CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
 
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 BETTER THAN PHYSICf j 
 
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 EVERYBODY'S LIFE-PRESERVER. 
 
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 BY 
 
 W. W. HALL, M. D., NEW YORK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE GUIDE-BOARD," "HEALTH BY GOOD LIVING," 
 " JOUKNAL OF HEALTH," ETC. 
 
 The good things of this life were made to be enjayed. 
 A healthy fool is Itafpicr than a sick Solomon. 
 A hearty laugh elevates the spirits, and enlivens the 
 circulation. 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1892.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1884, 
 
 BY RAND, McNALLY & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 H-
 
 NOTE. 
 
 To induce all mankind to partake of the 
 GOOD THINGS of this life, and believing that 
 GOOD FOOD, PUKE AIK, and a CHEEKFUL DIS- 
 POSITION are the best elixirs, we have been 
 prompted to present to the public another 
 volume of the writings of DK. HALL, trusting 
 that our effort will prove a lasting benefit, not 
 only to the present, but to generations yet to 
 
 come. 
 
 PUBLISHERS.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A SENTENCE, a line, a word, has sometimes 
 made such a deep impression on a man's 
 mind as to change the whole plan of sub- 
 sequent life, and make or mar his fortune. 
 
 It is hoped that some of the sentiments 
 of this book will be so CONVINCING and SELF- 
 EVIDENT as to fasten themselves on the mem- 
 ory of its readers, and lead them to make 
 the preservation of the HEALTH an IMPERATIVE 
 DUTY; considering that, without it, existence 
 has no SUNSHINE is a burden instead of a 
 
 BLESSING. 
 
 THE AUTHOR,
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 HUMAN life is a talent, a privilege, a probation. 
 To live to purpose, men should live long, in order 
 that they may gain experiences, for by the wis 
 use of these, grand things are said and done. It 
 then follows that this life should be cherished by 
 all those practices which tend to preserve it in its 
 highest, healthiest forms, and to its greatest dura- 
 tion, and therefore HEALTH is A DUTY I 
 
 IT is interference with nature which kills multi- 
 tudes of those who die of disease, as it is the de- 
 fiance of her laws which made those multitudes 
 sick. 
 
 LIFE being hung on little things, its preserva- 
 tion is a daily miracle ; and that any of us should 
 arrive at mature age, is owing to the fact that 
 there is an Bye upon us which never sleeps, the 
 eye of a Heavenly Father, whose loving-kindness 
 is over all his works ; whose " mercies are new 
 every morning, and fresh every evening.** 
 
 7
 
 8 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 NATURE has made her terms with us, how we 
 may enjoy our daily existence and lengthen out our 
 lives ; these terms are, to know her laws, and not 
 infringe on them. 
 
 WHATEVER position a man finds himself placed in, 
 whether by accident, fortunate speculation, or per- 
 severing industry, he should always retain that 
 command over himself which will entitle him to the 
 good will of old as well as new friends. 
 
 As a very general rule, when a man gets sick it 
 is his own fault, the result of either ignorance or 
 presumption. 
 
 WE ought to know that our Maker is beneficent 
 enough to cause that kind of food to flourish most 
 in the locality where the human residents most 
 need its elements. How strange that infatuation 
 which causes us constantly to overlook the multi- 
 tudes of evidences about us of the forethought of 
 our Creator ! This great principle is evidenced in 
 our finding meats and animal oils almost exclusively 
 as the aliment of the Greenlander, while fruits in 
 rich profusion are found in all tropical countries, 
 fruits being cooling, and meats and oils necessary 
 to keep up an internal fire where quicksilver 
 freezes. 
 
 MOKE people die prematurely from want of care 
 in any given year, than perish by plague, famine, 
 pestilence, and war.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 9 
 
 MORE people die of air-tight rooms, than of un- 
 chinked log-cabins. 
 
 BY indulging your wives in frequent excursions, 
 three or four times in a year, you will enlarge 
 their views of things, increase their sociabilities, 
 improve their health and their tempers, and more, 
 you will find they have an increasing love for 
 home. 
 
 BETTER far to wear out in moderate and useful 
 activities, than to rust out in inglorious ease. 
 Sun, moon, and stars ; air, earth and ocean ; rill and 
 river ; cascade and cataract ; all, by their ceaseless 
 motion, live. There is not an atom wholly idle in 
 the wide universe. Nor should man be. They 
 are for time ; he for eternity. Their destiny is 
 fixed for them ; man makes his own, according to 
 the work of his hands. 
 
 PHYSICIANS may rest assured that if the instincts 
 of the invalid and the convalescent were more 
 closely observed and studied, they would be more 
 successful, with less medicine. 
 
 WE believe that the first duty of a theological 
 student is to take care of his health, and chew He- 
 brew roots and Greek themes afterwards. 
 
 IT is a beautiful fact, that while the warmth and 
 exposures of summer tend to biliousness and 
 fevers, the free use of fruits and berries counter- 
 act* that tendency.
 
 10 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ALL of us feel there is far less social intercourse 
 between families than there was a score or two of 
 years ago ; the reason of which is, it requires so much 
 more effort to keep our houses and ourselves in a pre- 
 sentable shape that we have no time to make an old- 
 fashioned visit; that is, to go and see a neighbor be- 
 fore sundown, and stay and take tea, and then laugh 
 and talk to a late hour, reaching home with pleasant 
 memories of the good cheer, the well-spread table, 
 and the vigorous appetite for its consumption. All 
 thoughtful minds should cultivate social intercourse 
 as a matter of principle, and pleasure, and duty; it 
 breaks up the monotony of domestic life, it promotes 
 that interchange of ideas and that reciprocity of cour- 
 tesies which cherish self-respect, which wake up 
 those ambitions and commendable rivalries which are 
 calculated to elevate the individual in particular and 
 society in general. 
 
 MUCH time should be bestowed upon the selection 
 of the patli one is to pursue for life, and on which 
 a whole lifetime's bread and butter depend. The 
 boy's character, tastes and education even his idio- 
 syncrasies and prejudices should be consulted. If 
 a choice is finally made that suits all circumstances, 
 the selection will be permanent and the man successful. 
 
 AT the present day there is a great fondness for 
 vegetable medicines. Anything having the prefix 
 of vegetable to it goes down with the multifold*.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 11 
 
 IT is by copying after nature, man makes his 
 greatest and most useful discoveries. 
 
 LET our children starve for bread rather than 
 for air. Let us see to it that their apartments, at 
 home and in the school-room, are well ventilated, 
 and that they are not too long confined on hard 
 benches, in crowded rooms. Let them learn to 
 play as well as to study. Let us educate their 
 bodies as well as their minds. 
 
 WHAT a grand thing it is for the doctors that so 
 few people have any sense, not even sense enough 
 to take pains to keep well when they are so, to 
 keep well by doing justly, living temperately, and 
 pursuing in moderation the various callings of 
 human life 1 
 
 IT is with difficulty that old habits are re- 
 nounced, even when one is convinced that life can 
 be prolonged and made happier thereby ; but it is 
 a question for young men seriously to consider, 
 whether, on starting in life, they will addict them- 
 selves to a habit which at once wastes the time, 
 sours the temper, is against nature, and conse- 
 quently involves their health and that of their 
 offspring. 
 
 VERY few of the great minds of this country 
 have come from the city, or the cradle of the rich. 
 The farm and the workshop have supplied by far 
 the largest number of our eminent men.
 
 12 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WE may say, with great truth, that the material 
 glory, permanence, and power of any community 
 consists in the physical vigor of the individual 
 men and women who compose it ; for physical per- 
 fection gives mental energy and mental health. 
 
 A PERSON who will throw himself on his back in 
 the water, with his hands held clasped in each 
 other at his back, and with his head thrown back 
 so that the nose and mouth may protrude from the 
 water, may float for hours, and cannot sink in that 
 position. 
 
 IF a child is regularly put to sleep at the same 
 time, for only three or four days in succession, the 
 habit will so rapidly grow upon it that, with the 
 aid of quiet and a little darkening of the room, it 
 will, if well, fall to sleep within a few minutes of 
 the time, for weeks and months in succession, such 
 is Nature's love for system and regularity. 
 
 THE world would hail it as a glad event, if phy- 
 sicians could be so educated as to cure all disease ; 
 but it would more largely add to its happiness if 
 all could be so well instructed, as to the first 
 symptoms of every ailment, as to be able at once 
 to arrest its progress, and thus no physician be 
 needed to cure. And yet any one must know, 
 that if men could be so taught to live that disease 
 would not be possible, half the suiferings of hu- 
 manity would be annihilated. And for this I labor,
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 13 
 
 IT is the full, steady, equable exercise of every 
 mental faculty, which is the only infallible guar- 
 antee against fatuity. 
 
 IP you are well, let yourself alone. 
 
 THE proper way to give a medical direction is, 
 to use the most common words in their ordinary 
 sense, and in a manner not only to make them 
 easily understood, but impossible to be misunder 
 stood, and to take it for granted that the person 
 prescribed for knows nothing. 
 
 IGNORANCE is always reckless. 
 
 PRESENTIMENTS love weak places; hence they 
 flourish among weak-minded people not necessa- 
 rily weak-minded by nature, but made so by a 
 diseased body. 
 
 A MAN in consumption will more certainly get 
 well in Greenland than in the West Indies. Dr. 
 Kane was an invalid, in the waters of the Gulf of 
 Mexico, in summer. Many considered him doomed 
 for consumption. In six months he was in Green- 
 land, and after remaining there several years, 
 exposed to all the rigors of the Arctic seas, he 
 returned in better health than he had known for 
 several years. 
 
 LET it be the aim of life to preserve and improve 
 our health, and to be good ; then we shall have a 
 happy existence bey on i the tomb.
 
 14 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 READER of mine, in the shades of the forties, 
 you have found, more than once or twice, that in 
 times of real difficulty, if you could not help your- 
 self, you had to go unhelped. This is as it should 
 be. It makes men self-reliant. He who is always 
 helped remains a baby always, and his name and 
 memory rot with his body. 
 
 THE fact that new nostrums remain popular only 
 for a brief period, proves that their healing vir- 
 tues, like the diseases they profess to cure, are 
 imaginary. Each remedy has its brief day of 
 glory, and is succeeded by a rival candidate for 
 the popular applause. Each new invention has a 
 twofold office. It comes to bury the dead, and 
 herald a new race. Every fresh adventurer de- 
 nounces all rivals as deceivers and impostors. 
 These makers and venders of nostrums abuse each 
 other like pickpockets. They wage upon every 
 fellow-quack an internecine war. Every member 
 of the fraternity is an Ishmaelite to every other. 
 On all sides it is war to the knife, and the knife 
 to the hilt. The dead lie prostrate on many a 
 hard-fought field. But it is the patients who die, 
 not the quacks. 
 
 KEEP every spot of your dwelling scrupulously 
 clean and dry, from cellar to garret, and from the 
 line fence in the rear to the centre of the street in 
 front
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 15 
 
 THE forms and ceremonies of politeness may be 
 dispensed with, in a measure, in the relations and 
 intimacies of one's own fireside, but kind atten- 
 tions never. 
 
 THE rule that a man may eat almost anything 
 with impunity, applies to one in good health, eat- 
 ing in moderation, according to the quality of the 
 food ; but when an invalid is to be fed, very dif- 
 ferent principles are to govern. 
 
 DISEASE will as certainly be engendered by too 
 little food as by too much. 
 
 DIETING consists in adapting the food in quan- 
 tity, as well as quality, to the wants of the system. 
 
 THERE can bo no doubt that an ill-conditioned 
 cellar is the unsuspected cause of death among 
 many a happy household. 
 
 THE mud of our streets owes half its parentage 
 to the dust of the earth, and half to the rains of 
 heaven. So the vice and crime which disfigure 
 society appear to grow out of the alliance of ex- 
 treme wealth and extreme poverty. It is chiefly 
 in the very lowest or in the very highest stages 
 of the social edifice that we encounter intemper- 
 ance, licentiousness, gambling, and the various 
 forms of profligacy which still curse our civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 ONE of the great errors of the age is, we medi- 
 cate the body too much, the mind too little.
 
 16 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 TAKE almost any business man, and he will tell 
 you, in more than three cases out of four, that he 
 has lost more by bad debts than he is now worth. 
 It is a monstrous fallacy that " if a man expects to 
 become rich he must go in debt." The sentiment 
 originated in the heart of a rogue. Debt is not 
 the policy of the most successful men. 
 
 THE hair grows fastest in summer, and in the 
 young. A finger nail is renewed in a hundred and 
 thirty-two days in winter, but requires only a 
 hundred and sixteen of warm weather. And as 
 light hastens vegetation, so it is known that the 
 hair grows faster in the daytime than in the 
 night; and the beautiful principle holds good as 
 to our moral being. We all expand and grow into 
 the likeness of our great Father in proportion as 
 charity keeps up the warm summer time in our 
 hearts, while the sunlight of a life that is pure and 
 true dispels the clouds and darkness of wrong- 
 doing, and creates an atmosphere fit for the breath 
 of angels. 
 
 DYSPEPTIC persons had a thousand times better 
 " top off" with a few teaspoons of strong vinegar, 
 than with a plum pudding or mince pie, or a glass 
 of wine, brandy, or champagne. 
 
 WE need more of heart, and less of voice, if we 
 would carry men with us, and take them captive 
 against their will.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 17 
 
 IP you desire to live long in ease and comfort, 
 free from grunts and groans, and aches and pains ; 
 if you would have a countenance of genial sun- 
 shine, instead of vinegar; if you would be over- 
 flowing with risibilities, instead of being racked 
 with rheumatics, get rich by spending your youth 
 in temperate industries and prudent economies, 
 having in view the wise and kindly expenditure 
 of your wealth in a healthful old age. 
 
 SONG is the outlet of mental and physical activi- 
 ty, and increases both by its exercise. No child 
 has completed a religious education who has not 
 been taught to sing the songs of Zion. No part of 
 our religious worship is sweeter than this. 
 
 THE more clothes a man wears, the more bed- 
 covering he uses, the closer he keeps his chamber, 
 whether warm or cold, the more he confines him- 
 self to the house, the more numerous and warm his 
 night-garments, the more readily will he take cold, 
 under all circumstances ; as the more a thriftless 
 youth is helped, the less able does he become to 
 help himself. 
 
 MORE persons are destroyed by eating too much 
 than by drinking too much. Gluttony kills more 
 than drunkenness in civilized society. 
 
 THE best preparation for a fine head of hair is 
 good health. The best and cheapest means are the 
 proper use of a hair-brush and pure water. 
 2
 
 18 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE is not a girl on earth, whether the 
 daughter of prince or pauper, who, if made a per- 
 fect mistress of all household duties, and thrown 
 into a community wholly unknown, would not rise 
 from one station to another, and eventually become 
 the mistress of her own mansion, while multitudes 
 of young women, placed in positions of ease, ele- 
 gance, and affluence, but being unfitted to fill them, 
 will as certainly descend from one round of the 
 ladder to another, until, at the close of life, they 
 are found where the really competent started from. 
 Mothers of America, if you wish to rid your own 
 and your children's household of the destroying 
 locusts which infest your houses and eat up your 
 substance, take a pride in educating your daugh- 
 ters to be perfect mistresses of every home duty ; 
 then, even if you leave them without a dollar, be 
 assured they will never lack a warm garment, a 
 bounteous meal, or a cosy roof, nor fail of the re- 
 spect of any who know them. 
 
 IP you act with a view to praise only, you de- 
 serve none. 
 
 No disease ever comes without a cause, or with- 
 out a warning. Hence endeavor to think back for 
 the cause, with a view to avoid it in future, and on 
 the instant of any unpleasant bodily sensation, 
 cease eating absolutely until it has entirely dis- 
 appeared, at least for twenty-four hours. If stil] 
 remaining, consult a physician.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 19 
 
 FRUITS and berries are healthy every day of the 
 year, whether a man is sick or well. Actual ob- 
 servation has established the fact that fruit is me- 
 dicinal even in diarrhoea, inasmuch as it has a cura- 
 tive effect when properly used. 
 
 LET it be remembered that it is not the medicine 
 advised by the educated physician which has done 
 the world so much injury, but it is the physic 
 which the people swallow on their own responsi- 
 bility. When a narrow-minded person gets sick, 
 he " calculates " the saving it will be to him to 
 give twenty-five cents for a box of pills instead 
 of " employing a physician," besides avoiding the 
 discomfort of "a course of medicine," as it is 
 called. This answers for a while in many cases, 
 but it is ultimately disastrous, and health and life 
 are the fearful forfeit. 
 
 INTELLIGENT druggists know that all medicines 
 sold for coughs, colds, consumption, and tickling in 
 the throat, contain opium in some form or other. 
 They repress the cough, but do not eradicate it ; 
 hence the first purchase paves the way for a second 
 or a third. Meanwhile, as it is the essential nature 
 of opium to close up, to constringe, to deaden the 
 sensibilities, the bowels do not feel the presence of 
 their contents calling for a discharge, and constipa- 
 tion is induced, and becomes the immediate cause 
 of three fourths of all ordinary ailments, such as 
 headache, neuralgia, dyspepsia, and piles.
 
 20 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PICKLES should never be kept a moment in any 
 vessel except it be of stone, wood, porcelain, or 
 glass. In most other vessels, earthen or metallic, 
 they soon become poisonous. 
 
 Do not commence a day's travel before breakfast, 
 even if that has to be eaten at daylight. Dinner 
 or supper, or both, can be more healthfully dis- 
 pensed with than a good warm breakfast. 
 
 THE habitual use of pills, or drops, or any kind 
 of medicine whatever, for the regulation of the 
 bowels, is a sure means of ultimately undermining 
 the health, in almost all cases laying the founda- 
 tion for some of the most distressing of chronic 
 maladies ; hence all the pains possible should be 
 txken to keep them regulated by natural agencies, 
 such as the coarse foods and exercises. 
 
 THE three great essentials to human health are, 
 .eep the feet always dry and warm, have one reg- 
 ular action of the bowels every day, and cool off 
 very slowly after all forms of exercise. 
 
 SPASMODIC exercise, that which is short and vio- 
 lent, is contrary to nature. It is seldom unattend- 
 ed with injurious consequences, and, as to invalids, 
 causes death sometimes. 
 
 THE irresponsible brute has no other guide to 
 health than that of instinct. It is in a measure 
 absolutely despotic, arid cannot be readily con- 
 travened.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 21 
 
 How many a youth at school, how many an ap- 
 prentice in the shop, how many a child in the fam- 
 ily, has gone out in the night of a blighted life, 
 who, with humane encouragements, might have 
 lived usefully and died famous, let the passionate 
 teacher, and master, and parent inquire, and do a 
 little more patting on the shoulder. 
 
 THE greatest humanity we can show to the sick, 
 is to secure to them the most important remedies 
 ever known, to wit, quietness, cleanliness, and 
 pure air. These alone would cure three fourths 
 of all our diseases ; but we will not use them. 
 Yet they are everywhere attainable, and cost 
 nothing but a little trouble. With the same physi- 
 cians and the same medicines the mortality of the 
 British army in the- Crimea was diminished one 
 half through the influence of Florence Nightin- 
 gale, in the procurement of greater comfort and 
 cleanliness among the sick. 
 
 To be growing old, and Lave no children or 
 grandchildren, presents a bleaker prospect than 
 to be perched on a pyramid of the desert, or upon 
 a glacier of the frozen sea. Single folks, marry, 
 and marry while you are young. 
 
 UNDER intense bodily or mental application, if 
 you find your memory failing you, as you value 
 bodily health, and the mind itself, break away at 
 once from all your engagements, and spend weeks 
 together in out-door recreations.
 
 22 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PERSONS often trouble themselves uselessly about 
 having disease of the heart or lungs, because they 
 have pain thereabouts. These are good signs gen- 
 erally, as showing that the pains are external to 
 these organs, for there can be no pain where there 
 are no nerves. The fact is, the most certainly fatal 
 affections of these organs give no note of warning 
 by pain until within the last brief hours of life. 
 The very substance of the lungs and heart is 
 often eaten through, eaten away, without a remote 
 suspicion on the part of the patient that such was 
 the case. 
 
 OP any two young men starting on the race of 
 life, one poor but healthy, the other rich and effem- 
 inate, other things being equal, the chances foi 
 usefulness, honor, and a well-remembered name 
 are manifold in favor of the former. Who that 
 reads this article will lay it down, and resolve, " I 
 will do more to leave to my children a vigorous 
 constitution " ? 
 
 WHATEVER renders the blood impure tends to 
 originate consumption. Whatever makes the air 
 impure makes the blood impure. It is the air we 
 breathe which purifies the blood, And as, if the 
 water we use to wash our clothing is dirty, it is 
 impossible to wash the clothing clean, so if the air 
 we breathe is impure, it is impossible for it to 
 abstract the impurities from the blood.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 23 
 
 WE place great stress on taking some food or 
 stimulating drink into the stomach, on waking in 
 the morning, before going out into the morning 
 air, in all southern latitudes, especially in the 
 warm weather, because we all wake up in a lan- 
 guid condition. The stomach naturally, and by 
 means of its long fast, has its share of languor, 
 and has almost no power of resisting its own 
 instinct to drink in whatever is presented to it. 
 Nor have the other parts of the system any greater 
 ability of self-defence, of resisting deleterious 
 impressions from an atmosphere loaded with poi- 
 sonous miasm, which is present in its greatest 
 malignity and in its most concentrated and com- 
 pact form for the hour or two about sunrise, in 
 warm weather, in all southern latitudes malig- 
 nant enough, in some localities, to cause death in 
 forty-eight hours. A little food, or a cup of hot 
 drink, wakes up the weak stomach, imparts nutri- 
 ment to it, and with that, strength to defend itself. 
 Hence all persons should take their breakfast 
 before they travel in warm weather ; and, for the 
 same reason, all out-door laborers, farmers, &c., 
 should do the same. 
 
 LET our readers remember that only ignorant 
 and presumptuous men talk of " certain " cures. 
 The truly wise physician speaks with reserve, and 
 such only ought to be trusted with human health 
 and life.
 
 24 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE is only one safe plan of using coffee, and 
 that is, never, under any circumstances, except of 
 an extraordinary character, exceed in quantity, 
 frequency, or strength ; take only one cup at the 
 regular meal, and of a given, unvarying strength. 
 In this way, it may be used every day for a life- 
 time, not only without injury, but with greater 
 advantage than an equal amount of cold water; 
 and for the simple reason that nothing cold should 
 be drank at a regular meal, except by persons in 
 vigorous health. 
 
 WHILE medicine has no power to cure epilepsy, 
 it is very certain that grown persons can keep it 
 in abeyance by the exercise of a close observation 
 and a sound judgment can, in other words, ward 
 off an attack for a lifetime, by attention to two 
 things: First, by avoiding, as to quantity and 
 quality, the food which causes any kind of discom- 
 fort. Second, by regulating the system so as to 
 have one full, free action of the bowels every 
 twenty-four hours. To look for restoration in any 
 other direction is utterly hopeless. 
 
 LOVE that has nothing but beauty to keep it in 
 good health is short-lived, and apt to have ague 
 fits. 
 
 A SIXPENNY sandwich, eaten leisurely in the 
 cars, is better for you than a dollar dinner, bolted 
 at a " station."
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 25 
 
 I SET it down as a clearly established fact, that 
 a glass or more of cold water, drank habitually at 
 meals, or soon after, is a pernicious practice, even 
 to the most healthy. 
 
 WHY you should Walk slowly in warm weather, 
 needs no explanation to thinking people ; but as 
 nine tenths of mankind never think, but act me- 
 chanically as to the commonest facts of life, we 
 may state, that walking fast in summer time causes 
 perspiration, and if, while in that condition, a per- 
 son is stopped in the street, or in any way exposed 
 to a draught of air, a cold is inevitable. 
 
 AFTER speaking, singing, or preaching in a 
 warm room in winter, do not leave it for at least 
 ten minutes, and even then close the mouth, put 
 on the gloves, wrap up the neck, and put on cloak 
 or overcoat before passing out of the door. The 
 neglect of these has laid many a good and useful 
 man in a premature grave. 
 
 EAT your meals with an unanxious, unannoyed, 
 and cheerful heart, and consider him, her, or it 
 your worst enemy that interferes in this direction ; 
 for passion, anxiety, alarm, mortification, instantly 
 arrest digestion. 
 
 RESPECT yourself by exhibiting the manners of 
 a gentleman or a lady, if you wish to be treated aa 
 such, and then you will receive the respect of 
 others.
 
 26 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN the stomach is about to be distressed by 
 an improper meal, nature sometimes excites the 
 most earnest longings for an acid of some kind, 
 and such persons should always have some good 
 vinegar on hand, although tart fruits or grapes are 
 a great deal better. 
 
 THE experienced practitioner well understands 
 that the habitual taking of any efficient medicine 
 is the certain road to a premature, and, very often, 
 a violent or agonizing death. 
 
 EXEMPTION from trouble is a negative happiness, 
 but to delight in removing the troubles of others, 
 and placing smiles and gladness in their stead, is 
 well worthy of him who is declared to be but 
 " a little lower than the angels." To grow old in 
 a confiding submission to the will of God, and in 
 the habitual exhibition of a brotherly affection to 
 all of woman born, this is the life divine, the 
 matchless elixir, the panacea for human sorrow, 
 the balm of immortality. 
 
 Do not suppose yourself specially and design- 
 edly neglected, if waiters at hotels do not bring 
 what you call for in double-quick time. Nothing 
 so distinctly marks the well-bred man as a quiet 
 waiting on such occasions. Passion proves the 
 puppy. 
 
 THE failure to wear woollen flannel next the skin 
 is the most frequent cause of rheumatism.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 27 
 
 TRAVEL is a great leveller. Take the position 
 which others assign you from your conduct, rather 
 than from your pretensions. 
 
 IT requires no great amount of perspicacity to 
 see the connection between falsehood and disease, 
 between morals and health, between the condition 
 of the mind and the condition of the body, how 
 one involves the other. Remorse makes most of 
 our suicides ; remorse drives multitudes every year 
 to a drunkard's premature grave ; and how many it 
 sends to that place more dreary than the grave 
 itself, the insane asylum ! 
 
 Do not allow yourself to converse in the cars 
 in a tone loud enough to be heard by a person two 
 or three seats from you. It is the mark of a boor if 
 in a man, and of want of refinement and lady-like 
 delicacy if in a woman. A gentleman is not noisy ; 
 ladies are serene. 
 
 ONE of the first steps from childhood to ruin is 
 concealment from parents. One of the most valu- 
 able points to be gained by parents is to secure 
 the confidence of their children. No daughter was 
 ever lost who confided wholly in her mother's heart. 
 No young man ever went to ruin who made his 
 father his most intimate friend. 
 
 COMPLY cheerfully and gracefully with the cus- 
 toms of the conveyances in which you travel, and 
 of the places where you stop.
 
 28 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 POVERTY, disease, and crime herd together, while 
 thrift, health, and position are found associated in 
 the same individual. The education of the street 
 leads to the former, the education of the church 
 leads to the latter ; by which we mean, that as a 
 matter of civil polity, the most certain extermina- 
 tor of disease, and crime, and shiftless poverty. is 
 securing to children the benefits of a religious train- 
 ing, of Sunday church-going, of ministerial visita- 
 tion, and of daily parental counsel on church topics. 
 
 THE dyspeptic kills himself; the drunkard kills 
 others. 
 
 A SOLDIER, disabled in trying to shoot his brother 
 man, is at once placed on the pension list ; but a 
 clergyman, whose youth and manhood have been 
 spent in the effort to throw around this world a 
 chain of love, and raise it up to heaven, if he is 
 disabled in his God-like work, is sometimes turned 
 out to die like an old dray-horse. 
 
 THE average duration of the life of men after 
 " retiring from active business " is less than three 
 years. 
 
 No man works as hard in summer as in winter, 
 consequently the wastes of the system are less ; 
 therefore a less amount of food is wanted in sum- 
 mer than in winter. The supply must be regu 
 lated by the demand.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 29 
 
 PERSONS who walk a great deal during the day, 
 should, on coming home for the night, remove their 
 shoes and stockings, hold the feet to the fire until 
 perfectly dry, put on a dry pair, and wear slippers 
 for the remainder of the evening. 
 
 Boots and gaiters keep the feet damp, cold, and 
 unclean, by preventing the escape of that insen- 
 sible perspiration which is always escaping from a 
 healthy foot, and condensing it; hence the old- 
 fashioned low shoe is best for health. 
 
 WHEN a simpleton wants to get well, he buys 
 something " to take ; " a philosopher gets some- 
 thing "to do ; " and it is owing to the circumstance, 
 that the latter has been in a minority almost un- 
 distinguishable in all nations and ages, and that 
 doctors are princes instead of paupers. 
 
 IP a man faints away, instead of yelling out like 
 a savage, or running to him to lift him up, lay him 
 at full length on his back on the floor, loosen the 
 clothing, push the crowd away so as to allow the 
 air to reach him, and let him alone. Dashing wa- 
 ter over a person in a simple fainting fit is a bar- 
 barity, and soils the clothing unnecessarily. The 
 philosophy of a fainting fit is, the heart fails to send 
 the proper supply of blood to the brain : if the per- 
 son is erect, that blood has to be thrown up hill, 
 but if lying down, it has to be projected horizon- 
 tally : which requires less power, is apparent.
 
 30 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 AFTER any kind of exercise, do not stand a mo- 
 ment at a street corner for anybody or anything ; 
 nor at an open door or window. When you have 
 been exercising in any way whatever, winter or 
 summer, go home at oace, or to some sheltered 
 place ; and however warm the room may seem to 
 be, do not at once pull off your hat and cloak, but 
 wait a while, some five minutes or more, and lay 
 aside one at a time ; thus acting, a cold is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 WHAT one man eats or drinks in quality or quan- 
 tity is no guide for any other man, any more than 
 the amount of labor one can perform is the criteri- 
 on for another. Each man must for himself bring 
 his own observation and judgment to bear on the 
 question, How much must I eat? The general rule 
 is, do not eat so much as to cause any unpleasant 
 sensation afterwards. 
 
 If you at any time take a meal, and afterwards, 
 within an hour or two, feel uncomfortable, then 
 what you have eaten does not agree with you ; you 
 have eaten, either in quantity or quality, what your 
 stomach cannot digest. Nine times out of ten it is 
 the quantity, and not the quality, which does the 
 mischief. 
 
 THAT man or woman who is not happy at home, 
 has made a sad failure as to the largest portion of 
 a lifetime.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 31 
 
 READER, never make a fool of yourself by writ- 
 ing a letter while in a passion, to anybody, how- 
 ever high or however low. And even if under 
 great provocation, take a noble pride in exhibiting 
 the dignified courtesy of a gentleman, and the for- 
 bearance of a Christian ; and remember, the more 
 you gloat over the severity of what you have writ- 
 ten, the more of an ass you will be for sending or 
 publishing it. 
 
 EVERY intelligent and humane parent will ar- 
 range thai the family room and the chambers shall 
 be the most commodious, lightest, and brightest 
 apartments in his dwelling. 
 
 To have one's wits about him, under all contin- 
 gencies, is one of the most valuable practical qual- 
 ities which a man can possess. It belongs to a 
 strong mind, whether in man or woman ; and 
 would save thousands of lives and incalculable suf- 
 fering every year. One of the means by which 
 we can arrive at a good share of this valuable 
 characteristic is, to n'x in the mind what should 
 be done under certain circumstances. To do this, 
 presupposes intelligence. 
 
 A MAN who lends his money at three per cent, a 
 year, to be returned to him in an hour's notice, 
 makes more than he who lends by the year at 
 twenty per cent. ; for, in the latter case, it usually 
 stays lent.
 
 32 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 HEALTH and long life are almost universally as- 
 sociated with early rising ; and we are pointed to 
 countless old people as evidence of its good effects 
 on the general system. Can any of our readers, 
 on the spur of the moment, give a good and con- 
 clusive reason why health should be attributed 
 to thia habit ? We know that old people get up 
 early ; but it is simply because they can't sleep. 
 Moderate old age does not require much sleep ; 
 hence, in the aged, early rising is a necessity or 
 a convenience, and is not a cause of health in 
 itself. 
 
 A DOG confined in a cellar will become consump- 
 tive in six weeks, according to the observation of 
 medical men. No room without the glorious sun- 
 shine is fit for any living creature, man or beast. 
 The glorious sunshine 1 The free and bounteous 
 gift of a beneficent Creator the source of all 
 buoyant, healthful life ! Yet in our truculence to 
 fashion, in our greed of gold, in our infatuated in- 
 difference to the hea'lth of our wives, our children, 
 and of ourselves, we remorselessly throw it all 
 away, one of the loveliest gifts of a loving God, the 
 beauteous sunshine ! 
 
 A VERY small stock of ideas on call, which can 
 be made use of at a moment's notice, is worth whole 
 cart-loads of magnificent lumber which require a 
 month to separate and classify.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 33 
 
 Do not enter a sick chamber on an empty stomach, 
 nor remain as a watcher or nurse until you feel 
 almost exhausted, nor sit between the patient and 
 the fire, nor in the direction of a current of air from 
 the patient towards yourself, nor eat or drink any- 
 thing after being in a sick room until you have 
 rinsed your mouth thoroughly. 
 
 To live long, and well, and usefully, be temper- 
 ate in all things, remembering that the only certain 
 and effectual way of being temperate in reference 
 to liquor is, never taste a drop. 
 
 To get well of any chronic disease, of a serious 
 character, and to remain cured, a man must be led 
 to see the nature of his own case, the needs and 
 requirements of his own constitution, and must have 
 that force of character which compels compliance 
 with those requisitions. As long as the world 
 stands, the ignoramus and the animal will die be- 
 fore his time. Intelligent self-denial is the price 
 of health and long life the world over : it never 
 will be otherwise. 
 
 How many a poor fellow would be saved from 
 suicide, from the penitentiary, and the gallows, 
 every year, had he been blessed with a good wife ! 
 
 WHEN you are perspiring freely, keep in motion 
 until you get to a good fire, or to some place where 
 you are perfectly sheltered from any draught of air 
 whatever. 
 
 3
 
 34 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WEALTHY parents who have sickly children have 
 committed a double wrong against them the 
 wrong of neglect or ignorance, and the still greater 
 one of having at their command the means of health, 
 and yet failing to make their application. 
 
 SUMMER heats relax, invite to physical inactivity 
 and ease ; locomotion is an effort ; the mind itself 
 participates in the inertia of the body, and both 
 stagnate together. On the contrary, the sparkling 
 frosts of winter rouse up our activities, the pulses 
 bound with the fire of life, and we are ready, at a 
 moment's notice, to do or dare anything; we can 
 scarce keep the body still ; motion is a luxury, while 
 in summer time it was a drag. The great prac- 
 tical lesson is, in proportion as you would avoid 
 crime and madness, aim to be fully employed, 
 whether in summer or winter, in doing something 
 which combines, in its highest extent, the useful 
 and the good. 
 
 THE man who insures a cure of anything, under 
 all circumstances, is an ignoramus or a knave. 
 
 THERE are tens of thousands suffering this mo- 
 ment in the public hospitals, asylums, and other 
 places of charity, from destitution and diseases 
 from want of occupation, not of necessity, but 
 simply because they nrero either too idle to work, 
 too incompetent to do it well, or too lazy to apply 
 themselves.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 35 
 
 ORDER is Heaven's first law. Regularity is Na- 
 ture's universal rule. Morning, noon, and night 
 the healthy man becomes hungry at the usual eat- 
 ing hour for half a century. No human machine can 
 work the twentieth part so long without adjust- 
 ment or repair. At the accustomed hour the infant 
 oecomes sleepy; within ten minutes of the time does 
 the regular man wake of a morning for weeks and 
 months in succession. So is it with the desire to 
 stool : with almost all it comes on soon after break- 
 fast. This appears to be the most proper time, and 
 if not interfered with, this inclination will come 
 on for a lifetime, with but a few minutes, variation, 
 and a healthful old age is the result ; but if inter- 
 fered with, the foundation begins to be laid of 
 nine tenths of all our maladies, and a premature 
 and painful death. 
 
 THE less a man uses (spends) the money he ac- 
 cumulates, the richer he becomes ; the less a 
 student uses his daily accumulation of knowledge, 
 the bigger bore he is. Therefore, save your 
 money use your sense. 
 
 THE best and truest benevolence is to put a man 
 in the way of helping himself; this gives him self- 
 reliance, relieves him of the degradation of depen- 
 dence, and makes him at once feel that he is a man 
 the highest aid and the best guarantee that he 
 will act like a man.
 
 36 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 INSTEAD of aiming to pass the latter part of life 
 in dangerous, inglorious ease, let the ambition be 
 to spend it in active benevolences, happifying alike 
 the heart of both giver and receiver, thus leaving 
 a name behind, not written in the sands of selfish 
 indulgence, but engraven in imperishable charac- 
 ters on the grateful memories of man, and in the 
 " Book of Life." 
 
 MILLIONS daily give and take medical advice 
 from one single experience or observation, and 
 multitudes daily die in consequence. 
 
 PERSONS in health do not need any pepper in 
 their food. But to those of weak and languid 
 stomachs, it is manifold more beneficial to use 
 Cayenne pepper at meals than any form of wine, 
 brandy, or beer that can be named, because it 
 stimulates without the reaction of sleepiness or 
 debility. 
 
 IN high bodily health, brain-work, like body- 
 work, gives an appetite ; and if that appetite is 
 only indulged regularly and moderately, any stu- 
 dent may live to a good old age with an hour or 
 two of judicious exercise out of doors every day, 
 and, in the end, save years of efficient labor by it. 
 So far from complete inaction being perfect enjoy- 
 ment, there are few greater sufferings than that 
 which the total absence of occupation generally 
 induces.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 37 
 
 ONE of the best means of ventilating a sick 
 chamber, where it may be considered not advisa- 
 ble to raise a window, is to open an inner door, 
 and kindle a chip fire on the hearth for a few min- 
 utes in summer, or simply open the door if it is fire- 
 time of year. 
 
 OUR general opinion is, that all children under 
 ten years of age, all invalids, people of thin flesh, 
 and those who are easily chilled, should always 
 wash their limbs and bodies in warm water, with 
 soap and brush, in a room almost as warm as the 
 water itself. 
 
 AN open window most nights in the year can 
 never hurt any one. This is not to say that light 
 is not necessary for recovery. In great cities 
 night air is often the best and purest air to be had 
 in the twenty-four hours. I could better under- 
 stand shutting the windows in towns during the 
 day, than during the night, for the sake of the 
 sick. The absence of smoke, the quiet, all tend to 
 make night the best time for airing the patient. 
 
 HAIR specifics. Let them alone. We think 
 the whole of them are a cheat. There is not one 
 single exception. A "specific" in medicine, is a 
 term which implies certainty of effect. Hair falls 
 out from the want of nutriment. It dies just as a 
 blade of grass dies in a soil where there is no moib. 
 ture. This want of nutriment is functional or or- 
 ganic.
 
 38 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 COMPEL your children to take care of their health ' 
 
 READER, keep ever before you the fear of 
 " frenzy," for in an unguarded hour, within any 
 dozen minutes, it may lead you to utter a word 
 against a heart that loves you, whose wound no 
 tears can ever wash away ; may lead you to commit 
 an act which will send you to the gallows or a 
 mad-house ! 
 
 PERSONS who work hard, under twenty years of 
 age, should be allowed ten hours' rest in bed. The 
 health of girls is sometimes ruined by overpush- 
 ing mothers. 
 
 READER, let you and I strive to live so that it 
 may be justly inscribed on the slab which covers 
 our graves : " He did not live in vain." 
 
 AN article may not agree with the stomach to- 
 day, but may agree with it very well in a few 
 days, weeks, or months afterwards, because its dis- 
 tinctive elements may then bo needed in the 
 system. 
 
 THERE is no advantage, as to health, in sleeping 
 in a very cold room, cold enough to have ico 
 formed in it during the night. 
 
 " BREAD and butter " and milk are the only two 
 articles of food which have all the elements of nu- 
 trition ; hence from childhood to extreme old age 
 we are never tired of them.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 39 
 
 To 11 young men, who aim to do good on a large 
 scale, we say, most earnestly, Nurse your consti- 
 tution with pious care ; invigorate it ; study to be 
 well, as the necessary means of doing well, in the 
 highest sense of the term. 
 
 ALWAYS air your room from the outside air 
 if possible. Windows are made to open, doors 
 are made to shut the truth of which seems ex- 
 tremely difficult of apprehension. Every room 
 must be aired from without every passage from 
 within. 
 
 No man ought to marry who has to work like a 
 horse from morning until night to supply family 
 necessaries, whether it be by brain or body ; for if 
 the body is thus made a drudge of, it perpetuates 
 impaired power to the race ; while if the brain is 
 overwrought, its effects will be seen in children of 
 feeble intellect, if, indeed, they be not demented. 
 To calculate, therefore, on a reasonable share of 
 domestic enjoyment, the parties most interested 
 should aim to find in each other as great an 
 amount as may be of high moral principle, of bodily 
 health, and either the actual possession of a suita- 
 ble maintenance, or an individual ability to secure 
 it without peradventure. 
 
 LET it be always borne in mind that cold air is 
 not necessarily pure, nor is warm air necessarily 
 impure.
 
 40 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PROM "eight to sixteen" 1 In these few years are 
 the destinies of children fixed, in forty-nine cases 
 out of fifty fixed by the parent! Let every 
 father and every mother solemnly vow, "By God's 
 help, I'll fix my darling's destiny for good, by mak- 
 ing home more attractive than the street." 
 
 SUN-STROKE is prevented by wearing a silk hand- 
 kerchief in the crown of the hat, or green leaves, 
 or a wet cloth of any kind , v but during an attack, 
 warm water should be instantly poured on the 
 head, or rags dipped in the water and renewed 
 every minute. The reason is twofold : the scalp 
 is dry and hot, and the warm water not only re- 
 moves the dryness, but carries off the extra heat 
 with great rapidity by evaporation. 
 
 THE only way in which a man can " retire on a 
 fortune " with safety, with comfort, with happiness 
 and honor, is to lay his plans so that his time shall 
 be fully and compulsorily occupied in advancing 
 the well-being of others, in every way compatible 
 with the safety of his own fortune and health. 
 
 IN all ordinary ailments and accidents, secure 
 quiet of body, composure of mind, pure air, pure 
 water, and simple food at regular intervals ; being a 
 little hungry all the time. 
 
 CHILDREN should be compelled to be out of doors 
 for the greater part of daylight, from after break 
 fast until half an hour before sundown.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 41 
 
 WE do not, advise a warm bath oftener than once 
 a week. But we must consult nature and facts. 
 Each man should bathe in a manner which, from 
 observation and personal experiment, does him 
 most good. In matters of health and disease each 
 must bo his own rule. Immense mischief is daily 
 done by ignoring this principle, which is at once 
 the dictate of a sound philosophy and of common 
 sense. 
 
 HOWEVER healthy a tnan may be, anxiety for to- 
 morrow's bread will soon undermine the strongest 
 constitution. 
 
 HUMAN life, in all its relations, is a series of 
 generous reciprocities, and they who give them 
 wisely, will receive them in return. We who are 
 of higher cultivation must take the lead in the ex- 
 hibition of all good and noble qualities. 
 
 THERE is more love in a full flour barrel, than in 
 all the roses, and posies, and woodbines that ever 
 grew. 
 
 To die childless, after having been once blessed 
 with dear children, must be one of the most terri- 
 ble of all calamities of the heart; yet in countless 
 multitudes of cases the sufferers are the authors 
 of their own crushing sorrows, by reason of their 
 unpardonable ignorance or more criminal neglect. 
 
 NEVER go to bed with cold or damp feet.
 
 42 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 SOME persons' feet are more comfortable, even 
 in winter, in cotton, others in woollen, stockings 
 Each must be guided by his own feelings. 
 
 WE protest against anybody making publica- 
 tions on human health except educated physicians ; 
 and we counsel those of our readers who wish to 
 be on the safe side, to give a wide berth to all 
 rules, regulations, suggestions, and dicta about 
 the preservation of health and the cure of dis- 
 eases, unless they bear the name of some medical 
 man of eminence, or of some medical publication 
 of acknowledged authority. 
 
 THE more sick people can sleep, the sooner they 
 will get well. Sleeping in the daytime, if before 
 noon, enables them to sleep better the following 
 night. 
 
 THE judgment of the observant is rapidly settling 
 down in the conviction that furnace-heated houses 
 are rapidly undermining the constitutions of whole 
 families, and thus render them the easy prey to 
 every acute disease. 
 
 FUN is worth more than physic, and whoever in- 
 vents or dicovers a new source of supply, deserves 
 the name of a public benefactor ; and whoever can 
 write an article the most laughter-promoting, and 
 at the same time harmless, is worthy of our grati- 
 tude and respect.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 43 
 
 ONE of the most important promotives of health 
 is the getting along smoothly in the world, and one 
 of the ways of doing this is to be habitually cour- 
 teous and accommodating, and to " give a little." 
 Don't stand up for all your rights. Do not exact 
 the last cent due you in your dealings, under the 
 deceptive plea that you owe it to yourself to be 
 just, and to the one dealing with you, to let him 
 see that you will not countenance imposition. In 
 our experience through life, we have found that 
 generous men have about as good an idea of what 
 is justice as any other class of people ; for they 
 are just enough to make allowances for the mis- 
 takes, forgetfulness, prejudices, misapprehensions, 
 and ignorance of their fellow-men. 
 
 EVERY parent should peremptorily forbid all sew- 
 ing by candle or gas light, especially of dark mate- 
 rials. 
 
 IT is greatly to be regretted that scientific men 
 should, for pay, in money or soft soder, lend their 
 influence to simpletons and knaves, to the risk of 
 the health and life itself of the community at large. 
 
 No mechanic should marry until he is master of 
 his trade ; nor a professional man, until his income 
 is adequate to the style of life which he determines 
 upon ; nor the merchant, until his clear annual gains 
 are equal to his domestic expenditures, unless, in- 
 deed, there are, in either case, independent and 
 unconditional sources of income.
 
 44 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 EVERY element of the human body is found in 
 the food which Nature prepares for man. Our food 
 is the vehicle through which that element is sup- 
 plied, and that is the natural mode of supply. 
 Thus it is, that in many remembered cases, sick 
 persons became possessed of an appetite for a par- 
 ticular kind of food, and on eating it got well, be- 
 cause, as it were, Nature knew that the body need- 
 ed the element which that kind of food most largely 
 abounded in. 
 
 THE greatest humanity a mother can exhibit in 
 respect to her sick child is to divert it, DIVERT IT, 
 DIVERT IT, in all the pleasing ways possible, as 
 we ourselves, who are larger children, feel some- 
 times really sick, when a cheerful faced and much 
 loved friend has come in, and before we knew it, 
 we had forgotten that anything was the matter 
 with us. 
 
 WASHING the feet every night in warm weather, 
 and soaking them in warm water for ten minutes 
 three times a week in winter, admirably promotes 
 that warmth, pliability, and softness of the skin of 
 the feet, so indispensable to health and comfort, 
 saying nothing of the cleanliness of the practice, 
 and its tendency both to prevent and to cure corns. 
 But after all washings of the feet, it is of the first 
 importance, after wiping them well, to hold tfeem to 
 the fire, and rub them with the hands until per 
 foctly dry and warm in every part.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 45 
 
 LET parents who do not want their children to 
 die of water on the brain, allow them to have the 
 fullest amount of undisturbed sleep they possibly 
 can take, especially while at school. 
 
 IN a hygienic point of view, the advantages of 
 marrying a woman who is mature in body, in age, 
 in mind, in judgment, in culture, cannot be easily 
 computed. They are beyond measure. On the 
 other hand, for a mere girl to become a mother, is 
 to give up almost every chance of health, and peril 
 life itself; is to throw away a decade of joyous 
 youth, of delicious anticipations " long drawn out " 
 in gladness, growing the sweeter in their expec- 
 tancy, making of girlhood a lengthened Sabbath of 
 sunshine, which, ending in a wise marriage, is 
 looked back upon to the close of life with the most 
 delightful associations, yet not regretfully, a deeper 
 sweetness being in the present all this is thrown 
 remorselessly away by her who marries too early. 
 
 IT is a bad plan to be always taking medicine : 
 such persons are never well. 
 
 Go to the cold, rarefied mountain air to cure you 
 of consumption, and not to the hot savannas of 
 the south, where every breath you take is loaded 
 with steaming moisture and disease, engendering 
 miasm, oppressing the system, taking away the 
 strength, and corrupting the blood at every in- 
 spiration.
 
 46 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LAUGHTER ennobles, ibr it speaks forgiveness. 
 Music does the same, by the purifying influences 
 which it exerts on the better feelings and senti- 
 ments of our being. Laughter banishes gloom ; 
 music, madness. It was the harp in the hands of 
 the son of Jesse which exorcised the evil spirit 
 from royalty ; and the heart that can laugh out- 
 right does not harbor treasons, stratagems, and 
 spoils. 
 
 So far from poverty and filth being elements of 
 health and long life, they are the very reverse. 
 They directly induce premature death as to grown- 
 up persons, and sow the seeds of fatal diseases in 
 innocent childhood. 
 
 IT is utterly impossible to get well, or keep well, 
 unless the feet are kept dry and warm all the time. 
 If they are for the most part cold, there is cough, 
 or sore throat, or hoarseness, or sick headache, or 
 some other annoyance. 
 
 IT is well known that youths from fifteen to 
 twenty, and fools of all ages, are the smartest peo- 
 ple in the world. They know everything. They 
 never perform an act which is not perfectly just 
 in their own estimation ; and no Nero is so impa- 
 tient and so savagely severe in punishment if any- 
 thing is done contrary to their views of what ought 
 to be done.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 47 
 
 A TEASPOONFUL of blood from the nose has pre- 
 vented many a fatal attack of apoplexy ; hence a 
 nose bleeding is sometimes the sai'ety valve of life. 
 
 ALL forms of diarrhoea and dysentery, where 
 there is great thirst, the gratification of which 
 by drinking any liquid increases the malady, are 
 promptly controlled, and in many cases perfectly 
 cured, by freely swallowing as large lumps of ice 
 as possible. 
 
 MULTITUDES bring on themselves the horrors of 
 a life-long dyspepsia by drinking large quantities 
 of cold water at their meals. 
 
 LET every child, having any pretence to heart, 
 or manliness, or piety, and who is so fortunate as 
 to have a father or mother living, consider it a 
 sacred duty to consult, at any reasonable personal 
 sacrifice, the known wishes of such a parent, until 
 that parent is no more ; and our word for it, the 
 recollection of the same through the after pilgrim- 
 age of life will sweeten every sorrow, will brighten 
 every gladness, will sparkle every tear-drop with 
 a joy ineffable. 
 
