GV 
 
 f8d 
 
 BE 
 WELL 
 
 One Hundtcd 
 Yeats 
 
 
Book ^ ■" 
 
 Copyrights 
 
 eaEnaain deposie 
 
BE WELL 
 
 ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 By 
 
 Edward Eells 
 
 Author Of 
 
 "CHRISTLIKE CHRISTIANIIY" 
 
 "A MISSION TO HELL" 
 
 "THE GOSPEL FOR BOTH WORLDS" 
 
 Published By 
 
 24 CHRISTOPHER ST. 
 NEW YORK 
 

 Copyright, 1922, hy 
 
 Tullar-Meredith Co. 
 
 International Copyright Secured 
 
 SEP -I hU 
 
 ClA68ai57 
 

BE WELL 
 
 ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 By EDWARD EELLS 
 
 The practical suggestions of this brochure are 
 based in the main upon three recent books. They 
 are the Review of Reviews' Course in Health and 
 Life Extension and two published by Dodd, Mead 
 and Company, Doctor Kelley's *'High Road to 
 Health" and Gordon Bennett's "Old Age — Its Cause 
 and Prevention." The last, while non-professional, 
 is equally worth your owning for its record of a 
 tmique experience. Bennett was an old man at 
 fifty, broken in health, bald, wrinkled, rheumatic, 
 dyspeptic, with failing sight and meager physique. 
 He took himself in hand and began exercising in 
 bed for lack of strength to exercise erect. He went 
 through his horizontal motions, the first thing upon 
 awakening, because that was his best opportunity 
 and he was really eager to be a well man. The re- 
 sult was far beyond his expectations. He attained 
 perfect health, perfect muscular development and 
 the appearance and agility of a man of thirty-five. 
 His hair grew again, his sight grew strong, and at 
 the age of eighty when he met death by accident 
 he was by every test as young as ever and confident 
 of reaching the century mark. 
 
 The explanation, independently pointed out by 
 Doctor Kelley, is plain and of supreme significance. 
 
BE WELL 
 
 The material of our bodies is constantly changing". 
 Exertion of nerve, brain, sinew, or vital organs all 
 makes waste, a "tiring substance" which clogs brain 
 and sinew and inclines us to sleep. During sleep 
 fresh tissues are woven, but waste remains along the 
 line of each nerve and muscle waiting to be shaken 
 loose by a little initial exertion of the renewed tis- 
 sues that it may be safely carried away in the cir- 
 culation of the blood. If not so shaken off and 
 squeezed out of the system by the alternate ten- 
 sion and relaxation of every muscle, this waste ma- 
 terial remains to clog and poison our bodies, pro- 
 ducing disease and old age. 
 
 It isn't the amount of exercise you take which 
 avails, but its scientific completeness and timeliness 
 the first thing after waking. Extreme exertion only 
 increases the waste to be removed. .In many cases, 
 the whole body should remain as restful as possible 
 while the particular sets of muscles are being ex- 
 ercised in turn. 
 
 Aside from food, drink, and fresh air, it isn't what 
 we put into our bodies so much as what we get 
 out of them that makes for health. Cleanliness 
 without, within, pleasantly active and useful living, 
 happy trust in God and carefree frolic with our 
 toil, these are the essentials which make for health 
 and endurance. Bennett's simple discovery has a 
 far wider application than just to those who are on 
 the point of growing old, or those with impaired 
 health to be restored. The young, the robust, 
 the well preserved also need it. It is vital for every- 
 body. Try it yourself, and you will be delighted 
 with the results from the glow of the first motion. 
 The exact program outlined here is only intended to 
 assist your memory. Go as you please : begin grad- 
 ually if you are not strong. Kindly bear with the 
 
 8 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 somewhat dictatorial form of what follows, remem- 
 bering- that the imperati\'e is our briefest mode of 
 speech. If you are tempted to think that you do not 
 need to take quite so much pains and bother to be 
 well and probably live a hundred years, kindly re- 
 flect that health and youth are jewels more easily 
 retained when we have them than regained when 
 we have lost them. Your better start in the race for 
 the century life-goal should give you the more zest 
 in running well. So if we care to be young and 
 happy day by day, regardless of tomorrow which 
 is in God's hands, here is a wonderful secret of how 
 to begin each day. Nothing beats a trial. Try it 
 for yourself, and tomorrow morning when you 
 awaken — 
 
BE WELL 
 
 First of all, PRAY. Tell God simply in your own 
 words that you are grateful and glad He has given 
 you another day to live in this mortal life and ask 
 Him to make you pleasant company for those who 
 have to live with you. For this purpose, more than 
 for your own sake, ask your kind Father in Heaven 
 to fill you full of belief in health and happiness, and 
 to make you vigorously useful for a long time to 
 come; a helper, not a hinderer; a joy maker, not a 
 gloom-maker; a force, not a drag; a sweetener, not 
 an acidulator ; a lift, and not a weight. You may 
 get something out of the next motions without 
 practicing this hand-clasping, heart-lifting one of 
 prayer: but you cannot really be well, if your soul 
 isn't well. Every breath you draw comes from your 
 Maker, and He likes to have you ask Him to keep 
 it coming. Deep breathing goes with all the suc- 
 ceeding exercises, and prayer, you know, is only an- 
 other and deeper breathing, equally essential to the 
 life that is Hving, indeed. 
 
 10 
 
OXE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 IP 
 
 • 
 
 'li 
 
 "^ 
 
 A natural and delig-htful way to begin living each 
 day is to stretch and take a deep breath. Try your 
 utmost how long you can be. In doing so you can 
 feel yourself squeezing together. You are con- 
 tracting lateral muscles all the way from your throat 
 to your insteps, muscles which will never get ex- 
 ercised in any other way. It increases the tension to 
 simultaneously inflate your lungs. Don't just breathe 
 down against your diaphragm, but joyously try to 
 crack a rib. People are timid about breathing as 
 they are sometimes about praying; whereas neither 
 is really injurious. Dare to breathe, dare to pray. 
 even if it is only an awkward gasp at first along with 
 the sigh of the Publican, "God be merciful to me a 
 sinner!" 
 
