Be Careful With That Lamp.

Manawatu Herald, 16 February 1897, Page 3

Be Careful With That Lamp.

I sincerely hope that Mrs Filmer has abandoned thy custom of keeping an oil lamp burning in her room of nights. She does not say what the necessity was, but 1 trust it no longer exists. If possible to avoid it, no lignt should burn in a room wherein people are sleeping. The reasons ought to be plain enough, yet we all tietd lessons in common cauiion. This lady had hers, and was fortunate in coming out of the affair as well as she did. Writing about it she says: "It was in the summer of 188G, not long after the death of my husband. I had been used to keeping an oil lamp burning in my room for convenience during the night. One night I accidentally overturned the lamp, and a blaze kindled in au instant. Terrified half out of my wits I sprang from bed, seized the burning articles and ran downstairs with them just in time to prevent further disaster. Happily for me I escaped with slight burns, but not from con • sequences of another kind. " The fright and shock quite prostrated me. Do what I would, after the danger was all over, I was unable to banish the subjeot from my thought?. My nerves seemed completely unhinged, and I rapidly grew feeble, excitable, and debilitated. My appetite failed, and I had no relish for my ordinary food. There was a bad taste in my mouth, headache, distress after eating, loss of flesh and ambition, with a disposition to worry and fret over things which, when I was well, had no influence with me whatever. I sought to build up my strength with beef tea and other nutritious and digestible forms of diet, without sucoesa. " The doctors whom I consulted said I was suffering from nervous debility and weakness. They gave me prescriptions, which the chemist made up for me ; but they had no effect, and what I suffered I have no words to tell you. My health appeared to have been all broken up suddenly, as a railway train goea to pieoes in a collision. Month after month I struggled with this strange ailment, but could find no remedy to relieve me. Not until January, 1887, did I see ray way out of the trouble which followed my adventure of that fearful night. " At that time (January, 1887) I chanoed to come upon a little book about Mother Siegel's Syrup, as a cure for indigestion «nd dyspepsia and the oomplaints attending it. Letters that were printed in that book from others who had been oured by this remedy, gave me confidence, and I got a bottle from Mr J. H. Brown, patent medioine dealer, 15, High Street, Margate! After taking it I felt deoidedly better. I could eat aad digest needed food ; my nerves were more under control, and I got better sleep and rest. I will merely add that, feeling sure that Mother Siegel'3 Syrup was helping me, I continued to take it, and eventually recovered my health. For this I thank Mother Siegel's Syrup ; and if you think so singular an experience as mine wou d be of interest or use to any one, you may have my consent to publish it. (Signed) (Mrs) 0. L. Filmer, Thanet Cottage, Draper's Road, Margate, July 24h, 1895." , Now I invite the reader's attention to a doable fact : First (as i> daily shown in these artio'efl), that indigestion will dis* ' order and disease the nervous system ; and (second) that a violent shock to the nervous -ystem will produce indigestion of a pro found and in rao able typ>. The latter f o is illustrated by the case we are now considering. There is no space here to treat of it at length. ' Let it suffice for the present that, either way, the remedy must be addressed to the digestion— not to the nerves. No competent physioian treats a so-called " nervous " disease as a nervous disease. He seeks for the location of the i evil force, which is commonly the stomach ; corrects that if he can, and leaves the nerves to right themselves as they always do. This is what Mother Siegel's Syrup did for Mrs Filmer, and will do for you, in case (which Providfnoe forbid) you are ever overthrown in like manner.