 OPIUM does not cure anything. It never did. 
 All that can be scientifically claimed for it is, that 
 it gives time to nature or the physician. 
 
 THERE is more need of ventilating a chamber in 
 winter than in summer.
 
 45 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 EXTRAVAGANCE, waste, and carelessness not only 
 ruin those who practise them, but have a demoral- 
 izing effect on those who may be benefited thereby 
 in a material point of view. Persons seldom thrive 
 whose occupations or modes of obtaining a living 
 depend on chance, such as gamblers, stock-bro- 
 kers, robbers, wreckers, hunters, miners, office- 
 holders, and speculators in general. Hence those 
 parents are wisest who bring up their children to 
 the expectation of making a living, or of becoming 
 rich by some one occupation, which brings with it 
 gains which are moderate, uniform, and steady. 
 As a general rule to young men, the first political 
 or salaried office, the first bet won, the first suc- 
 cessful speculation, is at the same time the first 
 step towards material unthrift, towards moral 
 degradation, and towards a premature grave. 
 
 LET every nurse endeavor to do better with 
 each succeeding invalid. Let every physician en- 
 deavor to give more thought and attention to each 
 new patient, and let us all, in all things, strive pa- 
 tiently, resolutely, persistently, to make each day 
 " the best " of any that preceded it, and thus do 
 more than could possibly be done in any other 
 way to prevent our lives being a failure a ca- 
 lamity than which no greater could befall any 
 man. 
 
 WHAT A POOL A MAN is I
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 49 
 
 SOME people are as green as the grass they tread 
 upon ; or, to change the simile, their noggins are 
 as soft as mush. It is a wonder they have sense 
 enough to breathe. 
 
 INFANTS and animals never have dyspepsia if 
 let alone, for Nature is the wise apportioner. Thus 
 is it with sleep. Nature, herself sleepless, wakes 
 us up the moment we have had enough, if we are 
 not tampered with. 
 
 WE should guard against cherishing depressing 
 feelings, and with as much care should habituate 
 ourselves to self-control ; to the habit of looking at 
 everything of a stirring or harrowing character 
 with a calm courage ; we should strive at all times 
 for that valuable characteristic, " presence of mind," 
 under all circumstances, for we are every day in 
 great need of it. It is, in many cases, a literal 
 " life-preserver." 
 
 WHEN a man leaves home on business, it is al- 
 ways important that he should have his wits about 
 him ; that the mind should be fresh and vigorous, 
 the spirit lively, buoyant, and cheerful. 
 
 WE earnestly advise all who think a great deal, 
 who have infirm health, who are in trouble, or who 
 have to work hard, to take all the sleep they can 
 get, without medicinal means. 
 
 No person can sit still in a warm room in winter 
 in a draught of air for five minutes without injury. 
 4
 
 50 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 SWALLOWING ice freely in small lumps is the 
 chief treatment in inflammation of the stomach. 
 
 THE constant application of ice, pounded fine, 
 and enveloping the head with it by means of a 
 cushion, or other contrivance, is the most reliable 
 remedy for that dangerous malady, inflammation 
 of the brain, which so often sends its victim to 
 the grave in a few days, or that living death, the 
 mad-house. 
 
 WE caution parents, particularly, not to allow 
 their children to be waked up of mornings. Let 
 Nature wake them up ; she will not do it prema- 
 turely ; but have a care that they go to bed at an 
 early hour ; let it be earlier and earlier, until it is 
 found that they wake up of themselves in full time 
 to dress for breakfast. Being waked up early, and 
 allowed to engage in difficult or any studies late, 
 and just before retiring, has given many a beauti- 
 ful and promising child brain fever, or determined 
 ordinary ailments to the production of water on 
 the brain. 
 
 THERE is nothing like plain facts for illustration. 
 
 THERE are good schools here and there ; but 
 three out of four are the merest shams ; per- 
 feet impositions. Too much is attempted, hence 
 much is passed over, and there is thoroughness in 
 nothing.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 51 
 
 HALF of all who are born die under twenty- 
 years of age, while four fifths of all who reach that 
 age, and die before another " score/' owe their 
 death to causes of disease which were originated 
 in their " teens." On a careful inquiry, it will be 
 ascertained that in nearly all cases the causes of 
 moral and premature physical death are pretty 
 much one and the same, and occur between the ages 
 of "eight and sixteen years." This is a fact of start- 
 ling import to fathers and mothers, and shows a fear- 
 ful responsibility. 
 
 THE best gymnasium is a wood-yard, a "clearing," 
 or a cornfield. 
 
 IGNORANCE with health may be useful, may be 
 happy; but a finished scholar with a fell disease eat- 
 ing out the life, can be neither, and must early go 
 down to the grave a blighted bud, a priceless jewel 
 shivered in the polishing. But health and high de- 
 velopment tend to a long and happy life. 
 
 LET parents make every possible effort to have 
 their children go to sleep in a pleasant humor. 
 Never scold or give lectures, or in any way wound 
 a child's feelings, as it goes to bed. Let all banish 
 business and every worldly care at bedtime, and 
 let sleep come to a mind at peace with God and all 
 the world. 
 
 A MAN who is in health, is not morally entitled 
 to anything which he does not earn.
 
 52 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE undutiful stop-mother has driven countless 
 thousands from once happy and virtuous homes to 
 crime and infamy. Harsh, unfeeling, inconsiderate 
 teachers have many times driven the young to des- 
 peration or hopelessness. 
 
 WOMEN require less sleep than men ; possibly 
 because they are less in the open air, the soporific 
 effects of which are seen in infants speedily going 
 to sleep when taken out of doors. 
 
 MANY who are troubled with weak eyes, by 
 avoiding the use of them in reading, sewing, and 
 the like, until after breakfast, will be able to use 
 them with greater comfort for the remainder of the 
 day, the reason being, that in the digestion of the 
 food the blood is called in from all parts of the sys- 
 tem, to a certain extent, to aid the stomach in that 
 important process ; besides, the food eaten gives 
 general strength, imparts a stimulus to the whole 
 man, and the eyes partake of their share. 
 
 IN all inflammations, whether internal or exter- 
 nal, ice diminishes rapidly the size of the blood- 
 vessels, and thus relieves the pain they give when 
 thus swollen by their pressing against the nerves 
 which are always in the neighborhood of the arte- 
 ries of the system. 
 
 As a universal rule in health, and, with very 
 rare exceptions, in disease, that is best to be eaten 
 which the appetite craves or the taste relishes.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 53 
 
 PERSONS rarely err in the qualtity of the food 
 eaten; nature's instincts are the wise regulators 
 in this respect. 
 
 THE great sources of mischief from eating are 
 three : Quantity, Frequency, Rapidity ; and from 
 these coine the horrible dyspepsias, which make of 
 human life a burden, a torture, a living death. 
 
 WEALTH belongs to some men, just as intellect 
 belongs to others. They would be rich anywhere, 
 just as their envious neighbors would be poor any- 
 where. 
 
 IT is an excellent plan to have two pairs of shoes, 
 to be worn on alternate days, so as to have a per- 
 fectly dry pair to put on every morning, allowing 
 the unworn ones to remain in a warm, dry place. 
 
 FIRST-RATE mechanics are always in demand, and 
 seldom fail, not only to make money, but to save 
 it; and with that to elevate themselves, their fami- 
 lies, and their calling ; but these are in such a mi- 
 nority, that the more numerous incompetent, and 
 hence thriftless class, are the ones who give char- 
 acter to the name of mechanic, which is too often 
 a low one ; when, if every one was a master-work- 
 man, it would be but another name for industry, 
 elevation, and thrift. 
 
 FILTH, disease, and moral death are associated 
 together in all times and places.
 
 54 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IP the poor man thinks he works any harder than 
 the rich man, he is much mistaken ; if he thinks 
 that the other enjoys more substantial comfort, he 
 is equally in error. 
 
 IF it is true that the man who rears a son with- 
 out having him taught the means of earning a 
 living, rears that child to large chances for the 
 penitentiary and the gallows, it is not the less true, 
 and is becoming daily more so, that the daughter 
 who is ushered into womanhood without the knowl- 
 edge and ability to earn a dollar by honorable 
 means, is raised to the chances of an early death, 
 or degradations worse than death itself. 
 
 LET man never forget that his wife is his best 
 friend, the most steadfast on earth, would do more 
 for him in calamity, in misfortune, and sickness 
 than any other human being; and that on this ac- 
 count, to say nothing of the marriage vow, made 
 before high heaven and before men, he owes to the 
 wife of his bosom a consideration, a tenderness, a 
 support, and a sympathy, which should put out of 
 sight every feeling of profit and loss the very in- 
 stant they come in collision with his wife's welfare 
 as to her body, her mind, and her affections. No 
 man will ever lose, in the long run, by so doing j he 
 will not lose in time, will not lose in a dying hour, 
 nor in that great and mysterious future which lies 
 before all.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 55 
 
 THERE is a delirium tremens of over-eating as 
 well as of over-drinking. 
 
 THE man dressed in spotless white will not fail 
 to have his garments blackened if he mingles 
 among a crowd of sweeps. There are clergymen 
 who cannot feel authorized to occupy the pulpit of 
 persons claiming to be clergymen too, for fear it 
 should be construed to countenance the supposed 
 errors of the latter. No man of position can allow 
 himself to associate, without prejudice, with the 
 profane, the Sabbath-breaker, the drunken, and the 
 licentious, for he lowers himself, without elevating 
 them. The sweep is not made the less black by 
 rubbing against the well-dressed and the clean, 
 while they are inevitably defiled. 
 
 VALUABLE lives are often thrown away, lost, 
 through ignorance of some of the simplest truths 
 in nature, or errors of judgment in matters where 
 3rror becomes a crime. Some of the best, and 
 wisest, and greatest men of our race have perished 
 from the world, in consequence of what might be 
 considered a carelessness, a recklessness, or an 
 ignorance, which is amazing, as found in minds like 
 theirs. 
 
 To persons whose lungs are impaired, or whose 
 throats are in a diseased condition, the air of the 
 sea-shore is almost always poisonous, sometimes 
 deadly.
 
 56 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE poor are prone to think that in riches thero 
 is happiness. The rich know that riches do not se- 
 cure happiness, and hence look to religion as the 
 only source left for enduring pleasures, and the 
 hopes of heaven. Hence most of the greatest oi 
 earth's rulers this day recognize the claims of Chris- 
 tianity as they understand it, and more or less 
 square their lives by its precepts. 
 
 As this country grows older, the necessity in- 
 creases of each individual being able to earn a 
 living. 
 
 IP you are a human, and not a brute, never allow 
 children to go to bed with wounded or ruffled 
 feelings from any angry words, or harsh or hasty 
 conduct on your part. Always send them off to 
 school in a happy and affectionate state of mind; 
 and when they return, let them be invariably re- 
 ceived with a kindly greeting, and a loving, thank- 
 ful heart, that they are once more returned to you in 
 health and safety. These things are the more ne- 
 cessary as their ambitions, their disappointments, 
 their discouragements, and their troubles, in refer- 
 ence to their school and their lessons, are as impor- 
 tant to them as yours to you in the mightier matters 
 of life ; and if they find not a balm for all these in 
 the affection, and smiles, and sympathy, of their 
 mothers especially, it is to them a misfortune, and to 
 such mothers a disgrace.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 57 
 
 EXERCISE improves the health, because every 
 step a man takes tends to impart motion to the 
 bowels ; a proper amount of exercise keeps them 
 acting once in every twenty-four hours. If they 
 have not motion enough, there is constipation, 
 which brings on very many fatal diseases ; hence 
 exercise, especially that of walking, wards off innu- 
 merable diseases, when it is kept up to an extent 
 equal to inducing one action of the bowels daily. 
 
 THE body is refreshed by rest ; the brain is ren- 
 ovated by sleep, by absolute repose. But both 
 body and brain may be invigorated for a season by 
 changing the direction of their respective activ- 
 ities, and also by working alternately. A man who 
 has become tired of riding on horseback or in a 
 carriage, rests himself, gets rid of his fatigue, by 
 walking. The brain, which has become weary in 
 thinking of one subject, is refreshed by taking 
 up some other study. On the other hand, a man 
 who feels tired all over by work, or a long walk, 
 will " get rested " sooner by sitting down to read, 
 than if he did nothing. 
 
 To happify mankind, the most efficient method, 
 and the shortest in the long run, is to begin with 
 our children while they are yet infants, and pa 
 tiently, seduously, and prayerfully inculcate the 
 sentiment that the Bible is the only safe rule of 
 faith and practice, the sure, and only sure guide to 
 a blessed immortality.
 
 58 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BEGIN early to live under the benign influences 
 of the Christian religion, for it " has the promise of 
 the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 
 FURNACES should not bq removed, nor fireplaces 
 and grates cleaned for the summer, until the first 
 of June, for a brisk fire in the grate is sometimes 
 very comfortable in the last week in May : that 
 may be a rare occurrence, but as it does sometimes 
 take place, it is better to be prepared for it, than 
 to sit shivering for half a day, with the risk to our- 
 selves and children, of some violent attack of 
 spring disease. 
 
 WE are all familiar with the prevalence of bowel 
 complaints, of all kinds, in the spring of the year, 
 and of their fatal nature, sometimes spreading from 
 house to house, from family to family, from neighbor- 
 hood to neighborhood, like some infectious or con- 
 tagious disease, and often, but most erroneously, 
 attributed to the use of fruits, berries, and the like. 
 The cause is one and universal : it is over-eating, 
 with its legitimate results sour stomach, wind, 
 loose bowels, debility, diarrhoea, dysentery, and 
 death. Thus it is, that the more sudden the com- 
 ing on of spring weather, and the hotter it is, 
 the more sickness there will be, while in the fall 
 of the year, as the weather gets colder, and how- 
 ever suddenly, we begin at once to gain in appe- 
 tite, in vigor, in flesh and health.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 59 
 
 EXERCISE is healthful, because the more we ex- 
 ercise the faster we breathe. If we breathe faster, 
 we take that much more air into the lungs ; but it 
 is the air we breathe which purifies the blood, and 
 the more air we take in, the more perfectly is that 
 process performed ; the purer the blood is, as 
 everybody knows, the better the health must be. 
 Hence, when a person's lungs are impaired, he does 
 not take in enough air for the wants of the system ; 
 that being the case, the air he does breathe should 
 be the purest possible, which is out-door air. 
 Hence, the more a consumptive stays in the house, 
 the more certain and more speedy is his death. 
 
 KEEP your children at home as much, and to- 
 gether, as long as it is possible for you to do it. 
 No better plan can be devised for enabling a 
 household to grow up loving and being loved in 
 all its members. 
 
 To merchants, clerks, lawyers, to all who follow 
 sendentary occupations, who arc kept within foui 
 walls for a large portion of every twenty-foui 
 hours, no better advice can be given than to go off 
 among the mountains; climb to their tops; descend 
 into their valleys ; penetrate their recesses, on foot, 
 on horse, in every conceivable mode of locomotion ; 
 and they should consider every hour of daylight 
 lost which does not find them in interested motion 
 in the open air.
 
 60 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 FARMING, or any other active out-door life, tends 
 to perfect digestion. 
 
 UPPER rooms may be safely aired during any por- 
 tion of the twenty-four hours, and should be aired 
 from without. Lower rooms should be aired in 
 the heat of the day, and closed while slept in at 
 night, only opening the inner doors. 
 
 LET us, as a means of health, feed more on the 
 beneficences of our Creator: it is a food which 
 strengthens the mind, elevates the soul, enlarges 
 the heart, and leads the whole man upward and on- 
 ward by a pathway full of light, and flowers, and 
 sunshine, a pathway smooth, and safe, and sure, 
 where no snare is ever set, where lurking dangers 
 never come, whose beginning is in a world of trial, 
 whose ending is in the bosom of God ! 
 
 THE use of oils, or pomatums, or grease of bears, 
 pigs, geese, or anything else, is ruinous to the hair 
 of man or woman. We consider it a filthy prac- 
 tice, almost universal though it be, for it gathers 
 dust and dirt, and soils whatever it touches. Noth- 
 ing but pure sott water should ever be allowed on 
 the heads of our children. It is a different prac- 
 tice that robs our women of their most beautiful 
 ornament long before their prime. 
 
 IP you would certainly avoid the tei rible fate of 
 a suicide, live a life of temperate eating, and of mod 
 erate bodily activities.
 
 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 61 
 
 VINEGAR, in its action on food, is more nearly like 
 the gastric juice than any other fluid known ; thus 
 it is that a pickle, or a little vinegar, will " settle 
 the stomach," when some discomfort is experi- 
 enced after eating. 
 
 LET it be kept in remembrance that every 
 mouthful of food, even of the mildest, a man swal- 
 lows from the instant a cold has been taken, only 
 makes a proportional amount of phlegm to be 
 coughed up. " Feed a cold and starve a fever," is 
 a tremendous lie. Starve them to death, as we 
 would a garrison, by cutting off supplies, and the 
 fortress will be yielded within thirty-six hours, if 
 the process be begun within twelve hours after 
 the cold has been taken. 
 
 IT was both a wise and beneficent dispensation, 
 that man should have been made capable of eating 
 anything, and of living anywhere, and living, too, in 
 comparative enjoyment. Livingston, the benefac- 
 tor of commerce, and Howard, the benefactor of 
 man, have shown by their lives that health may be 
 maintained in any country by those who were not 
 born to the soil, at the expense only of rational 
 care. 
 
 NINE out of ten of all the complaints against the 
 Post Office Department arise from the stupidity or 
 carelessness of the persons who write, or are to re- 
 ceive the letters.
 
 62 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 I F cold drinks are injurious at meals, cold food is 
 for the same reason also injurious; thus it is, that 
 some of the most terrible forms of disease are 
 brought on by persistence in eating cold food ex- 
 clusively, especially in winter time. 
 
 HAPPIER far than any king is the humblest me- 
 chanic, " whose mind is stayed, whose heart is 
 fixed, trusting in " the Maker of us all ; who, 
 through darkness and storm, in sickness and in 
 bereavement, in pain of body and mental grief, can 
 lovingly look upward, and say, "Though He slay 
 me, yet will I trust in Him." Such a man never 
 commits suicide, never becomes a lunatic, never 
 fills a drunkard's grave. 
 
 LET parents tremble in view of the responsibility 
 which rests upon them, not only in preventing 
 their children from improper reading, but also in 
 providing them with what will attract by its 
 beauty, instruct by its truth, and compel convic- 
 tion by its point and power; .or which, by its 
 admirable simplicity, and the sweetness of its sen- 
 timents, shall mould the character for high useful- 
 ness in life, and the society of the blessed beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 For the hour preceding bedtime, dismiss every 
 engrossing subject from the mind, and let it be em- 
 ployed about something soothing and enlivening io 
 cheerful thankfulness.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 63 
 
 THE want of employment is at the foundation of 
 the ill health of multitudes of women and youth in 
 large cities. We have frequent occasion to feel in 
 reference to women who apply to us for medical 
 advice, " The best medicine for you is the wash- 
 tub." 
 
 YOUNG men see that a wedding involves a mael- 
 strom of expense, and the extravagance of hotel 
 or boarding-house life ; or of a cook, and housemaid, 
 and semptress to begin with ; then come belong- 
 ings to match. To meet these calls on his purse, 
 which is only to be replenished by his personal ef- 
 forts, is only to be done by the ceaseless slavery of 
 work. He " calculates," and declines the under- 
 taking until he can lay up something to begin with. 
 This event, in some instances, is indefinitely post- 
 poned ; by the time it occurs in others, " mistakes " 
 have been committed, or entangling alliances have 
 diminished the respect for women, and less endur- 
 ing than hymeneal knots are fabricated, and more 
 easily untied. Let young mothers begin this day 
 to take a wiser lesson ; and as they value the social 
 position and future happiness of their daughters, as 
 they would deprecate from them a life of loneliness, 
 an age of neglect, and a tearless burial, let them 
 remember that the education which most befits the 
 sex, is that which prepares her to fill with ability, 
 love, and dignity the offices of wife, mother, and 
 matron.
 
 04 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A MAN of ordinary size renders a hogshead of 
 air unfit for breathing, consumes its blood-purifying 
 quality every hour, so perfectly, that if a man could 
 re-breathe a full breath of his own the next instant 
 after its expiration, without any intermixture with 
 the outer air, he would be instantly suffocated. 
 
 No man of any prudence or common sense ought 
 to administer chloroform, except in the presence 
 of a third person, of intelligence and maturity. 
 For ourselves, we prefer to encounter danger with 
 our eyes open. 
 
 MAKE your calculations to be busy until you die, 
 in doing something useful to yourselves or others ; 
 arrange it so that death shall find you with your 
 harness on, manfully battling for humanity and the 
 right. 
 
 THREE cases out of every four coming to me for 
 throat ail, have it as the result of improper eating 
 and drinking 
 
 IP you want to travel through the world in a 
 quiet, contented way, don't get careless in any 
 respect. Man, in every phase of life, is particu- 
 larly given to carelessness. If he is on the high 
 road to wealth and station, he becomes careless of 
 those who, perhaps, were the very means of his 
 good fortune. On the other hand, if he is unfor- 
 tunate in business, he loses his self-respect, and 
 rushes to the dram-shop or gaming-table.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 65 
 
 HAIR, or even straw mattresses, are more healthy 
 to sleep on than feather beds. Never put children 
 on these heating beds. Keep their sleeping rooms 
 very clean and well-aired, and do not cumber them 
 with unnecessary furniture. 
 
 PAIN is the sleepless sentinel, always at the out- 
 posts, announcing on the instant the first approach 
 in the distance of the great enemy, disease ; and 
 that half humanity dies scores of years "before the 
 time," is because the faithful warning goes all un- 
 heeded. 
 
 IT is the regular and temperate who live long. 
 It is the very old who die without sickness or pain 
 whose lamp of life goes out as gently as the 
 last flicker of an expiring candle. 
 
 THE child who privately does a thing for one 
 parent, known to be contrary to the wishes of the 
 other, and the parent who can counsel it, are 
 equally guilty of a violence against domestic rule, 
 which will not cease to bear the pernicious fruits 
 of deception and discord to the latest hour of their 
 lives. 
 
 THE appetite, the hunger, is excited by the pres- 
 ence of the gastric juice about the stomach ; but 
 if there is no gastric juice there can be no hunger, 
 no appetite, and to compel a child to swallow food 
 into the stomach when there is no gastric juice 
 there to receive it, is an absurdity and a cruelty. 
 5
 
 66 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WE regard public examinations and school ex- 
 hibitions a cheat and a sham, in three cases out 
 of four. It is done for the benefit and behoof of 
 the teacher, and to the irreparable injury of the 
 scholar, while the poor dolt of a parent has not 
 sense enough to see through it. We hope never 
 to see a child of ours competitor for any prize or 
 station at school. 
 
 THAT the color of the eyes should affect their 
 strength may seem strange ; yet that such is the 
 case need not at this time of day to be proved ; 
 and those whose eyes are brown or dark colored 
 should be informed that they are weaker and more 
 susceptible of injury, from various causes, than 
 gray or blue eyes. Light blue eyes are generally 
 the most powerful, and next to those are gray. The 
 lighter the pupil, the greater and longer-continued 
 is the degree of tension the eye can sustain. 
 
 REST is an invariable law of animal life. The 
 busy heart beats, beats ever, from infancy to ago, 
 and yet for a large part of the time it is in a state 
 of repose. 
 
 IMPLANT into the very nature of your children, 
 Irom earliest infancy, an affectionate and implicit 
 belief in all Bible teachings. 
 
 No school is entitled to the name of " respectable 
 and thorough," where the pupils have not regular 
 and stated teachings about health.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIM**. 67 
 
 IT is unwise to hope for domestic happiness in 
 the possession of a single favorable trait of charac- 
 ter ; it is better to look for a combination, and they 
 are to be most congratulated who can discern, and 
 woo and win the possessor of the largest number 
 of good points. First of all, the man whom you 
 love, the woman whom you adore, should possess a 
 high sense of right and wrong ; next, bodily health ; 
 and, thirdly, moral bravery, a courage to be indus- 
 trious, economical, and self-denying. With these 
 three traits, principle, health, and a soul that can 
 do and dare all that one ought to, domestic felicity 
 will abide. 
 
 ALCOHOL warms, and warms only, and man can- 
 not live on warmth alone ; while beefsteak both 
 warms and nourishes, as does all food ; and what 
 does not do both cannot sustain life, and cannot be 
 properly denominated food. 
 
 THE hermit is but half a saint ; as he who avoids 
 the battle-field is but half a soldier. To shun 
 temptation, is well ; but to live in the midst of it, 
 and never yield to it, from stern principle that 
 is true nobility of soul. 
 
 THE brute creation, obeying their instinct, are 
 not troubled with summer complaints, and the 
 thousand ills which affect and destroy men. But 
 we overpower our instincts, and making ourselves 
 the slaves of appetite, contrary to reason, perish 
 in multitudes.
 
 68 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE practice of all honorable physicians, be it 
 known, is, over the world, one and the same : the 
 very moment they are satisfied of having discov- 
 ered a new and valuable remedy, it is sent off to 
 some respectable medical periodical, and within a 
 year the remedy and its uses are in the possession 
 of every educated physician in Christendom. It 
 is considered a mutual duty, and he who fails of it 
 is immediately placed beneath contempt. 
 
 ONE of the best exercises for women who are 
 not very well, is a walk in the streets, or the 
 fields, with a cheerful companion. To find an ex- 
 ercise suitable for women in-doors is very difficult : 
 sewing is too confining, scrubbing the floor to vio- 
 lent ; and under the great variety of circumstan- 
 ces under which women are placed in families, we 
 can do nothing more than to lay down a principle, 
 and let each one act in reference to it : That exer- 
 cise is best which keeps the body in motion, and 
 interests the mind pleasurably. 
 
 FROM an extended and varied observation of 
 forty years, I have arrived at the stereotype ad- 
 vice to all who consult me as to my opinion of the 
 value of the daily use of a small amount of pure 
 wines, or cordials, or brandies, that, 
 
 Any man who once drinks a drop of " liquor/' 
 may die in the gutter ; he who tastes it never, 
 never can.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 69 
 
 WE do not believe that Providence has anything 
 to do with the production of sickness or disease, 
 beyond the institution of certain laws which he 
 has made for the government of the world, any 
 more than that he has an agency in the burning 
 of our finger if we put it in the fire. 
 
 AN habitual novel reader is no more of the world 
 about him than the habitual dram drinker : neither 
 of them can see things around them as they are ; 
 both are living an artificial life, a life unreal, un- 
 satisfactory, and profitless to themselves and to 
 others. 
 
 A SINGLE word, uttered by a child to a parent, in 
 a moment of excitement, of a parent to a child, 
 of a husband to a wife, has many a time before 
 now quenched every spark of human emotion and 
 of human love, and a hate has sprung from the 
 ashes as virulent as the deadly Upas, only to go 
 out in the night of the grave. Human happiness, 
 and life itself, then, often depends on a failure to 
 control the mental emotion. An effort to practise 
 such a control should be early made ; the earlier 
 the better. 
 
 THE Almighty rested one seventh of the time of 
 creation, commanding man to observe an equal re- 
 pose ; and the neglect of this injunction will always^ 
 sooner or later, bring mental, moral, and physical 
 death.
 
 70 PR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE man who consumes more than he earns, is 
 guilty of robbery. He who hangs a mere clog 
 upon the social state, has no legitimate right to 
 the food he swallows, or to the clothes he wears. 
 Every dollar he spends is a fraud upon his toiling 
 neighbor ; and the sooner he vanishes from exist- 
 ence, and gives place to a man with work in him, 
 the better will it be for the town, village, or hamlet 
 which his good-for-nothing body encumbers. The 
 idea that a portion of humanity is made of porce- 
 lain, and not of common clay, for ornament and 
 not for use, may do for the creed of dandies, who 
 saunter through life, basking in the social sunshine 
 which they have never helped to create ; but it 
 must be scouted by all honest men who get their 
 bread by the sweat of their brows, and by lives of 
 honorable toil fulfil the fiat of their Creator. 
 
 THE effect of tea is to enliven ; it produces a 
 comfortable exhilaration of spirits, it wakens up, 
 and increases the working capabilities of the brain, 
 and brings out the kindlier feelings of our nature 
 in moderation, having them always under our con- 
 trol. 
 
 THOSE who do not make good health a study and 
 an aim, who do not practise daily the temperances 
 and self-denials which seldom fail to secure this 
 good health, are committing a crime against their 
 unborn children, which they never can atone for.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 71 
 
 THE love of life is a universal instinct ; life is a 
 duty, its peril or neglect a crime. We are placed 
 on earth for a purpose ; that purpose can be none 
 other than to give us an opportunity of doing good 
 to ourselves and to others ; and to be anxious to be 
 ' off duty " sooner than God wills, is no indication 
 nf true piety. The good man has one ruling, ever- 
 present desire, and that is to live as long on the 
 earth as his Maker pleases, and while living, to do 
 the utmost he can to benefit and bless mankind ; 
 and to accomplish a long, and active, and useful 
 life, the study how to preserve and promote a high 
 degree of bodily health is indispensable. And it 
 seems to have been ordained by a Providence both 
 kind and wise, as a reward of a temperate life, 
 that such a life should be largely extended, and 
 that its decline should be as calm as a summer's 
 evening, as gentle as the babe sleeps itself away 
 on its mother's bosom. 
 
 ONE of the glorious advantages of a large city is, 
 people are obliged to mind their own business, 
 and pretty diligently too, 01 they will soon go to 
 the wall. 
 
 LET no one work in pain or weariness. When 
 a man is tired, he ought to lie down until he is 
 most fully rested, when, with renovated strength, 
 the work will be better done, done the sooner, done 
 with a self-sustaining alacrity.
 
 72 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 OUR advice is, if anything is the matter with 
 your teeth, go to a go- id dentist at once, and even 
 if nothing is the matter, consult him twice a year, 
 and compel each one of your children to do the 
 same, from the age of five years up to the time of 
 marriage, and those children will have reason to 
 thank you for it to the close of life. 
 
 HORSEBACK exercise, to be highly beneficial, 
 should be active; a ''hand gallop," or a trot; and, 
 if practicable, a different road should be travelled 
 every day, so that the mind may be diverted by 
 novelties, and thus compelled away from bodily 
 ailments. 
 
 IN watching with sick people, eat a regular meal 
 befi re you go into the room, and repeat at inter- 
 vals of not over four hours ; this keeps the stomach 
 in a state of excitement, which repels infection. 
 
 Speak kindly, cheerfully, encouragingly to the 
 sick. 
 
 In waiting upon them, study the happy mean in 
 anticipating their wants, without being annoyingly 
 officious. 
 
 Do riot stare at a sick man, nor show a surprised 
 countenance, and speak softly, with distinctness. 
 
 IN passing from a place of religious worship, 
 do nothing, by word, or gesture, or action, incom- 
 patible with the solemnity of God's peculiar pres- 
 ence.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 73 
 
 ALCOHOL, in any of its combinations, intoxicates, 
 makes wild, places a man out of his own power ; he 
 gets beside himself; he can't control himself, nor 
 can any one else control him, except by brute 
 force. Upon some persons it has the effect of 
 eliciting the darkest and deadliest passions of our 
 nature. 
 
 COSTIVE bowels have an agreeable remedy in 
 the free use of tomatoes at meals ; their seeds act- 
 ing in the way of the seeds of white mustard or 
 figs, by stimulating the coats of the bowels over 
 which they pass, in their whole state, to increased 
 action. 
 
 MANY dentists inculcate two most mischievous 
 errors. Threads should never be drawn between 
 the teeth. A permanent tooth ought never to be 
 extracted to make room for others. Nature knows 
 what she is about. Every tooth is needed to de- 
 velop the jaw, and that is of more importance 
 than regularity. Soft brushes only should be used 
 for the teeth. 
 
 IP a man fails in business, it is not, at any time 
 of life, a true resignation to give up for the re- 
 mainder of his days, and make no further effort to 
 recover himself, any more than it is a true resigna- 
 tion for a man who gets sick, to cry out, " The will 
 of the Lord be done 1 " as if it could be his will to 
 see a child of his suffer.
 
 74 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THAT man commits a crime, and so does the 
 woman, who will send a child to bed with a 
 wounded spirit, or who shall allow any vindictive- 
 ness of feeling to exist in consequence of anything 
 the child may have done. Sharp-pointed memories 
 have often driven men mad. Multitudes are there 
 who are more dead than alive from the ailings of 
 the mind, which is wasting itself away in vain 
 remorses for the irrevocable past. The fault of 
 most parents is over-harsh reproofs of their chil- 
 dren reproofs that are hasty, unproportioned to 
 the offence, and hence, as to one's own child, help- 
 less and unresisting, are a cruelty, as well as an 
 injustice. Thrice happy is that parent who has 
 no child in the grave which can be wished back, 
 if only for a brief space, so as to afford some op- 
 portunity for repairing some unmerited unkind- 
 ness towards the dead darling. 
 
 IT is more healthful to wear woollen next the 
 skin in summer, because it absorbs the moisture 
 of perspiration so rapidly as to keep the skin 
 measurably dry all the time. 
 
 MY own personal observation bears me out in 
 the saying, that persons of moderate mental cal- 
 ibre, of medium capacities, are most likely to live 
 long, live healthfully, live happily, and live suc- 
 cessfully, whether as to making a comfortable liv- 
 ing, or having a solid influence in society.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 76 
 
 THE man who offers bad weather as an excuse 
 for not going and paying a debt, will never suc- 
 ceed in business ; nor will he get well who, for 
 that reason, fails to take his daily exercise, when 
 it is an indispensable means of cure. 
 
 IT is a common belief that, as a man advances in 
 the world, he is desirous of cutting those who do 
 not gain so rapidly as himself. This is an error, 
 no doubt, in many instances, and the remedy is 
 one of the easiest things in the world. A little of 
 the starch out of the one, and the slightest liberal 
 feeling on the other, will be found to be a true 
 panacea for nine tenths of the imaginary shys 
 which lead to the entire separation of old. friends, 
 and even goes so far sometimes as to produce 
 bad feelings among relatives. 
 
 INVALIDS should never take any cold drink at 
 meals ; and whether hot or cold, they are wise and 
 safe who never allow themselves over a quarter of 
 a pint of any liquid at a regular meal, or within arn 
 hour afterwards. 
 
 THE less a man drinks of anything in hot 
 weather, the better ; for the more we drink, the 
 more we want to drink, until even ice water palls, 
 and becomes of a metallic taste. Hence the 
 longer you can put off drinking cold water on 
 the morning of a hot day, the better will you feel 
 at night.
 
 76 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 NEXT to the clergy, the educated physician is 
 the greate&t benefactor and conservator of the 
 race, performs more personal service without fee 
 or reward, and at his own individual expense, than 
 any other class in society. Very much that doc- 
 tors do is not appreciated by the great public is 
 never dreamed of by the masses. The common 
 feeling towards a medical man is, that he is ex- 
 pected to come to us when we send for him, to 
 know what is the matter with us, what we need, 
 and, after we get well, to send his bill, receive 
 payment, and the whole is settled. But in all this, 
 his solicitudes, the balancing of his hopes and 
 fears, the comparisons he has to make in his own 
 mind, the judgments he has to form, and the re- 
 sponsibilities he has to assume, singly and alone, 
 without counsel, without sympathy these are 
 not taken into account. Money could not pay for 
 them. 
 
 IP a natural amount of fresh blood is sent to the 
 brain, it acts with its natural healthful vigor. If 
 more than a natural amount of blood is sent there, 
 the brighter and quicker are the thoughts. 
 
 Whatever " excites " the brain, causes an in- 
 creased amount of blood to be supplied there. 
 
 SLEEPING-ROOMS should never be papered, and, 
 most of all, with paper having any green color, 
 whatever paper-makers may say to the contrary.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 77 
 
 MOST men would hesitate to attempt the repair 
 of a watch, or even an old shoe ; and yet not a 
 few are found to experiment in the repair of the 
 most intricate, yet beautiful machinery of human 
 life, without apparent fear of harm. Those who 
 plead their own cases in court, and those who 
 attempt to tinker up their own constitutions, are 
 equally unwise. 
 
 HEALTH is promoted, happiness increased, and 
 life prolonged by the large contemplation of the 
 beautiful in nature, art, and revelation. Natural 
 philosophers live longer than any other class of 
 men ; clergymen, than either of the other profes- 
 sions. The human mind everywhere takes in 
 truth with pleasure ; it feeds on what is new, and, 
 if the new is beautiful and true, it is a feast of fat 
 things, nourishing the immortal part, and giving 
 life to the body itself. 
 
 FOR consumptives, Florida is too hot, and low, 
 and damp there is so little that is bracing in its 
 atmosphere ; and then its mosquitos, and alliga- 
 tors, and bullfrogs, its ticks, and its sand-flies, are 
 enough to deter the stoutest heart. 
 
 THE only perfec/ly safe preserve jar is that 
 which is made of glass. All others ought to be 
 discarded They are cheap, more easily and more 
 perfectly cleaned, and, with reasonable care, will 
 last a lifetime.
 
 T8 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ALL inflammations, internal or external, are 
 promptly subdued by the application of ice or ice- 
 water, because it is converted into steam, and 
 rapidly conveys away the extra heat, and also 
 diminishes the quantity of blood in the vessels of 
 the part. 
 
 A piece of ice laid on the wrist will often arrest 
 violent bleeding of the nose. 
 
 BAKED potatoes are easily digested, requiring 
 only two hours and a half, but one hour longer if 
 boiled. If baked in the ashes, and eaten with 
 butter and salt, they are sweeter and more health- 
 ful than by any other mode of preparation. 
 
 WE have no doubt that the world would be the 
 better for it, if every newspaper in the land were 
 to rigidly exclude from its columns everything 
 which had a bearing on health, except such as 
 referred to the daily habits of life, and even these 
 to admit with caution, knowing, as we do, that 
 many things which, at the first glance, appear 
 rational and useful, will not bear the light of in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 WE advise that no person should go to work, or 
 take exercise in the morning on an empty stomach ; 
 but if it is stimulated to action by a cup of coffee, 
 or a crust of bread, or apple, or orange, exercise 
 can be taken, not only with impunity, but to high 
 advantage in all chill and fever localities.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 79 
 
 IT is beyond dispute that bad whiskey, that 
 adulterated liquors, are exercising a most perni- 
 cious and destructive influence over the health, 
 and morals, and minds of vast multitudes of the 
 people of the United States. 
 
 NEVER eat by rule. Never eat at one meal as 
 much as you did at the corresponding one the day 
 before, simply because that was your usual quan- 
 tity ; but eat according to your appetite. If you 
 have no appetite, eat nothing uniil you do. If you 
 are in a hurry for that appetite, and time is valu- 
 able to you, do not attempt to whet it up by stimu- 
 lating food, by exciting drinks, or forcing tonics, 
 but bring it about in a natural way, by moderate 
 and continuous exercise in the open air, in some- 
 thing that is interesting, exciting, and in itself 
 useful. 
 
 IN spring, be a strict vegetarian, be a strict cold- 
 water man, keep clean, keep cheerful, keep out of 
 doors, and your spring-time will not be the sleepi- 
 ness of the pig, but it will be as gleeful and as 
 gladsome as that of the sweetest birds of May. 
 
 WHEN a man once steps aside from an honorable 
 path, when he once violates his convictions of truth, 
 when ho once descends to trickery, no optics sharp 
 can see where that man will go, no divining rod 
 can measure the depth of degradation to which he 
 may descend.
 
 80 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHICH one of our readers can lay his hand on 
 his heart, and say that he has not, many a time 
 and oft, got mad at some unimportant thing, and 
 talked, and blamed, and scolded for " ever so long," 
 and, when the fume and froth of fury were all 
 gone, felt as if it would have been the most de- 
 lightful retreat in the world to have crept into an 
 auger-hole ; felt so particularly mean that he could 
 not, by any possibility, have raised courage enough 
 to look a man in the face ? 
 
 The times are numberless at which we have 
 seen travellers, at home and abroad, on land and 
 sea, suffering the most pitiful mortification in con- 
 sequence of some outburst of passion. Let the 
 reader feel assured it pays well, under all great 
 emotions, to say not a word. It saves conscience, 
 eaves dignity, saves self-respect. 
 
 OUB own country is the most picturesque and 
 grand in the world ; and that the summers of our 
 youth, and men and women of leisure and means, 
 and of our invalids, are spent in the enervating de- 
 baucheries of fashionable places of resort, instead 
 of explorations, is discreditable to our intelligence 
 as a people, and is a degradation' to our morals and 
 physical nature as individuals. 
 
 TRUE strength, real recuperation, comes from 
 the digestion of nutritious food, and can come 
 from DO other source.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 81 
 
 INSTEAD of determining what you would like your 
 son to be, seek to ascertain what he is capable of 
 being; what he is certainly competent for. In 
 short, seek not for your child the post he can get, 
 but the post he can fill ; for it is better to be an 
 honor to the hod than a disgrace to the crown 
 better be an accomplished mechanic than a con- 
 temptible king. 
 
 READER, remember that kind acts pay ; the in- 
 fluence of each for good drifts over the sea of time, 
 and will drift till time shall be no more. Go forth- 
 with, then, " while the day lasts," and perform aa 
 many as you can. 
 
 WHOSE children people our penitentiaries? They 
 are those of parents who were too indulgent, or 
 too proud, or too indifferent to bring up their 
 children to some honest trade. Of the hundreds 
 crushed arid blasted creatures in the penitentiary, 
 whose days are spent in bootless and ignominious 
 toil, and whose narrow night-dungeon is the mute 
 witness of demoniac defiance or unavailing re- 
 morse ; of vain curses, fierce and deep ; or of feed- 
 ing on the fires of sharp-pointed memories, two 
 thirds never knew a trade, five sixths are unable 
 to read or write. How much of truth is there in 
 Franklin's reputed saying, " He who fails to teach 
 his child a trade, teaches him to become a scoun- 
 dre.."
 
 82 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE is a general saying, that cold water " rots 
 the hair." The statement is of itself absurd. The 
 hair is rotted by the filth which is allowed to cake 
 upon the scalp by virtue of the grease, natural and 
 artificial, gathering dust of every description, and 
 making a composition, the very thought of which 
 is nauseating. 
 
 Every mother who would pride herself in having 
 her daughter possess a beautiful head of hair, lux- 
 urious, long, and silken at sweet nineteen, should 
 forbid any application to the hair, except pure 
 water as above, keeping it short, and allowing it 
 to lie naturally on the forehead. 
 
 A HEARTY laugh is known, the world over, to be 
 a health promoter ; it elevates the spirits, enlivens 
 the circulation, and is marvellously contagious in a 
 good sense. 
 
 MEN who have half a dozen irons in the fire are 
 not the ones to go crazy. It is the man of volun- 
 tary or compelled leisure who mopes, and pines, 
 and thinks himself into the mad-house or the grave. 
 Motion is all Nature's law. Action is man's sal- 
 vation, physical and mental. And yet nine out of 
 ten are wistfully looking forward to the coveted 
 hour when they shall have leisure to do nothing, 
 or something, only if they feel like it the very 
 siren that has lured to death many a " successful " 
 man.
 
 DK. HALL'S MAXIMS. 83 
 
 MY experience is, throat ail is not to bo radically 
 and permanently cured in any case, except by 
 rectifying first, and then building up the general 
 health of the system, and that requires time, de- 
 termination, and systematic habits of rational life. 
 
 A MAN had better lose a dinner, better sacrifice 
 the earnings of a day, than repress the call of 
 nature. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN of true benevolence has succeeded 
 in accumulating a large fortune within a half-cen- 
 tury's time, beginning at the bottom round of the 
 ladder, by following two tilings : minding his own 
 business, and doing good to others. How many 
 there are who would do well to learn that trade ! 
 It is simple, useful, and ought not to be hard to 
 learn. 
 
 HUMANITARIANS ! you are on the wrong track 
 with your soup-shops and your alms-houses. You 
 pay a premium on loafering, and men soon get to 
 like it ; you buy away their self-respect, and the 
 feeling of independence, which makes all the dif- 
 ference between a man and a human thing, and all 
 the while taking the flattering unction to your 
 souls you are doing God service. Help your fel- 
 low-mortal to help himself, and be a man, not a 
 loafer, and angels will smile. 
 
 ONE bushel of white beans will feed more labor- 
 ing men than eight bushels of potatoes.
 
 84 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 No man who values his own health and life, and 
 those of his family, should pay attention to any 
 newspaper recipe of a medicinal character. The 
 door should be shut against all family newspapers 
 which habitually insert such things, because mainly 
 there are various medicines which do a striking 
 good when taken once or twice, but which cause 
 poisonous effects if taken four or five times or days 
 in succession. 
 
 LET parents, who would avoid an old age of 
 agony, in connection with harshness, injustice, and 
 even cruelty to their children, remember never to 
 punish or even threaten a child under the influ- 
 ence of a passionate state of the mind, because the 
 morrow may bring death, and no compensation can 
 be ever made. 
 
 MANY persons precipitate themselves into the 
 grave by attempting to bravado an ailment ; to be 
 up and about in defiance of it. If anything at all 
 is the matter with a man which is really disquiet- 
 ing, he should at least have as much sense as a 
 pig, and go and lie down : pigs are not such fools 
 as to move about in pain. 
 
 THE father moulds the head, the mother the 
 heart; the father appeals to the understanding, 
 the mother to the affections ; the father prepares 
 for time, the mother for eternity. Happy the 
 children who heed the wise teachings of both.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 85 
 
 HE only is truly wise who lays himself out to 
 work till life's latest hour, and that is the man 
 who will live the longest, and will live to most 
 purpose. 
 
 IT is a very poor excuse for a man to say that he 
 cannot pay a debt; the declaration becomes in- 
 sulting to the creditor, when that inability is the 
 result of improvidence, or actual extravagance. 
 
 LET the family table be always a meeting-place 
 of pleasantness, affection, and peace, arid for the 
 exhibition of all the sweeter feelings of domestic 
 life. 
 
 SHUT your mouth in going from a cold to a hot 
 atmosphere, as well as the reverse ; this simple op- 
 eration brings the temperature of either a cold or 
 hot air to the natural standard before it reaches 
 the lungs, by making it take the circuit of the 
 head ; whereas, if the mouth is kept open, it dashes 
 down upon the lungs like a shock. Whether asleep 
 or awake, we should accustom ourselves to keep 
 the mouth shut; the advantage in our sleeping 
 hours is, that we do not snore, we don't have the 
 nightmare; flies, bugs, and spiders don't crawl down 
 the throat, and we don't tell tales in our dreams; 
 the benefits in the daytime are, that it induces a 
 more healthful, deep, full, and free action of the 
 lungs, prevents innumerable chills and colds, and 
 saves many a domestic sorrow.
 
 86 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 YOUNG woman, if a rich young man asks you to 
 marry him, and has no occupation, or trade, or call- 
 ing by which he could make a living if he were 
 thrown on his own resources, you may give him 
 your respect, but " give him the mitten." 
 
 IP you are consumptive, and want to get well, go 
 in for beef and out-door air, and do not be deluded 
 into the grave by advertisements and unreliable 
 certificates. 
 
 MANY persons bring on life-long dyspepsias by 
 the mere habit of drinking several glasses of cold 
 water at their meals ; an equal amount of hot drink 
 would be greatly more advantageous, but half a 
 pint of any fluid at a single meal is abundant for all 
 healthful purposes. 
 
 LET it be folly and plainly understood by all, that 
 human health can never be maintained by the ha- 
 bitual internal use of anything else than plain, 
 nourishing food, and such drinks as satisfy the 
 thirst in a natural way. In other words, the habit- 
 ual use of anything, water excepted, which does 
 not contain wholesome nutriment, tends, in all 
 cases and under all circumstances, to destroy both 
 health and life. 
 
 WEALTHY parents, if you truly love your chil 
 dren, live in that stylo which you can enable each 
 one of them to sustain.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 87 
 
 LET all learn, what the commonest humanity dic- 
 tates, to speak no word, write no line, do no deed 
 which would wound the feelings of any humaii 
 creature, unless under a sense of duty, and even 
 then let it be wisely and long considered. 
 
 MAD dogs and turtles are not the only snapping 
 animals in the world. 
 
 ANY great emotion of passion or pleasure, soon 
 after eating, causes death ; hence, no highly excit- 
 ing or momentous news should be communicated, 
 even to the healthiest, let alone the sick and the 
 feeble, immediately after a full repast. 
 
 A GOOD heart grows mellow as it approaches the 
 grave. Old clergymen grow forbearing as they 
 near heaven. We contend, if they could start 
 with the largest share of this, many hearts would 
 be won to religion that are never won at all. 
 Harshness wrecks, and wins not the inquiring 
 soul. 
 
 NEVER pinch off the leaves to hasten the ripen- 
 ing of the fruit. Nature has placed them there to 
 facilitate that ripening in her own way. 
 
 To live in comfort and in abundance in our own 
 homes should be the source of constant and heart- 
 felt thanksgiving; but to have the means and the 
 heart to happify the less fortunate of our kind 
 merits a higher and a purer gratitude.
 
 88 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IF you want a child to take an interest in a pa. 
 per, let it be his paper, sent to his address. In a 
 reasonable time he will get to look for its coming, 
 and feel the want of it, if it does not arrive at the 
 usual time. Soon it will be a kind of necessity, 
 and rather than be without it he becomes willing 
 to make sacrifices and self-denials for the sake of 
 saving any stray dime or half dime which may 
 happen to corne into his possession. 
 
 As men have lived in perfect health without 
 alcohol, the use of alcohol cannot add to that health, 
 because a man cannot be better than well. 
 
 OUR sons are taught how to make money, and 
 our daughters how to attract attention ; but little 
 if anything is done towards imparting to them 
 instruction which would enable them to pre- 
 serve and maintain unexceptionable health, without 
 which the admiration of courts is a bare endur- 
 ance, and the glitter of costliest gems as valueless 
 as the dust of the street. 
 
 THE ravage of war, as to human life, is exagger- 
 ated in almost all minds, and is never so great as it 
 seems to be. Many of the soldiers who sicken and 
 die in hospitals would have sickened and died at 
 home; while the proportion of all who die from 
 wounds is astonishingly small, and some of these 
 would have perished by accident had they re- 
 mained at home.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXTMS. 89 
 
 PARENTS, have a ceaseless eye to what your 
 younger children read. 
 
 FARMERS' wives lose health and life every year 
 in one of two ways : by busying themselves in a 
 warm kitchen until weary, and then throwing 
 themselves un a bed or sofa without covering, and 
 perhaps in a room without fire, or by removing the 
 outer clothing, and perhaps changing the dress for 
 a more common one, as soon as they enter the 
 house after walking or working. The rule should 
 be invariable to go at once to a warm room, and 
 keep on all the clothing, at least for five or ten 
 minutes, until the forehead is perfectly dry. In 
 all weathers, if you have to walk and ride on any 
 occasion, do the riding first. 
 
