The Eyes.
Now that the nights are getting long, and we have to read by lamp-light, by electric, or gas-light, a word about the eyes may be opportune. Don't therefore try or tire your eyes too much. Read in a good light. Remember that tiring the eyes means tiring the brain, for the nerves of sight issue therefrom. Students should frequently bathe brow and eyes in the coldest of water, and rest awhile on the sofa with a newspaper over the face.
Eyes and health go hand in hand, and if your liver or stomach be out of order, the eyesight will become more or less dim for a time. It is most important therefore that girls engaged in study, or who do office work, should make a point of keeping their health well up to the mark.
Cycling for Young Girls.
Cycling is revolutionising the kingdom, partly for good, partly, alas! for harm. But I want to warn parents against permitting children of too tender years to cycle. Remember I myself might be called a cyclomaniac. Many is the article and many the book I have written on this charming method of pedal progression, but I never have been a scorcher.
I say, and fear no contradiction, that no girl should be permitted to mount a bike, until she is eleven or twelve years of age, and even then she must ride in moderation. Else years and years of ill-health and trouble are in store for her in after-life. Children should be taken good care of when out cycling, and those with them should ride in moderation, else the child will kill herself in trying to keep up.
The same may be said about club-cycling for young men. Just as there is always a tiny wee "drochy" in a litter of pigs, so in a club out for a spin there is always one or more poor white-faced visions of lads that a Chinaman could whip, and it is pitiful to gaze on their weazened white bits of perspiring faces as they bend over their bars and try to keep up. Such brats often smoke too. Alas! alas! but there is one consolation, they soon sink into their morsels of graves, and the world wags better without them.
Poverty of Blood.
This is usually called "Anæmia." The words of a fellow-practitioner in a recently published medical journal are so good that I make no apology for transcribing them for your benefit.
"It is doubtful, in my mind, whether the average doctor realises the frequency of anæmia. I am sure that if the general practitioner gave due attention to the factor anæmia, we should have comparatively few cases of disease extending into the chronic stage. Too few physicians are accustomed to take into account all the elements of every case, including this, the most prevalent and essential of all. Any disease that depletes the system and draws largely on the vital forces will involve the condition we call anæmia. On all such occasions, it is of the first importance for the doctor to be constantly on the look-out for this condition. The best means of diagnosis is microscopic examination of the blood, to determine its quality from the number of red corpuscles and the proportion of hæmaglobin, and also as to its freedom from bacteria.