New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-08-03
nay FEVER.

With the beginning of August the watery-
eyed multitude flee 10 the mOuntain-tOps, laden
with cket-handkerchiefs, inhalators, nasal
syringes, and maps of the United States, on
which the SUBMITS which profess TO be mae
cessible to hay fever are set down in cheer
full red. These suffering, shifting hordes.
which rush TO and fro every August
to escape their mysterious tormentOr,
equal in number any of the leGOns
of the Crusades which set out to conquer
the Holy Land. Fashions change. We SIT in
our pews and fight heathendom through
tracts and missionary boxes in lieu of sword
and lance. The very diseases of our
bodies have their new whims and outbreaks
rs well as our science or religion. In the days
of the Crusades, there were 800 leper houses
in Great Britain before Lady Mary inoculated
her boy, twO-thirds of the men and women
in England were SCARED deep with smallpox,
and thanked God, too, that their lives were
left to them.
Now we have given leprosy and smallpox
the go-by; 1t Is our nerves that jangle out Of
tune. Remedies change as well as ailments
instead of mystic pOtiOns Of OWLS fat
and plasters of ants, air is the universal rem
edy. We migrate in legions TO Minnesota,
Florida, to Aiken, Arizona, to find the quality
of breath just suited to our special rheuma-
tism or catarrh. Or we betake ourselves to
pure milk and nature, or give ourselves up 10
be kneaded or magnetized. There is no end
10 the discoveries of science in new diseases,
and there is nothing in which Fashion fol-
lows more blindly or talks more loudly. Some
oculIst, for example, discovered q year OF
two ago that difference in the
focal distance Of the eyes resulted some
times in headache, nervous disease, and even
epilepsy. Now. every second man or child that
you meet wears spectacles, and half of the all
ments of brain, stomach or liver are saddled
on the unfortunate lenses Of the eye. Let us
have some common sense as we'll as science
in the matter. few of the eyes of the
present generation doubtless differ in the con-
vexity Of the lenses, but their almost univer-
sal inferiority to the eyes of our grandlathers
is much more likely to be the result
of their misuse in childhood Our boys
and girls use their eyes over fine text
in school books, papers and magazines
to an extent unknown to any pre-
vIous generation and as if that were not
enough, even the babies in the lundergar-
tens are put to picking out patterns with pins
and working in cardboard, when their eyes
are unfit for close use ut short distances.
The mOuntaineer of seventy in the Blue
Ridge, who can pick you out the deer's trail
over the dry leaves, and whose eyes have
been trained TO long outdoor vision, wears
no eyeglasses, and has no trouble with his
focal distances.
Just the same reasoning may apply 10 this
hay fever panic. A few unfortunates, no
doubt, are mystenously affected by the pollen
Of certain flowers, or by the aroma of the
linden, or some murderous invisible ANIMAL
cu@ going about in the hay fields seeking
whom they may devour But eight out of ten
Of the othor refugees to the mountain-tops,
we would suggest, are people with tendency to
catarrh and lung disease, who take care of them
selves in Winter, but ignore the fact that
August, with its intense heat, violent perspira-
ton, light clothing, and the malaria abroad In
all low and swampy districts, is the very sea-
son for cold and fever. Let them fly to the
pleasantest mountain peak they know of, If
they choose to have good time. But a little