VOL. XXXIII

No. 9

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L

ET no one think for a moment that I suppose a happy home can be made as the result of shady lawns, many windows, perfect heating, ventilation and light, and an abundance of pure water. These, to be sure, are the foundationstones of a happy home. They are the material elements quite necessary, but there are happy homes where none of these conveniences are to be found, and very, very unhappy homes that are abundantly supplied with all this.

It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of air, light and water in proper amount and quality as a sub

stratum from which a happy home is built. It is difficult for disease to find a foothold in such a home. Health becomes almost a habit. Good cheer a matter of course. Exuberant feelings a logical necessity. Beautiful days and restful nights naturally belong in such a home. But happiness, real happiness, is more than physical comfort.

Another thing I wish to guard against right here, and that is the impression that I may have given some one that in describing the editor's home I am describing an elegant home, a luxurious home, a palatial mansion, an expensive residence. This would

not be true at all. On all sides of me, within a stone's throw, are homes that cost five times as much, that are furnished with belongings one article of which might have cost as much as the whole outfit in the editor's home.

But there is no home in the whole city that has more sunlight, better air, purer water, every day, all day, the whole year round, than the home I am describing. Mahogany is not so precious to the life of the home as warm, sweet air in February, and cool, moist air in August. I have seen costly oil paintings adorning a room that was absolutely unfit for human habitation, because of the foul air it contained.

Air, sunlight and water. These are the primitive necessities of human happiness. They are the luxuries that cost very little, but contribute so much to the real worth and dignity of life.

So, then, let us dismiss the notion that we have been aiming to describe an elegant home, or that we have been designing to point out all the things that necessarily make a happy home.

After all, the greatest things in the home are the people who live there. The men, the women, the children, who sleep, eat, read and talk and sing and laugh. More important than the furniture, or the light, or the heat, or the water supply. Much more important. as material out of which happy homes are made.

Nevertheless, it is true without a doubt that many unhappy homes depend on an unwholesome water supply; on a dingy and stingy supply of light and air; upon an uncertain and irregular supply of heat; upon the want of shade about the house; upon the absence of broad verandas and numerous open windows. A great many families naturally light-hearted and happy, suffer from habitual physical depression because of some grave fault in the physical surroundings.

Not long ago I happened in a home, an elegant home. The mistress, a refined and intellectual lady, explained to me with pallid cheeks and gasping respiration that she had a continuous cold the whole winter long. Able to

converse on almost any subject, brilliant and versatile, yet because of her physical surroundings she talked the whole evening about her bodily ailments, and no wonder she had them.

In the room where we sat was a gas heater, an elegant affair, supplied with gas by a curious ornamental tube, but provided with no flue by which the fumes of combustion could escape. Pouring into that room was deadly gas known as carbonic di-oxide. Odorless, giving no sign of its presence, yet pervading every corner of the room, loading every corpuscle of her blood with the elements of destruction. I could hardly endure the ordeal of staying in the room for a single evening, while she had managed to exist there all winter. The other members of the family, not being confined to the house as she was, came and went, getting more or less fresh air from the outside. Yet all of them had been sick a good deal, and were complaining about the miserable winters in central Ohio.

Even at the risk of being discourteous, I did venture to give a short lecture on the ventilation of the home, and the necessity of pure air to maintain good health. I knew very well that such a subject was wholly improper in polite society, and yet I cannot always restrain myself within the limitations of conventional politeness when I see people committing slow suicide.

Many homes in our vicinity, worth. a thousand times as much as the editor's home, were deprived of soft water during the late drought, and had to somehow contrive to get along with their bathing by the use of water loaded with mineral salts. How many ailments resulted from such a deprivation is not certain, but at least it did not contribute to their physical well being. It was simply because I set a higher value on cisterns than upon lace curtains, that we were spared a similar annoyance.

