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Illness is generally One’s Own Fault

Even Hippocrates the celebrated physician of olden times, under-stood that illness is not a bolt from the blue, but is ratlier the result of a series of daily smali transgressions. which pile themselres up little by little until they burst Hke a thunder-cloud over the heads of the foolish.

Many peóple ruin their own health by committing such deadly hygienic sins as always going about in a tight-laced corset and with too high heels, or filling themselves every day with strong drink and too rich and indigestible food, and inhaling and absorbing into their blood, day and night, poisonous gases, which they, and others in the same room, have exhaled and exuded. Many others fali ill through sins of omission. He who does not take care of his body, neglects it, and thereby sins against Naturę ; she knows no forgiveness of sins, but revenges herself with mathematical certainty. lf you do not take a bath and sorae all-round exercise daily (a walk does not merit this description), and do not see that you havc from seven to eight hours' sleep at night. regularly, it is your own fault if you are ill, for you havc troubied neither to get nd of the poisonous mattcr which is generated in your own body. nor to render the latter capablc of rcsisting infection from without.

It would conseąuently be absołutely logical to regard it as a species of fraud for persons, for example, who hołd business or official appoint-ments, to live in direct opposition to the simplest rules of health, with the result that they are obhgcd to lie up evcry year for a longer or shorter period, and entail extTa expense upon their cmployer, the State, or the Municipality, as the caęe may be, and similarly, if a man be delicate and yet, for the sake of additional profit, saddle himself with morę sedentary brain-work, instead of making use of the leisure which his regular daily tiead-work leayes in order to fortify his health.

Quite reccntly a man declarcd in a death announcemcnt that the Covernment had "killed his second child, because there were still not establishments enough for the treatment of poor tuberculosis patients ! There may be some truth in the thought, but the State ought in return to have the right to prohibit keeping the sunniest room for show', sleeping at night with dosed Windows, and without urgent necessity, leading an unhealthy life generally.

We, who make a serious efiort to be well, have to watch people committing sins against Hygiene which are simply enough to make one's hair stand on end. without daring, even unobstrusivcly, to suggest that they should stop. They would certainly retort:    What business is

it of yours, Sir ?" Yes. and we have to bear the heavv cost of those placeś of refuge—hospitals and lunatic asylums—for such “ sinners " and their offspring.

Do not point to this man or the other who, despite the fact that hc pays no heed to his bodily health, is to all appearance well. His time will come sooner or later. He may possibly be fortunate enough to escape infection, but he will ncvcr attain the feeling of exuberant health that a rational carc of the body produces. He does not live, he onlv yegetates. He has wasted the stock of vitalitv that he may possibly have inherited from healthy parents. His children will be so much the weaker.

So let us not close our eyes, but ratlier bold up to the light the fact