Most of them, according to my knowledge, are fairly plump and robust.

Fifth, I have no desire to minimize or ignore the fact that both the insensible and sensible perspiration may contain substances other than those pertaining to physiological waste. The same thing happens to the breath, especially in regard to substances of a volatile nature. Hence, the sour, ammoniacal and other (diabolical) odors observable in both of these forms of exhalation. It remains to be proved, however, whether even these substances escape more abundantly when the perspiration is active enough to become visible. It is highly probable that the heat and moisture which are prominent factors of this form of perspiration cause these undesirable particles of matter to become more rarefied and more widely diffused, thereby making their presence more readily perceived. Abnormal and obnoxious substances of this nature are found in the exhalations of the breath and skin because, owing to unhygienic habits, they have accumulated in the system beyond its power to reduce them, by oxidation, to completed and innocuous forms of waste. In such an extremity Nature makes use of every, even extraordinary, means to get rid of them. But this action, however necessary at times, is abnormal and should always be looked upon as such. It is an instructive exhibition of one of the many methods Nature has at command to use, when compelled to do so, for protection and defense.

G. H. PATCHEN, M.D.

It overcomes many of the obligations to the prolonged use of the iodides.

Query 106. I have read your paper on "Sleep" with much interest, and will be much obliged if you can give me some suggestions as to the different grades of the felt mattresses, as I intend to purchase one of that material. M. F. H., Brooklyn.

Answer. We have had no experience with any but the ordinary grade. It is very satisfactory in every way, which leads us to infer that the higher priced grades are different only in covers and finish rather than in essential qualities.

Query 107. Will you kindly let me know the difference between Albumen, Proteid, Casein. Also I am very desirous of knowing where I can get a proteid powder containing over 80 per cent of this substance. Something like "Plasmon," only more reasonable, as that preparation is too expensive for continued daily use. If you can let me know where I can obtain this powder, it will be greatly appreciated by, very truly yours,

Ř. W. O., Brooklyn.

Answer. The name Proteid is a generic one. Nearly all the foods in use contain variable proportions of it. Its exact chemical formula is not yet definitely determined.

Albumin is a form of proteid derived principally from eggs. The popular term. albumen— note the spelling-is applied to a substance of which albumin is the base and principal part. The two are not quite identical.

Casein is the proteid of milk from which plasmon is prepared.

Tropon is another proteid preparation recently placed upon the market by the German chemists. It is prepared from both animal and vegetable albumins and is asserted to be the most economic form of this food-source. We have had no practical experience with it.

All the cereals contain a good percentage of the proteids. Of these you might get satisfactory results from Granose Flakes, Grape-nuts. and from all the preparations from the germ of wheat and

corn.

Protose and Nuttose are wholesome and comparatively economic sources of proteid.

These various products will be found in the hands of the best grocers. Some of the Department stores keep them in stock.

Of animal proteids in concentrated form, Somatose and Armour's Soluble Beef are examples. The former is rather expensive, while the latter is more reasonable in price. It should not be confounded with beef extracts, which stimulate but do not nourish, as they contain almost no proteids.

THERE is naturally a tendency with the busy physician, after carefully taxing his skill in diagnosis and in the selection of remedies, to give less attention to many little details of a hygienic nature than their importance demands. As a result of the greatly increased resources in medicine at the present, there has never been a period when the physician realized so strong an invitation to think of but little else than his materia medica in securing relief for his patient. The anmial, vegetable and mineral kingdoms have yielded their generous offerings until the lists of medicines for every ailment are replete in numbers. Chemistry and pharmacy have purified and embellished these products until their use with the sick is gratefully accepted as a substitute for the unpleasant crudities formerly in use as medicines.

Amid such surroundings even the well meaning practitioner will realize a proneness to make a too exclusive use of his plentitude of inviting remedies. However great the number and convenience of our remedies may be, there is commonly found a list of important indications to meet the wants of Nature in disease that medicines will not fill. The preeminence of Nature in her vital processes makes it imperative that her calls receive careful attention during our aid in establishing a normal condition where disease exists. The true physician is but the servant of Nature and not her master.

No. 2.

Obedience to her mandates is the limit of his duty, and the only condition by which success is secured. We may fail in this duty, not only by the omission of needful hygienic provisions, but by acts of commission resulting from a failure to observe indications revealed by vital manifestations. The use of drugs to control symptoms with undue reference to real physiological requirements are liable to be hostile to Nature as an obstacle to her efforts. We may check a diarrhea that Nature has established for the removal of a cesspool of filth, that is threatening the health and life of the patient, as a culture medium for pathogenic bacteria. Quietude, restricted diet and a free use of water would be Nature's means in ler cleansing process before the physician's restraining dose is proper.

