The American Housewife

THINGS WORTH KNOWING

Brain workers should choose their food with care so it may not oppress the stomach, and arrange their hours of eating so as not to let vigorous brain work come during the time of digesting a hearty meal. The brain is a great consumer of fat combined with phosphorus. Lean people should use fats rather more freely than fat ones. Three ounces of fat daily is necessary for a healthy working person.
There is more strength stored up in an ounce of butter than in two ounces of the best lean meat.
Sweet grapes may be taken to great advantage in cases of dyspepsia, liver complaint and constipation.
Fruits do not need much digestion.
Orange is very easily digested. One before breakfast will often prepare the delicate stomach for a good meal. It is said they will cure consumption.
It is asserted by an eminent English physician that, by the timely administration of the hyperphosphites of lime and soda, consumption can be stamped out as thoroughly as small-pox by vaccination.
Give your children plenty of brown bread and milk and well-made corn meal bread. Corn meal pudding and milk is excellent.
Many people think they must be physicked out in the spring, but this is a vile practice wholly unnecessary. Good brown bread, milk, cream, fruits and oat meal will keep the bowels in healthy condition. Use no salted meats, hot biscuit or stale potatoes.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Remember, that mirrors should never be hung where the sun shines directly upon them. They soon look misty, grow rough or granulated, and no longer give back a correct picture. The amalgam or union of tinfoil with mercury, which is spread on glass to form a looking-glass, is easily ruined by the direct, continued exposure to the solar rays. Remember that lemons can be kept sweet and fresh for months by putting them in a clean, tight cask or jar, and covered with cold water. The water must be changed as often as every other day, and the cask kept in a cool place. Remember, that a tablespoon of black pepper will prevent gray or buff linens from spotting, if stirred into the first water in which they are washed. It will also prevent the colors running, when washing black or colored cambrics or muslins, and the water is not injured by it, but just as soft as before the pepper was put in. Remember, that one can have the hands in soapsuds with soft soap without injury to the skin, if the hands are dipped in vinegar or lemon juice immediately after. The acids destroy the corrosive effects of the alkali, and make the hands soft and white. Indian meal and vinegar or lemon juice used on the hands when roughened by cold or labor, will heal and soften them. Rub the hands in this; then wash off thoroughly, and rub in glycerine. Those who suffer from chapped hands in winter, will find this comforting.

HOW TO GROW FAT

First - Take soup and beer every day; also hot milk, coffee, or chocolate well sweetened. SECOND - Let your food be chiefly farinaceous and vegetable; bread, with butter or milk, milk mush, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, etc., prepared with butter; sweet puddings. THIRD - Eat meat only once a day; the fatter kinds are the most suitable. FOURTH - Take neither acids nor alkalies, and avoid everything that disagrees. Milk, butter, and sugar are very fattening, but everybody cannot take them with impunity, and to grow fat it is essential that digestion be almost perfect. FIFTH - Sleep all you want, and take exercise in moderation.

A PHYSICIAN'S RULES OF HEALTH FOR THE HEATED TERM.

Rise early; the morning air is pure and cool. Take a hand bath, going over the whole person with water at its natural temperature; any one can do this who can command the use of a basin and one or two quarts of water. Use nothing but the hand; once or twice a week put a few drops of ammonia in the water to cleanse the skin, or use castile soap - avoid all others. Do this all the year round, no mater what the temperature of the weather is; beginning now, the skin will become accustomed to it, and cold will not affect, but tone up the system, bringing the blood to the surface, and preventing colds from sudden changes; besides, not half the clothing will be needed. At this season do not discard flannels altogether, but wear thin ones without sleeves; the best are made of white bunting, which is not heating, and yet absorbs the perspiration, and will last forever if properly shrunk before being made up. On rising, if faint feeling and loss of appetite, take a teaspoon of charcoal stirred in a little water, and repeat the same at bed time; it must be the fine willow charcoal, and to be found (with twenty-five cents) at all apothecaries. This absorbs the gas from undigested food, and sweetens the stomach and prepares it for food, and should be taken at any time when there is any unpleasant fulness in the stomach before eating. Avoid ice water, except one or two swallows; the habitual use lowers the temperature of the stomach, and prevents digestion. Soda water in immoderate quantities should be avoided, certainly not more than a single glass per day. Let the diet be a generous one, but avoid mixtures; never more that two or three dishes at each meal. Pastry of all kinds should be especially avoided in hot weather. Plain yeast bread, a day old, with good butter, sparingly, and in hot weather with milk - when fresh - well salted; all kinds of fruit and vegetables in their season, well cooked and salted - salt allays thirst when taken fresh upon food. Go slowly about your business or work. Never try to do two men's work in one day. There is nothing to be gained by it. Keep on the shady side of the street if there is one; if not, carry an umbrella if you can; if not, your handkerchief in the top of your hat; if in the country, green leaves. Never get into a passion, as it shortens life. Finally, make haste slowly to get rich; remember without health riches are of no account.

VENTILATION

The windows of every room in a house should be opened for a short time every day, that the atmosphere may be changed and purified. The want of proper ventilation is one of the permanent causes of typhoid fever, in connection with unclosed conduits to the sewer drains in bed rooms.

ART OF SWIMMING

Men are drowned by raising their arms above water, the buoyed weight of which depresses the head. When a man falls into deep water he will rise to the surface, and will continue there if he does not elevate his hands. If he moves his hands under water in any way he pleases, his head will rise so high as to allow him free liberty to breathe, and if he will use his legs, as in the act of walking (or rather of walking up stairs), his shoulders will rise above the water, so that he may use less exertion with his hands, or apply them to other purposes. These plain directions are recommended to the recollection of those who have not learned to swim in their youth, as they may be found to be highly advantageous in preserving life.