The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1901-12-20

pend our energies most usefully in
preventing it. We may injure, may
even spoil the handiwork of
Creative wisdom; let us rather
account it an honor to preserve
our Makers work at it's best.
AvoIDABLENEss OF SICKNESS CoNs1r-
You would like to reflect upon the
proposition that it is our privilege to
escape very large percentage of the
i'll health which affiicts us. Have you
considered that the domestic animals,
horses, cattle, ETC., conform to the
laws of their being far more complete-
ly than the rational animals. man and
woman; and their health is proportion
ately superior to that of human beings?
Notice. moreover, that if they had
their own way, free from the inter-
ference of man, they would conform to
the laws of health still more complete
ly, and would excel man in health pro-
portionately.
But the wild animals have their own
way more entirely, and healthy crea-
lures they are. A bison, deer, a fox,
a squirrel, a partridge, a trout, how
| little need has he of doctor, dentist.
sanatorium, or medicine What hunt
er expects to come upon a sick beast:
what naturalist to find a bluebird or a
meadow-lark disordered with bilious
ness or typhoid fever, or disabled bv
nervous prostration? When one wild
animal inquiries of another, GLOW are
you?' it may correctly reply; 81 am
as I do; do well and am WE'LL" Call
to mind the observation of the patri-
arch Job: "ASk now the beasts, and
they shall teach thee; and the fowls of
the air, and they shall tell thee" How
do you do? know man who con-
sumed strength month after month
faster than it was supplied; he trans
crossed the laws of his being, in other
words, took the way to injure and dis
able his body, and you know the rest.
Another risks the exposure which he
was obligated to avoid, and he credits
his rheumatism to fate and his pneu-
monia to Providence. One labors in
temporarily, and denies himself need
full rest; he is disObeying his Makers
laws. One eats and drinks things that
are pernicious or at least threatening:
and quite as often eats and drinks
things.essentially wholesome to excess,
or with pernicious haste, or at wrong
times; or he gives himself to other
forms of senSuOus Indulgence that have
no promise of health, inquiring first
for qualification rather than for the
course that will keep that Godmade
machine, the body in best condition:
we have the consequences in enfeebled
and diseased and suffering men and
women, in people who are mot very
we'll, who are laid aside, who are in
sick-rooms, and in pharmacies busy
day and night, and in the multitude of
physicians. We spend our days cheer
fully in tritiing with our health and
frittering it away, and then spend fol
lowing days in trying miSerably and
extensively to recover that which we
| IldNC lOOtCu away lo1lu lllCllt vi
mine quarter OF a century ago; "rhe
way to be well is to keep well.' That
remark, my friends, iSabsulute wisdom
The way to be well is to keep we'll
Yes, many are they who spend one-hal1
of their lives in making themselves
sick and the other half in complaining
and trying to get cured
THE FUNCTION OF A PHYSICIANS: WHAT
IT SHOULD BE.
At some time, perhaps in a more en-
lightened period before the millenni-
UNI, it will be the function of a phySi-
clan to keep citizens in health, rather
than to look on idly while people make
themselves i'll and then exercise his
wits and administer his drugs in try
ing to restore them. The physician
should be compensated for en-
deavoring tokeep people in health, and
it should not be for his pecuniary adj
vantage that they become sick.
Are we i'll? Let us take measures fol
improvement. Medical men aver that
the ailing and the diseased increase
disorder and decay 10y ignorantly dosing
with they know not what. But again
if we are in reasonable state OF
health, let us be content. Remember
the epitaph on the old tombstone: 81
was well; | wanted to be better: took
physic, and here | am"
They who exercise amply vet not I'M
duly, are prudent at the table, take