456
PARTISAN
REVIEW
the weight of
Stone-Mills Arithmetic
and three volumes of
Literature
and Life.
Not the blessing of love to take it off her. And she will ar–
rive in her small town for a second, deeper and worse enchantment
and think even of the Newberry as one wall closer to freedom and
mysterious hot love. But I will stay here and see
if
I can find a
substitute for the little green winds of Spring in the pages of books
and will keep on smelling White Castle hamburger-onions in place
of section-hand stew.
Now since I've mentioned hamburgers, I'll lead with them
straight into my subject of disease and health, and true and false
nourishment, out of my readings in Galen and Hippocrates and even
further back in time. First-off I want to say that I'm not going to
discuss anything so obsolete as the effects of Dogstar rains or des–
cending phlegm in humid natures; nor will you hear anything from
me, more recent, for or against psyllium seeds or senna leaves for
regularity, or yogurt and the parasites of carp for old age; or any of
the stuff you hear from radio doctors about health-bread or the evil
of polished grain and false, agenized bleached flour or digging your
grave with your teeth. No, it's something else I have in mind, to–
night. I recall, first of all, myoId friend Dr. Julius Widig, whom you
must all remember, a frequent speaker in this square while he lived
and the author of
Reefer Rosie, the Tragedy of a Girl Bum.
Gen–
erous soul, we all respect his memory. Our old friend Dr. Widig when
he was arrested in the first war for an open anarchist and strong–
armed and given the broom-handle treatment behind by the mayor's
squad, when
his
license was taken away from him and he was thrown
into Joliet Penitentiary, he kept up his noble heart by healing the
jailbird venerealees and came out a lot healthier than Ponce came
out of the Florida swamps, nearly killed by his quest for elixirs. Yes,
while more robust and better fleshed, gymnastical men ran off to
embrace the sickness of Verdun, where all the bones still have not been
gathered under crosses, he was hustled off to jail. And it was caring
for the prisoners that saved his vital economy for him in spite of the
war the state made on
him
with strong-arming and the hoosegow
drearies. It was the miseries of other men that did
him
good. Now,
am I calumnifying the mild old doctor? He didn't ask for them, no;
he was too humane. But what is his example for us? Nothing new.
Only that in health we are in the debt of a suffering creation. With
