EE EA ST SE Bellefonte, Pa., February 1, 1918. R —— LITTLE MOTHER. Little mother, little mother, with the shad- ows in your eyes And the icy hand of Fear about your heart, You cannot help your boy prepare to make his sacrifice Unless you make yours bravely at the start! He js training, as a million others train; He is giving what the others give—their best; Make him feel your faith in him, though your troubled eyes grow dim; Let him know that you can stand the acid test! Because he's joined the colors—he's not dead! Because he's found his duty, lost! Through your mother-love, my dear, keep him steady, keep him near the soul he loves—your whate'er the cost! he's not To soul— You aren't alone in heartaches or in doubts; All mothers feel this burden, newly coined ; Then call your trembling pride to your colors—to your side— “Be a sport!” and make him glad that . he has joined! Little mother, little mother, with the shad- ows in your eyes And the icy hand of Fear about your heart, There is this that you can do: “play the game,” there honor lies. Now your boy and country need you— do your part! — Jack Appleton, in Cincinnati Enquirer AGAINST THE DRAFT. Midway in the five-mile railway tunnel, the ventilating shaft rose one thousand feet through Sutro Moun- tain. Over the mouth of the shaft on the mountain stood 2 low building that housed the great steel fan for in- creasing the draft. machinery echoed over the snow-bur- ied plateau, and a column of smoke from the great wooden chimney stain- ed the crystal air of the morning. Alex Kane had just returned to the dynamo room from oiling the shaft on the fan. He found his brother-in- law and assistant, Hanno Ferguson, leaning back in his chair, with his fea- tures twisted in pain and his hand pressed against his right side. “Hurting again, Hanno?” “Same old ache, Alex.” Kane noticed the gray, lined face, wet with perspiration. “It’s home for you, and quick,” he decided. Hanno protested weakly, but finally he gave in. Alex half carried, half dragged his brother-in-law through the deep, soft snow to the house a quarter of a mile away, where Alex lived with the Fergusons. There was no other dwelling within a mile. As soon as they reached the house Han- no sank weakly into a chair. “Bed, hot-water bag and a mustard poultice, Saddie,” Alex said to his sis- ter. “I'll telephone Doctor Carroll.” He hurried back to the rumbling dynamo room. Half an hour had passed, and it was time again to oil the bearings of the fan shaft. When he had done that he would telephone to the doctor, and would also ask the railway agent at Keswick to send him a helper. It would be safer to have some one with him at the shaft house. ‘With a dipper of thick, black oil in his hand, the engineer started out round the corner of the dynamo room. From the round, flat-roofed struc- ture over the mouth of the ventilating shaft extended two narrow rooms that were separated from each other by a wall of masonry. Each was thirty- five feet long and ten feet wide, and at their inner and outer ends there were heavy doors. In a space in the masonry between the two rooms was the powerful ven- tilating fan. When the fan was in motion the inner doors, next to the pit, were always open. Through them poured the smoke and gas from the engines in the long tunnel far below; curved blades sucked the smoke into the revolving fan, which expelled it into the huge wooden chimney above. In cold weather the natural draft, in- creased by the suction of the wheel, was tremendous. Putting down his dipper of oil out- side the first fan room, Alex pushed with both hands against the door, which was eight feet square. It too all his strength to force it open against the draft. The smoke, rush- ing out dense and pitchy, blinded his eyes and made him cough. He swung the door back against the right wall, and braced it with a stout maple prop. Ome end of the stick he rested under a spruce cleat on the door three and a half feet from the bottom; the other end he leaned against the base of the masonry wall opposite. Stepping out of the warm, smoky darkness into the keen air and bril- liant sunlight, he picked up his dip- per of oil and went inside again. The revolving steel shaft, five feet above the dirt floor, came through the right wall from the adjoining dyna- mo room, and ran straight across the fan room to the foundation of the wheel. It was the bearings of this shaft that he had to oil. Wrapped in pungent, stinging smoke, he poured the contents of his dipper over the bearings. Close at his left purred the sooty wheel. From under the shaft a gummy ooze of oil, black as tar, trickled down over the supporting masonry. What was that? Behind him sounded a low thud that was almost