liams Post is squarely opposed to Mother Eddy's philosophy, but heartily agrees with her as to taking money for absent treatment. The Government has issued a temporary Fraud Order, restraining her from use of the mails in carrying out her methods of absent treatment. The substantiality of thought is the question the Government has to decide. If the decision should be in favor of the absent treaters, one may well wonder if the people have not become insane or so gullible that insanity were preferable. as long as an anchor, provided the forces which are capable of destroying both are always in an exact ratio to their strength. This golden thought is commended to those who make no effort to control their temper. Every time you let your angry passions rise you over-task or strain the forces so nicely organized to carry you far down the green slope of green old age. The violent and irregular actions of the passions tend to wear away the springs of life.-Dr. Benjamin Rush. EXPECTATION OF LIFE. IN Part II. of Biometrika, a journal which has recently been established for statistical study of biological problems, there is an interesting article "On the change in expectation of life in man during a period of circa 2,000 years," by Professor Karl Pearson. As the outcome of a comparison between the recorded ages of death of a certain number of Egyptian mummies and the rate of mortality of our own times. Professor Pearson calculates that to-day a man of twenty-five years lives on an average fifteen years more than a man of twenty-five years did 2,000 years ago, thus suggesting that, in the course of these centuries, man is remarkably fitted to his enviornment, or else he must have fitted his environment, immeasurably better to himself. Whichever be the correct explanation, both conclusions point perfectly definitely to an evolutionary progress. We wonder what will be the expectation of life 2,000 years hence.-Edinburgh Medical Journal. A WARNING TO SMOKERS. For those fond of both pipe and glass the Lancet has a word of warning. When evil effects ensue upon smoking tobacco, they are, we are told very much intensified by the indulgence in alcohol. The powerfully solvent action of alcohol is sufficient explanation of this: The chief poisonous constituent of tobacco smoke is pyridine and not nicotine. Pyridine is a poisonous base not so easily soluble in water as in alcohol. Pyridine bases can be easily traced in the mouth of an immoderate smoker, and especially the smoker of cigars. An alcoholic drink is therefore calculated quickly to wash out this poisonous oil and to carry it into the stomach, absorption of the poison ensuing, giving rise to definite toxic symptoms, due not so much to alcohol or pyridine bases alone as to the combined action of both in the manner indicated." Wherefore, according to the great medical journal, smokers should be careful to abstain from drinking alcohol at the same time that smoking is indulged in. ON WHAT LIFE DEPENDS. THE duration of life does not appear to depend so much upon the strength of the body, or upon the quantity of its excitability, as upon an exact accommodation of stimuli to each of them. A watch spring will last A tablespoonful of castor-oil poured occasionally in a little trench made around the roots of a rubber plant and afterward covered with earth will give increased growth and beauty of leaves. THE HELPFUL TOAD. A LADY who lives near me has a toad so well trained that it jumps upon her lap and then upon a table near her in order to catch flies. Another lady has tree-toads as pets. They have the freedom of the house and go about hunting flies. Whenever they wish to go out on the porch they hops close to the door and trill. My friend opens the door and out they go. When they wish to return, they approach the door and make the same noise to ask for admittance. They enjoy life indoors and always come back into the house of their own accord. They have a basin of sand for their bed and a large pan of water for their bathtub. They are very orderly and clean. When they wish to sleep they go to their basin of sand, and when to wash, they go to their pan of water for a bath. They hibernate in the house, burying themselves in the basin of sand and remaining in it during the Winter.-Good Housekeeping. THE open-air treatment of pulmonary consumption, says N. Y. Med. Journal, is one of the grandest triumphs of the medicine of the nineteenth century. The profession is now thoroughly convinced that tuberculous pulmonary disease is eminently curable in its early stage by such simple measures as rest, with constant exposure to the open air of a salubrious region and a generous diet of highly nutritious food, also that it is curable even in the absence of one or more of these favorable conditions-nay that it often ends in spontaneous recovery without the assistance of any of them, which fact, however, in no wise excuses failure to press them all into service. The general public is slowly getting to recognize that the consumptive is not necessarily doomed. Facilities for treating the consumptive poor on a large scale are now at hand, or shortly will be, and we may look forward to seeing "the great white plague" conquered within a very few years. KILLING PEOPLE BY BRUTAL TRUTHS. MANY people are killed by brutal truths. Some physicians are so conscientious-and so tactless, that they think they must tell patients the whole truth when they believe they cannot recover, instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt, for