Newspaper Page Text
mimiLS
How VERTICAL 1
WRITING
Causes
uURVATURE
of the
SPINE
VERTICAL writing must go! It produces
curvature of the spine. Efforts have
teen made for many years to trace
with extreme care every detail of the child’s
comfort while in school. Experts have been
railed in to determine the question of the re
lation of the children to large window spaces,
desks and seats have been graded by frac
tions of an Inch so that each child should
neither have his feet dangling above the floor
nor his knees higher than ease requires, di '""j
•nd gymnastic exercises of many kinds have,
been devised, and yet all the time thousands
of American children have been forced to sit
for hours in a position that is a great strain
to the system and which threatens serious
hodlly distortion, owing to the craze for
vertical writing.
The French Association for the Advance
ment of Science —a most practical body—has
been investigating the question of sitting
positions In writing; it haw found the attitude
necessarily assumed in vertical writing causes
? compression on the upper and the lower
Why COPPER Gan- j
not Be
SCIENCE and even the ordinary progress (
(n (he arts and crafts an each icono-)
clasts In their way-that is, they tear j
<iow'. and destroy ideals long possessed and \
generally cherished by man Just now It is
that delightful old claim that the ancients
kuev how to temper copper to the
of steel. .
l ot year* this has been a general belief.)
anti man, a story and not a few serious ar-,
relet have been written describing how the i
in-i. o< the period just following the stout J
agit- tr od to mine copper and by a secret ■
process t rnper it and nrik<* wondorfiil knives)
nnd other weapons and tools from it. It was (
called a "lost art.
But now not only scientists, but skilled t
craiuotnen tn ntetal.-t. conn forward and!
declare th. gneients never tempered cop-}
per and their reason for making this declara- J
non is that copper does not possess tho prop-)
•rites tha’ will enable it to b” hardened by l
any process whatever )
'■< safe to declare,’ states one expert, I
writing i»r a mining publication, that cop- J
pel lice never been tempered at any time by)
any cn.-, as it does not possess the necessary ’
properties Copper can be hardened in a)
toimlwi of ways, the easiest being to plunge)
the finished article into molten antimony or<
arsetiii,; the n suiting alley formed on the<
su.-taee Is exceedingly bard and brittle. He- (
i.eni research in Mexico has shown that the)
tools there supposed to be made of hard cop-)
I't wei-«. mnd< b. smelting mixed ores of’
copter, nickel and cobalt; the resulting a l-!
Icy was naturally hard. None of these old i
tools are of a quail” equal tn those which {
<ai > u-v be made " (
Trn '
it '
i S'.
Ai -' i *
—v r -
r Le Lneigy in the Daily Kaiiuna of th®
Average man C< nvertrd to Me
chanical Work Would Rai*r 3.FGO
1 on», or a Gunboat. One
Foot High.
Whv ENGINEERS Run Past DANGER SIGNALS-the New Disease “PSYCHIC EPILEPSY” Revealed by Scientists
(Continued from Preceding Page.)
two d.stingo -hed medlril aii'iio’-’l
ties* oxpi..in this new disease
In addition to the different ex|>er!-
ments i.lonff -e line- of psychic epi
lepsy, mother nnd separate mass <ff
facts has been collected tn recent
researches into the effects of over
work, tony: bout’s and fatigue.
In view of the abundant material
row known to science which ostub
ibas tUi_ new disease, psychic epl
lc; y, and also sho'"- bow fatigue
groups of vertebrae, boxring out the spine to
the left The curvature of the spine which
is thus brought in Is quite charasterlstlc, the
line being a greater arc than that which 18
commonly seen In children who were born
with this defect or who have acquired ft
during babyhood.
