t learned how to prevent it as we do to-day.

=Victory over Disease.=--Cholera, yellow fever, black death, and
smallpox no longer cause people to flee into the wilderness to escape
them when they occasionally break out in a town or city. We have
learned how to prevent these ailments among people who will obey the
laws of health.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--One of the thousands of sturdy red men which
smallpox slew before we learned how to prevent the disease.]

Until the year 1900, people fled from a city when yellow fever was
announced, but now any one can sleep with a fever patient and not
catch the disease, because we have learned how to prevent it. Nurses
and doctors no longer hesitate to sit for hours in the rooms of those
sick with smallpox because they know how to treat the body to keep
away this disease. By studying this book, boys and girls may learn not
only how to keep free from these diseases, but how to manage their
bodies to make them strong enough to escape other diseases.

=As the Twig is bent so the Tree is inclined.=--This old saying means
that a strong, straight, healthy, full-grown tree cannot come from a
weak and bent young tree. Health in manhood and womanhood depends on
how the health is cared for in childhood. The foundation for disease
is often laid during school years. The making of strong bodies that
will live joyous lives for long years must begin in boyhood and
girlhood.

In youth is the time to begin right living. Bad habits formed in early
life often cause much sorrow in later years. It is said that over one
half the drunkards began drinking liquor before they were twenty years
of age and most of the smokers began to use tobacco before they were
twenty years old.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. What is worth most in this world?

2. How many people are sick in our country?

3. How long do most people live?

4. Why do people not live long in India?

5. What is hygiene?

6. How many more deaths are caused by disease than by
war?

7. Give some facts about smallpox.

8. Why do we have no fear of yellow fever and smallpox
now?

9. Why should you be careful of your health while young?

10. When do most smokers and drinkers begin their bad
habits?

CHAPTER II

PARTS OF THE BODY

=Regions of the Body.=--In order to talk about any part of the body it
must have a name. The main portion of the body is c