An oculist is a physician who specializes in diseases of the eye.
Some of the more common symptoms of eye strain are nervousness, headache, insomnia, irritations of the eyelids, sensitiveness to bright light, and pain in the use of the eyes.
Pyle, Personal Hygiene.
"An infectious disease is one in which disease germs infect (that is, invade) the body from without. Among the infectious diseases are some that are quite directly and quickly conveyed from person to person and to these the term contagious is applied. Formerly a sharp line was drawn between infection and contagion, but to-day it is recognized that no such line exists."—HOUGH AND SEDGWICK, The Elements of Hygiene and Sanitation.
The arctic explorer, Nansen, states that during all the time that his party was exposed to the low temperature of the arctic region, no one was attacked by a cold, but on returning to a warmer climate they were subject to colds as usual. The difference he attributes to the absence of germs in the severe arctic climate. There seems to be no doubt but that most of our common colds are due to attacks of germs.
An interesting biological fact is that the female Anopheles, and not the male, sucks the blood of animals and is the cause of the spreading of malaria.
The habit of spitting upon the floors of public buildings and street cars, and also upon sidewalks, is now recognized as a most dangerous practice. Not only consumptives, but people with throat affections, may do no end of harm in the spreading of disease by carelessness in this respect.
For further information on the care of consumptives, consult Huber's Consumption and Civilization.
As typhoid fever is a disease of the small intestine, great care must be exercised in taking food and in the bodily movements. Solids greatly irritate the diseased lining of the intestine, and the weakened walls may actually be broken through by pressure resulting from moving about.
Alcoholic beverages include all the various kinds of drinks that owe their stimulating properties to a substance, ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH), which is made from sugar by the process of fermentation. They include malt liquors, such as beer and ale, which contain from three to eight per cent of alcohol; wines, such as claret, hock, sherry, and champagne, which contain from five to twenty per cent of alcohol; and distilled liquors, such as brandy, whisky, rum, and gin, which contain from thirty to sixty-five per cent of alcohol. Alcoholic beverages all contain constituents other than alcohol, these varying with the materials from which they are made and with the processes of manufacture. The distilled liquors are so called from the fact that their alcohol has been separated from the fermenting substances by distillation.