The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-08-20
HOW TO GET OVER IT.
Advice to Victims of the Klondike
 Fever.


 Fever.
 First, don't go. In all probability 1t will be the mistake of your life, is the advice the Hartford Courant gives to prospective Klondikers. This advice IS commended to certain New Haveners who are saving up for the trip over the Chilcoot pass next spring. The Courant continues:
 Second, if you have made up your mind to go, and are neither too bold nor too blind, don't rush off like fool with the other fools. Wait. Give yourself a fair chance to get to the Klondike alive and fit for work. Hal Hoffman reports August 6) from Juneau to the Chicago Tribune:
 Experienced prospectors who have been into the Yukon before are return- ing to their homes and will wait until next spring. But the tenderfoot Wran- gles with packers and staggers on over the summit. The Yukon and Lewis have been known to freeze by the mid dle of August. While this is an excep- tion, it is more than possibility The general prospect as viewed from the border of the land of gold at this time is that the route to Yukon will be streWn with bones as well as blasted hopes."
 Third, before you start next year, if you are still bent on starting, go to a good surgeon, get him to give you Q thorough looking over, tell him what you have in mind, and then listen with both ears to every word he says to you. Meanwhile read and consider these sug gestions of Dr. A. P. O'Brien of Chi caGo-a medical man who does not re- gard the climate of Alaslle as more un- healthful 'in itself'' than that of the northern counties of Illinois or the northern shires of Scotland:
 ITO the weak, or those disposed to special ailments, conditions which are only invigorating to the man in aver age health are often absolutely fatal Weak hearts and weak lungs cannot face northern blasts or temperatures below zero. Rheumatism and it's kin dred affections are equally unfitted for such tests. Nor are such persons, whether young or old, as have been | long accustomed to purely sedentary occupations or to live lives of ease or luxury, physically fitted for the hard ships of the Klondille. In the former 1 the vital and resistive powers have never been developed, in the latter they 1 have been sapped. Weak eyes would ] be severely tested by the glare of the snow-covered land, and blindness is but one of the dangers to be feared by Arc tic explorers. In brief, I would say that persons subject to troubles of the heart. throat or lungs should stay away from | the Klondike. Physical exhaustion, colds, scurvy, rheumatism, snow blind ness are chief dangers to be appre- 1 hended on the trip from a medical l standpoint"
 | Fourth, if the surgeon tells you you can go, and you still want to go, don't start without a we'll assorted little med l ical chest in your outfit Dr. O'Brien's s estimate of the necessary cost is with in s10." His advice as to the contents l is that they should include quinine l pills acetanilid tablets, chlorate of pot ash, mustard plasters, belladonna plas- ters, carbolic salve chloroform lini- ment witch hazel, essence of ginger, paregoric, laudanum, borax, tincture of iron, cough mixture, Monsell's salts for hemorrhages, toothache drops, vase line, iodoform, assorted bandages, rub Der adhesive plasters, absorbent cotton and lint. Find out what all these things are for before you pack them away, if you don't know.
 Fifth don't go