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Folklife Fridays: Rules for Good Health


I found the following in an old book about home remedies, Tommy Scotts Medicine Show.

The author is not listed.

They are amusing, and who knows, maybe they even work!

A Few Little Rules to Keep the Body in Good Shape

Fix deeply in mind the grand truth that life power rules the body, and that it alone can cure disease.

Life power lives upon air, water and food only; all else is hurtful.

Make cleanliness your motto, and watch against filth in both house and grounds.

Few starve for food, but many for air. Breathe deeply a hundred times daily. Wear no tight clothing. Above all, ventilate your sleeping room.

Beware of gluttony. If the appetite is dull, eat fruit only or eat nothing. Use no fiery condiments, but live chiefly on natural grains, vegetables and fruits. Never ask your stomach to chew your food--employ your teeth. Adorn your table not only with viands (food?), but with flowers and smiles and kindly words.

Deformity is not awkwardness only, but danger. A high chest will give freedom to breathing and digestion and help to cure many diseases.

Shun stimulants and drugs as you do pestilence. For tea and coffee, drink hot water, and in illness let the same magic fluid be your physic.

Thick blood causes colds and countless other diseases. Keep the lungs active by deep breathing, the skin by baths and friction, the kidneys by free drafts of warm water, the bowels by correct eating, and the blood will be pure.

Spend part of each day in muscular work, part in study and part in good deeds to men and in the worship of God.


How many of you think I am going to drink hot water instead of coffee?

Joyfully you'll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation. And as you do it, you'll say, "Give thanks to God. Call out his name. Ask him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what he's done, spread the news of his great reputation!
Isaiah 12:3-4 Message

Comments

  1. TipperMay 29, 2010 at 6:42 PM

    I don't want to give up my coffee either-but most of them make sense : )

    ReplyDelete

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