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Copyright, 11113, by the Mar «:ouji»hii>. Great Britain Rights Reserved
ALL
OVEK
Fat Forms a
Shock-Absorber
And YOU NEED
TO BE PLUMP
By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D.
i -
M ANY women are trying to become slim by
methods which are injurious to health. This is
due to the styles which call for a somewhat
attenuated figure.
it is true we are, or should be, slaves lo our bodies.
We must treat them according to the demands of that
inexorable master health But to ill-treat our hollies
at the dictation of the don't-care mistress, Fashion, is
all wrong, and thoBe who do It will be very sorry.
; There is a great difference between plumpness and
oyer-fatness. Fat alone In the healthy body exists in
such a variable quantity that the limits are wide apart
and can only approximately be determined as ranging
between nine and twenty-three per cent of the whole
-body weight.
Why You Should Fit Your Dress to Your Body, Regardless of Fashion, Explained by a Doctor
Relatively it should be greater in woman than in
man. A young woman five feet three inches is not
over weight if she scales 125 pounds. At forty years of
age she should weigh ten or fifteen pounds more. Thts
Is a normal addition of fat given to preserve health.
Fat has a valuable use due to Its chemical and
physical properties. It is inclosed in tiny sacs whose
membranes, saturated with water, can bear strong
pressure without allowing the oily contents to escape.
This makes a thick elastic layer on the surface of the
body, fills up depressions between organs, bones, liga
ments and muscles; protects against the constant blows
while walking, dancing or riding in cars. If you are
a strap hanger you need a few extra pounds between
the joints. In other words, a certain amount of fat Is
absolutely necessary to ease the physical shocks of
dally existence—and especially so to-day. It Is nature's
shock absorber and is far superior to any put on au
tomobiles and trolley oars.
Fat being a bad Conductor of heat, it protects the
tissues which it covers and aids against a < hilling of
Ihe whole body during changes in temperature.
When you exercise daily, the combustion of fat pro
duces force and heat and really prevents waste of the
pmteids tissue-building material. So you see It has
great nutritive value.
Some of us need more fat than others, and if we
are In good health nature knows our bodily necessities
better lhan we do. To some of great vitality she is
sparing of fat; to others she orders much, but never
The Strap-Hanger (A) or Dancer (B) Certainly Needs to Be P ump to Withstand the Physical
Shocks. (C) A Certain Amount of Fat Is Needed Between the Joints of the Human Be
ing, Just as Shock-Absorbers Are Needed on Automobiles. tD) The Woman of Forty
Who Tries to Regain the Form and Weight She Had When Twenty-three, Will Be a Poor
Specimen of Health at Forty-five.
too much. This is the point to remember.
If yon are of a naturally plump nature, do not try
to get rid of what your temperament and tissues
need. Have your clothes fit the body, do not diet and
drug to fit the clothes.
Over-fatness and no fat at all are due to disease
or habits. Find out which and correct the trouble.
Drinking plenty of water will not make the fat over
fat nor the lean thinner. Strange to say, it will aid
both extremes to get near the normal state.
A woman of forty in good health, who tries to re
duce her weight to what it was when she was twenty,
wilt be a poor specimen of health at forty-five. She is
throwing away the good things nature gave her. She
will still retain the enlarged and hardened bones and
joints. Kbr internal organs will have become fixed and
accustomed to shock protection, and the muscles to
silently move In their oiled sheaths.
Deprive all these working parts of their lubricating
materia! and we have the human machine working un
der difficulties; creaking joints, hard sliding muscles,
chilling of the blood and tissues. Never again can you
get that perfect adjustment which time and necessity
developed. Never, no, never, no matter what you try
to do. You may take on weight and become plump
again, but it will be external fat, not the oiling of
joints and organs.
Don't try to be a slim poplar tree if you were born
a sturdy oak. Don’t try to be a fat goose if you have
the nature of a swan. Be what you are and keep the
appearance. It is the easiest way to perfect health.
Why PARROTS Can TALK j
Better Than Other Birds
1 1 would seem lo many people that if a
bird can Imitate other birds after the man
ner of the thrush, it can also imitate
human speech as does the parrot, but th"
rhason such birds cannot do this is very
simple, it is all in Ihe tongue. The tongues
of most birds are thin and narrow, but Hie
parrot's tongue is more like the tongue of a
human being than that of any other bird.
It was a German naturalist who made the
discovery of the real reason why a parrot
can imitate the talk of human beings. He
was gathering interesting data about the
tongues of ail Borts of birds and the com
parison soon made it plain.