From irregular habits, or a continued over-indulgence in food, assimilation is disturbed, and Nature attempts the removal of offending products by the formation of urates, which, as they are floated from the system, cloud the urine and form a sediment that is a fearful sight to the patient. The physician, with no reference to Nature's wants, may check this flow by precipitating uric acid from the fluids of the system by the use of mineral acid, or neutralize it with alkalies, and thus destroy the provisions of Nature for the removal of useless and baneful products. If before we thus prescribe, a thought is spent on Na

ture's teaching, we readily perceive that this disturbed secretion is a friendly effort in the kidneys to aid in removing effete material that the other eliminating organs have failed to do. Either from their imperfect action or from a demand beyond their normal capacity morbid elements are accumulating in the systemic fluids. In Nature's laboratory these elements are converted into urates as a means of conveying them through the kidneys, and he whose perceptions are not obtunded by a prevailing propensity for the exclusive use of drugs in treating disease can readily recognize Nature's calls for hygienic aid. Her importunities are for a regulated diet that wil! limit the production of effete material; increased exercise to favor assimilation, frequent warm baths to open the innumerable avenues of the skin, and an abundance of pure water as a drink to cleanse the living tissues and serve as a medium for elimination through the kidneys and skin. By thus contributing to Nature's wants, she will gladden the heart of the patient by relief with a promptness not to be secured by the exclusive use of the chemist's products or the physician's doses.

If we turn to the dyspetic, whose aspirations are clouded by the gloom of despair, we can witness in his suffering the protest of Nature against the continued violation of her laws. She demands a reformation of habits to avoid more serious results that must follow their continuation; and the use of digestive ferments and tonics for relief, in the absence of hygienic regulations, is but a source of encouragement to the patient to persist in his wanton digressions from Nature's laws. Care in the habits of such cases is so important a factor in their treatment that the physician who ignores the necessity of making it obligitory with the patient fails in his treatment. Such conditions may owe their existence to excessive indulgence in food. A sensual class of humanity apparently live to eat, and make the gratification of appetite the chief of life's pleasures. In regulating the quantity of food required no specified amount

can be considered appropriate in all cases. The age, habits and conditions of individuals create a difference in their respective requirements that must govern the physician in his advice. The same may properly be said of the quality of food. While an atonic state of the stomach demands wellseasoned food of good quality, the hyperesthetic condition of this organ will only permit the use of the mildest articles with impunity.

The necessity of a liberally mixed diet should never be lost sight of in disease of the stomach, as well as in most other conditions of ill-health.

It is an absolute requirement in health, and no such change in the laws of our being exists in sickness as to justify a deviation from this requirement. Too often patients are fed from a single dish, as though nothing else could be used, until its sameness makes it repugnant, when, with a proper variety, it would be relished in greater quantities.

Next in importance to the kind of food taken is the periods at which it should be used. These should always embrace sufficient time for the digestive process, plus a period of rest for the stomach. Food that is even carefully selected will soon destroy the normal activity of the stomach if taken at such frequent intervals as allow of no period of rest for this organ. To make these periods more definite in duration all food that is used within a given number of hours should be taken at once. The manner of taking food also calls for special attention. The prevailing custom with many persons of eating as much in ten minutes as should occupy half an hour is highly inconsistent with the welfare of the stomach in health and a positive barrier to the successful treatment of the dyspeptic.

We do not feel that by the enumeration of these hygienic principles we are teaching anything new to the intelligent physician, but it is hoped they will forcibly suggest to all the necessity of their scientific application in disease.

If we even turn to its more acute forms,

where the prompt influence of medicines is more commonly a necessity, there is still a call for hygienic care, for which nothing can be substituted. In addition to what has been said concerning diet there is here an increased importance to be attached to cleanliness, pure air, its temperature and the extent of its supply. In a long experience I am convinced that no hygienic provision is more neglected in the sick chamber than that pertaining to air. As a rule the patient prostrated with acute disease is in need of more air and less food than is commonly supplied. In the continued fevers, one of the first provisions of Nature is to suspend all desire for food. She has ceased the normal activities of life for repairs, and while devoting her energies to the removal of offending elements she provides against the encumbrance of supplies. In our extravagant desire to preserve the vital forces we too commonly urge the use of nourishment when its unwelcome reception by the patient should prove an admonition to our efforts as being in opposition to Nature's calls. The fevered lips and stiffened tongue may no longer articulate words for our instruction, yet their appearance alone reveals a condition of the stomach not favorable to the admission of food. Milk is too often used in such conditions, when it serves more as a culture medium for pathogenic bacteria than a nourishment for the patient. Where food is so evidently contra-indicated air and water are our chief hygienic resources, and yet how often we find provisions for the former limited to the trifling elevation of a window. We seem to forget its value in sustaining strength and preserving life, and that the destruction of its vitalizing properties is not confined to the consumption of its oxygen, and that the stillness of a darkened sick chamber quickly robs its atmosphere of the exhilarating and life-sustaining qualities so needful to the patient. The extent to which the quality of air is improved by a state of motion is seen in the refreshing influence of a passing breeze in the heat and stillness of a summer day. We also fail to appre

