wonders. What the skin wants is rubbing. If you
should quietly sit down in a tub of water and as quietly get up and dry
off without rubbing, your skin wouldn't be much benefited. The water
would make it a little soft, especially if it was warm. But rubbing is
the great thing. Stand where the sunlight strikes a part of your body,
then take a dry brush and rub it, and you will notice that countless
little flakes of cuticle fly off. Every time one of these flakes is
removed from the skin your body breathes a sigh of relief. An eminent
German authority contends that too much bathing is a bad thing. There is
much truth in this. Soap and water are good things to soften up the
skin, but rubbing is what the skin wants. Every morning or every
evening, or when it is most convenient, wash the body all over with
water and a little ammonia, or anything which tends to make the water
soft; then rub dry with a towel, and after that go over the body from
top to toe with a dry brush. Try this for two or three weeks, and your
skin will be like velvet.

Tea and Coffee.

Tea is a nerve stimulant, pure and simple, acting like alcohol in this
respect, without any value that the latter may possess as a retarder of
waste. It has a special influence upon those nerve centers that supply
will power, exalting their sensibility beyond normal activity, and may
even produce hysterical symptoms, if carried far enough. Its active
principle, theine, is an exceedingly powerful drug, chiefly employed by
nerve specialists as a pain destroyer, possessing the singular quality
of working toward the surface. That is to say, when a dose is
administered hypodermically for sciatica, for example, the narcotic
influence proceeds outward from the point of injection, instead of
inward toward the centers, as does that of morphia, atropia, etc. Tea is
totally devoid of nutritive value, and the habit of drinking it to
excess, which so many American women indulge in, particularly in the
country, is to be deplored as a cause of our American nervousness.
Coffee, on the contrary, is a nerve food. Like other concentrated foods
of its class, it operates as a stimulant also, but upon a different set
of nerves from tea. Taken strong in the morning, it often produces
dizziness and that peculiar visual symptom of overstimulus which is
called muscae volilantes--dancing flies. But this is an improper way to
take it, and rightly used it is perhaps the most valuable liquid
addition to the morning meal. Its active principle, caffeine, differs in
all physiological respects from theine, while it is chemically very
closely allied, and its limited consumption makes it impotent for harm.

To Straighten Round Shoulders.

A stooping figure and a halting gait, accompanied by the unavoidable
weakness of lungs incidental to a narrow chest, may be entirely cured by
the very simple and easily-performed exercise of raising one's self
upon the toes leisurely in a perpendicular position several times daily.
To take this exercise properly one must take a perfectly upright
position. With the heels together and the toes at an angle of forty-five
degrees. Then drop the arms lifelessly by the sides, animating and
raising the chest to its full capacity and muscularity, the chin well
drawn in, and the crown of the head feeling as if attached to a string
suspended from the ceiling above. Slowly rise upon the balls of both
feet to the greatest possible height, thereby exercising all the muscles
of the legs and body; come again into standing position without swaying
the body backward out of the perfect line. Repeat this same exercise,
first on one foot, then on the other. It is wonderful what a
straightening-out power this exercise has upon round shoulders and
crooked backs, and one will be surprised to note how soon the lungs
begin to show the effect of such expansive development.

Care of the Eyes.

In consequence of the increase of affections of the eye, a specialist
has recently formulated the following rules to be observed in the care
of the eyes for school work: A comfortable temperature, dry and warm
feet, good ventilation; clothing at the neck and on other parts of the
body loose; posture erect, and never read lying down or stooping. Little
study before breakfast or directly after a heavy meal; none at all at
twilight or late at night; use great caution about studying after
recovery from fevers; have light abundant, but not dazzling, not
allowing the sun to

The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing / A Manual of Ready Reference