A Guide to Health

Mahatma Gandhi's Guide to Health is a practical, reforming handbook that treats health as a matter of knowledge, discipline, and self-reliance rather than fear, superstition, or blind dependence on doctors. It argues that true well-being begins in the mind and character, and then unfolds through the body's daily needs: air, water, food, exercise, cleanliness, and wise habits. Gandhi presents the human body as a "miniature world," explaining digestion, circulation, and breathing in clear, accessible terms while insisting that fresh air, sunlight, fasting, and moderation help nature heal itself. The book also offers a forceful public-health ethic, condemning polluted air, dirty latrines, careless spitting, impure water, and cramped indoor living as hidden causes of disease. It extends its concern to exercise, praising walking, farming, and gardening, and to dress, rejecting vanity, tight clothing, and needless ornament in favor of simplicity and comfort. Throughout, it urges readers to study the body, teach health in schools, and live with common sense, moral clarity, and practical care. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.