A number of French school children were
photographed with the Roetgen ray appara
tus. while sitting at their desks In school
during the writing lesson, and In almost
everyone of these X-ray plates the compres
sion of some of the small bones of the back
and the extension of others could be clearly
seen. In some cases, when the child sat up
straight, it was seen that the survature of the
spine had already become fixed, as a twig tied
in a certain direction long enough grows at
that angle. Indeed, many children who as
yet showed no effect of 111 health from this
bone distortion, none the less had so strong
a curvature that a photograph taken of them
while writing presented as bad a picture of
the spine as that of a clyonlo invalid, save
that in the first case the curve had not be
come permanent, in the second it was almost
beyond remedy.
There Is no portion of the human frame of
more Importance than the backbone, not only
because It is the main part of the frame, on
which all else depends, but because (with the
brain) it is the centre of the nervous system.
Since the spinal cord is * canal running
through the Inside of the backbone, It is easv
to see that the curvature has a most danger
ous effect on the nerves. More than that, the
spinal cord is one of the chief sources of that
particular cell which the body produeg to
resist disease when the child or person is
smitten with Illness. This function also is
WllllAM LEE HOWARD. M. IX
IT a girl has reached her eighteenth year and finds
she is losing flesh instead of gaining, ft is time
to look into the cause.
Os course you must keep many little things upon
your mind when you weigh yourself and find that you
have lost three or four pounds since you last went
upon the scales' The first thing to remember is that
al! the scales in public places, the slot-weighing ma
chines and others, arc by no means exact. No two of
them will give you the same weight. Just to point out
the necessity of remembering these and other little
matters, hero is the story of a girl "just scared to
death.”
She had been worrying about her lack of plumpness
she was only seventeen and was still growing. She
started away from homo to visit in the country during
the hot weather. For several days she had not slept
well, and. of course, had eaten lightly. About a week
before the onset of the depressing weather she had
weighed herself. Her journey lasted all night, and,
tired and exhausted, she stepped out of the train at a
junction to wait for her friends.
There was a slot machine on the platform, and, of
course, she at once stepped upon it. Then came the
shock—she bad lost seven pounds In a week! She was
worried to the point of Illness and really commenced
to lose flesh through this worry.
Os course, she bad not lost any such weight. First,
the scalcS were wrong; next, she had forgotten that she
wore fewer and lighter clothes than when last weighed.
Then the loss of sleep and the usual slight loss of
weight due to the hot weather all had rheir effect.
The best sign of good health is when a girl keeps
about the same weight if she has stopped growing in
every way that is, if she has reached full development.
She will vafry two pounds or so every day if all the or-
Man’s Marvelous ENERGY
no energry to-day*’ Is a com- I
I mon remark Many people feeling ■
* out of sorts and weary have an idea ,
they lack energy, but they do not. Rather, j
they possess a marvelous amount of energy. ,
If they did not they would die. for it takes
u great amount of energy to live.
The average norma) man requires 2,500
calories of energy each day. A calorie is a
definite amount or a degree of heat. Just
as a thermal unit is that amount of heat
necessary to raise one pint of water one
degree Fahrenheit, one calorie is that degree
cf heat necessary to raise one kilogram one
degree centigrade in temperature. Trans
lated to Fahrenheit again, this moans one
calorie is that amount of heat necessary
to raise four pints of water, or two quarts,
four degrees in temperature Fahrenheit One
calorie is. therefore, four times as great in
energy, as a thermal unit.
Just tc maintain the necessary heat of the
impairs efficiency, we are able to tin
-rstand that engineers who see and
ru. [>ast danger signals do so not
use they are heedless or fool
ar ■ luat entire, but because
they are victims of a momentary dis
ease. i .10 engineer d islies on to tils
death because his mental faculties
hnve failed him at a critical moment
and it was beyo.nl bis power at that
vmeut to . ? J >< lining of the
danger signal which he plainly saw
or to act upon the significance of the
Children Forced to Sit in Position That May Bring on PERMANENT DEFORMITY
What THIN GIRLS SLmU D« tn GAIN WEIGHT
warning which he perfectly well
knew.
