The jolly, vivacious girl; the girl who is happy obeying her mother, contented in school or laughs while at work, is really a girl in whom every organ and function are properly adjusted. In other words, a girl who is in perfect health is a joy to herself and makes life worth living for others. It is the same idea that I have given you regarding a perfectly-running machine—every part works harmoniously and there is no complaining, no feeling of harshness in life, no grinding or jolting as you go along.

And almost every girl who starts right can be put in this desired state and keep herself so. But she must understand that it is in her own power to have red cheeks, happy thoughts, vivacity, pleasure in what she does, and to bring sunshine around her.

Doctors cannot do this for her; patent medicines, “blood purifiers,” “eye drops,” tonics and complexion foods; all and everything of the kind will injure her and prevent any chance of obtaining and keeping perfect health.[100] I purposely repeat this statement, for we are now going to chat in detail about many of those little things you can do for yourself better than any doctor—even the most experienced. Of course you cannot do all this until you understand the causes for those many little annoyances which come to every growing girl.

Your complexion, your spirits, your physical form, all depend upon what the body takes in and what it casts off. This cannot too often be repeated to you, because the simple facts are so easily understood when clearly explained and are under the control of every girl.

It does make all the difference between a vivacious and attractive girl and one who is constantly complaining, who knows that her eyes and complexion are dull; how life appears to each; all the difference between happiness and misery. And this difference arises from the methods of eating, thinking, and getting rid of the body’s poisons. One girl does not know that all the cells in her body are constantly undergoing decay and new ones taking their places and so neglects to give her body such food, rest and exercise as will keep the body’s outgo and input evenly balanced. The other girl with red cheeks and laughing mouth, has this evenly balanced condition during the body’s constant changes.

Too many of you have been taught to[101] neglect the proper feeding process of the body; you have been allowed to eat proper food at improper times and not been shown the necessity of doing just the opposite. But few of you have ever considered the true relation of food to health and happiness; the fruit market has been neglected, the butcher disinterestedly visited and the greengrocer never considered as an aid to perfect health. What have taken their places? Patent medicines, all sorts of poisonous “tonics,” drugs, fake foods and hundreds of dangerous concoctions to replace the want of real nourishment.

Instead of nourishing the body and of course the nerves, these fake foods directly injure every cell in the body. They cannot keep up the repair daily needed in every tissue of the human system. Do not forget that every day your body undergoes more or less wear. In the growing girl it is unstable, sometimes through much worry or fear the wear is greater than the ability to repair, and unless the girl realizes this and at once commences to give extra aid to the repairing process by eating proper food and plenty of it, resting from all physical and mental excitement, she will reach full womanhood with some little nerve or tissue lacking its full strength; and she can never repair the damage.

Each day, too, by radiation, her body loses[102] a large amount of heat, and for the perfect health of man or woman the temperature of the body must be maintained. Now this loss of heat has to be replaced constantly. It is only done through the regular supply of fuel. This fuel is the food we eat. It must be of such a nature as to burn up in the body and give out its heat. This fuel—food—has to be supplied according to the amount of work the body and brains do every day—yes, every hour. If you have to keep the furnace going to warm your rooms, you well know that it must have good coal about so often; according to the amount of work it is compelled to do. You also know that putting clinkers, shavings or newspapers into the furnace will not give your rooms the needed heat. Well, it is just so with your body.

Also, if you allow the clinkers from good coal to remain in the bottom of the furnace, soon there comes a time when no amount of coal will give out the full strength of its heat, and finally the fire goes out. Again, it is just the same thing that happens if you keep the clinkers of your fuel in your body; the waste products left over after the food has given out its heat. You know how these waste products are eliminated from your body—through the bowels, skin, kidneys, lungs and liver.

[103]

Now, please remember this most important fact—Food, including water, is for the sole purpose of supplying heat to the body and to replace the dead cells which are constantly being cast off in every portion of your body. This decay and birth of the cells of the body goes on in every living thing. When the decay is greater than the repair, some part of your body is dying. In such a condition, you are a fit subject for the attack of some of the many disease germs all around us. It may be a serious one or merely some form of skin disease; then goes, whack! your good complexion.

A girl needs more food and at more frequent intervals than a grown woman because, besides keeping up the heat of the body she also has to supply the material for the growing process active in her. The building up of the frame, the full strength of the nerves, the hard working blood, must all be supplied by a surplus of food, for if she eats only enough to supply heat, the other needs of her body will suffer and finally become useless.

Now, girls, eat plenty of food that will aid in all your growth. I know some girls who think it is unladylike to have a good appetite; I have treated girls who were really starving themselves because they dreaded to become fat, and I have seen others whose appetite was[104] unnatural because they denied themselves proper food. It is not necessary for me to say any more about the kind of foods to eat; we have already gone into this matter, but remember this, that the degree of energy essentially depends on the nutritiveness of the food you do eat.

Not a single gland in the body can do its proper work unless it is supplied with its proper stimulant; and this stimulant is food. If you wish to have a soft, smooth and attractive skin, you must always keep in your mind the fact that it is the glands of the skin that exist for this very purpose. I have said something to you about perspiration and exercise, but beside this activity of the glands, produced by exercise, there is constantly an “insensible perspiration” taking place in every girl.

This unnoticeable perspiration amounts daily to about two pints of watery fluid. Think of it! A quart of water leaving your body through the skin every twenty-four hours and in such a way that you do not notice it. You see now why I have laid so much stress upon the statement that you should drink plenty of water, and why the average American girl suffers from poor complexion and constipation.

Fat is poured out in this “insensible perspiration.”[105] Even the finger tips will secrete it. If the palm of the hand is cleansed with soap and then with ether; held in the sunlight and observed with a magnifying glass, you can see little bubbles arising which immediately evaporate, leaving tiny drops of an oily substance—fat.

If this is so—and it is a scientific fact—is not the statement I made to you, that water will help reduce fat instead of making it, easily understood? But, then, why will drinking water also make fat? Because it simply balances the physiological functions, brings about a proper chemical action throughout the whole body and in doing this enables the tissues to extract from your food the elements which go to make up fat, flesh and blood.

In other words, give the body its needed supply of water, air, food and exercise, and it will take care of itself—give you the amount of fat you really need or take off the fat you do not need.

All these matters of controlling the action of the skin are dependent upon special nerves; nerves which have nothing to do but look after the health of the skin. These are the nerves which close or open the pores to let out the “insensible perspiration,” which keep the body temperature equal under all conditions of exposure and rest, which allow the blood to get[106] through the tiny arteries and veins of the cheeks and make for a good or poor complexion.

Don’t listen to those who tell you that your unsatisfactory complexion is due to “bad blood.” There is really no such state in the good girl or woman as “bad blood.” Affections of the skin such as a muddy complexion, greasy looking skin, rough skin, pimples and blotches are not signs that there is something the matter with your blood. Generally speaking these are signs of some faulty adjustment between nerves and blood vessels, sweat glands and the tiny muscles of the skin.

These muscles of the skin are very delicate and sensitive muscles and easily prevented from working properly. When they do not do their work constantly and correctly, what happens? Wrinkles of course, then a tightening of the skin which prevents the outpour of the “insensible perspiration” and the escape of the oily substance. This latter, remaining, causes the greasy skin; the tiny wrinkles keep behind the outer skin some of the inward dirt, and then you have the muddy complexion.

Another way you can see the action of these tiny skin muscles is in “gooseflesh.” “Gooseflesh” is due to the general contraction of these tiny skin muscles. They contract into the little pin-............