sot, unfitted for
work and a burden to himself, his relatives, and his friends.

Not less dangerous is the use of so-called patent medicines. In most
cases, patent medicines are swindles, pure and simple, containing no
remedial ingredients and acting only as stimulants. An advertisement
some time since, which claimed to cure not only tuberculosis but also
cancer, falling of the womb, hair, or eyelids, insanity, epilepsy,
drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and pimples was printed in many
newspapers. This remarkable remedy was found by analysis to contain
ninety-nine parts of water to one part of harmless salts. Many of the
vaunted remedies contain morphine or alcohol in such large quantities as
to be dangerous, the more so because their presence is not suspected.
Such remedies as Dr. Bull's Cough Syrup, Boschees German Sirup, Dr.
King's New Discovery for Consumption, Shiloh's Consumptive Cure, Piso's
Consumptive Cure, Peruna, Duffy's Malt Whisky, Warner's Safe Cure, and
Paine's Celery Compound are all by analysis said to contain large
amounts of morphine, chloroform, or alcohol.

Consumptives cannot be cured by any drug now known, and any person who
believes it is mistaken. Cancer still baffles the skill of the most
clever and the best-trained scientists. It is perfect folly to believe
that any drug or man can cure either disease by a few pills or by a few
bottles of medicine. The wise man or woman will avoid patent medicines
unless they carry their formula on their label _and unless they are
prescribed by some reputable physician_.

CHAPTER XIII

_PERSONAL HYGIENE_

Whatever the conditions under which one lives, or whatever his abstract
knowledge of foods and sanitation, the health of the individual resolves
itself at last into a question of his personal habits; and some of these
personal questions must be considered in a book of this character.

_Exercise._

One of the commonly accepted facts of hygiene is that, for the best
development and for the perfect health of the human body, a certain
amount of exercise should be taken by each part of the body. This is
true not only for the larger muscles, such as those of the arms and
legs, but also for the muscles of those internal organs less frequently
considered. Experiments have been made by tying up some part of the
body, such as the forearm, with the result that, in the course of a few
weeks, its functions have been so lessened that its usefulness is
tempo