DR. LAMONT’S STRONG FINGERS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XXI, 13 November 1897, Page 670

DR. LAMONT’S STRONG FINGERS.

‘I was afraid you were going to slip through my fingers,’ said good old Dr. Lamont. The writer was a boy of about 17 then. While a student at school, more than 300 miles from home, X was taken down with pneumonia. I had a tough time, and for two or three weeks my life was despaired of. But youth and good care wen the fight, and one bright morning I was ready to go home with my dear father who had come for me. I was weak still, but well and happy clear up to the brim. Oh, what a ride. Oh, what sweet air. Oh, what a glorious world I had got back into; and what a reception from my mother and sisters at the familiar house. Oh, life! Oh, health! Oh, ‘dulce, dulce domum.’ Such an illness, if one survives it, only makes the sense of existence and its blessings more keen and delightful. It is good rather than bad. Lucky boy, not to have slipped through the doctor’s fingers. But when a man with most of his days behind him has to write a line like this ‘All my life I have suffered more or less from disease’—why that is another and sadder story. It is the odds between an occasional thunder storm and a sky always covered with clouds. We quote what he says, reminding the reader that in this matter Mr William Ilodkinson voices the experience of millions. He says: ‘I always had a bad taste in the mouth, no proper relish for food, and after eating had pain and fulness at the chest.’ These sensations are symptoms of acute indigestion. In the stomach there is marked loss of power. The food is neither rolled over as it should be so that the whole of it may be in turn presented to the digestive fluid, nor is it duly moved on towards the outlet into the bowels. As a result it ferments and gives off irritating acids and gases, hence the patient complains of pain, weight, distension, acidity, and flatulence in that region. Thence the poisons proceed to every other part of the body, and headache, vertigo, gout, rheumatism, depressed spirits, and a score more of evils follow; among them possibly, nervous prostration, progressive anaemia, locomotor ataxis, and more or less complete paralysis. ‘Frequently,’ continues Mr Hodkinson, ‘I was sick, and as time went on I became very weak and feeble. I consulted one doctor after another, and took various medicines, but obtained no real or lasting relief from any of them. This describes my general condition until the fortunate day when I read about Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup. I was impressed by the statements others had made concerning it, and proceeded to try it. After taking one bottle I found relief, and was soon entirely free from my old complaint. Since that time, now eight years ago, I have enjoyed good health. Knowing personally of its virtues I have recommended this remedy to hundreds, and have never heard of its having failed to give relief. But for Mother Seigel’s Syrup I should have been in my grave years ago. (Signed) William Hodkinson, Hollington, near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, August 11th, 1893.’ Mr Hodkinson is well known and highly respected. He is a local preacher in the Methodist Church, and by employment, a quarry master. Had he gone into the grave as he feared he should, he would have been missed and lamented by the community in which he has long been useful, and will live to be useful, we hope, for years to come. Now let us repeat our leading thought. Short illnesses, even though sharp anddangerous, may result in good rather than harm. But a disease that drags its victim through decades of lingering distress — what shall we say of it? The trouble and suffering it inflicts is beyond estimate, and its name is indigestion and dyspepsia. And the name of the medicine that cures it Mr Hodkinson has done you the favour to mention with clearness and emphasis.