Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1886 — Instinct as a Guide to Health. [ARTICLE]

Instinct as a Guide to Health.

A popular term formerly in use for the nails on the ten fingers was the ten “commandments,” which, says Nares, doubtless led to the swearing by them, as the real commandments. In the same way the fingers were also called the ten bones, and it was a common thing to use the exclamation, “By these ten bones.”

A Maine lady, being advised to take an ocean voyage for her health, hired ’ staterooms for herself and maid on one •of the steamers which ply between Portland and Boston, took along all “the necessary conveniences and many luxuries, and made forty trips without quitting the vessel. She was much benefited by the voyage.

The arithmetician Dase, who died in 1861, declared that he could count thirty objects of the same.kind as easily as other people could count three •or four. The truth of this assertion was often proved when the arithmetician, with lightning rapidity, gave the correct number of a herd of sheep, or the books in a library, or the windowpanes in a large house.j

Boston Corbett, who killed John Wilkes Booth, took up an eighty-acre -claim near Concordia Kan., six years ago, and he thinks the llepublic is ungrateful for not giving him a patent of the land. He is not particularly happy, and says that, but for religious tracts sent to him by Eastern friends, life would hardly be worth living—that is, unless he gets his land tract also.

It seems that French students can be more substantially demonstrative toward an unpopular instructor than their American fellows. M. Chatin, of the Paris School of Chemistry, was about to lecture his botany class, recently, when he was assailed with a shower of potatoes, eggs, butter, cheese and onions from all parts of the hall, and shouts of “Resign! Resign!” were raised.

Of the wife of President Knott, of Union College, it is said that while her health permitted she made it a duty to know personally every student in each class, and she never forgot a face or a name, always recognizing an alumnus, and with the greatest animation recalling little incidents of his college -days. It was her custom to invite the boys, one or two at a time, to take tea and spend an evening with her.

“Long” John Wentwoth, of Chicago, being asked the secret of his good health and long life, said to a friend the other day, that he had made it a point to eat "when he was hungry, drink when he was thirsty, and sleep when he was sleepy. He rises when he gets ready. He eats anything he wants. Once he liked whisky, but he found it too powerful and gave it up. Now he drinks Rhine wine and two gallons of water a day.

Jacob Miller, of Fountaindale, Pa., .married his first cousin, and between 1860 and 1874 eleven children were born to them. Of these all were of unsound mind save one, a daughter by no means bright, who is married. Eight •others are alive, and five of them are idiots, and the others little better. Mrs. Miller is dead, and her husband, who is a prosperous farmer, lives alone with his eight unfortunats children. He says that his misfortune is a “stroke of providence.” An honest Irishman and his crippled •daughter named Kavanagh have been living in Detroit in greatly reduced circumstances. Before he left Ireland Kavanagh’s pretty sister attracted the attention of a wealthy lady, who engaged her as a traveling companion, and took her on an . extended tour through the old countries. A few days ago he received word that his sister had •died in Sydney, New South Wales, leaving him sole heir to an estate valued at over $1,000,000.

Some orie not long since invented a papier-mache ooffin. Among the advantages claimed for it were its close resemblance to wood, its lightness, waterproof quality, and incombustibility, though why this latter quality should recommend the new casket is not apparent The paper casket has been patented, but has not been put upon the market. Iron and bronze caskets have been for some time in favor, and .recently marble caskets have come in. They are practically indestructible, hewing made of a composition of marble

dust and Portland cement, and molded and baked*like pottery. A certain peculiar post-mortem vanity has found gratification in transparent glass coffins, but hard wood is still more u ed than any other material, and for all practical purposes it is, doubtless, as satisfactory as anything else. On the score of healthfulness, indeed, the less durable the casket the better for the surviving population of the earth.

The will of Kate Rowsand, the little dwarf that was known all over Europe as “Madam la Marquise,” contains a novel feature. After she had disposed of all her property there remained her wardrobe. “Well," said she, “my dresses and everything that I wore must be far too small for the littlest child; but in order that some poor little girl may be happy, I desire that ten pounds sterling may be applied to the purchase of twenty dolls of my size, which shall all be dressed from my wardrope and given to orphans. ”

During the recent difficulty between Bulgaria and Servia, Gabdan Effendi was the enyqy from Turkey to the Bulgarian Government. He wears a false nose. When he set out from Sofia for Constantinople, the Bulgarians gave him a passport, upon which the words, “A pasteboard nose” were written under the head “Particular Marks.” The Turk immediately complained bitterly to Prince Alexander jf the rudeness of his employes. The Prince apologized with a smile, and made the diplomatist a present of a snuff-box for consolation.

The new base-ball catcher’s glove is out for the season, and is widely different from tliat of 1885, says the Boston Herald. The palm is not so heavily padded, and the ends of the fingers are protected by sole leather helmets. When a hot ball comes against the end of the catchers hand, when encased in one of those new-style assassination protectors, it simply unhinges the arm at the shoulders, where it can be readily replaced by another one, without delaying the game more than for a moment. The old-style glove did not take this kind care of the wearer’s fingers. Generally they were driven in through his ribs, whence they were with difficulty coughed up or removed with a pipe wrench, in a damaged condition, or else they were completely worn out by the attrition and impact of the ball so that they had to be filed completely off. The advantage of the new glove will be obvious to all men who have looked upon the catcher when he moveth himself aright, after stopping a solid shot with the first joint of his longest -finger.

Many of our progress-loving contemporaries would be rather alarmed at the discovery that the principle of our social, medical, and educational reforms during the past two hundred years has been a restored trust in the competence of our natural instincts. So foreign was that rule of conduct to the moral standard of the middle ages that its importance was recognized only in its apparent exceptions, the supposed “evil propensities of our unregenerate nature,” such as poison habits, sloth, and sexual excesses. The real significance of such aberrations would reveal the difference between natural appetites and abnormal (artificially acquired) appetencies, and teach us the necessity of tests of that distinction to all persuasive instincts, and occasionally to otherwise unexplained aversions. But even with those limits a critical study of our protective intuitions would surprisingly show in how many respects the hygienic reforms of the last two hundred years could have been anticipated by the simple teachings of our senses. For the wards of instinct a temperance sermon would be as superfluous as a lecture on the folly of drinking boiling petroleum, for to the palate of a normal living being—human or animal—alcohol is not only unattractive but violently repulsive, and the baneful passion to which that repugnance can be forced to yield is so clearly abnormal that only infatuation of the natural depravity dogma could ever mistake it for an iunate appetite. In defense of the respiratory organs, nature fights almost to the last, The blinded dupe of the night-air superstition would hardly assert that he finds the hot miasma of his unventilated bedroom more pleasant than fresh air. He thinks it safer, in spite, or, perhaps, because of its repulsiveness. “Mistrustall pleasant things,” was the watchword of the mediaeval cosmogony. Long before Jahn and Pestalozzi demonstrated the hygienic importance of gymnastics children embraced every opportunity for outdoor exercise with a zeal which only persistent restraint could abate.— Dr. Felix L. Oswald , in Popular Science.

In Mr. Francis Condor’s method of puriiying sewage, the principal active agent is sulphate of iron. The pro ess has been tried with success upon a small quantity of crude foul sewage, and there is every reason to infer a like result on a large scale. Sulphate of iron has long been known as a disinfectant of great efficiency.