A Cure for February’s Blues

Post editors knew what made February so dreary and offered an oft-ignored solution.

George Brehms, © SEPS

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Woman playing tennis
George Brehm, © SEPS

At best, February is an unpleasant month. For the cave-dweller in the larger cities, it means damp trolley cars, slushy streets, and steam radiators that do not radiate; for the suburbanite, delayed trains, defective plumbing, and the absence of the out-of-doors exercise that is his principal excuse for being a suburbanite.

The common ground on which Rus and Urbs can meet at this inopportune season is in their contemplation of the doctors’ bills. Rus can say: “Aha!” and Urbs: “I told you so,” which, perhaps, slightly ameliorates the condition of each.

What both need is exercise — and the only thing that is rarer than a day in June is exercise in February. Urbs will ride to his club and do no more work than lift a highball. Rus will take the hack at the station and call it exercise to carry home the mail.

And the next day both will blame the weather for their indisposition.

“You need five drugs,” said a foolish physician to a patient: “water, food, air, sleep, and exercise.” But the patient sought another doctor, and the foolish physician died poor.

—“Five Indispensable Drugs,” Editorial,
February 16, 1907

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