drowned by the noise of the wheel. A shadow suddenly swept past him in the smoke and cut off the light. With a cry of alarm, Alex dropped his empty dipper, whirled about, and rushed for the door. Too late! Long before he reached the door the draft had slammed it shut. He was a prisoner in the fan room. At once he guessed what had hap- pened. Blinded by the smoke, he must have set the prop just under the inner end The rumble of, of the cleat. gusts that drove into every corner of the room had jarred the prop loose and slammed the door shut. Alex stood panic-stricken. He knew his peril. From the awful gust behind rose the fumes of the belching engines in the tunnel a thousand feet | pitchy, the below. Acid, gaseous, smoke ascended in a ceaseless column. Human lungs could not endure it long. Except for a narrow line of light round the edges of the door the room was in utter darkness. Round the engineer smoke currents rushed to- i ward the steel-bladed fan. There was a pressure of hundreds of pounds against that door. How could he ever get it open? Throwing off his momentary despair, Alex sprang forward. The door did not fit close. Perhaps he could force ger tips into the crack. No. He ran his hands along the base; he tried to reach the top, but it was of no use. Ough! Ough! Ough! A paroxysm of coughing shook him. Weak and trembling, against the vibrating masonry. could look for no help from outside. No one would come to the plant for hours. He must depend upon himself. The thought roused him. Again he fell furiously upon the door. He drove his fingers into the narrow crack and strove to bend them round the edge. Soon, however, he ceased, for he saw that the attempt was use- less. He dropped to the floor, where the air seemed a little purer. But in a minute another fit of coughing shook him. His own life was at stake; and Hanno needed the doctor—how badly, he could not tell. Somehow he must get out. But how? On his right and left were ma- sonry walls; in front of him was the door he had twice assailed in vain; behind him was the pit, a thousand feet deep. If he could only close the inner door! That would cut off the draft, and allow the outer door to open easi- ly; but a chain that was worked by a gear and hand lever on the roof held the inner door open. To close it from below was impossible. His hand touched the maple stick that he had used to prop open the door. It was a stout stick more than nine feet long. Could he not use it as a battering-ram? He lifted it calculating by and then tossed it aside. He doubted whether he could shatter the door with it; and if he should try and fail, he would have driven the door shut so hard that he would not have the slightest chance of opening it. Hrum! Hrum! Hrum-um-um! The monotonous whirl of the fan beat into his brain. His head was aching, there was a pressure on his chest, and he was growing dizzy. He ran his fingers along the bottom of the door. About a foot from the corner, his hand struck a loose stone in the masonry sill. The stone was flat and very thin. If he could dis- lodge it, he might force his fingers through the hole. Alex began to pull on the stone, and to work it this way and that. Against the back of his neck surged the warm, strong blast from the pit. It was a race between him and the smoke. With nails broken and fingers bleeding, he dug and picked, and tore at the crumbling mortar. The stone moved tantalizingly, but still hung fast. If he only had something to pry it with! He felt in his pocket. His knife was in the dynamo room; but his key ring yielded a long, narroy piece of steel. For two or three minutes more he punched and poked at the stone; then, suddenly, it came free. It left a shal- low, narrow crevice that extended into the threshold barely beyond the bot- tom of the door. He could just crowd his finger tips into it and bend the first joints up behind the wood. He almost shouted with joy. He knew, of course, that he could move the door only inch by inch and that he must find some way of saving whatever distance he might gain. Otherwise, the instant he relaxed his efforts, the draft would close the door and steal the little advantage he had won. Groping behind him, he grasped the prop, and stood it up against the edge of the door, so that it would fall into the crack when the door opened. Then, sitting down, he braced his feet against the sill, leaned forward, and hooked his finger tips under the door. Oh, for one deep breath of fresh air! But no; he must do his work with lungs choked with deadly smoke. With his feet planted firmly, he I | strained backward. The door barely moved, and the moment he relaxed his efforts, it settled into place again. He worked his fingers a little