 A MAN who is willing to be helped out of the 
 mire, and then is unwilling to help others, is no 
 man at all he is a thing. 
 
 INCESSANT thinking on any one subject tends to 
 craze the brain ; and it does unhinge the intellect 
 of multitudes, as witness the fate of men of " one 
 idea;" of inventors, of inveterate students of 
 prophecy, of those who abandon themselves to 
 thinking of the loved and lost, of the victims of 
 remorse or mortified pride, or of those who feed 
 on sharp-pointed memories. 
 
 IP your pants need a patch, send for a tailor ; 
 if your body is out of order, consult a physician.
 
 90 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LET every man be diligent, and abide his time in 
 patience, remembering that the race is not com- 
 monly, in practical life, to the swift, nor the battle 
 to the strong, and that ultimate and permanent 
 success is the pretty sure reward of him who has 
 patience, diligence, and a great heart. 
 
 IT is worth the effort of a lifetime to be able to 
 die well, to die at a good old age, in peace with all 
 mankind, and in a well-grounded faith of an im- 
 mortal life beyond. 
 
 STEADY force of character, with determination, 
 are of more value towards insuring longevity than 
 a good constitution. Men of " purpose " can live 
 down disease, can live above it, as did the hero of 
 Macaulay's History of England, William the Con- 
 queror, who was a wheezing asthmatic all his life, 
 and he died at last by being thrown from his horse. 
 
 THE first and immediate aim of the good and 
 great physician, is to restore his patient to health 
 in the shortest time, with the smallest amount of 
 medicine, and with the least discomfort practic- 
 able ; when this is accomplished, he has a more 
 elevated ambition; an object nobler and still more 
 humane presses upon his attention the prevention 
 of all disease. 
 
 KEEPING meats until they are about " to turn " 
 makes them tender to eat, but they are harder to 
 digest than fresh meat.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 91 
 
 IF a child wakes up in the morning, and calls 
 for a drink of water the first thing, such child is 
 perfectly certain to be sick before noon. The 
 course to be pursued is, to keep him in bed, and 
 by warm drinks promote perspiration, eating noth- 
 ing whatever until the afternoon, when he may 
 amuse himself by nibbling at some cold, dry 
 bread, and the next day he will be about again. 
 Otherwise, a breakfast will be eaten, fever comes 
 on, vomiting, and several days' illness. 
 
 THE best and safest tooth wash in the world is 
 tepid water. There is not a tooth powder in ex- 
 istence, nor a tooth wash, that does not inflict a 
 physical injury to the teeth, and promote their 
 decay. Each dentist has a powder of his own, 
 which he sells at a thousand per cent, profit, which 
 he may honestly imagine will do a positive good, 
 without any injury whatever. But he is mistaken. 
 The teeth were never intended to be pearly white. 
 Every intelligent dentist knows that the whiter 
 the teeth are, the sooner and the more certainly 
 they will decay. He also knows that those teeth 
 are the soundest, last the longest, and are the 
 most useful, which have a yellowish tint. Then 
 why provide powders to take off this yellowish 
 surface ? 
 
 WHISKEY cures a great many ailments, infallibly, 
 by killing the patient.
 
 92 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A TRUE soldier is considered one of the highest 
 types of a man. But that officer merits not the 
 name, or the title he bears, who does not make the 
 comfort and health of his men a subject of un- 
 ceasing thought, and of the most indefatigable 
 effort. 
 
 THE motto of most all the quacks of the present 
 day, for the cure of all diseases, is, Physic ! 
 Physic! PHYSIC! Purgative medicines are good 
 in their proper place ; but to purge for every- 
 thing, is absolutely absurd. Therefore all such 
 purgative nostrums, in the form either of pills, 
 bitters, mineral waters, or anything else, should 
 be eschewed as the cholera. 
 
 As we grow older, let us practise benevolence 
 more, cultivate geniality, social intercourse, and a 
 generous reciprocity of all the sweet courtesies 
 of social and domestic life, and then tears and 
 flowers will be mingled at our grave, and the 
 memory of us will be blessed. 
 
 IN every hundred bushels of wheat, more than 
 a thousand pounds of valuable nutriment, is lost to 
 human use, by the present method of grinding 
 wheat into flour, and preparing it for the table. 
 
 FOOLS, lunarians, the weak-minded, and the igno 
 rant are irascible, impatient, and of ungovernable 
 temper. Great hearts and wise are calm, for- 
 giving, and serene.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 93 
 
 To go to Minnesota after the first of November, 
 to remain until spring, as a means of benefiting a 
 person who is really in consumption, is idiotic. 
 
 READER, let your piety be prompted by the ha- 
 bitual contemplation of the goodness of God, in 
 the sunshine of health and prosperity, and a calm 
 life; then, should storms threaten, and adversity 
 come, and sickness waste the health away, you 
 can look it all in the face fearlessly, and feel, as 
 the last lifestrings are breaking, " I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth ; " and at the first blast of the 
 trumpet which wakes the world to judgment, you 
 will find yourself robed in spotless purity, among 
 the shining ones. 
 
 NOT a day passes in which a suicide may not be 
 directly traced to want of success in life ; to the 
 false moralities inculcated by wicked or ignorant 
 writers ; to the failure of parents in obtaining a 
 proper influence over their children; to unre- 
 strained appetites and passions ; and to the inabil- 
 ity of multitudes " to get along in the world " 
 prosperously, for want of thoroughness of prep- 
 aration for their calling or station in life. 
 
 WHY are not the Arabs, and the Indians, and 
 the dwellers in tents, the victims of paralysis, 
 gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and consumption ? 
 The main reason is, they live in the open air, and 
 their limbs are strengthened by exercise.
 
 94 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 FAMILIES should eveiywhere be on their guard 
 against galvanized zinc iron water pipes, for drink- 
 ing or cooking purposes. 
 
 THE best specific for a horse thief is a hempen 
 halter. Never, since the, world began, has it ever 
 been found necessary to repeat the dose. 
 
 LET him who stammers, stamp his foot on the 
 ground at the same time that he utters each syl- 
 lable, and stammering is impossible. 
 
 THIS one idea, of keeping the pores of the skin 
 steadily open, by means of habitual moderate ex- 
 ercise and strict personal cleanliness, would, if 
 generally practised, contribute more to human 
 happiness than tons of physic or millions of 
 money. 
 
 IT is a broad truth among men, that a gentle- 
 man, among gentlemen, is the last one to imagine 
 a dishonorable act on the part of his compeers: 
 but even if imagined, he would sooner make the 
 largest sacrifices than frame his suspicions into 
 words. 
 
 No man of reflection can help respecting the 
 industrious mechanic, any more than he can help 
 looking with contemptuousness on the well-dressed 
 loafer, or the aristocratic spendthrift, who would 
 not care to be seen talking to the toil-worn work, 
 man.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 95 
 
 MAN is styled an omnivorous animal an ani- 
 mal eating everything. No created animal can 
 eat and drink, without discomfort, half the articles 
 consumed by man. I know very well that men 
 die before their days are half numbered, in conse- 
 quence of errors in eating and drinking ; but 
 these disastrous results do not arise from the qual- 
 ity of man's aliment, but from its quantity. It is 
 the quantity which prematurely kills millions. A 
 sensible man may eat almost any thing with im- 
 punity ; a simpleton, nothing. The former eats 
 like a philosopher, the latter like a pig ; the for- 
 mer eats as much as he wants, the latter eats more 
 than he wants. 
 
 IN several instances persons have applied to me 
 who had been advised to take brandy freely for a 
 throat affection. None but an ignorant man or a 
 drunkard would give such advice. It is warranted 
 by no one principle in medicine, reason, or com- 
 mon sense. 
 
 THE safest place on a rail-car is the inside, about 
 the centre of the car, if there be no stove there, 
 and on the end of the seat next to the aisle. 
 
 PERSONS often make the inquiry, when in a 
 decline, " Will it hurt me to go out of doors?" Our 
 almost universal reply is, " No ! it will do you good. 
 Go out, rain or shine ; if it is raining, have an um- 
 brella, and let it rain on."
 
 96 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN the scalp is in any part bare of hair, and 
 shiny, or glistening, that is organic baldness, and 
 there is no remedy. If there is not that shining, 
 glistening appearance, but a multitude of very 
 small hairs, causing a " furziuess " over the scalp, 
 that is " functional " baldness ; and two things are 
 to be done. Keep the scalp clean with soap-suds 
 that is a " balm of a thousand flowers," flavored ; 
 and more specially, and principally, seek to im- 
 prove your general health, by eating plain, sub- 
 stantial food, at three regular times a day, and by 
 spending throe or four hours, between meals, in 
 moderate exercise in the open air, in some en- 
 grossing employment. 
 
 USE fruits that are ripe, fresh, perfect, raw. 
 They should be used in their natural state, with- 
 out sugar, cream, milk, or any other item of food 
 or drink. 
 
 OUR legitimate scope is almost boundless : for 
 whatever begets pleasurable and harmless feelings, 
 promotes health ; and whatever induces disagreea- 
 ble sensations, engenders disease. 
 
 I TRUST no reader will attempt to live on com- 
 mon allowance, on his own responsibility ; he 
 should cousult with his family physician, for age, 
 sex, condition in life, occupation, materially modify 
 the amount of food requisite for the wants of the 
 system.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 97 
 
 WE consider it a radical defect in our schools, 
 that children are made to study branches which 
 are above their comprehension, allied to an error, 
 not less mischievous, of being sent to school too 
 early. 
 
 IT is not true that sugar and candies are of 
 themselves injurious to the teeth or the health of 
 those who use them ; so far from it, they are less 
 injurious than any of the ordinary forms of food 
 when employed in moderation. 
 
 GETTING out of a warm bed and going to an open 
 door or window, has been the death of multitudes. 
 
 LET families look well into the quality of the 
 milk which is supplied to them. The brightest 
 and most tidy-looking milk carts are often as sug- 
 gestive as the " whitened sepulchres " of Scrip- 
 ture story. 
 
 AN observer of mice in his youth, may become 
 an observer of men in maturity. The observation 
 of little things makes the great man. 
 
 BED-CURTAINS are unhealthy, because they con- 
 fine the air around us while we sleep ; a canary 
 bird will die in a night suspended in that sit- 
 uation. 
 
 PAINS about the lungs and heart, off and on, for 
 weeks and months, generally indicate the absence 
 of seriously critical diseases. 
 7
 
 98 DR. HALI/'S MAXIMS. 
 
 STEIVE, with all the energy God hath given you, 
 to be healthy, to be religious, to be rich. The more 
 healthy you are, the more truly and highly reli 
 gious you can be ; and the richer you are, the 
 more can you do towards placing the same glo- 
 rious religion within reach, at least, of the perishing 
 myriads of earth's poor. 
 
 MEMORY, like every other faculty, is cultivatable. 
 It is improved by exercise, and, like a good friend, 
 the more we trust it, the better will it serve us. 
 
 No medicine or drug, or anything to be swal- 
 lowed or inhaled, has ever yet been found which 
 can possibly have any direct, radical, efficient 
 agency in permanently arresting even the prog- 
 ress of Consumption. Many such have been pro- 
 posed with great confidence, while all have, one by 
 one, gone out of notice, which could not have been 
 the case had they been efficient. The only means 
 are to secure a vigorous digestion, and to bring 
 back the full breathing of the lungs; both of which 
 are possible. 
 
 ANXIETY, and privation, and want hurry multi- 
 tudes of poor every year to a premature grave : 
 but thrift and Bible religion go together the world 
 over ; and its principles, pure and unadulterated by 
 human traditions, and human expositions, and com- 
 mentaries, are the only panacea for the cure of 
 disease, and want, and crime.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 99 
 
 IT is very unsafe to lessen the amount of cloth- 
 ing sooner than the first of May, and then not in 
 quality, but in less thickness of the same mate- 
 rial ; from yarn socks to worsted ; from a thick, 
 knitted flannel shirt to one of common woollen flan- 
 nel; then, about the first of June, to a gauze flannel; 
 if this is oppressive to some, then employ canton 
 flannel. But it is certainly a great mistake for any- 
 body to wear anything else next the skin, even in 
 the hottest summer weather, than woollen flannel. 
 
 HABITS of regularity, temperance, cleanliness / 
 and exercise become a second nature in the course 
 of years; their performance a pleasure, their in- 
 fraction a discomfort ; while the use of beverages 
 of ale, beer, cordials, cider, and other drinks con- 
 taining alcohol, or the employment of tobacco 
 in chewing, smoking, or snuffing, and the over- 
 indulgence of the propensities, becomes a slavery, 
 an iron despotism, which in the end debases the 
 heart, undermines the health, and destroys life, 
 making a miserable wreck of soul, body, and estate 
 together. 
 
 IP a man is not consumptive, and is plainly told 
 so, such a burden is sometimes taken from his 
 mind that a new life is infused into him ; he rises 
 above the depressions which were crushing him 
 into the grave, throws off disease, and goes forth 
 in a few days a new being and a well man.
 
 tOO DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 HOWEVER healthy a man may be, anxiety for to- 
 morrow's bread will soon undermine the strongest 
 constitution; hence the French returns officially 
 announce that the well-to-do average eleven years 
 longer life than those who live by their daily labor. 
 If a man is healthy and well-to-do, and is not busy in 
 his calling, he will seldom fail to become dyspeptic, 
 intemperate, or restless, and die prematurely. 
 Hence, to have a life of sunshine, a man must 
 live healthfully, must have a reasonably profitable 
 calling, and must be busy and buoyant in the pros- 
 ecution of it. 
 
 READER, you will be sick one day ; it may be a 
 Jong sickness ; you may be far from home, far from 
 friends, far from medical aid. Let me tell you 
 there is a " balm " in the Bible ; a medicament, a 
 cordial, of a nature so searching, of a power so all- 
 pervading, that there is " no sorrow which it can- 
 not heal," no suffering which it cannot soothe, no 
 pain which it cannot mitigate. 
 
 CONTINUED excitement is disease. 
 
 BEARING about in one's heart the sweet memo- 
 ries of a mother's care, and affection, and fidelity, 
 often has a resistless power, for many a year after 
 that dear mother has found her resting-place in 
 heaven, to restrain the wayward and the unsettled 
 from rushing into the ways of wicked and aban- 
 doned men.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 101 
 
 HEAT rarefies all noxious gases and odors, and 
 sends them to the clouds ; these are most perni- 
 cious at sunrise arid sunset ; hence building fires in 
 the family sitting-room at those hours, will, other 
 things being equal, exempt families from epidem- 
 ics, chills, and fevers, and perhaps even cholera 
 itself. 
 
 SICKNESS is sometimes imaginary, but in such cases 
 it does no good to deride or to scold ; so it is some- 
 times with what is called nervousness, it is useless 
 to make light of it ; the feeling of suffering is the 
 same as if it were real. In such cases sympathy ia 
 oftentimes a more efficient remedy than derision or 
 impatient epithet. " Bear ye one another's bur- 
 dens," is a moral medicamentum of great efficacy. 
 
 No sickly person can honorably marry another 
 in good health, without previously making a fair 
 statement of the case. And even then, if a mar- 
 riage takes place, a crime has been committed 
 against the community and against unborn inno- 
 cents But when both the parties are sickly it is 
 wholly inexcusable, and ought to be frowned upon 
 by every intelligent community, ho\vover satisfac- 
 tory the pecuniary condition of the parties. They 
 may be able to support themselves, but they can 
 give no guarantee that their children, diseased in 
 body and feeble in mind, shall not be a public charge 
 at the hospital, the poorhouse, or an insane asylum.
 
 102 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WE believe in fun more than physic, hence we 
 " still live," and lively as a cricket, too ! 
 
 MANY a mother feels fretted, jaded, and worn 
 out with the cares of housekeeping, and is almost 
 sick. But at the moment a welcome visitor comes 
 in, full of life, cordiality, and cheeriness, in less 
 than five minutes that mother is a different woman ; 
 the sky has cleared ; the face is lighted up with 
 smiles; and she feels as well as she ever did in her 
 life. Her discouragement, her almost sickness, was 
 not " in the mind," it was a reality, but the excite- 
 ment of conversation drove out the wearying blood, 
 which was oppressing the heart, and made it fairly 
 tingle to the finger-points. Ladies, when you go 
 a visiting, carry smiles and gladness, and a joyous 
 nature and a kind heart with you, and you will do 
 more good than a dozen doctors. 
 
 SOME persons attempt to " harden their constitu- 
 tions " by exposing themselves to the causes which 
 induced their sufferings ; as if they could, by so 
 doing, get accustomed to the exposure, and ever 
 thereafter endure it with impunity. A good con- 
 stitution, like a good garment, lasts the longer by 
 its being taken care of. 
 
 EVERYBODY knows that to be cooped up in a hot 
 room ah 1 winter, is enough to kill a well man, and 
 certainly it cannot restore to health a man who is 
 already half dead with consumption.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 103 
 
 A CONSUMPTIVE man is one who has already lost 
 the use of a part of his lungs the more need, 
 then, is there that the air which he does consume 
 nhould be the purest possible. 
 
 MANY a cold, cough, and consumption are excited 
 into action by pulling off the hat or overcoat as to 
 men, and the bonnet and shawl as to women, im- 
 mediately on entering the house in winter, after a 
 walk. An interval of at least five or ten minutes 
 should be allowed ; for however warm or " close " 
 the apartment may appear on first entering, it will 
 seeni much less so at the end of five minutes, if the 
 outer garments remain as they were before enter- 
 ing. Any one who judiciously uses this observa- 
 tion, will find a multifold reward in the course of a 
 lifetime. 
 
 RESTRAIN all base passions ; keep all the appetites 
 in rational control ; harbor no malice ; cherish no 
 revenges ; brood not over circumstances connected 
 with wounded feelings : if wealth takes wings, go 
 lovingly and trustingly to the great Father of all to 
 "give us this day our daily bread;" and if lair- 
 weather friends forsake, cling the more to Him who 
 sticketh closer than a brother ; looking hopefully at 
 the same tiro?, and laboring diligently in good-doing 
 to others, for the reward which awaits the faithful 
 oeyond the gloom of the grave. So doing you will 
 never bemoan a " Lost Mind ! "
 
 104 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BOILS are the result of impure blood, made so by 
 imperfect digestion ; or an excess of bile, owing to 
 a torpid liver or the want of sufficient out-of-door 
 exercise. They are not a sign of health, but that 
 nature is carrying on a healthful process. 
 
 THE longer an experienced physician lives, the 
 more value he places on medicine as an agent for 
 the removal of disease ; at the same time the less 
 and less is he inclined to give medicine except in 
 urgent cases, preferring to let Nature put forth her 
 energies to throw off the disease while he stands 
 by and watches ; and if she is about to fail, then he 
 helps at the nick of time by the faithful drug, know- 
 ing that there are cases where neither nature nor 
 medicine could cure separately, but when their 
 united power at the critical juncture is all-efficient 
 to save a loved one from a premature and unneces- 
 sary grave. Blessings bo upon every experienced, 
 observant, arid faithful physician ! for he deserves, 
 everywhere, the confidence, the respect, and the 
 warm attachment of every well-informed mind. 
 
 NINE tenths of human sorrows arise from having 
 a will different from that of the Almighty. 
 
 CHILDREN will always be more tractable, and will 
 be much more easily withdrawn from undesirable 
 ways, if parents would only take the simple pre- 
 caution of never speaking of the fault in the pres- 
 ence of a third person.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 105 
 
 To prevent thin hair and premature baldness, 
 first, keep a clean scalp ; second, never wear the 
 hair on a strain, or against the direction of its 
 growth; third, never apply anything to it but 
 soap-suds or pure water ; fourth, wear loose-fitting, 
 soft hats ; fifth, let men and children always wear 
 the hair very short, and both men and women 
 should brush the hair a great deal, using only a 
 coarse comb, which should touch the scalp only in 
 the slightest manner possible. 
 
 EVERYBODY knows that cold water cannot wash 
 the hands clean, and yet whole tomes are scribbled 
 about the purifying effects of cold water. Cold 
 water kills more than it cures. Hundreds of chil- 
 dren are killed every year by fanatical mothers 
 sousing them, head and ears, in cold water every 
 day. 
 
 TRUE wisdom lies in the moderate use of all the 
 good things of this life. 
 
 IT ought to be known that reading by gas-light 
 is very much more injurious to the eyes than 
 candle-light, from the flicker caused by the unsteady 
 jet of the gas from its fountain, and also from the 
 particular tinge of gas-light. A candle flickers 
 some, but this is remedied by having two candles 
 burning at the same time ; they should be rather 
 behind the person ; the eyes should never be al- 
 lowed to face artificial light in reading.
 
 106 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LATE and hearty suppers destroy multitudes, 
 either outright in a night, or ill the insidious prog- 
 ress of mouths and years. 
 
 FOB the fatuity of old age there is no cure, be- 
 cause the state of mind \vhich induced it has worked 
 organic changes in the brain ; lias, in a sense, 
 changed the nature of its substance, as life-long 
 scars are left as effects of wounds on the body. 
 
 BY the extravagant use of tea, many persons 
 pass their nights in restlessness and dreams, with- 
 out being aware of the cause of it. We advise 
 such to experiment on themselves, and omit the tea 
 altogether at supper, for a few times, and notice the 
 result. If you sleep better, it is clear that you 
 have been using too much tea, in quantity or 
 strength. 
 
 MY idea of a true man is, one who is prompted 
 to act right, when the moment for action arrives, 
 purely because it is right, and he loves right 
 acting. 
 
 THE best respirator in the world is, to shut your 
 mouth and go ahead ; the most efficient " shoulder 
 brace," is to hold up your head and march on; 
 while the most valuable general " supporter," and 
 the only one needed in nine cases out of ten, is to 
 make the patient go to work, and compel him to 
 live on his daily earnings.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 107 
 
 MEN and women, as " flat as a flounder," patronize 
 abdominal supporters, when the great mischief is, 
 they haven't anything to support. 
 
 THE effect of constipation is to thicken the blood, 
 to make it more impure ; hence more unfit for 
 healthful purposes. The more impure the blood 
 is, the thicker does it become, the slower is its 
 progress, and if nothing is done to alter this state 
 of things, stagnation and death take place. 
 
 OFTEN a child bears a striking resemblance to a 
 grandparent, without a lineament of parental fea- 
 ture. 
 
 WHATEVER you do, get enough sleep ; whatever 
 you do, take enough rest to restore the used ener- 
 gies of each preceding twenty-four hours ; if you 
 do not, you may escape for a few months, and if 
 possessing a good constitution, years may pass 
 away before any decided ill result forces itself on 
 your attention ; but rest assured, the time will 
 come, when the too often baffled system, like a 
 baffled horse, will refuse to work ; it will not take 
 prompt and sound sleep ; it will not be rested by 
 repose, and that irritating wakefulness will come 
 upon you, which philosophy cannot conquer, which 
 medicine cannot cure, and wasting by slow degrees 
 to skin and bone, rest is found only in the grave. 
 
 IN leaving church, shut your mouth and move 
 on.
 
 108 on. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MULTITUDES adopt certain habits of life, on tie 
 ground that they are healthy, because others are 
 healthy who have adopted them, not taking into 
 account the difference of constitution, and least of 
 aD, the difference of habits of life. 
 
 IT is an almost universal practice ibr persons who 
 travel, especially when children are along, to take 
 a variety of cakes and sweetmeats. We earnestly 
 warn our readers against the practice it is in 
 every way pernicious. Sweetmeats tempt the ap- 
 petite, induce thirst, which, when gratified, pro- 
 duces a sensation of fulness, and discomfort, and 
 crossness. It takes away the appetite of grown 
 persons, clogs the stomach, and deranges the whole 
 system. There is nothing better for children and 
 grown persons, than some crackers or cold bread, 
 with some slices of ham. If really hungry, these 
 will sustain nature, without being liable to the ob- 
 jections of sweetmeats. But for grown persons it 
 is far best not to eat anything at all while travelling, 
 except at regular meals. But if you are not sure 
 of at least a full half hour, for actual sitting at the 
 table, do not go to it. Take a sandwich, and 
 travel on. 
 
 ALL children, under five years of age, will be 
 made the better, healthier, happier, and more good- 
 natured, by an undisturbed sleep of one or two 
 hours in the forenoon.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 109 
 
 TRUE progress now consists in unlearning much 
 that is old, and in acquainting one's self with the 
 new, in order to be able to determine its worth. 
 
 WHEN a man finds out that his constitution is a 
 frail one, his wisest plan is to study its infirmities, 
 to find out its weak points, and like a beleaguered 
 general, the winner of a hundred victories, be 
 always on his guard as to those weak points. An 
 old hat is never made better by being banged 
 about, while by care it may be made to look re- 
 spectable for years longer. A worn-out horse ob- 
 tains no re-invigoration by hard usage. A man's 
 body, whether frail or strong, is made capable of 
 greater endurance by being well watched over. 
 
 THE soldier who would as lief fight under one 
 flag as another, is but a degree better than a traitor. 
 The politician who considers one party as good as 
 another, is but one remove from being a weight on 
 either. A physician who believes there is good in 
 all " pathies," and is ready to practise either, ac- 
 cording to the wishes of his patient, might just as 
 well close hia office ; while the religionist, who is 
 so liberal in his opinions, that he considers any 
 other Church as good as his own, is unworthy of 
 the denomination which has the misfortune to 
 claim him as a member. To be efficient anywhere, 
 we must be decided in sentiment as well as in 
 action.
 
 110 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THREE fourths of the lives lost on rail cars, in 
 motion, are of passengers who were not in their 
 proper positions meaning thereby, that they 
 should not only be in their seats, but keep their 
 heads and limbs inside the cars. 
 
 THE collections under the ends of the nails should 
 not be removed by anything harder than a brush or 
 a soft piece of wood ; nor should the nails be scraped 
 with a penknife or other metallic substance, as it 
 destroys the delicacy of their structure, and will at 
 length give them JIM unnatural thickness. We are 
 not favorably impressed as to the cleanliness of a 
 person who keeps his nails trimmed to the quick, 
 as it is often done to prevent dirt gathering there ; 
 whereas, if a margin were allowed, it would be an 
 index to the cleanliness of the hands, from which 
 the collections under the finger nails are made. 
 Leave a margin, then, and the moment you observe 
 that these collections need removal, you may know 
 that the hands need washing, when they and the 
 nails are both cleaned together. 
 
 EVERY grain of sand must be taken care of, or 
 I lie universe would dash to atoms; and so with the 
 little things of the body. 
 
 IP people will guzzle such villanous stuff as 
 castor oil and cod-liver oil, it may be well to know 
 that condensed milk is a very agreeable vehicle, 
 especially for children.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. Ill 
 
 IP we drink any thing at meals, it should be first 
 warmed. 
 
 ONLY nine persons out of a hundred are insane 
 from hereditary causes. 
 
 BE assured, ye poverty-stricken, that the neces- 
 sity of a vigilant activity is a happier inheritance 
 than that of piles of glittering, heart-hardening 
 gold. 
 
 TEMPERANCE, cleanliness, and industry ! This is 
 the hygiene of the Bible. A " patliy " as old as 
 the race. A system of medication applicable to all 
 climes and all constitutions ; always safe, always 
 efficient, and to which human sagacity, in the space 
 of six thousand years, has not added one radically 
 new idea. 
 
 THE safest plan is the best. This is as true in 
 medicine as in any other department of human 
 life. We had far rather allow a patient to die 
 without medicine, than kill him by an inopportune 
 dose. 
 
 IT is a cruelty to neglect the teeth of children. 
 
 NEVER send for any other than an educated phy- 
 sician, in any emergency, for with such only are 
 you in safe and efficient hands ; and if relief is 
 possible, he can give it. 
 
 SEA voyages much oftener accelerate than retard 
 the progress of consumption.
 
 112 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE first step towards ridding a house of bugs, 
 flies, rats, and reptiles is, to keep it scrupulously 
 clean, from cellar to garret. But there are multi- 
 tudes of housekeepers who are too lazy, ignorant, 
 or thoughtless to adopt this method. 
 
 IT is a great waste of lusciousness that fruits 
 and berries, in their natural state, are not made 
 the sole dessert at our meals, for three fourths of 
 the year; human enjoyment and health, and even 
 life, would be promoted by it. 
 
 LET everything about the sick be perfectly dry, 
 and scrupulously clean, with an orderly arrange- 
 ment of everything about the bed and room; bo 
 quiet in movement, cheerful in countenance, 
 prompt in action, with a plenty of pure air stead- 
 ily circulating. Have a large, high room, witli 
 windows facing the sun, for a greater part of the 
 day ; let the fireplace be always open ; remove all 
 bottles and other "signs" of physic; allow no stand- 
 ing liquids, not even pure water ; and have no 
 hanging garments about. As you love the invalid, 
 attend to these things. 
 
 LET man imitate the brute creation, by eating 
 only when he is hungry, and drinking only when 
 he is dry. 
 
 MANY have retired on a fortune, and died from lea- 
 of coming to want, and from having nothing to do.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 113 
 
 SOMETIMES the wisest of us will eat too much ; 
 for an occasional indiscretion of this kind, two 
 or three teaspoonfuls of strong vinegar afford re- 
 lief to some persons, but aggravate the evil in a 
 few. The better plan is, to take .a long, leisure 
 walk in the open air, with a pleasant associate. 
 Keep on walking until entire relief is experienced, 
 and eat no more of anything until next morning, so 
 as to allow the overtaxed stomach to recover its 
 tone, vigor, and elasticity. 
 
 IT is as true in medicine as it is in morals, the 
 knavish and the ignorant become fanatical, and 
 propagate their frenzies with an energy worthy 
 of a better cause. They summon both the ros- 
 trum and the press to aid them in their purposes ; 
 and anon, volunteers but a single remove from them 
 in intelligence crowd around, to repeat their er- 
 rors, retail their poisons, or disseminate their insane 
 productions. 
 
 IP grown persons will hold their nose and hold 
 their breath, they may swallow almost any inedi- 
 icine without scarcely tasting it. 
 
 LET the house of God and his worship have no 
 other associations in the minds of our children 
 than those of serenity, of calm devotion, and of 
 reverential awe. 
 
 BODILY activity and bodily health are insepara- 
 ble. 
 
 8
 
 114 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IN the estimation of the wisest of men, the dis 
 tance between a dinner of beefsteak and vegetables 
 was almost immeasurable; but between vegetables, 
 with lovingness, and a splendid repast, with a car- 
 ping, grumbling nature, there could be no compar- 
 ison, and he gladly chose the former. Let, then, the 
 snarling curs, fortunately met with only here and 
 there, make a note of this, if they can but know 
 their picture ; and remember, that to see no beau- 
 ty in any flower, to feel no warmth in any sun- 
 shine, to draw no lovingness from any smile, is, of 
 all temperaments, the most to be pitied, the worst 
 to be feared. 
 
 To all we say, and to invalids and sendentary 
 people especially, when not engaged in the actual 
 and serious business of life, be out and about; 
 sing, whistle, laugh, romp, run, jump, swim, row, 
 ride, do anything, rather than sit still within any 
 four walls, or lounge on a sofa, or doze in a chair, 
 or sleep over a dull book. Moderate and continu- 
 ous exercise in the open air is without a second, as 
 a means of health, both to the well and to the 
 sick. 
 
 ACTION is the universal law of animal life. There 
 is not a living thing, whether insect, or bird, or 
 beast, that will not pine and fall away, and perish, 
 under bodily restraint. Man himself is no excep 
 tion to the world-wide ordinance.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 115 
 
 THE march of improvement has of late years 
 manifested itself in almost every department of 
 human life, but none has been made to the old- 
 fashioned way of travel on horseback; for it is the 
 most instructive, and the most healthful, as well 
 as the most delightful of all. 
 
 CULTIVATE health and a good heart : for with 
 these you may be " comfortable " without a far- 
 thing ; without them, never 1 although you may 
 possess millions. 
 
 THE customs of a nation are the practical results 
 of the combined observation of that nation in the 
 course of generations, and, to a considerable extent, 
 are founded on common-sense principles, and are the 
 best under the circumstances. Hence every man, 
 however intelligent, should oppose a custom of the 
 country with great diffidence, and not without long 
 and deep investigation. 
 
 IT is so much easier to swallow drugs than to 
 make careful observations and self-denials, that 
 even intelligent people allow themselves to fall 
 helplessly into the arms of any transparent ignora- 
 mus who can muster the courage to write or speak 
 a deliberate and unblushing falsehood. 
 
 MULTITUDES there are, especially of young peo- 
 ple, who squander their money, and their more 
 precious time, in the purchase of trashy reading, 
 and mere animal indulgences, to end in premature 
 death.
 
 116 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 NINE tenths of all newspaper receipts in refer- 
 ence to health and disease are either untrue, use- 
 less, or pernicious ; hence, the whole of them, in 
 order to be on the safe side, should be discarded, 
 unless the name of a physician, or that of some re- 
 spectable medical journal, is attached. Editors of 
 newspapers, from their obliging disposition, are 
 often imposed upon by some weak or half-obser- 
 vant correspondent or subscriber. 
 
 THE greatest humanity we can show to the sick 
 is, to secure to them the most important remedies 
 ever known, to wit, quietness, cleanliness, and 
 pure air; these alone would cure three fourths of 
 all our diseases, but we will not use them ; yet 
 they are everywhere attainable, and cost nothing 
 but a little trouble. 
 
 A THOUSAND times better would it be for this 
 whole land if not an atom of food was ever allowed 
 to pass adult lips at a later hour than five o'clock in 
 the afternoon. Such a practice, habitually and liter- 
 ally adhered to, would save more lives every year 
 than are destroyed by steam, and sea, and all wars 
 together. 
 
 Do not force your children to take one single 
 mouthful of any food or drink which they do not 
 like. In sickness or health consult the instincts of 
 the appetite, and yield to them implicit and instant 
 obedience.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 117 
 
 THE frequent taking of any medicine to remove 
 costiveness does, at the most, only protract the 
 event making it, however, the more certain. 
 
 As to men, we say, when the hair begins to fall 
 out, the best plan is to have it cut short, give it a 
 good brushing with a moderately stiff brush while 
 the hair is dry, then wash it well with warm soap- 
 suds, then rub into the scalp, about the roots of the 
 hair, a little bay rum, or brandy, or camphor-water. 
 Do these things twice a month, but the brushing 
 of the scalp may be profitably done twice a week. 
 Dampen the hair with water every time the toilet 
 is made. Nothing ever made is better for the hair 
 than pure soft water, if the scalp is kept clean in 
 the way we have named. 
 
 MILTON'S blindness was the result of overwork 
 and dyspepsia. 
 
 ANY practice that makes a man feel better soon- 
 est is caught up with avidity, and lauded to the 
 skies, before time has been given to test the per- 
 manency of effect ; so, by the time the falsehood is 
 on its feet, and often before the ink is dry which 
 recorded it, the victim is in the grave, and can 
 never give the contradiction. 
 
 HE is the grandest man, who acts from principle 
 alone. He is pitiful, who does right from compul- 
 sion.
 
 118 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BALDNESS is considered a great calamity by 
 many. It is brought on in many cases by wearing 
 the hat too constantly, or by any other means 
 which keeps the head too warm. Another cause 
 of baldness is, the filthy practice of keeping the 
 hair soaked in various kinds of grease, or allowing 
 the scalp to remain unwashed for weeks and 
 months together. 
 
 To get well of any chronic disease, of a serious 
 character, and to remain cured, a man must be led 
 to see the nature of his own case, the needs and 
 requirements of his own constitution, and must 
 have that force of character which compels com- 
 pliance with those requisitions. As long as the 
 world stands, the ignoramus and the animal will die 
 before his time. Intelligent self-denial is the price 
 of health and long life the world over: it never 
 will be otherwise. 
 
 PEOPLE do not get sick without a cause, except 
 in rare cases ; and that cause is, very generally, 
 within themselves, resulting from inattention, ig- 
 norance, or recklessness, either on the part of 
 parents, teachers, or themselves. 
 
 IF any medicine is taken to regulate the diges- 
 tion, that medicine soon becomes necessary to that 
 regulation, and the man is doomed to make an 
 apothecary's shop of himself for the remainder oi 
 his life.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 119 
 
 A NAMED article may be given for a named dis- 
 ease or symptom, and that symptom may disappear 
 after it ; and yet the remedy may be of no more 
 value than a thimbleful of dust for the reason, 
 that the symptom in question may have disappeared 
 of itself, as millions of symptoms have done, with- 
 out any means whatever. 
 
 RIPE fruits and berries, slightly acid, will remove 
 the ordinary diarrhoeas of early summer. 
 
 COMMON rice, parched brown like coffee, and then 
 boiled and eaten in the ordinary way, without any 
 other food, is, with perfect quietude of body, one 
 of the most effective remedies for troublesome 
 looseness of bowels. 
 
 MULTITUDES think it a hard necessity to tug and 
 toil for daily bread, or that it should require their 
 undivided energies of body and mind in planning, 
 contriving, and laboring to maintain their position. 
 This is not a hard, but a happy necessity, as these 
 very activities are not only the preservatives of 
 body and mind, but are productive of those utilities 
 which hasten human progress, develop our powers, 
 elevate the people, and happify mankind. 
 
 WE need, ordinarily, seven hours of sleep in sum- 
 mer and eight in winter. 
 
 WE breathe in sleep about fifteen times every 
 minute.
 
 120 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THOSE parents who make the greatest slaves of 
 themselves for the benefit of their children, experi- 
 ence the least heart-comfort from those children in 
 after life ; while sons and daughters who have been 
 made to bear their fall ^hure of domestic cares, and 
 burdens, and trials, and labors, will grow up with 
 kind hearts and generous natures, making sympa- 
 thizing husbands, considerate wives, and benevolent 
 citizens. 
 
 EACH inhalation of pure air is returned loaded 
 with poison ; a hundred and fifty grains of it is 
 added to the atmosphere of a bedroom every hour, 
 or twelve hundred grains during a night. Unless 
 that poison-laden atmosphere is diluted or removed 
 by a constant current of air passing through the 
 room, the blood soon becomes impure, then circu- 
 lates sluggishly, accumulating and pressing on the 
 brain, giving rise to frightful dreams. 
 
 THE importance of wholesome water and good 
 sewerage to every single dwelling cannot be over- 
 estimated, and any city neglecting this vital matter 
 must expect to suffer at all times, and particularly 
 when an epidemic of any kind sweeps over the 
 country. 
 
 NEVER swallow an atom of food while in a pas- 
 sion, or if under any great mental excitement, 
 whether of a depressing or elevating character; 
 brutes won't do it.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 121 
 
 THERE are not a tew who estimate the measure 
 of their own wit and wisdom by the number of ob- 
 jections they can raise against what is claimed to 
 be new and useful. In their inordinate fear of be- 
 ing imposed upon, they run to the other extreme: 
 lot-getting that quite as great a wrong is done to 
 themselves and to society in opposing what is really 
 good, as in blindly advocating a mere pretence. 
 
 To be able to lie down at night and fall to sleep 
 within ten minutes, and to knoAv no dream or wak- 
 ing until the morning comes, ami then to bound out 
 of bed full of health, freshness, and good humor, is 
 a blessing well worthy the warmest outgushings of 
 a thankful heart towards Him who giveth us all 
 things richly to enjoy. 
 
 Do not allow yourself to read a moment in any 
 reclining position, whether in bed or on a sofa. 
 
 IT is not wise to attribute the inestimable bless- 
 ing of good health to any one particular observance 
 or habit ; nor on the other hand is it well to attrib- 
 ute ill health to any one cause, nor to consider a 
 return to gocd health as the result of the last thing 
 done. The tendency of a bad cold, if let alone and 
 not renewed, is to cure itself at the end of two 
 weeks, while the last of the dozen or two things 
 taken, or the last doctor called in, gets all the 
 credit, when it should have been given to Nature 
 hersel
 
 122 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN one man gets mad at the stupidity of 
 another, he calls him a goat, a goose, or an ass ; but 
 these much abused animals are respectable as to 
 their acquirements in the judicious treatment of 
 themselves when ailing, in comparison with the 
 masses of humanity. 
 
 THE Almighty governs the universe of mind like 
 that of matter, by fixed laws, and through their 
 legitimate operation does he intend to throw around 
 this world a chain of love, and draw it up to 
 heaven, to immortality, and eternal life ; nor does 
 he seemingly intend to do this himself; it appears 
 to be his plan to make his church, his children, 
 work their own passage across the sea of time, and 
 to help one another to attain a beatific state beyond 
 the boundaries of this present existence, for it is 
 expressly commanded to " work while it is day ; " 
 yet, at the same time, we are to be regarded as, in 
 a sense, " co-workers " with him in building up the 
 heavenly kingdom. 
 
 IF an action of the bowels does not occur at the 
 usual hour, eat not an atom until they do act, at 
 least for thirty-six hours ; meanwhile drink largely 
 of cold water or hot teas, and exercise in the open 
 air to the extent of a gentle perspiration, and keep 
 this up until things are righted : this one sugges- 
 tion, if practised, would save myriads of lives every 
 year, both in city and country.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 123 
 
 ALL infants and young children would die in a 
 very few weeks, if not allowed to eat anything 
 containing sugar, because they need the carbon of 
 the sugar to keep them warm ; their extravagant, 
 their insatiable fondness for everything sweet, is a 
 wise instinct of nature. If candies were used as 
 desserts in winter, and fruits and berries, in their 
 natural state, ripe, raw, and perfect in summer, to 
 the exclusion of pies, tarts, pastries, and puddings, 
 human life would be extended, and many dentists 
 would have to seek other occupations. 
 
 IF the bowels are loose, lie down in a warm bed, 
 remain there, and eat nothing until you are well. 
 
 THE great regulator of sleep is exercise ; it is the 
 best anodyne in the universe, and is the only one 
 that is always safe, always efficient, and always 
 wholesome and natural. If you cannot take much 
 exercise, take a little, and every second hour in- 
 crease the distance, and soon you will be able to 
 walk a mile more easily than you walked the first 
 hundred yards. 
 
 To all young persons, to students, to the seden- 
 tary, and to invalids, the fullest sleep that the sys- 
 tem will take, without artificial means, is the balm 
 of life without it there can be no restoration to 
 health and activity again. Never wake up the sick 
 or infirm, or young children of a morning it is a 
 barbarity ; let them wake of themselves.
 
 124 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A SCROFULOUS person should eat fresh meats 
 largely, and bread, and fruits, and berries of every 
 description, using vegetables sparingly. In short, 
 whatever promotes high bodily health, promotes 
 the eradication of a scrofulous taint ; hence, it is 
 the greatest wisdom on the part of those who are 
 scrofulous, to study how and what gives to them 
 the greatest general good health, and to live ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 THE three best medicines in the world are 
 warmth, abstinence, and repose. 
 
 A GOOD dinner, with an entire " abandon " of 
 thought, renovates and renews both mind and body. 
 This is a clear proof that thought produces waste, 
 as well as physical exertion ; it also shows the fal- 
 lacy, the mischievous fallacy, of a certain class of 
 persons, who have forced themselves on the public 
 as their teachers, that students do not require as 
 substantial food as do common workmen. If great 
 thinkers do not eat and digest substantial beef and 
 bread, they will soon cease to shine as lights in the 
 world of mind. 
 
 I LABOR for the good time coming, when sickness 
 and disease, except congenital, or from accident, 
 will be regarded as the result of ignorance or ani- 
 malism, and will degrade the individual, in the esti 
 mation of the good, as much as drunkenness now 
 does.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 125 
 
 WHEN will intelligent men learn to think for 
 themselves, and cease to place their own lives and 
 health, and those of their families and friends, in 
 the hands of the specious, reckless, and unprinci- 
 pled charlatan? 
 
 IT is the irrational dread of taking cold, by going 
 out of doors, which kills nine consumptives out of 
 ten, lar sooner than the disease itself would have 
 done. If any man, sick or well, wants an infallible 
 receipt for getting into that unfortunate condition 
 in which " the slightest tnmg r +he world gives 
 him a cold," let him hover around trie fire all day, 
 let him bundle up, head and ears, every time he 
 puts his head out at a door or window, and, besides, 
 keep his room regulated to a degree, for months at 
 a tune. Such a person never can get well of any- 
 thing; such a person, with such habits persevered 
 in, will die long before his time, it matters not what 
 may be his ailment. 
 
 THE best servants are those who are sternly held 
 up to the fullest performance of their duty. But, 
 while we do this, we should be considerate in our 
 requirements, courteous in our bearing towards 
 them, and prompt in our payments. 
 
 EVERY man owes it to society to become rich, for 
 the poor man's advice is never heeded, let ?t be 
 ever so valuable.
 
 126 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE prejudices against calomel have arisen from 
 its indiscriminate and careless use. In precisely 
 the same manner have prejudices quite as strong 
 arisen against the use of tea and coffee, and roast 
 beef and fruits. 
 
 THE accomplished geologist, while travelling over 
 barren wastes and rocky hills to explore some dis- 
 tant golden district, can make every pebble and 
 every lump of earth minister to his instruction and 
 amusement, without its at all interfering with the 
 main object of his journey ; just so may a man's 
 mind be so well stored with intelligent information 
 on the subject of health, and the general laws of 
 life, that observations may be made on these every 
 hour of his waking existence almost, with pleasure 
 and with profit, without at all interfering with the 
 main business of life, and also without having any 
 undesirable influence on mind or body ; for he may 
 do this without being forever engaged in looking 
 out for symptoms, aggravating those present or 
 imagining those which are not. 
 
 A GREAT many jokes are cracked at the expense 
 of the doctors, and at the expense of the reputation 
 for intellect of those who crack them ; for a mo- 
 ment's consideration would teach any one, that it 
 is to the doctor's interest to keep the patient alive 
 as long as possible, for as long as the patient lives 
 he pays.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 127 
 
 PERSONS may outgrow disease, and become 
 healthy, by proper attention to the laws of their 
 physical constitutions. By moderate and daily ex- 
 ercise, men may become active and strong in limb 
 and muscle. 
 
 A. MAN who has so much of the milk of human 
 kindness in him, as never to be able to refuse a 
 friend a dollar or an indorsement, inevitably comes 
 out at the little end of the horn ; is beggared. The 
 miser often clutches so closely, as to lose all. 
 
 IN small quantities, and occasionally, many things 
 may be eaten with advantage, which, if eaten con- 
 tinuously for weeks and months, or in inordinate 
 amounts, would occasion serious results. 
 
 NOT only the body, but the mind and the heart, 
 become diseased by giving loose to the imagina- 
 tion ; in this very way was it that men were once 
 led into heathenism. 
 
 IT is said to have been satisfactorily demonstrated 
 that every time a wife scolds her husband she adds 
 a new wrinkle to her face. It is thought that the 
 announcement of this fact will have a most salutary 
 effect, especially as it is understood that every time 
 a wife smiles on her husband it will remove one of 
 the old wrinkles. 
 
 WHATEVER promotes a comfortable and harmless 
 state of the mind, promotes health.
 
 128 DR. HALL'S MAXTMS. 
 
 MEN consume too much food and too little pure 
 air; they take too much medicine and too little 
 exercise. 
 
 A DAILY action of the bowels is essential to good 
 health under all circumstances ; the want of it en- 
 genders the most painful and fatal diseases. Nature 
 prompts this action with great regularity, most 
 generally after breakfast. 
 
 I, AS a world's wanderer, found out a long time 
 ago, that very often the best side of a bed was the 
 outside. 
 
 No man knows that he is not a knave until he is 
 " broke," until he has failed in business. It is com- 
 paratively easy to be honest when surrounded with 
 abundance, when there are no real, strong tempta- 
 tions to be otherwise. 
 
 IP we would eat but half as much in early spring, 
 the blood, which bracing winter bequeaths in per- 
 fect purity to spring, would remain pure ; or if, in 
 default of this precaution, when we find ourselves 
 ill, we would diminish our food within proper bounds 
 forthwith, and take large amounts of daily pleasur- 
 able exercise in the open air, not involving fatigue, 
 the blood would purify itself in Nature's own safe, 
 harmless, and beneficent way, just as certain us ;i 
 clear running spring will purify itself after disturb- 
 ance if it is only let alone.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 129 
 
 SPEAKING of changing the clothing, we consider 
 it, hazardous to lessen its amount after dressing in 
 the morning, unless active exercise is taken im- 
 mediately. No under-garment should be changed 
 for lighter ones during the day ordinarily. The 
 best, safest, and most convenient time for lessening 
 the clothing is in the morning, when we first dress 
 for the day. 
 
 PATENT medicines are temporary in their effects ; 
 they alleviate or smother, instead of eradicating 
 disease. 
 
 How illy Nature bears the sudden arrest of some 
 of her operations, is strikingly exemplified in the 
 fact, that if the blandest of all liquids, lukewarm 
 milk, is injected into a blood-vessel against the cur- 
 rent, instant death may result, but if introduced 
 gently in the direction of the current, it is borne 
 with impunity. 
 
 WARTS. If a bit of soft wood is chewed a little 
 at one end, so as to make it brushy, and is then 
 dipped into aqua-fortis or nitric acid, and rubbed 
 lightly on the wart, so as to rub it in, it will dis- 
 appear in a few days ; the same is efficacious if ap- 
 plied to the warts on horses ; some advise that the 
 wart be shaved first, but we instinctively shudder 
 at the idea, because warts, like corns, havo been 
 sometimes made to bleed excessively, causing lock- 
 jaw and death. 
 
 9
 
 130 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MORAL philosophers live longer than any other 
 class of men, showing the influence which the pre- 
 vailing state of the mind has on the human health. 
 
 VERY many diseases are laid at the door of " the 
 weather." It is the want of weather which brings 
 multitudes in our larger cities to an untimely 
 grave. 
 
 THIS working for others, how it wakes up the 
 pulses of the heart, how it imparts health to the 
 body, and happiness to the mind 1 A long lease of 
 life will be given as the earthly reward of such in 
 dustries. 
 
 TAPE-WORMS come from eating measly meat. 
 There are no worms in healthy beef. Persons who 
 eat dried beef are liable to become wormy, unless 
 it is thoroughly cooked. No American ever thinks 
 of eating any form of hog flesh without its having 
 been first well cooked ; but many eat chipped beef, 
 which often has the germ of the tape-worm : this 
 chipped beef has never been cooked, but only 
 salted, and then dried and placed on the table as a 
 relish ; this should never be done until it has been 
 thoroughly cooked. 
 
 PADS and supporters are all pernicious, are worse 
 than useless, because they teach the system to rely 
 on them, and cannot support one part of the body 
 without causing an unnatural strain on some othar 
 part, and, to that extent, tend to disease that part.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 131 
 
 IP liquor fattens, why is it that we see so many 
 spindle-shanked drunkards ? 
 