every physician knows that, nearly always, there is a doubt which way the case will turn. Cheerful encouragement has saved many a life by helping it to pass a crisis favorably, when the actual truth might have killed the patient or reduced his rallying powers to the danger-point. In all the affairs of life, cruel bluntness in stating the actual facts has caused untold misery and broken many friendships. Truth itself changes from a jewel to a dangerous weapon in the hands of a tactless person. Because a thing is true is no reason it should be told, or told in a way to offend. He who would have many and strong friends must exercise tact in order not offend even by the truth, because it is very difficult for many people to forget even a fancied injury entirely. This is especially true of offenses against taste, or speeches which reflect upon one's pride, ability, or capacity.-Orison Swett Marden, in May Success. HEALTH IS A MAGNET. WHAT a sorry picture is a weak, puny, half-developed youth, starting in the race for success! Few, indeed, are his chances, compared with those of the robust youth who radiates vitality from every pore! How unfortunate it is to be thus handicapped on the threshold of active life! A healthy man is a magnetic man; and unhealthy man is often repellent. Thus health is a success-factor which cannot be overestimated. A half-developed youth, with his puny muscle, must put forth a strong effort of will and mental energy to overcome his de ficiency, that he may do the things which a hardy, robust youth does easily; and it is the thing easily done, not the thing achieved by excessive effort, that attracts the most attention and gives the greatest pleasure. An appearance of strength gives an impression of ability to achieve things, and is of great help in securing a position. There is a strong, involuntary prejudice against weakness of any kind. Therefore, at the beginning of the race, it pays any young man to emulate the example of Theodore Roosevelt in developing a strong physical personality, to overcome any natural or acquired handicap of weakness. We are so constituted that we shrink from abnormalities, deficiencies, and halfdevelopments. While we sympathize with weak people and invalids, we do not have for them the same admiration as for vigorous, energetic people, unless they are relatives or friends. Therefore, the person lacking health lacks the greatest magnet-making forces which compel success to come at his call and abide with him and his household.-O. S. Marden, in Success. FOOD ADULTERATION--A SALIENT CORROBORATION. IN a pure food case that was taken up from Philadelphia to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, says Public Policy, the plea was made that the law is not violated unless the quantity of foreign substance in a food staple is sufficient to injure health. The Supreme Court decision is that any poisonous ingredient, whether in quantity to injure health or not, is a violation of the statute. The cry goes up that this "will affect 20 per cent. of the stock of the average dealer." That assertion is a striking vindication of the law and its enforcement. If one-fifth of the merchandise sold for food contains poisonous ingredients there is a startling necessity for active measures. The stupid plea that the poison is not enough in any one article to hurt the consumer indicates that the vendors never give enough thought to any aspect of the question but the pursuit of the nimble dime and nickel to learn the effect of cumulative poisoning. Certainly when we hear from the trade itself that the practice of mixing poison in food has attained a 20-per-cent. prevalence, it is time for strenuous suppression, aimed with the most vigor at the manufacturers and wholesalers of such articles. WHICH WILL YOU TAKE? ENTERING the office of a well-known merchant, says a writer in The Faithful Witness, I lifted my eyes and found myself confronted with the most thrilling temperance lecture I ever steered myself against in the whole course of my life. It was an inscription marked with a pen on the back of a postal-card nailed to the desk. The inscription read as follows: WHICH? WIFE OR WHISKEY? THE BABES OR THE BOTTLES? "Where did you get that, and what did you nail it up there for?" I asked the merchant. "I wrote that myself and nailed it up there," was the reply, "and I will tell you the story of that card. Some time ago I found myself falling into a drinking habit. I would run out once in a while with a visiting customer, or at the invitation of a traveling man, or on every slight occasion that offered. I soon found that my business faculties were becoming dulled, that my stomach was continually out of sorts, my appetite failing, and a constant craving for alcoholic stimulants becoming dominant. I saw tears in the eyes of my wife, wonder depicted on the faces of my children, and then I took a long look ahead. "One day I sat down at this desk and half unconsciously wrote the inscription on that card. On looking at it upon its completion, its awful revelation burst upon me like a flash; I nailed it up there and read it over a hundred times that afternoon. That night I went home sober, and have not touched a drop of intoxicating liquor since. You see how startling is its alliteration. Now, I have no literary proclivities, and I regard that card as an inspiration. It speaks out three solemn warnings every time I look at it. The first is a voice from the