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Show Why LAUGHTER TAKE ON FLESH "I. ft me plau the fool: With mirth and laughter let old vyrinkle.s rom ' ; And (rf mf Hrrr rather heat irith win. Thou wit heart cool vith mortifying firrifnm." "Merchant of Venire," Art 1, Scene 1. WHAT In huiglitor? Is It a feeling, a I'liysU-nl fir mi lnffllcW n;tl phenomenon, phenom-enon, or Is It. Homt'tliing else or a ronil. ImK inn of all of these? Tin; i-rcjirher In tho () Testament mi.vn: "As (lie ornck I InC of thorns under pot, ho Is the ImiKhler of the fool." Yet this Rem of wisdom fails to tell .von that laughter hns benefits (hat are directly ph vsiolnU-al as well aw n rnre rntton for the Intellectual appetite. This is half-con-fiehniNly, but not fully sense! by those who think very truly that peopJe who laugh much livnw fat, while those who are bitter unci neld by nature are as fillm as life might he expected to permit. I'nesar realized tho virtues of full flesh when he said to Antonlus: "Let me have men about, me that tire fat." Fiction has It that Sanrho F'anza waxed fat from his jollity, while Dun Quixote was built like a hit)). All the henthen gnfls who were patrons of merriment are represented ns having been stout ; all tbo-e who wore serious were pictured as thin. The avoirdupois culled "adipose tissue" may he compared to the capital of a bank. Some persons live on the income and do not tie up the capital, while others burn up nil the capital and live as a wage-earner, wage-earner, with little reserve. Laughter Is really related to shivers, shakes and chills. That is to say, it Has a museular setting. The Kinlle is to the humh what a miniature is to a large portrait. por-trait. The spread from a smile to a laugh, is merely the gradually extension of motion to many other muscles. The mouth opens to take a long breath. There follows short, sharp, explosive moments mo-ments of tho vocal muscles with the rescinding re-scinding "music of laughter." When you "hold your hips" with sidesplitting side-splitting laughter It means almost all of the muscles of the abdomen and trunk are involved in the loud guffaws. When a child laughs it Is the thrill cf Joyful animation shot through the little one's abundant muscles. Sensation is also oorK-errit-d with laughter, as you may agree If you tickle the palms or even at times hurt the subject, rain, hysteria, heat, cold and surprises may occasionally mart laughter. Professor Kigmund Freud of Hungary and Trofessor Iienri Itergson of Paris also emphasize the wish, the surprise and the automatic elements of laughter. While there is some truili, perhaps, in all of these theories, but not all the truth in any of them. It Is well to understand laughter with regard to all of these ideas. Since perception partakes of seusations as well as of memory, there can be no denial that a thing must, no doubt, be first perceived per-ceived as inconsistent or awkward or amusing before laughter breaks out in Its real, muscular assertiveness. One Inch of Joy, says the poet, surmounts sur-mounts of a grief a span, because to laugh is proper to the man. The victor laughs, the "man who laughs last" laughs because he did not laugh when he was a failure. The other fellow laughs first because ho was the winner. There Is a happy-go-lucky class of men who always have a smile for everybody and a laugh for most. They explain this upon the basis of thinking happy, jovial things and thus keep their smiles and pleasant pathways that they reflect no anxieties, worries or blue devils. In this way they use their muscles for health and optimism. -t- Cheerfulness and stoutness are generally gener-ally found together. Fat is probably the result of good digestion, because food eaten is readily changed by the processes of the body into living tissue. The flesh of your body may be measured by the ability of the digestive structures to get the full measure of worth out of the food consumed. con-sumed. Those who suffer from "chronic dyspepsia" and the various forms of "Indigestion" "In-digestion" are generally extremely thin. The quantity of rations taken into the body has comparatively little to do with the question. As a matter of fact, there are some thin people who eat a great deal and some stout people who diet themselves to almost nothing. Jewish cooking is much more fat-producing than American cooking. Good health arises from good digestion, and this, in turn, promotes stoutness. It Is not easy to be jolly with bad digestion, heartburn and other similar "ills that flesh is heir to." The old proverb, "Laugh and grow fat," can then be justly turned around : "Grow fat and you will laugh." Fat people seem to be well blanketed from the wintry winds and cold air. Undoubtedly laughter real, hearty laughter, a rlb-tickllng guffaw is even bet-N bet-N ter than a yawn for emptying the lowest passages of the lungs and bringing air into their inmost recesses. The man who laughs "fit to kill" need have little fear of tuberculosis. He clears out his lungs; he uses the full extent of their passages for taking the oxygen into his blood and making it rich, full red, and thereby he keeps the body fluids up to then-full then-full powers of doing their work of digesting food and carrying to various parts of the materials for the building up of new tissues. tis-sues. The person who, all through life, breathes deeply in the joy, merriment and happiness that goes on about him and is ready for a hearty langh when the occasion occa-sion calls shows a complexion of healthy sheen and fat In fine, written large upon the Innermost Inner-most tablets of your anatomy is a record of every outburst of laughter. Like a water meter to register the flow from the spigot, so the rushing torrents from deeply hidden hid-den glands spleen, suprarenal or near kidneys, kid-neys, sex glands, pituitary and others of your inner textiles reveal themselves indelibly in-delibly in your muscles, eyes, intestines, brain and other living fabrics. Kindness, Intense joy, happiness, wit, hilarity, jollity, cheer and all the healthy emotions of one sort or another leave a safe, stamped impress upon every fiber of your being. The springs and fountain heads of |
