Ike RURAL NEW-YORKER 
ihezmie of flit’ involved teeth. Strange 
fis ir may seetn. This pressqre on certain 
fingers, or on certain parts of the head, 
will relieve toothache, unless, of course, 
ihe tooth is badly inflamed or an ulcer 
has been formed. It seems that many 
cases of toothache result from nerve 
troubles, the teeth themselves being en¬ 
tirely sound, and tbits form of p&in is 
often relieved by pressure. 
Fur example, with some aching teeth 
relief can be secured by tightly squeezing 
the cheek immediately over the aching 
tooth. Another plan is to grasp the gums 
over the root of th'* tooth with the index 
linger and thumb, and press firmly for 
about five minutes. In many cases this 
simple plan will actually relieve the suf¬ 
ferer. Dr. Ryan relates many cases 
where pressure of the gums or pressure 
of the fingers has relieved this pain. He 
says that mothers of small children can 
oft^n U86 this met hoc] as a. safe* and cer- 
tain means for obtaining relief. They 
simply grasp the roots of the achiug 
tooth between thumb and finger and 
press on firmly for abour fivp minutes. 
Dr. Ryan tells of one case where at a 
dinner party a woman complained of 
severe pain in an upper tooth. A den¬ 
tist who was present told her to squeeze 
firmly the joint of her second or middie 
finger. The woman was ar first offended 
and thought the dentist was making fun 
of her. and there was no fun about an 
aching tooth. The dentist, however, 
finally convinced her that he was serious, 
and after a very few minutes of pressure 
on this fiuger the woman was entirely 
relieved. 
In another case a traveling man came 
with a tooth which had been extremely 
painful for a long time. An examination 
showed that the tooth was apparently 
sound in every way. The doctor, how¬ 
ever, took a metal comb and “searched" 
the patient's fingers with it. He scratched 
and rubbed and pressed them all over. 
the Market 
Taut V. 
Local Co-operation. —Some of the* 
chief objections to the co-operative the¬ 
ory of marketing as applied to local mar¬ 
kets, even if we eliminate unwholesome 
antagonism to dealers and the buying 
public, are, it would bring the skill and 
quality of product of the skilled and un¬ 
skilled to the dead level of average co¬ 
operative inspection requirements. The 
chief advantage of home-grown products 
in many lines is absolute freshness, To 
pool them for distribution at co-operative 
headquarters would give them little ad¬ 
vantage over distant carlot shipments. It 
is extremely doubtful if such co-operative 
distribution centers could survive in com¬ 
petition with established and experienced 
produce concerns. At best it seems to me 
if such project could be made to work it 
could command the patronage of only the 
mediocre and unskilled. Whatever may 
be done in this line, it is simply idle 
dreaming, that it can be made an ef¬ 
fective retail agency in any form what¬ 
ever. Retailing the enormous quantity 
of the products of the farm is far too vast 
and intricate a problem to be met in any 
such crude fashion. That must mainly 
go hand in baud with the retailing of 
other allied household requirements, like 
meats and groceries, so that a jobbing 
business is the smallest proposition that 
such a co-operative selling agency could 
logically con t e tn pi a t e. 
Farmers’ Markets. —Farmers’ mar¬ 
kets. such as are reported from Lancas¬ 
ter, and which are so numerous and effi¬ 
cient in Harrisburg, Lancaster's big 
success of such an enterprise is as adverse 
as is likely to be found in any city in the 
whole country. • 
Department Market. —Recently, too, 
there has grown tip here in Miami a 
disposition of trade which I consider a 
close second to the farmers’ market as an 
economical vehicle of retail trade. That 
is what might he called a department 
market, under private or corporate con¬ 
trol. If the system spreads elsewhere as 
it has here it bids fair to greatly reduce 
the numerous small and inefficient cor¬ 
ner groceries. This system embraces a 
complete departmental provision market 
in one large establishment. Usually it 
embraces four departments: fresh fruits 
and vegetables, groceries, meats and deli¬ 
catessen: that is. prepared foods. These 
departments are usually under separate 
management. iWhen a grower fulfills 
the requirements of a place like that, 
even if in just some particular line, he 
finds it worth while. Were it possible to 
organize the bulk of the retail trade of a 
large city on this plan, it is plain that a 
farmers’ depot of supplies, to furnish 
fresh fruits and vegetables daily to these 
concerns, would be altogether logical. 
Commission Merchants.—A s is well 
known, the commission merchants as a 
class have had their full share of abuse. 
