University of Virginia Library

25. ONE HUNDRED CHOICE HEALTH THOUGHTS.

THE man who possesses good health is always rich.

HEALTH is an energetic man's capital.

ONE may purify the blood more in a single day by breathing pure air, than by taking sarsaparilla or any other blood-purifier for a year.

"HEALTH is wealth" is a trite maxim, the truth of which every one appreciates best after having suffered from disease. Indeed, health is a most priceless treasure. When deprived of it, we are willing to exchange for it everything else we possess; yet when well, we squander it ruthlessly, regardless of consequences.

THE right to health stands second only to the right to live.

TEA and "temper" are so often found associated as to afford good grounds for believing that they are closely related.

IT is not what one eats that nourishes him, but what he digests.

PLUCK is a wonderfully efficient agent in throwing off disease.

EXPOSING the body to the air and light, and briskly rubbing the skin with the hand, is the best substitute for a water bath, and is almost as efficient for cleansing the skin.

A COLD is much more easily avoided than cured.

A MAN who has a perfectly healthy skin is almost certain to be healthy in other respects. In no way can the health of the skin be preserved but by frequent bathing.

SO-CALLED "softening of the brain" is often hardening of the liver.

"A MERRY heart maketh a glad countenance;" but a sour stomach makes a wry face.

CORRECT habits of eating and drinking are of the utmost importance if we would keep the body in a state to serve us well.

NO person can impose upon his stomach with impunity; sooner or later, punishment will follow as the result of physical transgression.

INTENSE mental activity, or severe physical exercise, soon after eating, hinder the digestive process.

NATURE makes no provision for digesting more than her proper wants demand.

IT is a mistaken idea that foods made rich with fats are the most nourishing. Really "rich" foods are those which contain a large proportion of the essential food elements in a condition in which they may be easily assimilated.

LIQUID of any kind, taken at meals, in large quantities, is prejudicial to digestion; because it delays the action of the gastric juice, weakens its digestive qualities, and overtaxes the absorbents.

THE nourishing quality of any food depends upon its digestibility as much as upon its nutritive elements.

EATING between meals is a gross breach of the requirements of good digestion. The habit many have of eating fruit, confectionery, nuts, sweetmeats, etc., between meals, is a certain cause of dyspepsia.

THE royal road to health leads not by the way of big pills or little pills, purgatives or patent medicines, but by the homely road of correct habits.

THE best brain food is that which will make the best blood, and thus most efficiently nourish the body in general.

WHEN a man has a bilious attack, and vomits bile, he feels sure there is something the matter with his liver; whereas, instead, he has bile enough and to spare, and all he needs is good hygiene, a proper dietary, and plenty of hot water inside and outside.

EVERY individual should consider the hour for meals a sacred one, not to be intruded upon under any ordinary circumstances. The habit of regularity in eating ought to be cultivated early in life.

A PAIN in the back seldom indicates disease of the kidneys, as most people suppose; and it may be controlled by simple measures carefully and thoroughly applied.

QUACKS thrive upon the ignorance and gullibility of the people. The only remedy for quackery lies in the education of the people in those medical facts and theories, which will lead them to see that there is a scientific foundation for rational medical practice

ALL the medicines in creation are not worth a farthing to a man who is constantly and habitually violating the laws of his own nature.

THE simplest food is, as a rule, the most healthful.

IF we would keep the mind free and vigorous, we must preserve a healthy state of digestion.

A "BRASSY" taste in the mouth indicates a torpid liver, and suggests a reform in diet.

AN unstimulating, abstemious diet is the strongest of all the allies of virtue.

THE best of all condiments is hunger; and the most efficient of all soporifics, labor.

THE man who says, I can eat or drink anything, nothing hurts me, is on the high road to physical bankruptcy. By and by he will complain that everything hurts him.

DO not eat when tired. The idea that by the taking of food the stomach or any other part of the system will be strengthened, is a mistake.

A TIRED stomach is a weak stomach. When the stomach feels "faint and tired" at night, as many people complain, what it wants is not food, but rest.

A "GNAWING" hunger is not an indication of the necessity for food, but of a diseased condition of the stomach.

COMMON sense teaches us that a feeble horse must be lightly loaded; so a weak stomach, suffering with slow digestion, must have as light and easy work as possible.

AS a man eateth, so is he.

THE free use of hot water is a very excellent means of relieving various disturbances of digestion, particularly those which arise from sluggishness of the stomach, such as acidity, heart-burn, etc.

HORSEBACK-RIDING is an excellent aid to digestion, and often effectually relieves constipation of the bowels.