 Do you know that mature people may grow ap- 
 preciably taller taking exercise? You will find also 
 that what we call a suppressed yawn will increase 
 the value and delight of your stretching. 
 
 11 
 
BE WELL 
 
 1 
 
 1^ 
 
 Forming the deep breathing habit is like coming 
 into a fortune. It makes us laugh to think how we 
 have been defrauding ourselves; Here we have 
 been grasping about other things, but with an ocean 
 of vital air fifty miles deep all- around us, we have 
 been stinting ourselves out of our share in this 
 most precious physical boon. Our altruistic self- 
 denial in air has gone beyond reason. 
 
 After stretching several times, turn upon your left 
 side, put your right arm up bent at the elbow, grasp 
 something and pull. \A'ith your left shoulder 
 against the pillow, you do not need to move your 
 body in order to strain your sinews down to your 
 hip. Breathe high as you pull and exhale as you 
 relax. This will properly time the motion. This 
 business of big breathing cannot be overdone. Try 
 as you may, you cannot change all the air in your 
 lungs with their inside surface of more than an acre. 
 This emphasizes the importance of breathing mov- 
 ing air day and night as much as possible to avoid 
 taking back into your lungs any of the same old stuff 
 which may have been inside you a week already. 
 
 12 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 The slower we make these motions, the deeper we 
 breathe meanwhile, and the harder we strain, the 
 more benefit we wnll receive. Don't be too lazy 
 to live. Work your pump or your ship will sink. I 
 mean your air-pump that pumps in. Now lift your 
 face from the pillow, pulling your chin toward your 
 right shoulder. This will not only exercise the im- 
 portant muscles of your throat, round out your neck 
 and stimulate the vital action of your thyroid gland, 
 but it will fill out your flabby loose skin with firm 
 flesh, or it will absorb into sinew the useless, ugly 
 fat that spoils the back of your neck. Repeat each 
 motion in its turn as often as you enjoy the puH. 
 Like this motion, nearly all the following exercises 
 may be gone through with under the covers. The 
 little fellow is simply showing you. 
 
 13 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Now raise your head sideways enough to clear the 
 pillow, press your thumb up under your chin about 
 half way back, push and pull your head as far back 
 as you can, with a full breath. Relax forward and ex- 
 hale. Do not bother to count how many times you 
 do it. Think of whatever theme may be most pleas- 
 ant, and when it seems that you have performed 
 each motion often enough, do it twice more and 
 stop. This chin raising will further exercise the 
 muscles of the throat, give you a smooth neck of 
 youth, work out the obesity of a double chin, and 
 pull the whole length of your spine. 
 
 These two throat motions are our nearest muscu- 
 lar approach to the brain. You should find your 
 memory improved by them, your spirits raised, and 
 your whole brain action stimulated. 
 
 14 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 You can pull like two people when you pull against 
 yourself. Catch the middle of your upper right 
 arm with your left hand, hang on and pull both 
 ways. Don't forget to breathe hard as you pull, 
 then relax and exhale. Alternate tensing and re- 
 laxing are what you need to loosen up the debris 
 of yesterday's life. The harder you worked yester- 
 day, the more your muscles, arteries and nerves 
 need to be shaken free of this debris just now at the 
 beginning of your new day. This is why hard work 
 alone does not make people healthy or long lived. 
 If yesterday's vigor entails a lassitude and a dull, 
 slow start today, its activity has proven an injury, 
 not a boon of toil. 
 
 You may vary this exercise beneficially by shift- 
 ing your clasp nearer the elbow and swinging your 
 right arm as high as the left will reluctantly allow. 
 
 15 
 
BE WELL 
 
 iL 1 
 
 This pull you have just given yourself has gone 
 clear across your back and down your spine. Now 
 to exercise just the other way grasp the left wrist 
 with the right hand and push against its upper side, 
 resisting yourself stubbornly. Now your muscles 
 are pulling across your chest. You will be surprised 
 to find how hard you can work at this. It will 
 make you laugh to find how much fun you can get 
 out of yourself without interfering with any one 
 else. 
 
 It isn't at all necessary to go through violent ac- 
 robatic stunts in order to be thoroughly well and 
 well developed. The more contortion, the less 
 benefit. Nine tenths of us will find this easy way 
 the best way. 
 
 16 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 The fun of living is indeed largely just playing a 
 game with ourselves. Now grasp the other side of the 
 same wrist and pull. You will thus get muscles 
 of the arms, back and chest into vigorous play, and 
 with the lung muscles working simultaneously, you 
 are stirring yourself all through. You are becom- 
 ing acquainted with your own body, learning to 
 love and not despise yourself any more. You are 
 getting into something you will really wish to keep 
 on with the remainder of your life. The drawback 
 to much of our gymnastics and physical culture is 
 that a lifetime daily habit of it fails to be formed. 
 It is a mistake to imagine that we can work up a 
 physique in school which will just take care of itself 
 the remainder of our days. 
 
 17 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Indeed one of the great benefits of these exercises 
 to you will be that you will joyously and worthily 
 fall in love with yourself. God did not give you 
 your body to be a ''prison house of clay" or a tor- 
 ture cell of nerves on edge and vital organs refusing 
 to function. It is to be from now on the mate of 
 your soul, loved and cherished, caressed and played 
 with most gratefully. At best it is a frail little thing 
 to hold for a time, your immortal soul, big with its 
 thoughts and purposes, but while they are together 
 mind power can mightily help the body and thus 
 react, stimulating itself. Each needs all the other 
 can do for its upbuilding. 
 
 Now straighten out. still lying upon your left side, 
 and turn your body forward while you push your 
 right elbow back. Muscles are pulling now half way 
 across your body all the way down- also between 
 your shoulder blades. 
 
