Congestion, irritability, or inflammation of the eyes and their appendages should always suggest the suspicion of eye strain. A single attack or manifestation of this kind has no special significance, but repeated attacks of inflammation, or prolonged congestion or irritability are suggestive of a continuing cause. A strange thing with reference to eye strain is that it often exists to an exceptional degree without showing any symptoms in the eye. The patient will often say that the eyes are perfectly good and have never caused any irritation.

TOO MANY MEALS.

There is, says Sir Andrew Clark, growing up in the nursing world a habit of having far too frequent meals in the day, and far too much variety at them. Meals should not be multiplied in the way they now are. The plan of having tea before breakfast, lunch at eleven o'clock, then dinner, tea again in the afternoon, and supper at night is about the worst plan that can be adopted. Nurses should have three meals a day, good sensible meals of fresh, simple, nourishing food.. Women have but one notion about food, and that is that the oftener they eat and the more varied the food the better they will be. This is a mistake. Having three simple meals of plain,nourishing food, and nothing between them, is the best way of sustaining the health and of supporting the body. Above all, tinned meat should be avoided, as they form a most dangerous kind of food. The diet of twenty-five years ago, when nurses had plain bread and butter for breakfast at half-past six, a dinner consisting of a joint at one, and a cold meat supper, was much more fitting for the maintenance of health and the support of the working powers than the diet of the present day.

Children should be well fed. Some are overfed, but far more are underfed. They should be fed on abundance of bread, milk, eggs, rice, barley, and oatmeal in every form. As a rule, a child should be allowed to eat as much as he will of plain, nourishing food. Parents have some very curious notions on the subject of eating. Children often have a hatred, and sometimes even a horror, of certain articles of food. Fat, underdone meat, eggs, pork, liver, and other things are often hated by children. In such cases it is unwise to press them. Food eaten with aversion or under threats is pretty sure to disagree; and often a child really knows far better what is suited for him than the obstinate parent. Three good meals a day are best for children.

CONCERNING BOILS.

The predisposing cause of boils is a lowering of the health at some point. The first indication of a boil is a slight itching, followed by a reddish pimple with a hair in the centre. Sometimes the pulling out of this hair will arrest the development of the sore. As the pimple grows, the redness extends and becomes more intense, and the part begins to throb with pain. In about five days it breaks, pus oozes out, the pain abates, and soon after the dead tissue-so called "core"escapes, followed by rapid healing. Sometimes no core appears, nor does the boil suppurate. This is known as the "blind boil." It is very hard and painful, and is long in healing. A carbuncle somewhat resembles a boil, but is much larger and more painful. It tends to spread, and has several openings. It produces a great disturbance of the whole system, and is very dangerous in its tendency. The constitutional symptoms of boils are slight, though in some cases there may be considerable feverishness. The treatment should be, in the first place, constitutional, aiming to restore the vigor of the system. The diet should be generous, without excess, and easily digestible. The patient, while avoiding exhaustion, should take a proper amount of exercise, have an abundance of pure air, and wash his body daily with cool water and soap. Local treatment also is needed. To arrest the progress of a boil at its early stage, apply a solution of sugar of lead every six or twelve hours with a camel's-hair brush. If this fails, promote suppuration by spreading on it a wash-leather plaster of galbanum and opium, cut in the middle for the escape of the pus. If the pain continues to increase, apply soothing applications When the boil begins to heal, keep the skin around it dry, clean it with tar-soap, and smear it with yellow resin ointment, dressing the broken surface with lint spread with the same ointment, keeping the dressing in position with strips of adhesive plaster or by a light bandage.

FIVE WAYS TO CURE A COLD.-1. Bathe the feet in hot water and take a pint of hot lemonade. Then sponge with salt water and remain in a warm room. 2. Bathe the face in very hot water every five minutes for an hour. 3. Snuff up the nostrils hot salt water every three hours. 4. Inhale ammonia or menthol. 5. Take four hours active exercise in the air. A ten grain dose of quinine will usually break up a cold in the beginning. Any thing that will set the blood in active circulation will do it, whether it be drugs, or the use of a bucksaw.

HALL'S JOURNAL OF HEALTH.

39

Charles Sedillot, the eminent Surgeon of Strasburg, in a lecture read before the French Academy of Sciences, as early as 1878, and now generally adopted by writers as expressions of living microscopic germs.

WHAT RANG THE TELEPHONE BELLS?

Last fall, A. M. Taylor, of Summitville, Ind., put up one of his mechanical telephone lines connecting two houses on my farm one hundred rods apart. One of the houses is occupied by the family of A. G. Hill and the other by John Lemasters. The diaphragm of this telephone is enclosed in a frame of wood six or eight inches square, which frame is attached to the side of the room by a stiff spring shaped like letter V, the lower end of the frame being screwed to one of the upper ends of the spring, and the other end of the spring screwed to the wall. It will be seen that a blow upon the upper part of the frame will force the two ends of the spring nearer together, and the recoil of the spring causes a sufficient vibration of the wire attached to the diaphragm to ring the bells which are attached to either frame by a short stiff wire. A musical instrument played in either house, can be plainly heard at the other. The call is made by a slight blow of the hand upon the upper part of the frame-the more forcible the blow, the louder and longer the bells ring. Last month, one night between 12 and 1, both families were quickly aroused from sound sleep by a violent ringing of the bells, which continued to ring until Lemasters got to the telephone. He asked Hill what he was ringing for. Hill, who had also gone to the instrument at his end of the line replied that he had not rung, and after a remark or two passed expressive of suprise, as there was no wind stirring, both returned to bed. No sooner had Lemasters lain down, than he heard a crackling sound, which he attributed to a horse in a lot near by rubbing against the fence; but the continuance of the noise caused him to get up and go out and in the direction of the animal, when he discovered his house was on fire. Two of the rafters had already burned in two and the flames had reached a distance of six or eight feet from the flue where it began. The moon and stars were shining brightly so he had not noticed the light of the fire or any reflection of it, until he got out into the yard. At one time before this, the bell of the telephone rang lightly, and the cause was discovered to have been the flying of a bird against the wire, the result being the death of the bird. If a large bird had become entangled in the wire, its flutter

