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338
Smokers of the World Over
Defend the Use of the Weed
Although it is universally ad-
mitted that smoking is not a
necessity, but only a habit,
and a bad habit at that, a
great any learned and dis-
tinguished men, including
physicians and scientists, maintain that
it is not an evil, but a positive good.
"It is certainly a remarkable fact in
the history of mankind," said a well-
known physician, "that since the fif-
teenth century a vegetable growth known
to botanists as nicotiana tobacum has
come into such general use for smoking
as almost to revolutionize the social cus-
toms of civilized people. It would be
difficult today to find a quarter of the
globe where the use of the plant is not
known.
"Nevertheless smoking has met with vigorous
vigorous opposition at times. It has been
denounced by papers, from pulpits, and on
platforms; even reigning sovereigns have
set themselves to stamp out the practice.
Russia at one time insisting on cutting
off the nose of every smoker, and Persia
once make it an offense punishable by
death. It has been proclaimed against
on the continent and in almost every part
and in England. King James I.'s "Count-
erblast Against Tobacco" is a lasting
memorial of his determination that no
"puffer of tobacco" should receive any
crown appointment.
"It has been contended, on the one
hand, that tobacco is a poison and every
smoker a suicide; while on the other it
has been hailed as an aid to longevity,
minimizing the wear and tear of life
that naturally ensuein old age. In spite
of all opposition and of every argument
raist again it, the use of the soothing
weed is a well-nigh universal custom.
"that tobacco is not a necessity is
readily conceded on all sides, for no sane
person could possibly claim that its use
is eddential to life. Its most devoted
friends plead nothing beyond the fact
that smoking is a luxury, one which
sustains a cheerful brightness and af-
fords an enjoyment out of all proportion
to the smallness of its cost. Complaints
against the extravagance of the habit are
unreasonable, and only to be attributed
to willful ignorance or want of reflection.
Many things in daily use are by no means
necessary, yet they largely contribute to
the enjoyment and pleasures of life.
"Thackeray once said: "I vow and be-
lieve that the cigar has been one of the
greatest creature comforts of my life--a
kind companion, a gentle stimulant, an
amiable anodyne, a cementer of friend-
ship. May I die if I abuse that kindly
weed which has given me so much pleas-
ure.
"The only objection realy worth consid-
eration is that tobacco acts as a poison in
the healthy system. On this score a great
deal has been put forth which is matter
for serious reflection, but other allega-
tions have failed to discriminate between
the use and abuse of the weed. It is easy
to find similar fault with most things
we eat and drink, for more harm has
resulted from lack of self-control in these
matters could possibly follow the
excessive use of tobacco.
"Indeed there is nothing which, though
lawful and right in itself, is not open to
the same kind of abuse, and f we deprive
ourselves of everything capable of being
wrongly used away go money, food and
life.
"The two common conditions which re-
sult from excessive smoking are a char-
acteristic alteration of the rhythm in the
beating of the heart and an affection of
the eyes which impairs the vision and re-
duces the power of distinguishing colors.
The furred tongue, the chronic irridation
of the throat and the accompanying dys-
pepsia, though less important, are never-
theless inconvenient and ought never to
be present in a healthy person.
"That such harm does result when use
passes into abuse is sufficient warning to
put every smoker on his guard, and if an
occasion arises should prompt him to re-
duce his consumption of tobacco or lay
aside forever a habit which threatens to
impair his health.
"The opponents of smoking unfortu-
nately rely upon evidence gathered from
these cases of abuse, and the consequence
is their allegations do not accord with
established fact. If every smoker wwere
being slowly poisoned, deths would occur
at an early age and their number would
markedly increase. There are many
things besides tobacco which are highly
detrimental when abused, yet the rational
use of them is beneficial in the highest
degree.
"The late pProf. Huxley said: 'There is
no more harm in a pipe than there is in
a cup of tea. You may poison yourself
by drinking too much tea or kill yourself
by eating too many beefsteaks.'
"Dr. Richardson says: 'In an adult man
who is tolerant of tobacco moderate
smoking does no great harm. It some-
what stops waste and soothes. The ground
on which tobacco holds so firm a footing
is that of nearly every luxury--it is the
least injurious.
