Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/382

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368
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

my experiment, very cheaply. It offers the double economy of utilizing a nearly waste product and obtaining chicken-broth and roast fowl simultaneously.

One of the great advantages of stewing is that it affords a means of obtaining a savory and very wholesome dish at a minimum of cost. A small piece of meat may be stewed with a large quantity of vegetables, the juice of the meat savoring the whole. Besides this, it costs far less fuel than roasting.

The wife of the French or Swiss landed proprietor, i. e., the peasant, cooks the family dinner with less than a tenth of the expenditure of fuel used in England for the preparation of an inferior meal. A little charcoal under her bain-marie does it all. The economy of time corresponds to the economy of fuel, for the mixture of viands required for the stew once put into the pot is left to itself until dinner-time, or at most an occasional stirring of fresh charcoal into the embers is all that is demanded.—Knowledge.

CATCHING COLD.

By C. E. PAGE, M. D.

"She caught her death o' cold, taking gruel out of a damp basin."—Old Story.

THERE has always been more or less of mystery connected with the disorder popularly called "a cold." A close observer, in studying this question, will find:

1. That, while persons of all ages, sexes, occupations, social positions, and in all conditions of general health—from the delicate infant and the frail consumptive to the most robust man—have colds, say to-day, from the slightest causes, often enough, indeed, when utterly at a loss to account for the attack; next month, or next week, perhaps, the same individuals—the frail and delicate ones, even—may pass through severe exposures to wet and cold, even to the point of being chilled through and through, without producing a symptom of this disorder.

2. Every day throughout the year we see evidences of the disease; to the last individual in any community none escape altogether, a large proportion are affected several times, and individuals there are who rarely pass an entire month without some of the symptoms; while others, notably children and infants who are fed every hour or two, are almost constant sufferers from nasal catarrh, difficult breathing ("snuffles"), and general malaise, and are peculiarly subject to acute attacks.

3. Whenever it happens that an unusually large proportion of the people are attacked at about the same time, the disease is popularly