It was not because the parrot is more in
telligent than other birds. In fact, he is not
this sclentisl declares. He names several
birds, the crow for instance, that has more
intelligence than the parrot, but inasmuch
as the parrot's tongue is almost likt ‘hat. of
a human being, it is no wonder that he can
"talk” so plainly. The parrot's tongue is ;
well suited for articulation and so it keeps
up the mimicry. j
In some respects the humming-bird's tongue {
is the most remarkable of all. It is double j
nearly from end to end, so that the little j
creature is able to grasp its insect prey very
ranch as if its mouth were furnished with a J
pair of fingers. )
As the scientist points out, many persons
suppose that woodpeckers use their sharp-
pointed tongues as darts with wijich to trans- i
fix their prey. It is true that the woodpecker,
like the humming-bird, can dart out its j
tongue with extraordinary rapidity and that (
its mouth is furnished with an elaborate J
mechanism for this purpose, yet investiga- t
tion shows that the object of their swift mo- j
tion is only to catch the prey, not to pierce (
it. For the purpose of holding the captured f
victim the woodpecker’s tongue is furnished j
with a sticky secretion. '
NAGGING Is Simply an ITCHING OF THE BRAIN
W HAT do you do when your skin irritates
you? Scratch it, don’t you? If the irrita
tion is constant and uncontrollably annoy
ing you viciously go at it. You blame the skin, the
air of the room, the clothes, everything around you
You nag, nag the skin, forgetting that it is not
really the skin’s fault but something wrong in your
system which is irritating its delicate nerve distri
bution.
It is just so with your psychic faculties when yon
start to nag your husband, or when your husband
nags you. The fault does not lie in the real dis
position of either of you, but in the brain condition
al Ihe time. The brain stuff is being irritated.
As you cannot scratch the brain stuff you scratch
by words those persons who arc unfortunate enough
to be around you; and this is an interesting psycho
logical fact; during these times it is the one we
really are most fond of that we attack.
Now the brain can be irritated just the same as
the skin by body poisons due to fatigue, worry,
physiological crises Naggitg is supply an effort to
relieve the subconscious itching of brain nerves
and cells. It more often occurs ini women than in
men. Not on account of an inferior nature or-les
ser control over temper, but because woman is
more sensitive to brain irritation, has fewer oppor
tunities to relieve her feelings and impulses, and
on account of subtle psychological causes connected
with her physiological functions. A man can go out
and swear at the umpire and let off a lot of irri
tating stuff; here is where you may see the real
man nagger; or he can get rid of it at the club
fight or horse race. If he did not have these op
portunities he would be many times more unbear
able to live with.
Every impulse, and act which has a physiologic
cause, and which only occasionally demonstrates it
self, does no harm. In fact, these Impulses act as a
safety valve. But here is the point: they can grow
in frequency and intensity until they become veri
tab! obsessions, and that unendurable thing, a per
sistent nagger, is the result.
To return to the analogy of the nagging skin. If
you continue to give way to it, to scratch it and tear
it, a sore soon appears and finally ulcers The skin
nagging is fastened upon you and you are unfit for
work or companionship If instead of scratching
tnd slapping back at the skin you would discover
the cause of its irritation and get rid of it—a thing
easy to do—the nagging ceases and the skin returns
to a healthy state.
So with the brain. You can nag, sputter, utter 1
cruel words and cruel accusations until sore spots,
psychologically speaking, occur In the brain stuff.
Then you become the "born nagger.” There is no
such person. Those having that opprobrious name
are persons who have allowed the irritation of their
thoughts to be foolishly relieved by scratching
wprds and stinging insults.
Find the cause and govern the effects before they
have you under complete control.
Frequently a slight stomach disorder will make
you uncomfortable, and, being uncomfortable, you
have only cross words for everyone and everything
about you. Instead of "taking it out” with nagging,
take a laxative for the stomach, take a walk in the
fresh air, and in a little while the trouble will be re
lieved, then the brain will cease to “itch,” and you
will look at things in a better light and your nagging
will cease.
When you find you are nagging, try at once to oc
cupy your mind with some thing that will keep you
apart; read a good book, play a game of eolitai'e
or, better still, find some work about the house or
garden to keep you busy. At the same time study
yourself, see if you can locate just the ailment tha
makes you feel so cross, and when you have found it
do something to relieve it.
