The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-09
A TALK WITH WOMEN.
Shirley Dare on How TO Take
Care of the Health.
SUMMER THE STORAGE TIME
Strength Factor of Beauty-sitting on
Hotel Piaxzas, Boat Riding and Dane
ing Don't Make Good Looks.

| woman ASS the name OF book which
will give her all the information needed to
insure perfect health and freedom from
disease. The book is not yet written
which contains this valuable compendium.
Many experienced men have tried their
hands at writing il, but so far leave much
to be supplied by generations to come.
knowledge is not gained as easily as you
seem to think. You can't gain it from
handbooks like the lawn tennis manuals
which young ladies hold in one hand as
they play with the other, and learn the
rules in this hand to mouth way. To gain
any deposit of knowledge above the small,
well worn quantity in general use, you
must read, or rather study, which is read
to remember and compare with observa-
ton afterward. The first application of
what you read to facts will bring out
| points on which the books are silent, and
| for anything bearing on these points
| you must follow trails through years
of uninteresting reading to find in
sentence from some modest practi-
/ toner, perhaps, the point worth all the
rest of the book. The general reader will
hardly have the taste or patience for this
| study, but such is the process by which
men gain anything in advance of the COM
nun cbOCk Va lucdS. 4uOSb ALCu aAC NOhNNhs
| to go through life hooking ideas in BUSH
ness and social life, as when boys they
went hooking apples. You see this in any
new invention. however trifimg, whether
| it is a new cosmetic or kitchen article,
| that the original is hardly on the market
before dozen inventions spring up by
men who want to reap the profit of other
minds without the trouble of taking
thought themselves. Imitation is con-
fessed inferiority. and the consumer wants
to take heed of this. Whether buying cos
metics or medicines, always go for the or
iginal, which will invariably be found in
approachable The imitation which i'm
proves upon it will ann for the individu-
atty of its own. / always feel that am
defrauding myself in taking an imitation.
To return to the subject of health read
ing, it is remarkable how little of the sort
is found in town libraries. 1t is con-
sidered Indispensable to have books on art
and a great many repetitions of history,
besides the trash of children's reading and
summer novels, but a dozen books on
health are large selection At least one
tenth the common town library ought TO
be given to works on health and santa
tion--such books as DIR. B. Ward Richard
sons Diseases OF Modern Life" and his
eloquent essays on "The Common Health"
Sir III. Thompson's work on Food" DIR.
Anstie's several handbooks on "Women's
Diseases and his Neuralgia" DIR. Weir
Mitchell's "Wear and Tear for the Over
worked" and his doctor and Patient"
for women; DIR. Graham's book on MAS
sage" and DIR. Taylor's on the Swedish
Movement Cure" and Edwin Checkley's
Natural Method of Physical Training"
with two or three good books on nursing,
beginning, of course, with Florence Night
ingale's incompatible notes on that sub
ject, and all such clear, thorough and
interesting handbooks on sanitary matters
as that on "Potable Water" by Floyd
Davis, chemist to the Iowa state board of
health. Also two or three good books on
the properties of plants, which must be
picked up second hand, As they are out of
print, and some sound treatises on cleo
tricity in disease, which, fear, has yet to
be written for the laity.
There are hardly any of them new books,
but they are the soundest, safest and most
interesting for the non-professional reader.
Add to these the yearly compend of medi-
cal discoveries published annually in New
York, and you have fund of practical in
formation on health which will result in
untold good to communities and much saw
ing of life and morals. No possible teach
ing on the latter subject can compare with
the indirect influence of physiology and
medicine. Were women specially better
instructed in the history of their own
physical life, bravely and fully, tempta-
ton would become extinct Not all the
world has TO offer would weigh against the
torturing penalties of error, and what is
infafliuonro Iunul1
terrible marriages which mean unavoida-
BILE and agonizing deaths to young moth
ers.
Without lifting the wells of the unknow-
able, it would teach young women not to
lay the train for the sickening disasters
of little later life by colds, neglect and
over exertion. The passive congestion
caused by chilled feet and short-sleeved
undervests in change of weather, or by
dancing, going journeys or prancing round
Sunday-school picnics when girl ought
to be keeping quiet at home, have laid the
foundation for many of those cases of
fibroid and cancerous degeneration which
make professional reading a succession of
Nightmares worse than the Newgate calen-
dar, and plant in happy homes the living
sarcophagus with the odor and putrescence
of death in life. That cannot be spoken
which hundreds and thousands of loving
families are called TO endure in the living
agonizing decay of their fairest and dear
est, who cry to their physicians: s'Cure
me or kill mel" The records go far to
show that of every six girls, beautiful
lively and adored, one at least is certain
of mutilated, narrowing death, in mar
riage or out of it. And yet one wise parent
takes me to task for saying that no book
is yet written to teach girls what they
ought to know for the preservation of
their health. He writes as follows:
/ notice with surprise that you say there are
no books TO teach q modest girl in modest yay
how 10 take care of herself for health and re-
fnemeut. There are two books published I'm
England and ohtainable here which leave moth
ing 10 be desired in the matter of modesty-"Ad
vice 10 Wife and advice 20 a Mother
presented my wife with one of them when we
were married, we gave them TO our daughter
when she married and we have given and rec
commended them TO our dearest friends The
author Is Pye-Chevasse, who died few years
ego but his works are still the standard in
England. Trusting this information may prove
OF use to you, remain, etc.
With all respect to Pye-Chavasse, whose
work was not unknown to me previously.
this letter is fresh proof of the great want
of hygienic advice for girls. There is
plenty of advice for wife and a mother.
but We need something for a woman as an
iudapandeut heinO outside Of