Show RULES OF HEALTH prevention of disease rather than cure should be the aim flies as carriers of D sease in an address before the california health association dr cobb called the attention of the medical profession to the necessity of an active crusade against the common house fly this pestiferous insect has many chances to communicate disease from one person to another in cholera epi demies it has been shown thit flies are the means of spreading the dis ease by infecting the food whenever large bodies of men go into camp typhoid fever is almost tain to break out even though the water supply is carefully protected from contamination such outbreaks are due to fly infection of the food supply scattered cases of typhoid fever in country settlements are more often the result of fly infection than of water infection dr cobb believes that tuberculosis is communicated not only through the lungs by means of contaminated dust but that the greater source of infer alon is by means of the fly planting sputum on the food from its feet wings and excretions this infection by flies has been proved very clearly when the habits of the fly are con it Is not unreasonable to believe that this insect la an important factor in the spread of disease they swarm upon decaine dec aing vegetable mat ter manure piles the filth of the streets privy vaults and every pos sible source of infection follow them then to the street venders of fruit and candy the bakery butcher shop and restaurant and even to the family table especially of the poor and it is not difficult to understand the ease w ith which germs of all kinds are con keyed to the food it may be affirmed however that in the process of cooking the bacteria will be killed th s is granted but it is not here that the danger lies it is from food which is eaten raw or which has been cooked and upon which the fly afterward alights that the greatest danger of infection oc curs the longer this food remains un eaten after this contamination the greater the probability that a colony has grown thereby increasing the dos age of infection it Is in the homes of the poor that the greatest danger arises the poor nearly universally leave their tables set with cold food left from the pre meal upon this food flies as in great numbers and from time to time the children help them selves the remainder of the food being served at the next meal it Is there fore necessary to combine for the ex termination of this pest housewives especially should be careful to pre vent this source of dangerous intec alon high life Sanit orlum life camps in the adi ron dacks and elsewhere tent colonies roof dwellings and various other methods of taking the open air treat ment have been frequently described the latest novelty in this line Is an ex pediment peri ment made by a correspondent of everybody s for some time he says 1 I lived high and dry in the top of a sturdy white oak where I 1 did my cooking eating and sleeping and occasionally entertained as many as fourteen in my tent or house at dinner seventy feet above terra firma with only a rope ladder connecting me and mother earth my sleeping bunk was a specially constructed triangular bed can vas covered which towered fifteen feet above my living apartments and platform the need for recreation rest restores again the energy which has ben consumed in work so long as one is able to restore his lost energy by sleep and rest he cannot become neurasthenic but when a man comes to the point where he can no longer restore by rest or sleep the loss of energy which has occurred he necessarily becomes neurasthenic be cause his nerve cells remain chron icalla in that exhausted condition this Is the reason a vacation some times does so much for one complete ly replenishing the exhausted store of energy and saving one from a corn breakdown A good many men look forward for months to their annual vacation of three weeks in the summer as their salvation for five or six months at berward they enjoy very good health then their store of energy is exhaust ed and the next six months are sim ply misery waiting for the breathing spell to come again when the busi ness man finds at the end of his three weeks vacation that he has not yet re covered his natural energy and he has to go back to his work in almost the same condition in which he left it he has chronic neurasthenia and Is going to have a tremendous perhaps an ir reparable breakdown it he keeps on in that way when a man discovers that he has reached that point he ought to stop at once tuberculosis from dusty streets the pennsylvania state society for the prevention ot tuberculosis has made such earnest representations of the danger from street dust that the city council of philadelphia have ap four thousand dollars tor the sprinkling of streets this action Is commendable but something more thoroughgoing ought to be done there should be a law passed in ev ery state prohibiting the sweeping of streets when dry paved streets should be cleaned by flushing with wa ter rather than by sweeping the ex pense is probably not much greater and the saving of life would be enor dr woodbury street cleaning corn missioner of new aorl in the exam of four hundred out of the six thousand men in his department discovered a number of persons suffer ing from tuberculosis it Is claimed that the death rate among the street sweepers of large cities is