STAND BACK AND THEN LOOK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2399, 22 February 1900, Page 21

STAND BACK AND THEN LOOK.

" Madam." said a wise old physician f o :\ woman who had brought a foable, anaemic, and poorly developed daughter to him for examination. "Madam, the treatment of fiis girl should have been begun two hundred years ago." • "Sir," she exclaimed, "I don't understand what you mean."

"Probably not, madam," replied this student of men and of medicine, and you wouldn't even should I try to explain it."

How do you best see a picture, on a wall? Wiry, by standing back and looking through your hollowed fist or through a tube. Well then, let us first read Mrs Coombes's letter, and afterwards get a little of "tfhat painters call perspective on it and see if we can understand the lesson it teaches.

"' In -the spring of last year, 1895," she c ays, -"Iliad an attack of pleurisy, which left me low -and weak. Subsequently I could not %et .up myrstrength, do what I would. My appetite was poor, and after eating I had severe pains about my chest, at my sitle, and between my shoulders. I had muscular painb in my aims and shoulders — in fact all over me. I got little or no sleep, and felt quite worn out in the morning. " As time went on I got weaker and weaker and was scarcely able to get about. I came to be so low that I thought I never should be better again. I saw a doctor and took medicines, but nothing did me any good. "In December (1895) my sister, who lives at Oxford, told me of the benefit she had derived from Mother Seigel's Syrup. I got a bottle from Mr Cooper, chemist, Oldbury Koad, and after taking it found great relief. I could cat well, and food agreed with me. " I now gained strength, and after taking four bottles was well as ever and fiee from, all ppin, muscular or otherwise. I know others who have been benefited by the same medicine. You can publish this statement as you nice. (Signed) Charlotte Coombes, 177 Oldbury Road, West Smethwick, Birmingham, October Bth, 1896." . That is her letter— a plain, truthful, and well-written letter. But what do we see behind the simple facts as she sets- them down! Is there anything suggested by that attack ol pleubisy she speaks of? Was that the beginning? No. Pleukisy is the name given to an inflammation of the spaces or cavities in which the lungs rest. When the inflammation attacks ' the lungs themselves we call it TNEuirONiA ; if the bronchial tubes, bronchitis'; and so on. But they are the same thing, from the same cause— namely, impure blood. When the blood is thus polluted, the smallest provocation— a slight cold— may set up any of the above ailments. . Rheumatism (which Mrs Coombes had) belongs to the same group or family of maladies. But how comes that impurity or corruption of the blood in which these things arise? I' 1 ! tell you, in the hope that you will remember it. [ndigestion, dyspepsia, fermentation of food ia the stomach, torpid liver, which leaves the bile acids in the blood instead of removing them, poisonous dirt pud 51th from the stomach getting into the circulation — that's where the trouble comes from. So we see I hatin cases of pleurisy, etc., there is always what the doctors call a " history " of dyspepsia. Although this lady had keen dyspeptic symptoms after the pleurisy, a previous Imperfection of her digestion— whether she realised it or not — laid the foundation for the pleurisy, the rheumatism, and all that followed. Now that is what we see as we stand ~>ack and look. And this is the practical use yov arc to make of the knowledge : Take care ol the condition of your stomach, and the FIRST day you feel anything wrong with it, resort to Mother Seigel's Syrup, without waiting to find out whether you are going to be worse or not. When your house takes fire, you don't wait to see how bad it is likely to be ; you stop it immediately. Do so with indigestion. The old doctor was right in what he said to the woman about her daughter. The girl couldn't help the neglect of her ancestors ; bul we can do something towards taking care oi ourselves.

At the door of a workshop in Invercargil) yesterdoy morning a log of diy wood was observed to be "mouldering. The observer, look' ing round for some cau?e, noticed that a sheei of bright tinned steel was standing in the sun, and from its slightly concave surface the rayj were focussed on to the point which had taken fire. To remove any doubt as to the sun's rays having ignited the wood a match vvaa placed in the line of focus and speedily, iaiiited.