AIR is food for the lungs as bread is food for the stomach. More millions of people die from want of lung food than from a deficiency of other aliment.

GERMS differ in their relation to human life. Some are innocent, some dangerous under certain conditions, others dangerous under all circumstances.

NOXIOUS gases and disease germs are usually associated together, — a fortunate fact, as it enables us to detect the dangerous character of an infected atmosphere without the trouble of a chemical analysis. It is possible for the air to be swarming with disease germs without an offensive odor's being present; but the reverse is seldom true, and it is perfectly safe to say that a foul-smelling atmosphere is a dangerous one.

NEVER use water which has a perceptible taste or odor.

NEVER employ water which is procured from a suspicious source, as a well in a barn-yard or near a vault or cess-pool, or from a cistern not recently cleansed.

THE old supposition, that running water into which impurities have been cast, purifies itself while running twenty miles, is an error. Such water is never safe.

TEST FOR IMPURE WATER. — Discard as dangerous, water which will not stand the following test: —

Dissolve in two tablespoonfuls of cistern water which has been thoroughly boiled, unless distilled water can be obtained, twelve grains of caustic potash and four grains of permanganate of potash. Add two drops of this solution to a teacupful of the water to be tested. If the water is very impure, the pink color at first produced will very quickly disappear. If the color disappears within fifteen minutes, the water is too impure for safe use.

SLEEPING-ROOMS should be aired and sunned every day.

NEVER sleep in a room which has been for weeks unused, unaired, unwarmed, and secluded from sunlight, until the bedding has been thoroughly aired and dried, and the air of the room thoroughly changed by ventilation.

AVOID sleeping in damp beds and cold bedrooms. A person had a great deal better sit up by the kitchen fire and doze in his chair, than commit himself to the horrible embrace of cold, clammy sheets, and run the risk of sowing the seeds of an incurable illness.

COMBUSTION is the best means of disposing of garbage, and relieves the scavenger of an additional burden, and the milkman of a temptation to economize.

CELLARS should be kept clear of decaying vegetables, wood, wet coal, and mold. The walls should be frequently whitewashed, or washed with a strong solution of copperas.

THE best means to avoid the infection of a contagious disease when unavoidably exposed, are the following: Always have good ventilation in the room. Never stand between the patient and the fire, but always between him and a fresh-air inlet. Never while in the room swallow any saliva; and after leaving, rinse out the mouth, blow the nose, and wash the hands and face. Keep up good general health by good food, exercise, and temperance. In addition to these recommendations, it is well to filter all the air you breathe while in the sick-room by tying a handkerchief over the mouth and nose.

HALF the men and women who complain of sleeplessness, have done nothing to entitle them to the use of "Nature's sweet restorer."

FOR poor sleepers, a half hour's exercise, taken a short time before retiring will often act like a soporific.

IF troubled with sleeplessness, eat an early and light supper of easily digested food; or, better, eat no supper at all. Do not engage in exciting conversation or amusements during the evening. At an early hour, prepare to retire determined to sleep. Just before going to bed, soak the feet for ten minutes in a pail of hot water, cooling it a little at the close.

CLOTHE the body warmly and equably, giving special attention to the extremities.

CLOTHING should be adjusted to the weather of each day independently. In the winter time, an unusually cold day demands an additional supply of clothing; in the summer time, an unusually hot day may require an

opposite change of garments. In the spring and autumn, when the weather is very changeable, it may be necessary to change the clothing two or three times during the day in order to meet the exigences of the weather.

THE whole body should be clad in soft flannel from neck to wrists and ankles nearly the whole year round.

LYING in the shade when perspiring, or sitting in a draught in the same condition, is as likely to give a person a cold in August, as getting the feet wet in December or March.

PHYSICAL culture is a sovereign remedy for most human maladies. When the vital status is raised, the morbid conditions engendered by neglect and ignorance are left out, and the individual exists on a higher physical plane.

THE Hindoo devotee who, in blind zeal for his religion, holds out his arm until the muscles shrink and shrivel up, leaving the arm but a useless appendage of the body, violates the law of nature which demands exercise for health no more than does the student who shuts himself up with his books until his limbs grow lank and thin, and his fingers bony with physical idle-ness; and the latter acts no more wisely in sacrificing himself upon the shrine of learning than the other in deforming himself to appease the wrath or win the favor of Buddha.

THE Autocrat of the Breakfast Table says each of us is an omnibus, in which ride all our ancestors. The man who carries in his "bus" a drunkard or a libertine, is a proper subject for most profound sympathy.

