Sensible health tips from a long-gone era
“According to medical specialists, being smartly dressed is a mental stimulant and can even ward off sickness.”
That item appeared in a New York newspaper in 1909.
And from an 1886 edition of a Pennsylvania newspaper: “The death of Mr. Maas, the well-known tenor, calls attention to the peril of sleeping in a damp bed.”
And from an Iowa paper, 1910: “The unwanted embrace of a man, followed by incessant teasing by her coworkers, caused Ona Smoot to become insane.”
These three antique news items also appeared on twitter in July 2011, in a twitter feed known as Tweets of Old(twitter.com/TweetsofOld).
R.L. Ripples — a writer and researcher — posts several tweets every day. Each one contains a line transcribed from actual newspapers or digital scans of newspapers in online archives.
I picked out the three above because they’re health-related. But there are all kinds of quotes on a wide range of topics, such as the Galveston Sand Crabs baseball team (Texas, 1895), home dentistry (Tennessee, 1904), and beer made from Sacramento River water (California, 1886).
I’ll finish with one more health warning: “Frank Cook, of Vernon, died of blood poisoning caused by smoking.”
Don’t smoke, dress smartly, and make sure your bed is dry. Old advice, but all good.
