The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-21
MORSE SINE CAnS1

mon Sense, how TO keep themse YES well. thew
must in one respect at least, be hopelessly
foolish; and not all the physicians in the world
can, without their own cooperation in the
matter, secure health to them.
The laws of health, happily, are becoming
more and more popular study; yet no candid
and intelligent person can read the detail of
fatal accidents in one single weeks newspapers
without feeling convinced that nine out of ten
arise from ignorance or neglect of the laws of
health, or from setting at defiance such good
old adages as 'Look before you leap" "Pre-
vention is better than cure''-in other words
Common Prudence.
"Disease Prevention Acts" "Sanitary
Reforms, and such moral machinery,
are set to work to root out cpl
demics to eradicate diseases which find con-
genial soil in poverty and degradation; to
preach on the excellent text, ga clean life and
a trust in God are the best of all prophylac-
tics, +" and to show to the million to how great
an extent their lives are-under God--in their
own keeping. This paper, however, is not adj
dressed to the poor and the ignorant, but to
such intelligent readers as-being neither fools
nor forty, neither hypochondriaoal, valetudi-
nary, nor learned in drugs-may become in a
measure their own physicians, and be also the
means of bene6ting others within the sphere
of their influence, whether epidemics be
raging or not.
Psychologists assure us that we can perform
wonders in the art of prolonging life, not leav-
ing us ignorant of the means by which we
should set to work; and though these things
have been written about again and again. the
experience of every day seems to Justify few
more words, and especially with reference to
early education.
An inquiry into the nature of accidents by
fire, poison, drowning, suffocation, etc., will
satisfy any one that the majority of them
prove fatal from the mere lack of presence of
mind in persons at hand, or of prompt ap-
of
every one ought to be acquainted. Not insig-
nifcant among life-preserving accomplish
ments, therefore, is the cultivation of philo-
sophioal equanimity on the occurrence of start
ling or sudden events. Young persons cannot
be too early trained to this, and the formation
of their judgment regarding remedies, perni-
ciOus agents, and their antidotes.
Continually we meet with young girls who,
on the occurrence of an accident run hither
and thither, wringing their hands and shaking
with fear, when, had they their wits about
them, they might, by affording instantaneous
assistance, be the means of averting sufferings,
perhaps even death itself. How many a
woman has been burnt to death within the
last few years because, on finding her dress
ignited, she has run terrified into the air,
instead of rolling herself in blanket or the
first heavy woollen wrap she can seize. I'm
deniably this helpless fear is one of the "per-
nicious agents" to be guarded against. Often,
too often, is fear the origin of fits, idiotcy to
the unborn, accidents innumerable death
itself. An instance of the latter occurred in
the case of a lady who, when in precarious
state of health, saw spider on the
white curtain of her bed. 1t was one
OF those terrible animals, with a great
hairy body as big as plover's egg, or with
legs like young crab, sometimes to be seen
in hot countries making the tour of your
chamber-wall, and which really might like a
taste of your blood, provided it found you in
log-. eka 90 80 - l.
less English spider; it did not bite the lady,
go near her, yet it killed her by merely being
there. She had just become mother, and on
catching sight Of the insect was thrown into
convulsions by an unconquered terror of
spiders Death resulted. Two deaths for
the motherless babe died too, and had an in
quest been held on the bodies, the verdict on
both could only have been, "Killed by
spider" Perhaps the hysterical screams OF
that poor lady's own mother or nurse had
early implanted these ineradicable horrors IN
her breast, when she was timid child. Ii so,
what a solemn Everdict for that mother or
nurse And this is only one of many in
stances where senseless fears have been visited
by fatal results.
But" the reader may protest, "there are
natural antipathies which are wholly uncon-
uuerable," ;" and long list of facts will be pro-
duced. So there are; but they are few in COM
parison with those which early and judicious
training will overcome, and to which we now
more particularly refer. Irrespective of natu-
raj antpathies, then, you may daily meet with
educated persons who are positively not
ashamed to betray fear at the sight of spider,
a toad, or a mouse. Here, in much cultivated
England, in this nineteenth century, when
YOU cannot take q country walk without
encountering a man in wild pursuit of some
bug, or ramble along shore where
young England is not raking and poking
among the rocks for queer-looking mollusks
when so many households are familiar with
collections of crawling creatures alive or dead
when batrachians are among the domestic pet;
of our youngsters-that there should still be
intelligent women who shrek at poor little
spider, an earwig, or a cockroach
''Why, are you afraid of a toad ?'' asked {
lady only the other evening, on seeing hel
rush frantically across the road away from
one.
so, l always aoaS afraid of toads. They are
so cold; they hop so."
Cold -blooded, depraved young toads Per
, nicious creatures Why hop ye so?
oGood gracious 20 cried another lady, and a
sensible one, too in most respects, 81 would
rather be shut up in the Black Hole than be in
a room with a rat on hearing me say / had
once watched some half dozen peTambulatine
my chamber abroad, before taking aim with
walking boots, bits of fTewOod, and other
missiles, which l invariably piled on chair
by my bedside for that purpose. Not bu
what rats Gresometimes savage and dangerous
and confess that it was only after a week
experience had assured me that those rats haC
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