I do not wish, however, to lose sight of the fact that the right man and the right woman, loving and respecting each other, can make almost a heaven

may

of almost any sort of a home. If their children are obedient, respectful, and the parents loving and just, darkness and dampness and and stuffiness bring their quota of disease, but through it all there will be consolations and enjoyments that no money can buy, that not even vigorous health can bring. To keep love and mutual respect in the home, these are essential, even more imperative than correct physical surroundings.

But love does not come to the home by chance. In order that perfect harmony may reign, the laws of justice must first be carefully considered.

A home that is inspired by perfect obedience to law can hope to be pervaded by love. Law first. Love afterwards. Where everything happens in the home in a lawless way, however good-natured it may be, friction must necessarily arise. A family is made up of persons of different ages, different tastes, different temperaments, different physical states. Even different ideals. Lasting harmony cannot be hoped for without some consideration at least of the natural rights, responsibilities and duties of each one.

When the law of justice and equality is once recognized and observed it becomes habitual, almost automatic, and gives a place to the freedom of love.

Ventilation cannot take the place of sincerity. Sunlight cannot dissipate

the troubles that arise from misunderstandings. Pure water cannot wash away the bad results of an uneven distribution of work and responsibility.

Such things are easily said, but how can they be brought about?

Well, let us see. First, there must be a head to the household. One who is supreme in authority and responsibility. Responsibility cannot justly be ascribed to any one who does not have complete authority.

Who should be that responsible and authoritative member of the family? Should it be decided by lot? Should it be determined by strength of will or pugnacity? Should the boss in the home be discovered as wild horses dis

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cover who shall be their leader, by sheer might and strength and determination?

There is no necessity for anything of this sort. A little reason clearly points out the logical person. There can be no escape from conclusions that are reasoned out fairly.

The children in the house, for want of experience in such matters and for the multiplicity of their activities consequent upon their education and development, could hardly be expected to assume such a responsible position. It must fall upon one or the other of the parents, which one?

Justice would indicate that authority and responsibility should fall upon the one who is best fitted by circumstances to assume it. Almost invariably it happens that the man is away from home a great deal of his time. At least away from the house. It is the woman who is there all day, nearly every day. She is the one who knows, or ought to know, where everything is, what everything is used for. Even if there are servants in the home she is the one that should know how everything ought to be done, and when. The man perhaps might be as competent as the woman to assume the responsibility of managing the home, but his other responsibilities generally make such an arrangement impossible. Therefore, it is the mother, the wife, that is the logical mistress of the home.

If she is a wise mistress she will of course consult her husband in every important detail. But the final decision should rest with her, if she is to be held responsible for consequences.

The children should be taught by precept and example from their earliest childhood, that the mother is the supreme authority. Νο rebellion against her decision or insubordination of any sort, should be thought of. It would be a very unwise father indeed who would set the example before his children of disobedience to any regulation which the mother thought wise in the care of the home.

But there are some things that follow as a logical consequence of turning over the home to the mother.

First, she should be provided with the means to carry out her plans. A careful estimate of the expense of running the home should be made, and readjusted from time to time as circumstances require. The older children should be brought into such consultations as soon as they are capable of understanding.

In my article next month I will try to outline the plan which has been in operation for many years in our home through which we have successfully settled all of the petty details of finance in the household. The mother

is the mistress. The father is the provider. The children are helpers, each with a subordinate part, and we are all beneficiaries, on terms of absolute equality.

First the law and perfect obedience to it. Afterwards, the gospel or the reign of love. Without the first the second cannot be reasonably looked for, which is a bit of philosophy that many a home has failed to comprehend. Good will and good cheer often fail to bring love into a home where there is no regulation as to details. In describing these details I shall hold myself strictly to what we have accomplished, the fruits of which we have already enjoyed many years together.

A

BOUT three out of every five women in our country have some form of displacement of the womb. The most common form is prolapsus, or commonly called "female weakness, falling of the womb." When a woman has pain in the outside of the thighs, a pressing down feeling, a "dragging sensation" in the lower part of the abdomen, a sensation as if the back was broken off, she has falling of the womb, and she doesn't need to go to a doctor to be examined; she will know herself by the above symptoms what the trouble is.

Women have been educated by the doctors to believe an examination is always necessary before they can tell. what the trouble is. Such an examination may be necessary in about one time in a hundred. If a doctor knows his business he can by a few direct questions find out all he needs to know about a woman's condition and be able to prescribe intelligently for her.

If you go to some doctors with your trouble (falling of the womb) they will tell you that you must be operated

on.

There must be an amputation of

the neck of the womb. A doctor who does that should be prosecuted for malpractice. Other doctors (and they are legion) will tell you that you must wear a pessary or an inside and outside supporter, but don't you believe them. Such support is purely mechanical. It doesn't cure any case. God never intended a woman to be harnessed up like a horse!

There are remedies that have a positive tonic action upon the womb and its appendages, and if you will just listen I will tell you how to cure yourself of this trouble at home, without anybody's help or anybody's treatment. This treatment has been used by me for forty years for patients in twentyfive states of the Union and has never failed to cure the patient.

First of all, get rid of the pessary outside and inside supporter. No matter how long you have had this trouble or how old you are, there is a cure for you. Make a tea of white oak bark, or get some extract of pinus canadensis at the drug store. Take a soft sponge the size of a small hen's

egg, tie a string around the middle of it.

Wet the sponge in the above wash, lie down on a bed or couch, draw the legs up toward the body, then insert the sponge in the vagina (front passage), push it well up against the mouth of the womb, at the same time pushing the womb up to its proper position. When you have done this, still lying on your back, contract the muscles of the vagina several times in order to hold the womb in its position. Use the sponge and follow the above instructions twice a day, wetting the sponge with the above wash each time.

Internally there is one remedy above all others that you can take with confidence. It is helonias, the Unicorn root; the root is the part used. If your druggist can get you Parke, Davis & Company's fluid extract of helonias,"it is the best. Take ten drops of this three times a day before meals in a little water. This remedy is a simple vegetable remedy, an excellent tonic by its specific effect upon the womb. It restores the displaced womb to its proper position and holds it there.

Long walks, straining and lifting heavy weights, and the use of instruments in confinement are the common causes of the complaint, and all these things must be avoided. A two-ounce

vial of the above remedy will last you a month; many cases only require one bottle. Of course great care should be taken to keep the bowels regular at the same time.

We often meet in society and on the street women and girls with their faces disfigured by blotches and pimples; such things are more often caused by constipation of the bowels. The feces being retained in the system form toxines to poison the blood, and thus we find such things upon the face. The time will come when women will understand that such unsightly things upon the face are a disgrace to any

woman.

It has become a fad and a mania for

doctors to operate upon women for about every ailment that they have. In our medical colleges half the time

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is given to instruction in surgery, thus they seem to think it of more importance to teach young doctors how to "cut" up people than to cure them. A woman complains of pain or any trouble with her womb or ovaries, and nothing will do but an operation. As a result of this mutilation of our women there are thousands of women being butchered, unsexed, degraded, to satisfy this lust for cutting up people.

America expects so much of her mothers, for "the hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world." How can a woman perform the duties of a wife or mother when she has been unsexed, degraded by the surgeon's knife? It is high time this horrible butchery should cease. It is a blot on our civilization.

In fibroid tumors of the womb, an operation never cures the tumor; it always returns. Many women have died upon the operating table, or after the operation. Women are the greatest sufferers from this mania for operating. They have the power to stop it. When the women of our fair land refuse to be cut up and insist upon being cured of their ailments, this butchery will cease and not before. There is more money in it for the surgeon in an operation, than in curing your case by medicine.

T

Unconditional Surrender.

HE Emmanuel movement, of Boston, has made an unconditional surrender to the medical profession. They have crawled down like a whipped pup, and are figuratively licking their masters' feet, apologizing for their very existence.

It seems they started out with the notion that there was something in religion available for the cure of chronic diseases. They had a faint and apparently vague belief that there was efficacy enough in religious conversion to change a man's life physically as well as mentally. What they said or what they did I have no means of knowing. I only perceive from news