far- ther up. After resting a minute, he struggled again to open the door. He was strong, but the pressure against the sixty-four square feet of the door was strong also. This time the door opened a little wider, but not enough for the stick to drop into the crack. Again it slammed shut. The engineer's strength was wan- ing; bright sparks danced before his eyes. His ears rang. His head was splitting, and his muscles no longer seemed to have any strength. The will in his clogged brain was growing weak. ® ‘Air! He must have air! He thrust his face down to the crevice from which he had pried the stone; but the smoke, rushing up through the pit and into the room, forced back the fresh air from the crack. He would make one more attempt — his last. He knew that, this time, he would not have strength to try again. Mustering his ebbing energies, he gave a final fierce wrench. The door came open six inches, and the stick fell into the gap. When the door swung to, the maple stick held it open three inches. Alex tottered to his feet. He had not yet won the battle. Standing be- side the crack with swimming head, he caught the edge of the door with both hands, and pulled with the strength of desperation . The crack widened far enough to let him force the upper part of his body out into the blinding light, and he dropped for- ward, caught fast in the opening. The fresh, icy air revived him, and after a few minutes he managed to The violent, irregular his fin- | he leaned | He | if he failed |J | work himself free. He stumbled into ‘the dynamo room. | Glancing at the clock, he saw that he had been in the smoke less than half an hour; but it had seemed ten times as long. His little mirror re- flected a white, haggard face, streak- ed with oil and soot. He pulled himself together and tel- | ephoned to Doctor Carroll about Han- { no. Next he called the agent at Kes- | wick and made him promise to send a {man up to the shaft house. Then, | with gritted teeth, he scooped up "another dipperful of oil from the can, | and started for the fan room.—Albert | W. Tolman, in The Youth’s Compan- ion. | , Boy of the Committee on Public In- formation. | President Wilson has sent the following | letter to Mr. Colin H. Livingstone, Pres- | jdent National Council, Boy Scouts of America: “My Dear Mr. Livingstone: «T desire to entrust the Boy Scouts | of America with a new and important | commission, to make them the Gov- | ernment despatch bearers in carrying | to the homes of their community the | pamphlets on the war, prepared by | the Committee on Public Information. ‘The excellent services performed by the Boy Scouts in the past encourag- es me to believe that this new task will be cheerfully and faithfully dis- charged. “Yours sincerely, “WOODROW WILSON.” The Boy Scouts of America num- bering nearly 300,000, have respond- ed to the request of the President with hearty unanimity and will un- dertake, as their first despatch-bear- ing service, a distribution of copies of the President’s Flag Day address, published by the Committee on Pub- lic Information in pamphlet form on September 15, 1917, and regarded as that has been issued by the govern- ment in regard to the fundamental is- sues of the war. It is the desire of the Administra- tion that this pamphlet have careful study by the people of the country and the Boy Scouts, acting as des- patch bearers directly under command of the President, will place the docu- ment in the hands of five million citi- zens of every city, town and hamlet of the country, with specific instruc- tions that its contents be carefully considered and that the reader then make it his personal responsibility to see that at least ome other citizen of the community also reads the copy. By these means a minimum of ten millions of thoughtful citizens will have had this important message im- pressed upon their minds or will have been refreshed in memory as to the principles of the war as expressed by the President on September 15. The pamphlets will be sent through the mails to the individual scouts and in each package there will be a manu- al for the guidance of these young Government messengers. Acting un- der the local instructions of the Scoutmasters the despatch bearers will deliver such printed matter as may be issued from time to time by the Committee of Public Infarmation to citizens, carefully avoiding dupli- cation. They will accept signed re- ceipts from the persons visited and also their personal assurance that they will comply with the requests made, particularly to aid distribution by passing the documents to others. Each Boy Scout is provided with an identification card, bearing his name, troop number, city and State, and de- claring his