 THERE is only one antidote to life's disappoint- 
 ments, and that is to accustom the mind to look for- 
 ward to the end, to the great fact of one anticipa- 
 tion that can never fail of realization, and which is 
 so stupendous in its nature, so resplendent, that all 
 other desires and expectations pale away in utter 
 insignificance ; and that is a well-grounded hope 
 that when the mortal body is laid in the grave, the 
 immortal part, the man himself, shall pass into an 
 immortal existence, to dwell forever in the bosom 
 of the great Father of us all. 
 
 To be truly happy, a man must be healthy and 
 good ; a sick man may be happy in some transient 
 moods of mind, but this is of short duration. To 
 have a sustained happiness, to have in the main, 
 from day to day, a life of sunshine, good health is 
 indispensable. But if a man is sick in body, and 
 unhappy in his mind, how then ? Procure a constant 
 occupation, in which you take a pleasurable interest, 
 while you are reasonably sure that you are ac- 
 complishing your object. If this is an out-door oc- 
 cupation, success is the more speedy and certain. 
 It ought always to be borne in mind, that whatever 
 is done for the health, will be many fold more effi- 
 cient if aii object is kept in view, so absorbing, that 
 the health part is kept completely out of sight.
 
 132 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ONE of the greatest physiological crimes of our 
 country is, that its people do not get rest enough, 
 do not sleep enough. 
 
 THE living great should always bear in mind that 
 the truth of history demands a faithful portraiture 
 after they have left the stage of life. 
 
 NIGHTMARE is caused by remaining so long in one 
 position that the blood ceases to circulate. 
 
 IP " bitters " aid digestion, why is it that those 
 who take them all the time are never well ? 
 
 A HEALTHY fool is happier than a sick Solomon. 
 If a person has thirty or forty years to live, it is 
 surely better to eat regularly the best things, and 
 pass those years in a happy exemption from sick- 
 ness and suffering, than to eat anything and every- 
 thing, at any time and every time that suits our 
 convenience and our whims. The man who eats 
 heartily three times a day without any unpleasant 
 reminder afterwards, is amply repaid for the effort 
 it may at times cost him to have regular meals, or 
 the self-denial which he may practise in waiting for 
 his regular dinner-time. The great general rule 
 for all, especially for women and those who live in- 
 doors most of the time, is, eat nothing whatever 
 between meals, have an interval of not less than 
 five hours between each meal, and let the last meal 
 of the day be about sundown, and let it consist of 
 some cold bread and butter and a cup of hot tea.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 133 
 
 ALL garments worn next the skin during the day 
 should be removed at night, and spread out for 
 thorough airing and drying 
 
 IP a man is deprived of sunlight, he fades away 
 like a flower without water, and always comes to an 
 untimely grave. 
 
 IT is nothing short of a cruelty and a murder to 
 allow school children to sit up late at night, or to 
 hurry them from their beds in the morning. 
 
 AN erect gait gives to a woman a queenly ap- 
 pearance, and to men an air of manliness, integrity, 
 and fearlessness. To bend forward or downward 
 while walking indicates debility, depression, or 
 mental trouble, and always aggravates itself and 
 promotes disease. 
 
 FOOD feeds the body, thought feeds the brain, 
 and fertilizers feed the soil. The better the food, 
 the better the thought ; the better the fertilizers, 
 the more vigorous does the body become, the 
 greater the activity of the mind, and the higher 
 productiveness is there in the soil. By the better 
 living of the last half century, ten years have been 
 added to the average of human existence in civil 
 ized lands. 
 
 HE, and he only, is safe from a drunkard's death, 
 who never tastes a drop of anything that can 
 intoxicate.
 
 134 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 No one should write when very hungry, or 
 immediately after eating, nor under the influence 
 of any unnatural stimulant, nor while in a passion ; 
 else, in this latter case, he will most certainly make 
 a fool of himself. Those who write under a de- 
 pression of spirits, will always write nonsense, or 
 untrue things. Those who write a great deal late 
 at night, will lose their health or die prematurely. 
 The best time for writing with freshness, vigor, and 
 logical truthfulness is in the morning, when the 
 brain has been recuperated and renovated by the 
 natural stimulus of healthful sleep, before its force 
 has been expanded or divided on the common 
 affairs of life. No man ought to write over four 
 hours in twenty-four, nor over one hour at a sit- 
 ting; even oftener, it would be better to walk a 
 few minutes, indoor or out, to rest the brain ; but 
 always write when the mind takes hold of the sub- 
 ject, when the spirit is on you, be it day or night. 
 
 EVERY intelligent person owes it to himself to 
 learn from his family physician how to ascertain 
 the pulse in health ; then, by comparing it with 
 what it is when ailing, he may have some idea of 
 the urgency of his own case, and it will be an im- 
 portant guide to the physician. Parents ought to 
 know the healthy pulse of each child. 
 
 CULTIVATE an equable temper ; many a man has 
 fallen dead in a fit of passion.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 135 
 
 To prevent a man from getting sick, is a more 
 glorious mission than to cure him. The parent, 
 the teacher, the minister, these are the parties who 
 are to cooperate in raising sons and daughters of 
 robust health, and cultivated intellect, and edu- 
 cated consciences, to occupy the responsible posi- 
 tions of a coming age. 
 
 NEVER reflect on a past action, which was done 
 with a good motive and with the best judgment at 
 the time. 
 
 ILL health is the most prominent cause of insanity, 
 induced by insufficient exercise, intemperance, 
 over-eating, and yielding to trouble, care, and men- 
 tal anxiety ; the always certain remedy against 
 these being a more general cultivation of out-door 
 activities, a greater attention to stirring business, 
 giving preference to those occupations which are 
 congenial, absorbing, and encouragingly remunera- 
 tive. 
 
 HE is a madman who disinherits his wife if she 
 marries again ; and madder than all these, are they 
 who live here, as if there were no hereafter. 
 
 LET your appetite always come uninvited. 
 
 NEITHER poverty, hardships, nor exposures tend 
 to lengthen life ; they always shorten the average 
 of life by many years, except in those few cases 
 where there are counteracting conditions.
 
 136 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE is scarcely an ache or pain in the whole 
 body which is not soothed or removed by hot water, 
 if applied as follows: Dip a piece of flannel (or 
 any cloth), of five or six folds or layers, in boiling 
 water, and lay it on the painful part, covering it 
 instantly with a dry flannel, whose edges extend 
 over the wet one an inch or more ; as soon as the 
 wet flannel has dried a little, say in five minutes or 
 less, slip it out under one edge of the dry cloth, 
 and introduce another flannel as hot as can be 
 handled ; do this in so adroit a manner as to allow 
 as little cold air as possible to get to the skin 
 touched by the hot flannel ; keep on thus, until the 
 pain or other suffering is removed ; the most violent 
 dry, and distressing coughs are thus loosened in a 
 few minutes by this hotxvvater poultice being ap- 
 plied to the throat and upper part of the chest ; if 
 done adroitly, the worst forms of croup in children 
 are so subdued in half an hour that the child, 
 which was almost gasping for breath, perspires, its 
 cough loosens, and it falls asleep. 
 
 SKATING has all the enlivening influences of dan- 
 cing, and none of its necessary immoralities ; with 
 the incalculable advantage of securing the breath- 
 ing of a pure and invigorating out-door air, instead 
 of the stifling heat and dust of the ball-room. 
 
 A PIG will not eat when he is not hungry. Why 
 should we ?
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 137 
 
 WHOEVER drinks no liquids at meala,.will add 
 years of pleasurable existence to his life. Of cold 
 or warm drinks, the former are most pernicious; 
 drinking at meals induces persons to eat more than 
 they otherwise would, as any one can verify by 
 experiment, and it is excess in eating which devas- 
 tates the land with sickness, suffering, and death. 
 
 NIGHT is the time for rest, and both body and 
 brain, especially as to students, require all the sleep 
 the system will take ; they ought never to be waked 
 up ; Nature will infallibly do that when she has had 
 her fill, and to shorten sleep, is to shorten life ; half 
 the time of daylight is as long as any man ought to 
 spend in hard study. 
 
 THEY are wisest who, when really ailing, do 
 nothing on their own responsibility, but promptly 
 consult a physician. 
 
 " THROW physic to the dogs ! " was a wise injunc- 
 tion. 
 
 HALF the men don't deserve wives, and yet they 
 are the very ones who get the best. 
 
 MARRY into a different blood and temperament 
 from your own. 
 
 No reformation can be relied on which is not 
 founded on intelligence, associated with a stern 
 religious principle.
 
 138 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IN recovering from any form of disease, keep 
 abundantly and comfortably warm. Studiously 
 avoid taking cold. Watch against over-exercise 
 for several days or weeks. Eat very moderately, 
 and at regular intervals, of plain, nourishing i'ood. 
 If these four things are observed, relapses would 
 be rare, and the patient would be saved ; the most 
 difficult of the four is, to avoid eating too much ; 
 there is special danger of yielding to a craving for 
 some particular kind of i'ood. 
 
 SLEEPING-ROOMS should be selected in such parts 
 of the house as have the most benefit from the rays 
 of the sun; the bed and bed-clothes should be 
 thoroughly aired, and kept in the sun as long as 
 possible every day. Many of the sleeping-rooms in 
 our hotels are so situated as never to feel the influ- 
 ence of the sun's rays, and those who occupy such 
 rooms for any length of time are simply committing 
 suicide. 
 
 ALL forms of exercise may be made hurtful by 
 iujudiciousness ; if we take from our children all 
 recreations which may be abused, we sign their 
 death warrant. Exercise, activity, locomotion, are 
 to the young a necessity, and it is our wisdom 
 to multiply all those pastimes which encourage 
 bodily out-door activities, promote the circulation 
 of the blood, the exhilaration of the animal spirits, 
 and the enlivenment of the mind.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 139 
 
 No man can study advantageously all the time : 
 there must be some relaxation, or the brain will 
 become disorganized, or otherwise hopelessly dis- 
 eased. No man ought to study hard on one subject 
 more than four hours a day, and give ten hours to 
 purposes of dressing, sleeping, and eating, leaving 
 ten hours for mental recreation, that is, mental rest, 
 which is done in two ways: first, engaging the 
 mind int hinking about something else that is, 
 putting other organs of the brain to work ; second, 
 engaging in muscular motion, which does good in 
 two ways it works out of the system the waste 
 particles made by hard thought, and thus purifies 
 the blood, fitting it for building up the brain, repair- 
 ing its wastes, making it ready for new work. 
 
 Do nothing remedially without your doctor's 
 consent. 
 
 IF we eat just enough, both mind and body are 
 invigorated ; if we eat too little, both become weak 
 and faint the body trembles, the mind is ineffi- 
 cient ; if we eat too much, the stomach cannot 
 eliminate the material which is to give out a pure 
 carbon, and it then gives out an impure article. 
 and mind and body are oppressed ; the former 
 loses its activity, the latter its vigor. 
 
 LET every man watch over his habits ; cultivate 
 those which are good, break off from those which 
 in the end destroy both body and soul.
 
 140 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LITERARY and professional men maintain an idle 
 theory when they consider every moment lost 
 which is not employed in reading, writing, or in- 
 vestigation ; it is loss of time, in the long run, 
 which should alarm the individual ; it is the cur- 
 tailment of human life for ten, twenty, and even 
 thirty years, which should startle the mind, and 
 lead to a wiser way of life. Whoever indulges in 
 brain-work over four hours a day habitually, does 
 in proportion shorten his life, or at least shortens 
 the term of his usefulness : this is a great general 
 rule, to which there may be some exceptions ; but 
 let the reader take it for granted that he is not 
 one of those exceptions ; on the contrary, what- 
 ever of time spent in muscular activities, beyond 
 the four hours of brain-work, adds that much to 
 the probabilities of a longer life, and a life, too, of 
 greater efficiency. 
 
 THERE are pulses all over the body, but where 
 there is only skin and bone, as at the temples, it is 
 more easily felt ; the wrist is the most convenient 
 point. The feebleness or strength of the beats is 
 not material, being modified by the fingers' pres- 
 sure. 
 
 COOL off in a place greatly warmer than the one 
 in which you have be'en exercising : this simple 
 rule would prevent incalculable sickness, and save 
 millions of lives every year.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 141 
 
 Do not go a skating, if the thermometer has 
 fallen to twenty degrees Fahrenheit; nor if it has 
 fallen to thirty, and a cold, raw, damp wind pre- 
 vails. Do not be on skates longer than an hour at 
 a time. The moment you cease skating, go to the 
 file and rest; but while on the ice, keep in active 
 motion. When you start home, walk, by all means, 
 at least half a mile ; thus the circulation of the 
 blood will be equalized, and chilliness will be 
 avoided. Take an extra coat or cloak, to be laid 
 aside when you commence skating, and to be re- 
 sumed the moment you cease. 
 
 A PALATABLE and safe summer drink for out- 
 door workers, is water of the natural temperature, 
 sweetened with molasses. All root beers are per- 
 nicious ; for, being without appreciable nutriment, 
 they cannot add to the strength of the body, and 
 their value is deceptive. 
 
 A SLEEPING apartment should be always on the 
 sunny or southern side, for then it will be dry, and 
 warm, and cheerful ; there is superabundance of 
 life in it. 
 
 PEACE promotes science, art, mechanism, and the 
 accumulation of large fortunes ; while the increased 
 thrift which long peace gives any community af- 
 fords the members of it more time for reflection, 
 and for the contemplation of the highest truths 
 which can engage the human mind.
 
 142 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN clergymen break down, or public men, or 
 professors in colleges, or other literary institutions, 
 get sick and die, the universal cry is, " over-study," 
 " too much responsibility," " too much mental ap- 
 plication." It is never so ; not in a single case 
 since the world began ; we defy proof, and will 
 open our pages to any authenticated case. If a 
 man will give himself sleep enough, and will eat 
 enough nutritious food at proper intervals, and 
 will spend two or three hours in the open air every 
 day, he may study, and work, and write until he 
 is as gray as a thousand rats, and will be still 
 young in mental vigor and clearness. Where is 
 the man of renown who lived plainly, regularly, 
 temperately, and died early ? 
 
 THE mind can kill the body. Remorse for wrong- 
 doing has laid many a victim in the grave. There 
 are mental tortures more terrible than the gallows 
 or the guillotine. Many a man walks the earth a 
 living skeleton, because the fires of memory are 
 eating him up, and for such things there is no cure 
 this side of the grave. Prevention is the great 
 wisdom, and youth the time for its application. 
 The rules of conduct should be, Act deliberately, 
 do nothing for revenge, perish rather than wrong 
 another. 
 
 EAT regularly, not over thrice a day, and noth 
 ing between meals.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 143 
 
 MANY a man who has been complaining for months 
 of being sick, and has fallen into laziness and dis- 
 couragement, would get well in a week, if he was 
 only put in the way of making money largely as 
 to him ; that is, five dollars a day to one who never 
 earned but two, and a hundred to another who 
 never earned but ten. Then, again, it is an ad- 
 ditional element of success, if there is an intelli- 
 gent or scientific interest in the method. 
 
 LIFE is chemical operation, death is the absence 
 of it. Every breath of the blessed out-door air 
 drawn into our lungs is full freighted with oxygen ; 
 this oxygen comes in all its purity and plenteous- 
 ness from the sun. In every ray of sunlight there 
 are several colors ; one of these is yellow, and 
 through its operation on the world about us oxy- 
 gen is derived. 
 
 To work hard, get rich, and die prematurely, is 
 the sad history of millions. To work hard, accu- 
 mulate money, and live healthily and long, is the 
 glad record of the few. 
 
 CRUELTY to faithful and sagacious animals is one 
 of the meanest and cowardliest of crimes. 
 
 IT is well to give mad animals, as well as mad 
 men, a wide berth. 
 
 Go to bed at regular hours. Get up as soon as 
 you wake of yourself.
 
 144 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 To be safe from a meaner fate than that of a 
 thief, never use one cent of another's money with- 
 out the explicit consent of the owner. 
 
 To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at 
 hours of meat, sleep, and exercise, is one of the 
 best precepts for long lasting. As for the passions 
 and studies of the mind, avoid envy, envious fears, 
 anger, fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisi- 
 tions, joy and exhilarations in excess, sadness not 
 communicated. Entertain hopes ; mirth rather 
 than joy ; variety of delights rather than surfeit of 
 them ; wonder and admiration, and therefore novel- 
 ties ; studies that fill the mind with splendid and 
 illustrious objects as histories, fables, and con- 
 templations of nature. 
 
 READER, study the laws of life and health, and 
 obey them, and you will soon be able to snap your 
 fingers at the doctors. 
 
 THERE is reason to believe that more cases of 
 dangerous and fatal disease are gradually en- 
 gendered annually by the habit of sleeping in 
 small, unventilated rooms, than have occurred from 
 a cholera atmosphere during any year since it made 
 its appearance in this country. 
 
 SOON after a meal is eaten, the temperature of 
 the stomach is slightly increased, digestion goes on 
 healthily and well, and in four or five hours the 
 stomach is empty again.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 145 
 
 A CLEAN tooth does not decay. Acids, sour 
 fruits, always injure the teeth instantly; sweets 
 never do ; without them, children would die, hence 
 their insatiable instincts for sugar. If a tooth 
 powder was never used, the teeth would not be so 
 white ; but kept perfectly clean, would last for life. 
 
 " PICKING the ears " is a most mischievous prac- 
 tice ; in attempting to do this with hard substances 
 an unlucky motion has many a time pierced the 
 drum and made it useless; nothing sharper or 
 harder than the end of the little finger, with the 
 nail paired, ought ever to be introduced into the 
 ear, unless by a physician. 
 
 HE who attempts to elevate himself by the de- 
 pression of his own class, calling, or profession, lacks 
 the true ring of a noble nature. 
 
 OUR modes of life must be adapted to our age, 
 our occupation, and the peculiarities of our consti 
 tution. There are certain general principles which 
 are applicable to all. Every man should be regular 
 in his habits of eating ; should have all the sound 
 sleep which nature will take ; should be in the open 
 air an hour or two every day, when practicable, and 
 should have a pleasurable and an encouragingly re- 
 munerative occupation. 
 
 IT is worth the effort of a lifetime to be able to 
 die well ; to die without pain, and in a well-grounded 
 hope of happiness beyond. 
 10
 
 146 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A GOOD wife is the greatest earthly blessing. A 
 man is what his wife makes him. It is the mother 
 who moulds the character and destiny of the child. 
 
 IT is a melancholy thing to knoAv that so many 
 of our young ladies of the fashionable world should 
 be given to the habit of painting their faces at all ; 
 but especially of using dangerous poisons, and 
 jeoparding their lives and health for the sake of 
 producing a little higher color on their cheeks, or 
 a little darker eyebrows. Young ladies, you are 
 injuring your health by the use of these poisonous 
 cosmetics, and you deceive nobody. You make as 
 great fools of yourselves as do the old men who 
 dye their beards and hair. 
 
 OUR theory of cure is, never to need it. So live, 
 that you will never be sick. It is far easier to do 
 this, than it is to cure you after you have lost your 
 health. 
 
 THE tyranny which the dread of bad marks and 
 failures exercises on the mind of the children of the 
 public schools is not merely severe, it is terrible ; 
 but we see no hope of a change until the parents 
 become wise enough to care at least as much for 
 the welfare of their children at school as for their 
 canary bird*, horses, cats, and poodle dogs. 
 
 ANT kind of fluid largely taken at a meal, or soon 
 after, is positively injurious to health.
 
 mi. HALL'S MAXIMS. 147 
 
 IT is said of Americans that they make great fools 
 of themselves in very many cases, seeming to think 
 that the more money they spend the more considera- 
 tion will be shown them by servants, chamber- 
 maids, bootblacks and the like ; hence they affect first- 
 class hotels, first-class seats in railway cars, and first- 
 class everything. The experience of many travellers 
 is, that there is more comfort and better attention 
 to be had at second rate hotels than at those which 
 are termed first rate. 
 
 ALL should remember that not the least important 
 requisite for a traveller is a ready stock of good tem- 
 per and forbearance. Good humor will procure more 
 comforts than gold. 
 
 REST from care, from business anxiety, from dress 
 and the needle, from the conventionalities of society, 
 these are what city people need during summer, and 
 they most certainly are not to be had at the seaside 
 or the spa. 
 
 THE best possible thing for a man to do, when he 
 feels too tired to perform a task, or too weak to carry 
 it through, is to go to bed and sleep. 
 
 DIVORCE, neglect of marriage, and prevention of 
 offspring, are crimes against society, humanity, and 
 God ; and the only efficient prevention of these 
 mischievous practices is in the becoming more im- 
 bued with the principles inculcated in the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments, and this must, bo 
 begun in the very early life of the child.
 
 148 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IT is a good omen that intelligent, reflecting, and 
 humane teachers, in different parts of the country, 
 are beginning to make personal health one of the 
 branches of an elementary education. Is it not 
 wonderful that more efficient steps have not been 
 taken in that direction long ago ? 
 
 IP you are very warm, perspiring profusely, and 
 are, very properly, afraid of cooling off too quickly, 
 fill a basin three parts full of warm water, and pad- 
 dle the hands in and out ; the layer of water touch- 
 ing the skin is converted into steam the moment 
 the hand is out of the water, thus causing a rapid 
 carrying off of heat by evaporation ; such an opera- 
 tion is perfectly delightful when the feet and hands 
 are dry and hot, or are burning with fever. 
 
 INFANTILE vaccination is an almost perfect safe- 
 guard until the fourteenth year. Let every youth 
 be re-vaccinated on entering fourteen. Let several 
 attempts be made, so as to be certain of safety. 
 
 To meet at the breakfast table father, mother, 
 children, all well, ought to be a happiness to any 
 heart ; it should be a source of humble gratitude, 
 and should wake up the warmest feelings of our 
 nature. Shame upon the contemptible and low- 
 bred cur, whether parent or child, who can ever 
 come to the breakfast table, where all the family 
 have met in health, only to frown, whine, growl, 
 and fret.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 149 
 
 DID you ever think of the number of people who 
 are making their living out of those who are either 
 sick, or who imagine that they are ? The doctors, 
 regular and irregular, the quacks and druggists, 
 wholesale and retail? and of the immense quantity 
 of trash that is daily gulped down by gullible peo- 
 ple? The amount of money which is paid for 
 medicines in any one day in the city of New York 
 would pay the expense of all of her public schools 
 for a whole year ! and for all the good that comes 
 from it, nine tenths of it might as well be thrown 
 into the river. 
 
 YOUNG man, " stick to the last." Stick to your 
 business; the business you were brought up to. 
 If, in looking around you, you see others seemingly 
 getting on faster than you are, don't blame your 
 business ; it is not the fault of your business, if it 
 is legitimate and useful ; the fault is in yourself; 
 put more energy into it. Let the people know that 
 you are living ; let the people know what you are 
 doing, where you do it, and that you do it well. 
 We really do not know of any business, useful in 
 itself, that will not make a man rich in a large city, 
 or even a small one, if he follows it well and keeps 
 at it, for every day makes him more a master of 
 his calling ; and remember, if you can't succeed in 
 a calling which you know all about, how is it possi 
 ble for you to succeed in one which you know 
 nothing about?
 
 150 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS, 
 
 THEY who marry for physical characteristics, will 
 fail of happiness ; they who marry for traits of mind 
 and heart, will never fail of perennial springs of 
 domestic enjoyment. 
 
 THE instant a person is known to have swallowed 
 poison by design or accident, give water to drink, 
 cold or warm, as fast as possible, a gallon or more 
 at a time, and as fast as vomited drink more ; tepid 
 water is best, as it opens the pores of the skin and 
 promotes vomiting, and thus gives the speediest 
 cure to the poisonous article. If pains begin to be 
 felt in the bowels, it shows that part at least of the 
 poison has passed downwards ; then large and re- 
 peated injections of tepid water should be given, 
 the object in both cases being to dilute the poison 
 as quickly and as largely as possible. Do not wait 
 for warm water take that which is nearest at 
 hand, cold or warm, for every second of time saved 
 is of immense importance ; at the same time send 
 instantly for a physician, and as soon as he comes, 
 turn the case into his hands, telling him what you 
 have done. This simple fact cannot be too widely 
 published ; it is not meant to say that drinking a 
 gallon or two of simple water will cure every case 
 of poisoning, but it will cure many, and benefit all 
 by its rapidly-diluting quality. 
 
 EVERY man ought to have his family physician, 
 just as every man has his lawyer, tailor, or cobbler.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 151 
 
 A LARGE number of persons evidently consump- 
 tive, will be found on inquiry to have had a hus- 
 band, wile, sister, or child to have died of that 
 disease. Statistics seem to show that a wife whose 
 husband is consumptive, is more liable to consump- 
 tive disease than a healthy husband with a con- 
 sumptive wife ; the reason of this, if true, will sug- 
 gest itself to the thoughtful. 
 
 IF a man is fat or lean, and feels well, having all 
 the bodily functions acting regularly, with sound 
 sleep and no discomfort after eating, he should by 
 all means let himself alone. 
 
 THE acquisition of knowledge is a bliss to chil- 
 dren, only make the idea plain, and its reception 
 easy. 
 
 IT is positively dangerous to wash the face in 
 cold water when much heated. It is not danger- 
 ous, but pleasantly efficacious, if warm water is 
 used. 
 
 IP a lamp or caudle, or a very little fire is kept 
 burning in a fireplace at night, a draught is created 
 up the chimney, by which the foulest air in the 
 room is carried out with great rapidity. 
 
 15 RANDY kills multitudes every year who enjoyed 
 perfect health before they began to use it ; hence 
 it would seem fair to infer that it will kill the sick 
 much more speedily.
 
 152 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IN riding in vehicles it is safer to raise the front 
 glasses instead of those at the side or in the rear. 
 
 THOSE who take anodynes to promote sleep, in- 
 stead of procuring it by moderate bodily activities 
 in the open air, make a dangerous experiment. 
 
 AFTER a child is three months old, it should not 
 be allowed to sleep in the same bed with its moth- 
 er, but in a crib at the bedside, where it should be 
 put immediately after each nursing ; both mother 
 and child will sleep better for this arrangement. 
 Sometimes children seem to be cured of summer 
 complaint, especially if connected with teething, by 
 being allowed to chew a piece of bacon well-cooked, 
 that is, the fat part of it attached to the skin ; they 
 will sometimes chew upon this for half an hour or 
 more, with apparent delight. Benefit has been de- 
 rived by cutting up raw beef fine, pounded, then 
 put in a rag and squeezed out, the solid part re- 
 maining to be eaten, and nothing else, a teaspoon- 
 ful four times a day, and drinking but very little 
 of anything except fiaxseed tea or barley water. 
 These things are to be done only until you can get 
 a physician. It is horrible to think of a parent 
 groping along in the dark, on his or her own re- 
 sponsibility, when the life of a child is at stake. 
 
 THE good things of this life were certainly made 
 to be enjoyed rationally, temperately, thankfull", 
 and lovingly towards Him who supplies them all.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 153 
 
 THE public ought to bo advised that all " sooth- 
 ing syrups," and all preparations of opium, lauda- 
 num, paregoric, and the like, have a direct tenden- 
 cy, in all cases of summer complaint in children, 
 to abate the symptoms, only to induce a protracted 
 recovery, convulsions, or water on the brain. 
 
 LET parents and teachers be warned, never to 
 strike -\t an unresisting child in anger; it is a cow- 
 ardice, a brutality, and a crime. 
 
 THE best time lor recreation, as to body or brain, 
 is the alter part of the day, when the main business 
 bf life has been attended to ; thus resting the 
 working faculties, while exercising those which 
 have been idle ; thus giving occupation each day 
 lor the whole man. 
 
 PERSONS who are starved to death become idiotic 
 towards the last, because there is not nourishment 
 in the blood to feed the brain, to keep up its ac- 
 tivities. 
 
 THERE is reason to believe that there may be 
 worms in all kinds of meats, although the populai 
 impression is that they are found only in the meat 
 of the pig. It is now certainly known that tri 
 chiniasis, as it is called, arises from eating raw 
 pork, and that the certain prevention is the thor- 
 ough cooking of pork, ham, or bacon in ah 1 its 
 forms.
 
 154 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IT is customary to put an open vessel of water on 
 a stove, to prevent the air of a room in winter from 
 getting too dry ; thus, by filling the air with steam, 
 it is rendered just as much less nutritious to the 
 lungs and blood as if filled to that extent with the 
 fumes from a dead carcass. This damp atmosphere 
 has something of a steaming process on the skin, 
 and thus renders the person extremely liable to 
 take cold as soon as he goes into the open air. We 
 want the air of a stove-room ventilated, changed 
 for pure air from without, not to fill it with the 
 vapor of water. The only way yet known to im- 
 prove the air of any room warmed by artificial 
 heat, is to open a door or window from time to 
 tune, as while the family are at table eating their 
 regular meals. 
 
 THERE is nothing in the working of a sewing-ma- 
 chine calculated to impair the health ; the labor is 
 uniform, not excessive, nor calculated to overstrain 
 any of the muscles of the system. A contrary view 
 was taken at one time, but it was formed from in- 
 complete observations, and a want of -care in ascer- 
 taining all the facts in given cases. The motion of 
 the feet promotes the circulation, and tends to keep 
 them warm ; the motion of the fingers invites the 
 blood to the extremities, which all admit is a health- 
 ful operation, while the necessity of adjusting the 
 work keeps the mind on the alert.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 155 
 
 THE man or woman who comes to the family 
 table with a scowl, is a brute in nature, and only 
 wants opportunity to bring out his littleness and 
 his meanness. 
 
 No one should work or study hard within half 
 an hour of a regular meal. 
 
 IF a man, sick or well, comes home to his dinner 
 cold, hungry, wearied, and worried, a cup of hot 
 tea, drank during the fore part of the meal, is of 
 great physiological benefit, for it warms up the 
 system by the heat of the beverage being conveyed 
 direct to the centre of life ; it rouses the stomach 
 to healthful action ; it arrests the depressing and 
 failing powers of life, energizes the circulation, and 
 wakes up the activities of the brain and moral sen- 
 timents. 
 
 Do not bathe within two hours of eating a full 
 meal ; death has often resulted from inattention to 
 this rule. Cold-water baths are hurtful, under all 
 circumstances, to very young or very old people ; 
 to invalids, to consumptives, to those subject to 
 spitting blood. It is the salest rule that a woman 
 should never take a cold bath other than to rub the 
 whole surface quickly with a soft towel, dipped in 
 water pressed out ; lay the towel smooth on the 
 hand, and rub quickly the whole body, within ten 
 minutes.
 
 156 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ALL radical reforms aim at prevention, rathei 
 than rectification. 
 
 IF alcohol is food, why not give it to our horses ? 
 If liquor fattens, why not give it to our beef cattle, 
 our turkeys, and our pigs a good dram of it 
 night and morning ? 
 
 MEN may live long, and in health, who never 
 taste meat, but they never can excel in anything 
 which requires energy. The nations which eat no 
 meat, as to the masses, are always inefficient or de- 
 graded. The hundreds of millions of Japan and 
 China have failed in the centuries of the past in 
 all that makes a nation or an individual grand in 
 conception, or magnificent in accomplishment. 
 They are to-day, what they were ages ago, and 
 they live mainly on rice and other vegetables. 
 The most of the Irish, at home, live chiefly on 
 potatoes, and multitudes who reach our shores are 
 but a short remove from idiots ; they have brute 
 force, but are mentally deficient in all that 
 elevates. 
 
 IP a man can sleep soundly, has a good appetite, 
 with no unpleasant reminders after meals, the 
 bodily habits being regular every day, he had bet 
 ter let himself alone ; whether he is as big as a 
 hogshead, or as thin and dry as a fence rail. 
 
 READING aloud helps to develop the lungs, just 
 as singing does if properly performed.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 157 
 
 DOING too much, and doing nothing, are equal 
 suicides ; recreation is as much a necessity as appli- 
 cation, and they are wisest who enjoy, as well as 
 work. 
 
 POETRY, and all about an old miser. 
 
 " A cautious look around he stole, 
 
 His bags of chink he chunk; 
 And many a wicked smile he smole, 
 And many a wink he wunk." 
 
 Sometimes it is desirable to give medicine una- 
 wares, and let the patient find it out afterwards ; 
 so, in quoting the above, we have administered 
 a pill of laugh ; for whoever could refrain from a 
 loud laugh, on reading the miser's lines, hasn't as 
 much fun in him as the little urchin, who, seeing a 
 little mouse come down the bell-rope, and commence 
 tugging at the schoolmaster's gown while kneel- 
 ing at prayer, burst out into an uncontrollable fit of 
 laughter. The domine was greatly put out, and 
 threatened dire punishment, unless the little fellow 
 could explain himself in poetry ; whereupon he im- 
 promptued the following rhyme : 
 
 "A little mouse, for want of stairs, 
 Came down the rope to say his prayers." 
 
 The same little boy afterwards became Isaac Watts. 
 
 HE is the grandest man who is willing to investi- 
 gate any proposition with calmness, and to be led 
 wherever truth directs.
 
 158 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IN apoplexy, as there is too much blood in the 
 head, every one can see that the best position is to 
 set a man up, and the blood naturally tends down- 
 wards, as much so as water will come out of a bot- 
 tle when turned upside down if the cork is out. 
 
 THE people of the world, who live mainly on 
 meats, and whose civilization commands the 
 varieties of all climes, these are they who take 
 the lead in all human enterprises, which secure 
 results at once magnificent and astounding in 
 physical accomplishments and mental acquire- 
 ments. 
 
 IT is in connection with the table that a vast 
 number of drunkards are made; this host 
 would be cut off at once if only tea and coffee 
 were drank. 
 
 ONE third of all the children born die before 
 they are two years old, and three fourths of these 
 perish unnecessarily perish as a consequence of 
 the neglect or ignorance of mothers. Most infanta 
 are physicked and fed to death. No medicine 
 whatever, not the modest " catnip tea," should be 
 given to an infant, without the direction of the 
 family physician. 
 
 EVERY man believes that consumption is an in- 
 curable disease, until he has it himself; and even 
 then he does not arrive at the conviction until the 
 day before he dies.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 159 
 
 SOME of the most terrible of all diseases are in- 
 duced by eating cold food habitually. Hence tea 
 and coffee should be used hot, and it would be 
 wicked, at least for the old, and frail, and feeble, 
 and overworked, not to use them at meals when 
 they can get them. The essential element of tea 
 and coffee has the inevitable effect on the human 
 system of enlivening, of invigorating both mind 
 and body for the time, and thus, when weary and 
 hungry, elevates the whole man to the condition of 
 receiving and managing the food eaten ; that is, 
 promotes digestion thereby ; hence tea and coffee 
 at our meals are good digesters. 
 
 FRUITS have their best effect when used in the 
 early part of the day ; hence, we do not advise 
 their employment at a later hour than the middle 
 of the afternoon ; not that, if perfect and rip e > 
 they may not be eaten largely by themselves within 
 two hours of bed time with advantage ; but if the 
 sourness of decay should happen to taint them, or 
 any liquor should inadvertently be largely drank 
 afterwards, even cold water, acidity of the whole 
 mass may follow, resulting in a night of distress, 
 if not actual or dangerous sickness. So it is better 
 not to run the risk. 
 
 To eat wisely, we must adapt our food to our 
 age, to the various occupations and callings of life, 
 and to the temperaments oi the system.
 
 160 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE best position in which to go to sleep is on 
 the right side ; the heart being on the left, it has 
 greater freedom of action than when the weight 
 of that part of the body is on it. 
 
 THE muscular strength of a Nation depends 
 upon the proper use and proportions of the varioua 
 kinds of food eaten ; and it has been well said that 
 the political influence of a Nation is as much de- 
 pendent upon the muscular strength of the people 
 as upon their intelligence and commercial activity. 
 Englishmen and roast beef are synonymous ; and 
 for centuries past the English Nation has been the 
 most powerful, the most influential Nation on the 
 globe ; a long-lived, intellectual, and powerful race, 
 as to the individuals composing it, founded on 
 vigorous " health," as a result of " good living." 
 
 ALL who employ workers, should understand 
 that it is a poor economy to stint them at the table. 
 The man who eats the most can do the most work, 
 for the simple reason that the power to work is 
 obtained from the food we eat, and cannot be had 
 from any other source. 
 
 ATHLETES and prize-fighters do not often live 
 long ; the training process, of itself, is a strain 
 upon the constitution and the powers of life. All 
 violences and shocks to the human body are as 
 certainly injurious as such things would be to any 
 machine made by human hands.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 161 
 
 MANY a traveller will save his life by taking a 
 warm and hearty breakfast before starting in the 
 morning, and by putting up for the night not later 
 than sundown. 
 
 " HELP one another," is the spontaneous aspira- 
 tion of every noble nature, of every generous 
 bosom. The great ensample of all ages, in a 
 work so literally godlike, is found in Him " who 
 died that we might live," and they are best en- 
 titled to kinship with Him who most closely fol- 
 low His footsteps. 
 
 UP to forty-five the bodily constitution is knit, 
 is built up, is consolidated by wise labors, if the 
 mind also is kept in the exercise of healthful 
 activities. The same hard labor after forty-five, 
 so far from building up, destroys ; but while that 
 is the case, mental toil builds up the body, and 
 its effect is to increase the capability of living. 
 Hence, a man who works his body pretty hard, and 
 his mind rather more moderately, up to forty-five, 
 has done most towards securing a lasting constitu- 
 tion ; and if then he begins to work the body less, 
 and the mind more, he adds to that lastingness, 
 and bids fairest to live to eighty or a hundred 
 years. 
 
 IN ordinary breathing, a man takes into his 
 lungs, at one inspiration, about a pint of air. It 
 enters pure, and is returned destitute of life. 
 11
 
 162 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IN cholera,, and all epidemics, the liquor drinkers 
 are the first to die. 
 
 THE pure out-door air is the natural food of the 
 lungs ; when deprived of the required amount, 
 they always become diseased ; and not only is 
 consumption ameliorated, but all diseases are 
 benefited in proportion as the patient is able to 
 breathe pure air. 
 
 IP a man is hungry within an hour, more or less, 
 after a regular meal, he is a dyspeptic beyond 
 question, and it shows that the stomach is not able 
 to work up what he has eaten, so as to get nourish- 
 ment out of it ; but to eat again, and thus impose 
 more work, when it could do nothing for what had 
 been already eaten, is an absurdity ; and yet all 
 dyspeptics who eat whenever they are hungry do 
 this very thing, and thus aggravate and protract 
 their sufferings. 
 
 THE great end of human life is to secure an ex- 
 istence beyond the grave, high, holy, happy, and 
 immortal. The great wisdom of human life is to 
 do all that is possible to attain that existence, each 
 for himself. The great beneficence of human life 
 is to do all that can be done, consistently with 
 other duties, to help one another to attain an object 
 of such infinite importance, especially the children 
 born to us.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 163 
 
 As a vigorous and healthful appetite and diges- 
 tion are the inevitable results of labor performed 
 day after day, a labor which secures an encourag 
 ing remuneration, so healthful, sweet, delicious 
 sleep can only come as a consequence of compul- 
 sory mental or physical effort. 
 
 IT cannot be denied that health and life are lost 
 every day, as the result of the ill management of 
 our schools, seminaries, colleges, and universities, 
 but most of all, the primary schools; because, 
 mainly, learning is made a task, a drudge, an in- 
 sufferable bore. 
 
 THE air which comes in contact with the fur- 
 nace is burnt ; it is in part decomposed, and is no 
 longer fit for purposes of healthful respiration. 
 Whenever air conies in contact with a nearly 
 or quite red-hot metallic surface, it is no longer 
 fit to enter the lungs of any thing that breathes, 
 and is instantly detected by the feeling which is 
 expressed by the term " closeness." The air has 
 in it such a small amount of living sustenance, 
 that an ordinary quantity taken through the nos- 
 trils is not enough, and the person instinctively 
 opens the mouth, literally gasps for more, as a fish 
 for water, when thrown out of its native element. 
 
 IT is a bad plan to ride, when you could just as 
 well walk.
 
 164 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHITE India rubber, as used in nursing-bottlea 
 for infants, contains an active poisonous ingredient, 
 causing sore mouth, eruption, and even death in 
 some cases ; its sale is, on this account, prohibited 
 by law in some European countries. Toys of this 
 material should be carefully kept from young chil- 
 dren, whose instinct prompts them to put every- 
 thing in the mouth which is handed them. 
 
 IT ought to be known, as a world-wide truth, 
 that, of itself, bard study kills nobody. 
 
 To compel any child under twelve, to sit or stand 
 perfectly still for ten minutes, is a barbarism ; be- 
 cause it is the motion of the muscles which aids to 
 send the blood to the heart ; and if they are quiet 
 too long, the blood goes to the heart in too small 
 quantities to keep it in action, hence it stops 
 beating, and the person is said to " faint." So 
 necessary is motion to the circulation of the blood, 
 that even in our sleep Nature's ever watchful in- 
 stincts cause a change of position every few mo- 
 ments, either in the body or some of the limbs. 
 
 How many a youth at school, how many an 
 apprentice in the shop, how many a child in the 
 family, has gone out in the night of a blighted life, 
 who, with humane encouragements, might have 
 lived usefully ani died famous, let the passionate 
 teacher, and master, and parent inquire, and do 
 a little more patting on the shoulder.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 165 
 
 LEAD colic is a disease to which painters, arid 
 workers in red and white lead, are subject, causing 
 severe pains, tedious sickness, and often death. 
 The disease is partially owing perhaps to breathing 
 the fumes, but mainly from particles taken into the 
 stomach by the food which is handled. Workmen 
 can effect a total exemption from the disease by 
 attending rigidly to three things. Keep the finger 
 nails trimmed closely, so as to prevent particles of 
 lead from collecting under them, and transference 
 to the bread in eating it. Wash the hands well 
 with soap and water, and rinse the mouth before 
 eating. Drink half a pint of sweet milk at each 
 meal, to antagonize the influence of any particles 
 of lead which may find their way into the stomach. 
 It has been found, in thousands of cases, that an 
 habitual attention to these things secures an entire 
 exemption from lead colic. 
 
 THERE are times of weakness to us all, perhaps, 
 when the conviction comes sweeping over us that 
 it is impossible to succeed in business and be hon- 
 est. And yet a little closer examination into the 
 histories of men will show triumphantly that 
 honesty pays. 
 
 ANY one the feeblest can commit an error , 
 it requires a man to frankly acknowledge it. 
 
 CLERGYMEN'S sore throat is wrongfully set dowD 
 to the score of " arduous labors 1 "
 
 166 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ALMOST every article of hair dye contains, in 
 greater or less quantity, the most poisonous prepa- 
 rations of lead, which are absorbed into the scalp 
 and lower face, become incorporated with the blood, 
 and engender painful, incurable, and disgusting 
 diseases. It is said, in one of the French lunatic 
 asylums eight per cent, of the victims were users 
 of hair dye. Gray hairs add dignity to man ; those 
 who are ashamed of age, and seek to conceal it in 
 these ways, can scarcely claim the respect of their 
 kind ; and it would be wiser in them to be ashamed 
 of their shallowness than of their age. 
 
 A COLD is never cured ; and yet we have millions 
 of remedies published every year which will cure a 
 cold. A cold cures itself. That is, a man gets well 
 of a cold, as he gets well of the small-pox, but we 
 do not remember ever to have heard of a man being 
 cured of the small-pox ; this fearful malady runs its 
 course, and the man gradually regains his health. 
 So a common cold, fairly seated, will run its average 
 course of two weeks, and then the man is as well 
 as he ever was. 
 
 IP a man is deprived of sunlight, he fades away 
 like a flower without water, and always comes to an 
 untimely grave. 
 
 THE prevention, the permanent arrest, or lasting 
 cure of consumption, is found " in the food we eat 
 in the air we breathe."
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 167 
 
 EVERYBODY ought to get married who can boas/ 
 of three things a sound body, a sound mind, and 
 a good trade. This as to men, and as to women, 
 they should possess good health, tidiness, and in 
 dustry. With these, any young couple can get as 
 rich as they ought to be, or as rich as is necessary 
 to an enjoyable life, if they will only go to house- 
 keeping a little below their ability. 
 
 THE importance of being out of doors every day 
 as much as possible, can scarecly be overrated. 
 But to derive the highest advantage from breathing 
 aD outrdoor air, the person should exercise enough 
 to keep off a feeling of chilliness, but not so much 
 as to cause unnatural breathing that is, too fast 
 or too deep. 
 
 THE young should have the courage to live within 
 their means ; to have more pride in the conscious- 
 ness that they have a little spare money at home, 
 than in living in a style which keeps them all the 
 time cramped in maintaining. Better to live in one 
 room with all the furniture your own, than occupy 
 a whole house with scarcely a chair or table paid 
 for. 
 
 To all young men, who aim to do good on a largo 
 scale, we say most earnestly, Nurse your constitu- 
 tion with pious care, invigorate it ; study to ba 
 well, as the necessary means of doing well, in th 
 highest sense of the term.
 
 168 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ALL kinds of life, whether vegetable or animal, 
 have within them a principle of preservation, as 
 well as of perpetuity; were that not the case, 
 all that breathes or grows would die. . This principle 
 or quality is common to man and beast, and all that 
 springs from root or seed : it is named " Instinct." 
 It is instinct which calls, by thirst, for water when 
 there is not fluid enough in the system. It is 
 instinct which calls for food, by hunger, when a 
 man is weak, and needs renovation. It is curious 
 and practically valuable as a means for the removal 
 of disease, to notice the working of this instinct, 
 for it seems to be almost possessed with a discrimi- 
 nating intelligence ; certain it is, that standard 
 medical publications give well-authenticated facts, 
 showing, that following the cravings of the appetite, 
 the animal instinct has accomplished far more than 
 the physician's skill was able to do ; has saved life 
 in multitudes of cases, when science has done its 
 best, but in vain. 
 
 EQUANIMITY of mind is the great catholicon of 
 humanity. Let all who would have length of days, 
 whatever may be their station in life, strive for an 
 equable frame of mind. 
 
 PERSONS have often lost their lives by writing 
 or reading in a room where there was no fire, al 
 though the weather outside was rather comfortable.
 
 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 169 
 
 HAPPY they who are wise enough to perceive, 
 and feel, and enjoy life's sunshines while they are 
 present. There are many who not only have not 
 enjoyed their sunshine, were not conscious of ita 
 presence, but when it has passed, make life misera- 
 ble in the vain regrets of not having appreciated 
 and improved it while it was passing. 
 
 IT is productive of a great deal of domestic 
 enjoyment to have a man and wife working to the 
 same end, having a common object in view, whether 
 it be to save up money enough to buy a new chair 
 or a neighbor's adjoining farm. It is thus that they 
 grow into the feeling that they are one, that their 
 interests are united, and they soon begin to work 
 into each other's hands ; the wife seeks to make the 
 husband's task easier, knowing that it enables him 
 to do more for her, and that the common object 
 will be the sooner attained; the husband seeing 
 this, reciprocates, and loves the more, day by day, 
 until they become one in aim, and feelings, and 
 sentiments ; and a love more abiding as the years 
 grow old, is the happy result. 
 
 TOBACCO, in any form, is not only a narcotic, but 
 it is a stimulant also ; it not only blunts the sensi- 
 bilities, but it goads both mind and body to unnat- 
 ural activities, and the machine, made to run faster 
 than was ever intended, wears out so much the 
 sooner, and long before its time, and stops forever I
 
 170 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY cherishes learning ; learning estab- 
 lishes Christianity. The head and the .leart are 
 cultivated together ; side by side they grow ; the 
 one in purity, the other in power ; and fast friends 
 will they be until time's ending; making on the 
 earth, meanwhile, gardens out of every desert, 
 scattering flowers where only thorns grew before, 
 and clearing away from every physical and moral 
 waste the blots and blurs which mar the beauty 
 of the material and moral world. 
 
 LET the young, and all remember, that it is the 
 motive which constitutes the meanness, or other- 
 wise, of an act which is not in itself dishonorable. 
 Better is it for a man to do a thing for himself, 
 than to have another do it for him, when he cannot 
 afford to pay for the service. The first step to- 
 wards implanting in the mind of a child a feeling 
 of self-reliance and a manly independence, is to 
 teach that child to help himself whenever it is 
 practicable. 
 
 THE great, broad fact is indisputable, that the 
 great nations of the earth, those who live in the 
 north temperate zone, and who make the products 
 of all climes tributary to their tables, which are 
 bountifully spread with the meats, and fish, and 
 fruits, and vegetables of all lands and seas, are the 
 greatest in the aggregate, while individually they 
 have produced the greatest names in all history.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 171 
 
 SLEEPING in rooms long unused has destroyed 
 the life of many a visitor and friend. Our splen- 
 did parlors, and our nice " spare rooms," help 
 to enrich many a doctor. The cold sepulchral 
 parlors, from May until November, bring disease, 
 not only to visitors, but to the visited ; for coming 
 in from domestic occupations, or from the hurry 
 of dressing, the heat of the body is higher than 
 natural, and having no cloak or hat on in going in 
 to meet a visitor, and having in addition but little 
 vitality, in consequence of the very sedentary 
 nature of town life, there is but very little capa- 
 bility of resistance, and a chill and cold is the 
 result. 
 
 WHEN a person takes a cold, the natural remedy 
 would seem to be, to take a warm ; that is, get 
 warm and keep warm for every second of time ; 
 keep comfortably warm, even if it requires the 
 thermometer to be kept at a hundred degrees ; 
 and maintain this temperature, and remain in a 
 well warmed and ventilated room until restored to 
 usual health. 
 
 THE rich can't get to sleep ; the poor can't wake 
 up ; that is, would oversleep themselves, if their 
 necessities did not wake them. 
 
 A BED should always be made several hours be- 
 fore sundown, before it has had time to gather the 
 damps of the evening.
 
 172 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PARENTS, as you can never tell that any night 
 shall not be the last on earth, however well the child 
 may seem on retiring, and that it shall not wake 
 up to a brain fever, or dreaded croup, or the more 
 fearful diphtheria, or putrid sore throat, be per- 
 suaded to make a habitual and systematic arrange- 
 ment by which each child shall retire to its little 
 bed with a feeling of affectionate lovingness to- 
 wards you ; that no harsh word, or look, or incon- 
 siderate act of yours shall ruffle its little heart, and 
 cause it to turn its face to the wall against you. Your 
 indifferent, stereotyped, matter-of-course kiss is a 
 cruel hypocrisy. The little creatures perceive it 
 by an instinct, and they lie down with an unde- 
 fined dissatisfaction. If you do not feel a kiss, do 
 not commit the atrocity of a mere form, but go and 
 pray God to give you a better heart. 
 
