The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-12-15
Health Hints and
= Rules Of Hygiene
Suggestions That May Save You Many
a Doctors Bill.
WISDOM FOR THE HOUSEHOLD
These Hints Don't Cost Much, Are Not
Copyrighted, and If They Don't DO
You Any Good, They'll Not
Do You Any Harm.

Ever and always something new! Not
many weeks ago. in this column of The
Tribune, we narrated the peculiar rem
iniscence of how Artist Fl. r. Rowley.
once of Pittston, got the better of a most
rebellious stomach by literally plaster
ing it over with table mustard. Now
comes another grotesque cure for dys-
pepsla--a cure which leaps incontinently
to the directly opposite extreme. The
Rowley cure was hot one. This is
ice-cold. Last week. in London, during
a lecture before the Academy of Medi-
cine, Professor Pictet outlined with
much care a system of frigotherapeu-
tics. He began by experimenting on
dogs, and found that when they We're
plunged into bath at low temperature
and We're kept there for some time they
became raVenously hungry. Being HIM
self sufferer from stomach disease he
had forgotten what it was to have an
appetite. So he descended into the re-
frigerating tank at temperature many
degrees below zero. He wrapped
thick pelisse and other warm clothes
about him, but after four minutes he
began to feel hungry. At the end of
eight minutes he climbed out of the
tank with u painfully keen appetite.
Many such experiments were made.
All meals taken, after a short stay in
the refrigerator, agreed with him. He
found that his dyspepsia was cured after
the tenth descent. In dog days this
wouldn't be bad. But in December,
with the wind roistering out of doors
and the mercury wheeling down to-
ward the bulb-ugh!
Science is still casting its chilly eye
on that agreeable pastime of fair maid
ems and love-sick swains-kissing. Sci
ence is evidently determined, in its cold,
materialistic, fashion, that kissing must
go. Says u matter-of-fact scientific
journal:
kissing may be conventionally divided
INTO two classes-those which belong 10
and are intimately associated with the
warmer passions of the heart and those
which are purely conventional. In view
I of the eXacting demands of modern sani-
tary principles, in neither case Is the hab-
1t desirable or even permissible Never
theless, 1t is only waste of labor for medi-
cal mentors to protest against the habit,
so far as the first order of kisses is con-
cerned. With respect, however, to the sec-
ond variety of kisses, the matter is differ
ent. For the most part the habit Is prac-
tised upon children-both girls and boys.
Among ourselves, too, kissing to a large
extent prevails. But the facility with
which diphtheria, measles, whooping-
| cough and scarlet fever are transmitted
in early life renders the habit one which
| common sense will show to be open to
grave objection However essential con-
| ventional kisses may be regarded as a
means of demonstrating friendship and
politeness, parents should, nevertheless
we think, consider in this matter the well
fare of their children first. our condeln-
nation of kisses may, for practical pur-
poses, be restricted to the Objectionable
but common practice of kissing on the
mouth. Among grown-up people 1t is I'M
becoming, to say the least, while toward
and between children the practice is open
to the gravest suspicion. Children can he
trained with the greatest ease to offer the
cheek or the forehead for the proffered
caress, and to elude the attempt to con-
of all the diseases mentioned may or may
not, be infective in the ordinary accepta-
ton of the term. Upon this matter our
knowledge, so far, is by no means certain,
while, on the other hand, recent investigl-
tions would seem to indicate that the in
fection of Zymotic diseases in patients is
of very much longer duration than used
formerly to be supposed, enduring, in
deed, long after conValesCenCe has been
established"
Hence, down with kissing! Slightly
illogical, you say? Well, yes. But
there's this consolation. 1t won't make
any difference. People will kiss and
other people will be kissed, microbes OF
no microbes, infection or no infection
to the end of time.
A well-known medical writer thus de.
scribes the physiology of a cold: phys.
iologists have said that if a few drops
of the blandest fluid in nature are in.
jected into n blood vessel against the
current death is an instantaneous re.
suit. Millions of canals or tubes from
the inner portion of the body open theii
little mouths at the surface, and through
channels as ceaseless as the flow OF
time, "A fluid containing the wastes anG
impurities of the system is passing out.
ward, and is emptied out on the skin
This fluid must have exit or we die in o
few hours. If it does not have vent al
the surface of the body it must have
some internal outlet. Nature abhorS
shocks as she does vacuum. Heat dis
tends the mouths of these ducts ant
promotes larger and more rapid flow
of the contained fluid; on the othel
hand, cold contracts them, and the fiuit
is at first arrested, dams up and re
bounds. If the purest warm milk, in
jected against the current, kills in 6
moment, not from any chemical quality
but from the force against the natura
current, there need be no surprise a.
the i'll effects of suddenly closing tn,
mouths of millions of tubes at the sam,
instant, causing a violence at every pin
head surface of the body If thes,
mouths are gradually closed nature ha!
time to adapt herself to the circumstan
ces by opening her channels into thu
great internal waterways of the body
and no harm follows. Hence the safet,
Of cooling off slowly after exercise o.
being in a heated apartment, and tn
danger of cooling off rapidly, under tn,
same circumstances, Familiarity known
by the expression Checking perspira
, tion.' The result Of closing the pores o
the skin is various according to the di
rection the shock takes, and this is al
ways to the weakest part; in the littl
child 1t is to the throat, and there Il
Group or diphtheria; in the adult 1t is t,
the head, giving catarrh in the head o
running of the nose; to the lungs, Civ
ing a bad cold, or If very violent caus
ing pneumonia or Inflammation of tn,
lungs themselves; or pleurisy, innamma
/ tion of the covering of the lungs; to tn,
: bowels, causing profuse and sudden di