It is a general statement that "excessive eating and drinking are the cause of almost all the illness experienced by the human race." While there is much truth in this, yet I am convinced that incorrect breathing is responsible for as much, if not more, suffering than either of these. Few people realize the importance of oxygen and of the function of respiration, through which the body is supplied with oxygen and freed from one of its most poisonous products - carbon dioxide. Insufficient oxygen and incorrect breathing cause the muscles of the body to become stiffened and brings about a debilitated constitution, nervousness, nervous prostration, heart and lung disease, premature old age or early death.

It is a lamentable fact that ninety-five out of every hundred people suffer every day of their lives for want of air. In most cases, this arises from the lack of a definite knowledge of the true use of air. It may be a surprise to many to learn that pure air supplies the greater part of the body's nourishment. It has been proven that man can live forty days without food and ten days without liquids of any kind, yet he cannot live five minutes without oxygen.

Breathing affects nutrition and consequently the vitality. First, because, when correctly performed, the act of respiration accelerates the movement of the stomach and intestines by which the digestive fluids are mixed with the food and forced onward through the alimentary tube. Second, in providing the oxygen necessary to the blood. Third, in providing for the removal from the body through the lungs of poisonous waste matter, which, when retained, weakens and depletes the organism. For a proper relation between the body and the air two things are necessary - first, pure air; second, the ability to breathe. A man may starve in the midst of plenty if he does not eat and he will starve for oxygen in the midst of the purest air, if he does not breathe properly.

An unfailing sign of great vitality is the large active chest, with straight spine and an erect carriage. This sign is always present in men of great achievement. Fortunately, the breathing is of all the functions the most easily developed. Where the lungs are small and weak, the chest narrow and contracted and the vitality low, a few weeks of resolute training will create a great difference in the size and activity of the lungs and in the general vitality.

Every one should breathe as much pure air as possible. Air is free, though pure air is not always to be had. However, there are thousands, yes, millions, who suffer for the lack of pure air when they could have it if they would not persistently shut it out as though it were an enemy. It is remarkable the number of people who are afraid of air, yet without it they could not live. People sit for hours in a tightly closed room from which the oxygen has been greatly exhausted and then complain because they are nervous and have a headache. The persistent breathing of such vitiated air not only lowers the vital energy, but predisposes to disease. Hence, the necessity of sufficient air and of the proper ventilation of the lungs for every human being. To obtain a sufficient quantity of air for the needs of the body every man should have at least eight hundred cubic feet of space to himself and that space ought to be freely accessible by direct or indirect channels to the atmosphere. A room ten feet square and eight feet high, if freely accessible to the outer air during the entire day and night, will supply the necessary respiratory rations for one adult.

Bear in mind that the purity of air is not measured by its temperature. Cold air is often very impure by reason of stagnation, lack of circulation, exhalations from the lungs, etc, while moderately warm air may, if a constant change is going on between outdoor and indoor air, be reasonably pure.

While correct breathing plays such an important part in sustaining health and life, yet few people know how to breathe correctly. Air should never be breathed through the mouth. The nostrils were provided for that purpose. Breathing through the mouth, even in warm weather, is very injurious. The average air is charged with a large quantity of deleterious substances which should be filtered from it before being allowed to enter the throat and lungs. This purifying or filtera tion can take place only when the inhalation is through the nostrils.

The person who does not breathe an abundant quantity of pure air and breathe it through the nostrils is only partially alive, and, in consequence, his vitality and chances for a long healthy life is at a correspondingly low ebb. While those who breathe normally possess a remarkable capacity for the enjoyment of life. It has been noted that all people who have passed the century mark, possessed a large chest, straight spine and excellent respiratory organs. By the cultivation of correct breathing, you can increase the vitality, enlarge the chest, strengthen the lungs and assist in curing any condition of ill health you may be suffering from.

Several kinds of breathing are being taught at the present time. The principal ones being termed abdominal, chest, intercostal and diaphragmatic breathing. These all specialize and develop only a certain part of the lungs; hence, they are not suited to an all-round development such as I shall teach you. In all the exercises throughout these lessons the object aimed at is to create a perfect whole that there may be no weak places to give out or break down. What you need is natural, full breathing that takes the air to every part of the lungs and ventilates every cell. You want no stagnant, inactive part. You want to be fully alive from the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet.

Before giving you a system of exercises to follow, I have another important point to explain that will teach you how your lungs operate. It is generally supposed that it is by inhaling air that we expand the lungs; hence, in taking breathing exercises, people attempt to use the nostrils to draw the air into the lungs. This very effort contracts them and limits the air supply. This method is incorrect and exhausting. Those who try to breathe this way tire out very quickly because they expend more vitality in breathing than they regain from the exercise and air. The harder they try, the more they defeat their purpose. Instead of commencing a breath from the head, it should begin in the lower part of the lungs. Our lungs operate exactly as a bellows. The air is not forced into a bellows, but drawn in to fill a vacuum. Commence to breathe by slowly expanding the abdomen as you would the large end of a bellows and you will notice that as the force begins to work an empty space is created in the air cells of the lungs and bronchial tubes and that the air rushes through the nose into them, and, by degrees, fills the entire lungs in proportion to the expansion. The expansion begins in the abdomen, then extends to the waist and lower chest, and as the expansion of the abdominal walls continue, it sets at work the chest and intercostal muscles, thus raising the chest bone, spinal column and ribs and presses them gradually upward and outward in such a manner that the entire trunk region from the lowest point of the abdomen to the highest point of the chest, namely, the collar bone, is expanded. This expansion is not felt in sections, as is the case with many systems of breathing now being taught, but as a complete expansion of the entire circumference of the trunk. Whether the. amount of breath taken be large or small; whether half or full expansion is required, it will be done with the combined breathing apparatus.