Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1910 — THE FAMILY DOCTOR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FAMILY DOCTOR

Aathma. Among all physical Ills asthma Is perhaps the most irritating. It Is hard to endure, and terrible to observe. Its Victims die a thousand deaths as far as suffering is concerned, and yet are denied the dignity of having a fatal disease, for It is' one of the heartless axioms of experience that the asthmatic sufferer is quite as likely to die of old age as of his disease. It has been said that asthma is not a disease, but a state of body, and if its victims are able to extract any comfort from the knowledge that it Is nervous in its origin, they are entitled to that alleviation. Anyone looking on for the first time at a well pronounced asthmatic seizure Is convinced that he is watching a death scene, and no wonder, so terrifying are the symptoms. The patient fights piteously for breath, sometimes crouching for hours In one position, pallid, bathed In perspiration, and apparently in the final stages of suffocation; but curiously enough, with all the distress, the patient does not seem to feel any real alarm as to the outcome. The attack may pass off either rapidly or gradually, in many cases leaving no apparent after effect except a tense of great fatigue. Asthma being a disease with a nervous origin, it follows that there are as many theories about It and remedies for It as there are sufferers from it. With some persons the attacks are apparently a certain outcome of eating a certain kind of food, or breathing a certain kind of air, or reaching a certain day and month of the year. Many asthmatics claim the power of cheating their enemy up to a certain point by moving to some other locality when the tragic date draws near—the asthmatics living in the valleys may pass in transit their fellow sufferers who habitually live on the hills. Those who trace their attacks to digestive disturbances learn to avoid the Starchy foods, or the fat foods, or whatever food It is that upsets them. Some cannot live near a stable; others cannot be near a cretaln shrub or flower. Indeed, the specialties of these unfortunate people are without number. . The asthmatic, however, has two great sources of comfort. One is the reasonable hope of reaching a good old age: the other Is the fact that great help Is to be, found for him In a strictly hygienic mode of living. The better air he breathes, both day and night, the simpler his diet and the more wisely ordered his exercise, the fewer will be the number of his attacks.—Youth’s Companion.