BATHS should usually be of a temperature which will be the most agreeable to the person. Cold baths are seldom required. Too much hot bathing is debilitating.

THE most favorable time for a bath is between the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon.

THE temperature of a room for taking a bath should be at about 85° or 90° F.

NEVER bathe when exhausted, or within three hours after eating, unless the bath be confined to a very small portion of the body.

NEVER bathe when cooling off after profuse sweating, as reaction will then often be deficient.

ALWAYS wet the head before taking any form of bath, to prevent determination of blood to the head.

IF the bath be a warm one, always conclude it with an application of water a few degrees cooler than the body temperature.

BE careful to thoroughly dry the skin after a bath, rubbing vigorously, to prevent chilling.

NEVER paper a wall over another paper.

HARD-WOOD floors covered so far as necessary or desirable, with loose rugs which can be daily removed and shaken, are far more conducive to health than carpets.

NEVER clean the ears with a pick or with the twisted end of a towel. The ear-wax dries up and falls out of itself. Efforts to keep the ear free from wax increase

the difficulty by irritating the membrane, and causing it to make more wax.

NEVER allow cold water to enter the ears, and do not let the cold wind blow in them. If they must be exposed to cold air or water, protect them by a little wad of cotton placed in the ear. Care should be taken to remove the cotton as soon as it is no longer needed, as much mischief sometimes results from leaving portions of cotton or paper in the ear.

IF a seed or other foreign substance has gotten into the ear, do not try to remove it by introducing a knitting-needle or by any similar means. The only safe plan is to syringe the ear with warm water, leaning the head to one side so the object may drop out if loosened. If a pea or a bean has been in the ear so long that it has swelled, and hence cannot be dislodged by syringing, it may be contracted by holding alcohol in the ear for a short time. If an insect gets into the ear, pour in a little oil, which will suffocate it, when it may be removed by syringing.

NEVER put chloroform or laudanum into the ear for relief of tooth-ache.

NEVER use the eyes when they are tired or painful, nor with an insufficient or dazzling light{.} Lamps should be shaded.

ALWAYS let the light fall upon the object viewed, from over the left shoulder, if possible; it should never come from in front.

NEVER read on the cars, when riding in a wagon or street car, or when lying down.

NEVER play tricks with the eyes, as squinting or rolling them.

THE feet cannot be kept warm unless the blood circulates freely in the extremities; and that will not be the case if the boots, shoes, or stockings are tight.

THE way of the transgressor is hard, whether the law infringed belongs to the physical or the moral code.

PAIN stands as a light-house to warn navigators on the sea of life whenever they are approaching the shoals of overfed idleness, the rough breakers of neglect and general disregard of nature's laws, or the giddy whirlpool of passions stimulated and gratified.

EVERY human being produces on an average more than four barrels of carbonic acid gas each day.

CAREFULLY prepared statistics show that mental labor is conducive to longevity. The active mental worker who takes reasonable care of his health, has greater chance of long life than the man who devotes himself to muscular pursuits. Mental labor is stimulating to all the vital powers, and conducive to the best health.

As a rule, lying on the side is the best position for sleeping. Which side is a matter of indifference, unless a meal has been taken within two or three hours, in which case the right side is preferable.

HEALTH-GETTING is a process of development, like the growth of a tree, or the raising of a crop of grain. We must sow the seeds to-day, in right habits of life and a correct regimen, and weeks, months, or years hence we shall reap the harvest.

DISEASES are seldom inherited, but tendencies to disease are often transmitted from parents to children. By beginning early in life, these inherited tendencies may be extinguished.

A PERSON whose constitution has once been thoroughly broken by any chronic disease, cannot expect to become perfectly sound and well again. He may enjoy excellent health with proper care, but will not be able to endure hardships or irregularities as before.

PURE air is the first and last desideratum of human life.

GOD'S oxygen is the best tonic known.

NOTHING relieves thirst like water.

"A MERRY heart doeth good like a medicine," is good Bible hygiene.

THE stomach requires rest as well as the brain or the muscles.

THE injudicious use of ice-water in summer is a most common cause of dysentery and other bowel troubles.

SUNSHINE, is one of nature's most potent remedies. It cures more diseases than the whole category of patent medicines.

THOUSANDS of people are cured at mineral springs of rheumatisms, neuralgias, "biliousness," and a dozen other diseases which result from dissipation and gormandizing, not by the bad tasting minerals and worse smelling gases in the water, but by the water in spite of its impurities. More water drinking at home and less

beer guzzling, tobacco smoking, and French cookery would cure a vastly greater number, and ruin the mineral water business in six months.

