Old Advice - What your great-great grandma did (or didn't do :)

I just had to share this. Excerpts from a book published in c. 1879. The title is "Advice to a wife on the management of her own health : and on the treatment of some of the complaints incidental to pregnancy, labour, and suckling, with an introductory chapter especially addressed to the young wife", the author's name is Pye Henry Chavasse. (Oh, those Victorians!)

"A young married lady ought at once to commence taking regular and systematic out-door exercise, which might be done without in the least interfering with her household duties. There are few things more conducive to health than walking exercise ... Walking - I mean a walk, not a stroll - is a glorious exercise: it expands the chest and throws back the shoulders; it strengthens the muscles; it promotes digestion, making a person digest almost any kind of food; it tends to open the bowels, and is better than any aperient pill ever intended; it clears the complexion, giving roses to the cheeks and brilliancy to the eye, and, in point of fact, is one of the greatest beautifiers in the world. It exhilarates the spirits like a glass of champagne, but, unlike champagne, it never leaves a headache behind."

"Walking exercise is worthy of all commendation, and is indispensable to content, health, strength, and comeliness. I am quite sure that there is nothing more conducive to health than the wearing out of lots of shoeleather, and leather is cheaper than physic."

"Walking is even more necessary in the winter than in the summer. If the day be cold, and the roads be dirty, provided it be dry above, I should advise my fair reader to put on thick boots and a warm shawl, and brave the weather. Even if there be a little rain and much wind, if she be well wrapped up, neither the rain nor the wind will harm her. A little sprinkling of rain, provided the rules of health be followed, will not give her cold. Much wind will not blow her away. She must, if she wishes to be strong, fight against it; the conflict will bring colour to the cheek and beauty to her eye."

"If a lady is to be healthy, she must take exercise, and that not by fits and starts, but regularly and systematically. A stroll is of little use, she must walk! And let there be no mistake about it, for nature will have her dues: the muscles require to be tired, and not to be trifled with; the lungs ask for the revivifying air of heaven, and not for the stifling air of a close room; the circulation demands the quickening influence of a brisk walk, and not to be made stagnant by idleness."

"There is no substitute in this world for exercise and for occupation; neither physic nor food will keep people in health, they must be up and doing, and buckle on their armour, and fight as every one has to fight, the battle of life!"

Hope you liked it :)

I love it!!! Thank you for sharing!

That's so cute- I especially love the comparison of walking to a glass of champagne!  Haha- I will totally use that for motivation!  Next time I don't want to go work out, I'll think of it as champagne!

Thank you for posting this!  It was quite amusing to read although, for its time, would have been a very serious persuasion to the gentle ladies of the day!

i remember hearing how gr8gramsies & gr8aunties lost weight... they had milk and toast for breakfast, an orange and salad or something like that for lunch (fresh if possible, otherwise canned) and then a regular dinner.  and they worked hard all day in the home/garden and on the farm...  so, the exercise had a lot of effect!

OK fair reader, here is more. This time, on the importance of a wholesome diet and, most of all, breakfast!

"The meagre breakfast of many young wives (eating scarcely anything) is one cause of so much sickness among them, and of so many puny children in the world. Let every young wife, and indees every one else, make a substantial breakfast. It i sthe foundational meal of the day; it is the first meal after a long, the longest fast. The meagre, miserable breakfast many young wives make is perfectly absurd; no wonder tha they are weak, 'nervous', and delicate. (...) Let every young wife, therefore, look well to the breakfast, that it be good, and varied, and substantial, or ill-health will almost certainly ensue."

"A young married woman's diet ought to be substantial, plain, and nourishing. She must frequently vary the kind of food, of meat especially, as also the manner of cooking it. Nature delights in a variety of food, of air, and of exercise."

"Our happiness and our longevity much depend  on the weakness or on the soundness of our stomachs: it is the stomach, as a rule, that both gauges our happiness and that determines the span  of the life of both men and women. How necessary it is then, that due regard should be done to conduce to the stomach's welfare; not by overloading the stomach with rich food; not by a scanty and meagre diet, but by adopting a middle course betwixt and betweeen high living and low living - the juste milieu."

"Let me advise my fair reader to take plenty of time over her meals, and to chew her food well; as nothing is more conducive to digestion than thoroughly masticated food. No interruption should be allowed to interfere with the meals; the mind, at such times, shoul dbe kept calm, cheerful, and unruffled, for 'unquiet meals make ill digestions.' Many persons bolt their food! When they do, they are drawing bills on their constitutions which must inevitably be paid! The teeth act as a mill to grind and prepare the food for the stomach; if they do not do their proper work, the stomach has double labour to perform, and being unable to do it efficiently, the stomach and the whole body in consequence suffer."

Can you imagine how plain and simple they make it sound...today doctors tell people this stuff all the time and no one listens.

i love the language. its glorious!!

From The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. For those of you who need some positive vibes!

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.

So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired.

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his
fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical
half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one
place.
       &nb sp;  "Where you tend a rose, my lad,
       &nb sp;   A thistle cannot grow."



Tend a rose!

Love this - a timely reminder, bearing in mind some of the extreme diets out there (and sometimes listed in detail on this site), that the best way to health is, and has been for centuries, exercise and proper meals - and  of course the all important breakfast.

Thanks for posting. This young wife is off to prepare a substantial, plain and nourishing lunch before donning her thick boots for a walk! (Not a stroll.)