ciate the value of atmospheric motion as a regulator of temperature. It is Nature's favorite provision for this purpose in health, and is of no less importance in sickness. Such motion of the air in a room as can be secured by an electric fan would greatly improve its quality, and if the current is mildly directed to the patient it will prove a more natural, congenial and convenient antipyretic than any water bath that can be devised. As the fan will cool the heated face, so it will cool the heated body. Where the double purpose of cleansing and cooling the surface exists, water is the great hygienic resource and its value for internal use is of still greater importance. It is Nature's first and greatest demand in all acute conditions. Its free and frequent use is refreshing to the patient, modifies febrile action, dilutes toxins, improves the volume of a feeble pulse, and is the greatest aid to elimination from the skin and kidneys. It is desirable to take, easy to obtain, safe in its action, and reliable in its results. Nothing will fill its place and no other one article will meet an equal number of indications.

Such is a brief reference to a portion of the resources in hygienic therapeutics, and although the limit of this article forbids the consideration of others, including rest, exercise, position of patients, heat, cold, mental influences, etc., it is hoped enough has been said to emphasize the importance of a due recognition of the value of hygienic resources in the treatment of disease.

OVERWORKED women should heed the lesson set to them by Mayor-Elect Low, during the recent campaign. The strain of weeks of speechmaking and political work previous to election day was easily borne, largely, according to Mr. Low himself, because he did not let a day pass without his hour's rest and nap. Often it seemed wellnigh impossible to take the time, but the rule was strictly followed, and the result was a comfortable finish of all effort without any reactionary ill effect.

WHILE water laden with the germs of disease, and the poisonous substances called toxins produced by them, and decomposing animal and vegetable matters poisons the system and produces typhoid and other fevers and many acute intestinal and other diseases and causes the sudden death of thousands, the mineral elements contained in the water we drink and in that which is used in preparing our food are far more disastrous to health and life, but, being much slower in their action, are consequently unrecognized and unthought of. A French physiologist has truely said: "A man is as old as his arterics.

Please remember this, for it is very important: "A man is as old as his arteries."

What makes our arteries old? Young, healthy blood vessels are very elastic and allow the blood to circulate freely through them. In old age they become hard and unyielding, their capacity is diminished, and the blood stream becomes smaller and moves with less rapidity. These changes are caused by the deposit within the walls of the blood vessels, of fibrinous and gelatinous

substances, and of lime and other earthy compounds contained in the water taken into the system in food and drink. This deposit is liable to take place in the dense structure of any of the joints, in the tendons and muscles, in short, wherever the blood circulates, which, of, course, is in every organ and tissue of the body, in the heart, the lungs, the digestive organs, the various organs of secretion and excretion, the brain and nervous system, &c., producing various diseased conditions, impairing the action of one and all and hastening the time when the human machine will cease to act and the spirit take its departure.

Read before the 100 Year Club at Hotel Majestic, 72d St. and Central Park West, Nov. 26, 1901.

The following from Dr. C. W. De Lacy Evans, the noted author, physician and surgeon, of London, states the case truly and forcibly.

"The combinations of lime held in solution in the water we drink, when taken into the stomach, are soon distributed throughout the system and deposited in all the tis sues, exactly as they are precipitated, and form incrustations on the bottoms of kettles in which water is boiled. The result is general induration, partial, and often, in some organs and tissues, complete ossification. The bones become brittle; the joints and muscles stiff and rheumatic; gravel and stones form in the bladder; the kidneys, liver, heart, nerves and brain become indurated and sluggish in their action; all the bodily functions are impaired; the nerves weaken; the mind loses its vigor; the memory fails and senillity and death creep on."

The evil influence of hard and mineral waters is, therefore, a chief producing cause of the conditions that constitute old age as well as many of the more serious diseases of mankind, and demands the earnest

consideration of every one who desires health, activity and length of days.

It is a common idea among the people that the minerals contained in spring and other waters are necessary to properly nourish the body, but chemists and physiologists know that inorganic minerals, such as contained in water, cannot be assimilated and used, but must be removed from the body or remain to obstruct and impair vital action. A volume could be filled with scientific tes

timony as to the truth of these statements in regard to minerals in water.

Our food contains in organized forms. suitable for immediate use, all the minerals necessary for the needs of the body.

All city supply waters, and all spring and well waters, necessarily and inevitably contain more or less of these inorganic minerals and earthy matters in solution, and are objectionable in proportion to the quantity present. The purest are the best, but the purest are not good enough. The purest spring waters, and the most popular ones,