WHEN the sun begins to circle low in the Southern sky, thousands of invalids prepare for their annual pilgrimage to the "Sunny South," not stopping to consider that dampness and malaria, and sultry days in mid-winter are vastly greater enemies to health than frost and snow. The fear of cold is getting to be almost a mania. Cold weather is a blessing. The winter toning up is an advantage which no one can afford to miss unless absolutely compelled to forego it.

ONE of the most mischievous errors current in modern times is the popular notion that a man may transgress all the laws of health with impunity, and then swallow a few drops of medicine, and antidote all the results of his evil habits. Diseases are far less frequently cured by remedies than most people, and indeed many physicians, suppose. When a sick person gets well, it is usually because he has reformed from his evil ways, and nature has ceased to punish him for his physical sins. Nature cures whenever there is a cure. It has been suggested by a very wise physician that it may be that remedies hinder as often as they aid in recovery. And it may be that patients get well in spite of the remedies which are applied outside and inside, almost as often as by the aid {o}f them.

WHEN we hear a man extolling this or that remedy for disease, and claiming that he has been cured in some magical way of a disorder generally conceded to be incurable, let us remember that there is a very great difference

between being well and feeling well. There is a very large class of remedies the sole effect of which is to make a sick man feel better, but which have no real influence upon the progress of a disease, unless it be to hasten it by using up the patient's vitality, and deluding him into foolish expenditures of strength under the belief that he is well, when he is really no better, but only feels better.

THE man who has good health has golden wealth, though his pocket-book is thin, and his bill of fare a crust.

A QUAINT old Dutch physician who flourished nearly two centuries ago, had great faith in the mechanical cure of disease. It was a favorite saying of his that more patients would be cured by climbing a bitterwood tree, than by drinking a disgusting decoction of its leaves.

THERE is a most intimate relation between health and morality. We have long held that a great share of the crime among civilized people might be fairly charged to bad physical conditions, which, by impairing the physical health, lower the nerve tone, and then the moral tone, so that there is not a proper appreciation of moral principles and obligations. Is not this a means of explaining those strange lapses from rectitude on the part of men whose character has previously been for a lifetime above reproach, which now and then so startle and shock the moral sense of the community? A writer has suggested that the unhappy condition of John Calvin's stomach may have been the real cause of the burning of Servetus; and there is probably no doubt that many a poor fellow has swung from the gallows because the judge had a fit of indigestion.

Purifying the Blood. — It is a popular notion that the blood can be purified by swallowing some bitter stuff or nauseous medicine. Dr. Bacon, the modern substitute for Shakespeare, announced a theory many years ago, that everybody should be bled in the spring, and treated with purgatives, because the blood became so vile during the winter that it was necessary to purify it by emptying the blood-vessels. This was undoubtedly one way, and a robust person might suffer no real harm from the treatment; but it would be very difficult for a feeble person to overcome the debility, and furnish a new supply of blood. The idea was good, but in such a radical change the process of cure was so effective that it many times killed the patient. "Cured to death," might truthfully be written on a great many tombstones. The modern idea that the blood is to be purified by antidotes, is wholly unphilosophical. It is absurd to think that you are going to make the blood pure by putting something impure into it. The blood may be purified, but it must be by getting something out of it. The best way is to set to work nature's five great purifiers; the lungs, skin, liver, kidneys, and bowels, — the five great excretory organs of the body. If a man's blood is impure, it is because he has been taking something impure into it, or because he has not been using the excretory organs sufficiently to keep the impurities worked out. The first step would be to stop putting impurities into the blood, if that is what is the matter People who live grossly, eating flesh meats, pastry, etc., and perhaps swallowing such things as tea and coffee, wine and beer, and may be tobacco, are constantly over taxing the excretory organs. Living a sedentary life is

another way to encourage the deposit of impurities in the blood, there not being sufficient muscular exercise in such cases to assist in throwing off the waste particles of the body.

To make the skin more active, take a hot bath once, twice, or three times a week. If vigorous, one can stand a Turkish or vapor bath every day for a while. Do anything to get up a sweat; drink hot water, and wrap up in warm blankets. A good vapor bath can be taken in any ordinary bath-tub, by putting a slat bottom in the tub, or a board with holes in it, so as to allow a space at the bottom of the tub which will be free for a running stream of hot water. Lie down on this slat bottom, cover the tub with heavy blankets, and you will have as good a vapor bath as need be given. A Swedish shampoo, or a soap and water bath, or scouring the skin off with a brisk "salt glow," — any or all of these ways are good for getting up a healthy action of the skin.

