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HALL'S

JOURNAL OF HEALTH.

FOR 1867.

"HEALTH IS A DUTY."— ANOtf.

tt3£RN CONSUME TOO MUCH FOOD AND TOO LITTLE PURE AIR; THEY TAKE TOO MUCH MEDICINE AND TOO LITLLE EXERCISE."

"I labor for the good time coming, when sickness and disease, except con- genital, or from accident, will be regarded as the result of ignorance or animalism, and will degrade the individual in the estimation of the good, as much as drunken- ness now does." — Ibid.

/

EDITED BY

W. W. HALL, M.D.,

VOL. XIV.

NEW-YORK :

'PUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR AT NO. 2 WEST 43d ST.

INDEX OF HALL'S JOUENAL OF HEALTH,

VOL. XIV, 1867

	PAGE.		PAGE.
Air and Health :	. 8	Charities # . • ' 1	123
Adulterating Food . .	59	Chimney Smoking -	. 167
Army Sickness	. 65	Cellars .	171
American Manners	88	Crazy Farmers	. 177
Climate .	. 93	Cold in the Head	183
Acidity ....	17	Cereal Food	. 187
Autumnal Diseases	. 179	Cancer of Liver	218
Ansel's Wings	214	Cookery	. 243
A Noble Fruit . ':	. 220	Cook, Characteristics of	245
Animal Grafting	248	Clarifying Water .	. 217
Bronchitis	1	Cuts of Flesh Cured .	249
What is it? .	2	Cookery	. 243
" Symptoms " •.	3	Chapping of Hands Cured ,	260
Beef Tea . ,	: 16	Cold Feet	. 259
Bodily Strength .	46	Corns . .•	261
Bread Making .	. 73	Dry Soles ,	. 255
Bilousness -.	76	Diet for Invalids	16
Bible and Business - 215, ]	57, 99	Diptheria	. 28
Business Rules	. 165	Dentistry . . .	47
Bachelors	109	Drink a Despotism .	. 66
Brain Work .	. 170	Drunkenness . .	223
Best Recommendation :	172	Diarrhoea	86
Business, Getting into .	; 172	Death, Beautiful	. 212
Beverages . ,	189	Dying Sensations	220
Beautiful Death .	212	Driving Nails	. 248
Brave Women :	. 214	Daughters Lost .	223
Bliss of Dying . . ;	216	Dead Wife .	,
Buried Alive	. 219	Experimenting	. 57
Blot, Professor, on Cooking	244	Erect Position	87
Burns Cured . ,	. 254	Early Rising •	. 88
Consumption :	63,2	Equinimity and Longevity	251
Symptoms	67,3	Fever and Ague	. 28
Croup ....	34,16	Frenzy	. 154
Cleanliness	58	Farmers, Crazy	. 177
Checking Perspiration .	. 75	Forbearance . .	. 201.
Clothing, Changing ; ,	78	Forbodings	218
Catching Cold	. 85	Feet Management	i- 258
Common Sense .	101	French Cookery . .	. 244
Contradictions .	104	Fish as Food	246
Chicken Pox .	. 108	Flesh Uniting .	. 249
Country Summeriugs .	109	Frosty Weather . s	250
Children Punished	120	Food and Physic . ;	255

IV

INDEX.

Feet Protected

Fear of Death

French Cookery .

Fish as Food .

Flesh Wounds .

Getting up Wrong

Giving Advice .

Glycerine Nutritious

Grafting in Animals

Health Secrets

Habit ....

Harsh Teachers

Hemorrhage

Hair Removed

Horseback Exercise .

Intermarriage

Ice-Pitchers . .'

Insaniiy Treated .

Ill-Smelling Feet

Joking C ergymen . •

Lung Measure .

Lasi Hope . • .

Life's Battle . .

Lesson to Parents . *

Lending Money .

Longevity

Life a Pupilage .

Life Lengthened .

Longevity and Equinimitj

Mad-Stone

Madness

Malaria and Miasm

Married Life . .

Mother's Remorse

Memory

Mineral Waters.

Narrow House

Old Man's Story .

Private Things

Passing Away .

Perspiration Checked

PAGE.		PAGE.
, 253	Pitching . . ^	. 94
. 221	Public Schools .	122
244	Parental Corrections .■	. 126
. 246	Pio Nono's Health	210
249	Presidents' Testimonies	. 194
. 106	Passionate Outbursts	; 251
174	Recreation	. 61
254	Rest	190
. 248	Rational Deductions ;	. 241
. 61	Starvation .	7
87	Skating	; 30
. 147	Sleeping Rooms	61
169	Spring Dangers . :	. 74
. 250	Sitting Erect	87
253	Sick-Room .. . .	. 89
. 61	Suspiciousness . •	95
129	Smoky Chimneys . i	. 167
. 208	Soups .	246
259	Sores, Foul .	. 250
. 91	" Offensive .	249
37	" Painful . s	. 255
. 64	Sea-Sickness	251
106	Sea-Yoyages	. 252
. 142	Skin, Blistered • .	255
159	Skin, Made Soft .	. 261
. 166	Shoes . 4 •	257
212	Throat-Ail . » .	%
. 250	Tonsils Cut • . ,	9
241	Two Pictures] . ,	. 48
. 29	Toe Nails, Ingrowing . :	257
48	Tomatoes . . ;	. 60
103	Traveling .	109
166, 104	Teeth Preserved .	. 187
140	Two Meals a Day . . ,	211
. 217	Vital Capacity	. 49
256	Women, Intemperate ,	29
. 232	Women ....	. 105
148	Washing .	181
. 31	Women Doctors -. .	. 242
62	Water Clarified . •	242
75	Young Men . * .	. 177

HALL'S JOURNAL OF HEALTH.

Our Legitimate Scope is almost boundless : for whatever begets pleasurable and harmless feelings, promotes Health ; and whatever induces disagreeable sensations., engenders Disease.

* WE AIM TO SHOW HOW DISEASE MAY BE AVOIDED, AND THAT IT IS BEST, WHES SICKNESS COMES, TO

TAKE NO MEDICINE WITHOUT CONSULTING A PHYSICIAN.

Vol. XIV.] JANUARY, 1867. [Wo. 1.

BRONCHITIS, AND KINDRED DISEASES.

BY .

w w. hall; a m., m. d., new york.

There ts no necessary reason why men should not generally live tQ the full age of three score years and ten, in health and comfort ' that they do not do so, is because

They consume too much food, and too little pure air ; They take too much medicine, and too little exercise :

and when, by inattention to these things, they become diseased, tney die chiefly, not because such disease is necessarily fatal, but because the symptoms which nature designs to admonish of its presence, are disregarded, until too late for remedy. And in no class of ailments are delays so uniformly attended with fatal results, as in affections of the Throat and Lungs. However terrible may have been the ravages of the Asiatic Cholera in -this country, I know of no locality, where, in the course of a single year, it destroyed ten per cent, of the population. Yet, taking England and the United States together, twenty per cent, of the mortality is every year from diseases of the lungs alone ; amid such a fearful fatality, no one dares say he shall certainly escape, while every- one, without exception, will most assuredly suffer, either in his own per- son, or in that of some one near and dear to him, by this same universal scourge. No man, then, can take up these pages, who is not interested to the extent of life and death, in the important inquiry, What can be done to mitigate this great evil ? It is not the object of this publication to answer that question ; but to act it out ; and the first great essential step thereto, is to impress upon the common mind, in language adapted to common readers, a proper understanding of the first symptoms of these ruthliss diseases

Every reader of common intelligence and of the Biost ordinary observation, must know that countless numbers of people in every direction have been saved from certain death by having understood the premoni- tory symptoms of Cholera, and acting up to their knowl- edge. The physician does not live, who, in the course of ordinary practice, cannot point to a little army of the prematurely dead who have paid the forfeit of their lives by ignorance or neglect of the early symptoms of Consumptive disease. Perhaps the reader's own heart is this instant smitten at the sad recollection of similar cases in his own sphere of observation.

This book is not intended to recommend a medicinal preventive, or a patented cure for the diseases named on the title-page : it will afford no aid or comfort to those who hope, by its perusal, to save a doctor's fee, by a trifling tampering with their constitutions and their lives. Nor is it wished to make you believe, that if you come to me I will cure you. If you have symptoms of disease, I wish you to understand their nature first ; and then to take advice from some regularly educated physician, who has done nothing to forfeit justly his honorable standing among his brethren, by the recom- mendation of secret medicines, patented contrivances or travelling lecturers for the cure of certain diseases. I may speak of persons in these pages, who had cer- tain symptoms, and coming to me, were permanently cured. You may have similar symptoms, and yet I may be able to do you no good. I have sometimes failed to cure persons who had no symptoms at all. In other cases, where but a single symptom of disease existed, and it, apparently, a very trivial one, the malady has steadily progressed to a fatal termination, in spite of every effort to the contrary. The object of these statements is to have it understood, that I make no en- gagement to cure any thing or any body. The first great purpose is to enable you to understand properly any symptoms which you may have that point towards disease of the lungs ; and when you have done so, to persuade you not to waste your time and money and health in blind efforts to remove them, by taking stuff, of which you know little, into a body of which you know less; but to go to a man of "«rpectability and standing and experience — one in whom you have con- fidence, one who depends upon the practice of his pro- fession for a living; describe your symptoms, according to your ability, place your health and life in his hands, and be assured that thus you and millions of others will stand the highest chance of attaining a prosper- ous, cheerful, and green old age. The rule should be universal, and among all classes, not only never to take an atom of medicine for anything, but not to take any- thing as a medicine — not even a teaspoon of common syrup or French brandy, or a cup of red pepper tea, uuless by the previous advice of a physician; because a spoonful of the purest, simplest syrup, taken several times a day, will eventually destroy the tone of the healthiest stomach : and yet any person almost would suppose that a little syrup "could do no harm, if it did no good." A tablespoon of good brandy, now and then, is simple enough, and yet it has made a wreck and ruin of the health and happiness and hope of mul- titudes. If these simple, that is, well-known things, in their purity, are used to such results, it requires but little intelligence to understand that more speedy in- juries must follow their daily employment, morning, noon, and night, when they are sold in the shape of "syrups," and "bitters," and "tonics," with other in- gredients, however " simple" they, too, may be.

The common-sense reader will consider these sen- timents reasonable and right, and think it a very laud- able desire to diffuse information among the people as to the symptoms of dangerous, insidious, and wide- spreading diseases ; but he will not be prepared for the information, that the publication of such a pamphlet as this will be considered "unprofessional" by some. But latitude must be allowed for difference of opinion ; else, all progress is at an end. Whoever lends a helping hand to the diffusion of useful knowledge, is. in pro- portion, the benefactor of his kind. Whether it be useful for man to know the nature and first symptoms »f a disease which is destined to destroy one out of every six in the country, is a question which each one must decide for himself. I believe that such an effort Is useful, and hereby act accordingly. Experienced physicians constantly feel, in reference to persons who 3viden!ly have Consumption, that it is toolate, because the application had been too long delayed. The great teason why so many delay, is because they M did" not

think it was anything more than a slight cold" I« other words, they were entirely ignorant of the differ- ence between the cough of a common cold and the cough of Consumption, and the general symptoms at- tendant on the two. It is not practicable for all to study medicine, nor is it to be expected that for every cough one has, he shall go to the expense of taking medical advice ; it therefore seems to me the dictate of humanity to make the necessary information more ac- cessible, and I know of no better way to accomplish this object than by the general distribution of a tract like this: and when I pretend to no new principle of cure, no specific, and no ability of success, beyond what an entire devotion to one disease may give any ordi- nary capacity, no further apology is necessary.

THROAT-AIL, *

or Laryngitis, pronounced Lare-i.n-GTfe.-tis, Is an affec tion of the top of the windpipe, where the voice- making organs are, answering to the' parts familiarly called " Adam's Apple." When these organs are dis- eased, the voice is impaired, or ''there is something wrong about the swallow."

BRONCHITIS,

pronounced Bron-KtK-tis, is an affection of the branches of the windpipe, and in its first stages is called a com- mon cold.

CONSUMPTION is an affection, not of the top or root of the windpipe, for that is Throat- Ail ; not of the body of th« wind- pipe, for that is Croup; not of the branches of the windpipe, for that is Bronchitis ; but it is an affection of the lungs themselves, which are millions of little air ceils or bladders, of various sizes, from that of a pea downwards, and are at the extremities &f the branches of thp windpipe, as the buds or leaves of a tree are at the extremity of its branches.

WHAT ARE THK SYMPTOMS OF THROAT-AIL 1 0

The most universal symptom is an impairment of the voice, which is more or less hoarse or weak. If there is no actual want of clearness of the sounds, there is an in- stinctive clearing of the throat, by swallowing, hawking, or hemming ; or a summoning up of strength to enunciate words. When this is continued for some time, there is a sensation of tiredness about the throat., a dull heavy aching, or general feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, coining on in the afternoon or evening. In the early part of the day, there is nothing of the kind percep- tible, as the voice-muscles have had time for rest and the recovery of their powers during the night. In the beginning of this disease, no inconvenience of this kind is felt, except some unusual effort has been made, such as speaking or singing in public ; but as it pro- gresses, these symptoms manifest themselves every evening ; then earlier and earlier in the day, until the voice is clear only for a short time soon in the morn- ing ; next, there is a constant hoarseness or hu skin ess from week to month, when the case is most generally incurable, and the patient dies of the common symp- toms of Consumptive disease.

In some cases, the patient expresses himself as hav- ing a sensation as if a piece of wool or blanket were in the throat, or an aching or sore feeling, running up the sides of the neck towards the ears. Some have a burning or raw sensation at the little hollow at the bottom of the neck ; others, about Adam's Apple ; while a third class speak of such a feeling or a pricking at a spot along the sides of the neck. Among others, the first symptoms are a dryness in the throat after speaking or singing, or while in a crowded room, or when waking up in the" morning. Some feel as if there were some unusual thickness or a lumpy sensation in the throat, at the upper part, removed at once by swallowing it away; but soon it comes back again, giving precisely the feelings which some persons have after swallowing a pill.

Sometimes, this frequent swallowing is most trouble- some after meals. Throat-Ail is not like many other diseases, often getting well of itself by being let alone. I do not believe that one case in ten ever does so, but on the contrary, gradually grows worse, until the voica ! is permanently husky or subdued ; and soon the swal- j lowing of solids or fluids becomes painful, food or drink jreiurns through the nose, causing a -feeling of stran- gulation or great pain. When Throat- Ail symptoms

hare been allowed to pr^ress '-*> this stage, death is almost inevitable in a very ,ew weciy.s. Now and then a case may be saved, 'jut restoration here is almost in the nature of a miracle. WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF BRONCHITIS ?

Bronchitis is a bad cold, and the experience of every one teaches what its symptoms are. The medical name for a cold is Acute Bronchitis ; called acute, be- cause it comes on at once, and lasts but a short time— a week or two generally. The ailment that is com- monly denominated Bronchitis, is what physicians term Chronic Bronchitis ; called chronic, because it is a long time in coming on, and lasts for months and years instead of days and weeks. It is not like Throat-Ail, or Consumption, which have a great many symptoms, almost any one of which may be ab- sent, and still the case be one of Throat-Ail, or Consumption ; but Bronchitis has three symp- toms, every one of which are present every day, and together, and all the time, in all ages, sexes, con- stitutions, and temperaments. These three universal and essential symptoms are—

1st. A feeling of fullness, or binding, or cord-like sen- sation about the breast.

2d. A most harassing cough, liable to come on at any hour of the day or night.

3d. A large expectoration of a tough, stringy, tena eious, sticky, pearly or greyish-like substance, from i tablespoon to a pint or more a day. As the disease pro gresses, this becomes darkish, greenish, or yellowish in appearance ; sometimes all three colors may be seen together, until at last it is uniformly yellow, and comes up without much effort, in mouthfuls, that fall hea vily, without saliva or mucus. When this is the case, death comes in a very few weeks or — days.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF CONSUMP TION?

A gradual wasting of breath, flesh, and strength are the three symptoms, progressing steadily through day and weeks and months, which are never absent in any ea-se of true, active, confirmed Consumptive disease that I have ever seen. A man may have a daily c ugh for fifty years, and not have Consumption A woman may spit blood for a quarter of a cen- tury, and not have Consumption. A young lady may breathe forty times a minute, and have a prilse of a hundred and forty beats a minute, day after day, for weeks and months together, and not have Con- sumption ; and men and women and young ladies may have pains in the breast, and sides, and shoulders, and flushes in the cheeks, and night sweats, and swollen ankles, and yet have not an atom of Con- sumptive decay in the lungs. But where there is a slow, steady, painless decline of flesh and strength and breath, extending through weeks and months of time, Consumption exists in all persons, ages, and climes, although at the same time sleep, bowel3, appetite, spirit-^, m.-.y be represented as good. Such, at least, are the results of my own observation.

The great, general, common symptoms of Consump- tion of the Lungs are night and morning cough, pains about the breast, easily tired in walking, except on level around, shortness of breath on slight exercise, and jreneral weakness. These are the symptoms of which Consumptive persons complain, and as they ap- proach the grave, these symptoms gradually increase.

HOW DOES A PERSON GET THROAT- AIL ?

A vyomaa walked in the Park, in early spring, until a little heated and tired; then sat down on a cold stone. Next day, she had hoarseness and a raw burn- ing feeling in the throat, and died within the year.

A man had suffered a great deal from sick headache ; he was advised to have cold water poured on the top of his head : he did so ; he had headache no more. The trir<>--,t became affected; had frequent swallowing, Ctfi ifing of throat, falling of palate, voice soon failed in inging, large red splotches on the back part of the liwiat, and white lumps at either side ; but the falling of, the pi late and interminable swallowing were the ymptoms, making and keeping him nervous, irritable, debilitated, and wretched. He was advised off the uvula, but would not do it. Had the ftilxatc of silver applied constantly for three months. Tried homoeopathy. After suffering thus two years, hecarire to hie, and on a subsequent visit, said, "It is wto«*rful, that for two years I have been troubled

with this throat, and nothing would relieve it, and now it is removed in two days." That was four months ago. I saw him in the street yesterday. He said his throat gave him no more trouble ; that he had no more chilliness, and had never taken a cold since he came under my care, although formerly " it was the easiest thing in the world to take cold."

A merchant (1002) slept in a steamboat state-room in December, with a glass broken out; woke up next morning with a hoarseness and sore throat; for several months did nothing, then applied to a physician. Counter-irritants were employed without any perma- nent effect. At the end of four yeaia he came to me with "a sort of uneasy feeling about the throat, more at times than others ; not painful ; sometimes a little hoarseness, with frequent inclination to swallow, or clear the throat. At the little hollow at the bottom.of the neck, just above the top of the breast-bone, there "was a feeling of pressure, stricture, or enlargement — no pain, but an unpleasant sensation, sometimes worse than at others. It is absent for days at a time, and then lasts for' several hours a day." This case is under treatment.

A Clergyman (1012) has a hoarse, cracked, weak voice, easily tired in speaking ; a raw sensation in the throat; and in swallowing has " a fish-bony feeling" He had become over-heated in a ptibiic address, and immediately after its close started to ride across a prairie in a damp, cold wind in February. Had to abandon preaching . altogether, and become a school teacher." This gentleman wrote to me for advice, and having followed it closely for eighteen days, reported himself as almost entirely well.

I greatly desire it to be remembered here, that in this, as in other cases of Throat-Ail, however perfectly a person may be cured, the disease will return as often as exposure to the causes of it in the first place is per- mitted to occur. No cure, however perfect, will allow a man to commit with impunity such a thoughtless and inexcusable act as above named, that of riding across a prairie in February, in a damp, cold wind, within a few minutes after having delivered an excited address in a warm room. None of us are made out of India rubber or iron, but of flesh and blood and a reasonable soul, subject to wise and benevolent con- ditions and restrictions ; and it is not to the discredit of physic or physicians, that being once cured, the disease should return as often as the indiscretion that origin ated it in the first instance is re-committed.