altar, the second from the cradle, and the third and last from-" BLIND CHILDREN. Sweet scent of grass and bloom, How should they know or feel 'They are in darkness? But-O the miracle! Ivy-grown college-walls, Shining loved faces. What a dark world-who knows? Ours to inhabit is! One touch, and what a strange Glory might burst on us, What a hid universe! Do we sport carelessly, Blindly upon the verge Of an Apocalypse? -I. Zangwill, in Lippincott's. INTEMPERANCE AND THE DRUG HABIT. "IF you should ask any one of your neighbors," says Dr. A. P. Grinnell in the Medico-Legal Journal, "What stimulant do you take?' and that person was the advocate of what is called prohibition in Vermont, which means the prohibition of alcohol (the least of all in importance), he would probably say, 'Nothing.' But analyze his or her daily life; consider tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, cocain, quinin, or any of the various table condiments like tobasco sauce, or some of the special brands of catsup, the patent medicines called tonics and blood purifiers, and you will find that there is not one who can say that he does not take some one of the list, and would miss it if he did not. To some men alcoholic stimulant is everything they seem to need to satisfy their craving. What is stimulant to one, however, may not be to another, consequently there is a great variation in the character and amount of the stimulants used. Sooner or later the reformers of the world have got to divert some of their feverish antipathy to alcoholic stimulants and consider calmly and intelligently the drug evil. The deleterious influence on the individual of all forms of drug addiction, and the consequent effect on society and all relations of mankind, make its consideration in its sociologic and criminal aspects of paramount importance. The courts have never given much judicial importance to drug habits, but widespread development of drug addiction must surely, sooner or later, bring the matter into greater legal prominence." I AM that which is. I am all that was and that shall be. No mortal man hath lifted my veil. He is alone by Himself and to Him alone do all things owe their being. -Creed made by Beethoven. Department of Physical Education. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO KINESITHERAPY-PHYSICAL THERAPEUTICS "All the medicine in the world cannot be substituted for exercise." —TISSOT. Edited by G. H. PATCHEN, M.D. MOTION AS A REMEDY FOR CHRONIC JOINT INFLAMMATIONS. A RECENT surgical writer of authority states that the indications for treatment in acute inflammation of joints are: First, the limitation of the inflammatory process; second, the removal of the products of inflammation; third, the prevention of deformity; and, fourth, the restoration of full physiological function. Although the indications for the treatment of chronic joint inflammations are apparently the same, it is a fact worthy of notice that the remedies which prove most successful and satisfactory in the former condition are too often unsatisfactory and disappointing in the latter. What is the explanation of this seeming therapeutic para dox? Why do the same set of symptoms yield to a certain mode of treatment in the one case and fail to do so in the other? What is the potent but hidden agency in the causation or environment of chronic inflammation which renders it so resistant to the action of remedies seemingly appropriate and indicated? This obtrusive difference, this troublesome factor which dominates where it does not thwart therapeutic endeavor, is to be found, I believe, in the constitutional, distinguished from the exciting, causes of disease. as We are too prone to overlook the fact that every disease results from the coöperation of both of the causes mentioned,—that neither of them alone is sufficient to induce any marked or prolonged deviation from health. The numerous external influences and conditions which constitue the exciting causes, undoubtedly affect healthy processes unfavorably, but, in no proper sense, are they the real or essential ones. Their action is local, transient and of infrequent occurrence; their effects are neither uniform nor constant and are always manifested in the part or region possessing the least vitality. The essential causes. are constitutional,-those which reside within the system itself-and are represented by the impaired or deficient activity of the physiological processes whose normal action always results in health. They are ever present and in constant operation. In a therapeutic sense they are by far the most important and constitute the main objects. against which remedial attention and effort should be directed. Remove them, by whatsoever means you may, and the disease of which they are the predisposing and perpetuating cause will rapidly disappear. The difference between, and relative importance of, the exciting and essential causes of disease will be readily seen in their true light by the following illustration. Supose that a number of persons, each in the enjyoment of good health, are camping out, and that, during the night when all are sleep, a great wind and rainstorm, accompanied with a decided fall of temperature, blows over their tent. Before anything can be done to prevent it, every one has been subjected to a powerful extraneous or exciting cause of disease, namely, exposure to wet and cold. Now, it is evident that if this exposure were the only, or even the most important, disease-pro |