Next endeavor to make the lungs work so vigorously as to increase the supply of oxygen. A person walking at the rate of three miles an hour, breathes three times as much air as one who is sitting still; and one walking at the rate of four miles an hour, breathes five times as much as one sitting still. When sitting, one only breathes about twenty cubic inches — about two-thirds of a pint — at each inhalation, the furnace door of the body being almost closed; but as just noted, even moderate walking triples the capacity for taking in air. With every breath, we throw off a certain amount of impurities; at the four-miles-an-hour pace we may not throw off five times as much waste matter as when sit-

ting still, but we will approximate that amount, perhaps about four times as much. Another advantage in deep breathing is that the oxygen taken into the lungs goes into every nook and cranny, and gets alongside every nerve and fiber of the body, — everywhere this clogging material is lodged, — and carries it out. It is a great house cleaner; it sweeps down the cobwebs, and shakes the curtains. That is why the skin looks clearer and fresher. Let a person whose skin is dingy, dirty, and sallow go out of doors and take regular and vigorous exercise. The fresh supply of oxygen thus gained will very soon tell upon the appearance of the skin.

The liver may be set to work, and by the same means the bowels and the kidneys can be made more active, and that is by simply drinking large quantities of hot water. The old German water-cure doctors found this out almost a hundred years ago. Old Dr. Pressnitz, of Graefenberg, used to recommend from twelve to twenty glasses of water a day, to be taken in connection with mountain climbing. There were beautiful springs along the mountain side, and walking and climbing, his patients would drink from six to twelve glasses before breakfast, and the dose could be repeated two or three times in the course of a day. Water is the best means of all for cleansing the stomach, liver, and kidneys. Every part of the body is permeated and cleansed. When we take water into the stomach, it is absorbed, and by the muscular action of the diaphragm this pure water is drawn into the body, and carries impurities out.

It is very interesting to notice how all these remedies co-operate: warm baths to make the skin active; exercise to make the lungs more active; and hot-water

drinking to increase the activity of the kidneys, bowels, and liver. The warm baths take some of the fluids out of the blood. Persons may lose even two pounds — that means two pints of water — through the skin in a hot bath. This excretion carries with it a large quantity of impurities, and this makes a person thirsty, and increases the amount of water-drinking, which supplies the water taken from the blood, while the water-drinking promotes the sweating, — action and reaction, you see, constantly. By exercise the lungs are made to act more vigorously. This increases the action of the diaphragm, and that squeezes the liver and presses the old bile out of it; and this, again, augments the water-drinking. Again, exercise induces perspiration, and that in turn also increases the water-drinking. Each means helps the others all the time, and in this way the blood is readily purified. But it cannot be done by a "tonic," or "blood-purifier." Every one of the nostrums advertised under these various names, contains from six to fifty per cent of bad whisky or alcohol, and yet the great majority of people depend upon them as purifying agencies, instead of upon the natural ones enumerated.

Stomach "Goneness." — The faintness or empty feeling of the stomach experienced by some in the evening or during the night, is caused by the two walls of the stomach coming in contact. When that organ is empty, it collapses; but in a state of health we do not feel this contact any more than we do the shutting of the two eyelids together. But when the stomach is diseased, we notice this contact just as we would contact of the eyelids if they were inflamed. The mucous membrane becomes congested and irritated, and causes

this "goneness." There are two remedies for this. One is to eat something, and fill the stomach up with some sort of bland substance, when the patient will feel temporarily better. There are some people who always eat something just before going to bed; they think it is dangerous to have the stomach empty. A great deal of harm is done in this way, yet some physicians recommend eating, because it will give this temporary relief. This eating for relief simply increases the cause of irritation. The trouble is due to congestion of the stomach, caused by over-work. The stomach is always temporarily congested during the act of digestion, and if it is kept constantly in use, the congestion will become permanent. The second and best remedy for this condition is rest, and the worst of all remedies is work. Food put into the stomach increases the congestion, because it makes the stomach work. You will notice that this trouble occurs in the evening or in the night. Persons make no such complaint in the morning. The stomach has had a chance to rest, yet three hours after breakfast, they may experience the same all-gone feeling. The proper remedy is rest and careful attention to the diet, that the cause may be relieved. For temporary relief, nothing is so good as a drink of cold water, and it will help to allay the congestion also.

