THE HISTORY OF A SCAR.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1198, 15 February 1895, Page 28

THE HISTORY OF A SCAR.

On the back of my right hand —just about the middle of it —there is a small scar, half as big as a threepenny piece, perhaps. You would never notice it unless I showed it to you, and even then you would have to look sharp to see it. But it’s there, all the same, and will be until the hand is returned to dust. It dates back forty years, that scar does. Going home from school one day another boy and I quarrelled and fought. Strange to say, it wasn’t about a girl either. Anyway, he drew his jack-knife and stabbed me in the back of the right hand. The wound, I remember, was slow to heal. It was sore and inflamed for months, and hardly a day but something hit it, or I knocked it against something, and so made it worse. My whole available body appeared to be concentrated in /that sore. You know how such things are. They are like boils, and if there is any comfortable spot to have a boil there are loads of money waiting for the fellow who discovers it. Lately we have received two letters, both containing an identical expression, namely, this : “ Everything seemed a trouble to me.” Now, none of us are so tough as to be proof against trouble, but when everything is a trouble to a man the very heart inside of him must be tender and touchy. And, Mercy knows, it is so often enough. Grief will do it, worry will do it, and illness too. One of these letters, or at least the writer of it, goes on to say : —lt was in March, 1880, that I felt tired and languid, and witliout mv usual energy. Before that I had always been strong and active; Now I was low-spirited and melancholy everything seemed a trouble to me. At first I had a bad taste in the mouth, a poor appetite, and all I ate gave me great pain in the chest and sides. Even fish and poultry gave me as much distress as more solid food. I was constantly spitting up a sour, acid fluid which caused a miserable feeling in my throat and mouth. “ After I had been for some time in this condition I was attacked with gout in my hands and feet, which confined me to the house now and again for a week or two at a time. The parts became inflamed and swollen, and gave me excruciating agony. I could not bear anything to touch them. For four years I was subject to these attacks. The doctor who attended me was able to ease me temporarily, but I was soon as bad as ever. “In the middle of April, 1888, I read that cases like mine had been cured by Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup, and, I thought I would try it. I hadn’t taken more than half a bottle when I felt relieved. This encourag-ed me to keep on with the Syrup, and in a comparatively short time all symptoms of the disease left me. Since then I have enjoyed excellent health, and whenever I feel a twinge of my old enemy a dose or two of ‘ Mother Siegel’ soon sets me right. Yours truly, (Signed) M. Leahy, 49, Grosvenor Terrace, Grosvenor Park, Camberwell, London, September 22nd, 1892.” So much for the facts as Mr Leahy felt them. What has science to offer in explanation of them ? This. Gout, rheumatism, and biliousness are three complaints arising indirectly from an overworked liver, or, more properJy, from indigestion and dyspepsia. The poisons so engendered may lie hidden and nnfelt for a long time, and then be suddenly rendered active by mental worry, exposure, over eating, wrong eating, or any of a dozen other causes. The kidneys fail, (following the stomach and liver), the acid poison remains in the blood and sets up inflammation in the joints, and the retained fluids produce dropsy. All sorts of disturbances are apt to go with this condition of things, everyone less a disease in itself than a symptom of the one cause —indigestion and dyspepsia. The heart and lungs are often attacked in sympathy. Cure the toi'pid digestion, and an all-round improvement at once succeeds. To do this is in the power of Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup—as, perhaps, in the power of nothing else. It was most unfortunate that this gentleman suffered for eight years ; and no wonder, meanwhile, that his mind was sensitive as his body to every approach. Knowing what he now knows he feels safe. There is no darkness but ignorance, and the German Nurse shows “ The Way Out.” London, October, 1892. J.M.P.