 18 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Here is something delightfully strenuous a little 
 lower down. Still lying upon your left side, try to 
 raise your head and shoulders by the straight pull 
 of the muscles of your waist. Don't be discouraged 
 if you fail. The effort itself caused the muscular 
 tension you are after. It is good for us sometimes 
 to try pitting our will against the impossible. It 
 was the way we cut our teeth through the gums in 
 childhood. George Eliot tells us it is better to 
 have failures in our life than never an effort worthy 
 of the name of failure. However it isn't really 
 necessary for you to actually raise your shoulder 
 from the bed if you find you are not built in for 
 that. 
 
 While in this position, try the opposite motion. 
 With your weight supported on the side of your 
 left foot and your left shoulder, raise your body 
 slowly in the middle, inhaling as you go up, exhal- 
 ing as you go down. 
 
 19 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Perhaps it will rest you to try something still 
 harder. It is to raise both the head and shoulders 
 and the feet by the same contraction at the waist. 
 Do not attempt it with a jerk or spasm but slowly, 
 grimly, with a long full breath and a determination 
 that says to itself, "Some day I will." Then relax 
 and try again. Do not be afraid if you burst into 
 perspiration. That also is healthy. You will be 
 sharing with a king of the olden time a wonderful 
 remedy for his persistent invalidism provided by 
 his wisest physician. The remedy was placed in a 
 small phial and inserted in the handle of a hockey 
 stick. With this the king was to mingle v/ith his 
 courtiers in sport knocking a ball about as his phy- 
 sician told him "until such time as you do sweat." 
 The remedy thus absorbed through glass, wood and 
 skin of the palm resulted in complete cure. 
 
 20 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 The luxury of lying in bed after waking will have 
 a new meaning and purpose to you from now on. 
 You are loafing for wages : you are sporting for a 
 prize. Keep it up ten- years and see. You have a 
 new motive for being industrious about going to 
 bed at bedtime that you may waken an hour sooner 
 than your former habit. Now reach down your 
 right arm and grasp your right knee. Pull with 
 your arm, push with your knee. Pull against your 
 own push. It is one of the secrets of self develop- 
 ment and self poise and is good also for traits and 
 temper. 
 
 The muscles of the human body seem naturally 
 co-ordinated for mutual resistance as though the 
 Creator meant us to grow by struggling with our- 
 selves. 
 
 21 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Some more push and pull play. Clasp both hands 
 around the middle of your right shin. Pull for all 
 you're worth. Comfort yourself with the reflection 
 that sheer laziness shortens more lives than all our 
 physicians working together. Torpid muscles here 
 and there through the body are the real source of 
 many ills that flesh is heir to. If you wish a full 
 happy life and a long one, you have just got to 
 work for it. There is no avail in prayer for healing, 
 or in quoting Mrs. Eddy to yourself while you are 
 violating the fundamental law of physical well being 
 by your deadly sloth. Too easy a life means prob- 
 able bondage to an inexorable trained nurse by and 
 by, also a physician forever prescribing complete 
 rest and more medicine. 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 You are now through on your left side. Aren't 
 you glad? Now turn square on your face. Sup- 
 port yourself on your elbows with arms clasped 
 and on the tips of your toes. So bridging space, 
 raise your body inhaling and lower it exhaling. 
 Slowly, slowly ; but don't let it down to touch the 
 bed in the middle. All the back of yourself that 
 you rarely see is being toned up by this strain. 
 Just once or twice up and down at first until you 
 get strong where you have been most weak. None 
 of these exercises should be persisted in to the point 
 of lasting soreness or lassitude. Just under your 
 straining spine is the central nerve ganglion of the 
 sympathetic nervous system upon whose reactions 
 all your vital functions depend. Muscles and nerves 
 will be freshened together by this daily initial ex- 
 ercise as nothing else can freshen them. You are 
 also getting after your kidneys and ridding your 
 system of gallstone material before they form. 
 
 23 
 
BE WELL 
 
 What need have you of parallel bars to strain upon 
 like a driven slave, when you can achieve such a 
 triumph of neck to heel exercise as that just upside 
 down on the bed? Now for a splendid sideways 
 sweep in a similarly humble posture. Make a grace- 
 ful arch of yourself, an arch rising from the tips 
 of your toes at one end, your elbows and forehead 
 at the other. Sway the middle of your body from 
 side to side slowly, letting each side touch the bed 
 in alternation. You are doing yourself a lot of 
 good in this way, but the main thing is that you 
 are limbering up the joints of ribs upon spine, 
 where rigidity often causes shortness of breath, 
 ending life before its time. The vast majority of 
 our peaceful lives do end, do you know, ten, fifteen, 
 twenty years before their time. 
 
 24 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 In the simpler forms of animal life, you know, 
 sinew and nerve are all one homogeneous pro- 
 toplasm. The jelly fish is all nerve and all muscle, 
 such as it has. So in man's physical nature there 
 is an essential unity of well-being-. ''Does one 
 member suffer? Alf suffer with it." To improve 
 your condition, you simply take hold of yourself 
 by your muscle because that is your natural handle 
 — after you have 'thrown physic to the dogs.' 
 
 Now be brave ! Get on your hands and toes. 
 Dip down until your nose touches the pillow and 
 your elbows are akimbo. Simultaneously lower 
 your hips so that you are concave on top, yet only 
 supported at your hands and toes. Rise slowly to 
 the length of your arms, raising yourself in the 
 center to a restful arch again. 
 
 25 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Does it occur to you that in thus straining your 
 spine sideways and up and down you may not only 
 be reshaping its cartilages from their wedge forma- 
 tion which makes you stoop-shouldered in spite of 
 all your efforts to ''straighten up," but you may be 
 also actually brightening your mind? Clearing the 
 debris loosened by sleep from these cartilages helps 
 to get it out of your spinal cord, the most direct 
 approach to your brain. 
 
 Lying on your right side, you should do all the 
 things you did on your left and two more. That 
 is because your liver is on your right side. The 
 minds of our fathers dwelt a great deal upon their 
 livers. Here is something a lot better than liver 
 medicine. Just straighten out and pound the lazy 
 thing. In our well equipped gyms they have ma- 
 chines to do it. But fists were made first. 
 