Nervous Dyspepsia. — It has often been remarked that Americans are a nation of dyspeptics, and most physicians will readily assent to the assertion that fully half of the dyspeptics belong to the class commonly known as nervous dyspeptics. A chronic nervous dyspeptic is all but incurable, not because of tho intrinsic obstinacy of his malady, but because the disease is

more than half in his mind. We do not mean by this remark that he is an imaginary sufferer, but that the disease affects his mind in such a manner that the mental malady becomes the major part of the disease. He thinks of his stomach before he eats, while he eats, and after he eats. He will not let the poor organ escape from his mental vision for an instant, if possible to avoid it. He talks of his afflictions with every sympathetic friend who will listen. He considers his digestive machine the wickedest of stomachs, the very incarnation of cruelty, and in view of his daily martyrdom, wears a long face perpetually, and especially at home, where he entertains his wife and children with his groans and lamentations, and if possible makes nervous dyspeptics of them, so that they can the better appreciate his sufferings. If by any chance any of his symptoms disappear, straightway he goes to work to resurrect them, and he invariably succeeds. He would not have one of those precious symptoms get away for anything. He feels sure that no one appreciates properly his agonies of mind and body, and it is probable that his view of the matter is quite correct. Fearing that his malady is not considered so grave a matter as it should be, he sometimes exaggerates a little, not with the slightest intention of telling a falsehood, but simply to add picturesqueness to the monotonous desert of his existence, to highten the interest of his friends in his distressing case. Evidently the philanthropic purpose of his mendacity renders it almost excusable.

Thus the nervous dyspeptic goes on from year to year, until his disease veritably becomes grafted onto

his constitution as truly as a wild thorn may be grafted upon a choice apple-tree. To take his malady away from him is like tearing a limb from a tree. He would feel quite lost without it. He would hardly recognize himself, or know how to live without his hot-water drenchings, his after-dinner pills or charcoal wafers, his hot-water bags, his dietetic fussiness. His perpetual introspectiveness keeps his stomach under constant and the most minute observation. The poor organ is not intended by nature to be paraded in public after such a fashion, and is actually paralyzed by stage fright, as it were. If by any chance such a patient is cured, he quickly flounders back into his old morbid rut from sheer force of habit, and summons back for the entertainment of his depraved taste the ghostly hobgoblins which some good genius had temporarily banished; and so, to use a very ancient simile, he "returns like a dog to his vomit."

Those who look upon nervous dyspepsia as a trifling malady are quite unacquainted with its horrible tenacity. It clings to its victim like some huge monster of the deep, a devil-fish or a sea-serpent, crushing him in its toils, never quite extinguishing his last breath, but always threatening to do so, thus keeping him upon the ragged edge of despair, and at the same time holding him by some mystic charm, some strange fascination, so that he makes no effort to escape even when the toils are so loosened that he might. The victims of the disease require treatment of mind as well as body. They afford a most admirable class of subjects for mind-cure and faith-cure doctors. Indeed, this class of patients furnishes them their most brilliant successes.

But if faith alone will achieve so much, how much more might faith and works accomplish, if they could only be combined! This is the thing essential, in cases of nervous dyspepsia. Works alone do little or nothing; and if faith as well as works cannot be brought to bear upon a given case, better far throw diet and physic to the dogs, and turn the patient over to the professor of metaphysics, with his mummeries and moonshine; for at least half those suffering from this disease are more benefited by mummeries than mush, and appreciate more relief from liberal doses of moonshine than from baths or peptones.

Smoking a Cause of Consumption and Bright's Disease. — A celebrated European specialist has recently called attention to the fact that consumption is becoming exceedingly prevalent among cigar-smokers. The reason for this is evident. The fact that persons of feeble or diseased constitution are frequently employed in the manufacture of cigars, coupled with the enforced confinement in a close and foul atmosphere, renders this class of laborers especially liable to consumption. It is not an uncommon thing to see two or three loud consumptives in a single cigar-factory. Of course, the mouth and lips are constantly soiled with the expectorated matter; and when the cigar-maker puts on the finishing touch to the cigar, by moistening it with his lips, he infects it; and the man who smokes the cigar, thereby becomes vaccinated with the disease. It might, perhaps, not be a matter to be so greatly regretted, that the race of cigar-smokers should be killed off, although it must be admitted that, through ignorance, many excellent men are addicted to the practice; but the non-

users of cigars are interested in this matter almost as much as those who smoke, for the reason that the person suffering from consumption will be a source of infection to others. We have, in more than one instance, been able to trace consumption in a wife to the care of a consumptive husband; and so the smoking husband might easily infect an unoffending wife, from whom the disease might in turn be communicated to innocent children. Cigar-smoking must be regarded as one of the most dangerous as well as one of the most loathsome practices tolerated among civilized people.