Three weeks ago, one of our merchants came to me with a troublesome tickling in the throat. At first it was only a tickling ; but for some weeks the tickling compels a frequent clearing of the throat ; and with- out a cough, each clearing or hemming brings up half a teaspoon-ful of yellow matter, with some sal- iva. On looking into his throat, the whole back part of it was red, with still redder splotches here and there — epiglottis almost scarlet. On inquiry, I found he had for years been a chewer of tobacco ; then began to smoke ; would day after day smoke after each meal, but especially after tea would consume half a dozen cigars. In time, the other naturally con- sequent steps would have been taken— Consump- tion and the grave. Among other things, I advised him to abandon tobacco absolutely and at once, la two weeks he came again. Throat decidedly better ; in every respect better, except that he, in his own opinion, " had taken a little cold," and had a constant slight cough — not by any means a trifling symptom. :. Let the reader learn a valuable lesson from this case. This gentleman had the causes of cough before ; he found that smoking modified the tickling, and taking this as an indication of cure, he smoked more vigor- ously, and thus suppressed the cough, while the cause of it was still burrowing in the system and widening its ravages. It will require months of steady effort to arrest the progress of the disease, and he may consider himself fortunate — more so than in any mercantile speculation he ever made — if he gets well at all. If he does get well, and returns to the use of tobacco, the disease will as certainly return as that the same cause originated it, for the following reason, as was stated n the First Part :— Throat-Ail is inflammation ; that is, too much heat in the parts. Tobacco smoke being warm, or even hot, is drawn directly back against the parts already too much heated, and very naturally in- creasing the heat, aggravates the disease. Again, any kind of smoke— that of common wood — is irritating, much more that of such a powerful poison as tobaeee

—soothing, indeed, in its first transient effects, like reany other poisons, but leaving behind it consequences more remote, but more destructive and enduring.

A gentleman, just married, with a salary for his services as secretary to a Southern house, applied to me to be cured of a sore throat. He was per- manently hoarse ; swallowing food was often unen- durably painful, besides causing violent paroxysms of cough. He said he knew no cause for his com- plaint, except that he had smoked very freely. On in- quiry, I found that for the last two years he had used, on an average, about "a dozen cigars everyday; per- haps more." He died in six weeks.

In several instances, persons have applied to me who had been advised to take brandy freeiy for a throat affection. Such advice is warranted by no one prin- ciple in medicine, reason, or common sense. Were I to five it, I should feel myself justly liable to the charge of being an ignorant man or a drunkard. The throat is inflamed ; inflammation is excitement ; brandy and tobacco both excite, inflame the whole body ; that is why they are used at all. The throat partakes of its portion of the excitement, when the throat, body, and the man, all the more speedily go to ruin together. I have in my mind, while writing these lines, the me- lancholy history of two young men — one from Ken- tucky, the other from Missouri — who were advised " to drink brandy freely, three times a day, for throat com- plaint." One of these became a drunkard, and lost his property, and within another year he will leave an in- teresting family in penury, disgrace, and want. The other was one of the most high-minded, honorable young men I have lately known. He was the only son of a widow, and she was rich. He came to see me three or four times, and then stated that he had con- cluded to try the effects of a little brandy at each meal. A few weeks afterwards he informed me, that as he was constantly improving, he thought that the brandy would certainly effect a cure. Within seven months after his application to me, he had become a regular toper; that is, he had increased the original quantity allowed, of a tablespoon at each meal, to such an amount, that he was all the time under the influence of liquor. His business declined; he spent all his money ; and secretly left for California, many thousand dollars in debt, and soon after died. The person who advised him is also now a confirmed drunkard ; but in his wreck and ruin, still a great man.

A gentleman from a distant State wrote to me some months ago for advice as to a throat affection. He is a lawyer of note already, and of still higher promise, not yet having reached the prime of life. By earnest efforts as a temperance advocate, in addition to being a popular pleader at the bar, his voice became impaired with cough, spitting of blood, matter expectoration, diarrhoea, "debility, and general wasting. He was in- duced to drink brandy with iron, but soon left off the iron and took the brandy pure. The habit grew upon him; he sometimes stimulated to excess, according to his own acknowledgment; his friends thought there was no interval, and gave him up as a lost man to themselves, his family, and his country; but in time the virulence of the disease rose above the stimulus of the brandy, and in occasional desperation he resorted to opium. He subsequently visited the water cure", gained in flesh and strength, and was hopeful of a speedy restoration ; but he took " an occasional cigar" — the dryness in the throat, hoarseness, pain or pres- sure, and soreness still remained ! He left the water cure, and in a few months wrote to me, having, in ad- dition to the above throat symptoms, a recent haemorr- hage, constipation', pains in the breast, nervousness, debility, variable appetite, and daily cough. Within two months, he has become an almost entirely new man, requiring no further advice.

Further illustrations of the manner in which persons get ThroaJ-A.il, may be more conveniently given in the letters of some who have applied to me, with the ad- ditional advantage of having the symptoms described in language not professional, consequently more gener- ally understood.

A PRESBYTERIAN CLERGYMAN.

(1059.) " I have had for three years past a troublesome affection of the thorax, which manifests itself by fre- quent and prolonged hemming or clearing the throat, and swelling: both more frequent in damp weather, or after flight cold. General health very feeble, sleeplessness, waste of flesh, low spirits. Visited a water cure, remain-

ed two months, but my hemming and swallowing wor» not a whit improved. Touching with the nitrate of silvw slightly m&kes the larynx sore. I have been always able to preach. It has never affected my voice until very recently. Two weeks ago I preached two long sermons, in a loud and excited voice, in one day During the last discourse my voice became hoarse, and my hemming has become very bad ; and there has been a slight break in my voice ever since. Hem, hem, hem, is the order of the day ; clearing the throat is inces- sant, swallowing often, and a slight soreness of the larynx, particularly after a slight "cold, or after several days' use of nitrate of silver, with a scarce percep- tible break in the voice. These are my principal symp- toms." This case is under treatment.

A LAWYER,

(1016) " aged thirty-seven. Have been liable* for several years past, in the fall, winter, and spring, to severe attacks of fever, accompanied with great debil- ity, loss of flesh, appearing to myself and friends to be in the last stages of Consumption ; in fact, the dread of it has been an incubus on me, paralyzing my ener gies and weighing down my spirits. In the summers, too, I have been subject to attacks of bilious fever and bilious colic. A year ago, I attended court soon after one of these attacks, and exerted myself a great deah My throat became very sore, and I had hemorrhage — two teaspoons of blood and matter. My health con- tinued feeble. 1 went last summer to a water cure, and regained my flesh and strength, but the weakness in my throat .and occasional hoarseness continued all the time. Afterwards, by cold and exposure, I became worse, continued to have chills and fever and night sweats, accompanied by violent cough and soreness of the throat. I got worse; was reduced to a perfect skeleton, and had another haemorrhage. Mucus would collect in the top o£ the throat, and was expectorated freely. I am stiil liable to colds. The seat of the dis- ease seems to be at the little hollow in front at the bot- tom of the neck, just above the top of the breast- bone. At my last bleeding, the pain seemed to be in the re- gion of Adam's-app'.e. The principal present symp- toms are soreness in throat, dryness, pain on pressing it, and hoarseness ; pulse from eighty to ninety in a minute ; irregular appetite. These symptoms, to- gether with my fear of Consumption, serve to keep me unhappy. I find myself constantly liable to attacks of cold, sneezing, running at the nose even in the summer time. My mother and sister have died of Consump- tion, as also two of my mother's sisters. Feet always cold ; daily cough."*

OPINION OF THE CASE.

There is no Consumptive disease • it is impossible. No personal examination is needed to tell that. The foundation of all your ailments is a torpid liver and a weak stomach. If you are not cured, it will be your own fault.

The treatment of this case was conducted by corres- pondence, as he lived six hundred miles away, and therefore I had not the opportunity of a personal exami- nation. Within a month he writes: — "I am gradually improving; feet warm; all pain has disappeared from the breast; appetite strong, regular, and good: pulse seventy-two, breathing eighteen; all cough has dis- appeared." At the end of two and a half months, no further advice was needed, as he wrote — " I have not written to you for a month, being absent on the circuit. I have not enjoyed better health for years than I have for the month. Weight increasing ; no uneasiness or pain about my breast ; pulse seventy-five ; less in the morning. The only trouble I have is costiveness, from being so confined in court, and being away from home deprived of my regular diet. We were two weeks holding court, last of November, in a miserable room, the court-house having been recently burned ; kept over-heated all the time. I made four or five speeches, and suffered no inconvenience whatever. I have no cough." -

A CLERGYMAN

(1024) called over two months ago, having had at first an ailment at the top of the throat, apparently above or near the palate. It soon descended to the region of Adam's-apple, and within a month it seemed to hava located itself lower down the neck, giving a feeling as

lr t*!8re were an nicer there, witli a sense of fullness about the throat, hoarse after oublic sneaking, lasting a

lay or two, with attacks every few weeks of distressing sick headache. As the disease seemed to be rapidly

lescending towards the lungs, a rigid; energetic treat- ment was" proposed, and at the end often weeks he writgS__-< £ take pleasure in introducing my friend,

t to you. He "has suffered many things, from many

advisers, with small benefit. I have desired him to consult with you, hoping that he may have the same occasion to be grateful for the providence which leads him to you, which I feel that I myself have for that which guided me to your counsels. I suffer hut little, very little from toy throat, and confidently anticipate entire relief at no' distant day, for all which I feel myself under great obligation both to your skill and to your kindness," &c.

SICK HEADACHE

is a distressing malady, as those who are subject to it know full well, by sad experience. In this case, this troublesome affection had to be permanently removed berbre the throat ailment could be properly treated ; when that was done, the throat itself was compara- tively of easy management.

A MERCHANT

(947) wrote to me from the South, complaining chiefly of

Bad cough, sometimes giving a croupy sound ;

Throat has a raw, cboking, dry, rasping feeling ;

Soon as he goes to sleep, there is a noise or motion, as

if he were going to cough ; Startled in sleep, by mouth filling with phlegm ; Expectoration tough, white, and sticky ; darkish par- ticles sometimes ; • Flashes or flushes pass over him sometimes ; Sick stomach sometimes, acid often, wind on stomach

oppresses him greatly ; A lumpy feeling in the throat ; On entering his house, sometimes falls asleep in his

chair, almost instantly ; In walking home, at sundown, half a mile from his

store, is completely exhausted ; Slightest thing brings on a cough ; never eats without

coughing ; [f he swallows honey, it stings the throat ; Got a cold a month ago, which left the palate and throat

Very much inflamed ; Throat and tongue both sore ; A hooping, suffocative cough ; can hear the phlegm

rattle fast before the cough begins ; A dry, rough feeling from the little hollow at the bot- tom of the neck up to the top of the throat. One night after going to bed, began to cough, choke, suffocate; could not get breath, jumped out of bed, ran accross the room, struggled, and at length got breatb, but was perfectly exhausted ; could not speak for half an hour, without great difficulty. In addition to his own description of the case, his wife writes— "Ten o'clock at Night.— I am no physi- eian, nor physician's wife, but am his wife and nurse, and an anxious observer of his symptoms, and can see his tbroat inflamed behind the uvula. He says there is a lump somewhere, but he cannot tell where. Some- times he thinks it is in the little hollow at the bottom of the neck, sometimes just above, and sometimes in or about the swallow. A recent cold bas aggravated his symptoms. His cough to-day has been very fre- gaent" and loose. He has emaciated rapidly within a month, and is now a good deal despondent. As for myself, I feel as one who sees some fair prospect sud- denly fading away. I had fondly hoped— oh ! how ardently! — that he" might be restored. If a knowledge of the fact would give any additional interest to the case, I will only say, he is one of the loveliest ch,! me- ters on earth. None in this community has a larger share of the respect and confidence of their acquain- tance."

The opinion sent, for I have not seen this case, was as follows: — "The whole breathing apparatus, from the top of the windpipe to the extremity of its branches, is diseased ; the lungs themselves are not at all affected by decay. Your whole constitution is diseased ; and yet there is good ground for hope of life and reason- able health."

In three months this patient writes — " I am glad tc inform yoa that I thias'i am stiii improving in health

and strength. My bowels are sometimes disorders* by eating melons and fruits ; but I frit so much bette* that I thought I might indulge. Pulse sixty-five Ut seventy; an almost ravenous appetite." A month later he writes— " My health and strength are still im- proving; cough not very troublesome ; increasing flesh," &c. I believe this gentleman now enjoys goofl health.

A LADY. (948) teacher of vocal music, writes— "There is a pecu- liar sensation in my throat for the last two months. Whenever I attempt to swallow, it feels as if some- thing were in the way; a swelling under the jaws, a soreness on the sides of the throat, extending to the ears, and occasioning throbbing painfully. I have a dull aching at the top of my collar-bone, and an un- pleasant sensation of weakness and heaviness in my chest ; a bad taste in my mouth frequently. Have been regular, but have been afflicted for* few years past with sickness at the stomach and vomiting, at- tended occasionally with great pain for a few hours. During these attacks, the complexion changes to a livid hue. I have been very much troubled with dyspepsia. On recovering from the attacks above mentioned, I ha7<» experienced a feeling of weakness almost insupportable. Am very costive ; and my spirits are greatly depressed. Within a day or two 1 have taken a violent cold, which has affected me with sneezing, running from the eyes and nose, together with a slight hoarseness. I was ad- vised to apply caustic to the throat, and CToton oil to my neck, chest, and throat. I have ^ince discon- tinued these, not having received any permanent bene- fit from them. On two occasions, from over-exertion at concerts and examinations, I was unable to speak a loud word, from hoarseness, for several days. I am extremely anxious to learn your opinion. In about two months my public concerts take place, and. it is abso- lutely necessary that something should be done for me."

OPINION.

Yours is general constitutional disease. There is no special cause of alarm. A weakened stomach, a torpid liver, a want of sufficient air and exercise, are the foun- dations of all your ailments, and by the proper regula- tion of these, you may expect to have good health and a stronger voice. You must have energy and patient perseverance in carrying out the prescriptions sent to you.

In one month this lady writes, and the letter is given to encourage others who may come under my care, to engage with determination and energy in carrying out the directions which may be given them. The reader may also see what great good a little medicine may do when combined with the judicious employment of ra- tional means, which do not involve the taking of med- icine or the use of painful and scarifying agencies and patent contrivances: —

" I began your prescriptions at once. Having followed them for some time, I was obliged to intermit them for a few days, in consequence of having to conduct a concert, besides having to travel by stage and railroad seventy or eighty miles. During this time, I was up every night until twelve o'clock, and was much ex- posed to the night air. On returning home, I re com- menced your directions, have made it a point to attend to them strictly, and have very seldom failed of doing so. In consequence of two omissions in diet, I suffered from headache, which disappeared when I unserved your directions. My appetite is good; my food agrees with me. I sometimes feel dull and sleepy after dinner. I drop to sleep immediately. Seldom wake in the night. Sleep about seven hours, and generally feel bright and strong in the morning, when I take a brisk walk of two miles and a half; the same after six, p.m. My walks at first fatigued me considerably; generally, however, 1 have felt better and better from their commencement to their end, and have perspired very freely. _*The ex- ercise I take seems rather to increase th;'n diminish my strength. I have not been prevented from taking exorcise from any dampness in the atmosphere. I have sometimes bean exposed to the night air in going to church and other places, but without any perceptible injury. The meais you advised produce a general glow, and invariably remove headache, which I some- times have to a slight degree after dinner. I think my throat is better. There is no unpleasant feeling about it at present, except the difficulty in swallowing, anJ even that is better. Pulse sixty-seven."

I had tor some time ceased to regard this energetic young lauy as a patient, when she announces a new ailment, a difficulty at periodic times :— "1 walked two Miles every day, and every thing was going on well, until one evening after walking very fast, I sat awhile with a friend, in a room without fire, in November. The weather was chilly and damp; was unwell, sup- pressed ; had a chill and incessant cough for several hours, ending in something like inflammation of the lungs."

These things were remedied, and she is now engaged in the active discharge of her duties. This last inci- dent is introduced here to warn every reader, especially women, against all such exposures at all times, most especially during particular seasons. Such exposures, as sitting in rooms without fire, in the fall and spring, after active walking, have thrown stout strong men into a fata] consumption ; and it is not at all to lie wondered aUthat delicate women should lay the foun- dation of incurable disease in the same manner. I will feel well repaid for writing these lines, if but here and there a reader may be found to guard against such ex- posures. Our parlors and drawing-rooms are kept closed to the air and light for a great portion of the twenty-four hours, and unless the weather is quite cool there is no fire in them. Thus they necessarily ac- quire a cold, clammy dampness, very perceptible on first entering. A fire is not thought necessary, as visitors usually remain but a few minutes; but when the blood is warmed by walking in the pure air and the clear sunshine, it is chilled in a very short space of time, if the pe'rson is at rest, in the cold and gloom of a modern parlor, especially as a contemplated call of a minute is often unconsciously extended to half an hour, under the excitement of friendly greetings and neighborly gossip. There can be no doubt that thou- sands every year catch their depth of cold, to use a homely but expressive phrase, in the manner above named. Young women, especially, cannot act thus with impunity. Men perish by multitudes every year by exposures of a similar character; walking or work- ing until they become warm, then sitting in a hall or entry or a cold counting-room ; or standing still at the wharf or at a street corner ; or running to reach a ferry- boat until they begin to perspire, and then sitting still in the wind while the boat is crossing. It is by inat- tention to what may be considered such trifling little thivgs that thousands of valuable lives are sacrificed every year.

A YOUNG GENTLEMAN,

(950) from Washington City, complained of

Uneasiness at throat, caused by repeated colds ; late hours, hot rooms;

Cough most of mornings— dry, tickling, hollow ;

Expectoration a little yellow ;

Moody, streaked expectoration, six months ago ;

Breathing oppressed, if sit or stoop long ;

Take cold easy, in every way ;

Throat has various feelings, tickling, heavy aching, raw, dry, from palate to depression ;

Swallowing a little difficult at times ;

Voice not much affected ;

Headache, costive bowels, piles occasionally;

Pain about shoulder-blades and at their points ;

Soreness under both ribs sometimes ;

Pains in the breast— more of a soreness from the top of the breast-bone to the pit of the stomach ;

Have been ailing fifteen months ;

Father, mother, sister, uncle, aunt died of Consump- tion.

OPINION.

You cannot have Consumption now : you are de- cidedly threatened with it. With proper attention, persevering and prompt, you may ward itofi'erT ctually, and live to the ordinary term of human life to those of your occupation. It is my opinion, that without this care, you will fall into settled disease within a year.

In two months, this gentleman called to see me for the first lime. His lungs were working freely and fully, over the natural standard ; pulse seventy-two ; appetite good ; bowels regular. I dm not think he, re- quired any particular medical advice ; and it is my present belief, that with proper attention to diet, exer- eise, and regular habits of life, his health will become wrmanenfly good.

Took a severe cold last winter, which left a, sever* cough. Every morning the breast feels sore, until stirs * about some. Pain in the left side, running through to the left shoulder blade, and between the shoulders; pain in the breast-bone, and in the centre of the left breast. Chief complaint is pain in the chest, left side, and a constant raising of frothy, thick, tough, and yel- low matter, with frequent hawking, hemming, and clearing of the throat. Age 22.

OPINION.

Your ai.ments are all removeable by diligent atten tion to the directions I may give you. I very much hope you will spare no pains in carrying them out most thoroughly. You certainly have not Consumptive dis- ease.

He called upon me some months afterwards, when I saw him for the first time. He had nothing to complain of; pulse sixty; his lungs working freely and fully, being considerably above the natural standard ; and as far as I know, he continues well to this day.

973. " Am officer in a bank. Was at a fire during Christ mas, seven months ago. Used my voice a great deal; began to be hoarse ; very much so by morning. This lasted a week, and went off; but in three weeks there appeared to be something about the palate which wanted to come away. Throat seemed inflamed, and ever since then have had a clogging feeling in the throat, that does not affect my voice, unless I read aloud, when I soon become hoarse. Two days ago, spit up a spoonful of dark blood ; never before or since. I have a binding sensation across the top of the breast, and three months since had a pain up aud down the breast-bone. Have used iodide of potash ; have had the throat pencilled, and then sponged with nitrate of silver, without benefit — pulse, one hundred and ten."

OPINION.

Yours is a throat ailment, at the entrance cf the windpipe — not as low down as the voice organs. There is very considerable active inflammation there. Your lungs are a little weakened, nothing more ; the pains in the breast are not serious at all, and I see no ob stacle to your entire recovery.

I received letter after letter from this young gentle man, stating that no perceptible benefit seemed to fol low what I advised. He was encouraged to persevere, and finally his symptoms began to change, and then disappeared ; and in two months from his first consul- tation he wrote me to say that he had steadily im- proved; pulse, permanently at sixty -five; expressing his obligations, &c. This case shows strikingly the ad vantage of perseverance.