I have had a good deal of experience with 
their methods, and for a long time de¬ 
spaired of satisfactory results. I could 
write a good-sized article on this phase 
of marketing alone; suffice to say that I 
finally discovered that causes for dissat¬ 
isfaction were fairly well balanced at the 
opposite ends of trade in that line, and 
that when I finally did succeed in estab¬ 
lishing entirely satisfactory relations it 
was on the same basis of mutual under¬ 
standing and good-will that I have found 
to be the essentials of success in local 
trade. In "A Night Oil the Market” the 
suggestion is advanced that good roads 
and the use of autos and trucks are a 
major cause of glutted, unsatisfactory 
markets. Thar is undoubtedly true; but 
it is very easy to draw wrong conclusions 
from that proposition. For instance. ,t 
young man ermtemplating a career as 
market gardener or fruit grower for local 
market on that outlook might conclude 
there is no hope; on the contrary. I think 
there are few business prospects more 
bright fur the young mao of limited 
means, who likes to work ou his own 
initiative, provided he is well grounded 
iti self-discipline. That really is the 
touchstone of success in rural lines. 
Many a man longs to be his own “boss” 
who has ii" idea whatever what “boss¬ 
ing” himself means; and rural enter¬ 
prises, to be a success, all need stern 
“bossing." Hints are not the normal 
condition of any market. They tend to 
correct themselves. True, the grower 
can’t help feeling'* “blue” when he sees 
fine produce from which he had expected 
good profits go at a sacrifice: still he 
usually get*! through such depressions 
without net loss. Moreover, the wide¬ 
awake grower can do much to avoid 
gluts of long duration for his main lines. 
The local grower has always had the 
advantage of the distant shipper, and 
with increased freight rates that advan¬ 
tage has greatly increased. Also, on the 
whole, the auto truck is a vast gain to 
the grower. The value of co-operation to 
certain degrees and under certain cir¬ 
cumstances cannot be denied, though 
personally I have never felt the need of 
ii. My contention here is. that the prob¬ 
lems of local marketing are such that 
they can be far more successfully met by 
enlightened individual effort than they 
can ever be with the hampering influences 
necessary to co-operative effort. For dis¬ 
tant markets, co-operative effort is well 
nigh essential, hut under all circum- 
atanees the principle of good-will should 
lie retained. G. II. Powell, now deceased, 
but who was for years the leading spirit 
"f the eminently successful California 
Citrus Exchange, struck the keynote of 
successful marketing, whether corporate 
or individual, when he said in effect: “If 
this organization is to be successful, it 
must so order its affairs that it will not 
only benefit Its members but also the 
public that it serves.” 
Floridp. D. L. HARTMAN. 
The Boys’ Pony 
Mr. Frank Eggersdorf of Schuyler Co.. 
N. \.. sends us the picture of the pony 
and the boys. lie says these three boy’s 
saved up their pennies and bought a colt. 
They kept it about six months, got it in 
good shape, and then traded for the 
pony. Now they are content to stay on 
the farm. There is a whole sermon in 
this picture and the brief statement. The 
way to make a boy like the farm is tu 
make him feel that he is a regular part of 
it and that it means something to him. 
We have always been sorry to see rhe 
pouv pass oil the stage. He was driven 
away by the car and the bicycle, bur there 
never was anything Ibat could quite take 
tlie place of a pony in a child's affections. 
We had a pony at Hope Farm that “grew 
up” with our children from a small colt. 
When he died there was genuine sorrow. 
Books on the Care of the Sick 
Last Summer I stopped with a large 
family living in an isolated place in the 
Adirondack*. They told me the nearest 
doctor is 13 miles away, t >n inquiring 
how they got along without medical aid. 
they pointed to various weeds growing 
about the place, each of which held a 
cure for them. On a chair in their sit¬ 
ting room was a Bible and a catalogue 
from a large mail order house. They evi¬ 
dently could read, for both were well 
thumbed. This suggested to me there 
must be some family physician book pub¬ 
lished and circulating jituoung country 
people which would be a welcome addi¬ 
tion to their othet* books. If you could 
suggest one I would gladly send it to 
them. r. o. 
Brooklyn, X. Y. 
