Housekeeper.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 504, 17 January 1906, Page 7

Housekeeper.

DISINFECTANTS. NEVER mix your disinfectants, should be a primary and fixed rule with every intelligent housewife. Oaoa upon a time, a lady, a highly intelligent, eduoated woman—uneducated, however, in the science of health—mixed together five distinct disinfectants, under the delusion that ' the more the merrier' was a maxim which applied praotically to the use of germkillers. Whatever you use, keep to the one substanoe as a disinfectant. Dan't mix it with anything save water, and don't dilute it too much. A grave fault in the use of many disinfectants is the tendenoy to use them in too weak a solution,

HEADACHES FROJfI EYE STRAIN-

Dr. B. Weir Mitohell, in an article on the subjeot, formulates the following oonolusions: First, there are many headaobes which are due direotly to disorders of the refraotive or accommodative apparatus of the eyes. Ssoond, in some instances the brain symptom is often the moat prominent and sometimes the sole prominent symptom of the oye troubles, so that, while there may be no pain or sense of fatigue in the eye, the strain with whioh it is used may be interpreted solely by oooipital or frontal headache. Third, the long oontinuance of eye troubles may ba the unsuspeoted fcouroe of insomnia, vertigo, nausea, and general failure cf health. Fourth, in many oases the eye trouble beoomes suddenly misohievous, owing to some failure of the general health, or to inoreased sensitiveness of the brain from moral or mental causes.

THE FOOT BATH. The foot bath is often a souroe of great relief and oomfort to a siok person, and everyone who is likely to have charge of the siok at any time should learn how to give this bath in bed with the least tax and worry to the patient. Here is a good way : Cover oyer the lower half of the bed with a large pieoe of oilcloth (and said pieoe of oilolcth no housewife should allow herself to be found without); then place a foottub with a small amount of water of medium temperature in the bed. Have the patient lie on the baok, and flexing the knees place the feet in the tub; the knees can be supported if necessary by an attendant ; cover the tub and knees with an old blanket, having placed a board over the tub to keep the blanket out of the water. The patient oan now lie there and thoroughly enjoy the bath. The water oan be heated from time to time by adding more hot water. At the olose of the bath, 000 l the water to one hundred degrees; lift the feet out into towels and dry them.

WATER TREATMENT OF A COLD IW THE MEAD.

The hydropathio treatment of a oold in the head is more reliable than any other, and one whioh soaroely requires the aid of a physioian. It is as follows: In the morning after rising, and at night before retiring, wash the feet and legs as high up as the knees in oold water, then rub them with a rough towel, and massage them till the skin is red and glowing. In addition to this, snuff tepid water up the nose frequently during the day and sip with a teaspoon a glassful as hot as oan be borne an hour before eaoh meal and at bedtime. A few days is often quite Bufiioient for simple oases, and obstinate ones yield if the treatment is prolonged. No medicines are required. If taken in the first stages of the disease, a oold is broken up whioh might otherwise beoome a severe oase of bronohitis, lasting many days or weeks.

WOMAJTS HEALTH. Not until we learn that body and mind or body and soul are not separate entities independent of each other, but that they are wedded so olosely that one cannot possibly be impaired without corresponding loss to the other, will this matter of health claim just attention. A woman whose lungs are ohoked by corsets, whose liver is congested, whose stomaoh is taken possession of by dyspepsia, whose head throbs with pain, or whose nerves have run away with her will and self-possession and peace of mind, oannot oomprehend or appreciate the meaning of truth, justice, and liberty. Aside from other evils whioh aftect their lives, think for one moment how the ma]ority of our women are dressed, from their poor abused heads to their poor abused feet, and oease with us to wonder at their siokly condition. Their poisoned lungs oan only flutter and gasp; they oannot draw full, deep inspirations of God's pure air. Their delioate vital organs, compressed and oppressed by wioked oorsets, are weakened and dieplaoed. Their limbs, yes, and their whole bodies, are fettered and burdened with long, heavy skirts. We remember onoe hearing's gentleman say that he had occasion the evening before to oarry the clothes whioh his wife had worn during the day from one chair to another, and was utterly astonished at their great weight. 'Why,' said he, 'if I h%d to oarry suoh a load as that in my office for one day, it would be the hardest day's work I ever did. How oan the women endure it ?'