To Your Good Health
By Paul G. Donohue, M.D.
Rabies Is
Usually Fatal
DEAR DR. DONOHUE:
I have my dogs vaccinated for rabies, but I
wonder how necessary this is. I have never heard
of a case of rabies. From what animals can people
get it? Is it treatable? What is it? -- O.R.
ANSWER: In the
United States and Canada, very few rabies cases
are seen in a year, and almost none from domestic
animals like cats and dogs because of our
policies requiring pet vaccinations. Around the
world, however, there are about 55,000 rabies
cases annually, and just about 100 percent die
from the infection if they are not treated before
the signs of rabies develop.
Raccoons, skunks,
foxes, wolves and coyotes are the principal
carriers of the rabies virus. The No. 1 rabies
spreader is bats.
The virus in
saliva, transferred from a bite, causes no
symptoms for one to three months. At that point,
the bitten person comes down with a headache,
fever, muscle aches, fatigue and loss of appetite
-- all common to many other illnesses. One to
four days later, the person becomes confused and
hallucinates. Muscles go into violent spasms.
Saliva and tear production increase markedly. The
thought of taking a drink sets off a painful
series of contractions of the swallowing muscles.
That’s the famous hydrophobia -- fear of
water -- rabies sign. Quickly, the person then
slips into a coma, and death is inevitable.
Recently, a young woman in Wisconsin did survive
rabies.
If a person is
immunized soon after being bitten by a rabid
animal or bat, the illness does not develop. That
is why, if bitten, it is so important to observe
domestic animals and to send the brain of the
wild animal to the state lab when it is possible.
Today, only five shots, given over one month, can
abort rabies.
LETTERS from
a SELF-MADE
MERCHANT
to his SON.
by George Horace
Lorimer
First published October,
1902
Being the Letters
written by John Graham, Head of the House of
Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago,
familiarly known on ‘Change as "Old
Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont,
facetiously known to his intimates as
"Piggy."
No.14
FROM John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in
Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at The
Travelers’ Rest, New Albany, Indiana. Mr.
Pierrepont has taken a little flyer in short ribs
on ‘Change, and has accidentally come into
the line of his father’s vision.
XIV
CHICAGO, July 15,
189-
Dear Pierrepont:_
I met young Horshey, of Horshey & Horter, the
grain and provision brokers, at luncheon
yesterday, and while we were talking over the
light run of hogs your name came up somehow, and
he congratulated me on having such a smart son.
Like an old fool, I allowed that you were bright
enough to come in out of the rain if somebody
called you, though I ought to have known better,
for it seems as if I never start in to brag about
your being sound and sweet that I don’t have
to wind up by allowing a rebate for skippers.
Horshey was so
blamed anxious to show that you were
over-weight--he wants to handle some of my
business on ‘Change--that he managed to
prove you a light-weight. Told me you had ordered
him to sell a hundred thousand ribs short last
week, and that he had just bought them in on a
wire from you at a profit of four hundred and
sixty-odd dollars. I was mighty hot, you bet, to
know that you had been speculating, but I had to
swallow and allow that you were a pretty sharp
boy. I told Horshey to close out the account and
send me a check for your profits and I would
forward it, as I wanted to give you a tip on the
market before you did any more trading.
I inclose the
check herewith. Please indorse it over to the
treasurer of The Home for Half Orphans and return
at once. I will see that he gets it with your
compliments.
Now, I want to
give you that tip on the market. There are
several reasons why it isn’t safe for you to
trade on ‘Change just now, but the
particular one is that Graham & Co. will fire
you if you do. Trading on margin is a good deal
like paddling around the edge of the old swimming
hole--it seems safe and easy at first, but before
a fellow knows it he has stepped off the edge
into deep water. The wheat pit is only thirty
feet across, but it reaches clear down to Hell.
And trading on margin means trading on the ragged
edge of nothing. When a man buys, he’s
buying something that the other fellow
hasn’t got. When a man sells, he’s
selling something that he hasn’t got. And
it’s been my experience that the net profit
on nothing is nit. When a speculator wins he
don’t stop till he loses, and when he loses
he can’t stop till he wins.
You have been in
the packing business long enough now to know that
it takes a bull only thirty seconds to lose his
hide; and if you’ll believe me when I tell
you that they can skin a bear just as quick on
‘Change, you won’t have a Board of
Trade member using your pelt for a rug during the
long winter months.
Because you are
the son of a pork packer you may think that you
know a little more than the next fellow about
paper pork. There’s nothing in it. The
poorest men on earth are the relations of
millionaires. When I sell futures on
‘Change, they’re against hogs that are
traveling into dry salt at the rate of one a
second, and if the market goes up on me I’ve
got the solid meat to deliver. But, if you lose,
the only part of the hog which you can deliver is
the squeal.