Fatigue is caused by the accumu
lation of waste matter in the blood,
which by being thus deteriorated
carries a lessened ’upply of nour
ishment to the brain. There are two
processes going on all the time In
the living body. One is the building
of tissue, tbe other the breaking up
of tissue into simpler chemical
forms. These chemical wastes are
P<> sotinis impurities, which, under
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X-Ray Photograph* oi Children a* They Were Writing the Vertical
System, Made by French Scientists, Showed Their Spines to Be Badly
Twisted, as Indicated by the Arrow ■ in This Picture.
gans are in perfect condition, and she can only be cer
tain of these facts by using the same scales and being
dressed in the same weight of clothing. Also the time
of day must be taken into account, for she will weigh a
pound or so less after a day’s work than she did in the
morning.
The girl who* Is angular and needs those beautiful
curves the poets write about rntrnt study herself and find
the cause. A girl may be perfectly healthy yet fee some
what thin. If she comes from old New England stock
she will inherit this thinness. However, if he will ob
serve certain rules much of this may be overcome.
It must be accomplished by nature’s methods and not
through drugs or any of the so-called “fat foods."
The teeth are often at the bettom of the cause for
being thin. No matter how well you take care of the
teeth there may be little hidden pus cavities which
during sleep pour out their injurious material which
gets into th© stomach. This interferes with digestion
without your knowing it and prevents the food from
distributing the fat under your skin—which is the way
nature produces her womanly curves. See to this mat
ter by consulting a dentist.
Starchy foods make fat, but before this starch can
be mixed with the saliva which prepares it in the
mouth so that the digestive appartus can distribute it
where it belongs, it must be well chewed and turned
around in the mouth. This is the real valuable factor
in the chewing fad. Fruits, green vegetables, lean
meats, do not need all this preparation by mixing with
the saliva.
Now, you can exhaust the saliva in the glands by
constant chewing; so the girl who habitually chews
gum will have when she eats but little, and that weak
ened, saliva to prepare her food for digestion. Hence
a gum-chewing girl cannot get those curves so eagerly
desired.
body and support its various activities the )
average man needs 10.000 thermal units ot ?
energy each day. This amount of energy \
is sufficient to raise one' ton of water five)
degrees in temperature or to raise the tern- (
perature of a man weighing 125 pounds from >
72 degrees to 115 degrees. t
The energy represented In the daily ration '
ot the average man, converted into mechani-/
cal work, would raise 3.560 tons one foot'
high. The same amount of energy would
be used by a man weighing 125 pounds in ,
walking 190 miles at the rate of three miles,
an hour. The same energy would carry a
man on a bicycle 570 miles farther, or 760 ;
miles. It must be remembered, however, 1 ,
that only a small part of this enormous en
ergy which is introduced into the body by
the food is actually convertible for use in
muscular work At least four-fifths of all the
food fuel taken into the body, and assimi
lated. is consumed to maintain animal heat.
A Penny SPEEDOMETER
CURIOSITY has frequently been turned
into capital. P. T. Barnum built up
his success through whetting public
curiosity rather than by furnishing plain
amusement, .and to-day people will spend
money more readily to satisfy their curios
ity than for anything else outside the bar*
i necessities.
With this fact in view, an English invent
-1 or has perfected a little device whereby
, tiny one riding upon a train who says, “I
I wonder how fast we are going?” can satisfy
' that curiosity for a penny. In other words,
i the Englishman has invented a little slot
machine whereby one may learn the speed
! at which he is traveling in a steam train
1 merely by inserting a penny in the slot and
J pressing the button. The penny releases a
catch which makes it possible to press this
' button, and the pressing of the button con-
normal conditions, are burned up by
the oxygen brought in by the blood.
During activity the production of
tissue waste is greatly accelerated
because of the increase.; demands
upon the tissues, and the amount of
oxygen taken in by the blood is not
sufficient to burn tp a.I of the poi
son. which accumulates rapidly as.
the activity continues A period of
rest throws the balance in the other
ot ctlon. and the diminished de
mands upon tin tissues ename the
whJHEEARTI/
endangered by even a light curvtura of the'
spine.
