Tues... Peter Cooper died, 1883.. 5.34 6.24 9.05 5. Wed... Registrars, Mail Mar. Birth and Death Certs. 5.33 North Pole discovered, 1909. Passion Sunday.. 5.26 6.29 .54 Permanent Court of Arbitration organized at 10... II Mon... Hugo Grotius, international lawyer, born 1583 12.. 13.. 14. Fri.. An act restricting the sale of habit-forming Compulsory Education Law passed, 1874.. Wilbur Wright, aviator, born, 1867. 5.17 6.35 3.51 5.15 6.36 4.14 17.. Mon... J. Pierpont Morgan born, 1837.. 5.14 6.37 4.39 18.. Tues... Anglo-American agreement for disarmament on Great Lakes proclaimed, 1817. 19.... Wed... Charles Darwin died, 1882... 20... Thurs.. Constitution of N. Y. State adopted, 1777. 5.09 6.40 10.18 21.. Fri..... Good Friday.. 5.08 6.41 11.25 State Library established at Albany, 1818. 22..... Sat.. Immanuel Kant born, 1724.. 5.96 Easter Sunday.... 25. Tues. St. Mark's. Oliver Cromwell born, 1599. 5.02 6.45 I.40 Plague in London, 1665. 5.01 6.47 2.II Daniel Defoe died, 1731. Thurs.. Herbert Spencer born, 1820.... MAY We shall have a few cool days this month and some showers, but the sun grows stronger every day and the last half of the month will be warm and delicious and fragrant with new growing things. The fruit orchards are a delight to the eye with their clouds of pink and white blossoms. Several kinds of violets, true and false Solomon's seals, Clintonias, jack-in-the-pulpits, pitcher plants, Houstonias, and early cinquefoils, are among the commonest flowers at this season. This is the great bird month. More than fifty bird migrants arrive during May, nineteen different kinds of warblers alone, orioles, cuckoos, vireos, wrens, thrushes, flycatchers, the nighthawk, the ruby-throated humming bird, the scarlet tanager, the kingbird, the bobolink, the rosebreasted grosbeak, the Maryland yellow throat, the redstart and others. Most of our native birds nest during this month. The farmer has little time to listen to the birds or to notice the unfolding beauties of Nature, for this is seed time in both field and garden. Getting ahead of the enemy The fruit trees should be sprayed with arsenate of lead as soon as the petals fall, because it is much more effective to destroy the young caterpillars before they have done harm than the old ones after they have eaten half the foliage. Here again there is a lesson for those who would preserve healthy human bodies as well as healthy fruit trees. Diseases which may ultimately do a great deal of harm if they go unchecked begin quite inconspicuously. Coughing, sneezing, a running nose, or eyes, sore throat, rash or spots of any kind, feverishness, headache, nausea or looseness of the bowels, the wise cultivator of health will regard all these things as warning signals. In the early stages of many communicable diseases, such as measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria, which often begin like a cold in the head or a simple sore throat, there is much more danger of spreading disease germs to other people than there will be later on. Children with any of these symptoms should be kept out of school to avoid the danger of infecting others, and particularly they should be kept away from their younger brothers and sisters, for attacks of communicable diseases are apt to be serious in infants. For the patient himself, too, it is very important to detect disease in time. Almost always rest and the right kind of diet will help to build up vital resistance and keep the attack a light one. This is particularly true in the case of tuberculosis, the most serious of all the parasitic diseases which afflict mankind. The records of Bellevue Hospital, New York, show that 75 per cent. of patients who take sanatorium treatment for this disease in its early stages are cured or improved in health, against only 33 per cent. of those treated later on in its course. A persistent cough, a feeling of languor with no particular reason to account for it, loss of weight, feverishness at night, these are all common signs of the approach of this almost ubiquitous enemy. Evening stars: Venus, Mars and Saturn. Morning star: Jupiter. 1784. 2. 3. Tues... First medical professor in U. S., 1753...... 4.53 4.52 Thurs.. Horace Mann born, 1796.. 4.50 5 Fri.. Registrars, Mail April Birth and Death Certi- 7. Sun.. 8. Mon. Lusitania sunk by German submarine, 1915. 4.47 Tues... Act restricting sale of cocaine in N. Y. State became law, 1913.. Wed... Ticonderoga captured by Ethan Allen, 1775. County Hospital law went into effect, 1909. 4.41 4.40 Celebration of construction of Erie Railroad 4.38 7.07 3.37 4.37 7.08 rises Act to amend Public Health Law of New Horatio Seymour born, Onondaga Co., 1810 4.27 7.20 4.01 JUNE A hot spell may be expected at the beginning of the month and a still more severe one toward the end, with rain and warm and delicious June days between. The foliage is at its freshest and both wild and garden flowers in the height of their beauty. The columbine and the lady's slipper, the azalea and the laurel come early in the month, the fringed orchis, the blue flag, the evening primrose, the wild geranium, the bunchberry, the buttercups and the ox-eyed daisy follow later. Mrs. Dana's How to Know the Wild Flowers and F. Schuyler Mathews' Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden are excellent books for identifying the commoner flowers. The spring migration of birds is over and most of the spring transients have passed on from New York State to the northward. June is the height of the nesting season for the native birds however and the woods and fields are never so full of song as in this month. Keeping the baby well Young plants and animals need a great deal more care and protection from unfavorable weather conditions and from parasitic enemies than do older ones. It is much the same with human beings. Babies are very sensitive to changes in temperature, to the quality of food and to microbes of disease. The summer in particular is a hard time for babies. Heat upsets their systems and summer complaint" causes a heavy loss of infant lives during the hot season. The one way in which babies can be surely protected against this danger is by breast feeding. The milk from a cow is just what the calf needs but it is not the right food for a human baby. The amount of protein and fat and sugar in it can be changed to suit the baby's stomach by the process called modification. The dangerous germs in it can be destroyed by pasteurization (see page 16 of this Almanac); and this should always be done when it is necessary to feed a baby on the bottle. Even modified pasteurized cow's milk however is not mother's milk. It lacks some elements that the chemist cannot find by analysis but which are necessary to give the baby power to resist disease. It is said by the authorities that the chance of a fatal illness is ten times as great for a bottle-fed as for a breast-fed baby. Particularly in summer the greatest effort should be made to keep up breast feeding at least once or twice a day (using modified pasteurized milk for the other feedings) and to put off weaning till the cooler weather of the fall. The baby should be protected as much as possible from the heat at this season. It should be kept out in the fresh air (but not in the hot sun). Its sleeping room should have good thorough ventilation and its clothing and bed covers should be very light. If anything goes wrong,- if there is vomiting or loose movements of the bowels, if there is feverishness or chill, restlessness or nervousness, or limpness and exhaustion,- all food except plain boiled water or barley water should be stopped and a physician sent for. Evening stars: Venus, Mars and Saturn. C Andrew S. Draper born, 1848. 22. 23. Fri... Thurs.. Joseph Mazzini, Italian patriot, born, 1805.. 4.25 4.25 St. John the Baptist. 4.26 7.31 .22 Corner-stone of new Capitol at Albany laid, 1871. 25. Sun... Salem, Mass., fire, 1914. Constitution ratified by Virginia, 1788. Members of Public Health Council ap pointed, 1913. 4.27 7.31 2.01 28.... Wed... Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated at William A. Wheeler born, Malone, 1819... 4.28 7.31 sets |