IS THERE AN ANTIDOTE TO A VIOLATION OF NATURE'S LAW?
By David Paulson
THE enterprising manufacturers of a variety of digestive tablets recently announced as one of its attractive features, "Take one, and eat what you like." If it were possible to atone so readily for eating horrible things just because they tickle the palate, then the proprietors of this drug would certainly have a greater bonanza than if they had invested their capital in a Klondyke gold-mine. There is no more inexorable law of nature than, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," and it is just as easy to conceive of the law of gravitation ceasing its operations as to believe that a man can sow for pain, misery and wretchedness, and then by merely swallowing some sugar-coated pill, no matter how skilfully advertised, and by so doing reap pleasure, happiness and strength. But the very fact that a firm can afford to pay for the necessary advertising space to enunciate such a principle, only too plainly indicates that there is a large portion of humanity who are not yet aware of the unerring accuracy with which nature traces the definite relation between cause and its effects. If all those who do recognize this would do all in their power to instruct others, how quickly these hazy ideas about disease being an arbitrary dispensation of Providence would have to disappear. The working men toil early and late to lay up a little money for a "rainy day." Away down in their hearts this rainy day means "when some of the children are taken sick." But nearly all of the sickness among children, and grown-up people as well, is the result of the unnatural, unsanitary conditions under which they are living. Then, if these persons were properly taught, all who would respond to the teaching, instead of laying up so much money for the dreaded rainy day, would use some of the surplus earnings in cleaning up the back yard, renovating the cellar and putting a proper system of ventilation in the home. And, not the least among these important reforms, the children would be trained to look with horror upon the eating of sweets and various nicnacs; they would have no piecing between meals, and would learn to love the palatable and pure food upon which God originally intended they should subsist. Having the home thus carefully provided for, it should be insisted upon that the school board see that the children, while in the school-room, are supplied with their necessary quota of pure, fresh air. DAVID PAULSON, M.D.