 26 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 The liver, which our fathers persistently jogged 
 with pills, may be jogged with the fingers, as well 
 as pounded with fists. This organ is the great filter, 
 strainer, and chemical laboratory of the body. Al- 
 low it to become clogged and inert at your peril. 
 As you lie on your right side, this organ lops for- 
 ward and can be enjoyably punched at by sticking 
 the fingers of your left hand deep under your lowest 
 right rib. It is the only vital organ you can so 
 punch at, which helps us to believe that our Maker 
 meant livers to be punched. Anyway, you will 
 find real benefit in doing so persistently, morning by 
 morning. Rest assured that no medical stimulation 
 will ever do your liver anything but permanent 
 harm, always excepting lemon juice and natural 
 fruit acids taken just as you naturally crave them. 
 
 27 
 
BE WELL 
 
 
 Hitherto in the history of our blundering world 
 the term, ''science of medicine," has been used too 
 often as meaning the science of health ; whereas* 
 nine times out of ten, perhaps, the use of medicine 
 has been distinctly opposed to health. "Doctor, 
 Aunt Abby is poorly again ; how much calomel 
 must she take?" — A famnliar greeting of the genera- 
 tion which has suffered and gone. Thank God 
 ^'medicine" today is no longer "practised" quite 
 like that. 
 
 Your liver action can also be stimulated rationally, 
 effectually, and in hearty good will to the poor 
 abused organ while lying upon your back. Put 
 your knees up, thus relaxing your abdominal mus- 
 cles, and joggle Mr. Liver with the fingers of both 
 hands curved up under the lowest right rib. 
 
 28 
 
ONE HUNDRED YE.\RS 
 
 Caution : this forcible interference with one's liver 
 may be overdone just at first — which only shows 
 how eflFectual it is. Begin easy, go slow, but keep 
 it up, if you find you need it. 
 
 Now you have yourself on your back, begin at 
 the top again, stretch up both arms, making right 
 angles at the elbows, grasp something and pull hard 
 without moving your body at all. While you pull 
 with lungs well filled, cough twice each time with- 
 out opening your mouth. Then relax and exhale. 
 In this way you are giving your lungs a helpful 
 jogging in their tuivn. 
 
 But the supreme center of life function is the 
 heart. Keep your heart from tiring and there is 
 no reason why you should not live on indefinitely. 
 Let us keep our minds alert about this as we go on 
 with our motions. 
 
 29 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Of course the supreme essential for the lungs is 
 fresh, invigorating air and plenty of it coming in- 
 side. All the air of the Adirondacks wont help you 
 much unless you pump it in. We take it for granted 
 that you intend to perform these morning (physical) 
 devotions with your window open and a perceptible 
 movement of air in your room — as you have had it 
 all night. 
 
 Still lying upon your back, put your hands under 
 your elbows and hug yourself with all your might. 
 You will strain muscles from your waist up doing 
 it. Perhaps your attempts at hugging hither- 
 to have all been of other people. It will surprise 
 you all the more to find how much real satisfaction 
 and enjoyable benefit may be realized just hugging 
 oneself. 
 
 Also -put the flat of your right hand against the 
 middle of your left side and press hard on it with 
 your left hand. Do the other way on the other 
 side. 
 
 30 
 
OXE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 i 
 
 
 \\'e sing, "Are your windows open toward Jeru- 
 salem?" and here is certainly a way of literally 
 opening them toward the Mecca and Zion of hearty 
 health and hale, happy old age. It is the confident 
 forward look of your soul that wins half the battle. 
 Open your soul-window trustingly toward God, 
 your chambers to God's pure air; then proceed to 
 put a rational foundation under your aircastle of 
 health and longevity by living right and taking ex- 
 ercise. 
 
 Another way to hug yourself is to catch yourself 
 by the elbows and squeeze hard. "While you do 
 this, breathing full, just shrug your shoulders as 
 high as you can, lying on your back. Then relax 
 and exhale. 
 
 While in this position, crook your arms up and 
 pound your chest with each elbow alternately. It 
 will take away rheumatism and help the lungs. 
 
 31 
 
BE WELL 
 
 When we shrug our shoulders, we drop responsi- 
 bility and care. When we are humbly obeying 
 God's plain laws of health, we do not need to be 
 burdened with care. As has often been said, it 
 isn't work but worry that kills. This is where 
 genuine religion helps mightily with good health. 
 *'Cast thy burden on the Lord," then you can soon 
 learn to say a cheery "nimporte!" to every ache and 
 languor with which the disease-bogie will try to 
 frighten you, just shrugging your shoulders and 
 laughing ill health away. 
 
 Another way to shrug is turn-a-bout, one shoulder 
 and then the other, inhaling toward one and exhaling 
 toward the other. You are using muscles all across 
 and diagonally — some you haven't stirred hitherto. 
 It is good also to turn your head from side to side 
 toward the shoulder you are alternately shrugging. 
 Think of the diseases that begin, the lives that are 
 shortened by something going wrong in the throat. 
 You can keep yours entirely healthy just by throat 
 exercise. 
 
 32 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Remember that if you leave any muscle or group 
 of muscles unstirred by daily initial exercise out 
 of your total of more than four hundred, your con- 
 dition is somewhat like that of your kitchen range 
 with a pocket of ashes at one end of the fire-box. 
 You wonder what is the matter with your fire. So 
 you wonder what is the matter, hard as you work 
 every day, that you have a tendency to obesity here 
 or an inert vital organ there. It is all because you 
 are lazy in spots. Where there is an inert corner 
 in your physical plant, there will accumulate 
 a rubbish heap morning by morning-, poison will 
 linger in your system, and you will have trouble. 
 
 This is especially and most frequently the case 
 with the muscles of the abdomen. Let us get to 
 work on those. Lying on your back, raise your 
 body down to your hips. You cannot do this any- 
 where else so well as in bed. 
 
