Vegetarian.—Vegetables vary very much in the ease with which they can be digested. There are very few vegetables indeed which are really easily digested. Potatoes, parsnips, uncooked celery and salads, artichokes, and to these we would add the green vegetables, give difficulty to the digestion, though they should certainly not be excluded from the dietary. Dried peas, Indian corn and haricot beans are about as difficult to digest as paving stones. Indeed, by actual experience, we have proved that paving stones are more soluble in the gastric juice than is Indian corn! Tomatoes are fairly easy to digest, but are liable to produce acidity and heartburn. Carrots, turnips, green artichokes and asparagus are moderately easy to digest.
Amelia.—Read the answer we gave to “Vegetarian.” The old saying that—
“An onion a day
Keeps the doctor away.”
is moderately accurate. Onions will keep away the doctor as they will everyone else who possesses an “æsthetic olfactory apparatus.” But, apart from that, raw onions are indigestible. There is a popular idea that onions only scent the breath if they disagree, but this is incorrect. The reason why the breath of persons smells after eating onions is that the vegetable contains a large quantity of an aromatic oil which is excreted by the breath.
Harrow.—We cannot give you the address of any person who removes superfluous hair by electrolysis. For, in the first place, we will advertise no one. In the second place, except in very few cases, we disapprove of electrolysis; and, in the third place, electrolysis being a surgical procedure, it is strongly against our principles to allow any but a surgeon to perform it. If therefore you wish to have your hairs removed, and you think that possibly electrolysis may effect this, at all events, temporarily, you must go to a specialist in skin diseases. You will have to pay highly, but no higher than you would have to pay a so-called “professional epilator,” and you can have the assurance that the surgeon will not consent to the procedure unless he himself thinks that the treatment will prove of value.
Turquoise.—Rare as Méniere’s disease is, we know it, alas, too well! It is one of those diseases which baffle medicine. There are very many excellent physicians in Dublin, and the reason why they will not express a definite opinion as to the curability of your friend’s case is because they do not know. We do not know—nobody knows how long the disease will last, or if it can be cured. Some cases recover spontaneously, others recover after medical treatment, others after a severe surgical procedure, others again never recover. We suppose your friend has been to an aural specialist. We advise her to go again, and tell him that her hopes are beginning to sink, and that lately she has become despondent. Perhaps then he may suggest some further and more radical attempts to relieve her.
GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.
Firenze (Dressmaking in Paris).—We fear it would be by no means easy to obtain employment in a Parisian dressmaking firm. The French are not so eager to employ English dressmakers as we in this country are to engage French women. On the other hand, English tailoring is very fashionable in Paris. If you do go to Paris, you had certainly better ask the Girls’ Friendly Society beforehand whether you could be received into the Home at 48, Rue de Provence.
E. W. (Dispensing).—The course of preparation for a dispenser is a long one, and also somewhat expensive. In the first instance you would need to pass the preliminary examination of the Pharmaceutical Society, Bloomsbury Square, London. For this, as you suppose, you would require enough Latin to pass an examination in the first books of Virgil or Cæsar. You would also be examined in arithmetic and in English subjects. Having passed this, you must be trained for three years in a dispensary or chemist’s shop. If you select a dispensary, you might apply to become a pupil at the New Hospital for Women, Euston Road, London, or at the Ryde Dispensary, Isle of Wight. A course of study must also be followed either in the Pharmaceutical Society’s classes in Bloomsbury, or in certain other centres of teaching, such as Owen’s College, Manchester. At the end of three years’ training (which, exclusive of board and lodging, would cost about £70), you would take the Minor Examination. The Major Examination is usually only taken by those persons who wish to set up shops as pharmaceutical chemists.