Idaho Semi Weekly World

Why Women Have Sore Throats.

"It sounds like an exaggeration, but women who are devoted to society very often suffer from a peculiar throat trouble as a direct result of their social duties," said a Pittsburg doctor. "It is not caused by decollete dresses, as might be supposed, either, or the rapid transitions from hot rooms to the cool outer air, although these things are not conducive to robust health. The affection I refer to comes from a straining of the vocal cords, and often takes on the form of tonsilitis. Any one who has attended a half dozen fashionable receptions, and especially those at which women only were present, must have noticed how the clamor of many tongues in crowded rooms make it necessary to raise the voice to be heard.

"The fact is that when fifty or a hundred women meet in a parlor—often a ridiculously small room for such a gathering—the average woman who wants to get a word in even edgeways must shout at the top of her voice. Let her keep this up for half an hour in a general superheated atmosphere and her throat is bound to suffer. When she gets home she feels as if she had caught cold, and very likely for a day or two after she will have an aching in her throat, which she will blame on the abominable climate, that stupid girl Jemima, who would have the dining room window open, or some other innocent thing or person. She is literally paying the price for making Rome howl, and I tell her so when she comes to me and wants me to diagnose la grippe in her symptoms."

—Pittsburg Dispatch.