LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

manhood or womanhood without the lingering reminder of an attack
of severe illness successfully warded off, where yet the scars are seen?
Boast as we may of athletes and champions of the sports and in the
arena of physical contest, nevertheless we are but a race of emaciated,
unsound, sickly people. This is still more remarkable when we consider
the multitude of remedies that a kind and thoughtful class has provided
for us; "no cure, no pay." Look at the shelves of any druggist; note the
large assortment of liquids and minerals and what not, all of them
warranted "sure cure," and all of them under a patent. Cures there are,
many and interesting. Disease cure, fatigue cure, mind cure, mirth cure,
pain cure--you take your choice. They are harmless, even if they do not
cure you of your "pain" or "mind" or "disease."
Then, there are the baths. Note their number and variety: Sea baths,
mineral-water baths, electric baths (shocking!), vapor baths, Turkish
and sun baths; and in Indiana there are mud baths. A gentleman
inquired of another if he had ever taken one of those wonderful "mud
baths." He said: "Yes, once when I ran for office." It must have been a
mud-slinging campaign. It is to be hoped that he was cured.
Then, there is the Health-food plan, the advocate of vegetarian diet, the
plan and practice of "no breakfast" or one-meal-a-day theories.
Every once in a while some new "fad" springs up among the people, has
a great rage, flourishes for a season--but then subsides and is unheard
of again, being superseded by something else equally sensational and
equally absurd.
Some years ago there was a "blue glass" craze. The theory was that
instead of the pure golden light of the sun beaming into the sick-room
through the transparent window-pane or open window, there should be
a division of these rays, and by the use of blue glass only the blue light
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