Dec. 15. 1911 



771 



quence of old age. Had he said $8.00 for 

 three minutes' work I should have thought 

 it quite reasonable; and even if he had add- 

 ed $10.00 to it and made the bill $13.00 I 

 would have paid it without protest; but I 

 can not, for the life of me, imagine what 

 the other $.50.00 was for. Can you? 



It has been suggested to me that this sur- 

 geon (and I see the statement in the papers) , 

 who has a prominent connection with one 

 of the great hospitals, put on the $-50 extra 

 because he thought the A. I. Root Co. was 

 good for it — that "the traffic would bear 

 it." But how about the case mentioned by 

 the Ohio Farmer:^ A poor farmer, as I un- 

 derstand it, had to borrow $400; and the re- 

 sult, as I am informed, was that this poor 

 man's wife was hurried to her grave earlier, 

 perhaps, than if she had done nothing. If 

 I were in that kind of business, and the 

 woman died so soon afterward, I think I 

 would give back at least a part of the $400 

 to help bury my mistakes, and thus go to 

 bed at night with a cleaner conscience. 



right out under the sky. The patter of the 

 rain on their water-proof covering apparent- 

 ly lulls them to sleep; and a snowstorm is 

 of no interest at all. It just enables them 

 to sleep all the better. I presume they have, 

 of course, plenty of warm blankets. Their 

 bedding, sleeping-bags, etc., are carried in a 

 cart which they push along before them. 



VEGETABLE AND MEAT DIET CONTRASTED: 

 AN IMPORTANT TEST. 



Prof. Dudley A. 8argent, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, assisted by the Cambridge institu- 

 tion, and partly by Physical Culture maga- 

 zine, have been making a test of a vegetable 

 diet contrasted with a meat diet, by sending 

 two brothers, .Jesse and Warren Buffum, 

 across the continent on foot. The Denver 

 Post of Nov. 3 gives an excellent picture of 

 the brothers as they passed through Denver. 

 The vegetarian is away ahead, not only in 

 physical appearance, but in endurance — the 

 brothers agree to it. In fact, you can see 

 the difference by taking a look at the two 

 from a distance. 



I presume this can hardly be considered 

 as conclusive, because something besides 

 the diet may have influenced one or both, 

 although they seemed alike in physical 

 health at the start. The vegetarian is not 

 so from choice. He is looking forward to a 

 "turkey dinner " when his long tramp is 

 over. He is not walking on an exclusively 

 vegetarian diet. He uses some bread and 

 vegetables and a few eggs, which he had at 

 that time partaken of but three times. 

 When asked if they had had any kind of 

 liquor to drink they said that all intoxicants 

 were forbidden as one of the conditions; but 

 they added that they would not have used 

 any, even if permitted to do so, as they were 

 total abstainers. 



I confess I am rather glad of the results 

 so far. It agrees with what Terry has been 

 teaching so vehemently, and it relieves us 

 also from the revolting necessity of taking 

 animal life to sustain human life. I pre- 

 sume the Physical Culture magazine will 

 give us the details of the long trip on foot. 

 These boys also sleep outdoors wherever 

 they may be, rain or shine. They have 

 what they call a water-proof "sleeping-bag," 

 and declare that bedrooms, outdoor porches, 

 etc., are not to be compared with being 



PHYSICAL CULTURE FROM A COMMON-SENSE 

 STANDPOINT. 



Several years ago, while growing potatoes 

 up near our " cabin in the woods," we were 

 short of help; and as we wanted the pota- 

 toes put under cover as fast as dug, I decid- 

 ed to manage the thing. After I got my 

 potatoes harvested, and had them loaded on 

 the steamer, and got back home to Medina, 

 I found the young folks all greatly engaged 

 in "physical culture " under the instruction 

 of a hired professor. I tried to explain to 

 them that the physical culture that / had 

 just been having not only cost me nothing, 

 but I earned very good wages while taking 

 it. My physical culture consisted in lifting 

 a box of potatoes high enough to pour them 

 into a sack, and picking up such boxes all 

 day long. It was one of my happy sur- 

 prises to find my strength was increasing 

 day by day; and after the potatoes were all 

 put up I had gained ten or fifteen pounds 

 in weight. There are two i:)ictures in the 

 new potato-book illustrating my apparatus 

 for harvesting and sacking potatoes; and if 

 you should catch the fever for my kind of 

 physical culture, and decide to grow a few 

 potatoes yourself about the time they are 

 75 cts. a peck next year, I shall be glad to 

 know it. It is cheaper, surer, and mfiniiely 

 better than any medicine you can get in the 

 drugstore. 



RABIES OR hydrophobia; A NEW BULLE- 

 TIN FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF 

 AGRICULTURE. 



I am very glad to notice that our govern- 

 ment has seen fit to issue a bulletin (May 12, 

 1911), giving us the exact truth of the mat- 

 ter in regard to mad dogs. Let me quote a 

 little from the introductory chapter: 



The disease known as rabies in animals and hy- 

 dropliobia in man is one of the most terrible mal- 

 adies known to medical science. Although some 

 skepticism as to this disease persists and is indus- 

 triously fostered by the publication of erroneous 

 views, the reality and the infectious nature of the 

 malady have been abundantly established and con- 

 firmed by the work of numerous competent scien- 

 tific investigators, and there is no more reason for 

 doubting the existence of rabies than for question- 

 ing the actuality of other specific and well-recog- 

 nized contagious diseases. 



Rabies is prevalent among dogs in various parts 

 of the United States, and the presence of infected 

 animals is a constant menace to human life. Un- 

 der this condition the relative infrequency of deaths 

 among people who have been bitten by rabid dogs 

 is due to the protection afforded by the Pasteur 

 treatment. 



I am glad to get this, because there are a 

 few prominent professional men who have 

 claimed that this whole matter was a freak 

 of the imagination, forgetting (it would 

 seem) that the children and domestic ani- 



