PART II.
“’Tis now the summer of your youth;
Time has not cropt the roses from your cheek,
Though sorrow may have washed them.”
Moore.
he rose is a sweetly beautiful flower, and no matter where it grows it somehow always charms the human eye, always appeals to the human heart. Lovely it is in the garden, especially perhaps at early morning when gemmed by dew, the crystalline tears left by the dying night, or at eventide, when the colour in a rose-garden seems to reflect the tints of the sunset clouds. Roses of all classes and kinds are lovely, grow they where they may, on castle lawn or draping the walls of the humblest cottage. And just as sweet and tender are those lovely buds and blossoms of the crimson rosa canina that bedeck and mantle our hedges in the month of June.
Children are ofttimes comparable to roses—girl-children I mean—mere opening buds, and they ought to be none the less beautiful and innocent-looking when older, but still in their teens. Ah, those “teens,” would we not all prefer to remain that age and never to grow older! I suppose angels are all and always in their teens, and the saints in Heaven too!
But descending from romance, with which a medical man ought to have nothing to do, the stern reality, life, to a girl in her teens is often a trying time. This, for many reasons which I shall now briefly consider and advise upon.
Every mother, if not her children, has often heard the word “heredity” mentioned. The offspring is part and parcel of the parents, and inherits, somewhat changed or modified perhaps, not only their good qualities, their strength of body, brain, and constitution, but their diseases also, if they have any. There is no mystery about that, as some medical men tell us. It would be a mystery if it were the reverse. If you take a cutting off a pure red rose, you could scarcely expect it when grown into a bush to develop yellow roses. It is part and parcel of the parent, and so is the child. But separate life and the mode or manner of living may alter even inherited complaints, or prevent their showing forth at all. It does not follow as a constant rule that the children of, say, scrofulous parents shall be consumptive, or that those of parents addicted to drink and dishonesty shall follow the parental lead. It is this fact that gives one such hope in treating the ailments and guiding the young lives of those who may be supposed to be born with a taint of impure blood.
Note, mother, please, that I have said “young lives” in my last sentence, because it is when young, and only then, that much good can be done to combat the evils of heredity.
We are sometimes told that the particular ailment handed down may skip one generation and appear in the next. This should only give us additional certainty that the trouble may be eradicated entirely. For Nature does not skip generations in the manner some scientists would have us believe. If an ailment, say phthisis or consumption, is the trouble in one family and the children thereof escape, while the grandchildren are attacked, one of two things may have happened; the first generation of the afflicted ones had been reared in circumstances inimical to the dispersing of the disorder, it lay latent in their blood and revivified under circumstances favourable to it, in the grandchildren, or—this is just as likely—the seed of the disease died in the first generation, and the second were infected by ordinary means. Phthisis is infectious: this should always be born in mind, and a consumptive person should invariably sleep alone in the airiest and best ventilated room in the house.
When I say that consumption is hereditary, I am of course showing you that I am a believer in the microbe doctrine. So is every sensible man. The microbes of phthisis may be carried in the breath from the sick to the sound; or dried sputa—ever so little—may form dust and be breathed, thus inoculating, as it were, the person who inhales it. Not of a certainty, however, for there are many chances against those microbes, even if breathed, finding their way into the blood. Healthy blood is in itself a protection, for the white corpuscles thereof are veritable tigers in miniature, and fall upon and destroy organisms that are dangerous to the life or health of the individual. Moreover a disease germ or seed of consumption cannot, in every case, even reach the mucous membrance of the lungs, owing to the secretions therein which sweep it away, if they do not actually destroy it. On the other hand a weakly subject is far more likely to fall a victim to infection of any kind than a strong. A consumptive mother may have several children, all of which, bar one, are safe enough, though all must have inherited the evil microbe or bacillus. And this is chiefly because one is more delicate than the others.
But I deem it my duty to say here at once that a consumptive person should never marry.