A CLERGYMAN (844) wrote to me for advice in reference to a throat complaint. I prescribed, and had entirely forgotten the circumstance, when the following letter was* received : —

" I began to follow your directions on the 4th day of May, not quite three months ago, and have adhered to them strictly ever since. I am evidently a great deal better. I have lost no flesh ; although it is summer, my weight has not varied three pounds since I wrote to you; it is now one hundred and forty-nine nounds. My tonsils are diminished, and give me no uneasiness, except in damp weather. From my throat, which is now generally perfectly comfortable, I am continually bringing up a pearly substance. Sometimes it is per- fectly clear, and like the pure white of an egg. But this is a mighty change. At first, I could not tajk five minutes in the family circle. My throat was constantly tickling and burning; so that a mustard plaster, which took all the skin off my neck in front, was a comfort; but now I can talk as much as I wish, read a page of so aloud, and am almost tempted to sing a little."

HOW DO PERSONS GET BRONCHITIS 1

In the same manner as a common cold, for Bronchitis is a common cold protracted, settling not on the lungs, but on the branches of the windpipe, clogging them u? with a secretion thicker than is natural ; this adhere*

to the Inside of the tube-like branches, and to a certain extent closes them : hence, but a small portion of ;iir gets into the lungs. Nature soon begins to feel the de- ficiency, and instinctively makes extra effort's to obtain the necessary quantity, in causing the patient to draw in air forcibly instead of doing it naturally and without an effort. This forcible inspiration of external air drives before it the accumulating phlegm, and wedges it more compactly in a constantly-diminishing- tube, ■ntil the passage is entirely plugged up. The pa- tient makes greater efforts to draw in the air, but these plugs of mucus arrest it, and there is a teeling as if the air did not get down to its proper place, or as if it were stopped short, causing a painful stricture, or cord-like sensation, or as some express it, a stoppage of breath. If relief is not given in such cases, either by medicine judiciously administered, or by a convulsive nature of effort at a cough, which is a sudden and for- cible expulsion of such air as happened to be on the other side of the plug, the patient would die ; and they often do feel as if they could not possibly live an hour. This is more particularly a description of an attack of Acute Bronchitis. Chronic Bronchitis is but a milder form of the same thing, very closely allied in the sensations produced, if not indeed in the very nature of the thing, to what may be considered a kind of

PERPETUAL ASTHMA,

which may in most cases be removed and warded off for an indefinite time by the use of very little medicine, if the patient could be induced tc have a reasonable degree of self-denial and careful pe: severance.

HOW DO PERSONS GET CONSUMPTION 1 As they do most other diseases, by inattention, neglect, imposition on nature. Many persons have this dis- ease hereditarily, but the same means which perma- nently arrest the progress of accidental Consumption will as often and as uniformly ward off, indefinitely, the effects and symptoms of the hereditary form, the essential nature of accidental, and hereditary Consump- tion being the same. The treatment is also the same, except that in the accidental form it must be more prompt, ..more energetic ; in the hereditary form it must be more mild, more persevering. 1 consider tire latter, the less speedily and critically dangerous of the two.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

A number of pages will be devoted to the illustra- tion of a variety of topics connected with the general subject ; all, however, will be of a practical character — at least, such is the intention.

Consumption is the oxidation of the exuda- tion corpuscle. This corpuscle — this little body, this tubercie, this seed of Consumption — is an albuminous exudation, as minutely described on page 5, First Part, and being deficient in fatty matter, its elementary molecules cannot constitute nuclei, capable of cell de- velopment: therefore, these nuclei remain abortive, are foreign bodies in the lungs, and like all other foreign bodies there, cause irritation, tickling. This tickling is a cause of cough, as itching is a cause of scratching, both being instinctive efforts of nature to remove the cause of the difficulty. The oxidation — that is, the burning, the softening of this corpuscle or tubercle — gives yellow matter as a product, just as the burning — that is, the oxidation of wood — gives ashes as a product. Thus the yellow matter expectorated in Consumption is a sign infallible, that a destructive, con- suming process is going on in the lungs, just as the sight of ashes is an infallible sign that wood or some other solid sub.stance has been burned — that is, de- stroyed.

But why is it that this albuminous exudation, this tubercle, this exudation corpuscle, should lack this fatty matter, this oil, this carbon, which, did it have, would m ke it a healthy product, instead of being a foreign body and a seed of death 1

Consumption is an error of nutrition. The patient has soliloquized a thousand times, " I sleep pretty well, Dowels regular, and I relish my food, but somehow or other it does not seem to do me the good it used to. I do not get strong." The reason of this is, that the food is imperfectly digested, and when that is the case, acidity is the result, whicn is the distinguishing feature tf Codramptive disease. This excess of acid in the alimentary canal dissolves the albumen of the food, and carries it off into the blood in its dissolved Ptate,

making the whole mass of blood in perfecr impure, thick, sluggish, damming up In the lungs — that is, con- gesting them — instead of flowing out to the surface, and keeping the skin of a soft feel and a healthful warmth. Thus it is that the skin of all Consumptives has either a dry, hot feel, or a cold, clammy, damp- ness ; at one time having cold chills creeping over them, causing them to shiver in the sun or hover over the fire; at another time, by the reaction, burning hot, the cheek a glowing red, the mouth parched with thirst. Another effect of the excess of acidity dis- solving the albumen and carrying it into the blood is, that the blood is deficient in the fat, or oil, or carbon, which would have been made by the union of this albumen with alkaline secretions; the blood then wanting the fat or fuel which is necessary to keep the body warm, that which was already in the body, in the shape of what we call flesh, is used instead, and the man wastes away, just as when steamboat men. when out of wood, split up the doors, partitions, and other parts of the boat, t® keep her going, she moves by consuming herself. So. the Consumptive lives on, is kept warm by the burning up, the oxidation of his own flesh every day and every hour ; this same wasting away being the invariable, the inseparable attendant of every case of true Consumption. He lives upon himself until there is no more fuel to burn, no more fat or flesh, and he dies — " nothing but skin and bone." What, then, must be done to cure a man of Consumptive disease 1

He must be made more (what is called) "fleshy ;w that is, he must have more fuel, fat, to keep him warm.

The acidity of the alimentary canal must be re- moved, in order that the food may be perfectly digested, so as to make pure blood, such as will flow healthfully and actively through every part of the system, and be- come congested, sluggish, stagnant nowhere.

To remove this acidity, the stomach must be made strong, and healthfully active ; but no more th.an health- fully active, so as to convert the food into a substance fit for the manufacture of pure blood.

To make the stomach thus capable of forming a good blood material from the aliment introduced into it, as a perfect mill converts the grain into good flour or meal, there is behind the mill a power to turn it, there is behind the stomach powers to be exerted. These are the glandular system, the liver being the main one of all. This must be kept in healthful, operating order ; if it acts too much or too little, the food is badly manu- factured, and the blood which is made out of the food, and of the food alone, is imperfect and impure.

After all this is done, there is one more operation, which is the last finishing touch by which pure life- giving blood is made ; SSjP a sufficient amount of pure air must come in contact with it before blood is con- stituted. This contact takes place in the lungs ; not such a contact as the actual commingling of wine and water, for the air and what is soon to become blood are not mixed together ; they are kept separate in different vessels. The air is in the lungs ; that is, in the little bladders or cells, and this fluid, which is to be con- verted into blood, is in the little veins or tubes, which are spread around over the sides of the air-cells, as a vine is spread over a wall ; but these little vessels have sides so very thin, that the life-giving material of the air passes through into the blood, just as the warmth of the sun passes through glass ; but while this life- giving quality of the air passes into the blood, making it perfect, the impure and deathly ingredients of the blood pass out of it, into the air, which has just been deprived of its life. Thus it is, that while the air we draw in at a single breath is cool and pure and full of life, that which is expired is so hurtful, so poisonous, at least so destitute of life, that were it breathed in, in- stantly, uncombined with other air, by a perfectly healthy person, he would instantaneously die. So that pure air in breathing is most essentially indispensable; first, to impart perfection, life to the blood ; and also to withdraw from it its death. No wonder, then, that a plentiful supply of pure air is so essential to the maintenance of health, so doubly essential to the re- moval of disease and restoration to a natural condition. No wonder, then, that when a man's lungs are decay- ing, and thus depriving him of the requisite amount of air, he so certainly fades away, unless the decay is first arrested, and the lung power or capacity restored.

The great principles, then, involved in the curs rf Consumptive disease, or, professionally speaking. th« greatnndicaiions, are-~

g

To cause the consumption and healthful digestion of the largest amount possible of substantial, nutritious, plain food.

To cause the patient to consume more pure air.

To bring about the first condition requires the exer- cise of extensive medical knowledge, combined with a wide experience and close and constant observa- tion. To regulate healthfully the digestive appar'atus-^- that is, to keep -the whole glandular system of the human body in healthfully-working order — requires re- medies and treatment as varied in their combinations almost as the varied features of the human face. Scarcely any two persons in a hundred are to be treated jn the same way, unless you can find them of the same size, age, sex, constitution, temperament, country, cli- mate, occupation, habits of life, and manner of inducing the disease. Here are ten characteristics which are ca- pable,as every arithmetician knows, of a thousand differ- ent combinations ; so that any person proposing any one thing as a remedy — a cure for Consumption, applicable to all cases and stages, must be ignorant or infamous beyond expression.

The two things above named will be always curative in proportion to their timely accomplishment. The ways of bringing these about must be varied according to constitution, temperament, and condition. The mode of doing the thing is not the essential, but the thing done. Beyond all question, the thing can be done: Consumption can be cured, and is cured in various ways. The scientific practitioner varies his means according to the existing state of the case. The name of the disease is nothing to hiin: he attacks the symptoms as they are at the time of prescribing; and if he lie an experienced practitioner, he will know what ought to be done, and how it should be attempted, just as a classical scholar knows the meaning of a classical ph'rase or word the first time he ever sees it as per- fectly as if he had seen it a thousand times before. And without setting myself up as an instructor to my medical Urethren, I may here intimate my conviction, that the cure of Consumption would be a matter of every day occurrence, if they would simply study the nature of the disease, read not a word of how it had been treated by others, but observe closely every case, and treat its symptoms by general principles, as old as the hills, and follow up the treatment perseveringly, prescribe for the symptoms, and let the name and dis- ease go. But then" they must first understand perfectly the whole pathology of the disease — its whole nature. That, however, requires years of laborious study and patient observation.

The above things being true, as perhaps none will deny, it is worse than idle to be catching up every year some new medicine for the cure of Consumption. The readiness with which every new remedy is grasped at, shows beyond all question that the predecessors have been failures. Scores of cures have been eagerly ex- perimented upon ;— naphtha, cod liver oil, phosphate of lime, each will have its day, and each its speedy night, simply because no one thing can by any possibility be generally applicable, when solely relied upon. The

Chysiciyn must keep his eye steadily upon the thing to e done, varying the means infinitely, according to the case in hand. Therefore, the treatment of every in- #vidua] case of Consumption must be placed in the hands of a scientific and experienced physician in time, and not wait, as is usually the case, until every balsam and syrup ever heard of has been tasted, tried, |.ud experimented upon, leaving the practitioner nothing o work upon but a rotten, ruined hulk, leaving scarcely anything to do but to write out a certificate of burial, and receive as compensation all the discredit of the death.

The intelligent reader will perceive that I have spoken of the cure of Consumption as a, matter of course. From the resolute vigor with which cod liver oil has been prescribed and (believingly) swallowed within a very lew years past, one would suppose that almost every one believed that the cure of Consump- tion was a common every day affair. A few years ago, nobody thought so, except perhaps here and there a timid believer who kept his credence to himself, lest he should be laughed at. But the public got hold of the idea that cod liver oil was a remedy for the cure of Consumption, and swallowed thousands of barrels of what was 'said to be it, before they thought of in- quiring for the facts of the case. I have never to this hour heard or read of a single case of true Consump- tion ever being perfectly and permanently arrested by

the alone use of cod liver oil. No case that I hava seen reported as cured would bear a legal investigation. There has always been some kind of reservation. It is my belief that all the virtues of cod liver oil, or any other oil, or phosphate of lime, as curative of consump- tion of the lungs, are contained in. plain meat and bread, pure air and pure water; the whole of the diffi- culty being in making the patient competent to con- sume and assimilate enough of these. Herein consists the skill of the practitioner, and on this point he needs to bring to bear the knowledge, the study, the investiga- tion, the observation, the experience of a life-time.; and he who trusts to anything short of this; throws his life away.

The following articles are interesting and corrobora- tive. "Littell's Living Age," No. 379, for August, the most popular and best conducted journal of the kind in America, copies from the London " Spectator*' the following highly interesting and weil-written ar- ticle, Every line of it merits the mature consideration of the intelligent reader.

"NEW HOSPITAL FOR DISEASES OF THE

CHEST. " While one-third of the deaths in the metropolis are ascribable to diseases of the chest, the hospital accommodation devoted to that class of diseases has heretofore been only one-tenth; that is to say, the most prevalent and destructive class of diseases has had the least counteraction among the, poorer classes. This peculiar, if not studied neglect, must be ascribed to a notion, now happily dying out, that diseases con- nected with the respiratory organs, and especially the lungs, were virtually beyond the reach of certain 01 effective treatment. It was indifference to this old notion that Lord Carlisle made an admission, in his address to Prince Albert, on laying the first stone of the City of London Hospital tor Diseases of the Chest — 'We admit,' he said, 'that hospitals ought to give the preference to those maladies which afford a prospect of cure, rather than to those of a less hopeful charac- ter.' Nov/ this admission, especially as compared with the qualification which followed it, that very much may he effected by precaution and a timely counterac- tion, is far too strong for the truth. Without accepting as literally true the inference of a physician eminent in the treatment of pectoral diseases, that all persons are at one time or other visited by maladies of that class, we believe it is certain that the proportion of mortality, enormous as it is, scarcely represents the comparative extension of such diseases. In the prac- tical and popular sense of the word, it maybe said that cure is as common in the class of pectoral diseases as in any other class. It has become much more com- mon, indeed, since the great advance that has been made with the knowledge of such complaints in our own day. This advance has been of a two-fold char- acter. The immense progress of physiological inquiry has thrown great light on the connection and common causes of most cognate diseases, not only with each other but with the general health, and has thus enor- mously augmented the power of the physician in treating them by medicine and regimen. The invention of the stethescope, by placing the exploration of the inner chest within reach of observation, has given a distinct- ness of knowledge on the most characteristic and dangerous symptoms, heretofore unattainable; it has thus completed the round of evidence whieh estab- lishes the connection of diseases, and at the same time guides the nature and application of topical treatment.

In discovering that the prevalency of pectoral dis- eases was far greater than had been supposed, science has also discovered how much more they are under subjection to the general laws of physiology and med- icine. This branch of science, however, is younger than others — a fact which teaches us to remember how much is to be expected from the active and vigor ous intellects now devoted to its exploration. We may also remember that while the primary object of hos- pitals is the relief of sufferers who are too poor to ob tain it for themselves, they are also great instruments for the benefit of society at large, by checking the in- roads of disease where it could not otherwise be en- countered. They are still more signally valuable aa great schools for the study of the diseases to which th«y are appropriated. They exemplify most power- fully the double blessing of charity, for him that gives as well as him that receives ; the aid extended by a hospital to the poor is returned to the rich in the

knowledge which it collects ; for in rescuing from nn- tinielv death the assembled children of poverty, science barns, as it could in no other way do, methods which enable it to rescue the children of wealth.

The more hopeful character of the most modern science had been in great part anticipated by the brave intellect of Andrew Combe. Before his time, it was too generally, if not universally assumed, that the symptoms of Consumption were a death-warrant; he proclaimed the reverse truth, and established it. He became in his own person the teacher and exemplar, both to physician and patient ; and in his compact popular volume and regimen, he has recorded, in a form accessible to all. the conclusions of his practical ex- perience. He did away many of the old coddling notions, which helped to"kill the patient by stifling the pores of the skin, filling the lungs with bad air, soften- ing the muscular system with inaction, and deadening the vital functions; a service scarcely more useful in reconciling the patient to the restorative influences of nature, than in returning hope to the afflicted relatives, and in showing what might be done by common sense and diligence. At an early age, Andrew Combe was found to be in a Consumption — words which were formerly accepted as a death-warrant, in submission to which the awed patient duly laid down and died ; Andrew Combe lived more than twenty years longer, a life of activity, usefulness, and temperate enjoyment.

"The-" People's Journal,' for July, one of the most popular European .publications, has an interesting ar- ticle in relation to the Consumption Hospital, founded at Brompton ; and few institutions have risen so rapidly. It has a long list of noble and wealthy sub- scribers, with the Queen and most of the royal family at its head. 'As death has abundantly proved the mortality of the disease, so, paradoxical as it may seem, death also supplies us with evidence that the chief structural lesions of Consumption, tubercles in the lungs, are not necessarily fatal. The writer of these lines can state, from his own observation, (which has not been limited, and is confirmed by that of others,) that, in the lungs of nearly one-half of the adult per- sons examined after death from other diseases, and even from acci'lents, a few tubercles, or some unequiv- ocal traces of them are to be found. In these cases, the seeds of the malady were present, but were dor- mant, waiting for circumstances capable of exciting them into activity, and if such circumstances could not occur, the tubercles gradually dwindled away, or were in a state of comparative, harmless quiescence. This fret, supported by others, too technical to be adduced here, goes far to piove an important proposition, that Consumptive disease is fatal by its degree, rather than by its kind ; and the smaller degrees of the disease, if withdrawn from lh3 circumstances favorable to its in- crease, may be retarded, arrested, or even permanently cured. There are few practitioners of experience who can not narrate cases of supposed Consumption which, after exhibiting duiing months and even years, un- doubted symptoms of the disease, have astonished all by their subsequent, more or less, complete recovery. Cautious medical men have concluded themselves mis- taken, and that the disease was not truly tuberculous; but, in these days, when the detection and distinction of diseases is brought to a perfection hordering on cer- tainty, the conclusion that recoveries do take place from' limited degrees of tubercles of the lungs, is ad- mitted by the best authorities, and is in exact accor- dance with the above-mentioned results of cadaveric inspection. Consider properly, and you will be ready to admit the truth of what has been already established by experience, that Consumption may be often pre- vented, arrested or retarded by opportune aid. On this point we know that many medical men are utterly in- credulous and stigmatize others who are less so, in no m'e*su.ed terms ; but, with the present rapid improve- ments in all the departments of medical knowledge, 'here is less ground for such incredulity than there was for that which opposed and ridiculed Jenner in his ad- vocHcy of vaccination as the preventive of small-pox.'

In view of the above and other testimonials of the most distinguished living writers in favor of the cura- bility of Consumption, it is impossible for any well-in- formed and well-balanced mind any longer to deny it. We cannot conceive it possible that so many great men should be so much deceived on a point which they iiave made it tne business of a life-time to investigate and study.

"SUICIDE BY STARVATION.

"A very curious exafmple of suicide by means of starvation occurred some years ago in Corsica. During the elections, the Sieur V. rushed into the electoral college armed with a dagger, which he plunged into the breast of a man who had done him some injury. The man fell dead at his feet. The assassination was committed in the full light of day, and in the presence of an assembled multitude.

" V. was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death. His high spirit and resolute character were well known, and it was suspected that he would seek, by a volun tary death, to evade the disgrace of perishing on the scaffold. He was therefore vigilantly watched, and every precaution taken' to deprive him of the means of putting an end to his existence.

"He resolved to starve himself to death during the interval which elapsed between the sentence of the Court or Assizes and the reply which the Court of Cassation would make to the appeal he had addressed to it.

" He had succeeded in concealing from the obserra tion of his jailers a portion of the food with which they supplied him, so as to make it be believed that he regularly took his meals. After three days' abstinence, the pangs of hunger became insupportable. It then suddenly occurred to him that he might the more speedily accomplish the object he had in view by eating with avidity. He thought that the state of exhaustion to which he was reduced would unfit him to bear the sudden excess, and that it would inevitably occasion the death he so ardently desired. He accordingly sat down to the foodvwhich he had laid aside, and ate voraciously, choosing in preference the heaviest things. The consequence was that he was seized with a vio- lent fit of indigestion, from which, contrary to his ex- pectation, the prison doctor speedily cured him.

" He then resumed his fatal design. He suffered again what he had undergone before. The torture was almost beyond his strength. His thirst, too, was in- tolerable. It overcame his resolution* He extended his hand towards the jug of water which had been placed in his cell. He drank with avidity, and, to use his own expression, was restored to life.