 33 
 
BE WELL 
 
 You may walk a mile and not do yourself so much 
 good as by that last motion. This doesn't mean 
 that you shouldn't walk at least a mile every day — 
 only try to really walk, rising- on your toes; don't 
 shuffle or fall along. But when you feel that pull 
 up your abdomen, you will be ready to sing for 
 joy, "Good-bye constipation ! Goodbye cathartics 
 and laxatives ! Good-bye forever ! Good-bye ! 
 Goodbye !" Here is something still more to the 
 point. Lying on your back, simultaneously raise 
 both ends of yourself, breathing strongly, then drop 
 and exhale. While you are in this position, do also 
 exactly the opposite, raising yourself in the middle 
 supported by your heels and shoulders. 
 
 Speaking of cathartics, the best advice is simply, 
 don't ! Perhaps you cry by habit, "How can I live 
 without them?" Why, take an enema instead. 
 Have a wash-day inside. Lying upon your right 
 side, take a quart or two of tepid water flowing from 
 a fountain syringe. Take more if you can and re- 
 tain it as long as you can. 
 
 34 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 You may live through months of enforced inac- 
 tion by means of such enemas as this, taking one 
 every other day ; then when you return to an active 
 Hfe, you can easily go back to nature's way. You 
 can't do this on cathartics. Your kidneys will bene- 
 fit by the washout as well. Now put your pillow 
 down under the middle of your back, let your head 
 go back over to touch the bed, and rise to a half- 
 sitting posture on the full breath. Exhale as you 
 return. 
 
 Using these exercises, you will find that nature 
 needs no assistance whatever, except your punc- 
 tual regard for the essential moment of attending to 
 its necessities immediately after breakfast every day, 
 whether you have the impulse or not. Health is 
 half in habit. 
 
 35 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Getting rid of constipation forever, you are 
 through with the bogie of appendicitis. If you are 
 ever tortured with anxiety along that line just fall 
 back on the enema again. It is so much cheaper 
 than an operation ! Cutting out constipation, you 
 cut loose from half the ills that flesh is heir to. You 
 recover easily from anything contagious which may 
 take hold of you. Only if you catch the grippe, or 
 anything involving fever, don't physic, just starve. 
 Eat nothing at all, drink all the water you can stand, 
 and see how quickly you will be well again. 
 
 Now in the same position, reverse the exercise 
 and the breathing. Catch your head at its highest 
 position by slipping your clasped hands behind it, 
 then push backward against the pull of your hands, 
 inflating your lungs until your head touches the bed 
 agrain. Thus you are resting the abdominal muscles 
 and straining those of the back and chest in a new 
 way. 
 
 36 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Thus far we have gotten along without any ap- 
 pliances whatever. It gives us another illustration 
 of how poor, blundering humanity almost always 
 goes at new endeavors in the hardest possible way 
 to reflect on the vast outlay for gymnastic equip- 
 ment which has hitherto been deemed essential to 
 all-around physical culture. People began riding 
 bicycles at the imminent risk of their necks astride 
 of wheels twice the diameter to which their toes 
 could reach. Before that they worked the heaviest 
 kind of tricycles with supreme exertions of arms and 
 legs. Now we will use a little pulling board like 
 the above which you can make for yourself in ten 
 minutes. Connect the handles with a cord you 
 know you can't break, then try your level best to 
 break it with each pull of the arms against the push 
 of the soles of your feet. You are not only strength- 
 ening arms and back, but the hill-climbing muscles 
 also of the backs of your legs, noticeably inefficient 
 in so many pedestrians. 
 
 37 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Now for the broad, flat diagonal muscles of the 
 abdomen, hardly ever stirred in the ordinary avoca- 
 tions of life. Put your pillov;^ up again under your 
 neck, raise one knee, drawing it crossways until 
 the hip on that side is lifted from its repose. As 
 you exhale drop that leg back to its straight out 
 position and raise the other knee in a corresponding 
 manner. This is one of the pleasantest, easiest, 
 most essential motions of our whole series. You 
 laugh to find the easiest way, as so often in life, 
 thebest way to accomplish the ends we seek. The 
 more of the spirit of play you can put into these 
 initial exercises of every day, the greater benefit you 
 will receive from them. In addition, every normal 
 human being needs a sport for each day: croquet, 
 tennis, volley ball, basket ball, base ball, golf, boat- 
 ing, swimming, **puss-wants-a-corner," blind man's 
 buff, ring-round-the-rosey, anything so long as it 
 is real sport for you. All work and no play make 
 Jack an ailing, as well as a dull boy. Beside that, 
 you should prayerfully endeavor to make play of all 
 your work. Grim, reluctant toil, methodical gym- 
 nastics, neither of them avail to keep us young. 
 
 38 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 You will find great sport in running without 
 getting out of bed. Just lie on your back and run 
 toward the ceiling. If there are two of you, by all 
 means run a race. Have your own rules to decide 
 which wins. Run a mile if you wish, or just sprint 
 fifty yards. Picture the course in your mind, the 
 thrilled spectators, the thundering applause for the 
 winner. 
 
 Some sure enough running each day is also es- 
 sential to our prolonged youth. You remember we 
 agreed to be on the watch for something just to 
 keep the heart strong, that we may joyously keep on 
 living. Our only way to keep any organ, muscle or 
 faculty strong is to make demands on it within 
 reason. If you wish to strengthen your memory, 
 memorize daily. Now when you run you say you 
 get out of wind. What really happens is that your 
 heart labors and your lungs labor in sympathy. 
 Moral : run every day ; it is perhaps the only way 
 you have available to put a strain on your heart, and 
 so strengthen it. 
 
 39 
 
BE WELL 
 
 What our world will be like when men and women 
 of all ages have come to have a way of breaking into 
 a run along the pavements for the vital need of 
 heart-youth, it may puzzle us to conceive. Do not 
 worry: it will be a long time before even a small 
 minority come to be governed by rational principles 
 of health seeking. Instead of seeking to keep young 
 themselves, parents today are doing every thing 
 they can think of to make their children old before 
 their time. 
 
