as many things to take to cure them; but this is the only remedy I
shall tell you about, because, by the time you have tried this, some
older person will probably have come to help you.

All the medicines that you see advertised as "Headache Cures" are
dangerous poisons if taken in too large doses; and most of them in
small doses weaken the heart. They are what we call narcotics; they
just deaden the nerves to pain without doing anything whatever to
relieve or remove the cause.

If you have a headache, the best thing to do is to go and lie down
quietly and rest or sleep, until it goes away. A headache always means
that something is wrong; it is one of Nature's most valuable danger
signals. When your head aches, Nature is telling you that you have
been over-straining your eyes, or breathing foul air, or eating some
food that does not agree with you, or forgetting to go to the toilet
regularly, or not getting sleep enough. The sensible thing to do is
not to swallow some medicine to deaden your nerves to the pain, but to
find out what you have been doing that is unhealthful for you, and
then stop it.

Most of the medicines called "patent medicines," which are advertised
to "cure" all sorts of pains and troubles, contain poisons, and are
particularly dangerous because they easily lead one to form the habit
of taking them. Nine tenths of them are either absolute frauds,--of no
strength or use whatever,--or else they contain alcohol, or opium, or
some of the dangerous drugs made out of coal tar.

Now about _burns_. You need not wash them, because the heat has killed
the troublesome germs. They need to be covered from the air, if the