It is some little break in the connection between brain-cells that brings about the inability to think and act without effort. When a task is difficult to perform that is usually accomplished without difficulty, you may know that there is a temporary interruption somewhere in the tiny fibers and cells of the brain. Something has disturbed their normal action. It is either fatigue poison, the poisons from overfeeding or underfeeding, effects of alcohol, tobacco, or the foul air you have taken into your system. Look into the matter and see what is the cause. It is the state brought about by some of these poisons which is at the bottom of all these lapses of full control of self and powers. The most frequent cause for this condition is due to two factors――external surroundings and mental absorption of injurious suggestions and sights. The external surroundings are most frequently those of which the individual is not fully cognizant. That is, they are constantly at work doing their little injury day by day until they have finally made an impression upon the activity of the brain――dulled its keenness. First of all these is the breathing of unfresh air. Not the noticeably bad air found in tenements, many shops and factories, but the air into which are thrown the emanations of thousands of all kinds and conditions of human bodies. No matter how well ventilated, theoretically, a big department store may be, the air one breathes in it is certain to contain poisons from well and diseased bodies. In most department and other large stores much attention is paid to ventilation, the best possible methods are used. But these stores cannot regulate the personal hygiene of those thousands who enter. The man who is in the habit of daily and nightly taking into his system nothing but fresh air cannot remain a half hour amid the surroundings of a crowded store without having a headache and a general feeling of sluggishness. Always having his brain free of poisonous substances, he rapidly becomes affected with the smallest amount. Living amid such atmospheric surroundings keeps the man and woman from doing their best. It is the same with the thousands of men who work in shops among hundreds of their kind; with the traveler who has to sleep in our microbe canisters, the sleeping cars; the theaters where continuous performances go on, and worse than all the commuter who twice a day takes in the poisons swarming in the smoking cars.