I wouldn’t
bear down so hard on this matter if money was the
only thing that a fellow could lose on
‘Change. But if a clerk sells pork, and the
market goes down, he’s mighty apt to get a
lot of ideas with holes in them and bad habits as
the small change of his profits. And if the
market goes up, he’s likely to go short his
self-respect to win back his money.
Most men think
that they can figure up all their assets in
dollars and cents, but a merchant may owe a
hundred thousand dollars and be solvent. A
man’s got to lose more than money to be
broke. When a fellow’s got a straight
backbone and a clear eye his creditors don’t
have to lie awake nights worrying over his
liabilities. You can hide your meanness from your
brain and your tongue, but the eye and the
backbone won’t keep secrets. When the tongue
lies, the eyes tell the truth.
I know you’ll
think that the old man is bucking and kicking up
a lot of dust over a harmless little flyer. But
I’ve kept a heap smarter boys than you out
of Joliet when they found it easy to feed the
Board of Trade hog out of my cash drawer, after
it had sucked up their savings in a couple of
laps.
You must learn not
to overwork a dollar any more than you would a
horse. Three per cent. is a small load for it to
draw; six, a safe one; when it pulls in ten for
you it’s likely working out West and
you’ve got to watch to see that it
doesn’t buck; when it makes twenty you own a
blame good critter or a mighty foolish one, and
you want to make dead sure which; but if it draws
a hundred it’s playing the races or
something just as hard on horses and dollars, and
the first thing you know you won’t have even
a carcass to haul to the glue factory.
I dwell a little
on this matter of speculation because you’ve
got to live next door to the Board of Trade all
your life, and it’s a safe thing to know
something about a neighbor’s dogs before you
try to pat them. Sure Things, Straight Tips and
Dead Cinches will come running out to meet you,
wagging their tails and looking as innocent as if
they hadn’t just killed a lamb, but
they’ll bite. The only safe road to follow
in speculation leads straight away from the Board
of Trade on the dead run.
Speaking of sure
things naturally calls to mind the case of my old
friend Deacon Wiggleford, whom I used to know
back in Missouri years ago. The Deacon was a
powerful pious man, and he was good according to
his lights, but he didn’t use a very
superior article of kerosene to keep them
burning.
Used to take up
half the time in prayer-meeting talking about how
we were all weak vessels and stewards. But he was
so blamed busy exhorting others to give out of
the fullness with which the Lord had blessed them
that he sort of forgot that the Lord had blessed
him about fifty thousand dollars’ worth, and
put it all in mighty safe property, too, you bet.
The Deacon had a
brother in Chicago whom he used to call a sore
trial. Brother Bill was a broker on the Board of
Trade, and, according to the Deacon, he was not
only engaged in a mighty sinful occupation, but
he was a mighty poor steward of his sinful gains.
Smoked two-bit cigars and wore a plug hat. Drank
a little and cussed a little and went to the
Episcopal Church, though he had been raised a
Methodist. Altogether it looked as if Bill was a
pretty hard nut.
Well, one fall the
Deacon decided to go to Chicago himself to buy
his winter goods, and naturally he hiked out to
Brother Bill’s to stay, which was
considerable cheaper for him than the Palmer
House, though, as he told us when he got back, it
made him sick to see the waste.
The Deacon had his
mouth all fixed to tell Brother Bill that, in his
opinion, he wasn’t much better than a faro
dealer, for he used to brag that he never let
anything turn him from his duty, which meant his
meddling in other people’s business. I want
to say right here that with most men duty means
something unpleasant which the other fellow ought
to do. As a matter of fact, a man’s first
duty is to mind his own business. It’s been
my experience that it takes about all the thought
and work which one man can give to run one man
right, and if a fellow’s putting in five or
six hours a day on his neighbor’s character,
he’s mighty apt to scamp the building of his
own.
Well, when Brother
Bill got home from business that first night, the
Deacon explained that every time he lit a two-bit
cigar he was depriving a Zulu of twenty-five
helpful little tracts which might have made a
better man of him; that fast horses were a snare
and plug hats a wile of the Enemy; that the Board
of Trade was the Temple of Belial and the brokers
on it his sons and servants.
Brother Bill
listened mighty patiently to him, and when the
Deacon had pumped out all the Scripture that was
in him, and was beginning to suck air, he sort of
slunk into the conversation like a setter pup
that’s been caught with the feathers on its
chops.
"Brother
Zeke," says he, "I shall certainly let
your words soak in. I want to be a number two
red, hard, sound and clean sort of a man, and
grade contract on delivery day. Perhaps, as you
say, the rust has got into me and the Inspector
won’t pass me, and if I can see it that way
I’ll settle my trades and get out of the
market for good."
