The Human Mechanism; Its Physiology and Hygiene and the Sanitation of Its Surroundings (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ...what activity thus does for the development of power it does also for the maintenance of power. An efficient nervous mechanism of any kind once acquired does not remain efficient without use. The man who has developed a rugged constitution in colder climates and then lives for years in the tropics, constantly exposed to a warm climate, finds on return to the home of his youth that the mechanism of heat regulation does not readily adjust itself to cold damp winds and blizzards; the athlete who has learned to execute the greatest variety of "tricks" in the gymnasium and then settles down to a sedentary life finds after some years that he is almost as helpless as the man who gave no attention to such training. It is unnecessary to multiply examples. Efficiency in any direction is the result of continued use of organs and especially of continued training of the nervous system. As we fit ourselves to do some few things, and to do them well, we have not time to conserve by use the efficiency of all the nervous mechanisms we have acquired; we must to some extent sacrifice the more general actions for those which are more special and useful. But it must not be forgotten that this can be carried too far; that a certain amount of general activity is a condition of healthy living and that one of the problems of life to solve, and to solve aright, is how to distribute our activity between the two. To the consideration of these questions we shall return in our study of personal hygiene. THE HUMAN MECHANISM PART II THE HYGIENE OF THE HUMAN MECHANISM AND THE SANITATION OF ITS SURROUNDINGS PART II CHAPTER XVI INTRODUCTORY 1. Hygiene and sanitation: the right use and-proper care of the human mechanism. The owner of a valuable lifeless mechanism, such as a watch or...