" To avoid yielding again to a similar temptation, he daily took the precaution of overturning the jug of water which was brought to him. Lest he should be induced to raise it to his lips, he threw it down with his foot, not venturing to touch it with his hand. In this manner he passed eighteen days.

" Every day, at different interrals, he noted down ia his album a minute account of his sensations. He counted the beatings of his pulse, and marked their number from hour to hour, measuring with the most scrupulous attention the gradual wasting of his strength. In several parts of his melancholy w,emento% he declares that he felt it harder to bear the "agonies of thirst than those of hunger. He confesses that he was frequently on the point of yielding to the desire of drinking. He nevertheless resisted.

"He was surprised to find his sight become more and more clear, strong, and accurate ; it appeared to him like the development of a new sense. The nearer he approached his latter moments, the more his power of vision seemed to increase. On this subject he thus expresses himself: 'It appears as though I could see through the thickest walls.' His sense of feeling like- wise attained the most exquisite sensibility. His hear- ing and smelling improved in a similar degree. His album contains many curious statements on these sub- jects.

" The Sieur V. had devoted some attention to an- atomy and physiology ; and he attributes the increased acuteness of his senses to the way in which the in- testinal irritation acted on the nervous system.

"His ideas, he says, were numerous and clear, and very different from anything he had experienced in moments of excitement or intoxication. They were all directed to logical investigation, whether he applied them to an analysis of material objects, or to philosophic contemplation. He also felt himself inspired with a singular aptitude for mathematical calculation, a study for which he had previously felt very little inclination. In short, lie declares that he never derived so much gratification from his intellectual condition, as through- out the whole duration of his physical torture.

He made notes in his album to the last moments of his existence. He had scarcely strength sufficient ta

hold the pencil with which he traced the following words: 'My pulse has nearly ceased to beat — but my brain retains a degree of vigor which, in my sad con- dition, is the greatest solace" Providence could bestow on me. It is impossible that I can live out this day. My jailers watch me, and fancy they have adopted every precaution. They little think that I have out- witted them. Death annuls the sentence which has been pronounced on nie. In another hour, perhaps, they will find nothing but a cold corpse.'

"V. expired as he foretold. His album has been carefully preserved. It is a record replete with in- terest to medical professors. The slow torture, endured with so much courage, arid described with such re- markable clearness, renders it one of the most curious documents in the annals of medical science."

Illustrating the game point, a gentleman, Mr. I. F. H., stated to the author that he was once under medical treatment for some affection of the eyes, requiring a very scanty diet. His general health was excellent, but he was always hungry ; yet so far from having any sense of debility, he had, when he went out into the street, an elasticity of mind and body, an instinctive desire of locomotion, which caused him to feel as if he could almost fly. and a joyousness' of spirit, which was perfectly delightful.

These two cases strikingly show, that with a smaller amount of food, and consequently of blood, men are cheerful in mind and active in body ; ISP" therefore, a small amount of food, perfectly digested, gives more hea Ith and strength than a larger, not so. It is better, in- comparably better, to feel a little hungry ail the time, than to feel full, oppressed, heavy, with over eating.

Every patient of mine, who ever expects to get well, must keep this fact constantly and practically in view. It is too much the custom to measure one's health by the avidity of his appetite and his increase in flesh, as if he were a pig ; forgetting that a voracious appetite and fat are always indications of a diseased body. A uniform moderate appetite is the attendant of good health. A racer's ribs must be seen before he is fit for the track, because then he is most capable of endu- rance.

The next incident shows, that with a moderate amount of substantial food and cold water, such being prisoner's fare, men may live for many years, with but little exercise, in the dark vaults of a prison, breathing all the time an atmosphere not very pure, as may be readily supposed. And it is earnestly hoped that the incidents narrated will leave upon the mind of every reader a life-long infpression as to the value, both to the sick and the healthy, of living habitually on a moderate allowance of plain, substantial, nourishing food. It may be well to recollect here that it is not the quality, so much as the quantity of food, which lays the foundation every year of innumerable diseases and deaths. Let it be remembered, also, that men need a variety of food ; living on one oT two kinds for a length of time will always undermine a healthy constitution. Milk only has all' the elements of life ; and any other one kind of aliment, used indefinitely as to time, will as .certainly deteriorate the constitution, bodily and mental, as anything that is planted will deteriorate if kept.for successive years in the same field unrenewed. The popular notion that one <fr two kinds of food at a meal is most wholesome, is wholly untrue. On the contrary, several kinds at a meal, other things being equal, are msre conducive to our well-being. Quantity, and not quality, is the measure of health.

COUNT CONFALIONERI

wrote from the great jail of Vienna as follows : —

" I am an old man now, yet by fifteen years my soul is younger than my body : fifteen years I existed, for I did not live. It was not life in the self-same dungeon, ten feet square. During six years I had a companion ; nine years I was alone. I never could rightly distin- guish the face of him who shared my captivity in the eternal twilight of our cell.

"The first year we talked incessantly together. We related our past lives, ouV joys forever gone, over and over again.

"The next year we communicated to each other our ideas on all subjects.

"Tie third year we had no ideas to communicate ; We were beginning to lose the power of reflection.

"The fourth, at intervals of a month or so we would

open our lips, to ask each other if it were indeed pos- sible that the world were as gay and bustling as it wai when we formed a portion of mankind.

" The fifth year we were silent.

" The sixth, he was taken away, I never knew where, to execution or to liberty. But I was glad when he was gone: even solitude was better than that pale and vacant face. After that, I was alone.

" Only one event broke in upon my nine years' vacancy. One day, it must have been a year or two after my companion left me, my dungeon door was opened, and a voice, I knew not whence, uttered these words : < Ey order of his Imperial Majesty, I intimate to you, that one year ago your wife died.' Then the door was shut. I heard no more. They had but flung this great agonv in upon me, and left me alone with it again."— Phil. Pennsylvanian, March 2, 1850.

Having shown the bearing which food has on health, I desire to make some statements as to the value of air and exercise in the same direction. These will be given succinctly, in the hope that the intelligent reader will study them and apply them at length, especially if he should come to me for medical advice. My habit is not merely to cure when I can the patient who comes to me, but to induce him to study and under- stand his own case and constitution, so that by the application of general principles he may afterwards be able to regulate his health under all ordinary circum- stances, as far as it can be done by diet, air, exercise, and regularity of personal habits ; but never venturing to take an atom of medicine, however simple, except by the special advice of an educated, experienced physician.

IMPORTANCE OF PURE AIR TO HEALTH.

Men are reported to hsv.e lived three weeks without food, but without air we cannot live three minutes. The lungs of a full-sized man weigh about three pounds, and will hold twelve pints of air ; but nine pints areas much as can be inhaled at one full breath, there being always a residuum in the lungs ; that is, all the air that is within them can never be expelled at once. In common, easy breathing, in repose, we in- hale dne pint. Singers take in from five to seven pints at a single breath. We breathe, in health, about eighteen times in a minute ; that is, take in eighteen pints of air in one minute of time, or three thousand gallons in twenty- four hours.

On the other hand, the quantity of blood in a com- mon-sized man is twenty pints. The heart beats seventy times in a mitiute, and at each beat throws out four tablespoons ; that is, two ounces of blood : therefore, there passes through the heart, and from it through the lungs, an amount of blood every twenty- four hours equal to two thousand gallons.

The process of human lite, therefore, consists iri there meeting together in the lungs, every twenty-four hours, two thousand gallons of blood and three thou- sand gallons of air. Good health requires this abso- lutely, and cannot be long maintained with less than the full amount of each ; for such are the proportions that nature has ordained and called for. It is easy, then, to perceive, that in proportion as a. person is con- suming daily less air than is natural, in such proportion is a decline of health rapid and inevitable. To know, then, how much air a man does habitually consume, is second in importance, in determining his true condi- tion, to no other fact; is a symptom to be noticed and measured in every case of disease, most especiallly of disease of the lungs ; and no man can safely say that the lungs are sound and well and working fully, until he has ascertained, by actual mathematical measure- men;, their capacity of action at the time of the ex- amination. All else is indefinite, dark conjecture. And I claim for myself to have been the first physician- in America who made the measured amount of con- sumed air an essential element as to symptoms, in ascertaining the conditiou of persons in reference to the existence of Consumptive disease, and making a publication thereupon. The great and most satisfac- factory deduction in all cases being this, that if, upon a proper examination, the lungs of any given person are working freely and fully, according to the figures of the case, one thing is incontrovertible' true, demonstra- bly true, that whatever thousand other things may be the matter with the roan, he certainly has nothing ]ike Consumption. And Consumption being considered a fatal disease by most persons, there is quite a wii-

J

H»g ness to have anything else ; and the announcement and certainty that it is not Consumption, brings with it a satisfaction, a gladness of relief, that cannot be measured.

On the other hand, just in proportion as a person is habitually breathing less air than he ought to do, in such, proportion he is falling fast and surely into a fatal disease. This tendency to Consumption can be usually discovered years in advance of the actual occurrence of the disease ; and were it possible to induce the parents of children over fifteen years of age to have investigations as to this point in the first place, and then to take active, prompt, and persevering measures to correct the difficulty-, and not one case in a thousand need fail of such correction, with but little, if any medicine, in most instances many, many a child would b« prevented from falling into a premature grave, and would live to be a happiness and honor to the old age of those who bore them. Persons who live in cities and large towns think, and wisely so, that the teeth of their children should be carefully examined by a good dentist once or twice a year; but to have the con- dition of the lungs examined, and, if need be, rectified, who ever thoiight of such a thing? And yet, as to practical importance, it immeasurably exceeds that of attention to the teeth. The latter are cared for as a matter of personal appearance and comfort ; the lungs are a matter of life and death. We can live and be happy without a tooth, but without lungs we must pre maturely die. Were the condition of the lunss, after such an examination as I have suggested, a matter of opinion or conjecture only, I would not propose it ; but it is not: it is a thing of numerical measurement, of mathematical demonstration, as to the one point, Do the lungs work freely and fully7 or not ? If ^ey do not, declining health is inevitable, sooner or later^tjfiess their activity is restored, which, however, can be done in the vast majority of cases. »

YOUNG PERSONS. While speaking of the health and habits of the young, it may be well further to state, that wrong in- dulgences debilitate the system ; in time, the mind be- comes unable to fix itself upon any subject profitably. Exhausting discharges further weaken the energies, and idiocy sometimes supervenes, in various forms and degrees of epilep<\r ; at other times, fatal symptoms of Throat-Ail and Bronchitis. (See Trousseau and Belloc.)

A CASE.

" A youth, aged nineteen, indulged freely for some time, and at length began to experience pains about the throat. The voice was altered ; shrill at first, then entirely lost. Swallowing liquids became impossible. He spit up large quantities of matter, and died after a year's illness. The lungs, on examination, were en- tirely sound, but the whole throat was ulcerated."

Throat-Ail and Consumption are diseases of debility, and it may be easily supposed that no progress can be made towards a cure while causes of debility are in operation. This statement is made here to save the necessity, in all cases, of more direct inquiries. If, however, there is no personal control, parents may ap- ply for their children, and permanent relief be obtained without wounding the feelings or self-respect of the ailing party, who indeed may be blameless.

MISCELLANEOUS CASES.

(851. Sept. 2.) Your lungs are unimpaired ; they are in fuli working order. There is no tendency at this time to Consumptive disease. Your ailment is dyspep- tic laryngitis, complicated with a slight pleuritic affec- tion, and with proper attention you will get well. At the same time, it is important for you to know, that these throat affections are among the most incurable of all diseases when once fully established. This con- sideration should induce you to commence at once a proper course of treatment, and to persevere in it until you are perfectly restored to health.

Note. — His principal ailment was an uneasy feeling in the throat, a frequent clearing of it, and an almost constant p*in in the left breast. He wrote me in three weeks, that my prescriptions were acting admirably, and 'hat he was getting well.

(85*2. Sep. 2.) Your ailment is common tubercular disease, mainly tending to fix itself on the lunL's, and wex* on the bowels. Decay of the lungs has not yet kegun te take place ; they are becoming inactive, about!

one-tenth of thern doing you no efficient good. There is a reasonable probability that the dl sease may be ar- rested at this stage. A return to good health is by ne means impossible; it is doubtful. The threat ailment is nothing more than what may7 arise from a dyspeptic condition of the stomach, liable to end in tubercular ulceration in your case, your lungs being already tuber- culated to some extent; the right side slightly more than the other.

Mote.— He complained chiefly of spitting blood, cough and debility; had been using cod liver oil for several months to no purpose. I have not heard from him since giving the opinion.

(853. Sept. 2.) You have chronic laryngitis, torpid liver, lungs acting imperfectly. There is no decaying process, no Consumptive disease, and I see no special reason why you may not, with judicious treatment, recover your health.

He complained chiefly of husky voice (had to aban don preaching), constipation, and variable appetite. In five months he wrote me that he " was able to enter upon his pastoral duties," and had been discharging them three months.

(854. Sept. 12.) Your lungs are not in a safe condi- tion ; one-third of them are now useless to you. It will be necessary for you to use diligent efforts to arrest the progress of your disease, and spare no pains in doing so.

Note. — Complains chiefly of spitting blood, cough, sore throat, debility. He appears to be getting well rapidly.

(855. Sept. 7.) Your disease is common consump- tion of the lungs ; one-fourth of them are doing y7ou no good ; a part of them are irrecoverably7 gone ; there- fore, under no circumstances can you be as stout and strong as you once were. The decay of your lungs is progressing every hour. If that decay is not arrested, you cannot live until spring. Whether that decay can be arrested I cannot tell. It is possible that it may be done. It is not my opinion that it can be done.

Note. — Chief symptoms harassing cough, drenching night-sweats, daily expectoration of blood, constipa- tion, irregular appetite, great emaciation and debility, could scarcely walk around one square. In three weeks he could walk twenty squares in a day without special fatigue. Here he ceased very unexpectedly to call upon me. Being a favorite child of his father, I took great interest in his case. Whether he suddenly relapsed and died, or thought he could get along now without farther aid from a physician, I do not know.

A MERCHANT.

" At this time the lungs are untouched by disease ; they do not work as free and full as they ought to do, but it is impossible that there should be any decay, or that they should be tuberculated to any extent. If your present weak state of health continues, the sys- tem will become so debilitated by winter, and so sus- ceptible to impressions from cold, that you will in all probability fall into an eventual decline. At this time, nothing is the matter with you but symptoms arising from a torpid liver and impaired digestion. Your health can be certainly restored."

Note. — Aged thirty ; he had spitting of blood, pains in the breast, and other symptoms which greatly alarmed himself and friends, as pointing to settled Con- sumption. He got perfectly well with little or no med- icine, and remains so to this day.

On the same day, September 18, a young woman came for examination, having walked several squares.

Opinion. — " You are in the last stages of Consump- tion. A large portion of the lungs is utterly gone ; the decay is rapidly progressing, and nothing can arrest it. Death is inevitable before the close of the year."

Note. — She had a hoarse, loud cough, cold feet, chills, no appetite, irregular bowels, difficult breathing on slight exercise. I did not prescribe. She died in a short time.

(714.) J. S., married, aged 40, an officer in the Mexi- can war, and severely wounded at Cerro Gordo, com- plained most or covgh, weakness, sweating at night, and shortness of breath. Any7 sudden movement of the body or mental emotion produced almost entire prostration. Had lost one-ninth of his weight.

Opinion. — "Your lungs are in good working order ; no decay, not an atom ; the yellow matter expecloratf Q a morbid secretion from the windpipe and its branches. Your heart is affected ; the calibre of its blood vessels is too small to transmit the blood with

sufficient rapidity ; hence the fluttering and great debil- ity ©n any sudden motion or protracted exercise, for these but increase the quantity of blood to be conveyed t away. Your ailments depend on constitutional causes to a great extent, and in proportion are capable of re- moval."

I heard of this gentleman no more for one year, when he came into my office a well man in every respect, saying that he began to get well in three days after taking the first weekly pill, and thought as he was doing so well, there was no necessity of writing.

A case (988) similar, in some respects, is now under treatment : great throbbing of heart and weakness on slight exercise; a violent beating in the temples the moment he lays his head on a pillow at night. This does not occur when he lies on his back. Frequent numbness and pricking "sensation in left arm and leg ; tosses and tumbles in bed for hours every night before he can get to sleep ; great general weakness, and total inability to walk; riding in any kind of a carriage over a rough road, often but not always, brings on sick headache; has frequent distress at stomach; pulse oae hundred; much dispirited, and has fallen away- more than one-sixth.

Opinion. — "Your ailment is a symptomatic heart af- fection, depending now, .mainly, on constitutional causes, originating in over efforts of mind and body. The lungs are sound and well."

In three weeks he writes, each of the two weekly pills brought away large -quantities of stuff, yellow as yolk of egg, with masses of a colorless, stringy sub- stance, and left my bowels regular. I now sleep as well as I could wish ; very little pain in the side ; stomach no longer distresses me. I have gained strength, but no flesh, and some throbbing yet remains. _ Note.— This man will probably get well" if he con- tinues to follow the directions as well as at the be- ginning. He had been advised to exercise his arms and the muscles of his chest a great deal, and was told that he must work, und-J;hinking he could accomplish both at the same time, and being naturally industrious, he began to saw wood for family use during the coming winter ; but every day he became weaker and worse, until he could scarcely stand up. This being a heart affection, every moment of such exercise necessarily aggravated the malady.

This shows the mischievous effects of taking a wrong view of a case and of following the advice of every person one meets with. Many persons are ad- vised to death. Over confident advice is the attendant of inexperience and ignorance. It is forgotten that un- paid advisers, being well themselves, do" not endanger their own lives, in case their recommendations are in- efficient, if, indeed, not positively hurtful. Many are infatuated with vegetable remedies, taking it for granted that they can do no harm, even if they do no good ; forgetting that in many cases a loss of time is equiva- lent to a loss of life, and that the most virulent poisons In all nature— those which produce almost instan- taneous death— are of vegetable origin, such as nico- tine, prussic acid, and the like.

I. Q.. B., married, aged forty-eight; had a distress- ing cough, which, with a severe pain below the point of the right shoulder-blade, prevented any refreshing sleep. He arose every morning sweaty, haggard, and weary; no appetite, and daily expectoration of large quantities of matter. He had fallen off forty-two pounds, and was greatly depressed. I informed him that his lungs were* not diseased, and that there was no necessary obstacle to his recovery. His friends thought he became worse under my treatment, for at the end of four weeks he was confined to his bed day and night, with frequent rigors and flushes. The pain steadily increased, at times aggravated almost beyond endurance by a cough, which I thought nothing could safely control, and hence gave nothing for it. He thought he could not live unless speedily relieved ; his relative, a physician, came to remonstrate against my "holding out hopes of recovery to a man who was evidently sinking with Consumption." I informed the patient he was better ; that he would probably need no more medicine, and explained to him the reasons for such an opinion. In a few days his strength began to increase, and he walked out. He left the city soon afterwards, and now, at the end of three years, he is a hearty, healthy man, weighing upwards of two hun- dred pounds, having taken no medicine since he saw me. I considered his case to be one of great torpidity cf the liver, with abscess, and treated it accordingly.

The reader may see by this, how important it is some times to know that a case is not Consumption, ana also the value of a steady resistance against ignorant interferences.

(July 23.) "Your lungs are not diseased, nor are they even impaired in their action. There is not only no Consumption in your case, but there is a less ten- dency that way than in most persons. You have not merely lungs enough for the ordinary wants of the sys- tem, but a large amount in reserve. Your whole ali ment is a dyspeptic condition, and there is no reason why a rational habit of life, should not restore you to as good health as you have ever enjoyed, without any medicine whatever."

He complained of pain in the breast, large expectora tion, voice sometimes fmsky, and a tightness across the chest.

(July 23.) "Your lungs at this time are not in a satisfactory condition, more than one-sixth of them being valueless to you. A portion at the top of the right breast has decayed away. Your case is one pre- senting all the ordinary symptoms of common Con- sumption. It will be altogether impossible for you te arrest the progress of your disease if you continue your present habits of business (printer). If you pursue an out-door calling, and acquire judicious habits of life, it is probable that your disease may be arrested, and that you may be restored to renewed health."

Note. — As he had a good appetite, was working daily at his trade, and did not feel very bad, he thought it not advisable to abandon his calling, and died in three months.

(Nov. 8.) "Your lungs, are whole, sound, and in full working order. There is at present no appearance o; Coii: umptive disease. Your ailments arise wholly froai^feneral constitutional causes, and may be re- movefl by proper and rational habits of liie and con- duct."

