GENERAL HEALTH HINTS 715 



Dissolve in two tablespoonfuls of cistern water 

 which has been thoroughly boiled, unless distilled water 

 can be obtained, twelve grains of caustic potash and 

 four grains of permanganate of potash. Add two 

 drops of this solution to a teacupful of the water to be 

 tested. If the water is very impure, the pink color at 

 first produced will very quickly disappear. If the color 

 disappears within fifteen minutes, the water is too im- 

 pure for safe use. 



The Hindoo devotee who, in blind zeal for his re- 

 ligion, holds out his arm until the muscles shrink and 

 shrivel up, leaving the arm but a useless appendage of 

 the body, violates the law of nature which demands 

 exercise for health, no more than does the student who 

 shuts himself up with his books until his limbs grow 

 lank and thin, and his fingers bony with physical idle- 

 ness; and the latter acts no more wisely in sacrificing 

 himself upon the shrine of learning than the other in 

 deforming himself to appease the wrath or win the 

 favor of Buddha. 



When the sun begins to circle low in the Southern 

 sky, thousands of invalids prepare for their annual 

 pilgrimage to the ' ' Sunny South, ' ' not stopping to con- 

 sider that dampness and malaria, and sultry days in 

 midwinter are vastly greater enemies to health than 

 frost and snow. The fear of cold is getting to be almost 

 a mania. Cold weather is a blessing. The winter ton- 

 ing up is an advantage which no one can afford to miss 

 unless absolutely compelled to forego it. 



Thousands of people are cured at mineral springs 

 of rheumatisms, neuralgias, ' ' biliousness, ' ' and a dozen 

 other diseases which result from dissipation and gor- 

 mandizing, not by the bad tasting minerals and worse 

 smelling gases in the water, but by the water in spite 

 of its impurities. More water drinking at home and 

 less beer guzzling, tobacco smoking, and French cook- 

 ery would cure a vastly greater number, and ruin the 

 mineral water business in six months. 



If troubled with sleeplessness, eat an early and 