Placing a MONEY VALUE
Lifting 120 TONS with 11 OUNCES of MUSCLE
ON All Our KISSES T
O F all the fluctuating valuations in ihe world,
none Is so sensitive to the conditions of the
market as a kiss, none possesses so thor
oughly the spirit of speculation, none looks more
like a sure-thing proposition, yet none is a surer
breeder of panics and, withal, it remains a com
modity free from monopoly. Yet. like any other
actual thing, statistics of embraces can he compiled
and an ingenious juggler of figures has calculated
that a kiss Is worth only nineteen cents. In thts
conclusion, too. the statistician affirms that he is
not taking into account kisses exchanged when
either party Is less than seventeen years old.
Nineteen cents a kiss for everybody all round!
When Gaby Deslys charges $1,000 each—it is re
ported that she will ■occasionally ent prices, though
—and when t'leo Merode tendered a formal bill to
old King Leopold demanding one pearl for each
kiss given during a certain week, this estimate
seems very low. Sometimes, too, a couple of dozen
kisses—which at the flat market rate ought to cost
.$06 have had to be paid for at the rate of a
couple of. thousand dollars a year alimony. There
must he some terribly underpaid labor somewhere
in order to bring down the prices.
Tell the truth in whispers the blame for such
pnfiorpayment rests upon the wives. It is a con
servative estimate that each married couple in the
United States exchanges five kisses a day, averaging
the extravagance of the honeymoon and the par
simony of busy middle age. Allowing the average
cost to the husband of his caresses to be $2eO an
Dually, that is to say, a wife gets that much more
h.v her affection than she could demand, this makes
the cost of each kiss In married life worth a little
under fourteen cents. In Ihe case of lovers and
engaged couples, the figures are a little more diffi
cult to average, hut they are lower, on the whole,
for it is only Ihe "city feller” who finds himself
bound to bring gifts of candy, (lowers, theatre
tickets ami supper checks as his votive offering.
(Love-making Is a heap cheaper in the country, and
it is Just as much fun.l But this is a digression
from liai-d. prosaic figures. Comparing the propor
tion of urban and rural population, and allowing that
each pair of lovers sees each other one evening
out of three, that is an average of seventeen kisses
a day at an average expenditure of thirty-four cents,
or two cents a kiss.
Two cents a kiss for the unmarried!
But in order to take advantage of these low prices,
it is necessary to deal always at the same market,
for of all businesses in the world this is the one
in which the "favored customer' clause is worked
most frequently. The members of the Interstate
Commerce Commission are sitting up nights over
ihe question of finding a means to prevent the il
legal rebates that prevail in the osculatory industry.
If even a small tax could he put upon the product,
il would add greatly to Uncle Sam's treasury. Of
the 11,629,989 females in the census of 1910, 14,-
:>92,jj0-l are listed as being under fifteen years of age.
This leaves JO,047,325 kissahle girls and women, and
at the rate of 19 cents a kiss and the low estimate
of two kisses a day, Uncie Sam’s dally kiss hill is
$11,417,983.50, or over four billion dollars’ worth of
kisses every year.
’ HE average adult heart is a little bundle
of muscles that seldom weigh more
than eleven ounces, yet every day
these eleven ounces of muscles lift one hun
dred and twenty tons to a height of one foot.
That is, the power exerted by the normal
heart every twenty-four hours is sufficient to
lift that weight.
Physiology lias never revealed a structural
wonder so great or so striking as that of the
heart. Six ounces of blood are sent forth into
the veins or conduits of the human system
each time your heart beats. At the start the
arithmetic of this is easy, but as one goes
along through the years the figures become
so large that it is difficult to grasp the mag
nitude of the work of the heart.
As the heart does, or should, beat seventy
times each minute and the amount of blood
it forces out with every beat or stroke is six
ounces, the heart beats 4,200 times each hour.
To carry the work of the heart further, it
means this little eleven-ounce bundle of mus
cles beats 100,800 times every twenty-four
hours, or thirty million times a year. If a
man lived to be seventy years old, then, his
heart would have beat 2,500,000,000 times!
Forcing six ounces of blood into the arte
ries and through the system seventy times a
minute, and reckoning thirty-two ounces to
the quart on the old standard “a pint’s a
pound, the world around,” this would make
three and one-eighth gallons of blood forced
out every minute, or 187% gallons of blood
every hour. That is, the heart forces that
amount out every hour. Of course, every one
knows that it is the same blood renewed, hut
used over and over again.
This shows again that the heart forces out
4,500 gallons of blood every day and 1,642,500
gallons every year. In seventy years the
heart would have forced 114,975,000 gallons
of blood through your entire body by way of
the arteries, enough to fill a small-sized lake
or pond.
