HOW IT IS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CII, Issue 11948, 20 July 1899, Page 2

HOW IT IS.

In the streets of the town where ! Uvj I sometimes meet a poor fellow who is bo badly off that his appeal for a pen iy or two is hardly to be resisted. He has lost both his legs above the knees, and punts himself along the pavement with his ham is like a loaded barge in shallow water. Thank Mercy, one doesn’t often see human hulks like him. Where there is a single instance of a man "having lost both legs or both arms there are a dozen where only, one limb of the pair is missing. And where there is a single case of the latter sort there are a hundred cases of people, who are lame, or more or less disabled, by disease or minor injuries, which are scarcely noticeable, yet in the long run very, serious to those so afflicted.

Consequently, when we siun up both classes we perceive that it isn’t the total wrecks and the incurables that are most expensive to society, but the prodigious host which must work, and does work, yet always under difficulties and against hindrances. Men and women regularly employed, but who are continually breaking down in a small way, thus losing fragments of time and fractions of wages, arc of the kind I ; mean. The'amount of income lost, in this way in one year in England is immense. And so far as the cause of all this is disease, and not accident or born bodily imperfection, it is almost always preventable and generally curable. Look at this, for example, and take heart. “In the spring of this year (1897),” the writer says, “my health began to fail me. My appetite was poor, and after meals I had pain and weight at the chest. I could not sleep owing to the pain, and I got weaker every day. I had so much pain that I dared not eat,' and rapidly lost flesh. ', “ I was in agony nignt and day, and often sat by the fire at night, as I could not rest in bed. I had a deal of muscular pain, particularly in the arms. I gradually got worse and worse, and in two months lost two score pounds weight. “ I saw a doctor who gave' me medicines and .injected morphia to ease the pain; but I was no better for it. Then I met with a friend who told me of the great benefit he had derived from the use of a medicine called Mother Seigel s Syrup. I got a bottle of it from Mr S. Richardson, Chemist,- Bridgman Street, and in a week I could eat well, and food no longer distressed me. Therefore, I kept on with the medicine, and soon was strong and well. I am now in the best of health, and recommend this remedy to all I meet with. You are at liberty to publish this letter as you like.” (Signed) William Bridge, Grocer and Baker, 65, Bridgman Street, Bolton, October sth, 1897. Here we have an illustration of the proposition with which this article sets out. From Mr Bridge’s account of his own case we see that he lost a considerable time -from his business. How much that represents in money he does not say; nor is it important to the argument. For two months or more he lost from his business practically all he was worth to it; and what that situation would have signified, had it been indefinitely continued, any intelligent person can imagine. Men frequently become stricken with poverty as with illness in that way. However well any business may be managed in an emergency by others, it is not to be supposed that it gets on as prosperously as when the proprietor is himself at the helm. And he cannot be there wldle he is suffering agonies from disease. This is true even if we make no calculation of the direct expenses created by illness, nor of the suffering experienced—the latter not computable in terms of money. Now, please remark how quickly Mr Bridge was cured of his ailment—bad as it seemed and really was. Dating from the time he began using Mother Seigel’s Syrup, he says ;—“ In a week I could eat well, and the food no longer distressed me.” His trouble was of the digestion only (acute dyspepsia), for which this preparation long ago proved itself a specific. Had he known of and employed it when the attack began he would have lost no time, felt no pain. The lesson of the case is this : —As indigestion; is a common complaint, and dangerous also when neglected, the remedy should be at hand for immediate use when needed. The more valuable the treasure the more strict should be the guard over it. And health is a jewel compared with which rubies are as the glass beads of savages.