Dr. Auld, of Glasgow, also raises a warning voice when he states an important fact which seems to have been heretofore overlooked; viz., that tobacco may be a cause of organic disease of the kidneys. As is well known, the appearance of albumen in the urine is the leading symptom of Bright's disease of the kidneys. Dr. Auld finds that the use of tobacco is often accompanied by this symptom, and lays it down as one of the results of chronic nicotine poisoning.

This eminent physician has done the world a valuable service in calling attention to this important fact. He also states that according to his observations, tobacco is responsible for a very large number of functional disorders not commonly attributed to it. He finds that tobacco poisons both the nerve centers and the nerve ends, causing muscular twitching and various other nervous symptoms.

Dr. Auld makes the important observation that when these symptoms are found present, it is not necessary merely to moderate the use of the drug, but it must be wholly discarded; otherwise a cure cannot be

effected. This is contrary to the advice of most physicians, who commonly prohibit only what they term excess. We have for many years observed, however, that half-way measures will not do in these cases. Tobacco must be discarded wholly and forever.

The amount of nerve energy and vital force that is being squandered by the use of this drug is beyond estimate. If the sum total of human life and strength sacrificed to tobacco could be represented in figures, the aggregate would be astounding. Tobacco is unquestionably one of the worst of all the curses of civilization. It certainly is equaled only by two vices — inebriety and immorality. The mischief done by opium, cocaine, and other vice-drugs is enormous, but incomparable beside the far-reaching evils justly attributable to the use of tobacco. Thousands of men are kept in a state of chronic lethargy by its narcotic influence. Millions of consciences are benumbed by its subtle spell. Countless multitudes of children are born with weak nerves and feeble constitutions, as the result of the chronic nicotine poisoning of parents.

The use of the vile drug by civilized man is one of the enigmas of modern civilization. The old Greeks and Romans, who shaped the foundations of our modern civilization, used neither tobacco, tea, nor coffee, nor strong liquor. If they had indulged in these stimulants as do men and women of the present day, it is safe to say that the human race would, by the present time, have been deteriorated to the vanishing point, with the possible exception of those savage tribes who may have been preserved by their isolation from the influence of these destructive agents. Unless a radical change for

the better can be effected within a few generations to come, the condition of the then existing race at the present rate of deterioration, is fearful to contemplate. Extinction would come at last as a beneficent act of nature who desires only the survival of the fittest.

Coffee Poisoning. — A leading French journal calls attention to twenty-three cases of chronic caffeism. These were the leading symptoms noticed: Loss of appetite, inability to sleep, trembling of the lips and tongue, dyspepsia, neuralgia, pain in the stomach, giddiness, convulsions, and obstinate constipation. The coffee drunkard has thin features, drawn and wrinkled face, and a grayish yellow complexion. His sleep is troubled with anxious dreams. His pulse is weak, frequent, and compressible. This same writer asserts that evil effects upon the eyes and ears of people are more frequent from coffee than from tobacco or alcohol. It does not absolutely destroy vision or hearing, but it induces very annoying functional troubles. That coffee is the efficient agent, appears from the fact that, upon the entire discontinuance of its use, the symptoms complained of disappear.

Diet for Diabetics. — All physicians of experience are agreed that in the treatment of this disease, by far the most important measure is the regulation of the diet. Sugar, starch, and all foods containing them, should be, as far as possible, excluded from the dietary. This requires that the patient should abstain from the use of sugar in any form, from bread, potatoes, peas, beans, rice, oatmeal, corn-meal, and other grains, chestnuts, and all other farinaceous articles of food. Sweet fruits also must be avoided with equal care. The diet should

consist chiefly of meat of different kinds, including fowl. Greens, green beans, lettuce, yellow beets, asparagus, cucumbers, and radishes may also be eaten. Most acid fruits may be taken in moderate quantities, such as lemons, oranges, strawberries, peaches, and currants. In many cases skim-milk, sour milk, or buttermilk may be taken without increasing the proportion of sugar, and hence without injury. Several eminent physicians claim to have cured a number of cases of this disease by means of an exclusive milk diet, the patient being confined to this one article of food for several weeks. The milk should be carefully skimmed. The quantity required per day is from two to three quarts. By the employment of a diet free from sugar or starch, sugar may in many cases be made to disappear from the urine. When this is the case, it may be looked upon as a very favorable indication, and often so long as the patient continues to abstain from those kinds of food which occasion the production of sugar, the disease will be held in check. Many so-called gluten flours and gluten breads are manufactured and sold to persons suffering from this disease, which are shown by chemical analysis to contain no more gluten than the best whole-wheat flour. It is, in fact, impossible to make a flour which will contain much more than the ordinary percentage of gluten obtained in whole-wheat flour, as it is impossible to separate the starch and the gluten by any process of milling. The Sanitarium Health Food Co., of Battle Creek, Michigan, are the only manufacturers of pure gluten with whom we are acquainted in this country. The gluten manufactured by them has for many years been largely used for diabetics, with excellent results.