peace at home he Is the happiest be he king or peasant who finds peace in his own home goethe hay making for fun at eighty A press dispatch from bridgeport conn gives an interesting account 0 he oldest twins in the country juliua and juilus benham who recently calel celel berated their eightieth birthday hay making on their farm in seymour haymaking Is great tun bald ju alus and I 1 teel as I 1 could mow away hay up in the peak ol 01 the peak of the barn as I 1 in day s ong ago and bowin away hay is about the hottest work there Is to be found in summer the benham twins are remarkable men they are far from being in valias though they have arrived at the age when most persons are usually feeble beginning life as apprentices to a mason they worked up and later became builders and contractors some years ago the benhamm benhams gave up building and settled down to the care of the real estate they had ac quiren in their long residence in bridgeport we always got up early in the morning said juilus when spoken to about the hour of rising and we can t get out of the habit the are in excellent health people ought to be cheerful it they want to live to be old said julius look at brother juilus and me no boys of the present day ever had as hard a time to get along as we did when we started but we had what a good many bos of to day do not have our mother gave to us iron cons titu alons the greatest present a mother ran give to her boys and we had been taught to live according to the simple and clean rules of the country we ih ed clean alvea aiwas we never drank liquor nor tobacco money spent for such things Is worse than money thrown away but many of the bivs to day seem to think they can t be men unless they drink liquor and use tobacco why we would never have lived to celebrate our eightieth birth aay if it had not been that we lived right lives you can enjoy yourself without going contrary to natures laws there Is plenty of harmless fun in the world but it seems to me that people are looking for the tun nowadays that hurts rather than helps the starvation cure starvation as a means of cure Is by no means a new idea it Is very old most good things are old and things altogether new are seldom good very few original discoveries are made now long fasting is one of the most et means of securing thorough going constitutional reconstruction it compels the body to teed upon itself in the rebuilding defects may be left out and healthy conditions may be re established but this result may be secured b other and generally safer means it Is not so much the withholding of food but of certain elements of food which secures the benefits of fasting it Is the prot elds from which the tern in diseased condition tures the poisons which give rise to rheumatism biliousness neurasthenia and gout when prot elds are with held the formation of poisons soon ceases of necessity and thus the dig functions return to their nor mal state and the health is restored by a diet of fruit this condition may be secured as readily as perhaps more readily than by any other means the fruit diet Is really starvation fruits contain practically no pro leids certainly a fruit diet Is far more agreeable than total abstinence from food fruits contain predigested predl food elements which do not clog the system and which are valuable in BUS the strength fasting Is a good thing in certain cases but long fasts are rarely need ed and a fruit diet Is preferable in all essential particulars except in certain cases in which fruit acids are ing as in gastric ulcer A window A medical journal describes a win dow tent devised for the open air treatment of tuberculosis it consists of a frame to fit the lower halt of the window to which is attached inside the window an awning of water proof duck stretched in a quarter circle the bed la placed parallel with the win dow so that the invalid s head and shoulders are within the awning en trance being made through a flap in the side of the tent the lower edges of the duck at the head and side of the bed are long enough to tuck under the mattress and thus air from the room Is thoroughly excluded the frame of the tent does not quite fill the lower halt of the window for the escape of warm air from the room there is left a space of three aches which can be reduced at will for protection from storms the root of the tent projects slightly beyond the win dow and a roller blind Is placed inside the window prof copeland s division of gaul the following concerning prof charles copeland instructor in eng lish at harvard it often told at the expense of three students at the versley it was a source of great annoyance to mr copeland to have students come into the lecture room ate and al though he occasionally remonstrated with them there were always alers on one occasion when the professor was well along in his lecture be was interrupted by three students who made rather an unceremonious en trance into the room without a word he calmly surveyed the tardy trio indeed he continued turning to his auditors with a sardonic smile it has been truly said that all gaul Is dl vided into three parts delights of travel yes he said for seven years I 1 have been a mall carrier on the cross cut rural route and in all that time I 1 have never missed a trip such a life must be delightful rejoined the impulsive city girl I 1 m never so happy as when traveling |