Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-04-19
Food and Consumption.

|
Friend You and have dear ones we
| know must leave us soon by means OF
| that devastating American plague,
, consumption Let us reason together.
| AT the tables of how many farmers
, and mechanics, l wonder, is the buck
| wheat breakfast gone into disgrace
| We all readily can recall the time
when countless multitudes Of families
broke their fast of twelve hours, and
faced the work of a clustering winters
day, with nothing but greasy buck
wheat cakes and molasses. They
might almost as well have eaten saw
dust. And what had they for dinner
, Salt pork and potatoes. And for sup
per? Potatoes and salt pork for q
change sometimes cold, and made
palatable with vinegar! Oh, forgot
. the pie the everlasting pie, with its
sugary center and its leathery crust
the one Utilization of the palate that
made life tolerable. Good bread and
butter OF milk, abundance of fruit,
beef, mutton, and nutritious puddings
all these things are within the
reach of people who have left
the East, and at this time these
sturdy Westerncrs are noted for being
the most progressive farmers in the
world; but they have cost something,
and have not really been deemed
necessary. The people have not real
lied thaG what they regarded as
/ Injuries were nccessaries, aud that the
food upon which they have depended
for protection from more rigorous
! climate, and for the repair of the
wastes of labor, has boon altogether
inadequate, and is leaving them with
Blood impoverished and lungs tuber-
culatcd. After taking into account all
hereditary influences, upon which doc
tors place great stress in treating OF
the cause of phthisis, insufficient nour-
ishment is alike responsible.
In most instances the deposit of tut
bercle and the inflammation to which
it naturally gives rise is directly trace
able to poor food. There are many
men who by change of living render
| the tubercles already deposited in theil
lungs harmless. Vitality becomes sc
high in its power that it dominates
these evil influences, and they live ont
n tolerably long life with enemies il
| their lungs that are rendered powerless
| by the strength of the fluid that fights
them. have seen consumption cured
again and again by the simple process
of building up the forces of vitality
through passive exercise in the oper
! air and the supply of an abundance Of
nutritious food, and have not the
least doubt that it can be prevented il
most instances by the same means.
No human being can long endure the
| draft made upon it by cold climate
and by constant labor, unless it is well
fed, well clothed, and well housed
Somewhere deterioration will show
| itself, and in all countries where pco
pie arc poorly fed consumption deci-
mates the ropulace. There should
the West and North in consequence OF
the increased Intelligence of the peo
pie, but so long as so many of them
are unsettled, moving and moving
leaving good places vacant to be taken
by ignorant, often filthy, foreign popu
latioa, it is not likely that statistics
will show much less tuberculosis fol-
| years to come.
When we are sick we hire physician
who can live only by people being sick
If we could hire doctors to keep us well
if 2 code of ethics could be adopted thai
they would only be paid for preventing
disease, and could be permitted to pre-
scribe for each family its way of living
there would be but little difficulty il
routing from it's stronghold that mos
fatal and persistent enemy of human
life which we call consumption, bu
which is not, it being just the oppo
site. Consumptives do not consume