"Dr Lankester said: 'I dare not, as a
physiologist or a statist, tell you there
exists any proof of its injurious influence
when used in moderation. The first symptoms
of giddiness, of palpitation, of in-
dolence or uneasiness while smoking
should induce you to lay it aside. These
are physiological indications of its dis-
agreement, which, if you neglect, you
may find increase upon you and seriously
embarrass your health.'
"Those who are rational smokers will
never indulge on an empty stomach;
many seem able to do so with impunity,
but the practice is bad. They will keep
the pipe well cleansed and use only a
pure tobacco. Whether smoking a pipe,
cigar or cigarette they will abstain from
using it to the last extremity, because it
is the accumulated products of combus-
tion which form the injurious elements.
The rational smoker will never expecto-
rate except on occasion when absolutely
compelled, or if he finds himself falling
into this bad habit, being rational, he
will cease to be a smoker."
---
Trout, Frozen in Ice, Alive
That trout remain alive for a consider-
able time after being frozen in the ice is
declared by some choppers at Caribou
who say that they have proved the fact
to their own satisfaction. The men were
encamped eight miles south of Caribou
on the shore of a small pond abounding
in trout, when they ran out of provisions.
It being illegal to take trout at this time
of the year, they hesitated before fish-
ing for them thru the ice but hunger
overcame their scruples. The fish bit
well and as they did not wish to keep
an oversupply on hand where game war-
dens might discover them, the men put
all they could not eat into a nearby
spring, alive. They would then scoop
them out as they were needed. One night
the temperature dropt suddenly, and in
the morning the spring, as well as the
trout were frozen solid. Provisions had
arrived the night before and no atten-
tion was paid to the spring until the
following day when one of the men went
there with an ax and chopped out enough
for dinner. The trout, stiff and hard, were
placed in a pan of cold water to thaw
out, and a little latr the cook was
startled to see them open their mouths
wriggle their tails and move about.--Ken-
nebec Journal.
---
JANUARY 25, 1907
---
USES OLIVE OIL TO
FIGHT APPENDICITIS
Club Members are Required to
Drink a Tablespoonful Before
Each Meal
COATSVILLE, Pa.--This town has an
Anti-Appendicitis Club, the avowed ob-
ject of which is the prevention of the dis-
ease which has become alarmingly pre-
valent here. One of the requirements
of membership is a liberal consumption
of olive oil. A barrel of the oil has
been ordered by the club and a by-law
provides that each member shall partake
of a tablespoonful before each meal--as
a necessity, not a luxury.
Within the last two weeks twelve cases
of the disease have developed here and
that number of operations have been per-
formed at the local hospital--Philadel-
phia North American
---
When you have occasion to use plas-
ter of paris, wet it with vinegar in-
stead of water; then it will be like
putty, and can be smoothed better, as
it will not "set" for half an hour
while plaster wet with water hardens
at once.
---
[right column]
GRAIN IS MEASURED
BY MANY SYSTEMS
Confusion Caused by Varied Units
of Weight in Different
Countries
Consul Walter C. Hamm, at Hull, gives
some explanation of the English method
of buying and selling grain by the "quar-
ter" and the confusion which it often
occasions. This classification of agricul-
tural produce has become largely obso-
lete in America, but it is still regularly
in use in England. He says:
"The conflict of different 'quarters'
as uuits for agricultural sales is inces-
sant in England, and misapprehensions
occur daily. The original 'quarter' is
said to have been the 'quarter' of an
extinct chaldron or 2,016 pounds but this
has never been proved, and all that is
known is that no 'quarter' used on mod-
ern markets is a quarter of a ton. The
sales of English wheat at present take
place chiefly by the government 'quar-
ter' of 480 pounds and the Mark lane
'quarter' of 504 pounds, but the govern-
ment allows sales by other than the
government 'quarter' on its 190 statute
markets, and there are other 'quarters'
than the 504-pound one used at Mark lane.
"Russian wheat is sold by the 'quar-
ter' of 492 pounds where cargoes and
'parcels' or medium-sized transactions
ex ship, are concerned; when it is sold
'off stands' 496 pounds is usual. Amer-
ican wheat is sold by the 'quarter' of
480 pounds, if shipped from the Atlantic,
but by the 'quarter' of 500 opunds if
shipped from the Pacific seaboard. It
is a great pity that agricultural buyers
and sellers can not agree to to their
business by the cental, or true hundred-
weight of 100 pounds, but there are many
vested interests opposed to full clearness
of expression in contracts.