appointment as an aide to the Committee on Public Information to serve as a despatch bearer for the government during the period covered by his registration, under -the direc- tion of the National Council, Boy Scouts of America. President Wil- son’s letter requesting the service is reproduced in facsimile on the reverse side of the identification card. Each Scout despatch bearer will have access to franked postal cards, returnable to the Committee on Pub- lic Information, by { any citizen may order mailed to him any of the various war pamphlets which the Committee on Public Infor- mation has published during the war. Lbs, February Cosmopolitan. Now on sale, has something inter- esting to offer to every fiction lover. The foibles of modern society are vividly described in Elizabeth Rob- in’s serial “Camilla’—and “Virtuous Wives”’—Owen Johnson’s stupendous novel, is contrasted with Lillie Lang- try’s memoirs of a society of a past generation. The finest types of American and wit are displayed in Ade’s “Fable of the Bewildered Maverick and the Conflicting Testimony;” “Jolly Bache- lors” by George Randolph Chester— and “Penrod Jashber,” Booth Tark- ington’s new serial following Pen- rod’s career as detective. Charming tales of youthful love and indiscretion are “The Restless Sex,” by Robert W. Chambers; “The Second Choice,” a complete short sto- ry by Theodore Dreiser, and “Tiger, Tiger!” the latest Henry the Ninth story by Samuel Merwin. But love and beauty-worship have no age lim- it, and in John Galsworthy's new two- part story, “Indian Summer of a For- syte,” we find the pathos and simplic- ity of an aged man’s longing for beauty. “On the Trail of the Cowardly Cou- gar,” by Rex Beach is an adventure story that every sportsman will en- oy. : “The Black Cross,” by Arthur B. Reeve, is a rattling good detective story. Get “The Diary Habit.” You will after reading Arnold Bennett's inter- esting article. Hooverize with Her- bert Kaufman—*“Stop Eating Sol- diers!” and you who are forever on the lookout for the ideal mother, will find your answer in “Good Mothers,” Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s latest poem. One of the thickest skinned an- imals in existence is the walrus, which is found in great herds on the ice fields of the ocean and in winter on Bering sea. Hides one inch or more thick, especially around the shoulders, are common, and they can be split many times, every layer a tough, strong, durable leather. Scouts to be Official Messengers | the most comprehensive statement! means of which’ humor | Health and Happiness, Nunmber 32. Why Die Before Your Time ? New Developments in the Treatment of Heart Disease. By Henry Smith Williams, M. D., L.L. D. in Hearst’s Magazine. If your protein food is not well digested it fail you with identical maladies. About three persons in a thousand complete their normal span of life and die of old age. The remaining 997 fall by the wayside. Do you prefer to be one of the three or one of the 997? To a considerable extent the choice lies with you, as I shall endeavor to show in this series of articles. Modern science has done a good deal to extend life. The use of se- rums and vaccines has led to a virtual conquest of such acute maladies as diphtheria and typhoid fever. But certain degenerative diseases of mid- dle life and old age are increasingly prevalent and enormously destructive. To illustrate this note that a recent report of the New York Board of Health, tabulating statistics as to 1,- 372 deaths in a given week, records that no fewer than 766 deaths, or 57 per cent. of the total, were due to five diseases, namely, (1) organic i glans | disease, (2) pneumonia, (3) tubercu- losis, (4) Bright's disease, or nephri- tis, and (5) cancer. Meantime, in the same period, the entire list of acute infectious maladies—typhoid fever, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, influen- zza. poliomyelitis—caused only 50 deaths. Fifty against 766, or fifteen to one; something like that, apparently, is the relative menace to life of the dozen or so most-dreaded epidemic diseases as contrasted with the five less-spectac- ular maladies mentioned. _ The matter has added interest and importance if we reflect that the five fatal maladies in question claim their victims very largely from among the ranks of the adult population. We find, from data, that the average in- dividual over twenty-five years of age is confronted with something like a four-to-one probability of dying soon- er or later of one of the five maladies or groups of maladies just named. The five maladies in question caus- ed 1,824,564 deaths, or about 46 per cent. of the total mortality in the reg- istration area of the United States in