156 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mar. 1 



Let us now submit the matter to the good 

 hard common sense of the readers of Glean- 

 ings. This Electropoise that you think 

 cured you is much like the nickel-plated 

 handle to a bicycle. Inside is some sulphur 

 and a little sal-ammoniac. A wire is put 

 through this mixture, and the other end of 

 the wire is hiti-hed to your ankle. The 

 Electropoise is dropped into a bowl of ice 

 water. No electricity passes through that 

 wire. This can be proven by any battery- 

 tester or volt-meter, and there is no science 

 about it, as any scientific man can tell you, 

 and I claim there is neither sense nor science 

 about it. Hitching the wire to a horse-shoe 

 would do the work just the same; or nail- 

 ing the horse-shoe over the door to cure 

 frosted feet would have just as much effect. 

 I suppose the sulphur and sal-ammoniac 

 are put in to make people believe it is some- 

 thing like a dry battery. The ice water is 

 to make people believe that it works some- 

 thing like a thermo-electric battery, where 

 the current is produced by keeping one part 

 hot and the other part cold. You call it a 

 machine. I submit to the readers of Glean- 

 ings whether it should be dignified by call- 

 ing it a machine or a toy. It is exactly like 

 the wire that was twisted about a nail in 

 that $50 clock arrangement for curing va- 

 rious diseases — see page 642, Oct. 1st issue. 



In your closing sentence you unintention- 

 ally inform us that a lot of people have paid 

 out their money for Electropoises which 

 have been thrown away, or probably tucked 

 away up in the garret. In talking with a 

 lady who insisted it is a good thing, as you 

 do, she admitted she h id not used it for 

 several years. When I asked why she did 

 not continue using it if it was such a "val- 

 uable instrument," she evidently found her- 

 self in a pretty close corner. Finally she 

 got out of it by saying that even great in- 

 ventions are usually forgotten after they 

 have had their run. I reminded her that 

 sucQ inventions as clothes-wringers, sewing- 

 machines, coal-oil lamps, telephones, etc., 

 were none of them put away in the garret 

 after they have had their run. 



Now let us have another glimpse of pat- 

 ent medicines before closing. In my hand 

 is a bulletin from the Ohio Food Depart- 

 ment, presented by R. W. Dunlap, State 

 Food Commissioner. In it is a list of all 

 medicines found in our drugstores, giving 

 the percentage of alcohol, cocaine, and 

 . other habit - forming drugs. How many 

 different medicines are there in the drug- 

 stores? Well, this book contains over bO 

 pages, and there are about 50 medicines 

 mentioned on a page. Something like 4000 

 different medicines are manufactured and 

 kept on sale to cure our infirmities! How 

 many of these medicines do you suppose T. 

 B. Terry uses in his family and among his 

 grandchildren? Not one; and, may God be 

 praised, there are a good many more fami- 

 lies who use no medicine at all. Well, if I 

 am right, people are beginning to learn that 

 a large part of these medicines have no 

 more to do with the recovery of the patient 



than Electropoise that our good brother tells 

 us about. Of course, such things as corn- 

 plasters, courtplaster, etc., have their uses, 

 and it may be well enough to keep them in 

 the house; but I begin to discover that, if 

 we live and take care of our feet as God 

 meant we should, there would be no need of 

 corn-plasters. 



This bulletin suggests that a large part of 

 these medicines owe their virtue to the al- 

 cohol they contain. After taking the stuff 

 the patient feels better as a matter of course; 

 but a day of reckoning comes sooner or 

 later, and sometimes it is a terrible reckon- 

 ing. I was told of a lady a few days ago — a 

 Christian who stands well in community, 

 who had been taking Peruna until she 

 could not live without it. Her family phy- 

 sician finally found out what she was do- 

 ing, and told her it would be very much 

 cheaper, and better for her health, to buy 

 good whisky, and drink it every day, than 

 to use what she was using. The represen- 

 tative of our Ohio Food Commission men- 

 tioned above informed me that Peruna had 

 been taken in hand, and that hereafter ail . 

 the Peruna put on the market would con- 

 tain a sufficient amount of a laxative to 

 prevent its being used as an alcoholic bev- 

 erage. May God be praised for Ohio's Food 

 Commission. Have you something like it 

 in your own Sta'e? 



SPOILING SHOES WALKING IN WET GRASS; SEE PAGE 

 569, SEPT. 1. 



If you will obtain from the A Ibert H. Rlemer Shoe 

 Co., Milwaukee, Wis., a pair of wooden-soled shoes 

 or boots, and have some one tack an extra sole of 

 leather on them, then learn to walk flat footed, I 

 think you will find conditions materially benefited. 

 I am nowusine the pair I bought last October: have 

 used them continually in all kinds of weather, and. 

 not had wet or cold feet. They come in whole sizes, 

 6, 7, 8, no half-sizes. They retail in Baltimore, shoes, 

 81.50: 83.00 for 16-in. boots. 



Lake Roland, Md., Sept. 0. ■ Benj. B. Jones. 



Friend .1., there is another point in tavor 

 of wooden-soled shoes or something equiva- 

 lent. Almost everv fall when it begins to 

 be cold and wet, if I do not look out and 

 keep ray feet dry and warm I have an at- 

 tack of sore throat, catarrh, stoppage of the 

 nostrils, etc. For some little time I did not 

 catch on to the fact that these troubles were 

 the result of going about with cold wet feet; * 

 and almost every fall I forget once or more 

 times my former experience. Well, drying 

 and warming the feet thoroughly, putting 

 on dry stockings, and, if necessary, good 

 warm overshoes, causes the sore throat to 

 let up almost at once. I suppose it is most- 

 ly elderly people who have troubles of this 

 sort. Now, there is something about it I do 

 not quite understand. Wading about in 

 the wet grass barefooted in the morning 

 does not bring on sore throat nor any thing 

 of that sort. Perhaps one reason is that, 

 after this wading in the grass, the feet are 

 wiped dry, and you put on good warm dry 

 shoes and stockings. Sitting down, say, to 

 read, with damp or wet shoes and stockings, 

 seems to be what brings on the trouble. Al- 

 though I have never seen the wooden-soled 

 shoes, I have before had excellent reports 

 from them. 



