The Tupelo journal., 1906-03-09
BY MARGARET E. sANGsrER.

Copyright, 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles.)
1t seems too bad that young girls at
school, whose duty and privilege. it
should be to enjoy perfect health,
should ever suffer from the fiendish
torture of an aching head. l have had
no personal experience of the kind,
never having known the misery of a
headache in all my life. But | have
seen girls and women in the clutches
of the malignant demon, who fastens
his fangs in the nerve-centers and
racks the brain until the victim is al
most exhausted.
l once said to a girl friend: Tell me,
Blanche, what is the worst thing about
a h~eadache?" She answered.: 1T is all
worst. There is the boring of a cork
screw, the grinding of a coffee mill,
the %creaking of a buzz-saw and the
pounding of a trip-hammer. all COM
bined, when l have one of my head
aches. 1t is a day coming on in which
/ am wretched, it has a day of endur-
ance when l am more dead than. alive,
and it has a third day when it is going
off,"
Poor child! l did not wonder that
such an infliction laid waste her lie.
Probably few people have this extreme
of distressing agony in the tar too
common feminine ailment, a headache.
But thousands of women begin their
initiation in the malady when they are
about IA, and they never get rid of it
until life ends.
The birthright of a schoolgirl is un-
broken health. If you are i'll in any
way there is a cause for it. Somebody
has blundered; either your mother,
your grandmother or yourself must be
ancestors and they have bequeathed
you a legacy of ill health, your task
to overcome it will be a little harder
than if you have inherited what l may
call the habit of being well. Still. one
cannot lay the imputation of mistake,
or the responsibility for illness wholly
on anybody else, because health and
sickness are very largely in our own
hands. Nature makes for health and
does all she al to keep us away from
pain and anguish and irritable nerves
and the handicaps that come from be-
ing only half well. We disobey nature,
and let me add, we disobey Divine
Providence, too, and then we piously
inquire why we are so often i'll.
When a girl has persistent head
aches and can assign no reason for
them, she should visit an oculist. A
great many headaches come from stra-
bismus, or unequal sight. If the r
Of the eyes are strained there is almost
certainly the probability that head
ache will follow. I have known head
aches entirely vanquished by the sim
pie %recours to a doctor who prescribed
the proper glasses. No girl should
ever run any risk by selecting her
own lens in such a case. Il visit to a
trustworthy specialist is indispensable
and will save time, money and
strength in the end, for here a head
ache is merely a warning signal of
danger.
A headache often springs from a dis
ordered stomach. The fatal habit of
munching and nibbling between meals,
or the appetite for rich pastry too free
ly INDUCED, or the penchant for candy,
that bane of schoolgirl existence, may
account for the rebellious stomach.
When the stomach goes on a strike there
quickly follows the nightmare known
as sick headache. If girls would care
fully limit their eating of candies and
sweetmeats to a somewhat meager
dessert, after a meal Of plain food.
these dainties would do them little
harm. But there are girls who fairly
~gormandize on bon bons and sweets. I.
could tell you tales of girls with pasty,
sallow compilations and red, angry
looking pimples and very cross dispo-
~sitions, entirely due in my opinion to
their excessive eating of candy and
other confectionery. In its place, pure
candy Injuries no one, but it was never
meant to be a steady diet. 1t is rather
by the way of being a sort of reward
of merit and a crown to a little feast.
The trouble is that over-eating of
sweets surfeits appetite and then one
does O care for roast beef and NUT
ton chops and rice pudding and baked
apples and other admirable articles of
food, which give one good red blood,
and build one up in wholesome vigor.
If your mother has been wise she
has not permitted her schoolgirl
daughter to taste either coffee or tea
during her childhood. These bever-
ages should be the sole consolation OF
grown-up people, who may be sup
posed to understand the uses Of a slim
ulant. A growing girl should not
drink a cup OF coffee or a cup OF tea
under any circumstances. If she wants
a warm drink for breakfast on a cold
morning, let it be either cocoa or hot
milk, both of which are nutritious
and ~inocuous. If you wish to keep
bright eyes and red cheeks and to feel
buoyant and well, let tea and coffee
alone until you are long past school
days. But drink an abundance of cold
water.
A fruitful cause of headaches is con-
stipation. Unless the physical system
be regular and the body periodically
relieved of rubbish and debris, no one
can hope to be we'll. Girls sometimes
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