"When the many confusing standards
in weights and measures, like the many
confusing standards in money, are done
away with, and one universal standard
of weight and measure is adopted, the
loss an embarrassment now felt in com-
mercial transactions will be avoided."
---
THE FIRST INVENTOR
Doubtless the produciton of fire by
sparks from the flint was followed by
the discovery that friction would pro-
duce a flame, says Charls H. Coch-
rane, in the February Circle magazine.
In regions where suitable stone was
not easily found, the inventive abor-
igine devised the whirling-stick or
fire-drill. This was a stick of hard
wood with its lower end set in a hole
in a block of very soft, dry wood. The
stick was held upright between the
hands, and whireld by rubbing the
palms first one way and then the oth-
er. A moderate downward pressure
was exerted and as the hands worked
down on the stick they were occasion-
ally shifted to a highter hold.
An improvement upon the hand-
whirled drill was the application of a
bow for rotating it. The first man to
make a bow-drill is entitled to fame as
first inventor of a machine, for the
combined several working pieces in
one apparatus for accomplishing a de-
sired end. This father of inventors
must have conceived the idea that if
he should make a turn of his bow-
string around a stick and fix the two
ends of the stick much more asily and
rapidly than was possible with the
hands, producing great friction and
heat much quicker and with much less
exertion. We can imagine we see him,
a great brawny, hairy man, with a bit
of a goat-skin for clothes, sitting
cross-legged at the mouth of his cave,
and rigging up the first operative ma-
chine that was to produce fire.
He must have procured a large piece
of soft and dry dead-wood and hollow-
ed a spot for the lower end of the
stick; then putting this under a slant-
ing rock, he must have wedged another
block of soft wood above the stick.
Having fixed them solidly in place by
piling stones round them, he would
then take a turn of his bow-string
around the stick and draw it back and
forth rapidly, securing a blaze in a
short time.
With that triumph he must have
viewed his work when the first jet of
flame burst from the smoking, charred
mass that he had coaxed into fiery ex-
istence. It is easy to picture him call-
ing his family or followers about him
to see his first machine, perhaps half
consumed in the fire it had made, and
explaining its operation with enthu-
siasm.
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RIGHT PAGE
339
WHY YOUR BRAIN HAS ITS OWN TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD
Recent discoveries by microscopists
have thrown a flood of light upon such
mysteries as dreaming, talking in sleep,
somnambulism and insanity, to say
nothing of ordinary thought. They
demonstrate that the brain--and this
includes the entire nervous system--is
in reality a switchboard, the most per-
fect and most marvelous switchboard in
the world.
Microscopists have not yet discovered
what is the current which vivifies this
complex network, any more than elec-
tricians have been able to discover what
electricity is, but the more they are able
to learn of the structure of the brain
the more striking do they find the re-
semblance betwen the mechanism of
the telegraph and telephone and that of
the brain and nerves of the human
body.
Sir William Gowers M.D. the famous
author of "The Diseases of the Nervous
System." in a lecture to the students
at University College Hospital a few
weeks ago, explained these latest dis-
coveries which have upset many
hitherto accepted ideas. Powerful mi-
croscopes reveal that the brain spinal
cord and other nerves are made up of
myriads of minute cells called "neu-
rons," which are like tiny storage bat-
teries. Each of these cells is a living
thing, consisting of a body from which
many branches are given off. These
branches are called "dendrons." Each
dendron bears a multitude of minute
branches, causing it to resembel a
feather, the dendron being the stalk
and the branches, or "dendrites," as
they are called being the feather bark.
Each of these dendrites terminates in
a bulb or knob.
These neurons are not connected by
stalks, nor do the branches join them;
each one is a separate and totally dis-
tinct being. But the little bulbs at the
tips of the branches can touch each
other or can be separated. Sir William
Gowers tells us it is not continuity but
contiguity which is formed in these
brain-cells. The tips of their delicate
branches are merely in contact, and
this contact can be broken or closed,
according to circumstances, just as an
electric current can be closed or opened
at will.
When a message has to be flashed
from the brain to the body, or vice
versa, as many of these cells as neces-
sary are instantly connected, just as in
a telephone sqitchboard connection is
made between two points that desire to
communicate. When the brain is busy
the connections and disconnections are
taking place with a rapidity that is im-
measurable. When the brain is weary
the cells are tired and it becomes more
and more difficult to establish con-
nections. The cells automatically switch
off. Sleep is the total switching off of
the current.
