The Stick and the Crust

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3098, 12 September 1899, Page 8

The Stick and the Crust

A stick and a crust of bread. Like the hands of a clock these two articles told the time of day for nearly a year in a certain mans life. v Yet, unlike the hands of a clock, they were not visible at once. When he needed the stick he had* no use for the crust ; and wnen the crust was welcome he had no further occasion for the stick. Albeit he was a young fellow of twenty six, you would be wrong in supposing this stick to have been in the nature of a weapon for attack or defence. In that case the crust and the stick would have harmonised. As it was fchey did not. For the stick was a support not a club. Now, when a man feels the pressure of eighty or ninety years he is apt to want a travelling companion of that sort ; but one in the very heyday of youth, not suffering from an injury and not constitutionally feeble, or malformed, should commonly be able to walk without a stick. And so this youny man had always done up to the time when he lell out with the crust and with all that the crust stood for or represented. His own account of the circumstances runs thus : — "Dp to October 1893, 1 had been a strong, healthy, and active mac. Then I commenced to feel weak and out of sorts. I was heavy, weak, and had no ambition for energy. What had come over tne 1 could not imagine. I had a foul> nasty taste in my mouth and was constantly spittiug up a thick, dirty phlegm. My appetite left me, and what little I ate lay on my stomach like lead, causing me great pain about the chest. A short, distressing cough settled upon me and troubled me day and night. "At night my sleep was d isfcurbed and broken with night sweats and frightful dreams. I had great pain at the left side around the heart, and my breathing was hurried and short. Next I began to spit blood and was greatly alarmed at it. I wasted away rapidly, losing over a stone weight in a month, and became so weak that I was unable to rise on my feet without assistance. "Although only a young man of twonty-six I was obliged to hobble about vjith a stick, and could walk but a short distance even at that. Worried and anxious I attended the York County Hospital, where the doctors sounded me and said I loas in consumption. Here we have another of the serious and often fatal mistakes that are often made in cases like this. Misled by symptoms which in some respects resemble those of consumption, medical men hastily decide that the lungs were affected, treat the patient perfunctorily for the hopeless disease he is not affilicted with, and leave the result to chance. Hence he often dies of dyspepsia and its complicatons — his true disease — which, unlike consunpfcion, is easy curable by the remedy our friend finally employed. "They gave me cod-liver oil,'" he continued, " medicines, but I got no better. Indeed, I was so low-spirited and miserable I didn't care what became of me. As time passed I grew weaker and weaker. " After I had endured ten months of this, M. B. W. Dickson, the chemist at Walmgate, advised me to try Mother Seigel's Syrup. After taking it a few days I felt much better, my appetite reviving and my food giving me no pain. I continued to take this medicine only, and soon the cough and breathing trouble left me and I began to gain strength and flesh. When I had taken three bottles I was as strong as ever, and could eat and enjoy even a dry crust. I have since had good health. You are at liberty to publish thia letter and refer all inquiries to me. (Signed) Isaiah Lewis, 124. Walmgate, York, April Bth, 1894." If the reader wonders how a man could suffer so much, become so emaciated and weak, and be pushed so near the grava'a edge through what is called " mere indigestion," he has yet to learn that the digestion is the arbiter of life and death . The " crust " (food), enjoyed and digested, means life and strength. Bejeeted it means the " stick," to supliment swift-coming weakness; ond then the prone position, when help is vain. Mother Seigel ? 8 Syrup enabled Mr Lewis to substitute the crust for the stick. It cured his dyspepsia.