All mothers know, or ought to know, that consumption is caused by a particular sort of matter called tubercle which, by way of getting rid of it perhaps, Nature deposits in, say, the lungs of the young person. This acts like a foreign body; that is, it may lie quiescent for a long time, and as the child gets stronger, it may even be absorbed, but if she catches cold, that wicked little lump of deposit is sought out and, becoming inflamed, sets up mischief all around. It is coughed up, but leaves an ulcer, and this forms a cavity, after which the end is not far distant. But consumption in children, or the young either, is more often caused by the deposit of tubercle in other parts of the body, especially in the glands.
Now, the probability being that I shall devote a whole article to a consideration of consumption, I need not do more here than generalise and give a few words of good advice. I think, mater, that if this advice proves of service to you and gives you hope, this health sermon shall not have been written in vain.
“I’m afraid that my lassie is dwining,” said a Scottish mother to me once. “What think you, doctor?”
I was only a very young fellow then, but had inherited a modicum of common sense from most intelligent parents, so I took Mary in hand.
Mary was then sixteen, I but twenty, and although a medical student, I could not have known a deal. The mother and daughter were country cottagers, and being poor, the family doctor did not, probably could not, devote overmuch time to the case. One thing, however, I objected to: he kept pouring cod-liver oil into his patient, completely deranging the stomach and rendering the digestion of the food a complete impossibility.
From the very first week that Mary stopped the oil her appetite improved, and—the old doctor stopped away. The case was mine therefore, and I took no small pains with it. I thought that if there was any chance of getting the girl over her trouble at all, it was by making her strong. We live by food and not by physic, I argued—food and fresh air.
Mary’s bedroom was a small one and downstairs; but there happened to be a large attic or garret above, and the father being a handy man—and Mary the only girl-child—he did as I told him, and made a large window on the south side of the attic. Then it was completely cleared out and cleaned out, the walls whitewashed and the floor well scrubbed. When mats were put down here and there, and a nice bed at one side on which the morning light could fall, the room was so far ready for occupation.
The mother wanted bed curtains and window curtains. I would hear of neither. I shook my young head with an air of awe-inspiring profundity as I tabooed the curtains. But I permitted any amount of artistic though rural decoration. Mary had much taste, and the hours she spent in making that attic into a boudoir were the best investment of time possible, because they occupied her mind, and I would not let her believe she was ill, or had the seeds of consumption in her system. All she wanted, I said, was strength. And I really was not far wrong. I gave her Hope instead of cod-liver oil. But I insisted upon her being out of doors nearly all day long, wearing clothing to accord with the state of the weather, but never fearing the cold. She was to sleep, not in a draught, but with her window open. Her mother said, “My conscience, doctor laddie!” at first, but I insisted.
All the medicine Mary had for the next twelve months could have been placed inside a walnut shell. Her mental medicine was not neglected, and this consisted of books to read—I gave her these—and light work to do, chiefly out of doors, also pleasant quiet companionship.
Fresh air was the most important weapon I used to fight the trouble. Next came food. Cream, butter, good milk, nice bacon, and suet dumplings were ten thousand times better than expensive and fulsome cod-liver oil. She had meat too, as much as she could take, with vegetables—potatoes and greens—and bread.
Hygienic rules were most strictly carried out. The cottage, luckily, was surrounded by bonnie country gardens, in which Mary spent much of her time, not even fearing rain, because she wore a cloak—not an india-rubber mackintosh, be assured—and strong boots, without disease-producing goloshes. From top to bottom, from one end to another, the house was kept spotlessly clean, free from dust, and dry.
Mary was no worse at the end of a month! Mary was better at the end of three months!! Mary was well, and the blush of health was on her cheeks, at the end of eighteen months!!!
The old-fashioned doctor never spoke to me after I put my foot on his cod-liver oil. He used to pass me on the road like a speck of March dust, and he told a friend of mine I was an insolent young dog. No doubt he was right. I had all the faith and arrogance of youth, but—I cured Mary.
It was at the end of the eighteen months I went to sea, and seven long years elapsed before I saw her again. She was married, and had two bonnie healthy children. She is living still, and her family too.
Now, mother, this is a true story, and I have only told it as a proof of the benefits derivable from fatty and flesh-forming foods, perfect hygiene, and fresh air indoors and out in cases of incipient consumption; and not in these alone are such health-giving and curative agents beneficial, but in all cases of chronic ill-health in young girls.