Suppose you are waslking along the
street and a big firecracker explodes
behind you--the sound sets the ear-
drum vibrating just like the receiver
of a telephone. The nerve carries the
sound to the brain as the telephone
wire carries words. In the brain the
sound is referred to the seats of mem-
ory and of judgment.
In all these processes the messages
are carried simply by bringing together
the tips of adjoining dendrons until the
circuit is complete. The rapidity with
which this is done is comparable with
the speed that marks the transmission
of a telegraphic message from one side
of the world to the other.
The association of ideas, that end-
less chain which is often easy to trace
back for a long way, may also be ex-
plained by this switchboard arrange-
ment of the brain. You meet a man
in the street; he looks hard at you, as
if expecting you to recognize him; you
say to yourself that there is some-
thing familiar about that man's face;
you cannot at the moment recall his
name, nor remember where you have
met him before, but you try hard until
it all flashes before you. Now, what
has taken place in your brain? After
the eye has telegraphed the image of
the man to the brain certain connec-
tions that have been lying dormant
for a long time or that perhaps have
never been very strong, re made with
the seat of memory. They are poor
connections. The seat of reason calls
to "central" "Give me a better connec-
tion!" This is the striving to open up
the doors of the memory, the hinges
of which have perhaps grown rusty
from disuse. Involved in this process
is a repeated connecting and discon-
necting of myriads of brain cells, some-
thing similar to the efforts of a bank
cashier to find the forgotten combina-
tion of a safe. After much effort a
connection is made that suggests to
the brain the interior of a theater, a
strain of music passes through the
mind, a figure is visible on the stage
and suddenly the right connection is
made and you remember that the man
you met is an actor you saw play last
year.
The recognition of the actor sets a
train of thought in motion. Cells after
cells are joined together and as you
walk along you recall the play, you
smile again at its humorous situations
which you had completely forgotten.
These in turn suggest other humorous
situations in other plays; one of these
suggests another actor whom you met
once on a railway journey; you re-
member the funny story he told about
a certain girl; this suggests an odd
incident in your association with a girl
you met at the seaside, and before you
know it you are thinking over your
last vacation and planning a new one.
All this through the involuntary link-
ing of cell with cell in your brain.
Now suppose you go to sleep. The
current is switched off but the cells
are still alive. So long as none of
their feather-like dendrons touch, you
sleep undisturbed. But some of the
cells may be excited and a sort of
automatic activity be set up in them
by a slight disturbance, internal or
external. The result of this is that
their branches come into contact with
the branches of other cells and estab-
lish inperfect connections. The higher
cells, those of reason and judgement
have no part in these connections, so
the ideas are unregulated, fugitive
confused, often ridiculous, sometimes
terrible. Itis as when some electrical
disturbance establishes accidental con-
nections on electric switchboards, and
causes erratic ringing of telephone
bells or undecipherable flashes from
the instruments used in cabling.
If these erratic circuits be exceptionally
strong they may establish connections
with the motorcenters and cause the
sleeper to cry out, to talk or even to get
up and walk, actions of which he has
no recollection upon awakening. It some-
times happens that a person will rise in
his sleep and perform all sorts of appar-
ently intelligent actions, of which he has
no knowledge on regaining consciousness.
This phenonmenon is exlainedby the fact
that the cells of that part of the brain
which may be called the seat of con-
siousness are disconnected from the rest
of the brain and from each other; they
are really asleep, but the cells in other
parts of the brain are active, even ex-
cited, and those of the motor-centers obey
the impulses telegraphed to them from
a brain that is acting normally but uncon-
sciously, through a current passing
through the switchboard, from which the
seats of consciousness and memory have
been cut off.
It has been observed by the microscop-
ists that the drugs which are called nar-
cotic--such sustances as morphia and
chloroform, for instance, cause the dend-
rites of the nerve-cells to retract, to grow
shorter and thus to break the connec-
tions with their neighbor cells. Anaes-
thetics have the same effect. Local an-
aesthetics cause the breaking of the
circuit in the nerve of a limited area and
thus make the area affected insensible.