Note. — He was not satisfied with my opinion ; was fully impressed with a belief that he was falling into©, decline, and insisted upon repeated examination. Hf was a man of wealth, of fortunate social relations, and very naturally dreaded deaih — too much so for a man. He observed faithfully the directions given, no medicine was> advised, and wrote in three months that he was as well as he ever was in his life ; his chief complaint was an " uneasy sensation about the heart," and some " trouble in the throat."

(Nov. 9.) " Your lungs are not diseased materially at this time. They do not work fully, but there is no decay. Your ailment is Chronic Laryngitis, of a Very dangerous and aggravated character. It is very doubt- ful whether yoiTwill get well. Something may be done for you by a rigid attention to all the directions given." Note. — He could not speak above a whisper ; swal- lowed food with great difficulty and pain. He re- mained under the treatment of his family physician, and died in seven weeks."

(849.) " You are suffering under the combined in- fluence of dyspepsia and consumptive disease, and they mutually aggravate each other. One-fii'lh of your lungs are now useless to you. This is a very serious deficiency. The extent to which you may be benefited, can only be ascertained by attention to directions given. Your case is not hopeless, yet it is critical and of a very grave character" He died in five weeks. He could not or would not control his ap- petite, and the author ceased to prescribe, as is his practice when instructions are not implicitly followed. (Aug. 30.) " All your ailments arise from a want of natural proportion between exercise and eating. If these were properly regulated, you would get well without any other means, as the lungs are sound, healthy, and entire. You are too full of blood, and it is not healthful ; hence it does not flow freely, but gathers about the internal organs, oppressing them and giving rise to any number of ailments, constantly varying as to character and locality. Make less blood and take more exercise, according to the printed in structions given you. and your return to good health will be speedy and permanent."

She complained of pains and oppressions, particularly about the chest, tickling cough, &c. I heard no more of her for six months, when her husband, a Southern planter, called to express his satisfaction,' and to say . that she was in good health, and had been for some time.

(Sep. 30.) " Your disease is common consumption of the lungs. It began at the top of the right breast, and

after making some ravages there, ft ceased and attacked the left, which is now in a state of continued decay. It may7 spontaneously cease on the left side, as it did on the right; in that event, life would be preserved for the present. Without such an occurrence- as just named, one-half of the lungs being useless to you, the consti- tution usually fails in six or eight weeks, and some- times much sooner." She died in six weeks.

Frail and feeble persons often outlive by half a life-time the rohust and the strong, because they feel compelled to take care of themselves, that is, to observe the causes of all their ill-feelings, and hab- itually and strenuously avoid them. Our climate is changeable, and in proportion unhealthful. In New York' City, for example, during one week in December last, in which the thermometer ranged from five de- grees above Zero to fifty-five, there were forty-one deaths from inflammation of the lungs, while the Ordinary number is about fifteen. The healthy disregard these changes to a great extent, and perish Within a few days. The feeble are more sensitive to these changes ; they increase their clothing and their bedding with the cold, and with equal care diminish both, with the amount eaten, as the weather grows warmer, and thus long outlive their hardier neighbors. These precautions, with others, must all observe, through life, who have been cured of an affection of the throat or lungs. Let this never be forgotten, for the oftener you are re-attacked, the less recuperative energy is there in the system, and the less efficient will be the remedial means which once cured you, unless by months of continued attention and wise observances you give the parts a power and a strength theg£ never had before. This can be done in many cases. * •'

But once cured, avoid the causes which first injured you. If you put your hand in the fire, you may re- store it, but however magical may be the remedy, that haniLwill be burned as often as it is placed in the fire, without any disparagement of the virtues of the resto- rative. No cure of your throat or lungs will render you invulnerable. What caused the disease in the first in- stance will continue to cause it as long as you are ex- posed to them. No promise is given you of perma- nence of cure longer than you are careful of your health. The safer plan by. far will be to consider your- self peculiarly liable to the disease which once an- noyed you, and make proportionate endeavors to guard ydurself habitually against its advances. All assu- rances that any mode of cure will afford you a guarantee against subsequent attack*, are deceptive. No medicine that any man can take in health will pro- tect him from disease. There is no greater falsity than this, that if you are well, a particular remedy, or drink, or medicine, will fortify the system against any speci- fied disease, whether cholera, yellow fever, or, any other malady. So far from this being so, it is precisely the reverse. Doubly so ; you are thrown off your guard, and in addition you make the body more liable to the prevalent malady by poisoning the blood; for whatever is not wholesome food, is a poison to the sys- tem, pure water excepted. Nothing, therefore, will protect a healthy man from disease but a rational at- tention to diet, exercise, cleanliness, and a quiet mind ; all else wiil but the more predispose him to it. But when once diseased and then cured, these things are not sufficient to keep him well ; he must avoid what first made him an invalid, otherwise permanent health is not possible, but a speedy relapse and death are in- evitable, as to Throat-Ail, Bronchitis, and Consump- tion.

DANGER OF CUTTING TONSILS.

M. Landouville removed an enlarged tonsil of a woman, aged 21. In eight days she had uncontrollable spitting of blood, which was constant, besides vomiting a* large quantity. Small pulse ; extremities cold. The danger was imminent. Various means had already been adopted in vain ; such as ice externally, styptics internally; then pressure with lint dipped in lemon /nice; but it was at length controlled by pressing ice against the spot with forceps. (See Hays1 Med. Jour., October, 1851.) Other cases are given in medical pub- lications : they are not of frequent occurrence, but each one operated upon is liable to experience disagreeable results. An operation is seldom necessary — not one sase in twenty. And as in the case above, the danger was not over for a week after the operation had been performed, others who have the tonsils taken out

have cause for a lengthened and most unpleasant sz*

pense.

It must not be forgotten that Throat- Ail is in very ninny instances wholly unmanageable, and ends fatally, simply from its being thought lightly of, until it has produced such a state of general irritation throughout the system, that the constitutional stamina is exhaust- ed, and the pulse is habitually a fourth, or third, or even more, above the natural standard. Most gener- ally, such eases go on to a fatal termination, in spite of all modes of treatment. This is so uniformly the re- sult, that any certain benefit in such cases cannot b» promised nor is it just that the general principles of treatment should suffer discredit from failure here; they are admirably and uniformly successtui when ever they are applied in the early stages of the disease It is to invoke prompt attention to the first and earliest symptoms of Throat-Ail, that pains have been taken in these pages to describe them plainly, clearly, and! distinctly.

CELL DEVELOPMENT:

The human body is in constant transition. The par- ticles of which its structure is constituted are not the same in position and relation for any two minutes in succession. Thousands of atoms which compose it the present instant are separated from it the next, to make a part of it no more ; and other thousands, which are a portion of the reader's living self while scanning this line, will have been rendered useless and dead on read- ing the next. There are two different armies of workers, whose occupations cease not from the cradle to the grave. One army, composed of its countless mil- lions, is building up the body ; the other removes its waste ; one party brings in the wood and the coal for the fire-place and the grate, the other carries away the ashes and the cinders ; — the builders and the cleansers. When the builders work faster than the cleansers, a man becomes fat, and over-fat is a disease. When the cleansers are too active, the man becomes lean, and wastes away to a skeleton, as in Consump- tion. Health consists in the proper equilibrium of these workers.

Every movement of fine body, every thought of the mind, is at the expense of a portion of the material frame; that is to say, certain atoms of the living body are killed by every action of the mind, by every motion of the body, and being dead, are useless. But they must be removed from the body, or these "heaps of slain" would fill up the workshop of life, and the whole machinery would stand still ; the fire-place would be filled with ashes, the furnace clogged with cinders, and the grate be" useless. Vast masses of these dead atoms are pushed, worked out, or thrown from the body at the surface. At any night, on undressing, the clean- liest person may rub from the body countless numbers of these dead atoms, a teaspoon-ful of them may be gathered from the feet at a single washing, if long ne- glected. Hence the value of thorough daily frictions to the skin, as promotive of health, because, on an average, we all eat about one-third more than is need- ed ; thus throwing on the cleansers a third more labor every twenty-four hours than they were designed to perform. By the frictions we come to their aid arti- ficially. They are wise who perform these frictions daily and well ; but wiser they by far who do not eat the extra one-third, and consequently do nut need to be scrubbed and bathed and washed every day of their existence, to save them from the effects of over-feed- ing. Better eat less and save trouble. The surplus third would feed half the poor of the land.

But a larger portion of these dead atoms are scattered in the more interior parts of the body, and the cleansers remove them by first rendering them fluid, as solid ice or snow is made fluid by heat. It is then, ag it were, sucked up by these cleansers, and conveyed finally to the blood, just at the heart, where they are mingled together and sent direct to the lungs, where they meet with the pure air that is breathed. Here an exchange takes place between the air and the blood. The air gives to the blood its oxygen, its life, while the blood gives its death to the air. Hence it is that the air gives life as it goes into the lungs, but gives death if breathed unmixed as it comes from the lungs; that is, if a healthy person were to breathe for three min- utes no other air than that which has just come out of the lungs of another man, in three minutes he would die. Hence my insisting sc much on causing

m

Consumptive persons to breathe the largest possible amount of pure air; it unloads the blood more per- fectly of its dead atoms, and also gives life to the essence of food which it also meets in the lungs ; that is, puts the finishing work to its becoming living blood

Let us notice next the builders, whose work is to supply new and living particles as fast as the old ones fall off and die. These new particles are in the blood, which delivers its living freight as it flows through the body, ns a steamer delivers its freight to the thousand different ports as it ploughs along the majestic Missis- sippi. Whenever a living particle comes to the point where it is needed to supply the place of one just fallen or dead, by some inscrutable, inexplicable agency, is quick as electricity itself, a vesicle, a cell, a little boat, as it were, is formed, which floats it to the spot, delivers its charge, and bursts and dies, its duty done, the object of its creation having been performed ; — an apt type of the whole and living man, who, when the great object of his creation is performed on earth, him- self passM away in death ; and happy indeed would he be, were that work so fully, so well, and so invariably done. These little wrecked, ' these bursted boats, have been collected, and ascertained to be made in- variably and almost wholly of two materials — phos- phorus and lime, which also are constituents of the brain itself. This phosphorus and lime are sup- plied by what we eat and drink. If we do not eat and drink enough, or if what we do eat and drink has not enough of these constituents ; or if, again, it is not per- fectly digested, then there is not enough of these con- stituents to make the necessary boats to freight the nutrient particles to their destination ; hence, the man wastes away to skin and bone, and dies — not because he does not eat, but because what he does eat does him little or no good. Especially thus is it in Consumption ; a man dies of inanition, or, as physicians say, an error of nutrition.

Consumptive people die for want of strength, want of flesh, want of nutriment; not for want of lung sub- stance, as is almost universally supposed. They die, in almost every instance, long before the lungs are con- sumed, so far as to be incapable of sustaining life. Numerous cases are given where men have lived for years with an amount of available lungs not equal to one-fourth of the whole. They were there, perhaps, but not available, not efficient. The majority of persons who die of Consumption, perish before a third of the lungs have consumed away, in consequence of loose bowels, torpid liver, indigestion, night sweats, want of sleep, clogging up of the lungs with matter and mucus by the daily use of cough drops, balsams, tonics, or other destructive agents. These symptoms need but be controlled to protect life indefinitely; that is to say, if the symptoms were prescribed for according to general principles, and properly nursed, letting »he Consumptive portion of the disease alone, it woUid sometimes cure itself, or at least allow the pa- tient to live in reasonable comfort for a number of years.

The reader may almost imagine that he has a clue to the cure of Consumption, if he could but give the patient phosphorus afed lime, or phosphate of lime — that is, burnt bones — eight or ten grains, with the first mouthful of each meal, so as to let it be mixed with the food and carried with it into the blood ; from twenty to thirty grains being daily needed in health. The scientific world were charmed less than a hundred years ago by the discovery of oxygen. It was sup- posed that as oxygen was the constituent of the air which imparted vitality to the blood, gave it its purity, its activity, and filled the man with life and animation, nothing was needed but to take enough oxygen to purify the blood, and thus strike at the .root of all disease. Accordingly, the oxygen was prepared and administered. The recipient revived, was transported, was fleet as the antelope, could run with the wind. He smiled, he fairly yelled for joy, and — died, laughing, or from over excitement The machine worked too fast; it could net be stopped, and pure oxygen has never been taken for health since.

Thus it will, perhaps, always be with artificial reme- dies ; they cannot equal those which are prepared in Nature's manufactory. The phosphate of lime, in order to answer the purposes of nature, must be elim- inated from the healthful digestion of substantial food in the stomach, and the only natural and efficient means of obtaining the requisite amount is, to regulate the great glands of the system in such a manner as to <*anse the perfect digestion of e. sufficient amount of

! suitable food, |^° and this is within the power of thfl scientific practitioner, in the great majority of cases of Consumption, when attempted in its early stages ; but for confirmed Consumption—that is, when the lungs have begun to decay away, it is criminal to hold out any promises of cure, or even of essential relief, in any given instance.

It is often stated as disparaging to physicians, that, notwithstanding the general increase in knowledge, in all departments, and the claim that meuiciwe is reduced almost to a science, that human life Is gradually short- ening. There is great reason why men should not live so long as formerly. As a nation, we live more lux- uriously ; our habits of eating and sleeping have be- come more artificial, more irregular. Large numbers of people have no regular occupation. Our young women are trained in female boarding schools, which, wiffr rare exceptions, are academies of mental, moral, and physical depravation ; where novel reading in secret, and a smattering of everything in public, with a thorough practical knowledge of nothing, is the order of the day. From graduation to marriage nothing is done to establish the constitution, to make firm the health— no instructions given as to how that health may be preserved, no active teaching as to household duties, no invigorating morning walks, no wholesome, elegant, and graceful exercises on horseback. The days are spent in eating, in easy lounging, in ceremonial visitings, in luxurious dreaminess over sentimental fic- tions ; their nights in heated rooms or crowded assem- blies of hot and poisoned, if not putrid air. No wonder that with educations like these, the girls of our citiea and laKer towns fade away into the grave long before they reach the maturity of womanhood.

Our young men, also, in cities and large towns espe- cially, grow up in too many instances without any stamina of constitution. Bad practices — drinking, chew- ing, smoking, theatre going, secret society gatherings — involving late hours, late suppers, late exposures, pri- vate indulgences— these destroy the health, deprave the morals, and waste the energies of the whole man. Many are permitted «o grow up without any trade, trusting to a wealthy parentage, or political influence, or the name of a profession, entered only for show and not for practical life. Others grow up as clerks in stores, banks, offices, with good salaries it may be; but when the merchant has become a bankrupt, the offices failed, the banks broken, the party in power defea#d, their occupation is gone, their resources are exhausted ; they lounge abou,t waiting for a place, the clothes are wearing out, the board bill is in arrears, independence lost, spirits broken, mind irritated, disposition soured, and the first crime is committed — that of engaging board without any certain means of paying, or leaving a struggling widow in arrears ;— the proud, the high- minded, the well-dressed, courteous, and cheerful-faced young man of six months ago has made his first step towards degradation, by making a toiling woman give him for nothing the bread and meat which she had earned in toil and sweat, and tears perhaps, and which the childrea of her own bosom needed. VVhen the honor is lost, low habits and loss of health and life soon follow. Let every young man from the country hesi- tate to come, to the city to try his fortune, unless he have learned well an honest and substantial trade; then he may work his way sternly and steadily to useful- ness, influence, and wealth. It Is for want of a suitable education and occupation that such numbers of our young go down to a premature, if not dishonored, grave. But notwithstanding these errors as to. the education and employment of our young men and young women, medical writers have been extensively disseminating useful knowledge by means of books, pamphlets, lec- tures, newspaper articles and the like, in reference to the preservation of health in the nursery, the school- house, rhe academy, the college — in factories, work- houses, penitentiaries, as to diet, exercise, ventilation, drains, sewerages, house-building ; and the general re- sult'is, that within three hundred years past, the average length of human life has been increasing and not diminishing. The average age increased two and a half years for the twenty years ending 1820 in the United States. For the fifty years ending in 1831 in France, it increased from 28£ years to 31^ notwithstanding the devastations of the wars of Napoleon and the French Revolution. In London, for the century ending 1828, the average age of all who died had increased 4| years. In Geneva, 300 \ ; ; : ; ago, it was 21 years ; it is now 41.

Europe is computed to nare a population of twc

hundred and thirty millions. Not a hundred years ago, Gibbon, the great historian, estimated it at less than one-half. This immense increase has taken place not- withstanding the millions who have emigrated to this and other conntries— notwithstanding, too, the far greater drawback, that during a considerable portion of the time the most desolating wars were waged that were ever carried on there.This can only be accounted for by the reforms which medical science has introduced, and the more general diffusion of practical knowledge as to the preservation and promotion of health, in pub- lications made by eminent physicians and surgeons.

As, therefore, a higher degree of medical intelligence has extended the average of human life — in some places fifty per cent., taking all diseases together — it is reasonable to suppose that increased intelligence as to one class of diseases would, in the course of time, have a like happy effect ; that if more truthful views as to (he nature, causes, and symptoms of diseases of the lungs were extensively promulgated among the people, their fearful ravages would be diminished in correspond- ing proportion.

In 1651, the deaths in Boston, from Consumption alone, were about thirty per cent, of the entire mor- tality, and the Medical Association announces that it " is steadily on the increase from year to year." If this is the case in Boston, where such large quantities of cod-liver oil have been purely made, and hence more easily and cheaply obtained, it presents a striking and practical contradiction of its curative powers in Con- sumption, and calls upon us in louder and louder tones to look less to the cure of this terrible scourge, and more to the detection of its early symptoms and its pre- vention, by scattering intelligence to every family, and on the wings of every wind, as to what are its causes and what these early symptoms are. Such is the ob- ject of this publication.

Patent Medicines are those whose contents are not m?.de known. A physician who has any respect for hiaaself would scarcely use them, or advise their use. It is a universal custom among all honorable practition- ers, to communicate to their brethren any valuable dis- covery; thus, any one of them is benefited by the dis- coveries of all the others : they hold their knowledge ia common. A remedy discovered to be truly valuable in New York to-day, in the cure of any disease what- ever, is, in a few months, known wherever the English language is read and spoken. Thus thousands', scat- *.«rea over the world, whom the discoverer never could see, are benefited and blessed by his discovery, through the regular practitioner. S^nie other person obtains this knowledge, prepares the ingredients, disguises them with some inert substance, and sells it as a secret remedy, leaving those to die, as far as he cares, who do not buy from him or his agents ; while thousands of ' others, in other states and countries, perish for the want of a knowledge locked up in his bosom. Any patent medicine is a cure for a given disease, or it is not. If it is not a cure, it is false and criminal to sell it as a cure. If, on the other hand, it is what it pro- fesses to be, it cannot be much better than murder to withhold, it from those who cannot purchase it, and to allow thousands, at a distance, to die from the want of it, who never heard of it, or, if they did, live too far away to send for it in time. Let those who purchase the^e articles think of the argument, and aid and abet no more, by their patronage, those who allow their feiiow-creatures to die by thousands every year, who would be saved (if what is said be true) by the knowl- edge of the remedy whose eomposition is so carefully concealed.

Many things have been passed over in the foregoing pages, which might satisfy the curiosity or interest a large class of readers, but it is not necessary that they should be known, and if known, might have an in- jurious effect, considering the present state of knowl- edge on the subject of Consumptive disease ; such, for example, as suiting what symptoms are infallibly fatal, what kind of persons, as to sex, temperament, color of hair, eyes, skin, make of body, are most liable to it, or having it, have less hope of recovery. For similar rea- sons, I have given but few fatal cases and their symp- toms ; for persons having one or more of these same symptoms might conclude that they, too, must die, wh'ii) those same symptoms, in combination with others, «vould indicate a very different result. I do not wisn the reader to suppose that I do not los,e any eases — thai few or none die in my hands. I lose pa-: hen'£ *.s otlker ohysicians do. I have lost some whom

I expected would recover. Nor do I wish to make th« impression, that it i3 a frequent occurrence that per- sons in the advanced stages of Consumption are re- stored to comparative health ; for it is not a frequent occurrence— it is a rare thing. My object is, first, t* show what the early symptoms are ; and, second, to in- duce the reader to make application to me at this early stage, with the full assurance of my belief, that thus one person would not die of disease of the throat or lungs where one hundred now do. In truth, I had greatly rather that persons in the advanced stages would not apply to me ; for it at once involves a de- gree of responsibility and solicitude, which is to extend, through weeks and months, and for which any money paid is not the shadow of a remuneration.