 THERE is, perhaps, not an eminent physician in 
 any system of practice, who will not declare, with 
 a distinguished medical practitioner, now deceased ; 
 "I believe that during the twenty-six years I 
 have followed my profession in this city, twenty 
 thousand children have been carried to the ceme- 
 teries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of exposing 
 their arms naked." 
 
 LET every man watch over his habits, cultivate 
 those which are good, break off from those which 
 in the end destroy both body and soul.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 173 
 
 To know when and how to follow the instinct of 
 appetite, to gratify the cravings of nature, is of 
 inestimable value. There is a rule which is always 
 safe, and will save life in multitudes of cases, 
 where the most skilfully " exhibited " drugs have 
 been entirely unavailing. Partake at first of what 
 Nature seems to crave, in very small quantities ; if 
 no uncomfortable feeling follows, gradually increase 
 the amount, until no more is called for. 
 
 MANY persons precipitate themselves into the 
 grave by attempting to bravado an ailment ; to be 
 up and about in defiance of it. If anything at all 
 is the matter with a man which is really disquiet- 
 ing, he should at least have as much sense as a pig, 
 and go and lie down ; pigs are not such fools as 
 to move about in pain. 
 
 How to cure a cold promptly, is a question of 
 life and death to multitudes. There are two meth- 
 ods of universal application : first, obtain a bottle 
 of cough mixture, or a lot of cough candy any 
 kind will do. In a day or two you will fed better, 
 and in high spirits ; you will be charmed with the 
 promptness of the medicine ; make a mule of your- 
 self, by giving your certificate of the valuable 
 remedy, and in due course of time another certifi- 
 cate will be made for your admission into the cem- 
 etery. The other remedy is, consult a respectable 
 resident physician.
 
 174 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A PAIR of good shoes, a thick woollen under-shirt, 
 a few dollars expended in mending a leaky roof, 
 or to supply an abundance of pure water to a 
 household, would many a time be the means of 
 warding off sickness from individuals, and even 
 whole families, otherwise doomed to weary years 
 of invalidism, with the attendant expenses which 
 have to be supplied from charitable funds. 
 
 NEITHER mirth nor mourning ought to be re- 
 strained of their natural expression. Laughter 
 increases the gladness, and sighs relieve the sor- 
 rowing heart. 
 
 OUR highest wisdom and our only safety is in 
 living up to the laws of our being all the time, ha- 
 bitually ; and such are the persons who live to a 
 good old age, in health of body, and in that cheer- 
 fulness of spirit, which is a natural fruit of habit- 
 ual health. 
 
 THE people are really beginning to wake up to 
 the proper appreciation of what is solid, and use- 
 ful, and practical, and true ; are beginning to find 
 out that they have bodies ; that these bodies ought 
 to be cared for as well as a fine coat or a new hat, 
 and will last the longer for such care. This is a 
 happy omen in the estimation of the physician, 
 who knows full well that half the race die half a 
 century sooner than they would do, if the science 
 of health were studied as it ought to be.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 175 
 
 LET no man's appetite be a guide for your stom- 
 ach ; but only eat what you crave, even if it be a 
 piece of pound cake or sole leather; eat it in 
 great moderation first, so as to be on the safe side, 
 and gradually increase the quantity. Oil the other 
 hand, never swallow an atom which you do not 
 crave, for nothing, for nobody. A pig would not 
 so violate nature. It should strike us as one of 
 the most reasonable of inferences, that the stomach 
 would most easily digest that which it most eagerly 
 craved. There are morbid and unnatural cravings, 
 but these are exceptions. We are speaking as to 
 general rules, here and elsewhere in this volume, 
 and it will help the reader to a more truthful ap- 
 preciation of the principles advocated in these 
 pages if this distinction is kept clearly in view. 
 
 THEY who are wise, will, for themselves and 
 their children, give an early direction to the high- 
 er feelings of our nature towards those channels 
 which will pour out their influences of truth, 
 humanity, and religion, to fructify and bless the 
 world for all time. 
 
 IT is a truth, which should be kept sight of in 
 all human maladies, that great Nature is our safest 
 and wisest teacher. 
 
 THE time for taking cold is after your exercise ; 
 the place is in your own house, or office, or count- 
 ing-room.
 
 176 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 DYSPEPSIA is cured by muscular exercise, volun- 
 tary or involuntary, and cannot be cured in any 
 other way, because nothing can create or collect 
 gastric juice except exercise ; it is a product of 
 the human machine Nature only can make it. 
 
 To go down to the grave without bitter re- 
 morses, to have an old age crowded with dear, de- 
 lightful memories, cultivate the habit of perceiv- 
 ing and enjoying the present sunshine, of appreci- 
 ating present blessings and present happiness ; 
 cultivate, sedulously cultivate, a respectful, affec- 
 tionate attention to parental wishes, to the promo- 
 tion of parental comfort, and peace, and quietude, 
 and gladness, and to all your kindred, especially to 
 those nearest to you ; aim steadily, not merely to 
 discharge your whole duty, for that is a cold word 
 in this connection, but let your whole life go out 
 to them in willing sympathies, in timely assistance, 
 in generous allowances, and in forbearances loving, 
 and long, and sweet. Such a course will bring 
 present rewards, and will lay up for the future a 
 store of delightful satisfactions, to be feasted on 
 till life's latest hour. 
 
 IT is an absolute cruelty for any man who owes 
 another, in these times, to permit money to lie idle 
 in his hands. There are times when a single dol- 
 lar may lift a mountain weight from the heart of a 
 man who is worth thousands.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 177 
 
 MAN is like a well-adjusted and well-made 
 machine, which, if worked steadily, will last a long 
 time, but if moved by fits and starts, and badly 
 cared for, will soon be jolted to pieces. Thus it 
 is that equanimity of mind, and steady bodily 
 habits, are each proinotive of long life, and, when 
 combined, will not only enable the possessor to 
 live within sight of his century, but do it in enjoy- 
 able health of body, and a pleasurable and hilarious 
 mental activity. Surely such an old age is worth 
 laboring for; and that it is attained by whole 
 classes of persons who make moderation their life- 
 long habit, is susceptible of undeniable proof. 
 
 OUR ministers are feasted too much. 
 
 YOUNG children who live in cities during the hot 
 weather, would be almost exempted from summer 
 diseases if they lived wholly in elevated, good 
 buildings, and were regularly and properly fed. 
 
 WHAT you have to do, do it at once, and do it 
 well. 
 
 IP you want your talents appreciated, get rich. 
 That tells the whole story in a nutshell. If you 
 wish to be anybody in the estimation of mankind, 
 get rich. No matter how pure your morality, how 
 lofty your aspiration, how disciplined your mind, 
 unless you have a fortune, you will seldom be 
 loved, noticed, or respected. 
 12
 
 178 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BOOKS are never so necessary as in the wane of 
 life. In childhood, we are busy with toys ; in 
 youth, with pleasure ; in manhood, with action ; 
 and so may dispense with the delights of reading, 
 with little consciousness of loss. But when at 
 last we are too wise to be charmed with baubles, 
 too earnest to be tickled with straws, too old to 
 enjoy the pleasures of sense, too fond of repose 
 to endure the noise of the bustling- world, then it 
 is that books are felt to be the truest and most 
 agreeable of friends; companions who neither 
 contradict us with arrogance, insult us with bad 
 manners, nor love us with prolixity. For we can 
 cherish the entertaining, reject the dull, and snub 
 the long-winded, without giving pain. How pleas- 
 ant, when life is in the " sere and yellow leaf," 
 
 " To turn again our earlier volumes o'er, 
 And lore them then, because we've loved before ; 
 And wily bless the warning hour that brings 
 A will to lean once more on single things ; 
 If this be weakness, welcome life's decline ; 
 If this be second childhood, be it mine ! " 
 
 NEVER anticipate wealth from any other source 
 than labor; especially, never place dependence 
 upon becoming the possessor of an inheritance. 
 
 IN our opinion, those who reprobate the rich so 
 glibly, are a set of poor, lazy good-for-nothings, 
 whose idolatry is their ease, whose god is their 
 belly, and who glory in their shame.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 179 
 
 WE must die alone. To the very verge of the 
 stream our friends may accompany us ; they may 
 bend over us, they may cling to us, there ; but 
 that one long wave from the sea of eternity washes 
 up to the lips, sweeps us from the shore, and we 
 go forth alone ! In that untried and utter solitude, 
 then, what can there be for us but the pulsation of 
 that assurance, " I am not alone, because the 
 Father is with me 1 " 
 
 MOST persons have a kind of spite or grudge 
 against rich people, the foundation of which we 
 presume is in envy, one of the very meanest 
 feelings of our nature. 
 
 AWAY with this railing against the rich ; let it 
 be preached from the pulpit, and let it be pro- 
 claimed by the press, with its million tongues, that 
 to accumulate wealth is one of the first, one of 
 the highest, one of the noblest duties of an immor- 
 tal mind, and then that to use it benevolently, makes 
 that mind akin to God. The true Christian doc- 
 trine is, make all you can honorably, save all you 
 can unmeanly, bestow all you can unostentatiously. 
 
 To succeed in life, make up your mind to ac- 
 complish whatever you undertake ; decide upon 
 some particular employment, and persevere in it. 
 All difficulties are overcome by diligence and 
 assiduity. Be not afraid to work with your hands, 
 and diligently, too.
 
 180 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 Do not jest with your wife upon a subject in 
 which there is danger of wounding her feelings. 
 Remember that she treasures every word that you 
 utter. Do not speak of some 'virtue in another 
 man's wife to remind your own of a fault. Do 
 not reproach your wife with inattention in com- 
 pany ; it touches her pride, and she will not re- 
 spect you more, or love you better for it. Do not 
 upbraid your wife in the presence of a third party ; 
 the sense of your disregard of her feelings will 
 prevent her from acknowledging her faults. 
 
 EVERY man owes it to society to become rich, 
 for the poor man's advice is never heeded, let it be 
 ever so valuable. The more wise one may be, the 
 more he owes it to his country to become wealthy. 
 Every addition made to a man's fortune, adds ten 
 per cent, to his influence. Let a man throw a 
 doubloon on the counter, and every one will want 
 to hear it ring. Throw a cent down, however, and 
 its voice would prove no more attractive than 
 poor relations. 
 
 A MAN who has no enemies, is seldom good for 
 anything : he is made of that kind of material, 
 which is so easily worked, that every one has a 
 hand in it. A sterling character, one who thinks 
 for himself, and speaks what he thinks, is always 
 sure to have enemies. They are as necessary to 
 him as fresh air ; they keep him alive and active.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 181 
 
 IP the disposition to speak well of others waa 
 universally prevalent, the world would become a 
 perfect paradise. How many enmities and heart- 
 burnings flow from detraction 1 How much hap- 
 piness is interrupted and destroyed ! Envy, 
 jealousy, and the malignant spirit of evil, when 
 they find vent by the lips, go forth on their mis- 
 sion like foul fiends, to blast the reputation and 
 peace of others. Every one has his imperfections, 
 and in the conduct of the best, there will be occa- 
 sional faults which might seem to justify animad- 
 version. It is a good rule, however, when there is 
 occasion for fault-finding, to do it privately. It is 
 a proof of interest in the individual, which will 
 generally be taken kindly, if the manner of doing 
 it is not offensive. The common and unchristian 
 rule, on the contrary, is to proclaim the failing of 
 others to all but themselves. This is unchristian, 
 and shows a despicable heart. 
 
 TEUE religion is the foster brother of education, 
 elevation, and research, and that system which 
 cherishes ignorance and represses thought, may 
 be known thereby to be false in its foundations, 
 the world over. 
 
 THE common opinion that drunkenness belongs 
 to the poorer and more degraded of our population, 
 and that it most abounds only in dens and garrets, 
 is indeed a very mistaken one.
 
 182 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE stomach is weak, like every other part of 
 the body, and to put upon it a task which its in- 
 stincts do not seek, is unwise and illogical in the 
 highest degree. You can't make a sick pig eat, 
 while man, a bigger pig, " forces " the food upon 
 himself, when he has not the slightest inclination, 
 and even takes measures to create the inclination. 
 Nor bird, nor beast, nor creaping thing will eat 
 when sick, but man, the biggest brute of all, will. 
 
 HEALTH, wealth, and religion are the three 
 grand duties of life. Each additional year con- 
 firms me in the opinion, that pulpit teachings, in 
 reference to money, are erroneous, mischievous, 
 and inconsistent. 
 
 THE first, the indispensable requisites of health- 
 ful cooking are, that the materials should be fresh, 
 perfect, and ripe, and that they should be properly 
 cooked. It may be safe to say, that half of the 
 food prepared for American tables is ruined, for 
 all purposes of healthful nutrition, in the cooking, 
 and destroys rather than builds up, weakens, in- 
 stead of imparting vigor, and engenders wasting 
 disease, rather than promotes good health. The 
 higher classes of society, the best informed, appre- 
 ciate these truths, and seek to secure all their ad- 
 vantages by a more strict personal attention to the 
 larder and the kitchen than those below them in 
 the social scale.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 183 
 
 THE masses have a settled feeling of hostility 
 and even bitterness towards the rich, as if they were 
 their hereditary enemies ; and yet in no large city 
 of the world is so much done for suffering human- 
 ity, as by the rich, the fashionable, and the .aristo- 
 cratic. It is easy for them to give money, and 
 they do it; but they do more; they give their 
 countenance, their time, and their personal efforts, 
 for the purpose of raising means to help the poor, 
 the needy, the sick, and the friendless. It is from 
 their purses funds come, and from their influence 
 and individual efforts plans are carried out, which 
 eventuate the noblest charities of our time, the 
 colleges, the homes, the asylums, the hospitals, 
 which nurse the sick, which care for the insane, 
 which shelter the unfortunate, which feed the hun- 
 gry, and guard and guide and cherish the forsaken 
 and the motherless ; and it is to those who keep 
 the " fatherless" that the inspired page awards the 
 meed of citizenship in heaven. 
 
 VALUABLE lives are often thrown away, lost, 
 through ignorance of some of the simplest truths 
 in nature, or errors of judgment in matters where 
 error becomes a crime. Some of the best, wisest, 
 and greatest men of our race have perished from 
 the world, in consequence of what might be con- 
 sidered a carelessness, a recklessness, or an igno- 
 rance, which is amazing, as found in minds like 
 theirs.
 
 184 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN the masses have received the benefits of 
 a public school education, and when the heart has 
 been so influenced by the claims of conscience and 
 of duty as to make men willing to deny themselves 
 all bodily indulgences, then may we expect wise 
 lives on the part of all, leading to high health, 
 great efficiency, and general usefulness ; for when 
 the brain and the heart are properly educated, 
 there will follow wisdom, temperance, a long and 
 healthful life, and universal thrift. 
 
 MILLIONS of money are spent every month in the 
 purchase of transient and trashy novels ; all classes 
 join in this expenditure, and yet, when a dollar or 
 two would purchase reading for an entire family for a 
 whole year, which shows how to maintain health, and 
 how to avert disease, bodily, mental, and moral, for a 
 life-time, the expenditure is considered one of the 
 things which can be dispensed with without incon- 
 venience. So much the better for doctors, who 
 profit by the negligence or stupidity to the amount 
 of a hundred million of dollars every year, in the 
 United States alone, besides another hundred mil- 
 lion to druggists, and more than another hundred 
 million for quack medicines, such as molasses and 
 water, opium, colored soap-suds, and the like. 
 
 BY all means, reader, hear Mark Twain, or read 
 his book. He will give you laugh enough to keep 
 you in vigorous health for a long time to come.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 185 
 
 IF you are eating, and find that you have had 
 enough, and don't want a mouthful more, why in 
 the world don't you stop ? There's not a pig, or 
 puppy, or poodle in existence that hasn't sense 
 enough to stop eating when he's got enough. 
 Your brother, the donkey, does it. Don't you see, 
 reader, you are more than a mule? Ain't you 
 ashamed of yourself for doing such stupid things, 
 and putting yourself beneath the brutes which 
 perish ? 
 
 IT is bad enough to be poor ; it is worse to be 
 in bad health ; but to be old, poor, and sickly, is 
 terrible. Hard enough it is for the great multi- 
 tudes to get along in the world, even when in the 
 full enjoyment of bodily vigor, but to enter on the 
 strife for bread under the crushing influence of 
 poverty and disease, is terrible to think of; and to 
 avoid calamities so great, let every one read the 
 Bible with greater care, and practise more assidu- 
 ously its lessons of wisdom and truth, for in this 
 practice there is length of days, honor, and peace 
 in the life that now is, and in the world to come, 
 life everlasting. 
 
 A GREAT cause of death in spring-time is ovei 
 haste in removing winter clothing; the thickest 
 flannel of mid-winter should be worn by all, without 
 any change to a thinner material, until the middle 
 of May.
 
 186 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IT is the care of to-morrow, the gnawing, corro- 
 ding anxieties for the future, which eat away the 
 health and life of multitudes. 
 
 MARRIAGE is the natural state of human kind. 
 There never can be lasting good health without it; it 
 is an impossibility, except combined with criminal 
 practices. A person may live in good health to the 
 age of twenty-five, but if marriage is deferred be- 
 yond that, every month's delay is the eating out, 
 more and more, the very essence of life, and tL* 
 worm of certain disease and premature death bur- 
 rows the more deeply into the vitals. On the other 
 hand, marriage not later than twenty-five prolongs 
 life. 
 
 THE humble and consistent looking upward foi 
 the gratification of our desires, the satisfaction of 
 our wants, and that aid which comes from above to 
 enable us to perform properly all the duties of life, 
 is a religious obligation. 
 
 MAN is the only animal that drinks without being 
 thirsty. 
 
 IN the night-sweats of consumption, or of any de- 
 bilitated condition of the system, a woollen flannel 
 night-dress is immeasurably more comfortable than 
 cotton or linen, because it prevents that sepulchral 
 dampness and chilliness of feeling, which are other- 
 wise inevitable.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 187 
 
 THE most all-pervading cause of the increased 
 sickness and death in cities in warm weather, is 
 the breathing of an impure, a vitiated atmosphere. 
 The most uncultivated know that there are "smells" 
 connected with places in summer, which are not 
 noticeable in winter. Many person* aim to have 
 the rats about the house killed with poison, before 
 the warm weather comes on, so as to avoid noi- 
 someness about the premises. Hence, it must be 
 set down as a practical fact, that warm weather 
 generates odors which make the air impure ; the 
 breathing of which will always induce disease 
 sooner or later, and more or less fatal, according to 
 the degree of impurity and the duration of ex- 
 posure to it. As double the number of persons die 
 in the crowded parts of the city compared with 
 less condensed districts ; and, as the poorer people 
 are, the more crowded are their habitations, and 
 poverty, filth, squalor, and uncleanness go together 
 always and everywhere, it is proof positive that 
 hot weather acting upon unclean habitations and 
 surroundings, and thus vitiating the atmosphere, is 
 the great overshadowing cause of the premature 
 death and wasting sickness which pervades cities 
 in summer time. The practical inference is, that 
 to prevent much of these calamities, all that is ne- 
 cessary is to secure a greater degree of cleanliness 
 in person, in the houses, cellars, kitchens, back 
 yards, streets, and gutters.
 
 188 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THAT parent is guilty of a criminal negligence 
 who does not always see to it that each child enters 
 the church and school-house door with feet com- 
 fortably dry and warm. Grown persons, of very 
 limited intelligence, know that, as to themselves, 
 damp feet endanger health and life, however robust; 
 much more so must it be to the tender constitution 
 of a growing child. 
 
 No case is remembered in the practice of nearly 
 forty years, where malt liquors, wines, brandies, or 
 any alcoholic drinks whatever, have ever had a 
 permanent good effect in improving the digestion. 
 Apparent advantages sometimes result, but they 
 are transient or deceptive. If there is no appetite, 
 it is because nature has provided no gastric juice ; 
 and that is the product of nature, not of alcohol. 
 If there is appetite but no digestive power, liquor 
 no more supplies that power, than would the lash 
 give strength to an exhausted donkey. If torture 
 does arouse the sinking beast, it is only that it shall 
 fall a little later into a still greater exhaustion from 
 which there is no recovery ; so with the use of 
 liquor and tobacco as whetters of the appetite, when 
 at length the desire for the accustomed stimulus 
 ceases, and the man " sickens ; " there is no longer 
 a relish for the drain and the chew, and life fades 
 apace, either in a stupor from which there is no 
 awaking, or by wasting and uncontrollable diarrhoea.
 
 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 189 
 
 BLESSED is the ordainment that man should live 
 by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 REASONING from the analogy of the animal crea- 
 tion, mankind should live nearly a hundred years ; 
 that law seeming to be, that life should be five times 
 the length of the period of growth ; at least, the 
 general observation is, that the longer persons are 
 growing, the longer they live, other things being 
 equal. 
 
 DIVERT the mind in time of trouble ; don't brood 
 over misfortunes, nor indulge in melancholy medi- 
 tations ; gloat not over gold ; never allow your re- 
 flections to become inseparable from any one sub- 
 ject. When you find that you " can't sleep " from 
 the mind running on a particular subject, remember 
 that you are rapidly preparing for the mad-house ; 
 and in proportion as any one idea absorbs the brain, 
 in such proportion are you courting insanity. Cul- 
 tivate a cheerful, an uncomplaining, a genial frame 
 of mind. Look on the bright side of things ; take 
 hold of the smooth handle ; and above all, be 
 moderately busy to the last day of life in some- 
 thing agreeable and useful to yourself and others. 
 
 THE experienced practitioner well understands 
 that the habitual taking of any efficient medicine 
 is the certain road to a premature and very often a 
 violent or agonizing death.
 
 190 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IT is a dreadful thing to be old and poor, and 
 have no home ; but there is a deeper depth of 
 human calamity than this it is to have, in addi- 
 tion, an old age of wasting, wearing sickness, which 
 is often superinduced by that constant depression 
 of mind which attends the consciousness of being 
 alone, friendless, and in want. One of the very 
 best means of avoiding an old age of destitution 
 and bodily suffering is to cultivate while young all 
 the benevolent and generous feelings of our nature, 
 never by any possibility allowing any opportunity 
 pass of befriending a fellow-traveller, as we are 
 passing along life's journey, for sooner or later the 
 reward will come, the reward of a happy heart, and 
 oftentimes a comfortable provision for declining 
 years. 
 
 No one ever stammers in singing, because the 
 attention is divided between the music and the 
 sentiment. 
 
 PIGS, puppies, and babies are the better for being 
 well washed every day ; but for persons in general 
 to undergo such an operation, as regular as the- 
 morning comes, is absurd and hurtful. Absurd, 
 because unnecessary, and no man ever did it for a- 
 lifetime ; hurtful, because multitudes who com- 
 menced the unnatural practice, have abandoned it 
 from the conviction that it had an unfavorable 
 effect, or that they ceased to be benefited by it.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 191 
 
 THE undoubted cause of the remarkable diminu- 
 tion of sickness and death among children in chari- 
 table institutions, can be from nothing else than the 
 perfect cleanliness of these establishments, plain- 
 ness of food, and regularity in eating and sleeping; 
 a most suggestive statement to every parent. 
 
 THOSE who are " well to do in the world " live 
 about eleven years longer than those who have to 
 work from day to day for a living. Remunerative 
 labor, and the diffusion of the knowledge of the 
 laws of life among the masses, with temperance and 
 thrift, are the great means of adding to human 
 health and life ; but the more important ingredient, 
 happiness, is only to be found in daily loving, obey- 
 ing, and serving Him " who giveth us all things 
 richly to enjoy." 
 
 DIPHTHERIA is not inoculable ; prevails in every 
 climate, in all seasons, and is equally at home in the 
 princely mansions which line the spacious and well- 
 cleaned street, and in the houses of stenchy courts 
 and contracted alleys. It has no fixed course, may 
 recur any number of times, but only fastens on the 
 scrofulous, or those whose constitutions are im- 
 paired, or have poor blood ; the immediate cause of 
 attack being the breathing of a faulty or defective 
 atmosphere. 
 
 WE should demand nothing which costs another 
 unnecessary trouble or pain.
 
 192 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IP you want to get rid of a troublesome and un- 
 principled acquaintance, without offending him, 
 lend him five dollars. 
 
 MAKE the Bible your companion, your counsellor; 
 keep it always in easy and convenient reach ; and 
 learn to be satisfied in its fulness, to find in it a 
 safe guide, a friend in need, and an able phy- 
 sician. 
 
 WE should guard against cherishing depressing 
 feelings ; and with as much care, should habituate 
 ourselves to self-control ; to the habit of looking at 
 everything of a stirring or harrowing character 
 with a calm courage ; we should strive at all times 
 for that valuable characteristic, " presence of mind," 
 under all circumstances, for we are every day in 
 great need of it ; it is, in many cases, a literal " life 
 preserver." 
 
 THE man who " forces " his food, he who eats 
 without an inclination, and he who strives by tonics, 
 bitters, wine, or other alcoholic liquors, to " get up " 
 an appetite, is a sinner against body and soul a 
 virtual suicide. 
 
 THE city should marry the country ; the black- 
 haired the blonde; the bilious temperament the 
 nervous ; the fair-skinned the brunette ; the stout 
 the slender ; the tall the short. To marry each its 
 like, is to degrade the race.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 193 
 
 HE who would be uniformly happy, who would 
 pass the greater part of his time in a state of mental 
 pleasurableness, must be healthy, well-to-do, and 
 moderately busy. 
 
 A PARTIAL wetting of a garment is more apt to 
 induce an attack of rheumatism, than if the entire 
 clothing were wetted ; because, in the latter case, it 
 would be certainly and speedily exchanged for 
 dry garments. The very moment a garment is 
 wetted in whole or in part, change it, or keep in 
 motion sufficient to maintain a very slight perspira- 
 tion, until the clothing is perfectly dried. 
 
 BY all that is sacred in a holy human life, we 
 urge the reader, when he or any of his are ailing 
 in any way whatever, to do one or two things : 
 either do nothing, and let Nature take care of her- 
 self, or consult your family physician, who, if edu- 
 cated to his profession, will take an interest in you 
 beyond any stranger ; or, if he sees the case is 
 beyond his skill, will frankly acknowledge it, and 
 will take pains to turn you over to some man of 
 eminence and acknowledged ability. 
 
 A CELLAR which opens inside a dwelling should 
 be kept as faultlessly clean all the year round as any 
 other part of the house, because its atmosphere is 
 constantly ascending, and impregnates every room 
 in the house with its own odors. In reality, there 
 ought not to be any cellar under any dwelling. 
 13
 
 194 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE are a multitude of advertisements of books 
 and remedies in reference to " nervous debility," as 
 it is called. For a purpose, we once sent a few 
 stamps for an infallible receipt for consumption, 
 or some other ailment. The answer came that it 
 was the " Indian Plant, growing at the foot of the 
 Rocky Mountains ; and that it had to be gathered 
 in August, otherwise it had no virtues." As it 
 would cost something to go to the Rocky Mountains, 
 and it was then December, and, in addition, no 
 description was given of the " Indian Plant," and 
 as there might not be any Indians at the foot of the 
 Rocky Mountains, after we got there, to point out 
 the " Indian Plant," we were in a quandary ; but the 
 whole set of almost insuperable difficulties were 
 vanquished in a moment by the announcement that 
 the advertiser had some of it on hand at two 
 dollars a bottle. It should be remembered, that 
 there is only one remedy for the class of ailments 
 referred to rest for the parts implicated ; that is, 
 abstinence, temperance, and a building up of the 
 general health ; not by tonics, but by a plain diet 
 and a constant employment in out-door activities. 
 Another heartless swindle and imposition in this 
 direction is, that the very state of things which 
 proves the vigor of the system is artfully presented 
 a& a symptom of decline. 
 
 IT is a bad plan for unprofessional people to read 
 medical books, it first befogs and then befools.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 195 
 
 IN going to the country to spend your summer, 
 leave business behind, but take with you your 
 entire stock of patience, courtesy, self-respect, and 
 religion. Go as plain " John Smith, gentleman." 
 
 GOOD teeth, good looks, and good health are 
 inseparable. Ill health destroys the teeth ; unless 
 food is chewed well, the horrors of a life-long dys- 
 peptic are inevitable. The handsomest face in the 
 world is marred, fatally marred, by a snaggled 
 tooth. The time to lay the foundation for a set of 
 sound, solid teeth is when the child first begins to 
 eat bread. 
 
 LET a man feel that the truest way of living for 
 himself is to live for others ; that the best way 
 to serve his Maker is to " make it his meat and his 
 drink," his highest aim, to benefit atid bless mankind 
 habitually by such acts of kindness and charity as 
 it is in his power to perform, consistent with the 
 other duties of life. Then the earthly pilgrimage 
 will have a very different ending ; for as he enters 
 upon immortal scenes, he exclaims, like him of old, 
 " The time of my departure is at hand ; I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up 
 for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
 the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day ; and 
 not to me only, but unto all them also that love his 
 appearing."
 
 196 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IF you have the first claim to being well bred, 
 you will be the last person in the world to volunteer 
 any information on the subject. If it must be told, 
 let it be by your conduct ; let your entire deport- 
 ment prove that you are a lady or a gentleman. 
 
 MANY a fellow's repentance begins, not with the 
 commission of the sin, but on the instant of his being 
 found to have been a sinner. 
 
 THE fear of poverty has made many a rich man 
 go mad. But the hardest worked slave is seldom 
 deranged, because he has no abiding sorrow no 
 concern about to-morrow's bread. His labor is 
 mechanical, and the moment it is over he dismisses 
 all thought of toil, the mind runs home to his little 
 hut, to his supper, and the other animal gratifica- 
 tions of his position, and his sleep is infinitely 
 sweeter than his master's. 
 
 SUDDEN changes of weather are the immediate 
 cause of the sickness and death of multitudes ; 
 hence all persons owe it to themselves to study, to 
 some extent, the portents of the heavens, from 
 their own observation, as to the localities in which 
 they live, paying but little attention, and relying 
 not at all, on the signs of the weather, as read in 
 books or detailed by others. Rules for farming 
 and weather signs are proverbially uncertain and 
 conflicting, arising from the one cause of applying 
 observations of one locality to those of another.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 19*1 
 
 SoNi have often inherited the wealth of their 
 fathers, even to the third and fourth generation. 
 The same principle holds good as *to our physical 
 nature, that a life of temperance, and industry, and 
 moderate ambitions secures to children, even for 
 several generations, a robustness of constitution, a 
 vitality, a physical power, which may well be the 
 envy of a multitude of the sick, and diseased, and 
 effeminate in every grade of society. Children 
 who see daily in their parents the practice of all 
 that is gentle, and lovable, and courteous, and kind, 
 will seldom fail, without the necesity of direct 
 teachings on these subjects, to acquire the same 
 traits of character ; and the example lives, and has 
 its influence and power for good, long after the 
 parents have passed away. If parents want their 
 children to grow up and inherit their own robust 
 health, strength, and length of life, it must come, 
 not so much by birth and blood, not so much by 
 precept, and command, and reason, but by the daily 
 exhibition of a calm, quiet, busy, temperate life on 
 the part of their parents, carried out daily, habitu- 
 ally, and persistently by living examples. Con- 
 duct is the great, efficient teacher, not precept, not 
 theory, not idle profession. 
 
 PORTER and beer fill up the stomach, and seem 
 to make persons fleshy; but there is but littlb 
 nutriment, and great bulk ; great beer-drinkers 
 *re never strong ; are puffy.
 
 198 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 EVERY wife and mother owes it to herself, her 
 husband, and her children, as well as to society at 
 large, to prevent waste in every department of the 
 household, whether provisions are cheap or dear, 
 whether the husband is rich or poor ; for waste is 
 a crime against humanity, an insult to the boun- 
 teous " Giver of all things." On the other hand, a 
 true economy is one of the wisest and most enno- 
 bling of domestic virtues. 
 
 IN all cases where there is a fireplace in a room, 
 it should by all means be kept open. 
 
 PERSONS have poor blood when it is observed 
 that scratches, and cuts, and bruises are a long 
 time in healing, and this should be a friendly warn- 
 ing to correct that condition of things, because it 
 shows there is but little vitality, little stamina, 
 and disease of some kind is impending, especially 
 of the typhoid type, and recovery will be slow, 
 doubtful, and in many cases not possible. 
 
 ASTHMA. A martyr to this terrible disease, 
 which seldom kills any one dead, yet makes its vic- 
 tim die a thousand deaths, will be glad to know of 
 any alleviant. A simple change of air, from moist 
 to dry, from the city to the prairie, from plain to 
 mountain, or the reverse, has been known to be 
 beneficial. Persons ascending the mountain 
 heights of Cornwall, on the Hudson, near West 
 Point, have had striking relief within a few hours.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 199 
 
 IT is a bad plan to begin the day in a fret, for it 
 will be a day of happiness lost. 
 
 MANY a man and woman owe an untimely death 
 to damp feet in winter time. This is very gener- 
 ally admitted, and many methods have been pro- 
 posed to prevent it. In wet weather, or when the 
 snow is melting, the India-rubber shoe is the most 
 perfect article offered; some prejudice has been 
 excited against them, more than anything else 
 from the unwise use of them. They may be hurt- 
 ful to some, but it does not follow that they are 
 generally so. No one can be comfortable with 
 cold, damp feet, and the very instant it is noticed, 
 the person should begin to walk, or remove both 
 stockings, and hold the bare feet to the fire until 
 they are perfectly dried and feel comfortably 
 warm. India-rubber overshoes should be worn 
 only when the person is walking ; as soon as the 
 walk is ended they should be removed. They cer- 
 tainly ought not to remain on the feet ten minutes 
 if the person is standing still in the house after a 
 walk. 
 
 IT is a bad plan to consult divers doctors at one 
 time. 
 
 IP you eat to-day, while idle and the thermom- 
 eter at sixty, as much as you did yesterday, when 
 it was at zero and you worked hard, you will cer- 
 tainly be sick to-morrow.
 
 200 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PHYSICIANS are very frequently brought in com- 
 munication with persons who, from some whim or 
 caprice, have adopted modes of life the very re- 
 verse of what an intelligent judgment would have 
 dictated. 
 
 THE physician who understands his calling is al- 
 ways on the lookout for the instincts of nature ; 
 and he who follows them most, and interferes with 
 them least, is the one who is oftenest successful. 
 They are worth more to him than all the rigmarole 
 stories which real or imaginary invalids pour in 
 upon the physician's ear with such facile vol- 
 ubility. 
 
 A GREAT cause of dyspepsia in ministers, is eat- 
 ing too soon after preaching. For two or three 
 hours the tide of nervous energy has been setting 
 in strongly towards the brain, and it cannot be 
 suddenly turned towards the stomach; but the 
 mental effort has occasioned a feeling of faintness 
 or debility about the stomach, and a morbid ap- 
 petite ; and if food is taken at all largely, there is 
 not the nervous energy there requisite to effect its 
 digestion, for the brain will be running over the 
 discourse ; you may bring the mind back to the 
 eating for a moment, but before you are aware of 
 it, it will be laboring at the discourse again ; every 
 public speaker knows this, and the food lies there 
 like a weight or a lump for hours.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 201 
 
 THE best disinfectants are those which cost the 
 least, are most easily applied, and which cause the 
 least inconvenience to the health, or the textures 
 to which they are applied. If a disinfectant cor- 
 rodes metals, stains garments, disfigures furniture, 
 or is poisonous when outwardly applied or swal- 
 lowed, it is comparatively valueless. 
 
 IF a man were to say to me that the moon was 
 made out of a monkey, I would say nothing, and 
 let him have his own way ; either, first, because 
 " he was a fool, and had no sense," or, second, that 
 he knew better, and wanted to provoke argument ; 
 and I have seldom found argument upon any sub- 
 ject, especially on politics or religion, either prof- 
 itable or agreeable. 
 
 THE practice of medicine consists in knowing 
 what is the matter, what is needed, and what will 
 accomplish the object. The first requires obser- 
 vation, the second judgment, the third experience, 
 and he who possesses these in the greatest meas- 
 ure will always be the most successful physician, 
 however great may be the intelligence or igno- 
 rance in other directions. 
 
 THE man who makes every day a feast of fat 
 things, and sustains himself by never allowing 
 alcohol to die out of him, except for a few hours in 
 the after part of the night, must perish prematurely, 
 and cannot beget healthy children.
 
 202 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE " benefits " arising from the daily use of any- 
 thing that can intoxicate is always fictitious, unreal, 
 and deceptive, and sooner or later the cheat will 
 be found out, by the system not only failing to be 
 kept up, but going down to a point lower than that 
 from which it started, with the attendant ill results 
 of its greater inability to rise, and its greater 
 inability to repel the attacks of disease or the ill 
 effects of deleterious agencies. 
 
 WHEN a person has been kept from eating several 
 hours beyond his usual time, instead of eating fast 
 and heartily, he should take his food with delibera- 
 tion, and only half as much as if he had eaten at the 
 regular time. Sudden and severe illness has often 
 resulted from the want of this precaution, and 
 sometimes death has followed. 
 
 MANY men, who are so fortunate as to have no 
 taste for liquor, have no difficulty in declaring that 
 any man who takes daily a glass of wine or brandy 
 can have no religion ; and yet these same men will 
 over-eat themselves three times a day, until the 
 stomach, constitution, temper, health, all are ruined, 
 and the remainder of their days are spent in scrib- 
 bling sickly sentimentalities for other people. 
 
 THE memory, like a true friend, is made the 
 firmer by being trusted ; noting down trifling things, 
 is the very way to destroy what remnant of memory 
 you have.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 203 
 
 WE aim to show how disease may be avoided, 
 and that it is best, when sickness comes, to take no 
 medicine without consulting an educated physician. 
 
 PHYSICAL cleanliness, and moral purity, and eleva- 
 tion of character have a close connection ; while 
 tidiness in dress has a strong alliance to strict 
 justness and fitness of action. 
 
 GREAT eaters never live long. A voracious appe- 
 tite, so far from being a sign of health, is a certain 
 indication of disease. Some dyspeptics are always 
 hungry, feel best when they are eating, but as 
 soon as they have eaten they enter torments, so 
 distressing in their nature, as to make the unhappy 
 victim wish for death. The appetite of health is 
 that which inclines moderately to eat, when eating 
 time comes, and which, when satisfied, leaves no 
 unpleasant reminders. 
 
 REAL business men, shrewd and keen-sighted, 
 care very little about letters of recommendation 
 from anybody, knowing that human nature is very 
 accommodating in giving what costs nothing more 
 than writing a few well expressed sentences. They 
 know that truth lies in things, not words ; in what 
 they see, rather than in what they hear. A youth 
 would not get a clerkship with the recommendation 
 of every Governor in the nation, if he entered a 
 counting-room with a cigar in his mouth, a cane in 
 his hand, and a diamond ring on his finger.
 
 204 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 IP children are taught to eat slowly, in loving 
 good nature, as will be the case if tLey are let 
 alone by their parents, and not put in an ill humor 
 by incessant reprimands and innumerable rules and 
 regulations about a hundred and one contemptible 
 trifles, they may generally be allowed, for break- 
 fast and dinner, to eat as long and as much as they 
 want, if all the hard food is cut up carefully with 
 a sharp knife into pieces not larger than a pea. 
 This should be conscientiously and always attended 
 to by one of the parents, for it cannot be safely 
 intrusted to one hireling out of a million ; parental 
 affection only will do it as it ought to be done. 
 
 MANY a young man, many a young woman, has 
 taken the first step towards degradation, and crime, 
 and disease, after ten o'clock at night; at which 
 hour, the year round, the old, the middle-aged, and 
 the young should be in bed ; and the early rising 
 will take care of itself, with the incalculable accom- 
 paniment of a fully rested body and a renovated 
 brain. We repeat it, there is neither wisdom, nor 
 safety, nor health in early rising in itself ; but there 
 is all of them in the persistent practice of retiring 
 to bed at an early hour, winter and summer. 
 
 AMUSEMENT is as much a necessity to the mind 
 as food is to the body. The mind is vivified by 
 pleasurable recreations as much as the body is sus- 
 tained by a nutritious diet.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 205 
 
 WHATEVER begets pleasurable and harmless feel- 
 ings, promotes health ; and whatever induces disa- 
 greeable sensations, engenders disease. 
 
 No man was made to be a loafer ; it is a crime 
 against one's self, a crime against society, a crime 
 against the Merciful One, who has enacted the 
 universal law, " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt 
 eat bread," with the added injunction, " Be diligent 
 in business." 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL singer delights a whole assembly ; 
 a beautiful reader not only delights, but instructs. 
 A fool may sing divinely ; but a good reader must 
 possess mind. Let the parents, then, whose daugh- 
 ters have no taste for music, no ear for song, but 
 who have hearts and intellects worthy of any man, 
 give them a chance of showing what they are made 
 of, a chance of making their way in the world, of 
 cultivating the habit of reading aloud with care, 
 grace, and understanding, and thus put it in their 
 power of bearing their part in the entertainment 
 of any company into which they may be thrown. 
 
 IP a man in good health has not eaten anything 
 for some days, he will die if he eats heartily. 
 When persons are found in an almost starving con- 
 dition, light food, in small quantities, and at short 
 intervals, is essential to safety. 
 
 THE more out-door air and cheery sunshine a 
 man can use, the longer he will live.
 
 206 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE greatest hinderance to the spread of religion 
 is the want of a clearer line of demarcation between 
 those who are in the church and those who are 
 without. Surely we have no right to hope for a 
 rapid diffusion of Christianity, except in proportion 
 as its true friends stand out from the world in beau- 
 tiful distinctness in their practices, in proportion as 
 they tower above it by the purity of their princi- 
 ples and the sternness of their integrity. The 
 brightness of their example should extend to their 
 whole life, not in theory merely, but in practice ; 
 not in one thing, but in all. 
 
 THE benefit of exercise consists in knowing the 
 how and the when. 
 
 IT ought to be remembered by all, that it is far 
 safer and much less disastrous to breathe any or- 
 dinary bad air, if warm, than to be in the purest air 
 on the globe, if it is cold enough to cause a general 
 chiUiness, or a partial feeling of cold for a very 
 short time, such as on the back, neck, throat, or 
 any other susceptible part. Children should not 
 be allowed to sit for five minutes with their backs 
 to a register, stove, or fire, nor to stand over 
 registers for a moment, nor to sit near one for any 
 length of time ; and in cold weather they should be 
 made to bundle up before leaving the school-room, 
 and be counselled to run home, and not delay a 
 single moment on the way.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 207 
 
 IT is slow, steady, continuous labor which brings 
 health, and strength, and a good digestion. Fitful 
 labor is ruinous to all. 
 
 THE mishaps of life are the result of ignorance, 
 carelessness, or wickedness of ourselves or others ; 
 we should in every case seek out the specific cause, 
 and if in ourselves, rectify it ; if from the misdoing 
 of others, endeavor to rectify it also ; and if no 
 human efforts can accomplish such a rectification, 
 then, and not till then, is it a true heroism and a 
 sterling piety, a genuine " resignation," to say, in 
 loving confidence and hope, " Thy will be done." 
 
 WE should never forget that the immoderate use 
 of any thing is destructive to human health and 
 life if persevered in. 
 
 PERSONS sitting in a cold car for a time sufficient 
 to allow them to get thoroughly chilled, will 
 scarcely fail to suffer from an attack of some acute 
 disease, in spite of a subsequent warming up by 
 exercise or otherwise ; while it is well known that 
 persons may remain for hours in an apartment 
 heated to a hundred degrees and over, without any 
 permanent discomfort, if they are careful to cool 
 off slowly. 
 
 THE benevolent live long, healthfully, happily, 
 and in honor ; the selfish, the wicked, shall not live 
 out half their days. 
 
 NEVER eat without an inclination.
 
 208 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THOSE who are wise will take no tonics for the 
 spring, will swallow no teas to purify the blood, 
 nor imagine themselves to be about getting sick, 
 because they have not in May as vigorous an ap- 
 petite as in December, but will at once yield them- 
 selves to the guidance of the instincts, and eat not 
 an atom more than they have an inclination for, to 
 the end of a joyous spring-time and a summer of 
 glorious health ; while those who will eat, who will 
 stimulate the stomach with tonics, and " force " 
 their food, must suffer with drowsiness, depression, 
 and distressing lassitude ; and while all nature is 
 waking up to gladness and newness of life, they 
 will have no renovation and no well-springs of joy- 
 ous and exuberant health. 
 
 No man should be less careful of himself than of 
 Lis horse. And if a strong horse needs more 
 covering after exercise, in order to protect him 
 from a sudden and fatal disease, much more so does 
 the weaker but nobler man. 
 
 INACTIVITY is destruction throughout the universe 
 of things. The human body as a whole, or as to 
 any one part, is no exception to that boundless law. 
 The unused arm dwindles to skin and bone. The 
 unused lungs soon weaken, then rot away. The 
 brain comes within the universal law of our physi- 
 cal being, and if unused, perishes before its prime, 
 either in whole or in part.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 209 
 
 THE best position after eating a regular meal is, 
 to have the hands behind the back, the head erect, 
 in moderate locomotion, and in the open air, if the 
 weather is not chilly. Half an hour spent in this 
 way after meals, at least after breakfast and dinner, 
 would add health and length of days to women in 
 easy life, and to all sedentary men. It is a thought 
 which richly merits attention. 
 
 THERE is no disinfectant universally applicable. 
 But it may be truly said that the best plan, and 
 one which every clean, tidy, and sensible person 
 would instinctively adopt, is to remove all causes 
 of disagreeable or unhealthy odors ; disinfectants 
 should only be used when that is impracticable. 
 
 THE real source of ninety-eight per cent, of the 
 crime of a country, such as England or the United 
 States, lies at the door of the parents. It is a fear- 
 ful reflection ; we throw it before the minds of the 
 fathers and mothers of our land, and there leave it, 
 to be thought of in wisdom, remarking only as to 
 the early seeds of bodily disease, that they are 
 nearly in every case sown between sundown and 
 bedtime, in absence from the family circle, in the 
 supply of spending-money never earned by the 
 spender, opening the doors of confectioneries and 
 soda-fountains, of beer, tobacco, and wine, of the 
 circus, negro minstrel, restaurant, and the dance. 
 
 CHEERFUL conversation prevents rapid eating. 
 14
 
 210 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WOMEN are not required to stand in prayer ; it is 
 physiologically hurtful ; they should sit or kneel. 
 
 IT is a great mistake, and an almost universal 
 one, that sudden changes from one temperature to 
 another are prejudicial to health. If persons will 
 close their mouth, and send all the air to the lungs 
 through the circuit of the head, and thus temper it 
 to the air of the lungs, a positive benefit will result, 
 although there may be a change of forty degrees in 
 a second of time ; only one precaution is needed 
 shut your mouth, and keep moving. The proof of 
 all this is, railroad conductors are healthy men, as 
 a class, and yet their changes are fifty degrees 
 hundreds of times in a day. 
 
 MANY persons measure their wisdom by the 
 amount of incredulity which they can exhibit. 
 
 OUR manufactories are nearly all disgraceful to 
 their owners and architects in regard to ventilation. 
 They are often divided into rooms less than ten 
 feet high, each thickly stowed with human beings, 
 who breathe, work, and sweat in an atmosphere 
 overheated, and filled with grease, wool or cotton 
 waste, leather or cloth, and the poisonous refuse 
 expelled from human lungs, which together are 
 enough to incite a plague, and are in fact the 
 primary cause of nearly all the fevers, dysenteries, 
 consumptions, <fec., by which so many graves are 
 peopled.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 211 
 
 NEVER read or sow directly in front of the light, 
 window or door. 
 
 GREAT students have great appetites. Hard 
 study makes a healthy man as hungry as hard 
 work. The employment of the brain, hard think- 
 ing, exhausts a man's strength as certainly and 
 completely as any form of bodily labor. Girls, 
 boys, and young men at school, academy, or college 
 are always ready to eat something, and can eat 
 almost anything for a while after they have entered 
 upon their studies. 
 
 FLIES have a perfect antipathy against clean 
 houses. Flies revel in filth, the world over. 
 
 NINE tenths of those who are rich to-day, began 
 married life poor, relying on themselves alone ; 
 while their coevals, who loaned on " rich relations," 
 or married a wife whose " father " wasn't " in 
 heaven," hence lived to fail in business, leaving 
 nothing behind him but his debts, have been 
 civilly and socially, if not physically, dead many 
 years. 
 
 THE instant you are burned or scalded, place the 
 part in cold water ; this gives perfect relief in a 
 second j then get some flour and cover the burned 
 part completely, and let it remain till it gets well. 
 
 NEVER go to sleep, especially after a great effort, 
 even in hot weather, without some covering over 
 you.
 
 212 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 VENTILATION is a subjoct which should be under 
 stood by every human being, not only that man 
 may apply it to himself, but also to the domestic 
 animals, for their well-being is in a sense veiy in- 
 timately connected with our own ; hence duty and 
 humanity demand our attention to the subject; 
 and if for the brutes that perish, much more for 
 our servants, and, above all, our children. 
 
 AVOID fats and fat meats in summer, and in all 
 warm days. 
 
 No wise man would experiment on his own body, 
 and health, and life, on the loose statements of 
 anonymous newspaper writers. 
 
 THERE are some men who look as if they had 
 never smiled ; there is a pitiful sadness, with an 
 unmistakable expression of feature, a kind of 
 hopelessness, as if they were kept under all the 
 time at home. They do not exactly die ; it is a 
 great pity they did not ; they seem to have got 
 used to it, and settled down in a state of sorrowful 
 submission ; they had not sense enough to maintain 
 their liberties, nor energy enough to run away when 
 everything was lost. There are other men, brave, 
 indomitable ; who live above the present ; who, hav- 
 ing found themselves " in a fix " by having made a 
 grand mistake in marriage, have made a virtue of 
 necessity, and have proudly determined to endure 
 to the end of the chapter.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 213 
 
 MANY an excellent receipt becomes worthless in 
 the hands of those who try it, in consequence of 
 not making the experiment fairly. 
 
 WE take up a dollar, coined in the infancy of our 
 republic ; the man who moulded it has been dead 
 for half a century. And yet, how many throbs of 
 gratification has it excited, as it has been laid in 
 the hand 1 and how many a hungry mouth has it 
 fed 1 and yet it is as good as ever, and may con- 
 tinue to gladden the joyless and feed the hungry 
 for a hundred years to come. But there is a 
 remarkable difference between a good idea and a 
 good dollar. The dollar is always received with 
 pleasure ; but it is parted with with a pang. But 
 a good idea, well coined in words, gratifies him who 
 gives as well as him who receives. One sterling 
 truth, clothed in words of vigor, keenness, or sweet- 
 ness, spoken or printed, passes from mouth to mouth, 
 from paper to paper, from page to page, and will 
 happify a million hearts. The dollar can be used 
 by only one at a time, and but at one place in the 
 same instant ; but the mental coin, by the art of 
 all arts, can be used by multitudes, in all lands, at 
 the same instant, distilling its sweetness on both 
 giver and receiver everywhere, to be perpetuated 
 for generations yet unborn. 
 
