I ONLY WISH I HAD.
By MEDICUS.
here are five hundred of my lady readers, at the very least, who can easily guess the reason why Medicus did not appear before them so regularly last summer.
“Five hundred!” I think I hear some girls say; “why are these five hundred in the secret? And what about all the other thousands?”
Stay, and I will tell you. For four months this last season I was “on the road,” travelling in my own chariot—I am surely not wrong in calling it a chariot, seeing it is twenty feet in length—throughout the length and breadth of Merrie England, and I put down the minimum of Girl’s Own readers who visited this chariot and its owner at five hundred, though, seeing that schools with their teachers, numbering from twenty to seventy, sometimes paid a visit to me, all of whom were ardent admirers of the “beautifully and tastefully illustrated G. O. P.”—the girls’ own words—a thousand might be nearer the mark.
But what, it may be asked, has this to do with the non-appearance of Medicus before his readers? Why, everything; because I find it all but impossible to do literary work “on the road.”
I might have done more, though.
“I only wish I had.”
And these words form the text on which I desire this month to speak a few homely words to my girls, young or not young.
“I only wish I had.” How often a medical man hears those same words; spoken, it may be, with blanched lips, by some poor mortal who is languishing on a bed of sickness and pain. “I only wish I had.” Had what? Taken better care of health while it lasted.
I sat by the bedside of a poor girl some years ago, and heard her repeat those same words frequently. I had somewhat more time to spare then than I have now, or I could not have sat there for an hour or two at a time reading to her or to myself. She did not speak much, being in the final stage of consumption, but she assured me again and again it was “such company” to have me there, so what could I do?
“I wish I had.” These words, it seemed to me, were too often on her lips. Sometimes it was only the first two words, “I wish,” she breathed, as if the weakened lungs and voice refused to add the others. I think I see Esther D—— even now, a long, thin, pale hand on the coverlet, a white, thin face, with a flush on the high cheeks, little blue veins meandering over the temples, and sad blue eyes, with dark dilated and glistening pupils.
“I wish I had.” Wish she had what? Taken a word or two of advice I gave her in a friendly way, just before she started for the seaside on a holiday trip.
She looked bright, strong, and beautiful that day, though I could tell, from her transparent skin, her too soft hair and drooping eyelashes, that in her veins were the seeds of our island illness, and that it would need but little to fan it into flame.
“I mean to enjoy myself thoroughly,” she said, her eyes dancing with good humour.
“Yes,” I said, as I bade her good-bye, “but not excitedly, Esther; and remember what I said about night air, damp feet, and warm clothing.”
There was a little impatient toss of the head, and just about half a frown, and I smiled, expecting her to say, “Oh, bother!” but she did not.
Well, poor Esther died.
But I know of nothing more sad when one is ill than the thought that the illness might have been avoided.
“I wish I had been more careful.”
If you let your thimble fall, it will drop to the ground, will it not? This is a law of Nature; and as sure and certain is every other law of Nature. Nature will forgive, but she never will forget. If you, for example, sit in wet clothes, evaporation takes place; in other words, the damp of your clothes passes off in steam, and, as water requires so much heat to convert it into steam, it takes this heat from the nearest source, and that is from your body. It absorbs animal heat. What is the consequence? Why, baby there could understand this simple lesson in physiology. The consequence is that the surface of the body becomes chilled. Well, then another law of Nature comes into force. The law is this: Cold contracts. Cold contracts everything, even iron. Witness the difference in the length of railway iron rails in summer and winter. Given a sun-heat of, say, one hundred and twenty degrees, and they are all close together at the ends. Given a winter temperature of thirty-two degrees, or under, and the rails do not touch, but gap.
And the cold on the surface of the body contracts the veins and arteries. With what result? With the result that the blood is to some extent squeezed—to use simple language—out of them, and, as it must flow somewhere, it rushes in upon the internal organs of the body.
Now, we all of us have some one organ weaker than the others, and it is this organ that suffers from a surfeit of blood in its veins, driven inwards by a chill. It may be Miss Ada’s liver, and she has in consequence “a horrid bilious attack,” as I have heard it called, or it may be worse, suppression of the bile entirely, followed naturally by blood poisoning and jaundice.
It may be Miss Ada’s lungs. The blood is driven in upon the surface thereof; this surface becomes congested and red, though no one can see it. Nature tries to relieve the congestion by throwing off through the walls of the veins or arteries the watery portion of the blood. This tickles the lungs, and a cough is the result. But the very act of coughing increases the mischief tenfold, and what was at first water may become matter.
Nor may the mischief end here; for, if inclined to have consumption, the tubercle, as it is called, will now be deposited in the lung surface or tissue. Why? Because, the veins being congested and enlarged, the flow through them is more sluggish. I do hope I’m making myself understood! The flow, I say, is more sluggish, and deleterious matter, that otherwise would have been washed or carried away in the secretions, gets time and opportunity to settle.
Now do you understand how a chill from a draught or from damp clothing may cause mischief of even a fatal character?
Will you take my advice, and wear judicious clothing, or will you wait till the mischief is done, and then say, “I wish I had”?