I greatly desire it to be understood that I have no magical means of cure. Ailments of the throat and lungs are not to be removed by a box of pills or a bottle of balsam. It is not the work of a day, no» of a week. These cases often require weeks am months of treatment, and of a treatment constantlj varying, to meet the varying phases of the disease, Sometimes it occurs, but not often, that a person writes for advice in full, and it is given, and the single pres- cription, pkrskvkrkd in, has effected a happy cure, and months and years after, such persons have come to see me, to express their gratification. At other times, pres- criptions are sent, and the persons never heard of after- wards. In nearly all cases, these are young people, cr persons who have no energy of character, no perse- verance, no determination. For a few days or a fort- night, they give a general attention to the directions, and because they are not cured, break off and apply to some other physician, to follow the same course, or be- come negligent of themselves, and eventually die. It is a most hopeless task to attempt to cure any of Throat- ail or Consumption who have no energy of character. It is lime, and trouble, and money lost, as they are not diseases to be eradicated in a day, by a drop or a pill. It is to be accomplished, if at all, by a determined, thorough and persevering attention, for weeks and sometimes many months, to rational means, fi^* calculated to build up the constitution, with a decreasing use of med- icine and an increasing attention to habits of life.

Asthma. — I have said but little of this distressing disease. It is not often critical or dangerous until ad- vanced life. As a general rule, it is incurable. Chil- dren who have it, sometimes grow out of it. In some women, it often disappears at the turn of life ; in others, during the years of child-bearing. A Jit of asthma, as it is called, generally cures itself, by being let alone. An attack is often hastened away by ju- dicious, means. In persons of a feeble constitution, it is liable to come or go any day or hour, and prove fatal in marked changes of weather— that is, to very cold, or from cold to a warm, heavy, thawy, foggy atmosphere. The only proper and efficient method of treatment is, to prevent the attack, which can be done in the great majority of cases, and for an indefinite length of time. The distinguishing symptom is want of breath ; the patient feels sometimes as if it would almost kill him to speak two or three words ; the necessity of breath is so great, he cannot find time to cough, and represses it, lest it should take his breath away. He can neither cough, sneeze, spit, nor speak freely. He sits up, wheezes, throws his bead back, wants the doors and windows opened. The attacks generally come on towards the close of the day, and pass off about mid- night or soon after, when the cough becomes loose, and large quantities of a substance more or less yellow, pearly, and tenacious, are expectorated ; urination be- comes copious, and the patient recovers, to be attacked in the same way night after night, until the violence of the disease is expended, and recovery takes place ; or if these ameliorations do not occur about midnight, the case is aggravated, and the patient dies in a few hours. This disease is treated more at length in the la*ge ed- ition. It is certain, that in a vast number of cases, whether hereditary or accidental, the attacks can be indefinitely warded off by proper care and habits of life, if the constitution is not much broken.

CROUP OF CHILDREN.

Many a lovely child is destroyed in a single night by this alarming disease. Its nature is described in the First Part. It is a disease of the windpipe, which is filled or lined with a phlegm, which becomes more and more tough, almost leathery— thickens, and at length closes up the passage to the lungs, and the child dies,

It tonally comes on in the night. The distinguishing symptom is a wheezing, barking cough. A mother who has ever heard it once, needs no description to enable her to Recognise it again; The first born are most likely to perish with it ; simply because the parent has no experience of its nature, and hence is not alarmed in time, or knows not what to do, while the physician is being sent for. In the hope of being instrumental in saving some little sufferer, whose life is inexpressibly dear, at least to one or two, I will make some suggestions, not for the cure of the patient, but to save time. The instant you perceive that the child has Croup, indicated by the barking Cough, uneasy breathing, restlessness, send for a physician, and as instantly wrap a hot flannel around each foot, to keep it warm ; but while the flannels are being heated, dip another flannel, of two or more thicknesses, in spirits of turpentine, or spirits of hartshorn ; or have a large mustard plaster applied, one that will reach from the top of the throat down to some two inches below the collar bones, wide enough at top to reach halfway round the neck on either side, and nearly across the whole' breast at bottom. But it will take time to send for a physician, to prepare flannels, and to make the plaster or obtain the turpentined flannel, and in some eases fifteen minutes is an age — is death, if lost; there- fore, while these things are preparing, give the child, if one year old or over (and half as much, if less), about naif a teaspoon-fur of Hive Syrup, and double the dose every fifteen minutes until vomiting is pro- duced.; and every half hour after vomiting, give half as much as caused the vomiting, until the physician comes, or the child ceases to cough, when he breathes free, and is safe, if you have "no Hive Syrup, give a easpoon-ful of Syrup of Ipecac, and double the dose ?very fifteen minutes until vomiting is produced, if foil have been so thoughtless as to have nothing at all, ioil some water, keep it boiling, dip a woolen flannel of several folds into it, squeeze it out moderately with our hand, and apply it as hot as the child can possibly >ear to the throat, and in from one to three minutes, ac- cording to the violence of the symptoms, have another to put on the instant the first is removed, and keep this up until the breathing is easy and the cough is loose and the phlegm is freely discharged, or until the arrival of the physician.

1 wish to impress upon the reader's mind a few dis- connected subjects. Consumption most generally comes on by a slight cough in the morning, about the time of rising or first stirring about. The existence of tuliercles iri the lungs is not necessarily fatal ; they' remain dormant for a life-time, unless irritation or in- flammatory action is excited by bad colds neglected^ or exhausting habits or diseases, or debilitating occurren- ces, or wasting indulgences. These things throw more persons into fatal Consumption than are destroyed by the hereditary form of the disea.se; and these should be, as they can in very many instances, safely rem- sdied.

The following recipes are frequently referred to : —

Bow to Toast Bread. — Keep the bread a proper dis- ance from the fire, so as to make it of a straw color. It is spoiled if it is black, or even brown.

Toast Water.— Take a slice of bread about three inches across and four long, a day or two old. When it is browned, not blackened, pour on it a quart of water which has been boiled and afterwards cooled. Cover the vessel, and after two hours, pour off the water from the bre;>d gently. An agreeable flavor may be imparted by putting a piece of orange or lemon peel on the bread at the time the water is first poured on the bread.

Barley Water. — Take two tablespoons of pearl bar ley, wash it well in cold water, then pour on it half a pint of water, and boil it fifteen minutes; throw this water away, then pour on two quarts of boiling water, and boil down to a pint; then strain it for use. An ounce of gum arabic dissolved .n a pint of barley water is a good demulcent drink.

Flax-seed Tea. — Take an ounce or full table-spoon ef flax seed, but not bruised, to which may be added two drams of bruised liquorice root; pour on a pint of boiling water, place it covered near the fire for four hours, strain through a cotton or linen rag. Make it fresh daily.

Tamarind Whey. — Two tablespoon-fuls of tamarind, Stirred in a pint of .boiling milk; then boil for fifteen! minutes, and strain.

Wine Whey. — Take a pint of milk, put it on the fire ; !

as soon as it begins to boil, pour on eipht or ten table- spoons of Madeira wine, in which has boen stirred two teaspoons of brown sugar; stir the whole until it ha? been boiling for fifteen minules ; then strain through a cloth.

Boiled Flour and Milk.— Take a pint of flour ; make it into a dough ball with water; tie it tightly in a linen bag; put it into a pan of water, covering the ball, and let it boil ten hours; place it before the fire to dry, cloth and all; take it out of the cloth, remove the skin, dry the ball itself. Grate a tablespoon of this, and stir it into a pint of boiling milk, until a kind of mush is formed.

Boiled Turnips.— Small turnips boiled make one ot the best articles of food which invalids and convales cents can use. Carrots may be added ; half and half. Boil them once; repeat the boiling in fresh water until they are quite soft; press the water out through a coarse cloth ; then mix enough new milk to form a kind of pulp; season with salt, and then place them before the fire until it is a little dry or crested.

Beef Tea. — Cut into thin slices a pound of lean merit, pour on a full quart of cold water, let it gradnally warm over a gentle fire; let it simmer half an hour, taking ofl' the skum ; strain it through a napkin. Let it stand ten minutes, then pour off the clear tea.

Cracked Wheat. — Dry some common wheat, then grind it in a coffee mill; boil it three or four hours; add a little salt, a little milk, butter, cream, or molasses may be added, as in using homminy. It should he always washed clean, and then, boiled long enough to become of the consistence of boiled rice or homminy. A pint of wheat dried and grounnd is enough for a day ; not to be used for supper.

Dandelion Diet Drink. — Take three ounces of the bruised root of the dandelion flower, which should be gathered in July, August, and September; pour on a quart of water, boil it to a pint, and strain it. 60 Drops make one Teaspoon.

4 Teaspoons " one Tablespoon.

2 Tablespoons " one Ounce.

2 Ounces •' one Wine-glass.

2 Wine-glasses " one Gill or Teacup.

4 Gills " one Pint.

J greatly desire that nothing I have written shoald excite unreasonable expectations as to the speediness of cure of the diseases treated of; they come on slffcvly, are sometimes for years gathering force in the system, and hence it is unreasonable to suppose that they are to be eradicated except by energetic treatment, long-confinued, unless attended to in their very first stages. The patient, page 107 top of second column, expressed himself as being cured in two days:— it was three months before every remnant of disease seemed to have left his throat. Remember this, if no othei sentence— attend at once to the first morning cough, or frequent hawking, hemming, swallowing, or want of clearness of voice of two weeks' continuance ; other- wise, in nine cases out of ten, a fatal ConsuHimioE will be the result.

The charge for answering a letter desiring an opinion of a case, is Five Dolars; and 'IVn Dollars for a personal examination and opinion. Advice is given by letter or at the office person !y, for Twenty-Five Dollars, for the first month ; subse- quent advice when needed and desired, will be char- ed according to the nature of the case aud the cir- cumstances of the patient; all charges must be paid at the time o. c >nt>ultation. The descriptions given must include an answer to the following questions:

Are you easily chilled? Do you take cold read- ily ? Are you inclined to he thirsty, forenoons ? — Are you troubled with cold feet or hands ? Is there shortness of breath in walking !>ri<kly, especially on rising ground, or up stairs? Your best weight; usual; present? Do you perspire re cliiy ? Have you any discomfort after meals? Any bad taste in the mouth of mornings ? Do the bowels act regularly every day? Are you regular otherwise? Do you live in town or country? What Is your age, height, occupa ion? Are you married, aud have you children ? How often does your pulse beat in a min- ute when you are at rest, about the middle of the A. M. or P. H. ? Is your voicj natural? Have you reason to believe that any of your symptoms are hereditary? The above statements are made and questions asked, to save time which, in some cases, makes al1 the diffe euce between life and death.

Address Dr. W. W, Hall, 2 West 43d St., N. Y-

HOTES AOT NOTICES

: The postage on this Journal is twelve cents a year, payable in advance to the Postmaster who delivers it.

Those of oar subscribers who failed to receive any number for 1866, will have the same supplied by giving notice ; numbers lost or soiled, will be supplied to subscribers for ten cents ; to all others, fifteen cents.

Any past number of the Journal from the first month of pub- lication, will be supplied, post-paid, for fifteen cents.

Any subscriber who fails to receive any number for 1867, will be supplied with the same without charge if applied for during the month for which it was published .; if later, it must be paid for, price fifteen cents.

Eeceipts are not sent by mail, because no receipt is needed, as the Journal is not sent to any one unless it is paid for in advance, and the regular receipt of it by mail is proof that it has been paid for by somebody. All subscriptions must begin with Jan- uary and end with December, as the volume ends with the close of each year. The bound volume for 1866 will soon be ready and will be exchanged for the loose numbers, if in good order, with thirty cents to pay for binding. If the bound volume is de- sired to be sent by mail send ten cents in addition, or forty cents for binding and postage.

If a person sends a subscription and does not receive a Jour- nal within twenty days, it is because the money has not been re- ceived, or the address was not plainly, fully, and correctly given, and it has been sent elsewhere, and notice of this failure to get the Journal from any cause, must be given within twenty days of writing the letter. It sometimes happens that persons com- plain of not having received their paper at the end of the year, and seem to think they are entitled to all the back numbers, when the cause of non-reception was their failure to give a plain, full address.

"W e, like others, are often solicited to send our paper without charge to various public and benevolent institutions, associa- tions, libraries, &c. ; this is an unreasonable request; it is cer- tainly less burdensome for fifty members to pay three cents each than for one publisher to supply fifty copies of his paper to fifty " institutions " for the bare chance of somebody happening to see it in the " rooms " and be induced to subscribe for it ; the ' honor' of having our paper placed on the desk of the great Mogul does not pay for the trouble of sending it to the post-office. Any Asso- ciation or Society that calculates on begging for a support had better " dry up " incontinently. We are willing to give any quan- tity of Journals to preachers and Theological students and libraries, but futher than that we do not propose to go, unless we choose to.

18 Hall's Journal of Health,

A new edition of Hall's Health Tracts, with steel portrait of the Editor, will be issued in January, 1867, price by mail $2.50 ; contains about 290 Health Tracts.

The American Bureau for Literary Reference. — Agency for Authors, Publishers, Editors, Lecturers, and Lyceums, and for all who have any Literary Commissions to be executed.

The Commission undertakes:

1. — To gather facts and statictics upon all subjects, and to pre- sent them in an intelligent form, either for literary or business purposes. *

2. — To furnish printers' estimates for authors, and to supervise the publication of works.

3. — To receive manuscripts either for sale to a publisher, or to be read for a critical opinion.

4* — To supply translations of books and documents, and to write letters and circulars in various languages ; composing the same when desired.

5. — To secure Lecturers for Lyceums and engagements for Lecturers.

6. — To provide suitable editors for newspapers and articles for daily or periodical journals.

7. — To provide correspondents for neswpapers, especially for Washington, New York, Paris, and London.

8. — To select or purchase books for private parties or for Libra- ries, and to search for rare and old editions.

The Bureau requires a fee of one dollar before any Commission, is undertaken. The subsequent charges vary in accordance with the actual service rendered.

All communications should be addressed to The American Bureau for Literary Reference, No. 132 Nassau St. New York.

Lecturers and Lyceums invtied to put themselves in communi- cation with the Bureau. Charge for entering name, $1.00

Bronchitis and Kindred Diseases," with which the January number for 1867 begins is from a book with the same title, sent post-paid for $1.60, by addressing " Hall's Journal of Health," No. 2 West 43d St., New York ; the object is to persuade the peo- ple to note the first far off symptoms of consumption when the disease can be easily and certainly warded off permanently ) and to this end the symptoms of beginning and curable consumption, as well as the indications of a hopeless malady, are so plainly laid down that the most unlettered may determine for themselves the beginnings of danger ; it also marks out the difference be- tween Bronchitis, Consumption and Throat Disease by showing the symptoms peculiar to each, and thus the general reader may determine for himself j in markd cases, what is the matter with him

Notes and Notices, 19

|

Institute Lectures on Physiology. — To the Executive Commit- tee of the Institute of Reward for Orphans and Patriots :

The undersigned, a Committee appointed December 30th, 1865, by the Executive Committee of the Institute of Reward for Or- phans and Patriots to co-operate with the Executors of the Will of the late Miriam Iiolton Brown, respectfully report:

That the general diffusion of the knowledge of physiological and hygienic laws and their application for the benefit of com- munties and especially of the rising generation, are to be sought under provisions of the Will, through the continuance of the lec- tures on Physiology commenced in the city of New York, in 183 .', and which for thirty-two years have to some extent been contin- ued by her brother, David P. Holton, M. D., in the public and private schools of Europe and America.

In the futher continuance of these lectures, Dr. Holton desires to labor in those institutions in which his services will be produc- tive of the most good in the establishment of hygienic rules and practice ; and where at the same time the rewards of patriotism can be best advanced in providing for the orphan representatives of those having died or who may die in the service of our country.

Dr. Helton's selection of physiological topics and their presen- tation will be determined with a view to the objects above stated, also, to their appropriateness, as means of mental and moral train- ing, securing the three objects — physical, intellectual and moral development.

From his long experience as a teacher, from his mental attain- ments as a graduate in 1839 of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the City of New York, and from his subsequent attendance 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857 at the best schools for physio- logical studies in the Universities of France and Germany, we feel authorized to assume that his selection and presentation will be such as to effect great good.

52 West 37th Street, New York, July 4th, 1866. Horace Webster, M. D., LL. D., ^ Marshall 0. Roberts, I

Alexander Knox, \ Committee.

Samuel B. Bell, D. D. Arthur F. Willmarth, J

The American Tract Society, No. 150 Nassau St., New York, have published the *\ Life and Times of Martin Luther," by W: Carlos Martyn, author of the Life and Times of John Smeton; it aims to continue the biography of Luther and a history of the "Reformation." 12mo., 550 pp. This will be regarded as a standard publication and may be read with interest and profit by

20 HalVs Journal of Health.

christian people; it is admirably adapted to giving even the unlettered a clear idea of what the great <s Reformation " means ; its bearings on the great religious doctrines of the age and their practical tendencies when carried out in daily life ; it is especial- ly valuable to clergymen and students of Church history.

Good Eating. — " Jennie June's American Oook Book," 12mo., 343 pp., is published by the American News Co., 119 Nassau St., !New York; it is by the gifted author of "Talks on Woman's Topics," etc. It gives Ruskin's answer to the question, u What does Cookery mean?" and imbodies many of the principles in- culculated by Professor B!ot (pronounced Blow,) and therefore may be regarded as a scientific, practical book, by a woman who has made and done the things herself, and knows whereof she speaks, instead of its being a compilation of impossible and un. tried things.

Oatman's Fifth Avenue Skating Rink. — The largest in the world.

I have the pleasure to announce to my numerous patrons, that I have erected a Skating Rink — the finest in the United States — on the site of the former Balloon Amphitheatre, Fifty-ninth St., corner Sixth-avenue. — - -

This is doubtless the largest Skating Rink in the world, hav- ing an area of 7,000 square feet. It is entirely surrounded by a gallery, seated, and covered overhead, with ample space for 10,000 spectators.

Attached to the Rink are handsomely fitted reception and waiting rooms, and a carefully conducted restaurant.

Ladies are 'provided with exclusive waiting and dressing rooms.

The entire Amphitheatre will be lighted during the evening by two hundred gas jdts.

The Eink will be the headquarters of the " New York Skating Club," for which ample and special provision has been made.

Music will be in attendance every afternoon and evening, conducted by an accomplished leader.

A selection can be made from the superior stock of skates in the skate-room, and ample provision is made in the cloak-room for the deposit of cloaks, etc.

An important feature of the Rink is that skaters will be at all times protected from uncomfortable wind by the surrounding galleries, which rise above the ice level about 40 feet.

O. F.OATMAN, Proprietor.

Terms. — Gentlemen' s Season Tickets $8.00

Ladies' Season Tickets 5.00

Masters' Season Tickets 5.00

Notes and Notices. 21

How many men in a thousand in the United States can write their own names sufficiently plain to be read by a stranger, and without any senseless flourishes which, in almost every case, in- dicates that the writer has no force of character ? Query No. Two : How many persons in a million can order a publication and give their name, Post-Office, County and State ? Some send no name at all ; others omit the state, as if their own little vil- lage one rod long and no rods wide, was familiarly known to the utmost bounds of creation." If the reader orders our jour- nal please don't lose time in telling what a useful thing it is everybody knows that ; do like the most sensible woman in; the United States — "Mary Eeed, Dover, Delaware. $1.50 for Hall' Journal of Health for 1867." How delightfully plain, suc- cinct and sensible. She ought to have it for nothing.

Messrs. Broughton & Wyman, 13 Bible House, New York, have sent us a number of little books for a few cents each, which are so good and useful that any parent might send them one, two or a dozen dollars and leave it to their discretion to send the value in these little books for little children, to wit : "No Sect in Heav- en," 16 pp. ''The Lamb that was Slain," 12 pp. "Self-Exami- nation," 46 pp. — Ten cents. " Social Hints for Young Christians," in three sermons, both by Rev. Howard Crosby, Pastor of the 4th Presbyterian Church, New York ; a most admirable issue, in vari- ous bindings, 20 to 40 cents.

