STRUCK DOWN IN BURMAH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9093, 18 April 1891, Page 4

STRUCK DOWN IN BURMAH.

Beethoven composed music he was too deaf to hear, and the fastest steam craft in the world was built (both hull and machinery) by an American who has been perfeotly blind for many^ years. Nevertheless the one would have been.the better for his hearing and the other for his sight. A soldier may be a model of patriotism , and courage, but of what use is he in an army i£ he cannot carry a musket ? Allow us to illustrate the point by a short story. Mr John Hodson was born at Warboys, in Huntingdonshire. When he was twenty-five years old he took work as a navvy under the great railway contractors, Messrs Lucas, Aird, Sons, and Co., ,of Westminster, and remained "under them seven years. He then enlisted in Her Majesty's 51st Regiment, andweDt*ithib to India in 1883. He assisted in the Burmah Expedition in 1885-6, and was at Mandalay when King Theebaw surrendered. With this explanation we will now let Mr Hodson tell his own tale. He says:— After reaching Shorebo I began to feel badly, I had a sinking sensation at the pit of the stomach, and was so drowsy I could hardly hold my head up. I had pain in my right side ana under the shoulder blades, lost my spirits and took a gloomy view of everything. I oould neither eat nor Bleep. I lay in bed awake night after night. My liver .was perfeotly torpid, skin and eyes yellow, tongue badly coated, heart irregular, no appetite, cold extremities, sickness, vomiting and an incessant diarrhoea. With these symptoms I was in bed four months ia the year 1887. In the hospital I was treated by the regimental physician, and was visited by Dr Bell, of the Indian Government, who said I was suffering from dysentery. I became so weak I could hardly Btand, and passed nothing bat slime from the Bowels. No treatment availed to stop the diarrhcea. Finally I was sent home, and arrived at Gospott in December 1888, and was transferred to the hospital there until February 1889, when I was discharged as incurable and placed in the Army Reserve. I returned to Warboys, and feeling a trifle better, tried to / work. But I soon had to give up. I became so thin that people who had known me for years did not recognise me. My old friends and mates said " Hodson, you needn't trouble to buy any more clothes to wear in thiß world. The next suit you'll want will be made •of wood.

Still I ate something, oJ course, but it gave me no strength. After eating I was often 'obliged to leave the table hurriedly, so severe were the griping, gnawing pains that seized me. My father and mother were alarmed at my condition. I consulted a physician at Warboys, who gave me some medicine, which, however, made no impression upon my complaint. I then went to Mr Nicholl, the chemist of Warboys (now of Croydon), who said, "You had better try Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup." I got a bottle and took it, but it seemed to have no effect. Mr Nicholl said: " Try it again. I have such confidence in it that I will give you the second bottle free of pharge." He did so, and before he had taken the half of the second bottle I began to feel better. I got a third bottle, and before I had finished it I bad so much improved that I was asked to go back to my work. But I was afraid, and said, " No; wait until I have used three bottles more, for this wonderful medicine is doing what nothing else in India or England has been able , to do—IT IS HEALING ME FBOM THE VEBT DEPTHS WHEBE I WAS ILL AND DYING."

I kept on with Mother Seigel, and indeed a Mother she truly is to the suffering. The fifth bottle was gone at last, and I presented myself to the astonished people of Warboys as robust, strong, and well as ever I was in all my life. I returned to my work, and my combades looked UPON MB AS ONE EISEN IROM THE DEAD. " What has done this for you?" they asked with wondering eyes. " I owe my life and health to Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup," I answered, " and I am willing all the world should hear me say so." I have never lost an hour's work since, and will gladly reply to any letters of inquiry addressed to "John Hodson, Warboys, Huntingdonshire."

To the above true and faithful account of Mr Hodsou's experience it is only necessary to add a word of explanation. His real disease was indigestion and dyspepsia brought on by change of climate, habits, and food.—The diarrhoea, of which he speaks, is (strange as it may seem) an effect and symptom of prolonged and prevailing constipation. It X nature's last efforts to free the bowels of their terrible and poisonous load. In this crisis Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup came to the rescue, and not a day too soon.