The Wilford Hall Secret. — For two or three years, a man styling himself Dr. A. Wilford Hall, of New York City, has been advertising and vending about the country a pamphlet purporting to disclose a discovery made by himself something more than forty years ago. The so-called discovery which Dr. Hill claims to have made is this: —

Having had dyspepsia for a number of years, and being greatly troubled with constipation, he resorted to the enema as a means of emptying his bowels, and discovered, as he claims, that it was possible to inject a gallon of water into the colon by means of a bulb syringe. He accordingly adopted this method of relieving his bowels, and has habitually employed it, as he claims, for more than forty years, during which time, he states, his bowels have been relieved in no other way than by the use of the syringe. He afterwards found that it was possible to retain a small quantity of water — half a pint or more — which, remaining in the bowels, was absorbed the same as though taken through the mouth. This is the whole of Dr. Hall's discovery. He recommends the use of the enema as a substitute for nature's method of relieving the bowels, to be employed by all persons, whether sick or well, and claims that persons who will adopt this method of relieving the bowels will be proof against most of the diseases to which human flesh is heir, mentioning particularly such disorders as Bright's disease of the kidneys, small-pox, and other grave and contagious maladies.

This so-called discovery is embodied by Dr. Hall in a cheaply printed pamphlet costing about two cents, for which he charges the modest sum of $4.00. The

fraudulent business carried on by this man we have fully exposed elsewhere,[58] and have shown that Dr. Hall's so-called discovery is not a discovery at all, and his so-called panacea is capable of doing much harm. It is also clearly proven that Dr. Hall is not entitled to any claim whatever as regards the priority of the use of large quantities of water by enema. The reader is referred to various hydropathic works published prior to the date at which Dr. Hall claims to have made his discovery, in which the use of water in this manner is fully described.

The absurdity of the claims made by Dr. Hall is so manifest it seems almost an imposition upon the good sense of our readers to seriously undertake to point it out. For example, to reason that because washing the dirt from one's face and hands is a perfectly harmless and wholesome practice, flushing of the colon may be practiced habitually without injury, is in the highest degree absurd. Washing of the outside of the body is a perfectly natural process. Nearly all animals are accustomed to bathe the exterior of their bodies; but nature has provided other means for cleansing the interior of the body. The various digestive fluids, the gastric juice, bile, etc., and even the intestinal mucus, are antiseptics by which the contents of the intestines are preserved from putrefaction; and in the lower bowel the mucus, which is abundantly secreted by the glands furnished for the purpose, forms a coating over the mass of fecal matter, and thus protects the mucous membrane

against the absorption of poisonous substances. These natural protective agents are entirely sufficient under ordinary conditions of life. It is only when the bowels become inactive, or when, through errors in diet, the contents of the bowels become unnaturally poisonous, that other means are necessary. Then the enema may be properly used as a means of washing away offending substances, and affording temporary relief; but the proper remedy is to be found in correcting the causes of an abnormal condition, by avoiding errors in diet or in other habits of life. [58] See GOOD HEALTH, a monthly magazine published by the Good Health Publishing Co., Battle Creek, Mich., for July, August, and September, 1890.

The practice of habitually introducing so large a quantity of water into the alimentary canal, has the effect to destroy the normal sensibility of the bowels, and to establish an abnormal condition, so that this large amount of water becomes necessary as a stimulus to provoke an evacuation of the intestines. It was long, long ago discovered by physicians that the habitual use of the enema as a means of stimulating the evacuation of the bowels, is by no means free from evil consequences. Chronic constipation cannot be cured by this method any more than by the use of cathartics. It is only a mechanical means of emptying the bowels, which is undoubtedly preferable to the retention of fecal matter; hut at the same time it is not a cure of the morbid condition, and a person who habitually uses the enema, becomes as much dependent upon it as is the habitual user of mineral water or pills, upon these medicaments. For a healthy person, then, to adopt the employment of this so-called "secret," is to invite disease, and produce a condition of chronic constipation and absolute dependence upon some mechanical means of evacuation of the

bowels. One can scarcely believe that any well-informed man would undertake to impose upon an intelligent public so absurd a notion, and one is compelled to consider the self-styled philanthropist who claims to have made this wonderful discovery, as suffering from mental deterioration, or as deliberately perpetrating a fraud upon the public.