Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1893 — THE BODY AND ITS HEALTH. [ARTICLE]

THE BODY AND ITS HEALTH.

Hair as a Cleansing Agent. —That tbe hair covering the body of an animal or the head of a human being serves the purposes of warmth and protection is manifest, but one would hardly expect to find that it also acts as a cleansing agent. This, however, appears to be the fact, according to a scientific authority. The minute scales which cover the outer portion of a hair are fastened nt one edge and free at the other, and the free edges lie in the direction away from the skin. The surface of a hair, therefore, is like that of a piece of fur or cloth covered with nap; rubbed from root to tip it is found to be smoother when rubbed in the opposite direction. This being the case, it is evident that particles of matter in contact with the hair must find their direction of easiest motion to lie toward the tip end of the hair and away from its root. So. by virtue of the peculiar structure of its surface the hair serves gradually to remove from the skin which it covers all foreign particles which may have found lodgment there. The oily secretion emanating from the follicles of the hair probably assists this action by gathering up the fine particles of extraneous dust ana of scales from the ikin, and thus enabling the hair to retain them, so to speak, in the grasp of its curious system of brushes. Every movement of the hair, however produced, must tend to set the particles sticking upon it in motion, and, as we have already seen, the motion can be in only one direction.

Don’t Read too Much About Cholera.—lt is agreed by medical authorities that the virulence of an epidemic mhy be increased by the element of fear in the public mind. In this connection Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, President of the New York Academy of Medicine,writing on the cholera prospect says: “During an edidemic of any kind each individual should endeavor, as indeed he should under any circumstances, to maintain his mental equilibrium, in other words, to keep cool. It is very difficult in our time to accomplish this, for the simple reason that some of the daily journals think it their duty to print sensational headlines, and sometimes sensational paragraphs, which have very little actual foundation, but which excite and terrify the timid, and sometimes even .the bravehearted. The writer was once in a foreign country where an epidemic was prevalent. He never knew how violent it was until he received the newspapers from his own country describing it. Such an effect did they have upon his friends that he was written to by several of them, urging him to fly at once, when, as a matter of fact, he was in no more danger than he would have been in his own dwelling at home. The cholera was only prevalent among the vicious, intemperate, and ignorant classes, who violated the most ordinary rules of personal cleanliness, and yet the news sent from these several places intimated that every individual (even in places free from cholara) was likely soon to be attacked and swept off the earth. lam not in favor of governmental censorship of the press, but I am very earnest in my hope that the press in our country will be moderate and judicial in statement should cholera ever become epidemic among us. A panic stricken people become easy victims of disease, even if it be not the disease then prevalent. Every individual may not find it easy to maintain his peace of mind during a cholera epidemic, if the press continues to think it expedient—and the authorities continue to allow them—to publish highly colored paragraphs, in regard to the disease. I think that it can be properly urged upon the citizens of New York and adjacent cities, should the cholera appear, that they refrain from reading about it, unless they are sanitary or medical experts, wishing to learn all they possibly can as th the progress of the epidemic, and are able to look upon it in a scientific and coldblooded way.

Healthy Apples.—Let us in the first place, says a writer in the Popular Science Monthly, take a survey of the normal subject, or, in other words, of a healthy apple. It is made up of five seed cavities which occupy the central portion of the fruit and constitute the core. Outside of this is the edible portion called the flesh, consisting of cells of small size filled with liquid substances. A tough layer covers the outside, which is the skin, and bears the coloring substance that determines whether the apple is green, red, mottled, or striped. At one end of the fruit is the stem, or, as found in the barrel, this former means of attachment to the branch of the tree may have been broken away or pulled from the fruit—a matter of no small consideration when the question of decay is concerned. This end of the apple is known to the horticulturists as the “cavity,” and varies greatly in different sorts, sometimes being deep and narrow as in the Winesap and Pearmain, and broad and shallow in the Greening and Peck’s Pleasant. The opposite end of the apple bears the name of “basin," and contains the remnants of the blossom—sometimes called the eye of the fruit. This part of the apple is likewise deep in some varieties, and shallow and open in others. This is the weakest point in the whole apple as concerns the keeping quality of the fruit. If the basin is shallow and the canal to Ihe core firmly closed, there is much less likelihood of- the fruit decaying than when it is deep, and the evident opening connects the centre of the fruit with the surface. There is no question about the importance of so far as possible preventing the bruising of the fruit. From what has been said in strong terms concerning the barrier of a tough skin which nature has placed upon the apples, it goes without saying that this defense should not bo ruthlessly broken down. It may be safely assumed that germs of decay are lurking almost everywhere, ready to come, in contact with any substances. A bruise or cut in the skin is therefore even worse than a rough place caused by a scab fungus as a lodgment provided by the minute spores of various sorts. If the Juice exudes, it at once furnishes the choicest of conditions for molds to grow. An apple bruised is a fruit for the decay of which germs are specially invited, and when such a specimen is placed in the midst of other fruit it soon becomes a point of infection for its neighbors on all sides. Seldom is a fully rotten apple found in a bin without several others near by it being more or less affected. A rotten apple is not its brother’s keeper. The surrounding conditions favor or retard the .growth of the decay fungi. If the temperature is near freezing they are comparatively inactive, but when the room is warm and moist the fruit cannot be expected to keep well. Cold storage naturally checks the decay. The ideal apple has no fungous defacements and no bruises. If it could be placed in a dry, cool room free from fungous germs it ought to keep indefinitely until chemical change ruins it as an article of food. Some new sk.rls have a very wide boxplait at the middle of the bock. I