This Is too big a price to pay for the doubt
ful advantage of vertical writing. The old
slanting system, In use since the sixteenth
century, permits the use of a naural sitting
position when using the pen, and to that we
must return. The public schols of France
have mended their ways, the public schools
of America should not lag behind. Any
teacher who Is forcing her class to learn
vertical writing is making cripples of her
children and preparing them so- defeat in is
battle of life.
While the vertical system of penmanship is
not being taught in this country as exten
sively as It was a few years ago. the fact re
mains that it had such wide favor when it
was finally inaugurated that it spread
throughout nearly all the schools In the coun
try and the school authorities have been much
slower in dropping this system than they were
tn adopting it.
There Is not a Board of Education in the
country but what, If its members knew how
this verticalu system of penmanship actually
deforms the tender spines of the children,
would order the system changed without a
da The d great trouble seems to ba that the
knowledge of the harm this system is working
to school children has not been sufficiently
circulated. If school teachers could see some
0 the twisted spines that have resulted from
tblß vertical writing they would refuse to
|“’h U. Jus. .. the, would retuse to do «W
«■«
?’.’“rluee should he mad. evenstvel,
“’au country. a. ootblos would <»»«!»»
•» ninmo or keep your weight by eat-
Don’t try to ge V p P Tho lntestinal tract
Ing condensed p and heavy ma terial to give it
stimulation. These materials are always in
natural foods. anything, j
t other elim
along with the care rcaUy }
hungry. Stuffing when you do not feel like eating makes ,
matters much worse. i
Milk is very productive of fat in some cases. The ,
majority of young women do not like milk. Now, Its
Is your case, drinking it will be of no benefit It Is the (
same with eggs; eat them if you enjoy them but ; do_not j
force yourself just because you have heatd that they
make fat. With young men it is vastly different 1 ey
like eggs and milk and it will increase their weight. (
Plenty of water with meals and between meals will do (
much for girls and women in keeping a plump body ana i
fresh skin. All cereals eaten for breakfast will Increase .
your weight if all the other details are observed. But <
what will do the most for you is a happy disposition,
release from unnecessary worry, avoidance of all anger
and jealousy, and a sense of humor and the merry laugh
ter which always accompany this joyful disposition.
Did you ever see a laughing man or woman who had
dyspepsia? You say that they are happy because they
are not cursed with the nagging fangs of dyspepsia.
Not at all; they keep always in such a happy frame
of mind that dyspepsia can find no place in their
system.
To the thing girl T should say. Avoid worry, do not
chew gum, keep your teeth clean, keep your feet dry,
allow frsh air to circulate in your sleeping room, eat
regularly and be merry at all times. There is nothing
else that will give you the rounded form and good com
plexion, the bright eyes and elastic step so much de
sired by every girl whos duty it is to become as at
tractive as possible and like happily.
blood to bring in more than suffl- I
"mt oxygen to eliminate the amount 1
of waste being produced at the time,
and the surplus of oxygen is used
by the body to attack and throw oft
the lai .■ accumulated starj of poi
son.
The blame for railroad accidents
must in maiy eases !__■ p' cn the
shoulders of those who are respon
sible for the conditions which force
weary and exhausted men to work
at times when they should be in bed
! nects the mechanism with a pulley belted to
> the axle and a dial indicates tho miles per
; hour.
i Thousands of people every day are won-
I dering how fast they are traveling. Some
try to count telegraph poles or the number
> of clicks per minute of the car passing over
rail joints, but both ate decidedly unsatis
factory.
, With one of these penny-in-the-slot ma
[ chines handy, the irritated passenger who
r thinks he will not reach his destination in
time w-ill spend as many pennies to "find
i out” as the other sort of passenger who be-
I holds the landscape flitting past and says
i “Whew! We must be doing a mile a mia-
I ute-’’ and drops in his penny also to “find
k out." The clever inventor in this manner
, plans to profit by people’s natural cu-
riosity.
getting rest. But an engineer who
has taken his "day off” or rest hours
to carouse or tn other ways fatigue
himself is, of course, the guilty one.