♦

The American Tract Society, 150 Nassau St., New York, S. W. Stebbins, Depository, have, issued a number of beautiful Gift Books, and if parents would only spend their money for presents such as these, instead of gew-gaws and jewelry, a life- long good would be the result; such as —

'^Jay's Morning Exercises." 8vo. Steel Portrait, $1.75 ; ex- tra binding, bevelled boards, red edges, $2.75. "Jay's Evening Exercises." 8vo. $1.75; extra, $2.75 "Binder's Village Ser- mons." 8vo. In clear type. $1.50 ; gilt, $2.00 "Sketches from Life." First and Second Series. Illustrated. Each $1.10. Extra binding, $1.75 each. "Life of George Whitfield. With Engra- vings and Steel Portrait. $1.10 ; extra, fl 75. "Records from the Life of S. Y. S. Wilder." With fine steel portraits. A vol- ume of rare interest and value. $1 ; extra, $1 50 ; mor. gilt, $3. 50. A book for every son. "Baxter's Saints' Rest." 12mo., large type. $1; extra, $1 50. Also 18mo, extra, $1 "Bun. yan's Pilgrim's Progress," with Grace Abounding prefixed. 12mo, finely illustrated, $1 50; gilt, $2; morocco, gilt, $3 50. Also 18mo, extra, $1 ; gilt, $1 25- "A Pastor's Jottings." Iilus. trated. Highly interesting .facts in a pastor's experience. $]

22 Ball's Journal of Health,

extra, $1 50. " Eloquent Preachers." Six steel Portraits. Graphic and stirring sketches. $1 ; extra, $1 50. " Bible Em- blems." By Rev. E. E, Seelye of Schenectady, N. Y. 222 pp. square 12mo. Developing the beauty and force of many em- blems employed in Scripture, such as the Higher Rock, the Sun in his strength, the Altar of Incense, the Rainbow and the Dove, and applying them to our daily life. The sketches are graphic and rich in instruction. " Its style is almost perfect. It is a beautiful book, and must attract devout readers, old and young."

" Jesus Christ's Alluring Love." 158 pp., 18mo, in fine bind- ing, A rich and attractive devotional manual. "Charles Scott, or, There's Time Eonugh." 147 pp,, square 16mo. 60 cents ; postage 12 cents. Life on the sea-shore; the history of an orphau boy, and his battle with a bad habit. " Nuts for Boys to Crack." By Rev. John Todd, D. D. 267 pp., 18mo. Treating a variety of distinct topics in the pointed, shrewd and racy style which makes this author's writings so popular and impressive. He hits the nail on the head, drives it home, and clinches it.

"In the World, not of the World : " being Thoughts* on Chris- tian Casuistry, by William Adams, D. D., Pastor of Madison Square Prebyterian Church, New York; a most practical chris- tian book and well worthy of being made a standard publication among all christian people ; with such men as Secretaries and Managers as Hallock and Eastman and Stephenson the public have a guarantee that every book issued will be of sterling value and suitable for christians of every name and country".

Messrs. Broughton & Wyman of 13 Bible House, Astor Place, !New York, have on hand all the publications of the American Tract Society, Boston ; — Uncle Downie's Home; There's Time Enough; Winnie and her Grandfather; The Little Gold Keys ; — each 50 cents ; Grace's Visit, 75 cents ; Madge Graves, $1 ; Story of Zadoc Hull, 80 cents ; Frank's Search for Shells, $1 25; Nellie Newton, 45 ; Lift a Little, 35 ; Pleasant Grove, 60.

The Messrs. B. & W. are also the sole Agents in New York City, for the sale of " Massachusetts in the Rebellion," by P. C. Headley, author of " Josephine," &c, containing eight steel plates besides many likenesses of distinguished men, including Gov, Andrews, Senators Wilson and Sumner, Edward Everett, Gen erals Banks, Butler, Stevenson, &c. Price $4 50 to $6 50. They have also issued a book which, in these times of a growing skep- ticism, is peculiarly timely, entitled " Tests of Truth,"- being re- plies to letters of a skeptical friend, on the Teachings of Nature and Revealed Religion, by David Dyer. If any one sees in him- self the slightest indication of a questioning of the Divinity of the Bible, let him, for his own soul's saftey, buy this valuable book. %

Notes and Notices. 23

Among the Holiday issues of the American Tract Society a 28 Cornhill, Boston, and 13 Bible House, New York, gilt-edged and bound iu elegant style, are f* Snow Flakes," which surprises the reader, not only with the religious sentiment of the volume, but with the scientific wonders which are brought to light respect- ing the nature, the forms, and the beauties of the beautiful snow. It will give every attentive reader a new idea of the wonderful wisdom and workmanship of the Great Maker of us all. Its cost is about two dollars, with beautiful illuminated and colored il- lustrations. Also, the Christian Armor of shield and buckler and breastplate, with their various meanings. and uses; also, the Cup Bearer and its fellow, the Standard Bearer. Let all who think that the best knowledge is that which leads to the accurate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures purchase these books fur them- selves and their friends and children, and it will be a good in- vestment.

Seventeen Editions ! — in French, several in London, and one in New York, 12mo, 399 pages, published by the American News Company 121 Nassau street, New York, price §2) sent by mail for same. We do not believe that a more deeply interesting- and practical book, adapted to the -capacity of all, and useful to every human being, has been published in many years, in refer« ence to human health and life. A man took it up carelessly Acs long ago, and read it through without stopping, except to eat and drink. Its title is "The History of a Monthful of Bread." It takes in the whole subject of nutrition, from the taking of the food into the fingers until it has answered the great object of sustaining life and health and vigor ; it shows in an enticing manner the whole workings of the human machine; we bespeak for it an extraordinary demand, all over the nation. To thought- ful, progressive minds, its perusal will be a delight ; but as most persons of this class are in moderate circumstances and may not be able to purchase it, we will send it post-paid to any one sending four new subscribers for 1867.

Eobert Carter and Brothers, 530 Broadway, New York, have the most extensive stock of standard religious and theological books in the United States, and have unusual facilities for pro- curing promptly, the new publications abroad. The publications of this house are invariably of sterling and substantial value, not only for the present time,% but for future years ; among the issues suitable for holiday presents and for family reading are: " Binding the Sheaves," by the author "of ' Win and Wear * series ; 416 pp., 12rno. " The Story of Martin Luther," edited

24 HalVs Journal of Health*

by Dr. Whately ; 354 pp., 12mo. " The Great Pilot and his f Lessons," by Rev. Richard Newton, D. D., author of 'Rills from ; the Fountain of Life,' * The Best Things,' 'Bible Lessons,' &c. 309 pp., 12mo. " Cripple Dan," by Andrew Whitgift ; 330 pp. " A Ray of Light," by the author of 'A Trap to Catch a Sun- beam ;' 158 pp. "The School Girl in France," by Miss R. Mc Crindell, author of 'The Converted.' 248 pp. " Win and Wear," a Story for Boys, and a well- told story, too, of youthful struggles and triumphs. " Tony Stars Legacy, " a veritable boy, neither worse nor better tban others, and well-nigh spoiled for a tim^, but at length developes into an upright and generous manhood. H Faithful and true," being the history of a family, reduced in circumstances, retiring to a deserted farm, standing by itself on the Green Mountains. The experiences of this sort of frontier life are depieted«with a a skilful pen. " Ned's Motto ; or, Little by Little." Ned's father having fallen in battle Ned worked his way up to usefulness and respectability ; " it is a tale of uncom- mon excellence." " My New Home," being the diary of a mai- den aunt living in a pastor's family in the mountains of Vermont. A critic says: "We have not read a book in which the lights and shadows of such a life are given, with so much truth and vigor." " Turning a New Leaf," being a picture of School Life, with its temptations and social influences, its duties and its dangers. \ The spoiled child turns over a new leaf, and in the end com- mands the reader's sympathy and respect.

Fowler & Wells have published a useful almanac for 1867, price twenty cents, being an illustrated annual of Phrenology and Physiognomy, with a multitude of illustrations. The same house has issued one of the most beautiful editions of ^Esop's ' Fables, on tinted paper, gilt-edged, &c, we have yet seen. We do not know of any book, as a present for children, which is better calculated to impress wise lessons of life on the minds of the young — lessons of human nature, which, if early learned, will have a saving influence on all the after life.

A New Monthly,

published by the American Tract Society, 28 Cornhill, Boston, and 13 Bible House, New York, being an illustrated religious magazine for the family; — Vol. 1, No. 1, Jan., 1867, $2 a year, 67 pages. The nature and character of this new candidate for public favor will be best known » by the subjects treated, and their authors : " The Sabbath at Home," by Rev. E. N. Kirk, D. D. The new " Burning Star," with four illustrations. ",Mary Lyon"

Notes and Notices, 25

First School Teaching," by Fidelia Fisk. "/The Catacombs of Rome, "with ten illustrations. " The Battle of Ristori," by Mrs. Helen E. Brown. " The Electric Telegraph, "from the British Workingman. '^Welcome to a Young Pastor " by S. F. Smith, D. D. "The Parable of the Good Samaritan/' by Dr. Guthrie. " George N. Briggs," with a portrait. " The One Thing Needful," from the Sunday Magazine. " The Glory in the Cloud," by Rev. H. M. Dexter, D. D. " The Old English of our Bible," by A. E. " An Appeal in behalf of the Little Ones," by a Mother, etc., etc. No doubt this magazine will contain safe and instructive read- ing, always, for christian families ; and as far as it tends to ex- clude secular newspapers and secular monthlies from families on the Sabbath, without diminishing the interest and practice of Bible Reading, we certainly wish for it the most abundant success; and trust it will grow in public christian favor with each issue, because of its substantial value.

A woman who is a soldier, as to battling bravely with life's difficulties, writes, Dec. 11, 1866, supposing she was becom- ing dropsical from the extraordinary bloating of the skin, and fearing it might result in dropsy of the lungs, " The bloating is very little, sometimes none at all, which has not been the case for a whole year, while the regularity of the system is better than it has been for two years; daily improving and growing stronger ; it seems perfectly delightful, scarcely natural after so long a time of disturbance. There is a marked change since I applied to you six weeks ago ; 1 think that but for you I should not have lived five months. Others notice the change in me ; I am so happy. I find such a quantity of concentrated food for the mind in|the volume of Health Tracts ; it is not to be digested in a hurry ; since reading it I have been astonished and cha- grined at my ignorance of so much which is of such vital impor- tance for every person to know."

It is to be regretted that so much indifference exists among all classes as to the means of preserving health and maintain- ing a good constitution. But as the multitude pay no efficient attention to religion till death is threatened, so but few, here and there one or two in a hundred, feel the inestimable value of health till it is lost, and a once noble constitution is irrevocably shattered. This Journal is devoted to one object, and that is, to show the people how to keep well; how to preserve the body in the enjoyment of glorious good health. If you are sick go to an educated physician in your own community and do not make fools of yourselves by sending money to strangers, who will en- gage to cure you of everything but the malady Of a "soft head ;" it would'nt be profitable for them to undertake that, it is because . of that they find their enormous gains, by means of which they live in the finest houses on ' The Avenue/

26 HaWs Journal of Health*

To Physicians.- — The entire profession will be glad to learn that Henry C. Lea, of Philadelphia, will resusticate the re-publi- cation of " Rankin's. Half- Yearly Abstract of the Medical Scien- ces," during 1867, discontinued six years since by Lindsey & Elakinston. It will be, as before, a esynopsis of Medical Pro- gress throughout the world for each preceeding six' months. It will be sent to subscribers, free of postage, for $2 50 a year ; the Medical News and Library, $1 a year; The American Journal of Medical Sciences, $4 a year, But the three publications, the Journal, News and Abstract, 'will 'be sent to one address, post- paid, for $6 00, in advance.

SKATING.

Private ponds were opened for skaters Dec. 12, 1866; that on the corner of 5th Avenue and 59th St. — A. McMillan, the Prince of Skaters, Manager — is the largest in the city and is accessible by almost every line of cars, and from all parts of the island j it posesses one very great advantage and comfort — you reach comfortably warmed rooms in three or four steps above the ice; and music and mirth are promised every evening that the ponds are open for skating. Up to this present writing it is the best, smoothest and strongest ice in the city, and every pains will be taken to make every day of the winter a skating day.

A Season Ticket for a gentleman is eight dollars; for ladies, five dollars; children, four dollars. Tickets for a single admis- sion, fifty cents.

MacMillau is the sole agent for New York Club Skates, at 575 Broadwa}', New York, where will also be found a general assort- ment of tine skates, and Brook's skating boots.

No receipt is given for the Journal, as it is only sent to those who have paid for it ; its regular receipt is proof of payment.

GOOD BOOKS FOE, PHESESTTS.

KTew Physiognomy, with 1,000 illustrations, $5, $8 or $10. It is a beautiful book.

-ZEsop's Fables, People's pictorial edition, tinted paper, only $1.

Illustrated Family Gymnasium, f ?! 75.

How to Write, How to Talk, How to Behave, and How to Do Business, in one volume, $2 25.

Tho Phrenological Journal for 1867, only $2.

Address Fowler and Wells, 389 Broadway, Now York.

Notes and Notices, 27

A brother doctor writes, " I find it an exceedingly easy mat- ter to get subscribers to Hall's Journal of Health, and had I more time to devote to it, I could double the number of names I send you (24) in our village, in a short time."

A correspondent says: " The Journal of Health I must have, if I have to go into the harvest field to work to earn the money. I wish every family in the land had it and would put its teach- ings into practice ; it has been, of great value to us. I have tried the receipts in the December number on Winter Diseases, &c, for preserving shoes, giving them a gloss, keeping the feet warm, and it gave great satisfaction, and so with the others."

; — ; — Valuable information is found in the number for Decern" ber, 1866, in relation to the preservation of the health in winter" time — Pneumonia, lung fever, inflammation of the lungs; death" in-Doors; how Clergymen lose their voice; airing chambers; temperature of rooms ; value of complaining, and crying; get- ting chilly ; having nothing to do : its pernicious effect on health; the bad effects on mind, morals and body of boarding-house and hotel life ; how the young should go to housekeeping ; getting married ; why young men don't propose uow-a-days ; helping parents : how to make new shoes fit ; how to prevent squeaking shoes; how to make shoes impervious to water: varnish for shoes ; to prevent cold feet when traveling ; to prevent burning feet; tight shoes; cleaning shoes; fruitful source of colds dur- ing winter ; — sent post-paid for fifteen cents. Address " Hall's Journal of Health, No. 2 West 43d St., New York."

The most generally valuable book we have published is " Health and Disease," $1 60, showing how to avoid sickness and how to cure it in many cases by diet, exercise, etc.

INVALIDS GOING SOUTH.

" Aikin Hotel," having been recently renovated and refur- nished, is now open for the reception of visitors. Guests can rely on every exertion being made to render them comfortable and make them feel at home. The elevated situation of Aikin, with its dry, equable and genial climate, is peculiarly adapted to invalids affected with pulmonary diseases, and is highly rec- ommended by eminent physicians, North and South.

Henry Smeyser, Proprietor.

Aikin, South Carolina, Dec. 1, 1866.

HEALTH TEAOT, Ho. 270.

CAUSE OF AGUE.

A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says that he was pre- vented for ten years from emigrating to Illinois by the appre- hension of suffering from the prevalent sickness of the country ; and expressed the opinion that thousands of others spend year after year in listless inactivity, or in the comparatively profitless cultivation of the stoney soil of the East, when they might soon become independent, thriving farmers in the boundless West, where there is a fine, rich soil, a mild climate and a plenty of room. He observes that the people were sickly where he was "raised," untit»they derived their family supplies of water irom well cemented cisterns ; by which he probably meant, that if rain-water was used for all cooking and. drinking purposes, fever and ague, with many kindred ailments would disappear.

There is fever and ague in the South, and plenty of it, in its most aggravated form ; and yet, in cities, villages and on the plantations, cistern-water, obtained from the roofs of buildings, is very generally used. There is more or less of chill and fever in the torrid and temperate zones, whether in the old world or the new. The presumption is, that as people live to a good old age in all latitudes, the water of each country is adapted to the health of that country. The earth was certainly intended to be cultivated and replenished ; to be filled with thriving people.

Wrong practices follow wrong theories ; hence it is important to understand the true cause of fever and ague. As the malady prevails only in warm weather, and does so within the antartic circles, it must arise from something invariably connected with these latitudes ; and that thing seems to be, as far as our present knowledge extends, the combination of three elements, heat, moisture and vegetable product. These three ensure one result, vegetable decomposition, giving rise to a' constituent of the at- mosphere of that locality, which originates that disease known as fever and ague and its kindred maladies, epidemic diarrhea and fevers. Whether this constituent is inert matter, or possesses vegetable life, or is of a breathing animal nature, the laws by which it is generated are one and the same ; and there are two ways of successfully contending with it : — to prevent its forma- tion by proper drainage of the face of the country, or to resist its pernicious influences by keeping fires in our sitting-apart- ments for the hour including sunrise and sunset, these being the times when the atmosphere is known to be most loaded with the offending ingredient, which is thoroughly expurged by a sufficient amount of heat. — Watchman and Reflector. \

HEALTH TRACT, Ho. 271.

INTEMPERATE WOMEN.

" Give me some brandy," said she, as she seemed to be slowly recover- ing from a swoon in a bookstore. She conversed fluently, was highly ed- ucated and wrote a beautiful hand. Her husband was a merchant, worth nearly half a million of dollars, and connected with some of the best fam- ilies of New York. Her love of liqour was so great that every member of the household was trained to keep such a watch that it was next to impossible to obtain it under her own roof. Friends and relatives knew her failing so well that they habitually acted in concert with the unfortu- nate husband, to save his name, and their own. But now and then the fiend of drink would come upon her with such a frenzy that all the pow- ers'of her gifted mind were at such times, bent upon obtaining the means of ministering to the insatiable appetite for brandy ; and one of her plans was to step into a store where she was unknown, enter into conversation with all the grace and culture of a refined woman, and in the midst of it to feign a swoon and a slow recovery ; and then, to call for brandy, as stated at first, with the perfect certainty, under the circumstances of the case, of having her wishes gratified. At times she would go3to some village near New York, go from store to store, and in a short time would be car- ried from the street in a state of beastly intoxication. Rumor has it that a number of ladies, the daughters and wives of men of position in trade and finance and family in New York, have made application for admission l into the institution at Binghamton, New York, the object of which is to r make a scientific attempt to cure those who are the victims of intemperance - and are willing to make an effort for their own reclamation. It is known that the wife of one of the most honored men in the nation, lately deceased, was a habitual and unreclaimable drunkard, and died such.

The early use of tea and coffee by our daughters is the first step in this direction. It is surprising how often at public and private tables when young ladies are asked how they will take their tea, " strong," is replied. Then again it is the habit of New Yoikers to have tea and coffee at lun- cheon ; thus it is served three times a day, for it is never absent from the 5 o'clock dinner table. Another cause is that in any attack of indigestion, or the over fulness of a hearty meal, or other derangement of the stomach or bowels, brandy has become the panacea, and mothers and fathers have it at their tongues' end for all such occasions, but more especially the mothers, for they are always at home. Then again, beautiful women, women of known conversational powers, who sing well, or dance divinely, or have the reputation of being " good company," find themselves at times unfitted for the occasion, and would willingly remain at home ; but from the 'must' of propriety or courtesy there is no appeal and something is taken to aid them in being - up to the occasion.' It is on the same princi- ple precisely that so many politicians and public speakers, and wits and poets are led into habits of intoxication. The woman of any age who finds herself drinking cold tea or coffee between meals, or of taking a glass of wine or other stimulant before ' going out,' is not far from a

~ drankards's grave. Nor is the politician or orator who takes a glass of "brandy and water he- J; fore speaking; nor the minister who hefore he goes into the sacred desk, feels the need of a J cup of tea or coffee, or a glass of wine or a hrandy toddy. The wise will he warned. He who says, "There is no danger for me," is already lost I — Watchman and Reflector.

HEALTH TRACT, No. 63.

SKATING

Is one of the most exhilarating of all pastimes, whether on the ice, or over our parlor or hall floors, with roller-skates. In the days of "Queen Bess," some three hundred years ago, it was a favorite amusement with the Londoners, whose facilities for the same were limited to pieces of bone attached to the shoes. As lives have been lost in connection with skating, the following suggestions are made :

1. Avoid skates which are strapped on the feet, as they prevent the circulation, and the foot becomes frozen before the skater is aware of it, because the tight strapping benumbs the foot and deprives it of feeling. A young lady at Boston lost a foot in this way ; another in New-York, her life, by endeavoring to thaw her feet in warm water, after taking off her skates. The safest kind are those which receive the fore-part of the foot in a kind of toe, and stout leather around the heel, buckling in front of the ankle only, thus keeping the heel in place without spikes or screws, and aiding greatly in supporting the ankle.