The wholly satisfactory hook for leone 
reading upon the cure of the sick hasn’t 
yet been published, largely because in no 
other branch of knowledge is a little 
learning a more dangerous thing. If dis¬ 
ease always followed established rules, 
and symptoms were constant and invaria¬ 
ble. the practice of medicine would be a 
comparatively simple tiling, but. with 
variations in symptoms fully as frequent 
as the rule, and with the erratic manifes¬ 
tations which disease delights in dis¬ 
playing. the observation and training of 
Lhc skilled physician is often put to the 
severest test. It ma\ seem hardly po> 
sible that so mild a disease as chicken- 
pox and one so malignant as smallpox 
may become are not infrequently so sim¬ 
ilar in their outward sigus as to almost 
defy the physician of experience to dis- 
Health Notes 
neighbor, and in Baltimore, Harrisburg’s 
still bigger neighbor, are without doubt 
the most economical and efficient vehicles 
of distribution of farm products yet de¬ 
vised. It is the common opinion that 
they are an institution rooted in the 
practices and traditions of the past, and 
that they cannot be started and made to 
thrive under modern condition*. That is 
a mistake, It is a fact that a farmers’ 
market, first introduced t<» auy city, is a 
tender plant, and will be sure to meet 
blight jug tendencies of opposition from 
established dealers and retailers. Still, 
they can be successfully introduced, as 
has been proved here in Miami. Though 
I have not found it personally useful. I 
have watched this market develop with 
much sympathetic interest. It was in¬ 
augurated by the efforts of the women’s 
club several years ago. For a year or 
more it was a good deal of a joke, but it 
has grown so steadily in importance that 
it* future is secure, and that in a city 
where every natural condition fin* the 
1513 
iiaguish between them. This is the case, 
however, as physicians who have seen 
much of the mild type of smallpox so 
prevalent in recent years will testify, 
and if the trained physician can be easily 
puzzled, what hope is there for the lav- 
man V 
There have been many attempts to 
■write a book that will help the family out 
of reach of a physician, or previous to the 
arrival of a physician in an emergency. 
These attempts, owing to the inherent 
difficulty of the task, have been only par¬ 
tially successful, but of those known to 
the writer, th" following may be recom¬ 
mended as of value : 
"The American Red Cross Text Book- 
on Heme Hygiene and Care of the Sick.” 
1 his book maj easily he procured through 
any book store or local branch of the Red 
Cross. It is published in paper covers, 
and while the price is not given, it should 
be very inexpensive. “Accidents and 
Emergencies.” by Dr. Dulles, and “Home 
Nursing and Infant Care” by Marsh, are 
cloth-bound bonks of small size, the for¬ 
mer costing $‘1.50 and the latter $1.25. 
Perhaps the first of the last mentioned 
books will make as good a home medical 
library a* any. There may be better 
books for the purpose than those men¬ 
tioned above ; I hope that there are, but 
I cannot suggest any from mv present 
acquaintance with this literature. 
M. B. D. 
Lumbago 
I would like a little information about 
lumbago, and what it is. Is there anv 
cure or help for it in any way? I have 
been to all kinds of doctors and am just 
the same. Is there such a thing as lum¬ 
bago? J. D. G. 
Montgomery, X. Y. 
Most people who have suffered from it 
will be willing to admit that there either 
is such a thing as lumbago or a very 
dose imitation of it. The term "lum¬ 
bago' is hardly more than a name, how¬ 
ever. for it describes a symptom, pain in 
the lumbar muscles, that is common to a 
multi*ude of conditions. Ordinarily, this 
f'nuuut.'i (!roirn in Maxsochusetts 
paiu is ascribed to rheumatism, but even 
"rheumatism’’ is being abandoned as an 
inaccurate and unscientific name for a 
group of unrelated disorders. This back¬ 
ache may be due to chilling of the body or 
to undue strain of the involved muscles, 
this acute form being most commonly 
seen in male adults, who. of course, are 
most exposed to such causes. The more 
chronic forms of backache, also frequent¬ 
ly termed lumbago, may be due to de¬ 
formities of some part of the body that 
unbalance it ami throw a strain upon rhe 
muscles of the hack, such as a shorten¬ 
ing of one log or a spinal curvature; to 
some disease of the spine, as tuberculosis; 
to direct injury of the muscles, as by a 
sprain from jumping or lifting heavy ob¬ 
jects: to disease of some of the organs 
within the abdomen, the pain then often 
being what is called a “referred pain.” or 
pain referred to some other part of the 
body than the one actually diseased ; to 
chronic infections, as from septic infe-- 
tions ar the roots of decayed teeth, dis¬ 
eased tonsils, etc.; to chronic intoxica¬ 
tions of the body from alcoholic or lead 
poisoning, and. finally, to nuerasthenia or 
hysteria. 
You will see from this that simply sav¬ 
ing that you have “lumbago’’ isn't telling 
very much, bur don't get the idea that, 
because you have lumbago, you bate 
either one or a combination of the most 
dreadful of the above-mentioned condi¬ 
tions: very likely you have simply 
sprained your back and “took cold in it": 
you know that, according to popular con¬ 
ceptions. you can “take cold” in almost 
any part of the body. If you have an 
obstinate case of lumbago, it is the busi¬ 
ness of your physician to find the cause 
and remove it. if possible. This may 
make him dig. but most physicians don’t 
dig hard enough ; it is far easier to or**- 
scribe a little medicine. Tell your phys¬ 
ician that you expect him to find our 
what makes your hack ache and that y..u 
will not expect the impossible, but wi 1 
stay by him until lie has a chance to 
learn. If. after a reasonable rime, be 
has to admit that he can't do it. better 
ask him to refer you to someone whom 
he thinks can. m. b, a, 
