"Let health my nerves and finer fibers brace."

The possession of health, happiness, and longevity requires not so much a general literary and scientific education, as a practical knowledge of one's own self. The latter will far outweigh the other. In many ways, however, will these qualities be improved by the former. A person must know what is regularity, cleanliness, and temperance, or moderation. By the use of these effective auxiliaries, I have freed myself of so many maladies within the last thirty years that the average medical devotee will laugh in derision and question my trustworthiness. For the first eleven years of my life I had seven years of wasting sickness. Of these, five were spent in bed. At the age of 22 I left a clerkship in New York City to come to California, via Cape Horn. Consumption was strongly seated on my lungs.

 In addition to this dangerous affliction I had bronchitis, catarrh, constipation, piles, periodical rheumatism, cataracts on my eyes, corns on my feet, and fever and ague from one to three months every year. Surely I was in a position to sympathize with Job, but impatient, rather than patient like the Biblical hero. I set myself towards absolute health. Before I had been in this State two years, I gained the mastery of the lung and throat troubles; but while assisting in putting in a flume in Feather River, below Oroville, in 1859, I ruptured myself so that for twenty-five years I wore a truss. Now I am entirely rid of the aforementioned list of ailments, including hernia.


The detail of how I treated each of the maladies might not interest the reader, and is too long a story to relate in this work. The principal things done in each case, however, will be chronicled under their proper heads in the second part of this work. See index. I do not now smoke, chew, nor drink intoxicants; the latter I did to a limited degree, and the former to excess, for a number of years, up to the close of 1869. On the 31st day of December of that year—the day I smoked my last cigar—I bought twenty-five cigars and smoked twenty-three of them. My cigar bill that year averaged $2.50 per day, and ran as high as $4.00. Having dissipated, and had nearly every form of disease, I speak from my own thorough experience and not from that of anyone else.

Why should not my story, then, have a beneficial influence? If any man knows how he can improve the welfare of his fellows, it is his duty to spread the information. True it is that many of the quasi reformers, or informers, are cranks or dreamers; but we wish the fact distinctly understood and appreciated that we come not under that category. We raise no false standard; we send forth no untried hypothesis. There is a man in a New England State who annually lectures on agriculture, writes special and general articles for the country papers on the most improved methods of farming, appears before legislative committees as a successful tiller of the soil. But, alas! what superficiality is contained in this man's brain. His house is a barn, his garden a chicken-yard, his orchard a forest, and his meadow a pasture. There are like phantasmagoric geniuses interested in the health question.

We simply say, Trust them not. Shun them and their advice as you would the presence and enticings of a bunco steerer. But you will get impatient to learn in what consists cleanliness, regularity, and temperance if I do not proceed. Indeed, I think I can hear some of you say, "I neither chew, drink, smoke, eat irregularly, or miss my stipulated number of hours in bed; yet I have all manner of aches and pains, and many lingering maladies." If such be the case, you do not understand the true principle and its practical application of cleanliness. A word here in regard to bathing. There is no doubt we all should bathe at least once a day.

 It should be done either at retiring or rising. If a warm or hot bath, at night; if cold or sponge bath, in the morning. Of course, if a person is not accustomed to a cold sponge bath, or is quite nervous, he must not attempt it too strongly at first. Commence and advance by gradation. Almost anything can be done to which an individual is unaccustomed if regular steps are taken towards the end, and not one leap. Whether it be beneficial or destructive, invigorating or poisoning, gradation will accomplish the end.

Madame Patti, who always has been obliged to take the greatest care of herself, gives this warning, which may not be out of place: "Take plenty of exercise, take it in the open air, take it alone, and breathe with the mouth closed. Live on simple food; all the fruit and rare beef you want, very little pastry, a glass of claret for dinner, coffee in moderation, but never a sip of beer, because it thickens the voice and stupefies the senses. Keep regular hours for work, meals, rest, and recreation, and never under any circumstances indulge in the fashionable habit of eating late suppers. If you want to preserve the beauty of face, and the priceless beauty of youth, keep well, keep clean, keep erect, and keep cool." Without being didactic, let me detail to you a few things you should and should not do; and all of which I carry out to the letter:—

Adopt some style of clothing so that even if you change the color the weight will be about the same.
Wear no overcoat, overshoes, nor gloves; in their place wear a sufficiently heavy suit when it is warm, so as to have enough on when it is cold. By wearing a chest protector fore and aft of the lungs, made of chamois and flannel, over the under-garment and under the shirt, you will never take cold through your lungs.
Have good, thick-soled boots—and always of the same thickness—and you will not take cold through your feet.

Have a hat always of the same weight, and that should be light, with ventilators in the top or sides. If you do not wear your hat at the lunch table, or in your place of business, you will not catch cold in your head.
A large list of accessories accompany the above:—
Never sit at your desk or home fireside with the same coat which you use on the street. In its place have one 50 per cent lighter for such occasions and positions.
Never sleep in your under-garments, nor in any other clothing that you carry during the day. The reason is strong and obvious. Your covering in the course of the day receives all the perspiration and surface deposit of the skin, which amounts to considerable in sixteen hours. This must have a chance to escape or be absorbed by the air. The amount is only increased by wearing the same garments at night. Have a good warm night-shirt, and a clean one at least every week.

Do not sleep in a room without having the windows down from the top to some extent. If there be six, lower three of them.
If you sleep with a companion and do not know anything about animal magnetism, find out through someone who does know. Ascertain which of you is more positive, and govern yourself accordingly. I find best results for me in sleeping with my head north, and on the west side of a negative companion. This principle of magnetism is too little observed. Yet it applies to all persons at all times. Naturally some individuals are more magnetic than others, that is, more positive. Usually, if not always, the more masculine, swarthy, is the more positive, while the light-haired and eyed are negative. Sleep invariably with your head towards the north if you are positive, towards the west if you are negative, but never in any case towards the east or south.

These conclusions are based wholly on scientific reasons, and anyone who understands physics will see the cogency of our statements.
As a preventative against anything that has once been in my stomach rising and remaining on the tongue, I use a piece of ordinary whalebone to curry it every morning, from end to end. This will tend to purify the breath, sweeten the mouth, and aid mastication.
My tooth brush, after using, is so thoroughly cleansed and dried that anyone acquainted with the facts would hardly believe it had been used.

There are millions of particles of dust, atoms, microbes, or any other name you may use, that collect upon your person and clothing hourly. If your garments be tattered and torn, or patched and glazed, this will not shorten your life or lessen your appetite; but I assure you, if you will use up a 15-cent whisk-broom twice a year, in brushing yourself from head to foot before each meal, there will be less to fall upon your food, and thus find its way to your stomach, and your days will be prolonged in exact ratio.