because cold drinks chill the stomach and hinder digestion. Coffee and tea hinder the work of the saliva, and these drinks should be used sparingly by every one and should be avoided entirely by those who have trouble in digesting starchy foods.

Eating too much at one time. Another frequent cause of indigestion is eating too much. Do not over

load your stomach by giving it more food than it can digest for hours, for if you do the food will sour in your stomach and you will suffer.

Eating a whole meal of one kind of food. Sometimes we find a child who wants to make a whole meal of chicken,

green peas, syrup, cake,

FIG. 18. Horace Fletcher. He strawberries, or some lost his health through indigestion and regained it by proper attention to his diet and properly masticating his food.

other article of food that he particularly likes. Eating in this way throws the digestive juices while This makes the work of

all the work upon one of the other juices are idle. digestion go on very slowly, and there is trouble in the stomach before digestion is finished.

Eating at irregular times. Our digestive organs are ready to digest a meal at the time at which we

usually eat. Therefore one should not eat dinner at twelve o'clock one day and at two o'clock the next day. Do not get so busy at your play that you do not have time to eat, and do not form the habit of eating between meals or whenever you can get something that you like to eat. Have regular hours for your meals and give your digestive organs a chance to rest between meals, for they need time for rest just as much as your muscles do.

Indigestible lunches. Many persons, among them many school children, are ruining their digestions by the kind of lunches that they eat. They are not able to be at home for the noonday meal, and instead of eating a sensible, nourishing lunch, they load their digestive organs with candy, chocolate, pickles, olives, pie, cake, bananas, peanuts, ice cream, soda fountain drinks, or almost anything else they like and can get.

This is the wrong way to select a lunch, and the person who follows this plan must suffer. Candy probably does more harm than any other of these foods. It is composed chiefly of sugar, and when taken in small amounts and with other foods it is very nourishing. But the person who eats a whole bag of candy at one time treats his stomach about as unwisely as if he should drink a whole cupful of thick sugar syrup at once.

The

Coarse foods necessary to the health. body needs a considerable quantity of such foods as

wheat bread, corn bread, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, and other foods that have large amounts of tough refuse matter in them. These bulky materials cause the wastes to be more promptly moved along the large intestine. This is very necessary, for if the wastes are allowed to lie in the large intestine bacteria will grow in them and form poisons. These poisons will then pass through the wall of the intestine into the blood, poisoning the whole body

if

and causing headaches. Those who live upon the choicest and most expensive foods have health little, any, better than have those who live on the plainest and simplest fare. Probably the principal reason for this is that those who live on a plain diet get more of the coarser kinds of food and the wastes are more promptly moved along through the intestine.

Alcohol injurious to the digestive organs. Beer, wine, and whiskey contain alcohol, and they are all harmful to the digestive organs. They injure the stomach especially and interfere with its work, so that hard masses of food pass undigested into the intestine. Bacteria then grow in this food and form poisons that are carried through the body. Alcohol is also one of the chief causes of disease of the liver.

Questions: 1. Why is it important to keep the digestive organs in health? 2. What must we do in order to get any benefit from the study of rules of hygiene? 3. What effect has exercise on the digestive organs? 4. What effect on digestion has thorough chewing of the food? 5. Why should water be taken at meals? 6. What harm will a glassful of water do if it is all taken at one time? 7. What is the best rule to follow in the use of tea or coffee? 8. Why cannot we eat enough food at one time to supply us all day? 9. Why should every meal be made up of several kinds of food? 10. Why should we eat at regular hours every day? 11. What are some foods that should not be taken for lunch? 12. Of what is candy chiefly made? 13. Why should one eat only a small amount of candy at one time? 14. Why are coarse foods necessary? 15. What effect has alcohol on the digestive organs? 16. What is the best rule to follow in regard to the use of alcoholic drinks?

Suggestions and topics for development: The life and teachings of Horace Fletcher. Healthful school lunches. Necessity for the leisurely eating of school lunches. Soda fountain drinks.

THE CARE OF THE TEETH

THE mouth cavity has been called the Gateway of Life, and the care of the mouth may well be called the Highway to Health. Horace enamel Fletcher has said that "the whole

FIG. 20.

-pulp
cavity

problem of nutrition is settled in the first three inches of the alimentary canal," and there is far more truth in this than most persons realize. All about us are persons who pay a great deal of The attention to the purity of their structure of a food. Yet the teeth of many of these persons are so unclean and so decayed that they cannot chew a single bite of food without filling it with millions of bacteria. It is hardly worth while to take care of food for a person who is going to spoil every particle of it before he swallows it, and the health of the nation demands that the people have a better understanding of the importance of the teeth.

tooth.

The importance of caring for the teeth. In the German army the teeth and toothbrushes of the soldiers are inspected each morning as regularly as the guns are inspected. In the United States army a man is not accepted as a soldier unless his teeth are in good condition. Some German life insurance companies employ dentists to care for the teeth of their policy holders, because they find it is cheaper