the years 1908 to 1912. Heart-disease caused 15 per cent. of all deaths, pneumonia 9.4 per cent., pulmonary tuberculosis 9.3 per cent., nephritis 6.5 per cent., and cancer 5.1 per cent. Such being the status of this group of diseases of middle life and old age, it is obvious that these maladies have peculiar interest for every adult who gives the slightest attention to ques- tions of health, personal comfort, or longevity. In the present article, the subject for specific discussion is the malady or group of maladies that is credited with not far from one-sixth of all deaths, namely, heart-disease, togeth- er with the associated abnormalities of the arteries that lead to apoplexy. Let us first take up very briefly the question: What, then, is heart-dis- ease? It is by no means easy to give a brief and satisfactory answer to that question. But for practical purposes of the present discussion it may be said that “heart-disease,” as it figures in the mortality statistics, is usually a condition of dilatation and weaken ing of the ' muscles of the heart, often accompanied by fatty degeneration of the tissue, and very generally associ- ated with abnormal modifications of the arteries. Such an exhaustion of the heart-muscles very commonly re- sults from so-called insufficiency of the valves of the heart, through which a portion of the blood regurgitates or gushes back against the current in- stead of being driven forward with each pulsation. Where such leakage occurs, it is necessary for the heart to beat hard- er or faster, in order to give normal propulsion to the blood, than if the valves prevented any back flow. Such excessive action leads naturally to ex- haustion. Finally, the heart may be so weakened that, under stress of sud- den exertion or the stimulus of a vio- lent emotion, it gives out altogether, the result being the instant death of the individual, for of course life can- not be maintained a moment without circulation of the blood. There are other cases in which an | abnormal change of the walls of the arteries takes place. The little tubes become brittle, and presently the rup- ture of an artery into the tissues of the brain may cause the death, while the heart itself is of normal, or even of super-normal, strength. At first glance such a case might not seem to be associated with heart-disease at all; but in reality the conditions that lead to brittleness of the arteries are closely comparable or identical with those that lead to changes in the heart-valves. So the compilers of mortality tables are quite right in classifying apoplexy and heart-dis- ease as closely allied conditions. Changes in the arteries lead almost of necessity to involvement of the heart sooner or later. So true is it that hardening of the arteries (arterio-sclerosis) is named as one of the three chief causes of heart-disease. The other two chief causes are rheumatism and syphilis. These three conditions, jointly, ac- count for 94 per cent. of all cases of heart-disease. I have told of the new theories as to the origin of rheumatism, and the vour heart and the tubes that lead from newest treatment, in a recent article in these columns. (Hearst’s Maga- zine, April, 1916). As to syphilis, it suffices to say that its origin is fa- miliar to everyone, and that the best method of treatment is known to | every competent physician. It re- mains to speak of the origin of hard- ening of the arteries. The subject was investigated a few years ago by Prof. Elie Metchnikoff, who found that he could produce the so-called pipestem arteries in animals by administering to them certain pro- ducts of intestinal fermentation oc- curring after the ingestion of animal or protein food. In other words, the presence in the system of the partial- ly digested food-products induced the abnormal condition of the arteries. Now we have seen that the cause of rheumatism may be defined in com- parable terms. So there would ap- pear to be a fairly close association between the two conditions. We shall note presently a similar disturbance of assimilation underlying the cancerous condition. Indeed, the more closely the sub- ject is studied, the more evident it | becomes that a great variety of mal- adjustments of tissues of the body may be traced to disturbance of the ultimate digestion of protein food. In the last analysis, making the present application, it would appear that heart-disease is not so much the result of rheumatism and of harden- ed arteries as it is a condition asso- ciated with these maladies and induc- ed by a common cause. When we con- sider the subject in its more funda- mental aspects, our attention is turn- ed away from the heart itself and fo- cuses on the digestive tract. Ques- tions