Applied Physiology Part 3

Water in lead pipes takes up some of the lead. Lead is a poison. You should let the water run off from a pipe a little while before you use it. Good water is clear and has no smell or taste. Dirty or yellow water, or water with a taste or smell, is not fit for use.

=39. Tea and coffee.=--Tea and coffee are steeped in water and used as a drink. The drink is the water. The tea and coffee are neither food nor drink. They cause the cells of the body to do more work, and at the same time they take away the feeling of being tired. They do not give strength to the body, but are like a whip and make the body work harder.

=40. The appet.i.te.=--When we have so many kinds of food, what kind is best for us? The taste of food tells us the kind of food to eat. Bread and meat, and such plain foods, always taste good, and we never get tired of them. Sugar tastes good until we get enough. Any more makes us sick. More than enough sugar or starch is found in bread and potatoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =One kind of intemperance.=]

If we can eat food day after day, without getting tired of it, the food is good for us. If we get tired of its taste, either the food is not good for us or we are eating too much. Bad tasting or bad smelling food is always dangerous.

We can tell how much food to eat by our _hunger_ or _appet.i.te_. We can always feel when we have enough. Then is the time to stop.

Sometimes we eat plain bread and meat until we have enough, and then sweet cake or pie is brought in. Then we have a false appet.i.te for sweet things. If the sweet things had not made a false hunger, we should have had enough to eat. But the false appet.i.te makes us want more, and so we eat too much, and sometimes get sick from it.

=41. Intemperance.=--Eating for the sake of a false appet.i.te is _intemperance_. Drinking strong drink for the sake of its taste is a common form of intemperance. But eating too much preserves, pie, and candy is intemperance too, and can do a great deal of harm. A little pie, or pudding, or candy, is good, because we can eat our sugar as well that way as in bread. But we should eat only a little.

=42. Food and Diseases.=--If our food is dirty or is handled with dirty hands, or is put into dirty dishes, there may be disease germs in it. Our food should always be clean, and we should have our hands clean when we handle it or eat it.

Storekeepers sometimes keep fruit and vegetables out of doors where street dust may blow upon it. This dust is often full of disease germs. Flies may also bring disease germs to the food. If food is kept where dust and flies can get at it, we ought not to buy it.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

1. Food is a mixture of water, alb.u.min, fat, starch or sugar, and minerals.

2. Animal foods, like milk, eggs, and meat, have alb.u.min and fat in the best form.

3. Plant food has alb.u.min and fat, but it has very much starch or sugar. So, taken together with animal food, it makes a complete food.

4. Lime, iron, soda, and salt are found in all foods, but we must add a little more salt to food.

5. Water is found in all food, but we must drink some besides.

6. Dirty water, or water with a taste or smell, is not fit for use.

7. Taste tells us what kind of food to use.

8. Hunger, or the appet.i.te, tells us how much food to use.

9. There can be a false hunger for sweet things. This may lead us to eat too much.

10. Eating too much of sweet things is one form of intemperance.

CHAPTER VI

TOBACCO

=43. Harmful eating.=--Men often eat for the fun of eating, and sometimes they eat harmful things. They chew tobacco and drink strong drinks, because they like their taste, just as a child eats candy.

=44. Tobacco.=--Men have always drunk strong drink. Within the last four hundred years, men have learned another way to please a wrong taste. When Columbus discovered America, the Indians were using tobacco. They taught the Spaniards how to smoke it, and since then almost the whole world has used it.

Tobacco is the leaf of a tall plant. It needs a better soil than any other crop. It takes the richness from the ground, and spoils it for other crops.

=45. Nicotine.=--About 1/30 of each tobacco leaf is a strong poison.

This poison is called _nicotine_. A drop or two of it, or as much of it as is in a strong cigar, will kill a man. It gives the tobacco its smell and taste. Men use tobacco for the sake of a poison.

=46. Why men use tobacco.=--Men give queer reasons for using tobacco.

