MARY'S HYGIENIC CURES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9834, 17 September 1897, Page 7

MARY'S HYGIENIC CURES.

Tht Westminster Budget. jfy eldest sister Mary is the clever one of family- Nina is the beauty, lam only the useful one. Tom is the useless member, tat ho aces not think co. j\ r e e re l» om ' °' Mary 5 p he )S studious, od has passed examinations. She does not wake the best of herself; she has a lofty brow, ami shows evovy particle of it. Tom say* s ' ,e MVHrs a ' ,C, M front, but she Joes not wear a " front "at nil. She prides herself on being perfectly natural, eonseouently she scorns a powder puff, and generally lias a .shiny nose. She also wen re spectacles, and has a deep, rather impressive vcicc. She has all our lives inspired us with 4 certain amount of awe, but since site has attended ambulance classes we have literally ghivered in our shoes, she has become bo dreadfully hygienic. Bhe is rlady to deliver • lecture on hygiene at a moment's notice. Last Sunday 1 w<v3 enjoying a little salad at supper after evening church (I always think chicken and salad taste so much better after evening ciiurnh than they even do at a dance), when I suddenly felt Mary's eye on pie and fhe ?aid " Salad, Monica, at this time of night ! " and all my enjoyment was over. It made mc feel almost as bad as I thonld have felt at a dance had I been jnddenly claimed by a young man with red hair and a snub noae who couldn't dance. However, I did not give way without a itruggle ; I «ftid, " I thought that salad wa? very good for people—good for the blood, or lomething." "Green food is certainly good," said Jfarv, with her best professional manner (I wish she wouldn't say "green food," it gounds as though I were a canary), "but not at this time of night"—it was only 8.30. "If you want to eat raw green food at any moment with impunity yon would have to live in a state of nature." Here Tom interrupted, and said he thought that was all rot, and it wouldn't be any good trying to do the Garden of Eden business now, because thore are bo many of us there wouldn't be enough fig leaves to go round. Mary pretended not to hear Tom's indecorous remark, and gave mc a long dissertation upon my digestion. I was so overawed that I left my salad and nearly took the walnut pickles instead, but luckily caught Tom's eye and desisted. I was only just in time, for she nearly began again, nut I pretended I was putting the top on the jar. There are few people who are more trying to have in a house than those who study hygiene. They eeom to have so many opportunities. I was sitting in the garden the other day enjoying a novel and some chocolates, when unfortunately Mary passed. She stopped abruptly and looked sternly at mo, and then said, " Sweets again, Monica I By the time yovi realise how bad they are for you you won't have a tooth left."

Thie was very unpleasant, as my teeth are my only beauty. Mnry is studying medicine with a purpose. She is going to be a lady doctor. I don't think we shall any of us much care for her to attend us ; personally, I prefer a man, and Nina says she thinks a lady doctor would be unsympathetic, and so dull. Tom saya he thinks it would be rather a joke—only he wouldn't care for Mary. He saya he would prefer someone fluffier (I suppose he means with a fringe), who would lay a " cool hand upon his fevered brovr." So on the whole Mary is not likely to get much praotice in the family. Tom saye her remedies are too severe. He had a cold the other day, and she painted his throat; ke said she went at it as though she were house-painting. She practices a good deal now on the servants. They seem to have great faith in her—btit they have not been with us long. One day last week we were giving a large "At Home." Mary and I were sitting in the morning room after breakfast, when the housemaid came in and said,-"Please, miss, cook's got such a dreadful headache; she cays she can't get on with the cooking for to-night. Can you kindly give her something for it ?"

Mary rose with alacrity, the light of battle in her eye ; " Certainly, Parsons," she said genially, "I will get her some antipyrin."^ She tan upstairs and mixed something in a glass and brought it down to Parsons. * "Give this to cook," she eaid, "and tell her she will be all right in an hour." We settled down again to oar occupation of arranging flowers. In about twenty minutes Parsons burst into the room with a white face. " Oh, Misa Mary," ehe cried, " cook's face is swelling dreadful, and her mouth's all drawn to one side."

I flew downstairs, and Mary followed mc. Cook was a most terrifying object. I felt greatly alarmed, but Mary was cmite calm. She said cook would be all right if she kept warm, and she managed to make her swallow a little brandy. She certainly recovered, but I firmly believe it was touch and go with her. lam sure she had been given an overdose. Mary said she thought not, as it was only what she took herself, and that the woman's heart must be weak. She said also that even if sho had given her too much it couldn't be helped. It was practice, and it was only through making an occasional mistake that people could learn.

Mary doesn't really understand or care for poetry, but she is very fond of quoting it, and she added something about " rising on stepping-stones of our dead selves to • higher things." Tom said he thought she would bo qmte likely to rise on tho steppingatonea of somebody else's dead body. He was very rude to Mary about cook; he came up to her in the middle of the afternoon, just when she was lecturing a young friend of his on " Diseases of the spine through over-oycling," and said with a grin, "I suppose you are thanking your stars you're not in the Old Bailoy by now." He worries Mary a good deal. He saye he can't bear to see her with a knife, he is so afraid she will give him a out just to have the pleasure of binding him up. Butuhe has quite a large practice in the village. She is really extremely good to the people, and they think her very clever. I remember one particularly successful case ehe bad last winter. Our milkman sprained his band ; some kind of paralysis followed, tad the hand became quite limp and useless. Hβ could not even move it, and his wife came to Mary in great distress. She said he had been to the local surgery, and they told him he would never be able to use it •gain. He was now wearing it in a sling. Mary went down to see him. She looked *t it for a long time, and asked him a great jjfcny questions; then she recommended nun to try rubbing it with embrocation. Bhe used to go and rub it for him, and the rubbinij oured him. Tom says the cure was quite accidental, that ehe merely inquired what the former treatment had been, and suggested the very opposite, and that lots of doctors do that. . However, it was a great success, and made «ary'g reputation. The man was deeply grateful; he came to see her not long afterwards, and said, " You have taken a load off >oy heart, miss, and no mistake. I was dreadfully afraid it was paralysis, because Uβ in our family." Really I" said Mary eagerly. She was deeply interested, and already longing to oorethe family. "Who is suffering from »« she asked, "your father or your mother?" '* Neither of 'em, thank you, miss," said Jhe man, ««it's on my wife's side—her Uther died iv a stroke." Tom said if that was a specimen of the »gncuUural voter, it really couldn't do «och harm if women got their franchise ; "Kit Mary was very disappointed; she felt •he had lost a patient. R. Neish.