of diet and of the proper assim- ilation of food become paramount. Also questions of physical exercise, through which elimination of the poisonous by-products of protein di- gestion is facilitated. It is not too much to say that re- ally effective attention to personal hy- giene, with chief reference to diet and exercise, could prevent the occurrence of heart-disease in the vast majority of cases, and will go far toward amel- iorating the abnormal condition after it has developed—provided, of course, the organic changes in the heart mus- cles have not reached the later de- structive stages. It is notorious that the great major- ity of persons of sedentary occupa- tions disregard the rules of hygiene, both as to diet and exercise, and so invite abnormal changes of the arte- ries and heart. That many escape dis- aster is due merely to their relative- ly high powers of resistance. This is largely a matter of heredity, some persons being much more susceptible than others. A chain under stress proverbially breaks at the weakest link. A person who inherits a tendency to susceptibility of the serous mem- branes about the joints will develop rheumatism under the same condition that will induce hardening of the ar- teries in a companion of different he- redity. A third person under the same con- ditions, subject to local irritation of another kind and with different he- reditary predispositions, may develop a cancer. A fourth individual may suffer from nephritis, the kidney being his susceptible organ—the weakest link in his organic chain. : Obviously it would be the part of wisdom for every individual to study his own susceptibilities, and take measures to guard his weakest or- gans from undue strain. If possible, study your ancestry, not in the old- foolish way to see how great they were, but in the new-scientific way to see how weak they were. If, for ex- ample, you find that one of your ma- ternal grandparents and one of your paternal grandparents died of heart- disease, you may know that there is a fair probability that your own heart is not bombproof. Possibly the rec- ords of your ancestors and collateral relatives do not give you a very clear notion as to what are your inherent suceptibilities. But you may fairly enough assume that you have some weak point that will bear guarding, and if you would live out your normal term of years you will certainly be wise to study the practicalities of hy- giene as to diet and exercise, and make application to your own indi- vidual case. The familiar dictum that what is one man’s food may be another man’s poison is not without its scientific warrant—properly interpreted. So it is difficult to make general rules that have universal application. Yet it may be said that eating too much, particularly of protein foods, and tak- ing too little exercise, versal vices. If your dietetic habits are those of the average American, you could probably cut the amount of your food in two with beneficial re- sults. And you could almost certain- ly take five or six times as much ex- ericse as you do with distinet benefit. Doubtless it would be impractical to suggest the reducing of the dietary to a really scientific basis, by weigh- ing the food. But there are certain rules that will serve a similar pur- pose, and that may be applied by any- one. For instance, it may confidently’ {a common American custom, are almost uni- | cE be affirmed that no one who lives a sedentary life should eat meat more than once a day. Suppose you apply that rule, and supplement it by tak- ing only half the quantity of meat that you have been accustomed to eat at a given meal, and then note wheth- er you do not on the whole feel bet- ter after a few days of this regimen. A second rule that may be applied to advantage is to make it a practice to take only a moderate helping of anything, and then not to repeat the helping at that meal. Again, make it a practice to rise from the table with the feeling that you could rather willingly eat just a little more. It is and a distinctly harmful one, to eat a hear- ty dessert after one is satiated with the preceding courses. Under such circumstances there are sure to be de- fects of digestion or complete assimi- lation that will react harmfully | against one or another set of the bodi- | ly organs. As a road to health, temperance in diet is not less important than tem- perance in drinking. Then as to exercise. This is a hy- gienic measure, and in particular a preventive measure, where there is a | tendency to arterial or heart involve- ment, of the greatest possible value. To get its full benefits, exercise must be vigorous enough to make the skin glow and to bring a fairly profuse | perspiration. Doubtless