 Our only way to keep young for a century is to 
 keep on acting young — bother the dignity — especial- 
 ly in the impulse to keep our bodies lively. Here is 
 Doctor Kelley's supreme discovery — the "dry 
 swim." It would be difficult to picture to you all 
 the motions in this splendid composite : if you have 
 never done any swimming upon your back, just ask 
 some one who has to get on his back and pretend 
 to swim before you. The only difference will be 
 to throw the upper part of your body into the force 
 of your stroke, thus raising it each time from the 
 bed. 
 
 40 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Speaking of dignity, if you cannot bring your- 
 self to run on the street — with never so many 
 apologies to your acquaintances in passing, why 
 just form the habit of running up stairs and of 
 skipping along the hall, or perhaps you can make 
 a race course around your back yard. \Miere 
 there's a will, there's a way. 
 
 You can easily tell if you have overdone the ex- 
 ercise of running by your heart failing to come 
 promptly back to normal action again when you 
 slow down to a walk. That only shows how much 
 you need to keep on running every day, in modera- 
 tion. Half a mile a day will be a good average for 
 those past middle life, not all at once, perhaps, but 
 in the aggregate. You can lengthen your life in 
 two ways at once by running to get somewhere 
 quicker. AValking is really too slow for our age. 
 Reckon up how many months or years you have lost 
 out of your life already by walking instead of run- 
 ning to get around. The two-fold way to live long 
 is to live eagerly, for you also add years to your 
 life by the w^ay by making every minute tell to the 
 utmost for achievement or for fun. 
 
 But you can run without going anywhere by 
 shuffling your feet back at each stride. Try this 
 down cellar on your concrete floor. 
 
 41 
 
BE WEU. 
 
 If yoii are in a desperate hurry some morning- by 
 reason of not having been diHgent in going to bed 
 the night before, take time at least to have a dry 
 swim before you get up. It will stir the most mus- 
 cles in the least time of anything you can attempt. 
 Imagine yourself in a small mill pond or one of the 
 swimming holes of your boyhood and swim once 
 around it, so you can get out and dress in a jiffy- 
 
 Your physical director at the gym will wish you 
 to learn to squat and rise with your knees apart. 
 Bless him ! you will find the motion ever so much 
 easier lying on your back in bed. At least you can 
 get it readily here, and then practise it perpendicu- 
 larly when you rise. It stirs and strengthens mus- 
 cles rarely used except in sw^imming. Often when 
 we try hard to teach people to swim, we find that 
 they simply haven't this motion of the legs. It is 
 one of our commonest lazy streaks. 
 
 42 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Speaking of diligence in going to bed, it is true 
 enough, no doubt, that we are as often guilty of 
 over-sleeping as of over-eating; but the plethora of 
 sleep is far more likely to be from lying in bed too 
 late than from retiring too early. We feel refreshed 
 when we waken at dawn, but we hold ourselves 
 down for the sheer luxury of wasting daylight, de- 
 prive ourselves of the glory of the sunrise, and after 
 two or three uneasy, unrestful, and wholly super- 
 fluous naps, we rise fatigued and dull, imagining 
 that we are sadly in need of rest. The next evening 
 we hold back from retiring, complaining that we do 
 not get to sleep readily when we retire too early. 
 
 Another helpful way to deal with yourself is to 
 pound your abdomen with your fists when the mus- 
 cles are tense by the raising of your head and 
 shoulders. If there is a tendency to obesity, you 
 may also profitably get yourself by handfuls, 
 squeezing and rolling the exuberant surface. This 
 is penance to a purpose. Let flagellants cling to 
 their scourging; you also will find your relief from a 
 burden. 
 
 ^? 
 
BE WELL 
 
 P^ 
 
 If you do find trouble in getting to sleep, or if 
 you waken really too early, you need only to 
 go through with the quiet motions we have been 
 learning together, and you will probably soon be 
 overtaken with refreshing slumber. If your in- 
 somnia is still obdurate, the trouble is that you 
 have either too much or too little blood stagnant 
 inside your skull. When your heart slows down for 
 sleep, the excess of blood eddies properly in the 
 brain. If you are anemic and nervously depleted, 
 you need to help this cranial accumulation of blood 
 by sleeping down hill : if you are the other way, 
 sleep up hill. Do not place extra pillows under 
 your head, to curve your spine, but put blocks three 
 er four inches thick under the castors at the head 
 of your bed. Place them under the other castors, 
 if you need to sleep down hill. Years of wretched- 
 ness may be avoided in this simple way^-only you 
 /" '•e bound to sleep better anyway if you exercise. 
 
 Now for another concession to your physical di 
 rector at the gym. Get yourself a pair of medium 
 lig^ t dumb bells, or any old things that are like 
 
 44 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 dumb bells. Lie upon your back and strike up- 
 ward at an unseen foe such as Edgar Allan Poe 
 found hovering in his bed chamber. Hit him hard 
 again and again either with both irons at once or 
 with each in alternation. 
 
 It stands to reason that the best way to use dumb 
 bells is vertically. You are welcome to use them 
 also lifting your arms from an outstretched posture 
 on the bed or from your sides up, or in any of the 
 stereotyped ways after you get on your feet. It 
 is a free country and you are your own taskmaster. 
 
 45 
 
BE WELL 
 
 
 The main objective of these exercises is not the 
 abnormal development of muscle, but health and 
 longevity. Yet the incidental muscular develop- 
 ment attained by their continued use has been an 
 astonishment to experts. No one can take excep- 
 tion to your fond aspiration to draw up your fore- 
 arm before long and have your friends "feel your 
 muscle." It may interest you to know that Sandow 
 found he could increase his arm girth still more by 
 putting tight bands around them when he was 
 swinging his dumb bells. You will accomplish a 
 double purpose, in partial imitation, by using the 
 grip of the other hand in massage as you shoot up 
 your blow with one hand at a time. This is one 
 exception to the rule you should make for health, 
 never to have anything tight on your body any- 
 where. 
 
 While you have your dumb bells handy, and re- 
 main lying upon your back, lay these weights upon 
 your abdomen and see how high you can raise them 
 by your best breathing. Abdominal breathing also 
 is essential to health as well as to singing and public 
 speaking. 
 
