The Soda Fountain

"Nervousness is as much a f ad as anything else, ' ' said Dr. Egbert Dixon of Buffalo, "and the modern soda water fountain has more to do with the increase of the inania than anything else. In days of oíd when soda water was first added to the wares of the druggist it was devoted entirely to satisfying the public taste for something cool, sweet and refreshing. Fruit sirups of a harmless character were fizzled up to a proper degree of gaseous bubbling, and the mission of the soda water fountain was a commendable one. "Nowadays it is devoted to bromos, nervines and lots of other things that are made from the deadlicst sort of drugs, while they are hung with signs inviting people to become their own physicians by trying some of the countless nostrums which are alleged to cure anything from a headache to an ingrowing toe nail in an alrnost inconceivably small space of time. The tired out individual sees one of the nervine signs and mistakes his weariness for nervonsness and straightway proceeds to doctor himself with something, he knows uot what, but which, on account of its powerful properties, braces him up and makes him feel bright. "The natural result f ollows. He takes some more of the soda water fountain stuff whenever he gets tired, and in a month or so his system is on the road to general breaking up. Drugging one's self at a soda fountain is dangerous, and, as I said in the beginning, nervousness is largely a fad. If supposed sufferers from nervous attacks would only go out and split wood for half an hour, if men, or take a brisk walk, if women, and then take a bath and take a nap, there wouldn't be so much heard of this silly rot about nervousness being