out-of-door exercise is best, where this is possible, but gym- nasium work is an admirable substi- tute. Boxing, wrestling, and hand- ball furnish opportunities for exer- cise that are far more agreeable than an ordinary gymnasium routine. I have long practiced and advocated the combination of handball and wrest- ling as ideal exercise for persons in middle life. To spend your midday hour in the gymnasium rather than at the lunch-table is to make a bid for health and longevity. All this has reference to the pre- vention of heart-disease rather than to treatment of the malady after its onset. But most of what has just been said about ' hygienic measures applies equally to the patient who has developed a tendency to hardening of the arteries, and even to cases in which the heart has become distinctly involved. Here, however, exercise should be conducted under guidance of a physician, to make sure that it is not overdone at first. Where the heart is actually dilated, a too-vigor- ous indulgence in athletic games might be not only harmful but even fatal. Carefully graded exercise, on the other hand, may be beneficial even in the later stages of heart-disease. Es- pecially is this true when a certain amount of strain is taken off the heart by modifying the diet so that the blood is less viscid. But this, as I said, is a matter for the skilled ob- servation of a physician dealing with the individual case. What I write here will of necessity refer more par- ticularly to cases at an earlier stage of development, and to the prevention of abnormality rather than to the cure of fully established heart-dis- ease. As to directly medicinal treatment of hardening arteries and heart-dis- ease, I shall speak very briefly. if, as above suggested, the underlying cause of the difficulty is defective as- similation, of albuminous foods, then it would appear that a treatment which facilitates such assimilation would be advantageous. The readers of my articles on rev- olutionary medecine and onthe treat- ment of rheumatism in these columns are aware that there are now medici- nal agents that peculiarly meet this condition. There are non-toxic pro- teins, including vegetable proteins of many types (known as proteals), and such familiar animal products as white of egg and curdle of milk. These agents stimulate the defen- sive mechanism of the body, including the blood-corpuscles, to deal adequate- ly with the poisonous by-products of protein digestion. It is probable also that there will be a favorable reac- tion on the over-developed cellular tissue of arterial walls, constituting thus a directly curative measure So far as the arteries are concerned. And the modification of the arteries may be expected to react favorably on the heart. In proportion as the arteries regain normal resiliency, the strain on the heart is relieved. Normal arteries expand when blood is pumped into them, and their re- siliency facilitates the blood-flow; whereas, the inelestic, hardened ar- teries offer resistance to the current. Where the change in the arteries has reached the stage of calcareous depos- it—making the so-called “pipe-stem arteries”—modification is hardly to be expected but the wise individual will not let the malady reach that stage before taking it in hand. The instances are rare in which the devel- opment of such a condition may not be prevented, or at least long defer- red, by proper attention to diet, exer- cise and medication. Properly interpreted, this is equiv- alent to saying that the high mortal- ity from apoplexy and ‘heart-disease represents a needless waste of life. Intelligent provision—leading to ra- tional diet and systematic exercise— should reduce the mortality from heart-disease to a mere fraction of the present high percentage. Perhaps we cannot expect that the general public will be sufficiently in- terested in its own welfare to take the trouble to safeguard itself in this direction, but it is open to every in- dividual who reads these lines to make the personal application and thus to guard himself or herself individually against premature demise from ab- normal arteries and a dilated heart. A certain restraint on the indulgence of the appetite is called for, and per- sistent application to overcome the in- ertia of the sedentary life; but if one finds it on the whole a pleasant ex- perience to be alive, the reward is | worth the effort. Next week—Pneumonia. Hard Luck, John! The French seeress who predicted the Paris flood also predicted that the Kaiser would die in England in 1930, an exile from his own land. This would give him a dozen years for re- pentance, but it would be tough on the British. tg
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers