Searchlights on Health-The Science of Eugenics Part 18

1. It requires self-denial to get rid of pimples, for persons troubled with them will persist in eating fat meats and other articles of food calculated to produce them. Avoid the use of rich gravies, or pastry, or anything of the kind in excess. Take all the out-door exercise you can and never indulge in a late supper. Retire at a reasonable hour, and rise early in the morning. Sulphur to purify the blood may be taken three times a week--a thimbleful in a gla.s.s of milk before breakfast. It takes some time for the sulphur to do its work, therefore persevere in its use till the humors, or pimples, or blotches, disappear. Avoid getting wet while taking the sulphur.

2. TRY THIS RECIPE: Wash the face twice a day in warm water, and rub dry with a coa.r.s.e towel. Then with a soft towel rub in a lotion made of two ounces of white brandy, one ounce of cologne, and one-half ounce of liquor pota.s.se. Persons subject to skin eruptions should avoid very salty or fat food. A dose of Epsom salts occasionally might prove beneficial.

3. Wash the face in a dilution of carbolic acid, allowing one teaspoonful to a pint of water. This is an excellent and purifying lotion, and may be used on the most delicate skins. Be careful about letting this wash get into the eyes.

4. Oil of sweet almonds, one ounce; fluid potash, one drachm. Shake well together, and then add rose water, one ounce; pure water, six ounces. Mix. Rub the pimples or blotches for some minutes with a rough towel, and then dab them with the lotion.

5. Dissolve one ounce of borax, and sponge the face with it every night. When there are insects, rub on flower of sulphur, dry after was.h.i.+ng, rub well and wipe dry; use plenty of castile soap.

6. Dilute corrosive sublimate with oil of almonds. A few days'

application will remove them.

BLACK-HEADS AND FLESH WORMS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A REGULAR FLESH WORM GREATLY MAGNIFIED.]

This is a minute little creature, scientifically called _Demodex folliculorum_, hardly visible to the naked eye, with comparatively large fore body, a more slender hind body and eight little stumpy processes that do duty as legs. No specialized head is visible, although of course there is a mouth orifice. These creatures live on the sweat glands or pores of the human face, and owing to the appearance that they give to the infested pores, they are usually known as "black-heads." It is not at all uncommon to see an otherwise pretty face disfigured by these ugly creatures, although the insects themselves are nearly transparent white. The black appearance is really due the acc.u.mulation of dirt which gets under the edges of the skin of the enlarged sweat glands and cannot be removed in the ordinary way by was.h.i.+ng, because the abnormal, hardened secretion of the gland itself becomes stained. These insects are so lowly organized that it is almost impossible to satisfactory deal with them and they sometimes cause the continual festering of the skin which they inhabit.

REMEDY.--Press them out with a hollow key or with the thumb and fingers, and apply a mixture of sulphur and cream every evening. Wash every morning with the best toilet soap, or wash the face with hot water with a soft flannel at bedtime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HEALTHY COMPLEXION.]

LOVE.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.--MOORE.

All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.--Sh.e.l.lEY.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.--SHAKESPEARE.

Let those love now who never loved before, Let those that always loved now love the more.

1. LOVE BLENDS YOUNG HEARTS.--Love blends young hearts in blissful unity, and, for the time, so ignores past ties and affections, as to make willing separation of the son from his father's house, and the daughter from all the sweet endearments of her childhood's home, to go out together and rear for themselves an altar, around which shall cl.u.s.ter all the cares and delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of the family relations.h.i.+p; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet, const.i.tutes the chief usefulness and happiness of human life.

2. WITHOUT LOVE.--Without love there would be no organized households, and, consequently, none of that earnest endeavor for competence and respectability, which is the mainspring to human effort; none of those sweet, softening, restraining and elevating influences of domestic life, which can alone fill the earth with the glory of the Lord and make glad the city of Zion. This love is indeed heaven upon earth; but above would not be heaven without it; where there is not love, there is fear; but, "love casteth out fear." And yet we naturally do offend what we most love.

3. LOVE IS THE SUN OF LIFE.--Most beautiful in morning and evening, but warmest and steadiest at noon. It is the sun of the soul. Life without love is worse than death; a world without a sun. The love which does not lead to labor will soon die out, and the thankfulness which does not embody itself in sacrifices is already changing to grat.i.tude. Love is not ripened in one day, nor in many, nor even in a human lifetime. It is the oneness of soul with soul in appreciation and perfect trust. To be blessed it must rest in that faith in the Divine which underlies every other motion. To be true, it must be eternal as G.o.d himself.

4. LOVE IS DEPENDENT.--Remember that love is dependent upon forms; courtesy of etiquette guards and protects courtesy of heart. How many hearts have been lost irrevocably, and how many averted eyes and cold looks have been gained from what seemed, perhaps, but a trifling negligence of forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AGE COUNSELING YOUTH.]

5. RADICAL DIFFERENCES.--Men and women should not be judged by the same rules. There are many radical differences in their affectional natures. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for s.p.a.ce in the world's thoughts, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her ambition seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if s.h.i.+pwrecked her case is hopeless, for it is bankruptcy of the heart.

6. WOMAN'S LOVE.--Woman's love is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty above the n.i.g.g.ardly selfishness of the world. Misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot enslave it. It is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick bed; it gives an affectionate concord to the partners.h.i.+p of life and interest, circ.u.mstances cannot modify it; it ever remains the same to sweeten existence, to purify the cup of life, on the rugged pathway to the grave, and melt to moral pliability the brittle nature of man. It is the ministering spirit of home, hovering in soothing caresses over the cradle, and the death-bed of the household, and filling up the urn of all its sacred memories.

7. A LADY'S COMPLEXION.--He who loves a lady's complexion, form and features, loves not her true self, but her soul's old clothes. The love that has nothing but beauty to sustain it, soon withers and dies.

The love that is fed with presents always requires feeding. Love, and love only, is the loan for love. Love is of the nature of a burning gla.s.s, which, kept still in one place, fireth; changed often, it doth nothing. The purest joy we can experience in one we love, is to see that person a source of happiness to others. When you are with the person loved, you have no sense of being bored. This humble and trivial circ.u.mstance is the great test--the only sure and abiding test of love.

8. TWO SOULS COME TOGETHER.--When two souls come together, each seeking to magnify the other, each in subordinate sense wors.h.i.+ping the other, each help the other; the two flying together so that each wing-beat of the one helps each wing-beat of the other--when two souls come together thus, they are lovers. They who unitedly move themselves away from grossness and from earth, toward the throne of crystaline and the pavement golden, are, indeed, true lovers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOVE MAKING IN THE EARLY COLONIAL DAYS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUPID'S CAPTURED VICTIM.]

THE POWER AND PECULIARITIES OF LOVE.

LOVE IS A TONIC AND A REMEDY FOR DISEASE, MAKES PEOPLE LOOK YOUNGER, CREATES INDUSTRY, ETC.

"All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all desires.

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, Are ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame."

1. It is a physiological fact long demonstrated that persons possessing a loving disposition borrow less of the cares of life, and also live much longer than persons with a strong, narrow and selfish nature. Persons who love scenery, love domestic animals, show great attachment for all friends; love their home dearly and find interest and enchantment in almost everything have qualities of mind and heart which indicate good health and a happy disposition.

2. Persons who love music and are constantly humming or whistling a tune, are persons that need not be feared, they are kind-hearted and with few exceptions possess a loving disposition. Very few good musicians become criminals.

3. Parents that cultivate a love among their children will find that the same feeling will soon be manifested in their children's disposition. Suns.h.i.+ne in the hearts of the parents will blossom in the lives of the children. The parent who continually cherishes a feeling of dislike and rebellion in his soul, cultivating moral hatred against his fellow-man, will soon find the same things manifested by his son. As the son resembles his father in looks so he will to a certain extent resemble him in character. Love in the heart of the parent will beget kindness and affection in the heart of a child. Continuous scolding and fretting in the home will soon make love a stranger.

4. If you desire to cultivate love, create harmony in all your feelings and faculties. Remember that all that is pure, holy and virtuous in love flows from the deepest fountain of the human soul.

Poison the fountain and you change virtue to vice, and happiness to misery.

5. Love strengthens health, and disappointment cultivates disease. A person in love will invariably enjoy the best of health. Ninety-nine per cent. of our strong const.i.tutioned men, now in physical ruin, have wrecked themselves on the breakers of an unnatural love. Nothing but right love and a right marriage will restore them to health.

6. All men feel much better for going a courting, providing they court purely. Nothing tears the life out of man more than l.u.s.t, vulgar thoughts and immoral conduct. The libertine or harlot has changed love, G.o.d's purest gift to man, into l.u.s.t. They cannot acquire love in its purity again, the sacred flame has vanished forever. Love is pure, and cannot be found in the heart of a seducer.

7. A woman is never so bright and full of health as when deeply in love. Many sickly and frail women are s.n.a.t.c.hed from the clutches of some deadly disease and restored to health by falling in love.

8. It is a long established fact that married persons are healthier than unmarried persons; thus it proves that health and happiness belong to the home. Health depends upon mind. Love places the mind into a delightful state and quickens every human function, makes the blood circulate and weaves threads of joy into cables of domestic love.

9. An old but true proverb: "A true man loving one woman will speak well of all women. A true woman loving one man will speak well of all men. A good wife praises all men, but praises her husband most. A good man praises all women, but praises his wife most."

10. Persons deeply in love become peculiarly pleasant, winning and tender. It is said that a musician can never excel or an artist do his best until he has been deeply in love. A good orator, a great statesman or great men in general are greater and better for having once been thoroughly in love. A man who truly loves his wife and home is always a safe man to trust.

11. Love makes people look younger in years. People in unhappy homes look older and more worn and fatigued. A woman at thirty, well courted and well married, looks five or ten years younger than a woman of the same age unhappily married. Old maids and bachelors always look older than they are. A flirting widow always looks younger than an old maid of like age.