 46 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Perhaps another exception you may allow for the 
 sake of muscle growth will be the tightness of your 
 golf pantaloons around the calves of your legs. Let 
 these two exceptions establish your rule never to 
 impede your circulation or your vital functions by 
 any kind of tight clothing. Let the weight of your 
 nether garments hang symmetrically from your 
 shoulders. Do not make a beetle of yourself with 
 an additional skeleton upon your outside. Health 
 certainly comes first before either fashion or false 
 modesty. 
 
 47 
 
BE WELL 
 
 Nevertheless it is a legitimate part of our con- 
 scientious endeavor to look young and well as long 
 as we live. Our motive may be entirely unselfish ; 
 for senile, decrepit forms and faces make eye-sores 
 on the human landscape. It should be a part of 
 our religion to look well, and to make our body 
 the house beautiful of a beautiful soul within. In 
 addition to making your body erect, shapely, facile 
 by the foregoing motions, you can make your face 
 smooth, youthful, pleasing in its expression and 
 coloring. Let us begin at the bottom. Draw your 
 chin down and massage it by the alternate upward 
 and downward rub of the bases of yoiir thumbs. 
 
 You can give yourself a more decided chin in this 
 way, besides getting any flabbiness out of it. But 
 if you have too much chin already, it will be better 
 to leave it alone. 
 
 48 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 This dry rub of facial massage can be absolutely 
 depended upon to smooth out wrinkles, fill flabby 
 skin with well rounded muscle, and make the face 
 glow with the hue of health. All the skin foods 
 and cream.s you may rub in have but this one ad- 
 vantage — the plain act of rubbing. It is impossi- 
 ble to really feed your skin except by digestion and 
 assimilation of what you eat promoted by system- 
 atic exerciser of vital sinews. 
 
 The same rub you have just given your chin may 
 be profitably given between the chin and the under 
 lip. But the best thing you can do for the look of 
 your mouth will be to hook your little fingers in the 
 ends of it and alternately pull and relax. The mus- 
 cles of the lips are circular. You can tense them 
 in this way and also by whistling all the day. You 
 will not make your mouth bigger by tensing its 
 muscles. You will simply make its muscles more 
 firm? take out the droop at the corners, and smooth 
 the lines about the ends of it. 
 
 49 
 
BE WELL 
 
 We can smooth out more lines and round the 
 cheeks by developing the muscles of the jaws. 
 Chewing and smiling help ; but massage is essential. 
 Contract your muscles by an exaggerated smile and 
 by pulling down your chin, then rub your cheeks 
 simultaneously or in alternation by the upward 
 push of the heels of your hands. Keep it up as 
 long as your arms hold out. 
 
 A sideways rub just under your cheekbones close 
 to your nose with the muscles tense as before, using 
 the bases of your thumbs, will help fill shrunken 
 places with sinew or rub out fat. The glow you 
 feel coming to your face shows how much your 
 skin is being benefited. The heightened color en- 
 gendered will be permanent and really beautiful. 
 You are ''making up" in reality. Nature's own hue 
 of health does help people to love you. Cosmetics 
 lead them secretly to despise you. Take your 
 choice. 
 
 50 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Your hair also has, of course, a good deal to do 
 with the youthfulness of your appearance. Ben- 
 nett was bald at fifty and had a fine suit of hair at 
 eighty. The main requisite again is exercise. Men 
 go bald in front rather than at the back of the head 
 because the muscles under the scalp are being con- 
 tinually exercised above the neck. While you are 
 lying on your back each morning, move the muscles 
 under your scalp. Wash your head once a week 
 with tar soap. Go bareheaded as much as the law 
 of your community allows. 
 
 Also exercise the muscles of your face — in 
 solitude. 
 
 Crows' feet at the corners of the eyes converge 
 and point to glazed eyeballs coming, with a name 
 plate above on the lid of your coffin. Crows' feet 
 are the result of shrunken muscles and flabby skin. 
 Rub them out with the heel of your hand. Do 
 not let them tell lies about you now that you are 
 on the high road to health and longevity. Massage 
 the muscles beneath and quicken the skin into life 
 by rubbing. Soon your crows' feet will walk off 
 and disappear. 
 
 51 
 
BE WELL 
 
 In the same way the lines In your forehead 
 which are such a detriment to your appearance, 
 may be gotten rid of. If it is a painful frown 
 between the eyebrows, tense the opposite muscle 
 by elevating your brows and rub hard with the 
 ends of your fingers. If the lines are horizontal 
 ones of a weak will and surrender to care, pull them 
 down with a frown of determination and rub, rub 
 rub [ Rubbing the sides of your nose also with the 
 tips of your fingers will whiten it by making the 
 skin healthy. Isn't that far and away ahead of 
 talcum? 
 
 Finally, the muscles around your eyes can be de- 
 veloped to save them from surrounding hollows. 
 While you lie upon your back, let your glance rove 
 around the border of the wall paper, around and 
 around, over and over. It will tire you at first: 
 that shows to how little use you have ever put 
 these muscles. Don't tell your oculist, but the lack 
 of muscular exercise is half that ails your eyes. 
 
 52 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Now you are ready to roll out of bed. First 
 roll a number of times from ope side of it to the 
 other. See how near you can come to rolling off 
 without that catastrophe. Meanwhile speculate on 
 the mystery of how you roll. Bless you ! here are 
 muscles working- all around your body which you 
 never knew you were possessed of, much less ever 
 thought of exercising before. You have seen your 
 horse do it, and raised your price on him when he 
 went clear over. Now raise the value on yourself 
 to yourself for limbering up laterally. If your bed 
 is narrow, get down and roll on the floor. Try and 
 see if you can spring to your feet without touching 
 anything with your hands at the end of yopr roll. 
 
 Perhaps one in a hundred of us may succeed in 
 this — because he really thinks he can. Others may 
 leave out half these exercises because they think 
 they can't do this or that motion — and never try. 
 