 FEAR will excite a deadly attack of cholera in a 
 few hours.
 
 214 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 A SINGLE teaspoonful of vinegar in each glass of 
 water will effectually prevent any ill effects from 
 using the water of limestone localities by those 
 accustomed to other kinds of drinking-water. 
 
 WHAT a grand thing it is to have an unwavering 
 faith in every word, and syllable, and letter of the 
 sacred Scriptures ! to feel that they are notbing 
 less than the utterances of the great Father of us 
 all, to comfort, and guide, and cheer, and sustain in 
 all life's pilgrimage ! 
 
 IN any company of a dozen persons if one com- 
 plains of anything, from the scratch of a pin to a 
 cancer, enough remedies will be volunteered in five 
 minutes to kill a regiment of common men ad- 
 vised, too, with all the confidence that it is possible 
 for ignorance to possess. 
 
 MODERATELY hot bread is not injurious, but is 
 positively beneficial. 
 
 NEARLY all our Presidents have been men of vig- 
 orous health, of hardy constitutions ; this is instruc- 
 tively suggestive of the connection there is between 
 high health and the ability to achieve the distinc- 
 tions to which these men arrived. 
 
 THE general laws of mind are alike all over the 
 world, whether in hut, or palace, or poor-house. 
 
 No medicine that any man can take in health wiU 
 protect him from disease.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 215 
 
 THE first necessity of a boil, or sore, or wound, 
 is to keep it moist ; that keeps down inflammation, 
 pain, mortification, and death. To do this, a plain 
 milk-and-bread poultice is the best, being accessi- 
 ble, simple, and safe to say nothing of the advan- 
 tage it has over many others, that it may be so 
 readily re-moistened, and thus cleaned off. 
 
 WE earnestly advise young men to let the char- 
 acter of the mother have a large influence in deter- 
 mining their choice of a wife a choice which 
 makes or mars the lot of life, and often moulds the 
 destiny beyond. 
 
 MAKE virtue feel that it is encouraged, and vice 
 that it is frowned upon. Let justice and truth be 
 exhibited in every act of life. 
 
 MANY a person has dropped dead at the pump, 
 or at the spring ; such a result is more certain, 
 if, in addition to the person being very warm at 
 the time of drinking, there is also great bodily 
 fatigue. 
 
 ALL locomotion should be avoided when the 
 bowels are thin, watery, or weakening. 
 
 FORTUNATE are they, who, while they are living, 
 can witness the fruit of their good doings, and are 
 further rewarded by evidences of a grateful appre- 
 ciation on the part of those for whose benefit they 
 live and labor.
 
 216 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 FOB those who cannot sleep from the unsatiafao 
 toiy condition of their affairs ; who feel as if they 
 were going behindhand ; or that they are about to 
 encounter great losses, whether from their own re- 
 missness, the perfidy of friends, or unavoidable 
 circumstances, we have a deep and sincerb sym- 
 pathy. To such we say, Live hopefully fot better 
 days ahead, and meanwhile strive diligently, per- 
 sistently, and with a brave heart to that end. 
 
 THE safest and best method of getting rid of bil- 
 iousness is steady work in the open air, for six or 
 eight hours every day, working or exercising to 
 the extent of keeping up a gentle moisture on the 
 skin ; this moisture conveys the bile away out of 
 the system ; the same result will be accomplished, 
 but not so well, by a good steam bath, or by wrap- 
 ping up in bed, drinking hot teas, thus " getting 
 up a perspiration," but the atmosphere of the room 
 ihovud oe pure, and the diet for several daya 
 should consist of Coarse bread and fruits. Medi- 
 cines wmcn " not on the liver '' will do the same 
 thing, but P**y should be advised by the physician, 
 when otb'ir means have failed. 
 
 IT msy be a more potent and convincing argu- 
 ment against the pestiferous effects of furnace 
 heat, at least in the minds of some, that it ruins the 
 furniture and wood-wcrk of all buildings into which 
 it is introduced
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 217 
 
 WHETHER a man kills himself with whiskey, or 
 tobacco, or food, the crime is the same. A man is 
 equally a suicide, whether by drinking, smoking, or 
 gluttony. Excessive smoking, excessive drinking, 
 excessive eating, are the results of an abandon- 
 ment to an animal appetite, to an animal indul- 
 gence; such indulgence is beastly, it is ignoble, it is 
 pitiful. 
 
 FEEBLE persons will bo benefited by hot drinks, 
 because they warm up the body, excite the circula- 
 tion, and thus promote digestion, if taken while 
 eating, and not exceeding a cupful. 
 
 LET those who are starting out in life, stand on 
 their own bottom: if they start upon the race on an 
 even footing with others, and win their way by the 
 power of their own right arm, then they will have 
 the proud consciousness through life that they 
 have made themselves what they are, and that they 
 owe their success wholly to themselves. Such a 
 feeling is, of itself, worth a small fortune, and is 
 more enduring, because it may be pleasurably 
 drawn upon without diminution to the end of life. 
 
 SICK headache is almost always attended with 
 cold feet, and the failure of a daily action of the 
 bowels ; and there is no permament cure without 
 the rectification of these. 
 
 THE want of facilities for exercise, is the great 
 trouble with clergymen.
 
 218 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE remedies for cough, cold, and consumption 
 are innumerable, the combinations of ingredients 
 are infinite ; but if the reader is observant, not 
 one in a hundred will there be which has not 
 opium in the form of paregoric, laudanum, or mor- 
 phia, giving water on the brain every year to mul- 
 titudes of children, and appolexies, or ruinous 
 results to the digestive organs of adults. 
 
 FORCING food, that is, eating when you are not 
 hungry, is a wicked waste, is fighting against na- 
 ture, and puts you below the level of a brute, for 
 brutes never go agaiust their instincts. 
 
 THE great man owes his sufferings more to hard 
 eating than to hard study ; more to the filthy habit 
 of postponing Nature's calls than to overwork; 
 and hence merits our contempt more than our 
 sympathy. 
 
 DRESS substantially; better to be hot for two 
 or three hours at noon, than to be cool for the re- 
 mainder of the twenty -four. 
 
 AN injury done to any part of the body may t>e 
 resisted, or if not, may be repaired by the cura- 
 tive energies of nature ; but if these injuries are 
 frequently repeated, the strength of nature is ex- 
 hausted in endeavoring to make repairs ; then she 
 remains prostrate and powerless, and disease has 
 unbridled sway.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 219 
 
 IT is a barbarism to compel children to eat 
 fat meat, or lean meat, or any other article of 
 food for which there is not only no relish, but an 
 unconquerable antipathy. The instincts of a child 
 should be respected, because they are implanted in 
 its very nature for its well being, as in the animal 
 creation. You might as wisely try to make a kitten 
 eat white beans, or compel a chicken to drink salt 
 water. Never war against the instincts of the 
 child; lead rather than drive; persuade rather 
 than punish; convince rather than convict; lose 
 your right arm rather than take advantage of its 
 unresisting helplessness; bear rather than beat; re- 
 membering that, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 THE best insurance is a temperate, rational life, 
 with the immense advantage, that the insured, in 
 this case, lives to enjoy his policy, instead of its 
 being done by the husband of his widow. 
 
 THE thinnest gauze of our stores, when thrown 
 over the face, exposed to a keen, bitter wind, af- 
 fords a degree of relief scarcely credible from so 
 frail a material. 
 
 As nothing gives the body more enduring 
 strength than plain, substantial meat and bread, so 
 the intellect and the affections are strengthened by 
 the exercise of those real benevolences which every- 
 day life, in cities especially, so loudly call for. 
 
 WE estimate people from what we ee.
 
 220 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WITHOUT a full and free exposure to out-door 
 air, regardless of all weathers, no case of consump- 
 tion ever has been cured; while with it, and it 
 alone, many cases may. 
 
 BAD teeth induce dyspepsia, from insufficient 
 chewing of the food ; they also corrupt the breath, 
 and are frequently the cause of serious and distress- 
 ing disease; while good teeth not only beautify the 
 face, but promote health and long life ; hence, spe- 
 cial care expended on their preservation, will be re- 
 paid a hundred fold in the course of a lifetime. 
 
 To be in moderate circumstances, and take the 
 world easy, is the true philosophy of life. 
 
 THE constitution of man adapts itself to all 
 climates. 
 
 THE hardships which the human body can en- 
 dure are incredible until seen, and when en- 
 countered without the use of spirituous liquors, 
 leave the constitution as firm and as capable of 
 new endurances as it was at the beginning. 
 
 IP a man is healthy and well-to-do, and is not busy 
 in his calling, he will seldom fail to become dyspep- 
 tic, intemperate, or restless, and die prematurely. 
 Hence, to have a life of sunshine, a man must live 
 healthfully, must have a reasonably profitable call- 
 ing, and must be busy and buoyant in the prosecu- 
 tion of it.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 221 
 
 SYSTEMATIC temperance in eating and drinking is 
 capable of shielding the human body from the pes- 
 tilences of all climes, and from the fatal diseases of 
 all latitudes. 
 
 THE hardships which great travellers are called 
 to encounter, do, by their large exposure to out- 
 door air and daily bodily activity, consolidate the 
 constitution, and make it more healthy, while the 
 mental powers take their share of increased vigor 
 and activity. 
 
 IT is a truth, which should be kept sight of in all 
 human maladies, that great Nature is our safest and 
 wisest teacher. 
 
 IN all great undertakings, requiring persistent 
 endurance of toil, and privation, and exposure, 
 those are most likely to succeed who discard 
 alcoholic drinks of every description, and make up 
 their minds to the temperate indulgence of all the 
 appetites. 
 
 GROWN persons who use sweet milk largely every 
 day, invariably become bilious or constipated, un- 
 less steady, hard labor in the open air every day 
 allows its use with impunity. 
 
 ALCOHOL has an affinity for the brain. Within an 
 hour after a glass of brandy is swallowed, more of 
 it is found in a given quantity of brain than in any 
 equal quantity of blood.
 
 222 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE history of all past times does not afford a 
 single, solitary example of a man's repenting that 
 he had had too much practical faith in the Christian 
 religion, but multitudes that they had too little ; so, 
 no man who has lived a regular, temperate life to a 
 good old age has ever professed a regret that he 
 had not lived differently. And as the mistaken 
 advocates of false religious systems have bitterly 
 regretted their delusions in the searching ordeal 
 of a dying hour, so, on the other hand, do the vic- 
 tims of animal appetites, and propensities, and un- 
 matured notions pertaining to human well-being, 
 deplore the folly which led them into plausible, 
 untested, untried ways of living healthfully, hap- 
 pily, and long. Therefore, not more surely will 
 that man attain " immortality and eternal life " who 
 walks in the " old paths " of love to God and love 
 to man, practically carried out in every day of his 
 pilgrimage towards the tomb, than that those who 
 " use this world as not abusing it," and its good 
 things, will find a sweet satisfaction in the same as 
 long as they live. Hence they are wisest who live 
 in the temperate use and rational enjoyment of all 
 the good things of this life. 
 
 HOPE is the highest remedy of the soul, the most 
 efficient for the body. 
 
 STINGS and bites are often instantaneously cured 
 by washing them in hartshorn or turpentine.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 223 
 
 A STATE of laboi is the natural habitual state of 
 man ; animal indulgences incidental, occasional ; 
 and in proportion as this law is reversed, in such 
 proportion does it tend to the extinction of the race 
 
 NATURE is never cheated. 
 
 INTELLIGENCE is a great help to a man in bearing 
 the difficulties and exposures of life, enabling him 
 to survive hardships under which the uncultivated 
 soon sink into the grave. 
 
 BETWEEN the opening of spring and the close of 
 summer, looseness of the bowels is very prevalent. 
 The employment of salted ham, broiled, two or three 
 times a week, in warm weather, is a preventive, to 
 a considerable extent, in persons of temperate, reg- 
 ular habits. 
 
 [ CONSIDER it a statistical fact, that three out of 
 four of all the clergy who are prematurely set aside 
 as unavailable workers, are thus set aside in conse- 
 quence of errors in diet. 
 
 HALF the girls have dyspepsia before they are 
 seventeen, in consequence of their everlasting nib- 
 bling at everything in the house. The most nat- 
 ural and healthful times for eating would seem to 
 be at daylight, noon, and sundown ; the last meal 
 being very light indeed. 
 
 THERE is no vice of the appetite which does not 
 find advocates among otherwise respectable people.
 
 224 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LET everything that has the most distant re 
 semblance to a contemptible whine, to a devilish 
 fault-finding, to a brutal boorishness, and to a nar- 
 row-minded and degrading selfishness, be consid- 
 ered as emanations from that pit of darkness where 
 fiends and furies dwell. Then shall light be in 
 every family dwelling, cheerfulness in every face, 
 and the twinkle of gladness in every eye ; while 
 every heart overflows with a joy so pure that even 
 angels might envy its sweetness and its bliss. 
 
 THROAT-AIL is like a fire, the sooner you know 
 of its existence the better ; and like a fire, too, which 
 seldom goes out of itself; so throat-ail seldom, in- 
 deed, gets well of itself, but burrows and deepens 
 until it undermines the constitution, wastes away 
 the health, and strength, and flesh, and finally fas- 
 tening itself in the lungs, completes the wreck and 
 ruin of the whole man. 
 
 THE abuse of medicine by the ignorant and un- 
 principled more than counterbalances its good 
 effects in the hands of educated and skilful prac- 
 titioners. 
 
 THE less it costs a man to live, the less laborious 
 will be his life, the longer it will last, and the more 
 genial and mellow will be his advancing years, and 
 eventually, without an ache or a pain, he will dry 
 up entirely, will evaporate, and leave this mundane 
 sphere without a jolt or a jar.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 225 
 
 THE whole system of female fashionable educa- 
 tion is an abortion and a curse. Our daughters are 
 not trained for wives, in the true sense of the word, 
 but for ladies, for puppets, for dolls, for playthings. 
 
 SMOKING is a useless, expensive, selfish, and filthy 
 practice ; it leads to drunkenness in many cases, 
 and it is rare to find a drunkard who does not 
 smoke ; the man who smokes every day is never 
 safe from the gutter ; and he who deliberately runa 
 this risk has not the courage to avoid any other sink 
 of moral degradation, were it not for the fear of 
 being found out. 
 
 BOXING the ears is an inexcusable brutality; 
 many a child has been made deaf for life by it, 
 because the " drum of the ear " is a membrane, aa 
 thin as paper, stretching like a curtain just inside 
 the external entrance of the ear. There is nothing 
 but air just behind it, and any violent concussion 
 is liable to rend it in two, and the hearing is de- 
 stroyed forever, because the sense of hearing is 
 caused by the vibrations of this drum, or " tym- 
 panum." 
 
 PEOPLE who have good health do not have pre- 
 sentiments, which are really the offspring of idle- 
 ness and gluttony, of an overloaded stomach, of a 
 brain fed with bad blood ; for that innumerable mul- 
 titude who over-eat every day have neither good 
 blood, good sense, nor a good conscience. 
 15
 
 226 PR. BALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 CHILDREN should be kept as warmly clad, at least 
 until May, as in the depth of winter ; they should 
 not be allowed to remain out of doors later than 
 sundown, when they should be brought into a warm 
 room, their feet examined, and made dry and warm, 
 their suppers given them, and then sent to bed, not 
 to go outside the doors until next morning after 
 breakfast. 
 
 MANY persons, especially clergymen, sometimes 
 encounter exposures, which result in death, under 
 an indefinable impression that their motives or 
 their work will, somehow or other, secure them an 
 impunity against their effects. 
 
 A CLEAN scalp and pure soft water are the best 
 pomatums in the world for man or woman, boy 
 or girl, young or old. 
 
 BLUE reminiscences are, for the most part, unre- 
 munerative. A hearty, whole-souled, wide-mouthed 
 laugh is incomparably more healthful ; it enlivens 
 the circulation, mollifies the heart, and wakes us up 
 to newness of life. 
 
 A MAN in pain does not want to be talked to 
 he wants relief, not words. If all could know, as 
 physicians do, the inestimable value of quiet com- 
 posure, and a confident air on the part of one who 
 attempts to aid a sufferer, they would be practised 
 with ceaseless assiduity by the considerate and the 
 humane.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 227 
 
 MEDICAL quackery brings on insidious diseases 
 more destructive than those they attempt to cure. 
 Moral and religious quackery will do the samo 
 thing. 
 
 THE medicine which we most unhesitatingly take 
 for all the aches and ills that our flesh is heir to, 
 which is uniformly successful, and which we almost 
 daily recommend with the highest confidence, and 
 which comes next in our esteem to the two great 
 remedies of air and exercise, and which nobody but 
 a doctor can be induced to take, except now and 
 tli en a sensible man among a million, is the tincture 
 of time. The reason of its want of proper confi- 
 dence is, that it costs nothing and has no mystery 
 about it. 
 
 IF persons wish to be aided in securing an 
 habitual carriage of body in walking, they should 
 accustom themselves to carry their hands behind 
 them, one hand grasping the opposite wrist. 
 
 IT is beyond dispute, that always and everywhere 
 those who drink most of liquors in any shape, beer, 
 brandy, whiskey, or rum, soonest give out, soonest 
 get sick, and are slowest to recover. 
 
 LET it be remembered, that a clean garment has 
 more warmth in it than a soiled one, and that a small 
 hole or rent lets in a large amount of cold air, enough 
 to occasion, in some circumstances, a life-long 
 rheumatism.
 
 228 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 FATAL forms of fever, loose bowels, and bloody 
 discharges are often occasioned by a sudden check 
 of perspiration from chilly winds or cold night air ; 
 so when perspiring even a little, either keep in 
 moderate motion, go to a fire, or put on an addi- 
 tional coat or blanket. 
 
 NATURE is like a perfect housekeeper ; she knows 
 better what is wanting in her house than anybody 
 can tell her. 
 
 " WHAT is good for the goose is good for the 
 gander," may have a certain amount of truth in it ; 
 but what is good for a goose is not necessarily and 
 therefore good for a jackass. Yet this is the line 
 of argument used by many, and is sometimes found 
 in books, and magazines, and newspapers in refer- 
 ence to health and disease. A man, for example, is 
 sick of anything or nothing ; takes something, and 
 soon gets wel] , he has great faith in that medicine, 
 and thereafter takes it for every ailment in his own 
 person, and recommends it freely and confidently to 
 any one who may be sick, without any special regard 
 to the nature of the malady. 
 
 IF a child from two to twelve years old com- 
 plains of a sore throat, and has a most offensive 
 breath, send instantly for a physician. 
 
 MULTITUDES of fatal errors in relation to health 
 and life are thrown upon the world from time to 
 time by thoughtless or ignorant writers.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 229 
 
 INTELLIGENCE is the best life-preserver. The 
 largest city in the civilized world is healthier than 
 its surrounding agricultural district. The aristo- 
 cratic regiment of New York was gone a month or 
 two to the war, and returned with the loss of but 
 one man in eight hundred, and he died of heart 
 disease, of long duration. Of some ninety persons 
 who went to the army, in various capacities, from 
 one church, no more died of all causes than among 
 an equal number at home. These things seem to 
 show that intelligence, especially connected with 
 social elevation, is promotive of health ; and con- 
 sidering that an active, out-door soldier's life works 
 disease out of the system, especially where there is 
 no addiction to social vices, there is good ground 
 for believing that even with the addition of the 
 casualties of war, there need not be any more 
 deaths in a given time among a given number of 
 men, than there would have been in the same men 
 had they remained at home. 
 
 THE most positive people are the most ignorant, 
 both as to matters of law and medicine. 
 
 TRUE natures ripen and strengthen in suffering; 
 but it is that suffering which chastens and enobles 
 that which clears the spiritual sight; not the 
 anxiety lest work should fail, and the want of daily 
 bread. The beauty of suffering is not to be read 
 in the face of hunger.
 
 230 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 OF two persons having consumption, with appar. 
 ently equal chances of life, the man who abandons 
 himself to his fate, hugs the fire, and is afraid to 
 stir out of doors lest he should take cold, inevitably 
 dies in a short time ; the other, having force of 
 character, indomitable determination, and a truer 
 philosophy, considers that life is worth striving for, 
 that he can but die anyhow, and braving all winds 
 and weathers, fights courageously against his mala- 
 dy, and lives to be an old man. So it is in some 
 forms of paralysis, rheumatism, and other disable- 
 ments, the exercise of a true philosophy is mani- 
 fested in brave resolves to live down disease, to live 
 above it, and by sheer force of will to break the 
 spell which was thrown over the succumbing body ; 
 thus the mind may, and often does, become a power 
 over human maladies more efficient than the most 
 famed medicines of the apothecary. 
 
 THE grains proper of this country are not ap- 
 preciated, as they ought to be, for daily food at 
 our tables ; these are Indian corn, wheat, rye, 
 barley, and oats ; they contain all the elements of 
 nutrition necessary to the support of the human 
 system, and if they could be used for two of the 
 daily meals, as breakfast and supper, without any- 
 thing else, there would be an incalculable advan- 
 tage to the soundness of the teeth, the strengtli of 
 the bones, the hardness of the muscles, the endur- 
 ance of the body, and the vigor of the brain.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAYTMB. 231 
 
 THE most common way to a premature grave, 
 and one of the shortest cuts to that destination, is 
 down a man's throat. There is a multitude, which 
 no man can number, daily eating immoderately, 
 thus sapping the constitution, and laying the foun- 
 dation for innumerable ills and a too early grave. 
 The wise man does it, and the fool ; the virtuous 
 and the abandoned ; the kind and the cross, of all 
 climes, are among the errorists. But there are 
 some who are wise as to this point, and the num- 
 ber is increasing; the number of those who are 
 men and women of force; who think for them- 
 selves, observe for themselves ; who have vigor of 
 intellect enough to compare causes and effects, an- 
 tecedents and consequents. 
 
 HARD study does not of itself shorten life, but 
 does of itself tend to increase the longevity of man. 
 When hard students die early, it will be found that 
 in some way they had fallen into the habit of 
 violating some of the laws of nature, or began 
 study with some inherited infirmity. The pursuit 
 of truth is pleasurable ; it is exhilarating ; it is 
 exalting, and promotes serenity. Of all men, nat- 
 ural philosophers average the longest lives. The 
 great, the governing reason is, in addition to the 
 above, that their attention is drawn away from the 
 indulgence of animal appetites; their gratifica- 
 tions are not in that direction; hence they are 
 neither gourmands, drunkards, nor licentious.
 
 232 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE top of the head is most profusely supplied 
 with blood-vessels, yet men grow bald there first, by 
 keeping the head too warm ; also, arid chiefly, by the 
 prevalent fashion, for generations past, of wearing 
 hard fur and silk hats, which, by their pressure all 
 around the head, forcibly detain the blood from the 
 top of the head : there is seldom baldness below 
 where the hat touches the head. None of the 
 writer's playmates are known to bo bald at ages 
 from forty to sixty-five ; it was the universal cus- 
 tom among them as boys to wear loose woollen 
 hats, answering to the felt hats now in fashion. 
 To prevent thin hair and premature baldness, 
 first, keep a clean scalp ; second, never wear the 
 hair on a strain, or against the direction of its 
 growth ; third, never apply anything to it but soap- 
 suds or pure water ; fourth, wear loose-fitting, soft 
 hats ; fifth, let men and children always wear the 
 hair very short, and both men and women should 
 brush the hair a great deal, using only a coarse 
 comb, which should touch the scalp only in the 
 slightest manner possible. 
 
 HEADACHES in children should always be prompt- 
 ly attended to, as they indicate the approach of 
 serious diseases, as scarlet fever, small-pox, 
 measles, and other grave skin affections. 
 
 ALWAYS eat slowly and in moderation of welJ 
 divided food.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 233 
 
 SEPTEMBER gives rise to more disease in town 
 and country together than any other month of the 
 year. It is fruitful in diarrhoea, dysentery, and 
 fevers of every grade, from common fever and 
 ague to the most malignant form of bilious, con- 
 gestive, and yellow fever. The immediate causes 
 of these maladies are the hot days and cool nights, 
 in conjunction with the habits of the people. Few 
 persons have hearty appetites in hot weather 
 our instincts are too wide awake for that ; but we 
 too often drown their wise, and steady, and gentle 
 monitions in the clamor of the animal nature for 
 stimulants, to whet up the appetite to hurtful and 
 destructive activities. 
 
 IN all nature man is the biggest fool. 
 
 IT will refresh us greatly if, on waking up of a 
 winter's night, we get out of bed, throw all the 
 clothing to the foot, and the next instant throw it 
 back ; this drives all the confined air away from 
 the bedding, without allowing it to get very cold. 
 In addition, the hands should be passed over the 
 fekin of the whole body two or three times. This 
 operation is accompanied with a degree of refresh- 
 ment and a feeling of purity on entering the bed 
 again which more than pays for the trouble, and it 
 is often a great sleep promoter, enabling a person 
 to fall into a sound slumber in a few minutes, after 
 having been tossing restlessly for hours.
 
 234 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 CORNS are caused by too tight or too loose shoes, 
 and sometimes in the bottoms of the feet by the 
 wooden pegs protruding through the soles of the 
 shoe, by the neglect of the maker to rasp them off 
 sufficiently smooth. Medical books record cases 
 where the injudicious paring of corns has resulted 
 in mortification and death. The safest, the best, 
 the surest plan is to never allow a corn to be 
 touched with anything harder than the finger-nail. 
 As soon as it becomes troublesome enough to attract 
 attention, soak the foot fifteen minutes, night and 
 morning, in quite warm water ; then rub two or 
 three drops of sweet oil into the top of the corn 
 with the end of the finger. Do this patiently for 
 a couple of minutes. Then double a piece of soft 
 buckskin, something larger round than a dime, rath- 
 er oblong. Cut a hole through it large enough to 
 receive the corn, and thus attach it to the toe. This 
 prevents pressure on the corn, which always aggra- 
 vates it, and in less than a week the corn will gen- 
 erally fall out, or can be easily picked out with the 
 finger-nail, and will not return for many weeks or 
 months ; and when it does return, repeat the pro- 
 cess. No safer or more efficient plan of removal 
 has ever been made known. 
 
 WE eat to live ; and if we eat wisely of what He 
 has provided who giveth us all things richly to 
 enjoy, we shall live well, healthfully, and long.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 235 
 
 BALDNESS among women is very much rarer than 
 among men. Women's baldness is about the tem- 
 ples, that of man on the top of the head. It may 
 be then inferred that one cause of baldness is 
 keeping the head covered and heated, thus excess- 
 ively stimulating the hair-glands by an unnatural 
 warmth, and prematurely exhausting their power, 
 and also by preventing the evaporation and escape 
 of that effete matter, the continued presence of 
 which is always death, in whatever part of the 
 system it may occur. This is effectually done by 
 the large quantities of grease and oil which our 
 women plaster on the sides of the head and tem- 
 ples, the hair, dust, and oil making a coating over 
 the temples almost as impervious as India-rubber, 
 thus choking up the roots or glands and preventing 
 the proper blood circulation; for it is the blood 
 which carries nutriment to the hair. 
 
 IT is a bad plan to eat " to make it even." 
 
 THE outer eighth of an inch of the potato con- 
 tains more nourishment than all the remainder ; 
 hence it is a shameful waste to peel a potato with 
 a knife, of which many of the poor are unfortunately 
 ignorant, to their own great loss. 
 
 EPIDEMIC cholera is impossible under any circum- 
 stances in a pure air, or in a clean sandy plain, or 
 in rocky mountain sides, because there is no vege- 
 tation there to decay.
 
 236 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THREE impossibilities : To over-estimate the great- 
 ness of redeeming love ; to over-estimate the joy? 
 which God hath prepared for those who love him 
 to over-estimate the obligation under which we are 
 laid to consecrate our time, our talents, our fortunes, 
 and all that we have and are, to the promotion of 
 God's glory and the happiness of our fellow-men. 
 With such a consecration, no man has ever avowed, 
 or ever can say, on a dying bed, that if he had his 
 life to live over again, he would serve his Maker 
 less zealously, and would do less for his country 
 and his kind. 
 
 A PERSON should sleep in one garment, a coarse 
 cotton shirt, and no more, without a button, or pin, 
 or string about him. No one, who pretends to 
 common cleanliness, should sleep in a garment 
 worn during the day, nor wear during the day 
 a garment in which he has slept. Any garment 
 worn should have six or eight hours' airing every 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 THE habitual use of pills, or drops, or any kind 
 of medicine whatever, for the regulation of the 
 bowels, is a sure means of ultimately undermining 
 the health ; in almost all cases laying the founda- 
 tion for some of the most distressing of chronic 
 maladies ; hence all the pains possible should be 
 taken to keep them regulated by natural agencies, 
 such as the coarse foods and exercise.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 237 
 
 A ROOM, to be comfortable as a sitting-room in 
 cold weather, should have a thermometer, five feet 
 from the floor, and near the door, about sixty-five 
 degrees ; to go from such a room into a tempera- 
 ture forty degrees lower, in a moment, must be 
 pernicious always, often dangerous, sometimes 
 deadly. Hence, in the daytime, when there is a 
 great deal of running in and out, it is safer to have 
 fewer fires burning ; but when the cold night sets 
 in, and all the family are at home, the luxury of 
 abundant warmth and light merits our deepest 
 gratitude to Him from whom all our comfort flows. 
 
 THE exercise of the student should be regular, 
 gentle, deliberate, always stopping short of felt 
 fatigue. One hour's joyous walk with a cheerful 
 friend in street, or field, or woodland, will never 
 fail to do a greater and a more unmixed good than 
 double the time in the most scientifically conducted 
 gymnasium in the world. There are individual 
 cases where the gymnasium is of the most undeni- 
 able benefit ; but the masses would be the better 
 for having nothing to do with them. A million 
 times better recipe than the gymnasium for sed- 
 entary persons, is Eat moderately and regularly 
 of plain, nourishing food, well prepared ; spend two 
 or three hours every day in the open air, regard- 
 less of the weather, in moderate, untiring activ- 
 ities.
 
 238 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 As to the use of wines, beers, brandies, cider, 
 opium, and tobacco, the only infallible guarantee 
 from a wasted life, an early death, the gutter, or 
 the mad-house, is in obeying the counsel of the 
 inspired volume " Touch not, taste not." 
 
 WHEN there is too much blood in the veins of the 
 head, there is a dull pain or great depression of spir- 
 its, and the feet are always cold. It is this excess 
 of blood in the veins of the head or brain which al- 
 ways induces the despondency which so frequently 
 causes suicide. When this is attempted by cutting 
 the throat, the relief is instantaneous, and the victim 
 becomes anxious for the life he had just attempted to 
 destroy. Hence a good out-door walk, or a hot bath, 
 a sudden fit of laughter, or a terrible burst of pas- 
 sion, by dispersing the blood to the surface from the 
 centres, puts the blues and megrims to flight also. 
 
 IP an artery is cut in a part of the body where 
 a string cannot be applied, hard pressure with the 
 thumb at a spot about where the string would have 
 been applied may save life. 
 
 THEEE should be no carpet on the floor of a 
 sleeping-room, except a single strip by the side 
 of the bed, to prevent a sudden shock by the 
 warm foot coming in contact with a cold floor. 
 Carpets collect dust, and dirt, and filth, and damp, 
 ness, and are the invention of laziness to save labor 
 and hide uncleanness.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 239 
 
 THE colder the out-door air is, the purer it must 
 be and therefore more healthful and invigorating ; 
 not only is it more healthful in consequence of its 
 freedom from impurities, but also from the concen- 
 tration of its life-giving property, because air is 
 condensed by cold ; it is packed, as it were, more 
 solid ; so that, even supposing two cubic inches of 
 air equally pure, one at the equator the other at 
 the poles, the one at the poles has a much larger 
 amount of oxygen, the great life-giver and purifier 
 of the blood. 
 
 IP stung or bitten by insect, snake, or animal, 
 apply spirits of hartshorn very freely with a soft 
 rag, because it is one of the strongest of alkalies, 
 and is familiar to most persons. The substance 
 which causes the so-called poison from bites or 
 stings, is, as far as is ascertained, generally acid. 
 Hence the hartshorn antagonizes it in proportion to 
 the promptitude with which it is applied. If no 
 hartshorn is at hand, pour a cup of hot water on a 
 cup of cooking soda or saleratus, or even the ashes 
 of wood just from the stove or fireplace, because 
 all these are strong alkalies, and hartshorn is only 
 best because it is the strongest. There is no con- 
 clusive evidence to believe that burning or cutting 
 out a bite has ever done the slightest good. The 
 proof adduced to show that they have been effectual 
 is wholly of a negative character, and, therefore, 
 not decisive.
 
 240 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE first meal, after a severe effort of either 
 mind or body, especially if the effort has been 
 protracted, should be a very simple one, such as 
 light bread, butter, and a cup of hot drink ; then 
 in four or five hours a hearty meal may be safely 
 taken, and is necessary. 
 
 THE pain of inflammation gives heat; hence 
 headache, with a hot head, is from too much blood 
 in the arteries, and there is throbbing; draw it 
 away, by putting the feet in very hot water ; this 
 often removes pain in any part of the body above 
 the ankles. 
 
 EXERCISE is health-producing, because it works 
 off, and out of the system, its waste, dead, and 
 effete matters; these are all converted into a 
 liquid form, called by some " humors," which have 
 exit from the body through the " pores " of the 
 skin in the shape of perspiration, which all have 
 seen, and which all know is the result of exercise, 
 when the body is in a state of health. Thus it is, 
 that persons who do not perspire, who have a dry 
 skin, are always either feverish or chilly, and are 
 never well, and never can be as long as that con- 
 dition exists. So exercise, by working out of the 
 system its waste, decayed, and useless matters, 
 keeps the human machine " free ; " otherwise it 
 would soon clog up, and the wheels of life would 
 stop forever I
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 241 
 
 EXERCISE improves the health, because every 
 step a man takes tends to impart motion to the 
 bowels ; a proper amount of exercise keeps them 
 acting once in every twenty-four hours; if they 
 have not motion enough, there is constipation, 
 which brings on very many fatal diseases ; hence 
 exercise, especially that of walking, wards off in- 
 numerable diseases, when it is kept up to an 
 extent equal to inducing one action of the bowels 
 daily. 
 
 FIND a young man who has no money, or who, 
 having money, has no desire to get rid of it un- 
 profitably, and you find a soil upon which roguery 
 cannot fasten. 
 
 THE human body is made in such a manner that 
 a single step cannot be taken without tending to 
 move the intestines ; thus it is, in the main, that 
 those who move about on their feet a great deal 
 have the least sickness, and, on the other hand, 
 those who sit a great deal, and hence move about 
 but little, never have sound health ; it is an impos- 
 sibility it is a rule to which I have never known 
 an exception. 
 
 SICKNESS is often aggravated, and life itself is 
 sometimes lost, from giving to a second man what 
 cured the first, because the circumstances were 
 not the same. 
 
 16
 
 242 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE safest and most comfortable application in 
 nature for the relief of all pain, especially that 
 arising from inflammation, is a woollen cloth, kept 
 very warm, even hot, by the steady addition of hot 
 water, or a stream of warm water, where the pain- 
 ful part admits it. When pain is severe, sharp, or 
 thrilling, there is inflammation, and arises from 
 there being too much blood in the arteries; if dull 
 and heavy, it is caused from there being too much 
 blood in the veins. 
 
 WHEN it is considered that pure air is essential 
 to the purification of the blood, and that the food 
 we eat never becomes nutriment until it meets 
 with the air in the lungs, and when it is furthermore 
 remembered that a full third of our entire exist- 
 ence is passed in our sleeping apartments, it must 
 be clear to the commonest understanding that the 
 difference between breathing a pure and impure 
 air while we are asleep is literally incalculable as 
 to the effects upon our happiness and well-being. 
 
 IT is too much the custom to measure one's 
 health by the avidity of his appetite and his in- 
 crease in flesh, as if he were a pig ; forgetting that 
 the voracious appetite and fat are always indicative 
 of a diseased body. A uniform, moderate appetite 
 is the attendant of good health. A racer's ribs 
 must be seen before he is fit for the track, because 
 then he is more capable of endurance.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 243 
 
 A HOUSEHOLD is better regulated by an affection- 
 ate pliancy, than by an inflexible rigidity ; yielding 
 in non-essentials, but firm as a rock in all questions 
 of right and wrong. 
 
 IT is not possible to supply a pure warmth by 
 any furnace ever invented, unless it simply heats 
 water or air, out of which is given the caloric ne- 
 cessary to make a dwelling comfortable. That the 
 heat which comes from any furnace through an 
 ordinary register, although the coals are red hot, 
 is a sickening stench, can be demonstrated any 
 moment in a winter's day : it is sending into a 
 room an incessant stream of air, almost wholly di- 
 vested of its oxygen, which is the element for 
 which alone air is breathed at all. Nor is this all : 
 the oxygen has not only been abstracted, but sul- 
 phuretted hydrogen and carbonated hydrogen, 
 which are among the most noisome smells in na- 
 ture that of rotten eggs replace the oxygen ; 
 and that such an atmosphere, steaming into our 
 parlors, and dining-rooms, and chambers, cannot 
 be otherwise than most pernicious to health, only 
 but an idiot can deny. 
 
 THE human mind everywhere takes in truth 
 with pleasure ; it feeds on what is new, and if the 
 new is beautiful and true, it is a feast of fat things, 
 nourishing the immortal part, and giving life to the 
 body itself.
 
 244 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE heart, the moral nature, must be rested by 
 a diversion of its activities to subjects belonging 
 more directly to its higher nature. 
 
 THE most common way to a premature grave, 
 and one of the shortest cuts to that destination, is 
 down a man's throat. There is a multitude, which 
 no man can number, daily eating immoderately, 
 thus sapping the constitution, and laying the 
 foundation for innumerable ills and a too early 
 grave. The wise man does it, and the fool ; the 
 virtuous and the abandoned; the kind and the 
 cross, of all climes, are among the errorists. But 
 there are some who are wise as to this point, and 
 the number is increasing; the number of those 
 who are men and women of force ; who think for 
 themselves, observe for themselves; who have 
 vigor of intellect enough to compare causes and ef- 
 fects, antecedents and consequents. There is con- 
 stantly coining to us the knowledge of mothers, 
 who, by our teachings, have been led to regulate 
 their households rationally, and are reaping a rich 
 reward, in the shape of health for themselves, and 
 what is dearer still, increasing health for their 
 children. 
 
 THE body must be rested by a cessation from 
 work or muscular effort. 
 
 THE brain must be rested by cessation of ordi- 
 nary mental application.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 245 
 
 IP it be true that " economy leads to wealth," it 
 must be equally true that extravagance leads to 
 poverty ; and almost the greatest extravagance, to 
 which business men are now tempted, is that of os- 
 tentatious display. Dr. Franklin said, that " the 
 road to wealth is as plain as the road to market," 
 If Poor Richard were to come again to point it out, 
 he would likely advise that it be not carpeted with 
 Brussels, except at its extreme farther end. 
 
 MOTHERS are often much afraid that their 
 daughters will hurt themselves by a little work, if 
 they complain of not feeling very well ; and yet if 
 such daughters were to sit down to dinner, and 
 shovel in enough provender for an elephant or a 
 ploughman, it would be considered a good omen and 
 the harbinger of convalescence. A reverse pro- 
 cedure would restore multitudes of ailing persona 
 to permanent good health, namely, to eat very 
 little for a few days ; eat nothing but coarse bread 
 and ripe fruits, and work about the house indus- 
 triously ; or, what is better, exercise in the open 
 air for the greater part of each day on horseback, 
 in the garden, or walking through the woodlands, 
 or over the hills, for hours at a time. Objectless 
 walks and lazy lolling in carriages are very little 
 better than nothing. 
 
 IT is greatly safer for children, for invalids, and 
 old persons to have too much clothing than too little.
 
 246 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 VIGOROUS, manly h-ealtli makes one feel as if he 
 could sweep away every obstacle before him with 
 a wave of the hand ; that health should be striven 
 for, in an active life, which keeps the body "on 
 the go ; " which taxes the mental energies to an 
 extent that compels them to be busy, not over- 
 crowded, but always a little pushed ; an additional 
 element of success would be to secure such a per- 
 son an occupation involving responsibilities in- 
 volving the direction of others ; a situation which 
 implies confidence reposed by persons of character 
 and position: in this way work, business, becomes 
 a pleasure, and mind and body, being fully occu- 
 pied, the capabilities of both will be invited out, 
 will be cherished, strengthened, and grow to 
 fair proportions from very use. Wake up, then, ye 
 hesitating, halting ones, and make a manful fight 
 against whatever of obstacles may stand in the 
 way of success in life ; stand up to them face to 
 face : sometimes they will melt away as snow be- 
 fore the silent warming sun, at others they may be 
 too numerous to mention ; but when they seem to 
 be, take courage, and they will oftentimes vanish 
 like the morning dew in the practice of " Gus- 
 sie's " plan, " When you've got a big thing to do, 
 go ahead." 
 
 A TEACHER must have more than knowledge, he 
 must have a high principle, a conscience, a heart.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 247 
 
 ALL know that the less we exercise the less 
 health we have, and the more certain are we to 
 die before our time. But comparatively few per- 
 sons are able to explain, how does exercise 
 promote health. Both beast and bird, in a state 
 of nature, are exempt from disease, except in 
 rare cases : it is because the unappeasable instinct 
 of searching for their necessary food impels them 
 to ceaseless activities. Children, when left to 
 themselves, eat a great deal, and have excellent 
 health, because they will be doing something all 
 the time, until they become so tired they fall 
 asleep; and as soon as they wake, they begin right 
 away to run about again ; thus their whole exist- 
 ence is spent in alternate eating, and sleeping, 
 and exercise, which is interesting and pleasurable. 
 The health of childhood would be enjoyed by 
 those of maturer years, if, like children, they 
 would eat only when they are hungry ; stop when 
 they have done ; take rest in sleep as soon as they 
 are tired ; and when not eating or resting, would 
 spend the time diligently in such muscular activ- 
 ities as would be interesting, agreeable, and profit- 
 able. Exercise without mental elasticity, without 
 an enlivenment of the feelings and the mind, is of 
 comparatively little value. 
 
 WHOEVER drinks no liquids at meals, will add 
 years of pleasurable existence to his life.
 
 248 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WALKING with the head downward, or with a 
 staff or cane, promotes a stooping position, and 
 brings on an appearance of old age prematurely, 
 not only by the effects upon the structure of the 
 spinal column, but by throwing the weight of the 
 body on the chest, thus compressing the lungs, 
 diminishing their capability of receiving an ade- 
 quate quantity of pure air, thus gradually purify- 
 ing the blood less and less perfectly, until the 
 whole mass of it becomes imperfect, impure, and 
 diseased; then slight causes carry, a man to the 
 grave. An absolute preventive of all this is an 
 habitual, persistent attention to the following 
 rules : Walk with the toes thrown outward. Walk 
 with the chin slightly above a horizontal line, as 
 if looking at the top of a man's hat in front of you, 
 or at the eaves or roof of a house. Walk a good 
 deal with your hands behind you. Sit with the 
 lower portion of the spine pressed against the 
 chair-back. 
 
 No man has a right to indulge in any extrava- 
 gance which will injure his success in business, 
 so long as such an injury to himself will be an in- 
 jury to any one else. 
 
 No system of hygiene can be complete which 
 does not include that temperance, industry, and 
 personal purity which the sacred writings often 
 and strongly insist upon.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 249 
 
 EVERY day we meet with persons who in their 
 families are cross, ill-natured, dissatisfied, finding 
 fault with everybody and everything, whose first 
 greeting in the breakfast-room is a complaint, 
 whose conversation seldom fails to end in an enu- 
 meration of difficulties and hardships, whose last 
 word at night is an angry growl. If you can get such 
 persons to reason on the subject, they will acknowl- 
 edge that there is some " want " at the bottom of it ; 
 the want of a better house, a finer dress, a more hand- 
 some equipage, a more dutiful child, a more provident 
 husband, a more cleanly, or systematic, or domestic 
 wife. At one time it is a " wretched cook " who 
 stands between them and the sun ; or a lazy house- 
 servant, or an impertinent carriage-driver. The 
 want of more money than Providence has thought 
 proper to bestow will be found to embrace all 
 these things. Such persons may feel assured that 
 people who cannot make themselves really comfort- 
 able in any one set of ordinary circumstances would 
 not be so under any other. 
 
 Ip you are caught in a drenching rain, or fall in 
 the water, by all means keep in motion sufficiently 
 vigorous to prevent the slightest chilly sensation 
 until you reach the house ; then change your cloth- 
 ing with great rapidity before a blazing fire, and 
 drink instantly a pint of some hot liquid. To allow 
 the clothing to dry upon you, unless by keeping up 
 vigorous exercise until thoroughly dried, is suicidal.
 
 250 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 CONSUMPTION always comes on in one of two 
 ways the lungs not having fresh air enough 
 supplied to them, or by not being able to take in 
 enough, which latter condition is brought on in the 
 first place by a sufficient amount of pure air not 
 being supplied for weeks and months in succession. 
 Whenever a consumptive patient is brought to a 
 physician, one symptom is always present, is never 
 by any possibility absent in any one case ; pain 
 may be absent, cough may be absent, night sweats 
 may be absent, and swollen feet and ankles also ; 
 but a want of breath is always present. 
 
 TEA and coffee used at each regular meal, as the 
 exclusive drink of all classes and all ages, will add 
 to the health, life, happiness, and well-being of any 
 nation. All nations, of all ages, have solid or liquid 
 excitants, or stimulants, made to hand, or have dis- 
 covered or invented them, or found out the mode 
 of use adapted to the results. It would seem from 
 this that a beneficent Providence intended their 
 employment for the comfort of the creatures of his 
 power written revelation giving the explicit con- 
 ditions of their use. 
 
 A DOLLAR'S worth of lime, a shilling ribbon, or a 
 few pennies' worth of paint may be so used as to 
 give an impression of life, of cheerfulness, and of 
 thrift about a home altogether beyond the value of 
 the means employed for the purpose.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 251 
 
 IP I were attacked with undisputed cholera, I 
 would do four things : Lie down ; eat ice, if thirsty ; 
 bind a piece of woollen flannel tightly around the 
 abdomen ; take calomel. This fourth item requires 
 a more extended mention. I would take an amount 
 supposed to be sufficient. If it did not arrest the 
 passages within two hours, I would double that 
 amount, and continue to double each last dose at the 
 end of each second hour, until the disease was 
 arrested. 
 
 As pork has been the main stay of the nation for 
 hundreds of years, and statistics tell us the average 
 duration of human life is steadily increasing, we 
 would advise the people to eat as much " ham and 
 eggs " as heretofore, not to discard " pork and 
 beans," to revel in sausages in their proper season, 
 to supply themselves with a good store of hogs' 
 lard every autumn for the year's use, and dismiss 
 all apprehension of being eaten up alive by pig- 
 worms; but always cook these articles most thor- 
 oughly. 
 
 THEEE should be no standing fluid of any de- 
 scription, nor a particle of food, or vegetation, 
 or any decayable substance allowed to remain 
 in a bed-room for a moment ; nor should any light 
 be kept burning, except from necessity, as all 
 these things corrupt the air which is breathed 
 while sleeping.
 
 252 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 TRUE politeness is benevolence personified ; it ia 
 the practice of kindness. There is virtue even in 
 the form of politeness : it may be merely mechan- 
 ical, still, like an air cushion, although there is noth- 
 ing in it, it is very comfortable in use. Why not 
 cultivate a pleasant mode of recognition for every 
 one we meet on the street, however slight the ac- 
 quaintance ? it would many a time lighten the load 
 of some sorrowing heart, or cause some new resolve 
 to " try again " when on the very verge of utter 
 hopelessness, by the inspiration of the feeling 
 " there's somebody, at least, cares a little for me." 
 It elevates the lowly to have their superiors greet 
 them courteously ; it unwittingly to themselves 
 begets a resolution to act more worthy of such 
 recognition ; to earn it by a better behavior, a 
 more tidy dress, a more dignified deportment. 
 
 AT home, or at church, are the places for spend- 
 ing the hours of the sacred day ; especially is it 
 the way of safety for young people safety from 
 the grog-shop, the engine-house, and the chambers 
 of her whose ways go down to death: and how 
 much of bodily disease are traceable directly to 
 these three places, to say nothing of moral corrup- 
 tions, any city physician, of even moderate prac- 
 tice, has daily cognizance. 
 
 LIVE within your income, even if you have to 
 dwell in a shanty and live on a crust of bread.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 253 
 
 IF infants and young children are inclined to be 
 wakeful during the night, or very early in the 
 morning, put them to bed later ; and besides, ar- 
 range that their day nap shall be in the forenoon. 
 
 MAKING money is about one of the best promoters 
 of health we at present think of; it enlivens the 
 mind, which induces greater bodily activities, and 
 these, as all know, are better than any medicine 
 for the securement of health and the prevention 
 of disease. The same amount of muscular effort, 
 expended in an encouragingly remunerative em- 
 ployment, will do many times more good towards 
 removing and preventing sickness than if it was 
 merely and solely intended for that end. But it 
 takes more of a man, requires more mind, more 
 moral force, to save money than to make it ; the 
 idea being expressed, although in not very elegant 
 phrase, "Any fool or knave can make money, but 
 it requires a wise man to keep it," to save it. In 
 fact, Poor Richard used to say, "A penny saved is 
 twopence gained." A man is a man in proportion 
 to the amount of self-denial he can exercise over 
 himself in proportion to his moral courage to 
 deny himself as to his appetites and gratifications. 
 Spendthrifts have none of these high qualities. 
 
 THE most all-pervading cause of the increased 
 sickness and death in cities in warm weather is 
 the breathing of an impure, a vitiated atmosphere.
 
 254 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MILLIONS of pounds of tobacco are raised in the 
 United States every year. More than half of this 
 is produced in the Northern States ; it ruins the 
 health of many, and is the first step towards drunk- 
 enness, in millions of cases; it not only makes 
 water insipid, but creates a desire for something 
 to drink, which only spirits can satisfy. 
 
 YANKEE men, nor Yankee principles, nor Yankee 
 thrift will ever die out while this planet is inhab- 
 ited ; and if it is ever depopulated by a conflagra- 
 tion, the last survivor of a smouldering world will 
 be Jonathan, at the death, singly and alone, reso- 
 lutely trying to put out the fire ; if by famine, the 
 last loaf of bread will be owned by a Yankee. 
 
 No standing water on an earthen bottom ought 
 to be allowed within a mile of any residence in 
 cholera times ; and in communities, every street 
 gutter should be kept as clean as a broom can 
 make it, or as dry as a powder-horn. Street filth, 
 cellar filth, rear-yard filth, kitchen filth, all involv- 
 ing the decay of vegetable substances, these are 
 they which make cholera victims in cities. 
 
