Part 1 (1/2)
Searchlights on Health.
by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols.
HE STUMBLETH NOT, BECAUSE HE SEETH THE LIGHT.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Search Me. Oh Thou Great Creator.”]
KNOWLEDGE IS SAFETY.
1. The old maxim, that ”Knowledge is power,” is a true one, but there is still a greater truth: ”KNOWLEDGE IS SAFETY.” Safety amid physical ills that beset mankind, and safety amid the moral pitfalls that surround so many young people, is the great crying demand of the age.
2. CRITICISM.--This work, though plain and to some extent startling, is chaste, practical and to the point, and will be a boon and a blessing to thousands who consult its pages. The world is full of ignorance, and the ignorant will always criticise, because they live to suffer ills, for they know no better. New light is fast falling upon the dark corners, and the eyes of many are being opened.
3. RESEARCHES OF SCIENCE.--The researches of science in the past few years have thrown light on many facts relating to the physiology of man and woman, and the diseases to which they are subject, and consequently many reformations have taken place in the treatment and prevention of diseases peculiar to the s.e.xes.
4. LOCK AND KEY.--Any information bearing upon the diseases of mankind should not be kept under lock and key. The physician is frequently called upon to speak in plain language to his patients upon some private and startling disease contracted on account of ignorance. The better plan, however, is to so educate and enlighten old and young upon the important subjects of health, so that the necessity to call a physician may occur less frequently.
5. PROGRESSION.--A large, respectable, though diminis.h.i.+ng cla.s.s in every community, maintain that nothing that relates exclusively to either s.e.x should become the subject of popular medical instruction.
But such an opinion is radically wrong; ignorance is no more the mother of purity than it is of religion. Enlightenment can never work injustice to him who investigates.
6. AN EXAMPLE.--The men and women who study and practice medicine are not the worse, but the better for such knowledge; so it would be to the community in general if all would be properly instructed on the laws of health which relate to the s.e.xes.
7. CRIME AND DEGRADATION.--Had every person a sound understanding on the relation of the s.e.xes, one of the most fertile sources of crime and degradation would be removed. Physicians know too well what sad consequences are constantly occurring from a lack of proper knowledge on these important subjects.
8. A CONSISTENT CONSIDERATION.--Let the reader of this work study its pages carefully and be able to give safe counsel and advice to others, and remember that purity of purpose and purity of character are the brightest jewels in the crown of immortality.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BEGINNING RIGHT.]
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE.
1. THE BEGINNING.--There is a charm in opening manhood which has commended itself to the imagination in every age. The undefined hopes and promises of the future--the dawning strength of intellect--the vigorous flow of pa.s.sion--the very exchange of home ties and protected joys for free and manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and excitement unfelt, perhaps, at any other.
2. THE GROWTH OF INDEPENDENCE.--Hitherto life has been to boys, as to girls, a dependent existence--a sucker from the parent growth--a home discipline of authority and guidance and communicated impulse. But henceforth it is a transplanted growth of its own--a new and free power of activity in which the mainspring is no longer authority or law from without, but principle or opinion within. The shoot which has been nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, and bent according to its inclination, is transferred to the open world, where of its own impulse and character it must take root, and grow into strength, or sink into weakness and vice.
3. HOME TIES.--The thought of home must excite a pang even in the first moments of freedom. Its glad shelter--its kindly guidance--its very restraints, how dear and tender must they seem in parting! How brightly must they s.h.i.+ne in the retrospect as the youth turns from them to the hardened and unfamiliar face of the world! With what a sweet sadly-cheering pathos they must linger in the memory! And then what chance and hazard is there in his newly-gotten freedom! What instincts of warning in its very novelty and dim inexperience! What possibilities of failure as well as of success in the unknown future as it stretches before him!
4. VICE OR VIRTUE.--Certainly there is a grave importance as well as a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There is awe as well as excitement in it when rightly viewed. The possibilities that lie in it of n.o.ble or ign.o.ble work--of happy self-sacrifice or ruinous self-indulgence--the capacities in the right use of which it may rise to heights of beautiful virtue, in the abuse of which it may sink to the depths of debasing vice--make the crisis one of fear as well as of hope, of sadness as well as of joy.
5. SUCCESS OR FAILURE.--It is wistful as well as pleasing to think of the young pa.s.sing year by year into the world, and engaging with its duties, its interests, and temptations. Of the throng that struggle at the gates of entrance, how many may reach their antic.i.p.ated goal?
Carry the mind forward a few years, and some have climbed the hills of difficulty and gained the eminence on which they wished to stand--some, although they may not have done this, have kept their truth unhurt, their integrity unspoiled; but others have turned back, or have perished by the way, or fallen in weakness of will, no more to rise again; victims or their own sin.