 S3 
 
BE WELL 
 
 54 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 \MiiIe the tepid water is running- for your indis- 
 pensable morning- bath — either in the tub or by the 
 splash of your hands — there are two or three thing's 
 vou can do with yourself better standing than lying 
 down. Put your arms akimbo and make your bow 
 to the day, inhaling strongly as you go down. 
 Exhale while you swing back as far as you can. 
 Clasping your hands behind your head, you can 
 swing a wider arc. By way of variety, this and 
 the succeeding motion sidewise can be profitably 
 made with arms arched above the head, the tips 
 of the fingers interlacing. You can also make the 
 motion above with the arms extended, sweeping 
 nearly a circle, throwing your head forward and 
 back with your body, and bending your knees. 
 
 Exercising vertically, your own weight comes in 
 differently as a factor in body building. You will 
 find that it will pay you to be thorough with your- 
 self. Complete daily initial exercise, generous 
 breathing of real air, and moderate eating of what 
 is called coarse food are the three essentials of ful- 
 ness of life. Remember that whatever is not food 
 is poison, also what is over your natural allowance 
 is poison. Why not cut it all out and be really 
 happy? 
 
 55 
 
BE WELL 
 
 56 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 With your arms akimbo again, swing slowly side- 
 wise, inhaling one way, exhaling the other. Make 
 the swing so complete as to raise the outside foot 
 to tip toes. Then for variety swing with your arms 
 straight out from your shoulders. 
 
 Some of you will exclaim, "How can I with my 
 rheumatism, my lumbago, my neuritis?" Man alive! 
 this is the way to bow and wave goodbye forever to 
 such companions. Pain, as has been fitly said, is 
 generally the cry of the nerves for richer blood. 
 You will never get that lying around and taking 
 medicine. Blood making is the result of gland ac- 
 tion which can only be stimulated by exercise. Yes, 
 you can say goodbye to neuralgia, acid rheumatism 
 and all the rest. Try it, and 3'ou will sed. 
 
 As quickly as you can, get into the rough and 
 tumble way of living. Go out in the rain and snow. 
 Frolic with the wind. Be careful not to dress too 
 warmly and not to breathe so much warm, dead 
 air. Y'our body was built to radiate heit, not to 
 absorb it. Like a self regulating incubator, your 
 vital flame is apt to burn low as you put less de- 
 mand upon it. 
 
 57 
 
BE WELL 
 
 58 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 You can even stand wet feet if you keep moving 
 briskly, and change to dry footwear before your feet 
 are still. Damp clothing also does most damage 
 where there is least motion, as between the shoulder 
 blades. Keep moving, and old man 111 Health won't 
 catch up with you. If your work is sendentary, 
 stop now and then, throw out your arms, breathe 
 strong and think of something funny you forgot 
 to laugh about. Nothing helps like a genuine, 
 hearty laugh now and then. 
 
 With your arms akimbo in your nightclothes — 
 or nude still better — twist the upper part of your 
 body around and back around the other way, timing 
 yourself by your breathing. Do nothing with a 
 jerk. Imitate the placidity of a torsion pendulum. 
 At the same time move your head with the twist of 
 your body. Vary by swinging your arms wide as 
 you sway. 
 
 Also stretch your arms straight out sidewise and 
 twirl them around first forward and then backward, 
 at first horizontally, then in as wide a circle as you 
 can make. Then slap the palms of your hands to- 
 gether at the full reach of your arms in front, and 
 try with the swing of your arms to slap the backs 
 of your hands together behind your shoulder blades. 
 
 ?o 
 
BE WELL 
 
 60 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Undoubtedly the weight of your body standing 
 will help in exercise for the development of legs 
 and feet. You may profitably repeat the legs 
 akimbo motion you made in bed, dropping and ris- 
 ing again with your spine kept erect and your arms 
 also akimbo. Then the hill climbing muscles of the 
 backs of your legs can be further strengthened by 
 dropping and rising again, bending the knees 
 straight forward, keeping them close together. The 
 stately bow and the courtesy are both good and 
 pleasing exercisfe. The bow is made putting the 
 right foot forward, placing the right hand upon the 
 heart, bending the left knee very slowly and inclin- 
 ing the head just a little. The courtesy, as you 
 know, is a cute little simultaneous bob of the spine, 
 neck and both knees. 
 
 Grace of bearing will be the pleasing by-product 
 of our health- seeking, by bedroom physical culture. 
 You may set it down as a rule that the exercise 
 which isn't graceful is not the most truly helpful. 
 
 Here is a motion whose awkwardness for you at 
 first shows the novelty of its muscular play. Stand 
 with your legs wide apart and sway your body from 
 side to side, bending the knee beneath you. When 
 you have learned to do it easily with arms hanging 
 limp, try it with arms raised in graceful arcs. 
 
 61 
 
BE WELL 
 
 62 
 
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 By all means teach these motions to your chil- 
 dren, strengthening- precept by example. If you 
 wish your boy or girl to live long and successfully, a 
 blessing to their newer world, show them how to 
 begin each day gleefully getting their bodies in 
 trim. The world waits to see how far over the 
 centenarian line a life can be efficiently prolonged 
 by keeping the priceless jewel of youth undimmed 
 from its beginning. 
 
 Half the value of a man, as of a horse, may be 
 in his feet. Wearing stifif shoes deprives our feet 
 of their natural action and life. It would be a thou- 
 sandfold better for humanity to go barefoot, even 
 sometimes in the snow. But one mitigating exer- 
 cise you can go through each morning is this of 
 rising on tiptoe ten times at the least. Fallen 
 arches can be prevented or relieved thus as in no 
 other way. 
 
 What do you say, friends, to organizing a cen- 
 tenarian society with a gold medal birthday cele- 
 bration for the first one of us who scientifically 
 attains the close of the hundredth year by keeping 
 the disease of old age at bay? Will not the benefit 
 of the quest be well worth the endeavor, whether 
 few or many attain the prize? Simply send your 
 name, permanent address and certified birth date to 
 the Tullar-Meredith Co. and let us get together 
 for the promotion of humanity's choicest material 
 boon, the blessing of health. 
 
 63