In relating my little story of Mary, I may have seemed to disparage cod-liver oil. I merely wish, however, to imply that it is only in cases where it can be easily digested that it can do any good, and that in all others it is positively injurious.
Mind this, mater, that the days have long gone past when people pinned their faith on medicine alone in the cure of diseases. Indeed, mostly every ailment of a chronic nature, if curable at all, has a better chance if physic is left severely alone and a thorough system of hygiene and dietetics adopted; for if medicine is taken, people as a rule think that this is of greater consequence than good food and a life spent in the fresh and open air.
What are called “peptonised foods” are often beneficial where there is want of proper digestive power, or pepsin in the form of tablets may be used. These are to be had at most respectable chemists, and the dose is marked on the bottle.
The new food-medicines called vivol and marrol, so highly spoken of in medical journals, should in many cases supersede the use of cod-liver oil, or even shark-liver oil, in the case of a girl who does not seem to be thriving.
The Scotch word “dwining” is very expressive. It was usually applied to girls just entered on their teens, who do not appear to be healthy, and are but little likely to make old bones. They are rather poor in flesh, growing rather rapidly, perhaps, but not “building as they go,” as the farmers say about rick-making. They have but little appetite, are pale in face, flabby in substance, have little real life about them, and are very thick-headed of a morning. They feel the cold much, and therefore seldom have their bedrooms properly ventilated. Moreover, they do not make bone. It is as if Nature said to herself, “I need not bone in the case of this girl, for it will never be wanted.”
Well, in all cases of “dwining,” the fresh air and food treatment works wonders.
I must call the attention of mothers of delicate girls to the fact that there are in the market, and very largely advertised, pills containing iron which kill thousands yearly. Iron, in the hands of a skilful physician, who knows how and when to prescribe it, is often a valuable tonic, but taken without precaution, as people do who see things advertised and shored up with lies and so-called cures, it is a most dangerous and poisonous drug.
What is called anæmia or bloodlessness in girls sometimes gets the name of “chlorosis” or “green sickness” from the peculiar appearance of the skin. It is an exceedingly common complaint, and really the number of white faces one sees in the streets of great cities, as girls hurry to and from their work, is saddening. When one notices a face of this kind in a beautiful carriage, the girl who owns it being perhaps wrapped up in furs, one may put it down as a bad case. There is either some real disease to account for it, or the girl is over-coddled, the laws of hygiene and dietetics ruthlessly broken, and faith pinned on medicine alone—a broken reed.
When the working girl is anæmic, her mother or whoever owns her must see that she gets good food, that the system is kept regular in every way, and that her room is clean, tidy and well-ventilated, with no curtains on bed or windows.
All the weariness, all the heaviness, tiredness in the morning, the low spirits, and even the neuralgic pains from which she suffers, will vanish before a better diet if it is well regulated. But in such a case, the daily bath—cold before breakfast—will often be the very first thing to set her to rights.
If she can get down into the country and keep out of doors nearly all day, so much the better, only hard exercise should be avoided.
Red meat does good in these cases. If this is too expensive to be had in any quantity, plenty of milk should be used. Oatmeal is a cure in itself in many cases. Bacon is good, especially the fat, and a teaspoonful of Bovril should supplement this.
Peas meal, if it can be got in bulk and fresh, makes an excellent staple of diet for many hard-working girls. It can be made into porridge (thick), and eaten with butter and milk it is most nourishing and delicious. The Aberdeen girls (factory hands, etc.) use a deal of this, and no more wholesome, blooming and bonnie lassies are to be found anywhere. Indeed, I have never yet seen any to match them. The fresh and bracing sea air may account to some extent for their “caller” looks, but, believe me, the diet has a deal to do with their health.
Nervousness is another hereditary complaint. Now although there are a great many medicines that have an effect for good on the nervous system, they need to be used with caution, and only in conjunction with a well-regulated diet.
Rheumatism is still another heirloom that descends in families.
On both these subjects and others I shall speak at length in early numbers of The Girl’s Own Paper, so those interested should look out for my papers.
[“OUR HERO.”]
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.