The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-09-23

A BAD HABIT


doctor told me this:
Tuberculosis is only a bad habit
It is form of Iaziness.
There are various degrees of laziness,
but consumption arises from lazy
habit of breathing. The individual
does not use all of his lungs, and the
cells not used collapse, the tuberculae
find a nesting place and hatch, and
consumption there is always imperfect
nutrition, and mal-assimilation comes
largely from lack of exercise.
The germs of tuberculosis are in
between the factions of life and death.
Life is a matter of elimination. If you
use all the lungs you have. every day,
in the open air, even but for a short
time, you may get killed in railroad
accident, but you will never die of con-
sumption.
And then my Denver doctor told me
this:
L SOplE W no NCIG OOAL III N[OAOA ci4Ss
or who went there in childhood, occa-
sionally die of consumption.
| If man, say in New York State,
has incipient tuberculosis. and goes to
Colorado and there continues the same
mode of life he followed in the East,
! fate, and in about the same time as
/ h. y he al OF
And yet, many people who have
consumption go to Colorado and get
/ we'll. But these people not only change
their geographical base, but they
| change their entire course of life as
we'll So let this be noted: Telegraph
operators clerks, bookkeepers, engrav
| ers, printers and all those who in New
England lead 'sedentary lives, and are
| in danger of the Great White Plague,
are in just as much danger in Denver,
| ii they go into the same business they
| followed before. The consumptives
who go to Colorado and get well are
those who go out on the ranches and
live out of doors.
/ Horseback riding shakes a man up
so that the breath enters every corner
of his lungs. Swing an AK, swing a
broom, swing your arms and breathe
| deeply and slowly. 1t takes will, but
| exercise in the open air is the price
of life.
! The Denver doctor is right--consump
/ ton is disease of the will. People IN
New England need not die of consump-
ton if they will only get out and exert
ranches welcome the consumptives to
| And so thoroughly is this fact known
that in the city of Denver the '1unger"
gets very scant sympathy. Every store
and office and factory is on guard
against him.
Are you here for your health?' And
/ if the reply is Yes he is damned on
the spot. No consumptive admits he
has consumption, but most lungers are
patent medicine fiends.
They seek a substitute for deep
breathing and exercise. And they all
| die before they find it out. Nothing
that can be poured out of bottle and
/ taken with a spoon will take the place
of the sawbuck.
| The Hunger in Colorado who is really
wise will swear i faith he is out there
| to train for a prize fight or long-dis
lance pedestrian match, and then by
his daily life will carry out the idea.
The aversion to the stricken person is
a good thing-he ceases to talk about
his malady And if he can be made
to cease giving the wood-pile absent
treatment, he will get we'll.
There is a law in Colorado making it
a. serious offense for any one to employ
consumptive in bakery, dairy, res
taurant or hotel, or any other place
where food is prepared or served. Gus
toners instinctively boycott the con-
Germ that harbors the lunger. And so
they fail prey to the third-ciass board
ing houses who charge first-class
price and get no one else but lungers.
The Hunger has to associate with lung
ers, for everywhere he is summed and
scorned. He is a pariah, and only last
year a bill was introduced into the
Colorado Legislature requiring every
consuInptive to carry a bell suspended
around his neck and ring it. as the
leper is compelled TO cry, 'Unclean, un-
clean! Only bum doctors. undertakes
and the men who keep the Hunger
ranches welcome the consumptives to
Observation-Disclosures men flee him as d
pestilence.
This seems hard indeed: but if by a,
natural method of fastening disgrace on
a sick man. he can be forced TO bring
will to bear. he can cure himself. Peo-
pie live longer in New England than
in Colorado. if they only husband
hustle out of doors.
Discrimination to stir is the damnation
of the man with the so-called con-
sumption faint. The trouble is in his
brain not his lungs.
The person who has viii enough to
sleep out of doors the year round in
Massachusetts will snip the growth of
consumption in the bud.
Midnight suppers. steam heat. cush-
toned chairs. ease. and lazy habit of
life. are the things the tuberculae love.
All this doesn't sound sympathetic but
It's Gods truth.-The PhiIistine.