Mind, I do not wish you to go about, even during the cold months of winter, swaddled with as much clothing as a mummy, but I do wish you to wear woollen clothing—next the skin, at all events.
Age has nothing at all to do with it. The young are even more apt to catch deadly colds than the older or middle-aged.
I often wish there was some woollen material manufactured in this country—thin, warm, and soft, with a smooth surface that would render it perfectly suitable for underclothing for the most delicate-skinned girl. Flannel, such as is sold in the shops, has its good points, but it really has many objectionable ones. I hear new flannel extolled. I may be fastidious, but I really do not care for its perfume. Then there are your woollen jerseys, or whatever you call them, and merino ditto. Why, they are so rough, I, myself, would rather fall back upon silk.
“I WISH I HAD BEEN MORE CAREFUL.”
In Germany, I believe, they have a material that is eminently suitable for the purpose I am advocating.
There is a chance for some manufacturer to come to the front. Meanwhile, our girls will go on wearing linen and catching colds; and I do assure my readers that they would be both astonished and shocked were I to tell them the average number of fatal illnesses brought on annually in England from neglect of proper precautions for the preservation of health.
But if winter hath its dangers from cold, and wet, and frost, neither is summer exempt.
Would I have girls wear wool in summer? Undoubtedly.
Wool is not only a protection against cold, but against intense heat as well. It is a go-between, so to speak.
We all know that thatched houses are warm in winter and cool in summer, but possibly the words of Stanley, the great African traveller, may be new to many, although the truth they contain rests upon the same natural basis as that about thatched houses. I cannot give the exact words of this truly great man, but they are to this effect:—
“The only way a European can withstand the intense heat of tropical Africa is by wearing garments of wool.”
This is very easily understood. Wool is a non-conductor. In winter, therefore, it conserves or retains the internal or animal heat, and in summer it will defend the skin and the blood from becoming fevered by the scorching rays of the sun.
I do not expect my youngest readers to be interested in one-half of what I am now writing, but I most earnestly desire their mothers and guardians to lay my words to heart, and to act upon them, so that they may not hereafter have to say, with sighs of regret—
“I wish I had.”
There is one other little matter I wish to point out to my thoughtful mamma-readers, with regard to clothing, and that is, the absurdity of not having dress, either for boys or girls, made the same thickness at the back as at the front.
It really is ridiculous to clothe the chest in front and leave it to starve between the shoulders. I have before now pointed out to you that people catch colds in the chest far more often from chills caught from behind. Verbum sap.
Well, now I shall change my tune, and go on to another subject which also has a bearing upon colds and coughs and ill-health of every kind engendered by wintry weather.
One-half of the people in this country are not breakfast-eaters.
Are you really a breakfast-eater? Do you get hungry as soon as you have had your bath? As soon as you have said your good-morning, do your eyes roam over the table-cloth with a wholesome desire to know what is on board? If you are healthy, and have discussed that matutinal meal, nothing can hurt you all day. You may walk through the most unwholesome streets and lanes in the City, and come forth intact.
On the other hand, do you feel languid when you get up? Do you cast a longing, lingering glance behind you as you commence to dress? Do you come downstairs caring little what is to eat? Are your fingers numb and cold? Do you require to slowly sip a cup of tea before getting an appetite even for toast and butter, and that new-laid egg you have to coax yourself to eat? If so you are not in health. Go not anywhere during the day where you are likely to breathe a tainted air, or be influenced by cold or damp. If you do not take my advice in this respect you may live to say—“I wish I had.”
But have I no remedy to suggest for my breakfastless readers?
Oh, yes, I have! There is a cause for everything. Your want of appetite in the morning may depend on one or other of many things. To be sure, it may be constitutional. You may have a weak heart and be altogether delicate in consequence. But ten to one you have nothing of the sort. Besides, if your heart be only functionally weak, do not forget that it is a muscular organ, as much so as your forearm or biceps, and, like the biceps, can be strengthened by good food and plenty of pleasant exercise in the open air.
But there are other reasons why appetite absents itself at the breakfast hour. As my space is nearly filled, I can but name a few.
Late suppers are inimical to health in the morning. They create restless nights, or, if the nights be not restless quite, the sleep is not refreshing. The stomach ought to sleep as well as other organs; and if it does not, depend upon it that it will not be fit for its duties next morning.
Badly ventilated rooms. Sleeping in a room where there is not an abundance of fresh air is poisoning to the blood. The carbonic is not burned off therefrom, and dulness and lethargy are the result. You awake in the morning feeling your sleep has done you little good, feeling you would like just another hour. Believe me, if you slept as long thus as Rip Van Winkle, you would feel precisely the same when you opened your eyes.
Want of exercise and neglect of the bath also destroy the appetite for the morning meal.
And medicines will not make up for want of obedience to Nature’s laws. But if you return to these with heart and soul, then a mixture of infusion of quassia, say a tablespoonful, with ten drops of dilute phosphoric acid, and twenty of the compound tincture of bark, may be taken with great benefit, a quarter of an hour before breakfast and dinner.
See, then, to your appetite as well as clothing, especially in cold, inclement weather, and may you never have those bitter, regretful words to utter—“I wish I had.”