ing might have caused the ringing, but this theory is not a likely one. The statement of the occurrence is perfectly reliable-neither of the men has any explanation to suggest.

J. N. G., in the R. P. Journal.

Virginia, Ill.

THE USE OF DRUGS.

It is an inborn idea of the English and American mind that there must perforce be some drug adapted to the ever varying states of the body which contains it. So many disorders, so many remedies. The faith which never wavers that Nature has a panacea for every ill is touching to witness, and seems to flourish in an age of science and scepticism as vigorously as in the past. Americans especially exhibit a robust form of this faith. American girls, it is said, now carry about with them ornamental cut-glass bottles containing quinine pills, with which they dose themselves from time to time. If fatigued they take two pills; if chilly, one; if hungry (as they generally seem to be), four or five. It is said that ten is the correct dose for wet feet! We believe the misuse of drugs in America is inducing a lot of sensible people in that country to give them up altogether. That is the only safe way with drugs.-Farm and Home, England.

BALDNESS.

Nature is a great

Dyspepsia is one of the most common causes of baldness. economizer, and when the nutrient elements furnished by the blood are insufficient to properly support the whole body, she cuts off the supply to parts the least vital, like the hair and rails, that the heart, lungs and other vital organs may be the better nourished. In cases of severe fevers, this economy is particularly noticeable. A single hair is a sort of history of the physical condition of an individual during the time it has been growing, if one could read closely enough. Take a hair from the beard or from the head and scrutinize it, and you will see that it shows some attenuated places, indicating that at some period of its growth the blood supply was deficient from overwork, anxiety, or under feeding. The hair falls out when the strength of its roots is insufficient to sustain its weight any longer, and a new hair will take its place unless the root is diseased. For this reason, each person has a certain definite length of hair. When the hair begins to split or fall out, massage to the scalp is excellent. Place the tip of the fingers firmly upon the scalp and then vibrate or move the scalp while holding the pressure steadily. This will stimulate the blood vessels underneath and bring about better nourishment of the hair. A brush of unevenly tufted bristles is also excellent to use upon the scalp, not the hair.

MISCELLANEOUS.

A QUEER CASE OF CATALEPSY.

To the Editor of Hall's Journal of Health.

SIR-A case has lately come to my notice which it occurred to me might be of interest to your readers. You are, doubtless, familiar with a process in dentistry known as the implantation of teeth, which is simply substitution of a natural tooth in place of a lost one, either in its vacant cavity or, as in some instances, by insertion in a new and artificially formed one.

The writer has a dentist friend who was an enthusiast regarding his profession, and especially in respect to transplantation, and like other devotees to science, he did not hesitate to experiment upon himself by inserting in his own jaw, in place of a newly extracted tooth, a veritable cat's tooth, and waited patiently upon the result of the experiment. In due time the tooth became thoroughly rooted, but the effect upon its possessor was something extraordinary. His whole demeanor underwent a change, and by no means for the better. Instead of his wonted energy and devotion to business, he showed a disposition to lounge about the house during the day time, selecting the sofa, divan, easy chairs, or even the hearth rug as a temporary dormitory, where he would lie for hours together in a kind of stupor. But no sooner would the night appear than he was all alert, manifesting great disquietude and a desire to roam abroad, particularly in the neighboring back yards, displaying great agility in scaling the fences. He would be attracted by any little scratching noise about the house, whilst the least movement of an article would cause him to dart forward, with fingers widely spread, to seize it. From being formerly a great lover of dogs, he showed an overweening dread of them, and on one occasion sought safety by shying up a telegraph pole. On moonlight evenings he was particularly ill at ease and insisted upon being admitted to the house roof, whence he would wander from roof to roof, occasionally emitting sounds in exact imitation of the fascinating invitations which romantic felines extend to one another, but now and then interjecting an angry protest as if spitefully repelling some obnoxious intruder. Finally, this state of things became unbearable, not only to the members of his immediate household, but to neighboring families in the near vicinity, and the health of my friend becoming also seriously impaired, he was persuaded to sacrifice the presumable cause of his nocturnal eccentricities. I am happy to be able to state that my friend has now partially recovered his former mental status, only now and then, under a fancied provocation, “getting his back up."

Lexington Ave., N. Y., Jan. 20.

ANN AMALGUM.

NOTE.-We have admitted to our columns the foregoing communication on account of its novelty, and leave it to our readers to mentally digest and dispose it as they choose. To our mind it presents an unprecedented case of catalepsy, which we commend to the attention of investigators of psycho-animalistic phenomena.-ED.