When Echo Is Louder Than
The Sound Thai Makes It
T O cause the echo of a sound to be louder
than the sound that caused it seems
an impossibility, but under certain
conditions this can happen, and the echo is
sometimes many times greater in sound vol
ume than the original noise that produced it.
This happens away up in the air. For in
stance, if an aviator is, say, one or two thou
sand feet above ground and some one on
the ground fires a revolver, there is a brief
time when nothing is heard. The aviator can
sop the smoke from the muzzle of the revol
ver, then wait a little, then the sound comes
to him. not like the sharp report of a re
volver, hut more like a quick peal of thunder,
loud and sharp and really several times
greater in sound volume than the actual re
port of the revolver.
The cause of this is that the air below is
much more dense, while up above it is lighter,
and there are no hills and trees and build
ings to help muffle the sound, so it comes up
on sound waves* with increasing noise. Hav
ing no solid background around and about
the aviator, the rebound of the sound waves
is greater up there than on the ground.
It is said a man in a balloon may lower
an explosive on a cord several hundred feet
below his basket and set it off with an elec
tric wire and battery. There is a sharp lit
tle "crack” like the report of a flobert rifle,
then comes the most terrifying noise, like a
great burst of thunder, the loudest ever
heard. The actual explosion did not make
anywhere near this amount of noise, but the
air being much more dense below causes the
line of least resistance to be straight up. and
so the sound waves expand mightily in an
upward direction, increasing the sound.
Printing in COLORS MOST
RESTFUL to Our Eyes
H
Uneven Black Line (A) Shows Sounds as
Man Firing Revolver Hears It. Other
Black Lines Show How the Sound In
creases in Upper Air,.
OW can we save eye-strain? How can we
economize in the wear and tear upon our eye
sight so as to do 'the enormous amount of
reading necessary to-day, with the least possible
strain on the eye and optic nerve?
It is well known that the eye of man is subjected
to great strain in reading, for it was not originally
intended for deciphering such small characters as
printed letters for any length of time. Most of us
are far-sighted, proving that the original intent of
the eye is for seeing large objects at a distance.
As a consequence, looking at print for a long time
causes strain on the eyes, and therefore the use of
glasses has become very general and Is growing
greater every day.
Experiments have lately been made in France to
ascertain which is the best combination of back
ground and type for ease in reading and reducing
the eye-strain to a minimum.
This is a very different question than that of
which is the most striking combination, or which
can catch the eye most easily and quickly. It was
demonstrated long ago that white on a black ground
is most effective in signs, for black, being the absence
of color and white being a combination of all the
colors, makes this combination very effective. It is
also well known that, a bright red attracts the eye
and as it has been proved that red looked at for a
long time tires the eye. this also tends.to show that
it is the most striking color.
This is not, however, the problem which the
French scientist set himself. He sought the com
bination of color, of type and background which
would tire the eye the least of all. It is easily dem-
, onstrated that a bright white surface, especially if
it be glistening, makes a glare which tires the eye,
so this ought not to be used If we are seeking econ
omy of vision.
After a large number of tests, in which all pos
sible combinations of colors and shades were used,
if was found that the very softest combination, that
which strained the eyes least of all, was a dull yel
low background and the type in solid black. This
was grateful to the eyes, and reading could be con
tinued for a long time without any sense of effort.
The contrast of black and white is in itself a strain
on, the eye, so if we want to use ordinary white
paper the best colored ink in which to print the
type is green, for it is a combination of blue and
yellow and helps, by its yellowish tinge, to modify
the glare of the white paper. This is recommended
as the second best combination. The combination
of a good red type with a dull white background
stands third in the list, while blue on white stands
fourth, but the blue should not be pale.- White on
blue makes the fifth legible combination, and black
on white comes sixth on the list. Yellow on black
is only seventh, for the black has a tendency to
swallow up the letters, and white on red is even
less legible, being eighth on the list. White on
green comes next, white on black is tenth, red oil
yellow is eleventh and green on red is twelfth, while
red on green is least legible of all and most tiring
to the eye.
This information ought to prove of great value to
printers and to all designers of signs, for what is
most, legible increases the force of its story by
its appeal to the physical eye, and, therefore, the
order of legibility ought to dictate the color-schemes
in our signs as well as the printing in our hooks
and papers. It ought to he easy to get yellow
paper, and print in black, as it is usually cheaper
than the bleached white product and really more
valuable, because It saves our precious eyesight.