 THE difference between cleanliness and the want 
 of it, about a house, is demonstrated in some of the 
 model lodging-houses in London, standing in the 
 midst of unhealthful surroundings ; for in these 
 houses the number of deaths is just half as many 
 as in the immediate neighborhood.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 255 
 
 A MOUNTAIN weight is pretty heavy physically, 
 and the expression is used to indicate the op- 
 pressed condition of the mind. Physicians are 
 repeatedly consulted by persons who think they 
 are " in a very bad way," when there is actually 
 no physical derangement, but the trouble has 
 arisen from a misapplication or misapprehension 
 of the meaning of facts and occurrences. 
 
 TRUE religion not only purifies the sentiments 
 and the heart, but washes a man's clothes, neatly 
 patches every worn-out garment, keeps his house 
 or farm in good repair, and inaugurates system, 
 promptitude, exactness, courtesy, and a spirit of 
 generous forbearance and kindly accommodation in 
 every household. It is not intended to say there 
 is no piety where these things are not found, but 
 they most certainly do abound in proportion as 
 Christianity has her " perfect work." 
 
 THE toiling, laboring poor are despised and con- 
 temned. Riches are coveted, sought for, and wor- 
 shipped by the million. Honesty and truth, merit 
 and talent, are sold for a " mess of pottage." Too 
 often the most open dishonesty is forgiven and for- 
 gotten, because wealth blinds the eyes and obliter- 
 ates the memory of the public. "An honest man is 
 the noblest work of God," was once true; but 
 now, " Get all you can, and keep what you get," is 
 the great principle of the age.
 
 256 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LIFE was never meant to be a mere pleasure, 
 save to the brute. To higher natures it has always 
 been, and always will be, a school, a discipline, a 
 journey, a march, a battle, a victory. The law is 
 absolute and wholesome, growing out of the very 
 divinity of man's source. No amount of fortune, 
 accordingly, can exempt a man from its operation. 
 It leaves no one where it finds him. If it does 
 not elevate him above the lambent stars, it makes 
 him grovel in the dust of the earth. The alterna- 
 tive is infallible ; and, therefore, we say to our 
 thoughtless rich men, that they had better, on 
 every account, study the methods of a wise deple- 
 tion, and educate their children to industry, econ- 
 omy, and usefulness. 
 
 THE odor of dead rats induces disease in a whole 
 household, while most rat poisons are fatal to the 
 family. If the bi-sulphide of carbon is poured into 
 their holes it will drive them from the premises in 
 twenty-four hours ; the next best remedy is a rat- 
 trap baited with toasted cheese. 
 
 IF you find yourself inclined to wake up at a 
 regular hour in the night, and remain awake, you 
 can break up the habit in three days by getting 
 up as soon as you wake, and not going to sleep 
 again until your usual hour for retiring ; or retire 
 two hours later and rise two hours earlier for throe 
 days in succession, not sleeping a moment in the 
 daytime.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 257 
 
 INABILITY to sleep is the first step towards mad- 
 ness, while sound and sufficient sleep imparts a 
 vigor to the mind, and a feeling of wellness and 
 activity to the body, which are beyond price. 
 
 DAY laborers are most liable to sun-stroke, espe- 
 cially in proportion as they use stimulating drinks. 
 It is doubtful if any strictly temperate person ever 
 becomes a victim to this instantaneous life-de- 
 stroyer, but excessive exposure to the direct rays 
 of a summer's sun may occasion sun-stroke in any 
 individual, in the proportion aa he is of a sedentary 
 occupation or of delicate health. Such persons, if 
 compelled to be out of doors under a hot summer's 
 sun, should wear a soft, loose hat, with some light 
 loose cloth in the crown; have the neck and 
 throat bare and unconfined ; should eat but little 
 meat, and live mostly on coarse bread and butter, 
 and berries, ripe, raw, and perfect, without sugar 
 or milk, keep regular hours, and have abundant 
 sleep. Laborers should wash the whole scalp in 
 cold water several times a day, and keep the sur- 
 face of the body clean, by rubbing it with a damp 
 towel every night before going to bed. Let the 
 friction be sufficiently vigorous to cause an extra 
 redness of the skin. It is being between two fires 
 that makes sun-stroke common in cities and uncom- 
 mon on small islands or at sea, because the brick 
 and stone pavements give back almost as great a 
 heat as comes from the sun. 
 17
 
 258 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MULTITUDES are there whose existence is one 
 continued struggle for the means which will en- 
 able them to retire to the country and live at 
 their ease for the remainder of life. How few of 
 all that company succeed, need not be expressed 
 here ; and of that small number, more than half 
 have their hearts so eaten out by the conflicts of 
 life that no lusciousness is left, no zest for the 
 pure and quiet joys of the country nothing left 
 but the dry, hard greed of gold, and bitter reflec- 
 tions as to the deep depravity of their fellow-men ; 
 no sunshine lights up their countenances ; no 
 kindly words escape their lips ; no generous acts 
 mark out their daily lives ; all humanity has died 
 out in them ; they have only one joy, and it a sem- 
 blance the joy of clutching and hoarding money. 
 Against a life so terrible as this, there is a protec- 
 tion there is a happy deliverance ; it consists in 
 wisely enjoying what we may of the present, in- 
 stead of setting apart a future for it which we may 
 never see ; all along aiming, by word, and deed, 
 and thought, and prayer, to secure a resting-place 
 in heaven. 
 
 MANY a man has the courage to march to the 
 cannon's mouth, and yet fails to resist over-indul- 
 gence in eating. He who has an intellect peerless 
 among the generation in which he lives, becomes 
 an imbecile at the dinner-table.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 259 
 
 WHILE we should cultivate serenity of heart and 
 mind, for the benign influences which it cannot fail 
 to have on ourselves and on those with whom we 
 associate, we should be deterred from the neglect 
 of cherishing a quality so divine by keeping in 
 mind the evils which hourly befall those who give 
 a loose rein to the natural man. The great and 
 good Washington is known to have been an ex- 
 tremely irritable man in early life, but he schooled 
 himself to become as calm as a summer's sea in his 
 later years. 
 
 A PLUM-SIZED lump of alum attached to a string 
 and swung around a few times slowly through a 
 pitcher of water will cause the sediment to fall to 
 the bottom in a few minutes. The neutral sulphate 
 of alumine wiil make lime-water perfectly pure, 
 destroying at the same time all organic compounds. 
 Almost all water has lime in it. 
 
 A SINGLE hour's breathing of an atmosphere 
 loaded with miasmatic exhalations may produce 
 deadly effects. 
 
 MANY a hard-working, frugal, self-denying man 
 has spent more time, and had more trouble, in col- 
 lecting a debt, than were involved in earning the 
 original amount. 
 
 AMERICANS brag a great deal about their bravery. 
 Brave people never brag. True courage is always 
 quiet.
 
 260 DR. HALL?S MAXIMS. 
 
 IP a man weighs himself at bedtime, and again 
 on first rising, he will find an actual loss in weight 
 of half a pound, which amount has gone off from 
 his body, and has been distributed through the bed- 
 clothing and the air of the room. If a single ounce 
 of old woollen rags is burned in a chamber, the 
 atmosphere becomes impregnated with the smoke, 
 and is scarcely endurable, yet sixteen times that 
 much of foreign material, of dead and refuse parts 
 of the body, are mixed with the air of a chamber, 
 and, although not producing so ill an odor, make 
 it sixteen times more injurious, because the air is 
 just sixteen times more impure, has sixteen times 
 less of the appropriate nourishment of the system, 
 showing again the great importance of sleeping in 
 well-ventilated chambers. If two persons sleep in 
 the same room, these pernicious deteriorations of 
 the atmosphere are doubled. 
 
 THE coarser the food, the more freely will the 
 bowels act, such as corn (Indian) bread, eaten hot ; 
 hominy; wheaten grits; bread made from coarse 
 flour, or " shorts ; " Graham bread ; boiled turnips, 
 or "stirabout." If the bowels act oftener than 
 twice a day, live for a short time on boiled rice, 
 farina, starch, or boiled milk. 
 
 LET us practise ourselves, and teach it to our 
 children, to look at all things, to think of all things, 
 to speak of all things serenely.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 261 
 
 LET that father who wishes to be assured that 
 his son shall not languish in a penitentiary, or per- 
 ish on a gallows, give that son a trade. Let the 
 mother who desires to make it certain that the 
 daughter she so much loves shall not pine away in 
 some cheerless hospital, ay, some insane asylum, 
 teach that daughter the perfect use of her needle, 
 or, better, the skilful handling of a sewing-machine ; 
 and more, how to keep a tidy house ; how to pre 
 pare a comfortable meal; how to spread a well- 
 appointed table to do all these things with 
 thoroughness. Such a young woman can never 
 come to want ; can never fail to find a well-paying 
 place in this country. 
 
 AMERICANS are a hasty race ; their habitual hur 
 ries and anxieties eat out the very essence of life 
 before half that life is done, and all bloodless, 
 fidgety, skinny, and thin, we are but " a vapor that 
 appeareth for a little time, and then vanishett 
 away." 
 
 THAT man is a fool, who, in a grave case of sick- 
 ness as to himself, his family, or those under his 
 control, fails to call in promptly a regularly edu- 
 cated physician, or one who, if not regularly edu- 
 cated, has had long years of practical and exten- 
 sive experience ; and when death results from 
 such omission, such a one is a constructive mur- 
 derer.
 
 262 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MAN is like a pig. When he is hungry, he gets 
 quarrelsome, ill-natured, snappish ; but in one re- 
 spect he is unlike a pig ; that animal, with all its 
 love of filth, ceases to eat when it is no longer hun- 
 gry. Reader, did you never eat to make it even ? 
 take some more bread because you had a little 
 butter on your plate ? or take a little more sauce 
 or gravy because a bit of bread was left, and you 
 did not want to leave it ? That was waste ; it was 
 more than waste, because it not only did you no 
 good, but a positive injury. 
 
 THE vanity of parents is fed by the " smartness " 
 of their children ; but early ripe, early ruined, may 
 be said of all precocities. If not actually ruined, 
 there is almost in all cases a sudden " giving out " 
 of the mental powers, and the prodigy of yesterday 
 is the mediocre of to-day, and the non compos mentis 
 of to-morrow. 
 
 WASH the eyes abundantly every morning. If 
 cold water is used, let it be flapped against the 
 closed eye with the fingers of the hand, not strik- 
 ing hard against the balls of the eyes. But it 
 would seem a better plan to open the eyes in 
 pure warm water, because warm water is more 
 penetrating than cold ; it dissolves much more 
 readily and rapidly any hardened matter that 
 may be about the lids, and is more soothing and 
 more natural.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 263 
 
 THAT there are material emanations, distinguish- 
 able by the sense of smell, constantly passing from 
 everything that breathes, is not denied. That 
 every man has a different " scent " is proven by 
 the fact that a dog will follow his master through 
 a crowded street or road, although not in sight, 
 keeping his nose to the ground until he can be 
 seen, when he bounds away with his head up- 
 wards, because the eye then assists him. An 
 emanation comes from the negro which it requires 
 no nice olfactory to discover. There are some 
 white persons who will scent a room in five min- 
 utes after their entrance, to the extent of really 
 sickening delicate organizations. There are, most 
 probably, emanations of a still more ethereal char- 
 acter, more spiritual than solid or physical. One 
 unknown person entering a room where there is 
 a promiscuous company, will, without speaking a 
 word, chill the whole party ; another will fill it with 
 disgust ; while a third will send out a genial influ- 
 ence on every heart. It does not require a very 
 large stretch of the imagination to infer that a com- 
 bination of the ethereal or spiritual emanations with 
 the more solid or material, may certainly act in such 
 a way as to have a malign influence on a highly- 
 wrought or very susceptible organization, espe- 
 cially when brought into so close a contact as that 
 of bedfellows. It is known, the world over, that 
 low typhoid fevers, of the most malignant and fatal
 
 264 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 type, are caused by human emanations, by crowd- 
 ing persons in confined apartments. 
 
 EVERY rational woman who has a mother's heart, 
 and who has a daughter at school, will make it a 
 matter of affection and duty to do all that is possi- 
 ble to keep her uniformly and always in a cheerful 
 and hopeful frame of mind, sympathizing with her 
 in her difficulties, and sustaining her in her dis- 
 couragements. 
 
 THE moment the eyes feel tired, the very mo- 
 ment you are conscious of an effort to read or sew, 
 lay aside the book or needle, and take a walk for 
 an hour, or employ yourself in some active exer- 
 cise not requiring the close use of the eyes. 
 
 HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars have been made 
 out of boys from fourteen to twenty, and bachelors, 
 by the authors of books on physiology, with plates 
 to stimulate prurient curiosity to an ungovernable 
 pitch. Hundreds of thousands of these publica- 
 tions are sold and given away. Scarcely any 
 youth can read one of them without imbibing 
 the impression that he is the victim of certain 
 things, which, unless promptly corrected, will soon 
 and surely lead to results of the most appalling 
 character 
 
 THOSE who bend forward, or sit crookedly, are 
 very apt to fall into consumption.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 265 
 
 FOR wise and benign purposes, it was not left to 
 man's wisdom seeing that few, indeed, have any 
 in this regard to daily alter the amount of food 
 and drink taken, according to the variability of the 
 weather and the work done ; but, instead, are ap- 
 pointed various instincts and appetites, self-operat- 
 ing, and beyond our control. In the first place, the 
 appetite declines as the weather becomes warmer ; 
 and, secondly, it seeks for articles of a different 
 quality. In winter, we love meats, and fats, and 
 starches, and oily substances, and sweetmeets of 
 every description, because from a half to four fifths 
 of these articles are heat-producing, are fuel for 
 the furnace of life. We not only eat them, but 
 have an appetite for large quantities of them. 
 When summer comes, we cannot partake of them 
 freely we crave other things; we want sweets 
 no longer, but are eager for the acid berries, 
 and fruits, and tomatoes, and melons. We no 
 longer want heating, solid food, but the cooling 
 and watery vegetable. Sugar, and sago, and ar- 
 row-root, and corn-starch, and fresh meats have 
 from thirty to forty per cent, of solid, heat-produ- 
 cing substances ; while fats, suets, oils, and beans, 
 and rice have nearly three times as much. But 
 turning to the vegetables, and salads, and greens, 
 and fruits, and berries, and melons of spring, and 
 summer, and autumn, which we so eagerly crave, 
 and in whose consumption we luxuriate, there is a 
 marked difference.
 
 266 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 HEADACHE is generally not a disease in the head 
 itself, but a sign or symptom that something is 
 wrong in some other part of the body. In almost 
 every case it is accompanied by cold feet, costive- 
 ness, disordered stomach, or a derangement of the 
 nervous system in general this last induced by 
 over-mental exercise, or some local irritation in a 
 distant part of the body. In all these cases, an ap- 
 plication to the head itself is only palliative, eradi- 
 cates nothing, cures nothing. If the feet are cold, 
 they must be made permanently dry and warm, 
 thus drawing the excess of blood away from the 
 head. If the bowels are costive, they must be 
 made to act once every twenty-four hours, freely 
 and habitually, without the use of any medicine. 
 If headache comes on at regular times after eating, 
 then indigestion is the cause, and such food should 
 be used, both in quantity and quality, as will not 
 be followed by this symptom. But if the feet are 
 habitually warm and comfortable, if the bowels act 
 once, regularly, every day, and if it is clear that the 
 headache is not connected with the eating, then its 
 cause must be found in some part of the system 
 remote from the head itself, and it is safest and 
 best to take competent medical advice if trouble, 
 anxiety, or over-mental exertion is not the pal- 
 pable origin of the ailment. In most cases, very 
 severe headaches will disappear within twenty- 
 four hours, by giving the scalp, face, and whole
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 267 
 
 body a most thorough cleansing with soap, warm 
 water, and a rough scrubbing-rag ; taking nothing 
 but cold water and some kind of soup, into which 
 has been broken the crust of cold or toasted bread, 
 and some out-door activities for several hours in 
 the forenoon and afternoon also. 
 
 IP you want to convince anybody of anything, 
 argue alone. 
 
 NEVER allow your children to leave the second 
 or third story in the morning, until they have had 
 a plain, hearty breakfast ; and send them up stairs, 
 within half an hour after sundown, or give them 
 their supper at sundown : these observances ought 
 to be adhered to from May until October in the 
 North, and from April to November in the South. 
 A rigid attention to this would prevent at once 
 half the diarrhoeas, and summer complaints, and 
 croups which desolate our hearths and hearts so 
 often in summer-time in the city. 
 
 A MAN may diet as well as physic himself to 
 death. 
 
 IT is a striking argument for the perversity of hu- 
 man nature, and one which often forces itself upon 
 the attention of observant men, that we bolt a con- 
 centrated untruth without wincing, while what is 
 true, with all its simplicity, and beauty, and useful- 
 ness, is disputed, inch by inch, with a suspicious- 
 ness and a pertinacity most remarkable.
 
 268 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MANY persons have gone to church, taken cold, 
 gone home, and died in a few days, from sitting in 
 an ill-warmed or ill-ventilated church, arising from 
 the inattention or ignorance of sextons or indiffer- 
 ence of church officers ; hence tens of thousands 
 are interested, to the extent of life and death, in the 
 perusal of these few lines. Perhaps three persons 
 out of four who attend divine service on the Sab- 
 bath day are conscious, within two minutes after 
 taking their seats, that they have been in a hurry ; 
 that both mind and body have been more or less in 
 a turmoil ; they have been hurried in getting to 
 church in time ; the result is, they are overheated, 
 that is, the body is in a state of warmth considera- 
 bly above what is natural, and if in this condition 
 they sit still, even for ten minutes, in an atmos- 
 phere cooler than that of out-doors in summer, 
 or below sixty degrees at any time, a cold is the 
 result, slight or more severe, according to the vigor 
 and age of the individual. The danger is still 
 greater if the room has been closed for several 
 days ; this is specially applicable to houses of 
 worship. Within a few minutes after the benedio 
 tion, at the close of the Sabbath services, the house 
 is shut up, doors, windows, and all ; the atmosphere 
 of the building has been saturated with the breath 
 of the worshippers ; as it becomes gradually cooler, 
 this dampness condenses and falls towards the floor ; 
 so does the carbonic acid gas, which is what
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 269 
 
 becomes so unpleasantly perceptible on entering a 
 sleeping-chamber after a morning walk ; and there is 
 experienced a sepulchral dampness and closeness 
 enough to chill any one on first entering the church, 
 after having been closed several days. The practi- 
 cal conclusion is, that every church ought to have 
 the windows and doors open for several hours, 
 including the middle of the day, before it is opened 
 for service. In cold weather, preparatory to the 
 Sabbath service, this ventilation should be secured 
 on Friday, and early on Saturday mornings fires 
 should be built, and steadily kept up, day and night, 
 until the Sabbath services are concluded. 
 
 THE greatest loss, is the loss of temper : it unfits 
 UB for the social circle ; it unfits for business, for 
 pleasure, and for religion. The exhibition of a loss 
 of temper always degrades ; the man himself feels 
 it a very few moments afterwards. A very fre- 
 quent cause of an irritable disposition, of a fretful, 
 complaining temper, always ready to oppose, object, 
 and find fault, is dyspeptic indigestion. A person 
 at the table will be gentle, generous, entertaining, 
 and agreeable ; an hour later, and the whole charac- 
 ter is changed ; there is a querulousness, a rudeness, 
 a sulkiness, a contempt of every rule of courtesy 
 and politeness, which is as amazing as it is degrad- 
 ing. It is the healthy man who is the same all the 
 tune, who always meets you with a cordial welcome 
 and a cheerful manner. You are never sure, in
 
 270 DR. HALI/S MAXIMS. 
 
 approaching a dyspeptic, even though your nearest 
 and best friend, that you will not be met with a snap 
 or a snarl ; some spiteful remark or some ill-natured 
 action. To keep your temper, then, keep well; 
 make the preservation of your health a study and 
 a duty ; it will pay handsomely ; a cheerful heart 
 makes the hands nimble, and the brain active, keen, 
 ever on the alert ; hence good health is an impor- 
 tant element of business success ; and more than 
 that, the greatest .of modern preachers, the most 
 successful, as also those of a past age, were and are 
 among the healthy men ; giving them high animal 
 spirits, as well as bodily vigor and mental elasticity, 
 and wit, and fun, and a certain degree of impu- 
 dence, fearlessness, and self-assertion. 
 
 THE rich should practise economy for the sake of 
 setting a good example to those in more moderate 
 circumstances. 
 
 A GOOD woman never grows old. Years may 
 pass over her head, but if benevolence and virtue 
 dwell in her heart, she is cheerful as when the 
 spring of life opened to her view. 
 
 THE more sick people can sleep, the sooner they 
 will get well. 
 
 " SIMPLES " are only simple when in their proper 
 place ; and the familiar quotation, " It can do no 
 harm if it does no good," is in medicine, at least, a 
 dangerous untruth.
 
 ofe. HALL'S MAXIMS. 271 
 
 IT has become very common to invest chewing- 
 tobacco and snuff in lead foil. Herr Hockel exam- 
 ined some snuff from a quantity, part of which had 
 been used by a patient who was laboring under a 
 severe attack of lead poisoning, and found that it 
 contained two and a half per cent, of metallic lead. 
 The tobacco near the corners of the package, being 
 more perfectly enclosed by the foil, contained the 
 most lead, which is decomposed by dampness, and 
 remains in the tobacco or snuff in the form of 
 carbonate of lead, which is the white lead paint of 
 commerce, which inflicts such horrible sufferings 
 on many of those whose business compels them to 
 work in it. The slaves of the disgusting " weed " 
 would do well to make a note of this, and either 
 abandon the inexcusable filt'hiness, or avoid using 
 any that is enveloped with lead foil. 
 
 FACTS appear to show that however healthful and 
 nutritious the onion may be to persons in good 
 health, and in healthful surroundings, it is most 
 pernicious to sick and well when used in a bad 
 atmosphere, where epidemics, such as cholera and 
 typhoids, prevail. 
 
 IN all catarrhs, chronic or acute, long or short, a 
 wise physician will do nothing to stop or repress, 
 but will use means to cause a greater activity of 
 the liver, and prescribe an unstimulating and cool- 
 ing diet, warmth, and judicious exercise.
 
 272 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BADLY chapped hands improve rapidly, if, after 
 the night washing, common sweet oil is rubbed in 
 thoroughly, and a pair of old kid gloves are worn 
 during the night, for several nights in succession. 
 
 WE need not enumerate the countless multi- 
 tudes who are gradually led to the grave by the 
 various intoxications of alcohol, opium, and tobacco, 
 from ignorance of the fact, that the appetite for 
 them feeds upon itself, and grows by its indul- 
 gence. 
 
 MANY a pie has cost an industrious man a hun- 
 dred dollars. A human life has many a time paid 
 for an apple-dumpling. 
 
 A VERY large share of the worthlessness and 
 incompetence of our domestics, is owing to the 
 previous unfitness of persons to be mistresses. 
 
 DEBT blunts and blights the finest sensibilities of 
 our nature ; it eats out the sweetest domestic affec- 
 tions ; it blasts the moral character ; it robs us of 
 our manliness ; and where there was once all that 
 was noble, truthful, high-minded, there is nothing 
 left but the charred waste of debased manhood, of 
 contemptible prevarications, and mean conceal- 
 ments. 
 
 THE man who is not a Christian, by principle and 
 practice, should regard his condition " with fear and 
 trembling."
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 273 
 
 FOB ourselves we would give physic a wide berth. 
 If we had a " flowing from," a catarrh, a cold, all 
 of which mean precisely the same thing in nature 
 and essence, we would let it flow, and thus have 
 the system relieved of an enemy, whose presence 
 it will not tolerate. But there are three other 
 things which may be done to very great advantage, 
 because they would expedite the cure. Keep the 
 body very comfortably warm by all available means, 
 especially the feet. Take a good deal of exercise 
 in the open air, to the extent of keeping up a very 
 slight perspiration for several hours during the 
 twenty-four. Live on light, loosening, cooling food, 
 moderate amounts, such as water-gruel, crust 
 of bread, stewed fruits, ripe berries, and nothing 
 else, until entirely well. 
 
 AN intemperate man or woman transmits a de- 
 praved constitution and an impaired intellect to 
 children, and even to grandchildren. The statis- 
 tics in regard to the idiots of Massachusetts, pub- 
 lished a few years since, furnished a volume of 
 proofs to the same general statement. The more 
 this subject is investigated, the more certain it will 
 be shown that the use of liquors is impairing the 
 health and reason, and shortening the lives, not only 
 of those who drink, but of their descendants. 
 
 THE most terrible enemy that man encounters, is 
 liquor-drinking. 
 
 18
 
 274 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 To be truly religions, and to have true views on 
 all subjects connected with religion, a man should 
 have undisputed health. A sound mind in a sound 
 body is, I believe, an axiom, a first principle, and a 
 healthfully acting mind in a healthy body seems to 
 be a prerequisite towards giving the arguments for 
 religious truth the consideration due them. If this 
 be so, then the first parental duty to the new-born 
 child is, not in reference to religion directly, but 
 in reference to its health, its preservation if good, 
 and its improvement if defective. It seems then 
 to follow, that good health, other things being 
 equal, is a prerequisite in the investigation of 
 religious truth, and rather increases the probability 
 that the arguments substantiating such truth will 
 be properly appreciated ; in other words, a healthy 
 man is more likely to be brought under the power 
 of religious truth, and to become a Christian from 
 sterling principle, than an unhealthy man. 
 
 MEN usually diminish their clothing after exer- 
 cise, and thousands perish by so doing. Three 
 simple rules would, in this connection, prevent an 
 incalculable amount of human suffering. After 
 any form of exercise, go immediately to a good fire 
 or warm room ; or put on additional clothing ; or 
 leave off the exercise very gradually, the more so, 
 the colder the weather is. 
 
 WHEN you speak to a person, look him in the 
 face.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 275 
 
 INEXPERIENCE only is positive. It is the charlatan 
 who lies remorselessly, and he lives by it ; and yet, 
 in four cases out of five, the patient will intrust his 
 health and life to the keeping of the man who is 
 most profuse, and brazen, and self-confident in his 
 promises of amendment. 
 
 IF a person's lungs are not well developed, the 
 health will be imperfect, but the development may 
 be increased several inches in a few months by 
 daily outdoor runnings with the mouth closed, 
 beginning with twenty yards and back at a time, 
 increasing ten yards every week, until a hundred 
 are gone over thrice a day. A substitute for 
 ladies, and persons in cities, is running up stairs 
 with the mouth closed, which compels very deep 
 inspirations, in a natural way, at the end of the 
 journey. 
 
 WHEN a man begins to croak about " hard times," 
 and about everybody getting worse, the whole 
 world included, it behooves him to inquire if it is 
 not he himself who is thus depreciating in value, in 
 his industry, his activity, his sterling worth, and his 
 high resolution. Energetic men are not croakers. 
 The resolute, and those whose motto is " upward," 
 whose actions show " progress," are not the 
 men who feel disposed to believe in coming ruin. 
 
 AVOID severe study or deep emotion soon after 
 eating.
 
 276 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE popular notion that one or two kinds of food 
 at a meal is most wholesome, is wholly untrue. On 
 the contrary, several kinds at a meal, other things 
 being equal, are more conductive to our well being. 
 Quantity, and not quality, is the measure of health. 
 
 THE time to drink tea is at supper, when the 
 lightest meal of the day is taken ; for, by its ex- 
 hilarating effects, it destroys the sense of hunger, 
 and enables a person to go to sleep without having 
 much in the stomach to keep it working all night, 
 and so prevent sound, refreshing sleep. 
 
 ONE of the great secrets of health is a light sup- 
 per, and yet it is a great self-denial, when one is 
 hungry and tired at the close of the day, to eat 
 little or nothing ; let such a one take leisurely a 
 single cup of tea and a piece of cold bread with 
 butter, and he will leave the table as fully pleased 
 with himself and all the world as if he had 
 eaten a heavy meal, and be tenfold the better for 
 it next morning. Take any two men under sim- 
 ilar circumstances, strong, hard-working men, of 
 twenty-five years; let one take his bread and 
 butter with a cup of tea, and the other a hearty 
 meal of meat, bread, potatoes, and the ordinary et 
 ceteras, as the last meal of the day, and I will ven- 
 ture to affirm that the tea-drinker will outlive the 
 other by thirty years. 
 
 KEEP your own secrets, if you have any.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 277 
 
 RIDING on horseback is, perhaps, of all others, the 
 most manly, elegant, and efficient form of exercise. 
 In the first place, it cannot be taken without being 
 out of doors, then it enables you to breathe a 
 larger amount of fresh air than if walking, because 
 you pass through a greater space in less time, and 
 consequently a greater number of layers, or rather 
 sections of fresh air, come in contact with the 
 nostrils, with less fatigue. Another advantage is, 
 that all the muscles of the body are exercised in 
 moderation, and, to a certain extent, equally so. 
 And then again, while thus exercising, and while 
 every step forward gives you a fresh draught of 
 pure out-door air, the mind is entertained by 
 every variety of objects, new things being con- 
 stantly presented. The only thing to be guarded 
 against is a feeling of chilliness ; this is essential 
 for every chill is an injury ; whether a man be 
 sick or well, a chill must necessarily be succeeded 
 by a fever, and fever is disease. 
 
 FOB half an hour after eating sit erect, or walk 
 in the open air. 
 
 THE smallest debts should be paid first, on the 
 presumption that the smaller the debt the poorer 
 is your creditor, the less his ability to borrow, in 
 case he is disappointed in getting what you owe 
 him, and the less can he afford the time required 
 in calling on you.
 
 278 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 VERY few of our daily penny papers are fit to 
 be read at the family fireside. Certainly not one 
 in a dozen of all city weekly papers, not connected 
 with a daily issue, but is chargeable justly with 
 being made up with the veriest trash, to say 
 nothing of their frequent obscenity, their slang, 
 their spiteful hits at religion, its ministers, its 
 professors, and the Bible itself. 
 
 MANY persons aggravate throat complaints by 
 mufflers, wearing scarfs or extra covering about 
 the neck ; these do keep the throat warm, but in 
 every change of position of the head or face some 
 part of the neck or throat is moved from the cov- 
 ering; the covering does not adapt itself to or 
 follow the movement, hence the cold air rushes in 
 upon that unprotected part and chills it ; but the 
 beard follows every motion of the head or face 
 faithfully, and thus is the most perfect muffler that 
 can possibly be devised. Nature's provisions can- 
 not be interfered with with impunity. 
 
 THE location of water-closets, in connection with 
 a family residence, has an important bearing on the 
 health of any family a greater influence on the 
 destiny of many than would be supposed by other 
 than a medical practitioner. It is of the very first 
 importance that they should be always, and instant- 
 ly, and easily, accessible ; in proportion as this is 
 not the case, the calls of Nature are postponed.
 
 DE. HALL'S MAXIMS. 279 
 
 FACTS seem to show the absurdity of the vaga 
 ries of many who set themselves up as reformers 
 and would-be saviors of the race, closing their eyes 
 against the glaring fact that the food of the indi- 
 vidual must be adapted to his temperament, his 
 locality, and his occupation. But in all this the 
 great truth stands out with unmistakable prom- 
 inence, that God is good, in that intending man to 
 habitate the globe, he has adapted him, with rea- 
 sonable restrictions, to live anywhere, and on any- 
 thing. And while witless hosts are ranging them- 
 selves in hostile fronts as meaters and anti-meaters, 
 vegetarians and grapeites, sensible people will eat 
 in moderation what they like best, according to 
 Nature's instincts, taking their food in moderation, 
 taking care that the fruits should be ripe and per- 
 fect, the vegetables fresh, the meat taken from 
 well-fed and healthy carcasses, and all cleanlily 
 prepared, thoroughly cooked, served in simple 
 style, and eaten in contentment, thankfulness, and 
 joviality. 
 
 A SINGLE drop of tobacco oil will kill a cat or dog 
 in five minutes. 
 
 INCONSISTENT as it may seem at first sight, the 
 beard not only keeps the parts genially warm in 
 winter, but by its evaporating influence, cools the 
 parts wonderfully in the hottest weather, to say 
 nothing of its breaking the force of the hot sun.
 
 280 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE taller men are, other things being equal, the 
 more lungs they have, and the greater number of 
 cubic inches of air they can take in or deliver at a 
 single breath. It is generally thought that a man's 
 lungs are sound and well-developed in proportion 
 to his girth around the chest, yet observation shows 
 that slim men, as a rule, will run faster, and farther, 
 with less fatigue, having " more wind " than stout 
 men. 
 
 THE sanctity of the marriage relation, as inter- 
 preted in the Bible, in its fullest sense, is at the 
 foundation of a true civilization, and the more 
 rigidly it is adhered to the more elevated, the more 
 refined, the purer, the happier will society be. 
 
 OUR personal experience has convinced us, that 
 with a rational care a man may live healthfully 
 anywhere. That men get sick and die in latitudes 
 not their own, is the result of downright ignorance 
 or inexcusable presumption. That some persons 
 will die from change of climate is not denied ; but 
 it is the exception, not the rule. The great gen- 
 eral fact is capable of the most conclusive proof, 
 that loss of life is not the necessary attendant of 
 any change of latitude. With the light which med- 
 ical observation and research have thrown out, 
 companies of men, women, and children may live 
 in healthfulness in any climate to which they may 
 emigrate.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 281 
 
 To guzzle down glass after glass of cold water, 
 on getting up in the morning, without any feeling 
 of thirst, under the impression of the health-giving 
 nature of its washing-out qualities, is stupidity. 
 
 IT is stupidity to persuade yourself that you are 
 destroying one unpleasant odor by introducing a 
 stronger one, that is, attempting to sweeten your 
 own unwashed garments and person, by envelop- 
 ing yourself in the fumes of musk, eau de cologne, 
 or rose-water: the best perfume being, a clean 
 skin and well-washed clothing. 
 
 COMMON consumption begins uniformly with im- 
 perfect, insufficient breathing ; it is the character- 
 istic of the disease that the breath becomes shorter 
 and shorter, through weary months, down to the 
 close of life, and whatever counteracts that short 
 breathing, whatever promotes deeper inspirations, 
 is curative to that extent, inevitably and under all 
 circumstances. Let any person make the exper- 
 iment by reading this page aloud, and in less than 
 three minutes the instinct of a long breath will 
 show itself. This reading aloud develops a weak 
 voice, and makes it sonorous. It has great effi- 
 ciency, also, in making the tones clear and distinct, 
 freeing them from that annoying hoarseness which 
 the unaccustomed reader exhibits before he haa 
 gone over half a page, when he has to stop and 
 " hem," and clear away, to the confusion of him. 
 self as much as that of the subject.
 
 282 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THERE is as much nourishment in a pound loaf 
 of bread as there is in one hundred and forty-six 
 gallons oi the best beer, and yet beer, and ale, and 
 porter are constantly recommended to invalids as 
 nourishing porter, be it remembered, being noth- 
 ing more than unsalable beer colored with burnt 
 malt to hide the defects. But even as to beer, if 
 the fermentation is complete, there is not an atom 
 of nourishment in a barrel of it. 
 
 NOTHING stronger than lukewarm water should 
 ever be applied to the eye, except by special med- 
 ical advice, and under special medical supervision ; 
 for we have only one pair to lose. 
 
 MY own views as to the cure of cholera, as far 
 as I have seen, are, that when calomel fails to cure 
 it, everything else will fail, and that it will cure 
 every curable case. 
 
 MANY a reader will acknowledge a decided feel- 
 ing of irritation or impatience, if not actual men- 
 tal anathema, at the inconsiderate practice of many 
 church-goers of stopping to shake hands in the 
 aisles, at the close of religious services. 
 
 LONG prayers are impolitic ; they engender an 
 irritable frame of mind, and make the body rest- 
 less. Short, earnest, fervent prayers wake up 
 the attention, and soften and soothe the unquiet 
 spirit.
 
 Dfc. HALI/9 MAXIMS. 
 
 BITING off the finger-nails is an uncleanly prac- 
 tice, for thus the unsightly collections at the ends 
 are kept eaten clean ! Children may be broken of 
 such a filthy habit by causing them to dip the ends 
 of their fingers several times a day in wormwood 
 bitters, without letting them know the object. If 
 this is not sufficient, cause them to wear caps on 
 each finger until the practice is discontinued. 
 
 IP music is a part of public* worship, as much as 
 preaching, perhaps there can be no good reason 
 why the people should not "face the music," as they 
 are called upon to do in another sense, a superior 
 voice commanding as high as two thousand dollars 
 a year. An opera would soon find it a losing busi- 
 ness if the artists were placed behind the people, 
 and the concert-room would be entirely deserted. 
 In my opinion, every consideration, whether of con- 
 venience, comfort, taste, enjoyment, as well as the 
 commonest propriety, demands a prompt and univer- 
 sal change in this respect. If we are to have choirs 
 in our churches at all, let them face the people, and 
 thus save many a valuable neck, to say nothing 
 as to the advantages of harmony and tune, which 
 would be an inevitable result. 
 
 THE most nutritious articles of food are meats 
 and the cereals : that is, corn, wheat, oats, rye, &c 
 Vegetables are the least nutritious, and in cities, 
 especially, the most expensive.
 
 284 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ROBUST health does not belong to a man mainly 
 because he eats this and refuses that ; but a wise 
 Providence has so ordered it, that the people of a 
 clime may live and thrive, and be happy and great 
 by the products of that clime, and that in indi- 
 vidual constitutions there is an adaptability by 
 which men can live in health anywhere. In short, 
 the world was made for man by that Father, whoso 
 boundless goodness has provided for him all things 
 richly to enjoy. Those who do not indulge in the 
 wholesome variety which has been prepared foi 
 them, but insist on discarding this, that, and the 
 other, finally come down in their vagaries, until a 
 man writes a book of two hundred pages to prove 
 that meats are forbidden, and that if we don't quit 
 eating so much wheat bread, the bone will become 
 so brittle, that every time a man stumps his toe, 
 said bones will snap like pipe-stems, closing by 
 suggesting as the surest means of living long, in 
 vigorous health, that men should live almost exclu. 
 sively on grapes. 
 
 CLERGYMEN, somehow or other, often become 
 possessed with the idea, that however any speci- 
 fied practice or thing may injure others, it would 
 not injure them, and thus practically claim an 
 exemption from the common laws of mortality. 
 
 A GREAT cause of dyspepsia in ministers, is eat- 
 ing too soon after preaching.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 285 
 
 WHEN any man is disabled by sickness from dis- 
 sharging his duty to himself, his family, or to 
 society, the question should at once be, " Is it from 
 Heaven, or of men ? " Not of the former, for it is 
 said, He does not willingly afflict the children of 
 men ; consequently, sickness is not of His sending. 
 It ia the result of causes within ourselves. In a 
 literal sense, as well as a moral, it is true, " 
 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself !" In plainer 
 terms, disease is not sent upon us ; we bring it 
 upon ourselves, and, therefore, health is a duty 
 incumbent on all. 
 
 ORDINARILY, mattresses of shucks, chaif, straw, 
 or curled hair are best to sleep upon. For old 
 persons and those of feeble vitality, there is nothing 
 better than a clean feather bed. No one can sleep 
 well if cold. Have as little covering as possible 
 from just above the knees upwards, but cover the 
 legs and feet abundantly, for by keeping them 
 warm, the blood is withdrawn from the brain, and 
 to that extent dreaming is prevented. 
 
 WHEN a man is a fool, you can't make him believe 
 it ; he will not medicate his malady ; hence, with 
 all his experiences, he gets to be a bigger fool 
 every day to the very last. 
 
 MANY a man knows how much it contributes to 
 his health and happiness to find peace, and quiet, 
 and unity at home.
 
 286 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 PERSONS have lived in good health to the age of 
 threescore years and ten, who rose early, or rose 
 late ; who drank liquor three times a day (or an in- 
 definite number of times), or did not drink it at all ; 
 who were out of doors a great deal, or seldom had 
 the sunshine on them ; who were very good, or 
 who were very bad. The object of these state- 
 ments is to show the fallacy of attributing a long 
 and healthful life to one thing, to its presence or 
 its absence, and to direct attention to this impor- 
 tant truth, one which strikingly exhibits the wis- 
 dom and the love of our Father in heaven : that 
 men can live long in any country, clime, or latitude, 
 in the use of the things around them, by wisely 
 adapting themselves to their circumstances, in 
 temperance, industry, and equanimity ; that these 
 not only of themselves promote length of days, but 
 antagonize the baleful effects of deleterious agen- 
 cies. If a man does bathe every day, or never 
 uses tea, coffee, liquor, or tobacco, or eschews fish, 
 flesh, and fowl, he will not be exempt from disease 
 and premature death, unless he is temperate, care- 
 ful, systematic, and serene ; and with these, he can 
 cover " a multitude of sins " physical. 
 
 Too many parents consider labor degrading, and 
 consequently push their children into the profes- 
 sions, into salaried positions, when in reality they 
 are far better adapted to the plough. Manual labor 
 everywhere merits respect and honor.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 287 
 
 BETTER a thousand times, socially, morally, and 
 physically, hire a two-roomed shanty, live on bread 
 and potatoes, and do the housework without the 
 aid of menials, and continue to do these things 
 until means are accumulated to take a step higher. 
 Thus doing, we would not see a tithe of the sick 
 wives we now do, not a tithe of the unhappy 
 matches, the disgraceful divorces, and the early 
 wreck of business prospects, which leave so many 
 men disabled before they are thirty years of age ; 
 disabled for life from engaging in any handsomely 
 profitable employment, in consequence of a load 
 of indebtedness, which it would take a lifetime to 
 liquidate. 
 
 A MAN is in little danger of eating too much, if 
 he will confine himself to two or three plain articles 
 of diet at any one meal ; this is a secret which every 
 man and woman in the land ought to know. Liv- 
 ing exclusively on cold food will soon engender 
 disease, especially in cold weather. And as cer- 
 tainly will a scant diet do the same if perse- 
 vered in. 
 
 MILLIONS of children die before they are two 
 years old, by a wrong system of feeding, originat- 
 ing in the ignorance of the parents. The instinct 
 and the highest pleasure of the new-born child is 
 to eat ; it is the balm for all its cries, it hushes every 
 complaint.
 
 288 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WOODEN houses are warm and dry, and for the 
 country, as well as for town and country in the 
 South, are greatly to be preferred. Damp dwell- 
 ings originate consumption, in its most insidious 
 and resistless forms. If a house is built of brick 
 or stone, the plastering should never be laid on the 
 wall itself; the wall should be lathed, so as to have 
 an inch or more between the brick or stone and 
 the lathing on which the plaster should be spread. 
 
 IT is inconsiderate to take a medicine, simply 
 because it had cured some one else who had an 
 ailment similar to your own. Of two donkeys, on 
 the verge of utter exhaustion and prostration, the 
 one laden with salt was greatly refreshed, and had 
 his burden largely lightened, by swimming a river ; 
 the other, with a sack of wool, by the same oper- 
 ation doubled the weight of his load, and perished. 
 
 PASSIONATE people, the hasty kind, who flare up 
 in a blaze, like fire to tow, or a coal to powder, 
 without taking time to inquire whether there is 
 any ground for such a pyrotechnic display, and 
 then get more furious when they find out there 
 was no cause for their fiery feats, may learn a use- 
 ful, as well as a serious lesson, from the fact thai 
 uncontrollable temper has caused many cases of 
 insanity. 
 
 No person can thrive or grow fat when the mind 
 is distressed.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 289 
 
 u COMMON red wafers, scattered about the haunts 
 of cockroaches, will often drive away, if not destroy 
 them." These wafers, like candies, are colored red 
 by oxide of lead a most deadly poison, and so is 
 the acetate of lead, or sugar of lead, as it is some- 
 times called, on visiting cards, which being a little 
 sweetish, has been known to destroy young chil- 
 dren to whom they were handed to amuse them. 
 
 ANY patent medicine is a cure for a given dis- 
 ease, or it is not. If it is not a cure, it is false 
 and criminal to sell it as a cure. If, on the other 
 hand, it is what it professes to be, it cannot be 
 much better than murder to withhold it from those 
 who cannot purchase it, and to allow thousands, at 
 i distance, to die from the want of it, who never 
 fleard of it, or, if they did, live too far away to 
 send for it in time. Let those who purchase these 
 articles think of the argument, and aid and abet 
 no more, by their patronage, those who allow their 
 fellow-creatures to die by thousands every year, 
 who would be saved (if what is said be true) by 
 the knowledge of the remedy whose composition is 
 so carefully concealed. 
 
 IT is known that a systematic life of temperance 
 has given sixty years additional to a broken-down 
 constitution of forty ; therefore, it becomes almost 
 a crime for an invalid under fifty years of age not 
 to avail himself of the trial. 
 19
 
 290 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WHEN a man is an invalid, the amount of food, 
 air, and exercise requires as much of medical intel- 
 ligence, experience, and skill as would the judicious 
 exhibition of medicine. 
 
 You need not be afraid of out-door air, night or 
 Jay, as long as you are in motion sufficient to keep 
 off a feeling of chilliness ; hence, in cold weather, 
 exercise on foot is preferable to riding. While 
 walking, in moderately cold weather, the hands 
 should be covered with a thin pair of gloves, such 
 as silk or thread, and woollen ones in midwinter. 
 
 A HIGHER degree of medical intelligence has ex- 
 tended the average of human life, in some places 
 fifty per cent., taking all diseases together ; and it ia 
 reasonable to suppose that increased intelligence as 
 to one class of diseases would, in the course of time, 
 have a like happy effect; that if more truthful 
 views as to the nature, causes, and symptoms of 
 diseases of the lungs were extensively promulgated 
 among the people, their fearful ravages would be 
 diminished in corresponding proportion. 
 
 THOUSANDS of persons, especially in cities, in 
 order to avoid dosing with physicians, as it is 
 termed, will purchase a patent medicine, and take 
 five times as much physic in a week as a scientific 
 practitioner would have administered in a month 
 the labels often running " from one to two table- 
 spoons three or four times a day."
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 291 
 
 WHEN the body is diseased, it is because it is full 
 of diseased, decayed, dead, and useless particles ; 
 the object of exercise, as well as medicine, is to 
 throw off these particles ; medicine does it more 
 quickly, but exercise more safely and certainly, if 
 there is time to wait for its effects. 
 
 IT is well known that the symptoms of a disease 
 of the heart, and those of the lungs as well as those 
 of a spinal affection, are so apparently alike in the 
 main, that it requires large medical experience to 
 decide safely and certainly between them ; but the 
 exercise requisite in an affection of the lungs 
 would inevitably destroy life if advised for a disease 
 of the heart or spine. In no form of sickness, ia 
 exercise so immediately and certainly fatal as in 
 heart affections, while the results of active exercise 
 in spinal disease are terrible, literally terrible, no*, 
 in their immediate effects as involving life, but in 
 the certain penalty of weeks and months, and weary 
 years, of corporeal helplessness, and agonizing, 
 almost ceaseless pain, requiring a thousand times 
 more endurance and a far higher degree of fortitude 
 than marching up to the cannon's mouth in the 
 heat of battle. This shows the importance of tak- 
 ing early competent medical advice in cases of 
 sickness. 
 
 THERE can be no cure of cholera without 
 quietude the quietude of lying on the back.
 
 292 DR. HAH S MAXIMS. 
 
 A PERSON in good health, and of medium size, will, 
 in eight hours' sleep, breathe nine hundred gallons 
 of air ; but if one fifth of his lungs are inoperative, 
 he consumes in the same time one hundred and 
 eighty gallons less, and in the course of twenty- 
 four hours, seven hundred gallons less than he 
 ought to do. No wonder then, that when the lungs 
 begin to work less freely than they ought to do, the 
 face so soon begins to pale, the appetite fails, the 
 strength declines, the flesh fades, and the victim 
 dies. Not only are consumptions traceable to this 
 habitual deficiency of respiration, but rheumatism, 
 colds, chills, ague, bilious, yellow, and putrid fevers, 
 suppressions, whites, dyspepsia, and the like. So 
 that, in every view of the case, any method which 
 secures the prompt detection of this insufficient 
 breathing, and rectifies it without delay, should 
 merit and demand the immediate investigation of 
 every lover of the health and happiness of mankind. 
 
 MANY men perform the wonderful necromantic 
 trick of " digging their grave with their own 
 teeth," and others, still more strangely, seem to 
 glide down their own throats into air. 
 
 IT'S the people who have leisure to mood and 
 mope, and hug sharp-pointed memories, who fill 
 our asylums, and not those who have a dozen irons 
 in the fire at the same time. 
 
 THOSE who know least are most positive.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 293 
 
 " THE Springs " have proved the grave of many 
 young people with consumptive symptoms, and 
 older consumptives generally get worse there. 
 The high feeding, or get-what-you-can system of 
 diet at watering-places, fashionable hotels, and 
 boarding-houses, their Lilliputian, one-windowed 
 rooms, from one to " five-pair back," the midnight 
 clatter along interminable passages, the tardy, or 
 no answer, to bell-call, the lookout from your 
 chamber window over some stable, side-alley, or 
 neighbor's back yard; these, with the coldness, 
 and utter want of sympathy at such places, would 
 soon make a well man sick, and will kill, instead of 
 curing, the consumptive. They want, instead of 
 these, the free, fresh mountain air, the plain sub- 
 etantial food of the country farm-house, the gallop 
 along the highways, the climbing over the hills by 
 day, and the nightly re-unions with family, and kin- 
 dred, and friends. And yet the million stereotype 
 this mistake, against all reason and common sense. 
 Only now and then is one found to choose the bet- 
 ter way, against troops of remonstrants and op- 
 posers, who never had experience, who never 
 think for themselves and that is the brave 
 man who gets well, especially when he is deter, 
 mined to do so. 
 
 ANYTHING taken medicinally as a preventive of 
 cholera will inevitably, and under all circumstan- 
 ces, increase the liability to an attack.
 
 294 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 THE human body is in constant transition. The 
 particles of which its structure is constituted are 
 not the same in position and relation for any two 
 minutes in succession. Thousands of atoms which 
 compose it the present instant, are separated from 
 it the next, to make a part of it no more; and other 
 thousands, which are a portion of the reader's liv- 
 ing self, while scanning this line, will have been 
 rendered useless and dead on reading the next. 
 There are two different armies of workers, whose 
 occupations cease not from the cradle to the 
 grave. One army, composed of its countless mil- 
 lions, is building up the body; the other removes its 
 waste ; one party brings in the wood and the coal 
 for the fireplace and the grate, the other carries 
 away the ashes and cinders the builders and 
 the cleansers. When the builders work faster 
 than the cleansers, a man becomes fat, and over- 
 fat is a disease. When the cleansers are too active, 
 the man becomes lean, and wastes away to a skele- 
 ton, as in consumption. Health consists in the 
 proper equilibrium of these workers. 
 