2. It is not the object so much to skate fast, as to skate gracefully ; and this is sooner and more easily learned by skating with deliberation ; while it prevents overheating, and diminishes the chances of taking cold by cool- ing off too soon afterward.

3. If the wind is blowing, a vail should be worn over the face, at least of ladies and children ; otherwise, fatal inflammation of the lungs, " pneu- monia," may take place.

4. Do not sit down to rest a single half-minute ; nor stand still, if there is any wind ; nor stop a moment after the skates are taken off ; but walk about, so as to restore the circulation about the feet and toes, and to pre- vent being chilled.

5. It is safer to walk home than to ride ; the latter is almost certain to give a cold.

6. Never carry any thing in the mouth while skating, nor any hard substance in the hand ; nor throw any thing on the ice ; none but a care- less, reckless ignoramus, would thus endanger a fellow-skater a fall.

7. If the thermometer is below thirty, and the wind is blowing, no lady or child should be skating.

8. Always keep your eyes about you, looking ahead and upward, not on the ice, that you may not run against some lady, child, or learner.

9. Arrange to have an extra garment, thick and heavy, to throw over your shoulders, the moment you cease skating, and then walk hpme, or at least half a mile, with your mouth closed, so that the lungs may not be quickly chilled, by the cold air dashing upon them, through the open mouth ; if it passes through the nose and head, it is warmed before it gets to the lungs.

10. It would be a safe rule for no child or lady to be on skates longer than an hour at a time.

11. The grace, exercise, and healthfullness of skating on the ice, can be had, without any of its dangers, by the use of skates with rollers at- tached, on common floors ; better if covered with oil-cloth. I

Vol XIV. FEBRUARY, 1867. No. %

HEALTH TKAOT, No. 273.

ILLOGICAL SEQUENCES.

"A boy died lately in Chicago from the effects of swimming in a pond where the carcasses of animals had been deposited."

Such is the assertion of a scientific publication. A simple statement of facts, without inductions, or inferences, or mere opinion is an invaluable faculty possessed by perhaps one in a thousand. Multitudes of fatal errors in relation to health and life are thrown upon the world from time to time by thoughtless or ignorant writers. Only men of thought, of high mental discipline are really capable of a safe use of facts ; it requires a logical mind and great powers of close and accurate observation.

The reader may owe his life to the proper interpretation and practical use of the idea of this article.

The best way of stating the fact above would have been : " A boy died after swimming in a pond where animal carcasses had been deposited." — That is the bald statement. No one knows from this single instance whether he died from staying in too long, or from over-exertion in the water ; or from remaining in until he was chilled ; or from having gone in while heated ; or from going in after a hearty meal. Death has frequent- ly followed from each one of these causes. There are five chances to one that death did not result from decaying carcasses in the water. The daily papers announced yesterday that a woman " caught the cholera " from handling the clothing ki which a cholera patient had died. Here is a fact and a theory so intimately conjoined that thousands of indiscriminating minds and other thousands who are too inert to investigate, would lay down the paper and adopt as a life-long sentiment, that " cholera was catching " from handling- the clothing of the diseased, while the whole med- ical world are divided point-blank on that subject. The facts of the case were, an old woman was made drunk and persuaded by the wife of the deceased to go by night and dig up the clothing which had been buri- ed by order of the Board of Health, to prevent a supposed cause of spreading the disease. The age of the woman, the fatigue, the drunken- ness, the unusual exposure or exercise, were each a possible cause of death.

It was lately stated that a mad-stone* had been applied to a mad dog's bite in eighteen cases, and not one had been attacked with, hydrophobia. The conclusion of nine minds out of ten would be that the mad-stone cured hydrophobia, but neither case was attacked, and the greatest surgeon of his age, John Hunter, stated that out of twenty-one persons bitten by a dog known to be mad, only one became hydrophobic ; and it is not stated that anything was done for either of them. If to a man suffering from actual hydrophobia, the mad-stone was applied and nothing else was done, and he got perfectly well, that would be a practical fact of great value. We have never seen any sucu case recorded. Persons may lose life by losing time in the employment of an inefficient remedy, to the neglect of those of known value.

*The Mad-Stone is said to be obtained from the part of the deer called the rennet, and is larger in the older animals.

28 DIPHTHERIA.

DIPHTHERIA is a Greek word signifying sktn. Diphtherite, as the French call it,, or Diphtberitis, means an inflammation of the skin, as the word " itis" at the end of the name of any part of the body, signifies inflammation, " flaming " of the part. But we have an outside skin and an inside skin, which latter is only a continuation of the former, and covers the internal por- tion of the body as the true skin covers the outside ; this in ternal skin is called the mucous membrane. Hence inflamma- tion of the mucous membrane of the eyelids, of the nose, of the bowels, or of the lungs, is as much diphtheria as the inflamma- tion of the throat or windpipe; but in common speech, it is confined to a peculiar affection of the throat. A thin substance sometimes exudes from trees and hardens on the bark. Diph. theria is an exudation from the inner skin of the throat, the mucous membrane ; this appears in patches, which spread, and harden, and thicken, until the windpipe is perfectly closed, and death is inevitable ; closes as does the spout of a tea-kettle in limestone countries, by continual accretions. In croup, a less solid substance forms, a kind of phlegm, which is more or less tough, but not solid and compact; it also closes the windpipe completely sometimes, and death ensues ; but it is not so leathery in its nature, and is not so difficult of removal. Diphtheria is the more dangerous also, because of the great debility which seizes the patient, and the tendency to destructive ulceration of the parts, a kind of rotting or mortification. The thing then which requires the most instant attention, is the softening of this exuding hardening substance ; and next, the prevention of con- tinued exudation ; doing something to dissolve and bring away the hardening exudation, and then to close the pores or little mouths of vessels which supply the fluid.

The most efficient and unexceptionable method of softening, and dissolving, and loosening this hardening and dangerous exudation, ds that devised by Dr. L. A. Sayre, a distinguished surgeon and physician of New- York City, who puts the patient in a small, close room, makes a flat-iron white hot, suspends it over a pail, pours water on it just fast enough to have every particle evaporated, and before it is cold enough to allow a drop of water to fall into the pail, it is replaced by another hot iron, thus keeping the room full of steam at a temperature of eighty degrees Fahrenheit, for several hours ; meanwhile the membrane

DIPHTHERIA. . 29

softens, becomes more liquid, and is cast off; but all this time the patient's strength must be kept up by the most nourishing yet the mildest articles of food, as beef-tea, soup, jellies, ice- cream, etc., allowing bits of ice to melt in the mouth as long as agreeable. Meanwhile, the interior of the fauces, throat, larynx, etc., as far down as can be reached, should be painted with a camel's hair pencil, or soft mop dipped in a solution of twenty to forty grains of nitrate of silver, dissolved in one ounce, that is, two tablespoons of pure water; repeat this painting as often as is necessary to unclog the throat. Where the patient is old enough to use a gargle, employ a tablespoon of powdered alum in a quart of water; Prof. Meredith Eeese, of this city,. prefers a gargle of two ounces of honey mixed with one ounce each of tincture of capsicum and tincture of myrrh. These are the un- medicinal means to be employed by the family, until a physi- cian arrives, when the case should be placed, implicitly in his hands, especially as convalescence is painfully slow and preca- rious. The terms diphtheria and diphtheritis were introduced by M. Bretonneau, in 1826, to indicate a class of diseases, the dis- tinguishing feature of which was the tendency towards the formation of a false membrane, either on the external or internal skin. He noticed this, says Prof. Eeese, of the New- York Col- lege and Charity Hospital, as an epidemic in France in 1818, 1825, and 1826. It was observed as an epidemic in 1850 in Haverford West, England. It is clearly a constitutional disease, namely, one in which the whole mass of blood is implicated, caused by a peculiar condition or constituent in the atmosphere; this has led to a general but erroneous impression that " diph- theria is catching." It prevails in families, not because it is com- municable under any ordinary circumstances, but because mem- bers of the same household breathe a common air. But if that air is made more foul by emanations from diphtheritic patients, those who are well, and who otherwise would have kept wells will have their vitality lowered by breathing this vitiated air, and hence become proportionably liable to disease of any kind, and which would assume this form in preference, just as in any epidemic, most forms of disease run into that which is preva- lent. Hence it is best when diphtheria appears in a family, either to keep up a thorough ventilation, or, which is easier, safer, and better, send the children to a place several miles distant.

30 DIPHTHERIA.

Diphtheria is essentially a low form of fever, a fever in which the patient rapidly fails in strength, and the whole system is op- pressed. Generally it appears in a mild form, now and then it is exceedingly malignant and fatal, and these few latter cases have thrown around the name a terror which shakes the stoutest hearts, just as there are a thousand cases of scarlet fever which recover of themselves, while now and then there occurs one which is suddenly and fearfully fatal.

Croup and scarlet fever and putrid sore throat are uniformly the result of the application of cold, of a cold taken in one of three ways.

First. An only child of sixteen, spent several hours in a dancing-school ; the room was warm and she danced a great deal, causing free perspiration over the whole body ; at the close, which was about dark of a cold, raw, windy November day, she ran down-stairs and stood on the sidewalk waiting for a companion. She was suddenly chilled, and died in forty- eight hours of malignant, putrid sore throat.

Second. Getting chilled by sitting in a cold, damp room, or at an open window.

Third. Allowing a wet garment to dry on the person, while being still.

The same causes induce diphtheria in a diphtheritic condition of the atmosphere ; hence in winter, spring, and autumn, keep little children indoors the whole of all rainy, thawy, raw, windy days ; and of all days, until after breakfast, and from and after one hour before sun- down ; give them their supper before dark, and send them to bed as soon as the candles are lighted. Next in importance to prevention, is the premonition of diphtheria, the set of signs which indicate its on-coming, and which are peculiar to itself, premising that when scarlet fever is most pre- valent, diphtheria most abounds, as in England in 1858, and in Hew- York City in 1860, where twice as many persons died of scarlet fever in 1860 as in 1859, and never were so many diph- theritic cases reported here as for 1860.

Sore throat, swelling outside, and an exceedingly offensive breath, are among the very first and most distinctive indica- tions ; on opening the mouth, there will be seen on the back part of the throat and tonsils spots of a whitish or grayish white color, with fever and general depression and debility. In the

PRIVATE THINGS. 31

earliest stages, a gargle of salt water should be freely used every fifteen minutes ; a tablespoon of tincture of capsicum to a pint, would be a good addition, as it will be found efficient in rapidly clearing away the accumulations ; at the same time, bind flan- nels around the neck, dipped in salt water, as hot as the patient can bear, renewing every five minutes. The very best advice we can give is simply this, whether diphtheria is in the neighbor- hood or not, if a child from two to twelve years old complains of a sore- throat and has a most offensive breath, send instantly for a physician.

PRIVATE THINGS. — A person called some time ago, who in addition to a throat difficulty, complained that the urine had been coming away in a dribble for years, drop by drop, day and night. There was no remedy. ISTo one can think of being in* such a condition for a week without the most de- cided aversion, but to remain so, hopelessly, for all the long years of life yet to come and go in their weariness, is horrible to think of ! The immediate cause of this distressing malady was a paralysis of the bladder, brought on by resisting the calls of nature to urination from early morning until business hours were over, and making it a habit day after day, on the ground that it interfered with business to give the requisite attention, and not knowing that any harm could come from it.

By retaining the urine too long, the bladder sometimes be- comes so distended as .to burst, and death is inevitable. When the membrane is not ruptured, it is, in a sense, like a bow bent to breaking, and loses all power of action ; the urine can not be discharged ; terrible pains ensue, and death is a speedy result. At other times persons get into the habit of resisting urination ; this induces inflammation, reabsortion into the cir- culation, and is a frequent cause of stone in the bladder, one of the most fearfully painful of human maladies, and when not fatal, requires a dangerous operation, at a cost of several hun- dred or a thousand dollars. This inability to urinate, brought on by deferring the calls, is, under all circumstances, a most distressing, dangerous, and alarming malady, and demands the most prompt and energetic treatment. The object of this ar- ticle is not to propose a remedy, for but too often it proves fatal in two or three days ; it is rather intended as a warning

32 PRIVATE THINGS.

to all to avoid the cause by the easy means of yielding to na- ture's calls habitually and on the instant, however frequent. Medical books give a variety of fatal cases, where the patient was riding in a stage-coach, particularly in cold weather, and re- sisted nature for a whole day. Parents should teach their child- ren that it is a false modesty and a false politeness to put off these calls under any circumstances whatever. It is a thing which should invariably be attended to the last thing at night, and the last thing previous to going to any public assembly, and as nothing can excuse au unnecessary risk of life, so no- thing can excuse resistance to a call for urination.

While on the subject, it is wel] to state that the more a person exercises, the less will be the amount urinated, because the water of the system then passes through the pores of the skin. But when the weather is cold, these pores are to a certain ex- tent closed ; the water is then driven to the interior,- and has to be passed off through the kidneys.

Ordinarily, the urine is high-colored and scant in warm weather, or when from exercise or other cause there is free per- spiration ; in cold weather it is abundant and clear. It is a practice hurtful and unwise to inspect the urine ; its color, con- sistence, and quantity are modified by such a variety of circum- stances of heat and cold, chill and feVer, food and drink, and even by the emotions of the mind, that only a thoughtful phy sician can put a proper estimate on appearances, and even then it must be in connection with all the facts of- the case, bodily, mental, and moral.

Persons suffer a great deal in large cities from the want of public urinals. Scarcely a reader but may remember the time when he would have freely given a dollar for the use of such an institution. These establishments were formerly in Paris, but it was found impossible to keep them clean, and they were declared a nuisance. Hotels are scattered all through our cities, and while no proprietor of respectability would refuse an ac- comodation, yet if it could be brought about, that a tax of half a dime or a penny would secure it as a matter of bargain and sale, leaving both parties independent and free from obli- gation, much relief would be afforded and a great deal of suffer- ing prevented. The whole subject merits the mature attention of every reader.

PRIVATE THINGS. 33

A very hasty and forcible attempt to urinate, especially when the parts are turgid, has resulted in a rupture of the membrane and subsequent stricture, and strictures tend to become more and more aggravated until urination can only be performed by introducing a tube into the bladder, the very thought of which, both as to the trouble and danger of it, well inspires dread. A patient once had practiced this for sixteen years, but on one occasion introducing the instrument carelessly, an artery was ruptured, causing death in a few hours. And yet not one reader in a hundred but thinks it a small matter, and without possible harm to resist the desire to urinate for hours together.

Stooling. — By remaining too long at stool habitually, or by a sudden straining effort, with a view to expedition, the bowels have sometimes fallen down, at others, piles are engendered, as well as by the neglect to have one action of the bowels every twenty-four hours. Ailments of this sort aggravate themselves until it comes about that whenever the bowels act, their inner coating protrudes and the patient has to go to bed and remain there in literal agonies — "worse than death" is a common ex- pression ; sometimes these tortures last for two or three hours, to be repeated every day of the world, and yet between these sufferings the patient often appears in the enjoyment of perfect health. And how is such a terrible calamity induced? In one of three ways ; remaining at stool over eight or ten minutes ; straining rapidly; or third, by deferring the calls of nature until the body gets into the habit of calling every two or three days, instead of regularly every twenty-four hours, and that soon after breakfast. The practice of that

"Linked sweetness long drawn out,1*

of which poets have sung, is competent to cause a life-long dis- ablement. The lesson of the article is, a call of nature as to urination or stooling or the " delays" in the other regard, can never be resisted with impunity in any one single instance, and many a life has been embittered in consequence of ignor- ance of these .things, a life which otherwise would have been one of sunshine and usefulness.

34 CROUPY SEASON.

CBOUPY SEASON.— In the early part of spring many child- ren die of croup, which is simply a common cold settling itself in the windpipe and spending all its force there. Why it should tend to the throat in them, rather than to the lungs as in some grown persons, and to the head of others, giving one man influ- enza, another pleurisy, a third inflammation of the lungs, and a fourth some low form of fever, is not so important as to know the causes of croup and the means of avoiding it. The very sound of a croupy cough is perfectly terrible to any mother who has ever heard it once. In any forty-eight hours, it may carry a child from perfect health to the grave. Croup always origi- nates in a cold, and in nine cases out of ten this cold is the re- sult of exposure to dampness, either of the clothing or of the atmosphere, most generally the latter, and particularly that form of it which prevails in thawy weather, when snow is on the ground, or about sun-down in the early spring season. At mid-day the bright sun lures the children out of doors, and having been pent up all winter, a hilarity and a vigor of exer- cise are induced, much beyond what they have been accustomed to recently. They do not feel either tired or cold ; but evening approaches, the cool of which condenses the moisture contained in the air, this rapidly abstracts the heat from the body of the child, and with a doubly deleterious impression; for not only is the body cooled too quickly, but by reason of the previous exercise, it has been wearied and has lost a great deal of its power to resist cold, hence the child is chilled. Exercise has given it an unusual appetite, a hearty supper is taken, and in the course of the night the reaction of the chill of the evening before sets in, and gives fever ; the general system is oppressed, not only by the hearty meal, but by the inability of the stomach to digest it, and fever, oppression, and exhaustion all combined, very easily sap away the life of the child. In fact, it may yet be found, when the nature of diphtheria is better known, that it is a typhoid croup, malignant croup.

Children should be kept as warmly clad, at least until May, as in the depth of winter ; they should not be allowed to remain out of doors later than sun-down, when they should be brought into a warm room, their feet examined and made dry and warm, their suppers taken, and then sent to bed, not to go outside the doors until next morning after breakfast. All through Febru-

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croup. 35

ary, March, and until the middle of April, especially when snow is on the ground, children under eight years of age should not be allowed to be out of doors at all, later than four o'clock in the afternoon, unless the sun is shining, or unless they are kept in bodily motion so as to keep off a feeling of chilliness. We have never lost a child, but feel that it must be a terrible calamity. Young mothers seldom get over the loss of a first born. Surely, then, it is worth all the care suggested in this article, to avert a calamity which is to be felt until we die. The commonest sense dictates the instant sending for a physician in case of an attack of croup, but the moment a messenger is dis- patched, have three or four flannels, dip them in water as hot as your hand can bear, and apply them successively to the throat of the child, so as to keep the throat hot all the time, so as to evaporate the matters, which if retained, cause the clog- ging up inside which soon stops the breath. Hot water should be constantly added to that in which the flannels are thrown, so as to keep it all the time hot. Keep the water from drib- bling on the clothing of the child, and see to it that the feet are dry and warm. Most likely the child will be out of danger be- fore the physician arrives, and it is pleasant to be able to turn over the responsibility on him. Loose cough, freer breathing, and a copious discharge of phlegm indicate relief and safety.

Croup seldom comes on suddenly. Generally it has at first no other symptoms than those of a common cold, but the very moment the child is seen to carry his hand towards the throat, indicating discomfort there, it should be considered an attack of croup, and should be treated accordingly. When a child is sick of any thing, no physician can tell where that sickness will end. So it is with a cold, it may appear to be a very slight one indeed, still it may end fatally in croup, putrid sore throat, or diphtheria. The moment a mother observes croupy symptoms in a child from two to eight years, the specially croupy age, arranges to keep it in her own room, by her own side, day and night, not allowing it for a moment to go outside the door? keeping the child comfortably warm, so that no chilliness nor draft of air shall come over it. Light food should be eaten, no meats or hot bread, or pastries. The whole body, the feet espe- cially, should be kept warm all the time. Eubbing twenty drops of sweet oil into the skin over the breast, patiently with

36 croup.

the hand, two or three or more times a day, often gives the most marked relief in a cold, thus preventing croup from supervening on an attack of common cold. Such a course promptly pur- sued will promptly cure almost any cold a child will take, and will seldom fail to ward off effectually, in a day or two, what would otherwise have been a fatal attack of croup, with its ringing, hissing, barking sound, and its uneasy, oppressive, and labored breathing, none of which can ever be mistaken when once heard. Many a sweet child is lost thus, the parents are aroused at dead of night with a cough that sug- gests croup ; but it seems to pass off, and in the morning they wake up with a feeling of thankful deliverance from a boding ill. The child runs about all day as if perfectly well ; but the next night the symptoms are more decided, and on the third night the child dies ; but this would have been averted with great certainty, if from the first night, the child had been kept in a warm room, warmly clad, the bowels had been kept free ; and nothing had been eaten but toast with tea, or gruel or stewed fruits.

SPI-KOM-E-TRY, Pronounced with the accent on the ante-penult, or second syllable, teaches the measurement of the breath, and, by a little