The human machine cannot be taxed
beyond endurance without great
danger.
One of the first requirements of
the engineer is that he should be
able to keep his mind on his work.
He must be always alert to eaten
aui' interpret the many signals that
flash by in rapid succession. The
school authorities so quickly of the danger*
of vertical writing as a series of such photo
graphs showing the actually twisted spine<
and, in some Instances, little spines that 5 :n
to have been permenently twisted.
The teachers who began teaching this wern
naturally not affected with twisted spines, for
the reason that their spines had reached m.i
ture growth and the bones were no longer
pliable and susceptible to twisting. But pho.
tographs made In France by X-ray of adds
while writing the vertical hand show that
even their mature, strong backbones are
twisted while they are sitting in the position
necessary for thia work.
Not only does the position necessary »<w
vertical writing twist the spiue, but other in
juries follow as a natural result As has been
explained briefly, the spinal cord, the "
channel," in fact, runs through the backbon ■,
and any Injury to the spine Injures the c -1.
which affects nerves, blood and brain. Tho
circulation of the blood is Impaired, the ner
vous system Is terribly unstrung, the brain i
Anally affected, and the little student n •
only acquires a twisted spine, but general I
health, which, if continued, will make him i
Incvalid, at least, and unfit for the hard ba •
tie of life that must come to at least nine
tenths of the children when they reach n i
turity.
Vertical writing is no easier to read, ex
cept, perhaps, to the very small child, and
this is because It resembles printed letters to
a considerable degree and the child team a
printed letters first. But to adults the slant
ing penmanship is read quite as easily, it is
much handsomer, and lends Itself to more
ornamental penmanship. Again, vertical writ
ing is no more natural than it is for iue>;
children to write with their left hand.
Does Man Know
HOWTO FEED?
ACCORDING to Professor Gautier. ot
Paris, man must go to the ape, tb«
babboon, the orang-outang and even to
his closest animal friend, the dog, to learn
how to feed.
Professor Gautier explains this view with
the following declaration: ”We do not know
how to feed—that is, man. Animals do kuo >
how to feed, and in this respect, at least, w
are lower than the animals. Man has lost t!
instinct of properly nourishing himself, whi>
all the lower animals have an innate know*
edge of their proper food.
“Take, for instance, the dog,” explained th*
professor in a recent lecture “This anitni
left wild. In the deep country, can provide f -
himself. But take him Into civilization ar,
force upon him foil quite a period exactly
same diet a man adopts and it will kill
dog. That Is, make the dog eat exactly th
same things, truffles, fried meats, salad
acids, condiments, astnngments and snet
things, and in time it will prove fatal. Tost’
the dog chunks of bread, some bones to mas
cate, a few tough pieces of meat and be >vi I
thrive, but force him to eat the mixtures tin i
concoctions mankind has invented and called
food and he cannot live through it.
“The same can be said of apps and mon
keys and other animals. Take the extrema
savage races and there are no dyspeptics, n >
appendicitis victims. The men of these races
the aborigines, die from practically only three
causes—ln battle, through accidents and of old
age. The writer,” laughed the professor, “who
declared man could live without sermons or
books, but could not live without cooks, sai l
something rather epigrammatic, but it was not
quite true As a matter of fact, man has lived
longer without cooks than without either ser
mons or books.”
KI
I
f I
l
L-J
By Putting a Penny in I ni» ' *
Speedmeter the Paaaenger Can
Learn the Exact Speed H'« Itjjl tjj
1» Mailing at That Moment.
least lessening of his attention cm
bring disaster It Is no e;is> '■ ■>.
even for n mind hut Is fre-ti I
strong, to keep the though ■>
wandering. One ot ttie most - >
Ing illustrations ol fatigue
psychic epilepsy ri'cetitly hai
on a Western railroad. An eu.-
who haa been up all night al . - -
tailed to heed the frantic «-■ -
signals of bis own wife as in- -1
bis engine past his ©vn Uom
rutl over uue us Dis owu •*