Brighouse Gazette and Local Railway Guide. — 1894-12-01 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

CANDLES MADE FROM CORPSES.  Not long ago four men in the Government of Kursk, in Russia, murdered a girl in, order to make eaadles of her body, the notion being that the tight from such a horrible source not only renders the perpetrators of robberies invisible but prevents the people of the house from awakening. A dead man's hand is sometimes used for the same purpose. The thieves anoint it with an unguent, light it, and the fingers flame, Yet toe fetish often fails; the threatened householder is aroused in spite of the charm and proceeds to defend his property. Isn't it almost impossible to conceive that such abominable and absurd superstitions can exist in these days ? Yet they do—right here in England; and not by any means among the criminal classes only. The learned physicians, we grieve to say, reluctantly abandon theories or disease which science proves untenable, ' The medical profession,' says one of its brightest members, 'is but slowly emerging from the darkness of barbarism.' Take an i lustration. Under the date of September 22nd, 1892, Mrs. Eliza Matthews, of 1, North road, Burnt Oak, Edgeware, near London, writes: ' I first beoame ill lust about one year ago. The attack was marked by loss of appetite, a foul taste in the mouth, vomiting up my food, pain in the chest and sines after eating, and a sinking, all-gone sensation at the pit of the stomach. My eyes were yellow' - skin dark and sallow, and a constant pain between my shoulders, I was also badly constipated, and the least exertion set my heart thumping so I could hardly get my breath. I had freqaent attacks of sick headache which confined me to my room for days together At such times I could not touch a morsel of food. I got little or no sleep at night, and would toss on the bed for hours, I became thin and weak and was no good for work. 1 thought at first it was the change of life that caused all this—as I was in my fortieth year when I was taken bad. I had a doctor and took medicines, but nothing did me any real good, and I continued to suffer year after year.' Now will the reader please note what Mrs. Matthews' doctors told her was the cause of her illness ? We quote her own words : ' Ike doctor said that my ailments reere brought about by the smell of the tarneyard, On this he ordered a change of air—a logical deduction from his diagnosis. The lady obeyed. lier husbani gave up his situation on his wife's account, and they moved from Bentley Priory, Stanmore to Burnt Oak. With what result? She tells it: I got no better tor the change,' as she would have done if the farmyard smells had been at the bottom of her troubles, __  Finally, Mrs, Matthews says, her aunt at Chelmsford recommended Mother Seigel's Curative Syruo, The first few doses gave relief and im two months she was strong and as well as ever. She says, Mother Seigel saved me when others had tried and failed...'  What can be said in the way of comment on a thing like tnis But for the medical man with his ' farmyard ' idea of the disease the lady might have known what really ailed her and Rot hold of a remedy long ago. She suffered from indlgeBtiO3 and dyspepsia. The farmyard didn't cause it, and moving about couldn't cure it. But what a shame that suffering people should be so played upon and misguided. Indeed it does appear to be true that about all the lights some men enjoy comes from the remote past —from the aaoiated hands of dead men. Still, there is a better day coming, and Commun. sense, Science, and Mother Seigel are hurrying it along. _