Finger-nails should also be cut about once a week with sharp scissors, to keep them in good order. Biting the nails is not good for them.
PATROL PRACTICES IN HEALTH
Example will teach much—not just the Patrol Leader’s personal actions but the example given by having open windows when meeting indoors, and open tent doors when camping.
Health can best be taught in camp where there is time and opportunity to give close attention to cleanliness and sound habits.
In camp, remember the importance of rest and plenty of sound sleep. There should be an hour’s rest after the main meal.
Teach the six exercises given in the Yarn, but don’t use them as a drill. Encourage the Scouts to do them daily.
Give each Scout a card on which he can keep a record of his physical measurements. Make arrangements for these measurements to be taken every three months.
GAMES TO DEVELOP STRENGTH
Boxing, wrestling, rowing, swimming, skipping, cock-fighting, are all valuable health aids to developing strength, but climbing is best of all.
Wrist Pushing
Stand with both your arms to the front about level with the waist, cross your wrists so that one hand has knuckles up, the other knuckles down. Clench the fists.
Now make the lower hand press upwards and make the upper hand press downwards.
Press as hard as you can with both wrists gradually, and only after great resistance let the lower push the upper one upwards till opposite your forehead, then let the upper press the lower down, the lower one resisting all the time.
These two exercises, although they sound small and simple develop most muscles in your body if carried out with all your might. They should not be carried on too long at a time, but should be done at frequent intervals during the day for a minute or so.
Staff Tossing
With your right hand grasp your staff near the butt and hold it upright. Then toss it straight up in the air a short distance at first, and catch it with the left hand near the butt as it comes down. Toss it straight up again with the left and catch it with the right, and so on, till you can do it one hundred times without dropping it.
Follow the Leader
The leader goes ahead, doing different exercises. The others follow him, doing everything he does.
The Struggle
Two players face each other about a yard apart, stretch arms out sideways, lock fingers of both hands, and lean towards each other till their chests touch, push chest to chest and see who can drive the other back to the wall of the room or on to a goal line.
Wrist Pushing by Two Boys
Two boys face each other. Each puts out the wrist nearest to his opponent, at arm’s length, presses it against the other’s wrist, and tries to turn him round backwards.
Leg pushing between two boys helps to strengthen the leg muscles
CAMP FIRE YARN NO. 18
HEALTH-GIVING HABITS
Keep Clean - Don’t Smoke - Don’t Drink
Keep Pure - Rise Early Smile
All the great peace scouts who have succeeded in exploring or hunting expeditions in wild countries have only been able to get on by knowing how to keep themselves and others healthy. They had to, because diseases, accidents, and wounds might be suffered by them or their men, and they couldn’t find doctors in the jungles to cure them. A Scout who does not know something about taking care of himself would never get on at all; he might just as well stay at home for all the good he will be.
Therefore practice keeping healthy yourself, and then you will be able to show others how to keep themselves healthy too. In this way you can do many good turns.
Also, if you know how to look after yourself you need never have to pay for medicines. The great English poet, Dryden, in his poem, Cymon and Iphigenia, wrote that it was better to trust to fresh air and exercise than to pay doctors’ bills to keep yourself healthy:
“Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught:
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.”
Keep Yourself Clean
If you cut your hand when it is dirty, it is very likely to fester, and to become very sore. But if your hand is quite clean and freshly washed, no harm will come of it—it heals quickly.
Cleaning your skin helps to clean your blood. Doctors say that half the good of exercise is lost if you do not have a bath immediately after it.
It may not be always possible for you to get a bath every day, but you can at any rate rub yourself over with a wet towel, or scrub yourself with a dry one, and you ought not to miss a single day in doing this if you want to keep fit and well.
You should also keep clean in your clothing—your underclothing as well as that which shows.
And to be healthy and strong, you must keep your blood healthy and clean inside you. This is done by breathing in lot of pure, fresh air, by deep breathing, and by clearing out all dirty matter from inside your stomach, which is done by having a “rear” daily, without fail; many people are the better for having it twice a day. If there is any difficulty about it one day drink plenty of good water, especially before and just after breakfast, and practise body-twisting exercises, and all should be well. Never start work in the morning without some sort of food inside you.
Smoking
Every Scout knows the Scout Law. But there is an extra point to that Law which is not written but is understood by every Scout. It is this: “A Scout is not a fool”, and that is why Scouts do not smoke while they are still growing boys.
TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 9 - TOMMY TRIES SMOKING
Tommy thought smoking would give him some fun. But he quickly wished he had never begun.
Any boy can smoke—it is not such a very wonderful thing to do. But a Scout will not do it because he is not such a fool. He knows that when a lad smokes before he is fully grown up it may weaken his heart, and the heart is the most important organ in a lad’s body. It pumps the blood all over him to form flesh, bone, and muscle. If the heart does not do its work the boy cannot grow to be healthy. Any Scout knows that smoking spoils his sense of smell, which is of greatest importance to him for scouting on active service.