The human body is a wonderful machine.

If you have driven an automobile, you understand there are certain things you need to do in order to keep out of trouble: you must "feed" the engine properly, keep all the wearing parts tightened and lubricated, and exercise a reasonable amount of care not to overload your car or subject it to unnecessary strain. In other words, you must use good judgment, supplemented by knowledge and forethought, or else you will need a mule team occasionally to pull you back to town where some one has brains enough to fix up what your stupidity has put out of "whack."

Did you ever think of running your body like an automobile ought to be run? Did you ever take just a little time to study and understand the mechanism of the wonderful human body? Do you, right now, understand that it is necessary to run your body properly in order to keep it out of the repair shop - the doctor's office? And if you do realize this, do you understand how to do it? If you do, you are lucky. Millions of people do not understand even the first principles of health and hygiene. They violate every law of their physical being every day they live. They go through life, part way through only, full of sickness, pain, and disease - all the result of their disobedience of the very simplest rules that any one may understand who will give the matter as much attention as is needed to understand and run an automobile.

Proof of broken laws is found in the thousands of human "repair shops" that are working overtime, all the time, trying to keep the human machines in motion. In order to understand properly any subject one must begin with fundamental principles. To know how to work the levers and steering apparatus of an automobile isn't all that is necessary, - almost any fool can do that, - but to know how to keep the levers and steering apparatus working is a "hoss of another color" requiring "inside information."

Even a baby can operate most of the "levers" of the body - he can kick and cry and use his hands to grip, and in a few short years is able to run and play and climb a tree, and has quite as much knowledge of his body as his father and mother, which, in the majority of cases, is very little. "Inside information" is generally entirely lacking.

Speaking of "inside information," this does not refer to "dissecting tables" or a "technical" knowledge of anatomy or the internal structure; it has reference to a general understanding of the principles involved in the feeding and operating of the human body, the most wonderful machine in all the world.

If the chauffeur puts water in his gasoline tank, what think you would be the result? If he puts sand in his crank case instead of oil, what effect do you think it would have on the "life" of the machine? You easily appreciate the fact that an automobile needs proper food; that is, you do if you have ever run one.

Now an automobile, as compared with the human body, is a very simple and imperfect machine. An auto must have gasoline of a certain grade or it won't run at all. The human body needs a certain grade of food, but it is so wonderful that it will run a long time on improper food, with improper care; so wonderful that it can be abused and misused and treated in a most shameful manner, and still live. A fool can run a human body much longer than he can run an automobile - but there is a limit.

Perpetual motion has not yet been discovered.

Some people treat their bodies as if they thought they were machines built to run forever without any care or attention, but this is a mistake, the worst mistake that can be made. There is a "jumping off place," and the great majority of people are headed straight for it.

If the chauffeur hears a "squeak," he stops the engine and investigates. If he is a good chauffeur, he soon finds out what is wrong and rights the wrong. If he is just one of these kind that knows how to "pull the levers," he probably don't hear any "squeak" - all sounds are alike to him, and he puts on the "high speed" and soon the "squeak" is lost in the roar of the car as it shoots forward. But that don't cure the "squeak," and twenty miles ahead there is an awful jolt, and a "hurry-up" call is sent in for the ambulance.

Many a human chauffeur, when he hears a "squeak," refuses to pay any attention to it, puts on high speed and - soon after the undertaker writes it down in a little book, "To funeral expenses of High Speed Jones, Umpty um dollerines."

One of the first things a good chauffeur does is to learn the sound of his engine, to tell from the "feel" of his car whether it is working right. A good driver immediately fixes everything that is out of "whack." There is one thing sure: an automobile won't fix itself, but it will "fix" any one who refuses to attend to it properly, and fix 'em good and plenty.

This wonderful human machine, however, is very different from an automobile, for if let alone and the cause of the trouble is removed, it will fix itself.

But to remove the cause of the trouble - here is the rub.

A machine that is properly constructed is made so that the parts that have the most "wear and tear" are either stronger or else they can be easily replaced. If properly cared for, it never gets out of running order unless it meets with an outside accident.

It is the desire of automobile designers to construct a machine in accordance with the above theory; they are making good headway, but they never will be able to construct a machine that is "fool-proof."

Old Mother Nature, however, has actually done what the most skilled mechanics only dream of doing - she has built a physical machine that is absolutely perfect in the adjustment of its parts and, like the deacon's old one-horse shay, will run till it all goes to pieces, until every part is worn out; will run in good condition for at least one hundred years, and then some.

There are just two ways to die properly - either from old age or from being hanged - and some of us question the latter. We think, in the first place, that a man should not do anything that would even suggest such a punishment, and in the second place, that no matter what a man does, such a punishment is not justified, so this leaves only one way to die properly.