These drugs produce artificial sleep. The
microscopists say that in animals which
hibernate the retraction of these branches
of the brain cell is marked to a striking
extent.
The several forms of insanity may be
explained on the parallel of short circuits,
grounded currents, blown out fuses. In-
sanity is due to lesions of the brain, just
as other diseases are lesions of other tis-
sues. Now suppose the dendrites insome
part of the brain to become swollen or
chronically hyperexcited, they will come
into contact with each other and with
their neighbors in such a way that the
current cannot be shut off. Consequently
some one idea becomes permanent, as-
sumes an exaggerated importance; this
is monomania, a familiar form of insan-
ity. Or the cells may become so diseased
that it is impossible to maintain a normal
circuit; in this case the person's ideas are
incoherent, and he, too, is insane.--New
York World.
---
FEBRUARY 14, 1907
---
BOY OPENS SAFE WITH
A COMMON HAIRPIN
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.--Herman Hol-
sapel, 10 years old and a confest safe
robber, is in jail here. He was taken into
custody recently by Detective Miller on
a charge of larceny, and after being
locked up stated that he had robbed the
safe in the office of William McLaughlin,
a real estate operator, on three different
occasions, taking from it about $350. The
last time he robbed the safe, several
weeks ago, he took $200 and valuable se-
curities.
Detectives who were called in said that
the safe had been opened by an expert
cracksman. There was not a scratch on
the outside to indicate that it had been
opened. The youthful prisoner had
opened the safe with a piece of wire, and
when they hesitated to accept his state-
ment he gace them an exhibition of safe
robbery by accompanying them to the
real estate man's office, where, with an
ordinary hairpin, he quickly opened the
big burglar proof safe while the sleuths
stood aghast.--New York Herald.
---
Y, FEBRUARY 7, 1907
---
PEA SOUP AND LONGEVITY
Hale Henry Tabor, 92 Years Old,
Dines on Pottage Exclusively
SPRUCEWOOD, Ont.--If you want to
live to be a hundred years old and never
feel old, live exclusively on pea soup, is
what Henry Tabor is telling his neigh-
bors. Mr. Tabor isn't a centenarian, but,
as he is 92 and feels as chipper as a boy
of a dozen years, he expects to round
out more than 100
Mr. Tabor was born in Montreal in 1814,
and since the spring of 1870 he has lived
almost entirely upon pea soup. When he
took to this diet he was suffering from
what doctors said was cancer of the
stomach. They told him that the had only
a short time to live, and his general ap-
pearance bore out this statement. He was
pale, wan and weak, for he could retain
little nourishment and had little hope of
ever recovering his health
One day a vender of herbs told him
that he could prolong his life by eating
pea soup, and Mr. Tabor promplty tried
it. The food "set" well and at the end
of a week he had gained a pound, as well
as some strength. He fet encouraged,
and kept on with the soup, little by little
discarding all other articles of diet. Ul-
timately he regained his full health and
became hardy as a knot.
On several occasions the mad attempted
to eat cereals and meats but each time
he was made ill, so he stuck to soup and
now and then meals of peas baked after
the manner of beans. Once a week Mr.
Tabor eats a little fruit, but outside of
that his diet is made up of peasn.--Chicago
Tribune.
---
Vegetable Therapeutics
Girls who eat green peas are bound
to flirt; they can't help it. Cabbage
and cauliflower make people vulgar
and stupid. And the cure for a bad-
tempered husband is to fill him with
boiled carrots.
These are a few of the laws of veg-
etable therapeutics as laid down in the
recent pathological congress in Paris.
After many experiments the investiga-
tors laid down broad laws.
Potatoes, for instance, should be eat-
ten by judges, magistrates, editors and
those engaged in similar occupation;
they develop the reasoning faculties,
give great mental balance and calm-
ness of reflection. Overindulgence,
however, produces apathy, indifference,
laziness. Confirmed potato-eaters are
likely to possess more reasoning pow-
ers than warmth of heart.
Carrots will cure bad temper. They
are especially good for billous and
peevish folk. Persistent eating of
boiled carrots will cure jealousy, mel-
ancholy, feelings of wrath and revenge.
Spinach is good for men of action.
All great generals have devoured it
in large quantities. It develops will-
pwer, decision, ambition, energy, and
it is the ideal food for fickle and
hesitating people.--Philadelphia North
American.
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