One smokes for its company, another because he is with company. One smokes to make his brain think better, and another to keep himself from thinking. Some use tobacco to help digest their food, and others use it to keep themselves from eating so much. Boys smoke to make themselves look like men. The real reason for using tobacco is that men learn to like its taste, and do not care if it harms them.

=47. Spitting.=--Tobacco in any form makes the saliva flow. Men do not dare swallow it, for it makes them sick. So they spit it out. No one likes to see this. It is a dirty and filthy habit. Besides, the saliva is lost, and cannot help digest food.

Tobacco stains the teeth brown. You can always tell a tobacco chewer by his teeth. His breath will smell of tobacco, and even his clothes are offensive to the nose.

=48. Tobacco lessens strength.=--Tobacco always makes a person sick at the stomach, at first. After a while, he becomes used to it, and an ordinary chew or smoke does not make him sick. But a large chew or smoke will always make him sick again. When a person is sick from tobacco he is very weak. Even if he is not sick, the tobacco poisons his muscles and makes his strength less. When a man trains for a hard race he never uses tobacco.

=49. Tobacco hinders digestion.=--Tobacco and its smoke both have a burning taste. This makes the throat sore, and causes a cough. Tobacco does not help the stomach to digest food. Smokers and chewers often have headaches and coated tongues. These are signs of a poor digestion.

=50. Effect upon the young.=--Tobacco is more harmful to boys than to men. If boys smoke they cannot run fast or long. They cannot work hard with their brains or hands. They do not grow fast, and are liable to have weak hearts.

=51. Tobacco harms others.=--Many persons do not like the smell of tobacco, and no one likes the spit. No one should use it in the presence of others. The tobacco user's pleasure should not spoil the comfort and happiness of others.

=52. Snuff.=--Powdered tobacco is called snuff. Snuff causes sneezing.

No one should harm the nose and the whole body for the pleasure of a sneeze. Years ago snuff was used much more than it is now.

=53. Chewing.=--Chewing tobacco is the most poisonous way of using it, for it keeps most of the nicotine in the mouth. Chewing will make any one very sick, unless he spits out all the saliva.

=54. Smoking.=--Men smoke pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. The smoke has nicotine, and is poisonous. Pipe stems get dirty and full of nicotine.

After a while they smell bad and are very poisonous. An old smoker's pipe will make a young smoker sick.

=55. Cigarettes.=--Cigars are not so poisonous as a pipe, for more of the nicotine is burned up. Cigarettes are often made of weak tobacco.

A cigarette does not contain so much tobacco as a cigar. Hence a cigarette does not cost much. It can be smoked in a hurry. It does not make a boy so sick as cigars do. Boys and men use a great many cigarettes where they would not touch a cigar. This makes the use of cigarettes the most dangerous form of smoking. Selling cigarettes to young boys is forbidden by law.

=56. Habit.=--When men have used tobacco for some time, they like it and feel bad without it. So they get into the habit of using it, and find it hard to stop. The tobacco seems to help them, but it does not do so. It cheats men, and they do not know it.

=57. Chewing gum.=--Chewing gum is made from pitch or paraffin, for these substances will not dissolve in the mouth. The gum is flavored with sugar and spices. The gum and its flavors are not harmful in themselves, and yet chewing them is harmful. Chewing makes a great deal of saliva flow. All this saliva is wasted, and when we eat our meals we may have too little. Then our food will not digest well, but we shall have dyspepsia and headaches.

By pulling and handling the gum while chewing it, you may get some poisonous dirt into your mouth, and make yourself very sick.

Even if your gum should not harm you, there is a good reason for letting it alone. When you are chewing gum, you look as if you were chewing tobacco. No one likes to see a boy or girl even appearing to chew tobacco. If you form a habit of chewing gum you will be more likely to chew tobacco when you are grown.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

1. Men use tobacco for the sake of its nicotine. Nicotine is a very strong poison.

2. Tobacco causes a man to waste his saliva.