 IT is surprising how little is known of Hominy ; 
 this is a nutritious, healthy food, and what an excel- 
 lent substitute it is for potatoes during the contin- 
 uation of the disease among them, which renders 
 some that are fair to the eye unfit for food, and all 
 exceedingly dear !
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 295 
 
 IT is as impossible for a man in perfect health 
 to be stricken down in a moment with a danger- 
 ous disease, as it is for a man who has been honest 
 from principle for a lifetime to become in a day a 
 forger or a swindler. 
 
 IP a man can afford to eat fried gold for break- 
 fast, boiled bank notes for dinner, and roasted dol- 
 lars for supper, he can afford to eat potatoes 
 cooked in the same way, when they sell at two 
 dollars and fifty cents per bushel, and not other- 
 wise. In point of economy as human food, one 
 bushel of beans or hominy is equal to ten of 
 potatoes. 
 
 WE have no right, as we practically do, to a 
 great extent, to depute the religious instruction 
 of our children to anybody not even to the min- 
 ister, exclusively ; that is the duty of the father 
 and mother, so that the holiest memories of a de- 
 parted mother's affection may be so entwined with 
 her religious teachings, that in after life their 
 separation may be impossible, that one may sus- 
 tain the other, that both may be cultivated, and 
 cherished, and fed together ; and this is the foun- 
 dation of the exceedingly comforting assurance to 
 any Christian parent in the hour of dissolution- 
 " When he is old, he will not depart from it." 
 
 A SINGLE fact sometimes demonstrates a great 
 truth.
 
 296 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 As long as it is certain that still water corrodes 
 lead, the most unthinking person will draw tho 
 practical inference, that the water from the hy- 
 drant should be allowed to run off for the first five 
 or ten seconds after turning the faucet to get a 
 supply for drinking or eating. 
 
 WATERMELONS are the only things we know of 
 which can be eaten with impunity until we cannot 
 swallow any more. The best time for taking them 
 is about eleven o'clock in the morning, and about 
 four in the afternoon. They are not safe for very 
 young children ; the seeds are especially injurious 
 to them. 
 
 IN what better condition could a person be to 
 resist disease than in perfect health ? But many 
 persons are not satisfied with this ; they must 
 needs be teasing their stomachs continually with 
 some villanous compound or other to make them- 
 selves better than well. All such should remem- 
 ber the significant epitaph inscribed (at his own 
 request) upon the tomb of the Italian count, who, 
 like themselves, experimented with his health 
 under the apprehension of disease : 
 
 "I was well; 
 
 Would be better; 
 
 Took physic, 
 
 And died." 
 
 To be truly hospitable, make your guest feel 
 himself at home.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMA. 297 
 
 IT is wonderful how afraid consumptive people 
 are of fresh air, the very thing that would cure 
 them, the only obstacle to a cure being that they 
 do not get enough of it; and yet what infinite 
 pains they take to avoid breathing it, especially if 
 it is cold; when it is known that the colder the 
 air is the purer it must be, yet if people cannot 
 get to a hot climate, they will make an artificial 
 one, and imprison themselves for a whole winter 
 in a warm room, with a temperature not varying 
 ten degrees in six months ; all such people die, 
 and yet we follow in their footsteps. If I was 
 seriously ill of consumption, I would live out of 
 doors day and night, except it was raining or mid- 
 winter, then I would sleep in an unplastered log 
 house. My consumptive friend, you want air, not 
 physic. 
 
 A BAD cold never did nor ever can originate 
 consumption. A bad cold excites consumption in 
 a .person whose lungs are already tuberculated, 
 not otherwise, certainly ; and so green corn, or 
 cucumbers, or cabbages, or any other food, what- 
 ever it may be, which is not well digested when it 
 passes into the stomach, will excite cholera, when 
 a person is living in a cholera atmosphere, and the 
 atmosphere is made " choleric " by its holding in 
 suspension some emanation which is the product 
 of vegetable decomposition.
 
 298 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WOULD a glass of wine hurt me ? This is a ques- 
 tion often proposed to me as a physician, the patient 
 honestly supposing that it would strengthen him. 
 My uniform reply is : Substantial, reliable strength 
 is only to be derived from the perfect digestion of 
 plain, nutritious food ; all else is transient, fici:- 
 tious, and worse than useless, as it ultimately, and 
 that within a few hours, always and inevitably 
 makes them weaker than before. Better a thou- 
 sand-fold let a man die of ordinary disease than 
 risk making him a drunkard in restoring him to 
 health by the use of alcohol in any form, even if it 
 could be done. The use of stimulating drinks, and 
 they are used only because they do stimulate, is 
 wholly pernicious to the young, even when of the 
 purest and best. 
 
 SOME of the most splendid private mansions in 
 the country are owned and occupied by men who 
 made their money by the sale of patent medicines. 
 Men of culture and wealth have their families 
 attended by educated physicians of respectability 
 and known worth, and so with the higher grades 
 of the middle classes. It is upon the scanty earn- 
 ings of the ignorant poor that patent medicine 
 harpies thrive ; and but for their delusions these 
 poor creatures could have medical advice, and med- 
 icine too, without pay. 
 
 THE perfect master of a calling elevates it.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 299 
 
 THE whole animal creation is subject to disease, 
 and the fewest number, comparatively speaking, 
 die of sickness ; instinct is their only physician. 
 
 AN educated and useful clergyman, after swal- 
 lowing a good-sized apothecary's shop, writes us, 
 that instead of getting better, he is becoming more 
 of an invalid. The wonder is, that he was not dead 
 long ago. As none of these things cured him, he 
 applied to us. If this gentleman had ordered his 
 habits of life aright, he would have been well long 
 ago ; but not doing that, he has been a sufferer for 
 twelve long years. But here is an intelligent man 
 stuffing frimself with food and physic for twelve 
 years, apparently not reflecting that nothing would 
 cure a man who ate three times a day regularly, 
 and between meals, with a lunch at midnight. And 
 this is the history of many clergymen whose use- 
 fulness is curtailed, if not cut short off, and their 
 whole existence embittered by every variety of 
 ailment, merely for the want of a little knowledge. 
 The man who would circulate a thousand copies 
 of this little book among the clergy of this land, 
 would do a greater good for humanity and the 
 church than by erecting the costliest monuments 
 to dead heroes. 
 
 MORE cases of throat-ail are founded in a torpid 
 liver, or an imperfect digestion, than one physician 
 in a million has any conception of.
 
 300 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 CHOLERA is nothing more than exaggerated diar- 
 rhoea. When a man has died of diarrhoea, he has 
 died of cholera, in reality. It may be well for 
 travellers to know that the first, the most impor- 
 tant, and the most indispensable item in the arrest 
 and cure of looseness of the bowels, is absolute 
 quietude on a bed ; Nature herself always prompts 
 this by disinclining us to locomotion. The next 
 thing is, to eat nothing but common rice, parched 
 like coffee, and then boiled, and taken with a little 
 salt and butter. Drink little or no liquid of any 
 kind. Bits of ice may be eaten and swallowed at 
 will. Every step taken in diarrhoea, every spoon- 
 ful of liquid, only aggravate the disease. If locomo- 
 tion is compulsory, the misfortune of the necessity 
 may be lessened by having a stout piece of woollen 
 flannel bound tightly round the abdomen, so as to 
 be doubled in front, and kept well in its place. In 
 the practice of many years we have never failed 
 to notice a gratifying result to follow these ob- 
 servances. 
 
 FOOD which is at least as warm as a hundred 
 degrees of Fahrenheit is more speedily and more 
 easily digested, and consequently must be more 
 nutritious and healthful, than any eaten colder than 
 that. 
 
 GIRLS have risen before now, from the wash-tub 
 to the throne, and elevated both.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 301 
 
 DOGS get well of their wounds without poultices. 
 Dogs were the doctors who attended Lazarus ; and, 
 what is more than can be said of some modern doc- 
 tors, they treated him as they did themselves, and, 
 Uo doubt, with advantage. Dogs lick their sores. 
 It is the instinct of nature. Now let us not run 
 off in the manner of the ignorant and superstitious, 
 and imagine that there is some mysterious virtue 
 in a dog's tongue, some magnetic agency passing 
 back and forth ; but let us look with our eyes open, 
 and in the light of a few well-known facts. Take a 
 common boil, about which most of us have had a 
 feeling experience ; the surrounding skin is dry, 
 hot, and hard ; in its natural state it is moist and 
 soft. To bring it to its natural state again we have 
 only to remove the dryness, and reduce it to its 
 natural temperature ; and what more appropriate 
 than simple soft water, rained or distilled. But to 
 get the full virtue of the application, it should be 
 kept moist all the time ; this would require con- 
 stant attention, the incessant applying of water, 
 which is, in a measure, impracticable, except to 
 the unfortunate few who have nothing to do. 
 The softest fluid in nature is the saliva ; and it is 
 in this property we find the virtue of the dog's 
 licking. 
 
 How kindly wise is that Great Being who made 
 all worlds, in adapting his creations to the safety and 
 happiness of us, his children.
 
 302 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WE constantly notice, at our own table, that a 
 child will be ravenously fond of a particular dish, 
 and after a while turns from it. The reason is, 
 that there was a constituent in the much-loved food 
 which the system required, and which it drank up 
 greedily until it was fully supplied, and then instinct 
 would receive no more. A thirsty man, like the 
 arid soil, drinks in the water until the one is full 
 and the other is saturated, and then the water is 
 refused or rejected. 
 
 SOME men work themselves to death ; some men 
 think themselves to death. Too little rest for the 
 body, too little sleep for the brain, are false econ- 
 omies of time ; and multitudes, unwittingly, bring 
 on wasting and fatal diseases by practising these 
 economies. Omnipotence " rested," and commanded 
 man to do the same. Sleep a plenty, rest a plenty 
 these are the foundations of all great, safe, and 
 efficient activities of body or brain. 
 
 MODERATE, continuous bodily activities in the 
 open air, with a mind intensely and pleasurably 
 interested in some highly remunerative pursuit, 
 will cure any case of consumption where cure is 
 possible ; and if this fails, so will all else. 
 
 WE believe that physical perfection begets men- 
 tal vigor, and that, in turn, by appropriate tuitions, 
 begets moral power, and that this combination 
 makes the perfect man.
 
 Dft. HALL'S MAXIMS. 303 
 
 MANY girls and boys of promise, the great hope 
 of life to yearning parents, are sacrificed every 
 year to the cupidity of sordid, stupid, or reck- 
 less school-teachers, aided and abetted by the 
 contemptible vanity of the thoughtless parents 
 themselves. 
 
 A PEESON of requisite energy may permanently 
 arrest the progress of consumption anywhere, 
 North, South, East, or West ; for it is the out-door 
 bodily activities, and a wrought-up mind, which 
 compels itself away from the contemplation of 
 bodily infirmities, that replaces the hectic with the 
 hue of health, throwing physic to the dogs. How 
 long will it take mankind to learn these patent 
 lessons ? 
 
 A BEARD is not given to women, because every 
 woman ought to have a home and a husband ; and it 
 is her business to stay there, and care for, and make 
 things tidy, while be is out and about, spending his 
 energies in providing vje means for his wife's com- 
 fort and happiness. 
 
 SOME years ago, in the dusk of a summer's even- 
 ing, not a living creature in the house with us, 
 except the cook and some crickets, we were trying 
 to think of something funny to laugh at, and revive 
 our spirits, when the door opened, and in came a 
 six-footer, a stranger, with wit enough to begin at 
 once and tell what he wanted.
 
 304 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 HALF of us are slaves. The slaves of our cooks, 
 and housemaids, and seamstresses, and footmen, and 
 nurses, slaves, too, to the opinion of our neigh- 
 bors, and there is no tyranny on earth like it, more 
 remorseless, more exacting. 
 
 LET mothers remember that there in no guaran- 
 tee against poverty, want, and abject destitution in 
 this nation for a single generation. That not one 
 in a hundred of all the girls in this land will escape 
 the necessity of sewing, patching, cooking, and 
 washing for themselves. 
 
 MANY a young man would have been saved from 
 the halter, had he learned in his father's house how 
 to " make himself useful," under all the circumstan- 
 ces of life. 
 
 WE love to make people think; it is only the 
 thoughtful who are of any account in a world like 
 this ; it is the thoughtless, the heedless multitude 
 who heap want, and calamity, and disease on them- 
 selves, and on too many of those with whom they are 
 brought in frequent association. 
 
 TAKING so much less exercise on Sundays than on 
 a week-day, and stimulated to eat more on that day 
 by its superior excellency, aided by idleness, there 
 is of necessity a repletion, an over-supply of food, 
 which will be as certainly disastrous, as the feeding 
 of a locomotive with more fuel while she is stand- 
 ing still, than when she is going ahead, with her 
 long retinue of passengers and freight.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 305 
 
 AMERICAN girls think it degrading to cook, and 
 nurse, and wash, and wait on the table, and their 
 more inexcusable and short-sighted parents confirm 
 them in their views ; and the next we hear of them, 
 is " starvation," " suicide," premature disease, or a 
 dishonored grave. Let all these, especially those 
 who can leave their families nothing, impress on the 
 minds of their children, day by day, that it is more 
 dishonorable to beg than to work ; that it is more 
 criminal to do nothing than to be industrious ; that 
 no employment is dishonorable which is useful ; and 
 that it is not only a disgrace but a crime to be idle, 
 from feelings of a despicable false pride. 
 
 OUB experience and observation convince us that 
 nine men out of ten will pay in experiments for 
 regaining health a thousand dollars more cheerfully 
 than they would pay one for information, which, if 
 acted upon, would certainly preserve it, and fortu- 
 nate it is for us doctors that the masses are such 
 numskulls, else we would find our occupation 
 gone. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC men have forced on the common mind, 
 by slow degrees, the importance of a daily ventila- 
 tion of our sleeping apartments, so that now none 
 but the careless or most obtuse neglect it ; but few 
 think of ventilating their cellars, although it is 
 apparent that the noisome dampness is constantly 
 rising upwards and pervading the whole dwelling. 
 20
 
 $06 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 WE know of no better, safer, simpler, more acces 
 Bible poultice, for most purposes, than one made of 
 stale, light bread and sweet milk. Its superiority 
 lies in its being always at hand, and in its keeping 
 moist longer, and being more readily re-moistened, 
 than others. 
 
 EMANATIONS from cellars do not kill in a night, if 
 they did, universal attention would be forced to 
 their proper management ; but it is certain, from the 
 very nature of things, that unclean, damp, and 
 mouldy cellars, with their sepulchral fumes, do 
 undermine the health of multitudes of families, 
 and send many of their members to an untimely 
 grave. 
 
 HAIR-DYES for whiskers have become very com- 
 mon of late years ; they have to be repeated once a 
 month ; their more immediate effect is to impart a 
 dead, black color, which at once reveals the hypoc- 
 risy, and that it should so disturb the natural func- 
 tions of the skin, by such frequent application, as 
 to lay the foundation for callosities, cancers, and 
 other affections, is at least to be apprehended. 
 The employment of such cheateries is altogether 
 incompatible with that feeling of independence 
 and self-respect which characterizes an educated 
 gentleman. 
 
 TEMPERANCE and virtue are among the greatest 
 panaceas yet discovered.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 307 
 
 HONOR and profit everywhere, say we, be to the 
 men who show their light, that the toiling sailor at 
 sea, in the midnight storms of human life, may see 
 its beaming, take courage, and strike afresh for tho 
 haven of rest and of home. 
 
 BLESSED is that Providence which seldom sends a 
 single trouble ! It is fatherly beneficence which 
 often orders another, to tear the heart away from 
 dwelling on the one great calamity. It is single 
 troubles which craze men. It is not the general 
 student whose mind becomes unbalanced. It is not 
 the man who has a great many irons in the fire at a 
 time ; it is not the worker who has more business 
 than he can attend to : it is the man who has leisure 
 to do nothing, it is the man who nurses the one 
 thought wholly, who makes shipwreck of the im- 
 mortal part. 
 
 LET all parents, let all who are about to be mar- 
 ried, let all the married, remember that the inculca- 
 tion, the practice of self control, is the keystone 
 of practical religion, it is the panacea fbr domestic 
 disquietude, the entrance-door of a heaven on earth, 
 and a brighter heaven in the skies. 
 
 LET us resolve, one and all, as we must " live for 
 ages," for good or for ill, that we will live to elevate 
 and bless humanity, by being truthful in every line 
 we write, in every sentiment we utter. 
 
 HOUSING-UP will kill any invalid.
 
 308 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BUCKWHEAT cakes and molasses make a favorite 
 dish for multitudes in winter time. Why not in 
 summer also ? We need in winter the food which 
 contains most carbon ; that is, the heat-producing 
 principle, something which will keep up the inter- 
 nal fires to compensate for the external cold. 
 Meats, everything containing fat, are largely made 
 of carbon, hence we instinctively eat heartily of 
 meats in winter, but have small appetite for them 
 in summer. The same instinct receives greedily 
 the buckwheat cakes in winter, and turns from 
 them in summer, while other forms of bread mate- 
 rials, meal and flour, are desired all the year. It 
 is because buckwheat cakes are superior to bread 
 as to fatty matter, while the syrup and butter 
 used with them are almost entirely of carbon. So 
 that there is nothing more suitable for a winter 
 morning's breakfast than buckwheat cakes and 
 molasses. 
 
 THE simple fact that any given item of food is 
 not good for one man, does not " set well " on the 
 stomach, is no proof that it is not positively ben- 
 eficial to others ; it is simply a proof that it is not 
 good for him. This is a practical thought of con- 
 siderable importance. 
 
 THE change from a life of bodily labor to one 
 that is sedentary, is always attended with danger, 
 and is seldom made with impunity.
 
 DB. HALL'S MATHMB. 309 
 
 IF a fire is kindled in every dwelling at sun- 
 down and sun-rise, and the family sit in the same 
 room until bedtime, with all outer doors and win- 
 dows closed, and kept closed during the night, all 
 autumnal diseases, as epidemics, would become 
 impossible of occurrence, because it would be 
 contrary to physical law. A large lump of ice 
 suspended in a sleeper's room, so as to keep the 
 air at the level of his breathing, at seventy-five 
 degrees, would be equally effective in this regard, 
 because miasm cannot be held in solution in an 
 atmosphere of that temperature. It would, as it 
 were, be precipitated to the floor of the room, as 
 we know carbonic acid gas is thrown to the floor 
 by a certain degree of cold. It is greatly to be 
 regretted that these things are not more thorough. 
 ly known among physicians, as well as the people, 
 for practical and rational attention to them would 
 avert an incalculable amount of human suffering. 
 
 MEN may live long in spite of some pernicious 
 habit, but without it they would have lived longer. 
 Incorrect reasonings in this regard have often 
 ruined health and shortened life, and will, in mul- 
 titudes of instances, do it again. 
 
 NINE times out of ten the best answer which a 
 physician can give to the patient, who, with direful 
 look and dolorous tone, inquires, What shall I do t 
 is, Go to work.
 
 310 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 OF the in-door occupations, some of the most 
 trying to the human constitution are working in 
 cotton, hemp, paints, dyeing, furs, tobacco, lucifer 
 matches, manufacturers' trimmings, and the like, 
 involving the filling of the air with minute parti- 
 cles. Blondes, that is, persons with light hair, 
 fair skin, and blue eyes, as also those having sandy 
 or reddish hair, should, by all means, select some 
 active, out-door vocation. Brunettes, persons hav- 
 ing a dark skin, indicating the bilious tempera- 
 ment, accompanied usually with black hair and 
 dark eyes, should select a calling which, whether 
 in-door or out, will require them to be on their 
 feet, moving about nearly all the time, in order to 
 " work off " the constantly accumulating bile. Tho 
 mixed temperaments can best bear sedentary in- 
 door occupation, such as a combination of the 
 bilious and nervous. Spare persons, not having 
 much flesh, but enough of the nervous and san- 
 guine temperament to give them a wiriness of 
 constitution, these can bear in-door occupations 
 best ; their activity arising from the nervous tem- 
 perament keeping them in motion (the tongue, any 
 how, if women), while their hopefulness, arising 
 from the sanguine temperament, keeps up their 
 spirits, which is an element as essential to success 
 as it is to health. 
 
 PERSONS with weak eyes should not read, or write, 
 or do fine sewing, on an empty stomach.
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 311 
 
 LET every dish be composed of a single article 
 of food ; if it be of potatoes, let it be of potatoes, 
 and nothing else ; let rice be rice, and soup soup ; 
 let every meat be fresh ; let every vegetable be 
 perfect, ripe, recent; let everything of the fish 
 kind, especially in summer, be seen " a kicking " 
 within the half hour of cooking; and let three 
 articles of food, at any one meal, be the largest 
 allowable variety ; for it is variety of food at each 
 meal which is the great tempter to excess in quan- 
 tity ; the great founder of that dyspepsia which is 
 the torment, greater or less, of half the people of 
 any civilized nation. It will be a difficult matter 
 for any person in ordinary good health to eat too 
 much at a single meal made of two or three art! 
 cles of food. It is worth trying. 
 
 OBSERVANT persons know very well that the way 
 to make a man of anybody is to make him help 
 himself; and that the inability to do that oftener 
 arises from the indisposition to do so, than from 
 the impossibility of doing it. Show a man how, 
 make him feel that he ought to take care of him- 
 self, and in nine cases out of ten he will go 
 and do it. 
 
 THE bestowal of five dollars on a sick pauper 
 may infuse a health-giving hope, and waken him 
 up to a new life, but it would have no such effect 
 on a siok prince.
 
 312 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 BY far the most frequent causes of disease are 
 found in the food we eat and in the air we breathe, 
 the rectification of both of which is within our 
 own power ; requiring only a moderate amount of 
 intelligence, but a large share of moral power, that 
 is, a resolute self-denial. It thus follows that death, 
 short of old age, is chargeable to man himself; 
 that in an important sense, the great mass of those 
 who die short of threescore years and ten are the 
 authors of their own destruction. And each should 
 inquire, " To what extent am I chargeable with my 
 own ailments ? " 
 
 THE most elevated and refined of cities use 
 various kinds of wines, and too often recommend 
 their children to do the same, to end in drinking 
 vulgar gin, or in secretly chewing opium. 
 
 IN all cases of old sores, apply to a physician of 
 age and experience. If that is not practicable, 
 the safest and best plan is, first to diminish the 
 amount of food eaten each day, one half, and keep 
 the parts in a cleanly condition, by washing them 
 twice a day in soft, milk-warm water, until relief 
 is given. 
 
 GIVING degrades. Helping encourages and ele- 
 vates. The truest charity is to help the helpless 
 to help themselves. This it is that makes men of 
 them, instead of encouraging them into whining 
 beggary.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 313 
 
 LET us all turn our attention in upon ourselves, 
 and cultivate a deep and an abiding gratitude to 
 the Giver of all good, in that we and ours have 
 been born perfect in limb, and form, and feature; 
 our bodies without a blemish, ^ur minds without a 
 blot, and, further, that these things have been con- 
 tinued to us for the period of a lifetime, and that 
 wo have had given to us all things richly to enjoy, 
 by a beneficence as ceaseless as the flow of time, 
 and as boundless as the universe. 
 
 THERE can be no doubt that many young men, 
 who might have lived to high distinction, have lost 
 health and life itself, from want of timely and judi- 
 cious advice, as to their habits of life, being de- 
 terred from seeking that advice from their inability 
 to pay for it. We believe a valuable substitute 
 may be found in this book, in which we mainly 
 strive to show how ordinary ailments may be cured 
 by natural and inexpensive agencies. 
 
 IT is through a report of "disease of the heart" 
 that many an opium-eater is let off into the grave, 
 which covers at once his folly and his crime ; the 
 brandy-drinker, too, quietly slides round the corner 
 thus, and is heard of no more ; in short, this " re. 
 port" of "disease of the heart" is the mantle of 
 charity, which the politic coroner and the sympa- 
 thetic physician throw around the grave of " gen- 
 teel people."
 
 314 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 LAZY people eat more than the busy, at least for 
 a while, because it affords them enjoyment ; it is a 
 standing source of gratification, until they become 
 dyspeptic, when every meal becomes more or less 
 a torture. But want of occupation has its attend- 
 ant moral evils as well as physical. Idlers are 
 nervous, fretful, peevish, cross. Ill-nature be- 
 comes a second nature, and they grumble, and 
 complain, and whine, from morning until night, 
 with chance intervals of sunshine, but ever so 
 transient. 
 
 WE know that persons are born with the physi- 
 cal characteristics of their parents born with 
 their parents' diseases. Napoleon's mental nature 
 was impregnated from his mother before his birth, 
 when she rode by her warrior husband, at the 
 head of armed bands, for days, and weeks, and 
 months together; while at the same time he inher- 
 ited the disease of his father, and likewise perished 
 with it. It is notorious that three fourths of the 
 idiotic are born of parents, one or both of whom 
 are drunken ; shadowing the state of mind of the 
 parent bestial, stupid, low, at the instant of con- 
 ception, as the mould in which the child is cast. 
 Some practical use may be made of these things, 
 but not, we presume, until the human mind be- 
 comes more generally, more thoroughly, more su- 
 premely religious, from principle, high, uniform 
 abiding.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 315 
 
 OP all human occupations which do not render a 
 man amenable to the laws of his country, the most 
 universally and invariably destructive to the health 
 of the body, as well as that of the mind and heart, 
 and yet coveted by many, although it is the hard- 
 est work in the world, is that of having nothing 
 to do. 
 
 " A DYING man can do nothing easy," were the 
 last words of the immortal Franklin. A diseased 
 man can do nothing well, are words of our own, 
 and quite as true. 
 
 MAKE a child good, and you give good assurance 
 against idleness, beggary, and wasting disease. 
 Teach a child to be clean, to be truthful, to hate 
 all wrong-doing, to be industrious and saving, and 
 with a thorough education in " reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic," you make him rich beyond tie 
 inheritance of paternal millions. 
 
 THE most destructive typhoid and putrid fevers 
 are known to arise directly from a number :,f per- 
 sons living in the same small room. 
 
 IT is the nature of still air to become impure. 
 Running water purifies itself. Air in motion, 
 draughts of air, are self-purifiers. Thus it is that 
 the air of a close room becomes impure inevitably. 
 Thus it is that close rooms bring consumption to 
 countless thousands.
 
 316 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 MANY an excellent clergyman Las lost his voice, 
 and eventually his life, by preaching in a cold, 
 damp, and close church ; and multitudes of people 
 have been made invalids for months and years, and 
 have prematurely died, from sitting in churches 
 insufficiently warmed in winter time. The atmos- 
 phere of any building closed for six days in the 
 week becomes unfit for respiration in summer as 
 well as winter by reason of its damp, heavy close- 
 ness. It requires several days for the cold and 
 damp to get into a closed house, and a much longer 
 time for it to get out. Hence, after several days 
 of very severe weather, it may be sultry, even 
 uncomfortably warm in riding, walking, or any 
 other slight effort, and no fire is deemed necessary ; 
 on the contrary, the air of the church seems, on 
 first entering, to be refreshingly cool, but has, 
 nevertheless, sowed the seeds of untimely death 
 in multitudes ; for, remaining still for a couple of 
 hours, the body becomes chilled through and 
 through, to be followed by fever, pleurisy, inflam- 
 mation of the lungs, or other dangerous forms of 
 disease. 
 
 BROKEN bones may be prevented in icy weather 
 by taking steps short and slow, but fast and long, 
 in all weathers, in a direction from a mad bull. 
 
 A TRUE man is never discouraged except by a 
 demonstrable impossibility.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 317 
 
 HAD we the peopling of a world like this, with 
 present views of human nature and human need, 
 we would turn every son and daughter into the 
 great harvest field of life without a shirt to the back 
 or an implement to the hand. The necessity for 
 " device " has been the material salvation of the 
 human family. No children are so utterly worth- 
 less as those who never knew an obstacle between 
 an expressed desire and its gratification. No child 
 is so irretrievably ruined as the one whose parent 
 is its slave. Let every one enter the world with 
 an income, and it would, under the present consti- 
 tution of things, become, within a century, a world 
 of idleness, gluttony, and havoc-making disease ; 
 so that while it is true that, in one sense of the 
 word, " the destruction of the poor is their pov- 
 erty," it is, in another sense, not less demonstrable, 
 that poverty is the material safety of the race 
 as witness the brightest, highest names in history, 
 ancient or modern. Poverty has been the main 
 stimulus in almost all sublime lives. 
 
 READER, go this minute and do some good deed 
 to somebody, for you may die to-morrow ; and if you 
 do not die to-morrow, " repeat the prescription " 
 every day until you do. 
 
 IT is an absurdity to purchase wood by measure 
 Its heat-producing qualities are in proportion to its 
 weight, if seasoned.
 
 318 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 As far as health and disease are concerned, we 
 have instructive examples of the practical failure 
 of fanaticism in the lives of Graham and Alcott. 
 As citizens, as far as we know, they were good 
 men, honest, well-meaning, benevolent, and hu- 
 mane ; but when we look for the practical good 
 effect of their theories, as exhibited in their own 
 persons, and we may well suppose under the verj 
 highest advantages of correct, intelligent, and 
 thorough application, there is confessedly a sad 
 failure. Graham, who gave name to the famous 
 " Graham bread," died at the age of fifty, and 
 Alcott only completed his threescore years ; both 
 of them frittered away their lives in attempting to 
 foist their crude notions upon public acceptance, 
 with loud assurances of a serene and healthful old 
 age. They exhibited great goodness of heart in 
 their self-denials, and their severe sacrifices, in at- 
 tempting to prove the truth of their vagaries ; but 
 this does not sanctify their own destruction, and 
 the destruction of multitudes of weaker-minded 
 persons who took hold of their half facts and ran 
 them into the ground, to their own undoing. Their 
 sincerity, their honest belief in the truth of their 
 theories, did not extend their own lives to an en- 
 couraging limit ; while, on the other hand, there is 
 reason to suppose they shortened them by their ill- 
 advised experiments. Alcott drank no water for 
 a whole year, and lived many years on fruits and
 
 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 319 
 
 vegetables, never tasting meat, or milk, or butter, 
 or yeasted bread, only to die at a time when both 
 body and mind ought to have been in their highest 
 prime. Let these melancholy results learn us who 
 still live, the true wisdom of avoiding extremes, 
 remembering that a kind Providence has given us 
 att things richly to enjoy, only enjoining to be tem- 
 perate in the use of them, and in this is enduring 
 health, an effective life, a serene and happy old age. 
 
 Dm any man ever know a farmer who was not an 
 habitual grumbler, who was not always ready with 
 a too dry or too wet, too backward or too forward, 
 too hot or too cold ? We ourselves have known 
 some, not many, who were habitually and humbly 
 thankful for whatever kind of weather a kind Prov- 
 idence thought proper to send. 
 
 THE sleep of the overworked, like that of those 
 who do not work at all, is unsatisfying and unre- 
 freshing, and both alike, wake up in weariness, 
 sadness, and languor, with an inevitable result, 
 both dying prematurely. 
 
 A TEASPOONFDL of cayenne pepper given to a 
 dozen hens with their food, every other day, win- 
 ter and summer, will nearly double the daily yield 
 of eggs. This same capsicum, at meals, is far bet- 
 ter for the human stomach than brandy, better for 
 the debilitated than any " tonic," drops, or bitters 
 ever swallowed.
 
 320 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 SOME people set out to starve themselves into 
 health, until the system is reduced so low that it 
 has no power of resuscitation, and then die. To 
 diet wisely, does not imply a total abstinence from 
 all food, but the taking of just enough, or of a qual- 
 ity adapted to the nature of the case. Loose bow- 
 els weaken very rapidly ; total abstinence from all 
 food increases the debility. In this case food 
 should be taken, which, while it tends to arrest 
 the disease, imparts nutriment and strength to 
 the system. Rest on a bed, and eating boiled rice, 
 after it has been parched like coffee, will cure 
 three cases out of four of common diarrhoea in a 
 day or two. Others think that, in order to diet 
 effectually, it is all-important to do without meat, 
 but allow themselves the widest liberty im all else. 
 But in many cases, in dyspeptic conditions of the 
 system particularly, the course ought to be reversed, 
 because meat is converted into nutriment with the 
 expenditure of less stomach power than vegeta- 
 bles, while a given amount of work does three 
 times as much good, gives three times as much 
 nutriment and strength as vegetable food would. 
 
 HUBBY from your bed-chamber the instant of 
 rising; hoist the windows of your sitting apart- 
 ments, fling wide open your doors divers times 
 daily, even in the coldest weather, and let out the 
 death, instead of drawing it into your own system 
 to fester, and corrupt, and rot you.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 321 
 
 WE ought to study how to keep well, if we are 
 so already ; how to regain health, if we have lost 
 it, as a means of enjoying that religion to the 
 full whose end and aim is an immortality of bliss. 
 
 THE heart has two suits of rooms one filled 
 with impure blood, going to the lungs to be puri- 
 fied, the other containing the purest blood of the 
 body, which, having undergone purification and 
 perfection in the lungs, has been returned to this 
 other side of the heart, to be propelled therefrom 
 to the most distant portions of the human frame, 
 imparting, in its progress, renovation, restoration, 
 and life. The right side of the heart contains the im- 
 pure, imperfect blood, while the pure blood is found 
 in the left. But it cannot get from the right side 
 into the left without passing through an out-house, 
 the lungs, where the purifying process is carried on. 
 
 OUR children sit, and eat, and sleep, and study 
 too generally in apartments that seem to have been 
 constructed studiously to prevent the admission of 
 pure air. Our assembly-rooms, school-houses, and 
 churches are generally built without any reference 
 to a free circulation of fresh air. It is my solemn 
 conviction, from long observation, that many chil- 
 dren are made dwarfs, or live pale, emaciated, ner- 
 vous, consumptive specimens of humanity, and then 
 die before their time, from the want of pure air 
 more than from any other cause. 
 21
 
 322 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 How strongly the appetite yearns for a pickle, 
 when nothing else could be relished, is in the ex- 
 perience of most of us. It is the instinct of nature 
 pointing to a cure. 
 
 THE breathing of a vitiated atmosphere, whether 
 in close and small rooms, or large and close bed- 
 rooms, or in family rooms over cellars without ceil- 
 ings, whose noisome odors rise incessantly, day and 
 night, to the upper portions of the buildings, the 
 fumes from decayed vegetables, barrels and boxes, 
 sodden with dampness, which have not seen the 
 light of the sun for years, saying nothing of old 
 bones, rags, brooms, and various other things for 
 which the cellar is used as a common receptacle ; 
 or whether these miasms and malarias are gen- 
 erated in dirty back yards, or piles of sweepings 
 heaped up under stairs, or in closets, or dark cor- 
 ners, or from livery-stables, or cow-houses, or pig- 
 pens, or butcher stalls, or vegetable markets, by 
 an immutable law of nature bring injury to the sys- 
 tem with the same certainty that gravity will affect 
 a projected feather, or cannon ball, or mountain. 
 These are truths which every person should know 
 for himself, and should teach to his children from 
 their earliest years, for it is only by the diffusion 
 and practice of knowledge like this that we can 
 ever hope to see a healthy offspring, and to enjoy, 
 not only with impunity, but with advantage, all 
 that is meant by the term modern conveniences.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 323 
 
 Br an arrangement of Providence, as beautiful 
 as it is benign, the fruits of the earth are ripening 
 during the whole summer. From the delightful 
 strawberry on the opening of spring, to the lus- 
 cious peach of the fall, there is a constant succes- 
 sion of delightful aliments made delightful by 
 that Power whose loving-kindness is in all his 
 works, in order to stimulate us to their highest 
 cultivation, connecting with their use, also, the 
 most health-giving influences ; and with the rich 
 profuseuess of a well-attended fruitery, it is one 
 of the most unaccountable things in nature that so 
 little attention is paid, comparatively speaking, to 
 this branch of farming. 
 
 THE teeth should not be washed in cold water, 
 especially after eating, because the contrast be- 
 tween it and warm or hot food is too striking, and 
 chills them. 
 
 THE reckless take wine, or brandy, or vulgar 
 beer ; the conscientious do worse, and take physic, 
 calling it " bitters," tansy, dogwood, quinine, and 
 such " simple things," especially the quinine, which 
 has helped to invalid and kill more people than 
 would make a monument sky high. 
 
 THE outrages and stupidities practised in modern 
 education are not amazing, for a sensible man is 
 prepared for anything, and has no amazement ; but 
 they are mischievous in the extreme.
 
 324 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 To be true, only with the help of a quibble, haa 
 always and everywhere our most unmitigated con 
 tempt. Oar definition of a LIE is, An attempt to 
 make a false impression. Whether successful or 
 not, the crime is the same. Whether that false 
 impression is made by word, or mark, or sign, or 
 shrug, or look, or false coloring, whether by the 
 omission or addition of a single jot or tittle, or 
 word, or fact, the infamy is the same. These be- 
 ing our sentiments, we have never undergone the 
 humiliation of a retraction or apology for the 
 defamation of any human creature, and that we 
 have never been called to such a trial, and that no 
 human heart has thus ever been wounded by us, is 
 one of the sweetest thoughts of our existence. 
 We are thankful to be able to feel that we have 
 no private malice to gratify. 
 
 OP all the parts of corned beef, that is the most 
 nutritious and cheapest which is called " the round," 
 which has neither bone nor gristle, nor waste fat 
 worth naming. 
 
 BOTH in the purchase of meat and fish, persons 
 are generally falsely economical in choosing an 
 article with bone in it, at two, or three, or more 
 cents a pound less than a piece which has none. 
 
 MIASM and malaria are the great death agents 
 throughout the largest portion of the habitable 
 globe.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 325 
 
 EATING a hearty meal at the close of the day, is 
 like giving a laboring man a full day's work to do, 
 just as night sets in, although he has been toiling 
 all day. The whole body is fatigued when night 
 comes, the stomach takes its due share, and to eat 
 heartily at supper, and then go to bed, is giving 
 all the other portions and functions of the body re- 
 pose, while the stomach has thrown upon it five 
 hours more of additional labor, after having already 
 worked four or five hours to dispose of breakfast, 
 and a still longer time for dinner. This ten or 
 twelve hours of almost incessant labor has nearly 
 exhausted its power; it cannot promptly digest 
 another full meal, but labors at it for long hours to- 
 gether-, like an exhausted galley-slave at a newly- 
 imposed task. The result is, that by the unnatu- 
 ral length of time in which the food is kept in the 
 stomach, and the imperfect manner in which the 
 exhausted organ manages it, it becomes more or 
 less acid ; this generates wind ; this distends the 
 stomach ; this presses itself up against the more 
 yielding lungs, confining them to a largely dimin- 
 ished space ; hence, every breath taken is insuffi- 
 cient for the wants of the system, the blood be- 
 comes foul, black, and thick, refuses to flow, and 
 the man dies. 
 
 THE hardest toil of all, for daily bread, is the toil 
 of the brain
 
 326 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 ONE of the most important items in the pages of 
 this book is, Whenever the hour of bowel action 
 has passed by without its occurrence, do not swal- 
 low an atom of food until it takes place. This 
 alone would remove the cause of half our diseases. 
 
 THEEE is more sound practical hygiene on the 
 subject of healthy houses in the fourteenth chapter 
 of Leviticus, from verse thirty-four, than in all the 
 skulls of all the health commissioners and common 
 councils of all the cities of Christendom. Pity it 
 is that we do not read our Bible more that great 
 book, which contains the leading principles of what 
 is indisputably good and useful. 
 
 ANY educated physician, of even moderate ob- 
 servation and study, knows there is no medicine 
 on the face of the earth which will prevent the 
 spread of any epidemic. More : any medicine given 
 steadily during an epidemic has a natural tendency 
 to act as a cause of the disease, and any person 
 taking it will be more liable to the disease than if 
 they did not take it at all. 
 
 THE conceit of a fool is as amazing as the cow- 
 ardice of a braggadocio. 
 
 THE real cause of disease and premature death 
 to multitudes in large cities, in winter time, is not 
 the want of money (for, if furnished, it would be 
 improvidently expended, in nine cases out of ten), 
 but it is the want of food and warmth.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 327 
 
 IN winter railroading, the feet require most at- 
 tention. The floor of the car is the coldest part 
 of it, under any circumstances, while a single plank 
 separates them from a zero temperature, it may be. 
 Persons will greatly consult their comfort by keep- 
 ing their feet on the foot-boards, and in addition, 
 have the feet and legs well wrapped in a substan- 
 tial blanket or other covering. It is vastly better 
 to shawl the feet than the shoulders in a rail car. 
 
 THE time taken from seven or eight hours' sleep 
 out of twenty-four is time not gained, but time 
 more than lost ; we can cheat ourselves, we cannot 
 cheat Nature. A certain amount of food is neces- 
 sary to a healthful body, and if less than that amount 
 be furnished, decay commences the very hour. It 
 is the same with sleep ; and any one who persists 
 in allowing himself less than Nature requires, will 
 only hasten his arrival at the mad-house or the 
 grave. 
 
 THE healthiest of all callings, and which, when 
 intelligently prosecuted, involves a large share of 
 bodily activities, with a wide range of intellectual 
 and scientific inquiry, deserves more attention than 
 the present age accords to it. One of the great- 
 est mistakes of the times is, that " anybody has 
 sense enough to be a farmer ; " that it is a pursuit 
 which can be taken up and successfully prosecuted 
 without pre-culture.
 
 328 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 NEVER allow a child to be put to sleep by any 
 servant, on any pretence whatever, nor permit it to 
 go to sleep at any other than the regular time ; and 
 then put the child to sleep yourself, and, if properly 
 managed, all that you have to do is, to take the 
 child to a quiet, darkened room, place it in the bed, 
 with a few affectionate words, uttered in a kindly 
 tone, leave it, and it will be asleep in five minutes, 
 without rocking, singing, coaxing, or anything else. 
 
 CELIBACY is the ruin of any nation ; it is a greater 
 moral curse than drunkenness ever has been ; and 
 the parent who countenances it, is, to that extent, 
 his child's worst enemy, whether that child be son 
 or daughter. 
 
 CLIMATE is constantly changing. The constitu- 
 tions of men are constantly changing. The habits 
 of society are constantly changing. The circum- 
 stances and conditions of domestic life are con- 
 stantly changing. Such being the case, that 
 practitioner cannot command success who admin- 
 isters to-day the same remedy for the same symp- 
 tom which he did twenty years ago. Every 
 observant physician knows that the types of disease 
 vary from year to year, and he is the most success- 
 ful man who earliest notices that change, and ju- 
 diciously adapts his remedies to it. This is the 
 key to successful practice everywhere. This 
 gives " eminence " to men of the time, and we 
 want their experience and " prescriptions."
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 329 
 
 THE less you wear at night, the more good will 
 your clothing do you in the daytime. Those who 
 wear a great deal of clothing at night, must wear 
 that much more in the day, or they will feel chilly 
 all the time ; and our own observation teaches us 
 that the people who muffle up most are the most to 
 complain of taking cold. But why wear flannel 
 next to the skin, in preference to silk or cotton ? 
 Because it is warmer ; it conveys heat away from 
 the body less rapidly ; does it so slowly, that it is 
 called a non-conductor ; it feels less cold when we 
 touch it to the skin than silk or cotton. If the 
 three are wetted, the flannel feels less cold at the 
 first touch, and gets warm sooner than silk or cotton, 
 and does not cling to the skin when damp as much 
 as they do. 
 
 AT a tea party of sixty old women in England, it 
 was ascertained that they were the mothers of 
 eight hundred and sixty-nine children. The pre- 
 sumption is, that these women were tea-drinkers 
 habitually, and it is equally inferable that they did 
 not drink it very " weak ; " yet they were healthy 
 enough to be old, and healthv enough to be the 
 mothers of large families. An isolated fact proves 
 nothing, but this one is suggestive. It is, then, 
 safer and healthier to take a cup of warm tea for 
 supper than a glass of cold water. With our habits 
 of hearty suppers, it is better to take a cup of warm 
 tea than to take no drink at all.
 
 330 DB. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 FAR back in the present century, a young man 
 asked for employment in the United States Armory 
 at Springfield, Massachusetts ; but he was poor, 
 and modest, and had no friends, so he went away 
 without it; but, feeling the man within him, he 
 sought work, until he found it. An age later, he 
 visited that armory the second time, not as a com- 
 mon day-laborer, but as the ablest speaker of the 
 House of Representatives for many years at Wash- 
 ington. Go to, ye dandified, kid-gloved, soft-headed, 
 lady-tending numskulls, begin life over again, if 
 you wish to leave your mark on the world's his- 
 tory, by earning your first dinner in honorable 
 labor ; and resolve, that what you eat, and drink, 
 and wear, from this day forward, shall be from your 
 own earnings, and you will yet die men. 
 
 IP people were blessed with common sense, and 
 a little wholesome self-denial, they might often 
 escape severe colds and fevers by resolute measures 
 adopted in season. 
 
 IT is too much the custon to measure one's health 
 by the avidity of his appetite and his increase in 
 flesh, as if he were a pig ; forgetting that a vora- 
 cious appetite and fat are always indications of a 
 diseased body. A uniform, moderate appetite is the 
 attendant of good health. A racer's ribs must be 
 seen before he is fit for the track, because then he 
 is most capable of endurance.
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 831 
 
 THE immoderate use of cold water is prejudicial to 
 health, whether as a drink or a lavement, and so is 
 the immoderate use of bread and butter. It is the 
 argument of a fanatic to say, that because the 
 excessive use of anything is injurious, it should, 
 therefore, be discarded altogether. 
 
 IF churches are chilly, the sooner you get out 
 after service, and walk briskly, so as to wake up 
 the circulation, the greater will be your chances 
 of not taking cold. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WHATEVER is done to promote the circulation of 
 this book, will be a public good, for the time has 
 come when the study of the health must become 
 an essential branch of primary education; every 
 year increases the necessity. Our fathers and 
 mothers were hale and hearty at sixty, seventy, 
 or eighty years of age, and yet they never 
 bothered themselves about the liver, and stomach, 
 and digestion, and brown bread and baths, and 
 hair brushes ; they lived in blissful ignorance 
 of the locality of the liver, " lights," or anything 
 else than the stomach ; the whereabouts of " that 
 animal," they were regularly and pleasurably 
 reminded of three times a-day ; but not so with
 
 332 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 
 
 us, their degenerate sons, whose houses are cum- 
 bered with double sashes to keep all the pure air 
 out, while every pains is taken to keep the foul 
 air in; with patent shower-baths, to chill us to 
 death ; with hot-air furnaces, to stew us with 
 their stifling, humid heat; with carpets, to hide 
 dust and dirt, to harbor dampness and noxious 
 gases ; and lazy, loafing rocking-chairs, to insure 
 three crooks in every spine ; and cushioned ot- 
 tomans, sofas, lounges, fauteuilles, vis-a-vis, and 
 a great many other French things, to engender 
 constipations, piles, fistulas, and lingering death. 
 They indeed lived in log houses, and sat by roar- 
 ing wood fires, feasted on plain " hog and hom- 
 miny," used burnt bread-crust for coffee, drank 
 " yerb teas " instead of " store tea/'' wove flax and 
 linsey-woolsey, and manufactured what they wore 
 in the loom-house, which was considered as indis- 
 pensable an appendage to a dwelling as a kitchen ; 
 they went to bed a little after " candle-light," and 
 rose at the " crack of day," working steady in the 
 open air from " morning to night," beginning their 
 " Sabbath " at Saturday sundown, walking across 
 the fields " to meeting " on Sunday morning, tak- 
 ing a light lunch at noon under the shady trees 
 in the churchyard; not so engorging themselves 
 with a rich Sunday dinner, of extra invitingness, 
 as to render them so insufferably stupid and sleepy 
 during the whole of the afternoon, as to cause it
 
 DR. HALL'S MAXIMS. 333 
 
 to be made "fashionable" to have no "preach- 
 ing " in the afternoon ; but to snore it out at home, 
 in blissful security of its ever being known by the 
 interruption of comers-in, because it isn't pious 
 " to visit on Sundays." 
 
 Persons who have lived thus, regularly, indus- 
 triously, temperately, religiously, can well afford 
 to be ignorant of the laws of health, and the pre- 
 cautions necessary to preserve it to modern livers ; 
 for to those who live naturally, Nature is a self- 
 regulator; her instincts are a guide and a safe- 
 guard as to health and disease. But men, whose 
 whole lives are artificial, must study how to pre- 
 serve the health under such artificial circumstan- 
 ces, or the race will die out ; and nothing else can 
 prevent it except intermarriage among hardier 
 tribes. But where are they to come from ? Civ- 
 ilization is deteriorating the physique of the 
 nations across the waters as well as here. Be 
 assured, reader, that the only remedy for the 
 physical salvation of man is to secure a practical 
 intelligence as to the laws of his being ; and such 
 is the designed tendency of this BOOK; AND WE 
 
 HOPE IT WILL HAVE A TREMENDOUS SALE, BECAUSE 
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 By CHARLES G. LELAND, A. M. Simple, practical, concise, 
 and comprehensive. 12 mo., flexible cloth, 65 cents. 
 
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 The publishers offer this little volume as the simplest and most prac- 
 tical key to a working knowledge of any of the minor arts and industries. 
 
 A STUDY OF GENIUS. 
 
 By N. K. ROTSE. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 A book which will be of curious Interest to many readers. Chicago 
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 An able discussion of a subject in which many persons are Interested. 
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 It Is a practical treatise on mercantile credits, which is pretty sure 
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 York Sun. 
 
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 trated. Half morocco, $1.50. 
 
 The Immortal, or one of the "Forty" (L'Immortel). By A. DAUDET. 
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 Told in the Hills. By MARAH ELLIS RYAN. 
 A Modern Rosalind. By F. XAVIER CALVBRT. 
 A Fair American. By PIEKRE SALES. 
 Fontenay, the Swordsman. By FORTUNE DU BOISGOBEY. 
 The Sign-Board and other Stories. By MASSON, SOUVESTHE, GAUTIER, 
 
 A Pagan of the Alleghanies. By MARAH ELLIS RYAN. Half morocco, 
 
 $1.50. 
 
 For the Old Sake's Sake. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
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 All for Jack. By JULES CLAKETIB. 
 
 RAND, McNALLY & CO., Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK.
 
 DATE DUE
 
 
 A 000 5102090 5 
 
 2%"VtL "' 
 
 
 WB 930 
 H I8lf 
 1892 
 Hall: Fun better than physic 
 
 WB 930 
 H I8lf 
 1892 
 Hall: Fun better than physic 
 
 UCI CCM LIBRARY 
 
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