Mental Magnitude

Apart from carbohydrate, protein, and fat, there are two other constituents of food which are indispensable to the normal and healthy growth of the body, and the constant maintenance of its health. These are VITAMINS and MINERALS. Many diseases such as eye-trouble, bad teeth, rickets, sterility, constipation, and vanous nervous disorders are caused by the absence or deficiency of vitamins and minerals. The vitamin are classed as A, B, C, D and E – more are still being discovered like phosphorus, cobalt, copper, zinc, etc.

Vitamins and minerals are present in practically all the foods we eat, but not always in the quantities requisite for the health of the body. Certain foodstuffs, while they provide carbohydrate, protein, hard fat, are also rich in vitamins. Such foodstuffs include eggs, fresh fruits, fresh and uncooked vegetables, unpolished rice, boiled (not roasted) maize, palm oil (not fried), etc. Fruits, because they possess indigestible stuffs which exceedingly facilitate and promote bowel movement, are essential to health and must be taken regularly. Ignorance concerning the value of fruits is so deep that the eating of them is regarded in educated circles as a demonstration of weaIth or fashionable consumption, while the average farmer would rather sell all the fruits produced by him, than eat any of them. He should be told – indeed all of us should be told – that the more fruit we eat, the greater our chances of good health.

Without air, man can live for a few minutes only. Without water, for a few hours; without food, for a few days; and without shelter for a few months or even years. But he can live to a good old age without clothing, provided he has some sort of shelter underneath which he can protect himself against the rigours of the ever-changing seasons. It is commonplace, however, that a life without shelter or clothing is a most primitive and wretched life indeed.

For healthy and happy living, therefore, man needs a shelter which is decent and well-ventilated, and clothing which is clean and adequate. In some parts of the country there are rules – mostly enforced in the breach – which govern the building of new houses to ensure conformity with health requirements. But in most parts or the country, people are left free to build according to their ignorant fancies, and largely after the pattern of their primitive ancestors.

No one has made or will ever make the attempt to regulate by legislation the quantity, quality, and style of clothes which a person must wear at any given time. The masses of the people do not know – and only very few educated persons do know – that our health and survival depend on every one of the innumerable pores in our body being able to breathe as freely as we breathe through our nose.

It has been demonstrated, for instance, that a man can be completely suffocated, if all the pores of his body are totally closed and are unable to breathe for a sufficiently long time.

In the tropics, therefore, the lighter and the less tight the clothing, and the more ventilated the house, the better.

Even when all the requirements of air, water, food, shelter, and clothing, as we have adumbrated them, have been satisfied, there still remain four other vital requirements which must be satisfied before man can live a full, healthy and happy life.

They are:

(I) the eradication of negative emotions and the cultivation at the same time of positive emotions;

(2) the sublimation of instinctive urges;

(3) the understanding of and adaptation to environmental circumstances and conditions, and where necessary a complete reorganisation and redirection of such circumstances and conditions; and

(4) exercise.

We will now proceed to deal with these four in the order in which we have stated them.

There are two systems of nerves in the body of man.

They are:

1. The Cerebrospinal Nervous System: This system of nerves has its centre in the brain, runs through the spinal cord, and branches off at different points along the spine to all the parts of the muscles. It is these nerves that control and direct the sensory-motor actions of man. In other words, it is these nerves that put man in conscious and voluntary communication with every part of his body. In short, this system of nerves presides over our organs of sensations and movement. With them, we hear, see, taste, touch, smell, move our limbs and body, and do conscious and objective reasoning.

2. The Autonomic Nervous System: This system of nerves is distributed to the viscera and to the blood vessels. It is otherwise known as the involuntary or unconscious nervous system, because it controls and regulates involuntary bodily actions such as breathing, heart-beats, digestion, the functions of the liver, of the kidneys, and of other glands.

Even though this nervous system functions independently of our conscious or voluntary control or direction, yet all the nerve fibres of the autonomic nervous system “”-a:re ultimately derived as an outflow from the cerebrospinal axis itself. With the result that our conscious or subconscious moods and emotions – be they negative.

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