The Deacon knew
that Brother Bill had scraped together
considerable property, and, as he was a bachelor,
it would come to him in case the broker was
removed by any sudden dispensation. What he
really feared was that this money might be fooled
away in high living and speculation. And so he
had banged away into the middle of the flock,
hoping to bring down those two birds. Now that it
began to look as if he might kill off the whole
bunch he started in to hedge.
"Is it safe,
William?" says he.
"As
Sunday-school," says Bill, "if you do a
strictly brokerage business and don’t
speculate."
"I trust,
William, that you recognize the responsibilities
of your stewardship?"
Bill fetched a
groan. "Zeke," says he, "you
cornered me there, and I ‘spose I might as
well walk up to the Captain’s office and
settle. I hadn’t bought or sold a bushel on
my own account in a year till last week, when I
got your letter saying that you were coming. Then
I saw what looked like a safe chance to scalp the
market for a couple of cents a bushel, and I
bought 10,000 September, intending to turn over
the profits to you as a little present, so that
you could see the town and have a good time
without it’s costing you anything."
The Deacon judged
from Bill’s expression that he had got
nipped and was going to try to unload the loss on
him, so he changed his face to the one which he
used when attending the funeral of any one who
hadn’t been a professor, and came back quick
and hard:
"I’m
surprised, William, that you should think I would
accept money made in gambling. Let this be a
lesson to you. How much did you lose?"
"That’s
the worst of it--I didn’t lose; I made two
hundred dollars," and
Bill hove another
sigh.
"Made two
hundred dollars!" echoed the Deacon, and he
changed his face again for the one which he used
when he found a lead quarter in his till and
couldn’t remember who had passed it on him.
"Yes,"
Bill went on, "and I’m ashamed of it,
for you’ve made me see things in a new
light. Of course, after what you’ve said, I
know it would be an insult to offer you the
money. And I feel now that it wouldn’t be
right to keep it myself. I must sleep on it and
try to find the straight thing to do."
I guess it really
didn’t interfere with Bill’s sleep, but
the Deacon sat up with the corpse of that two
hundred dollars, you bet. In the morning at
breakfast he asked Brother Bill to explain all
about this speculating business, what made the
market go up and down, and whether real corn or
wheat or pork figured in any stage of a deal.
Bill looked sort of sad and dreamy-eyed, as if
his conscience hadn’t digested that two
hundred yet, but he was mighty obliging about
explaining everything to Zeke. He had changed his
face for the one which he wore when he sold an
easy customer ground peas and chicory for O. G.
Java, and every now and then he gulped as if he
was going to start a hymn. When Bill told him how
good and bad weather sent the market up and down,
he nodded and said that that part of it was all
right, because the weather was of the Lord.
"Not on the
Board of Trade it isn’t," Bill answered
back; "at least, not to any marked extent;
it’s from the weather man or some liar in
the corn belt, and, as the weather man usually
guesses wrong, I reckon there isn’t any
special inspiration about it. The game is to
guess what’s going to happen, not what has
happened, and by the time the real weather comes
along everybody has guessed wrong and knocked the
market off a cent or two."
That made the
Deacon’s chin whiskers droop a little, but
he began to ask questions again, and by and by he
discovered that away behind--about a hundred
miles behind, but that was close enough for the
Deacon--a deal in futures there were real wheat
and pork. Said then that he’d been
misinformed and misled; that speculation was a
legitimate business, involving skill and
sagacity; that his last scruple was removed, and
that he would accept the two hundred.
Bill brightened
right up at that and thanked him for putting it
so clear and removing the doubts that had been
worrying him. Said that he could speculate with a
clear conscience after listening to the
Deacon’s able exposition of the subject. Was
only sorry he hadn’t seen him to talk it
over before breakfast, as the two hundred had
been lying so heavy on his mind all night that
he’d got up early and mailed a check for it
to the Deacon’s pastor and told him to spend
it on his poor.
Zeke took the
evening train home in order to pry that check out
of the elder, but old Doc. Hoover was a pretty
quick stepper himself and he’d blown the
whole two hundred as soon as he got it, buying
winter coal for poor people.
I simply mention
the Deacon in passing as an example of the fact
that it’s easy for a man who thinks
he’s all right to go all wrong when he sees
a couple of hundred dollars lying around loose a
little to one side of the straight and narrow
path; and that when he reaches down to pick up
the money there’s usually a string tied to
it and a small boy in the bushes to give it a
yank. Easy-come money never draws interest;
easy-borrowed dollars pay usury.
Of course, the
Board of Trade and every other commercial
exchange have their legitimate uses, but all you
need to know just now is that speculation by a
fellow who never owns more pork at a time than he
sees on his breakfast plate isn’t one of
them. When you become a packer you may go on
‘Change as a trader; until then you can go
there only as a sucker.
Your affectionate
father,
JOHN GRAHAM.
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