The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1907-11-08
FOOLISH FADS ABOUT
GOOD HEALTH.
Some People Who Dose Them
Selves Without Any
Necessity.

Formerly" said a physician thC
q other day, people thought too little
about their health. To-day many Of
them think of little else.
THE majority of laymen have now
acquired just that little learning on
matters medical that is such dan
gerous thing. They study and exag-
gerate all the little aches and pains
they suffer from. They catalogue theil
symptoms and present them in neatly
typewriter folios TO their favorite ply
sicians. They take their pulses and
their temperatures, and even those of
their servants and of the unhappy
stranger within their gates. Elaborate
charts are designed TO record their
physical progress from day 10 day.
They diet themselves on esorteric sys-
Items of their own composing. BY
turns they feed ON fantastic fare and
fast on principle. They exercise their
muscles by the chart and develope
their chests with dumbbells. They re-
vel in drafts of fresh air by night and
fresh water by day.
These people mean well. They be-
lieve that nature is their friend and
the medical art only the enemy in
disguise. If people can't keep their
own health, what can they keep? they
argue. So they watch their symp-
toms as the cat watches the mouse
Every trivial sensation becomes a
critical symptom of the gravest i'm
port. Their diaghostc power becomes
| intuitive. 1t possesses an magma
tive, indeed a poetic, quality in no way
hampered by the prosy limitations
OF antony and physiology. Their
maladies are not of the baser and
more trivial kind familiar to the gen.
eral practitioner of medicine. They ar
diseases dignified by incomprehensible
names-such dire diseases as any of
the gods of old might have died of
not unworthy.
in a word neurological rather than
pathological diseases are their pet all
ments. Naturally no one knows better
how to treat these imaginary COM
plants that their inventors. There ca
be henceforth no limit TO the imagi-
nation of a man or woman who i'm
AGNES that he or she has cursed an
imaginary disease. The high priests
of medicine can teach them nothing.
"A mind that dwells constantly on
disordered liver, an incompetent kid
ney, or a perplexing appendix, is in
parlius state. Ii will soon be known
by the company it keeps. In other
words the more an average healthy
woman thinks about her health, the
worse II will become.
Some people apparently take the
phrase the battle of life quite liter
ally. They arm themselves with death
dealing dumbbells and spend much OF
their time in arsenals bristing with
Indian clubs, foils single sticks and
other strange weapons of offense and
defense. There they wait the coming
of the microbe-the onslaught of the
bacillus. Not for them is the simple
life. The complex apparatus of ply
steal salvation is their only joy. They
maintain their physical equilibrium ma
turally enough on a balanced diet, and
their muscular development becomes
prodigious. Their chests become ca
pacious as war chests and their breath
ing as deep as their thoughts. And
the microbes behold and tremble.
But seriously after all, a healthy
life does not require such a lot OF
coaxing. The faddists we have always
with us: Without them the gravety OF
the nations wouldbe at least partially
eclipsed. They afford the comic relief
in the tragedy of life after the manner
of the Shakespearean clown. They
are our comic grave diggers. They
remind us that We are moral. 1t is
only their fun. We are-even the
most foolish of us-endowed with
modicum of common sense. Let us
apply it. We need not all clutch at
dumbbells as drowning men clutch at
straws. We may breathe easily with
out giving heed 10 breathing exercises
or fearing that because We omit them
we are likely to breathe our last. We
may Danish all thought of our biceps
and yet strike the bacillus a mortal
blow when it comes our way. We ma
neglect to sleep O. nights with our
heads in hurricane and be none the
worse. We may eat shockingly un-
balanced diet with Lucullus and feel
all The better for it."-Baltimore
Sun.
There is nothing better for stomach