And yet nothing is more common than to see persons who have passed from a life of varied activity to one of a purely sedentary nature, continue to eat merely because they have been accustomed to it as much food as if they were still engaged in constant bodily exertion. Many females of the higher and middle classes, who scarcely ever stir out of doors, except to church, nevertheless make as hearty meals twice or thrice a day, as if they were undergoing pretty severe exertion; but they sooner or later reap their reward, and, after groaning for a time under the burden which they have placed upon their own shoulders, they either obtain relief by the forced adoption of a temperate regimen, or 'fall into the hands of the undertaker.'

table. In a short time she began to complain of irritability, lassitude, various spasmodic sensations, and habitual constipation. Hypochondria was soon added to the other symptoms; her hope of becoming a mother being always deceived, an additional glass of wine, bark, and other tonics was ordered. The evil increased. The patient became melancholic, and believed that she was always swallowing pins. In the course of a year she became so emaciated and yellow, that her mother, who had not seen her for eleven months, could scarcely recognise her. After an eighteen months' course of purgatives and two courses of Marienbad-water, she entirely recovered.* If the medical adviser first consulted in this case, had possessed the slightest acquaintance with the principle I have been explaining, he would no more have regarded wine and tonics as the best remedies for the oppressive languor of excessive feeling, than he would have sought to extinguish a flame by pouring oil into the fire.

In towns, we often observe the bad effects of over-feeding in young female servants recently arrived from the country. From being accustomed to constant exercise in the open air, and to the comparatively innutritious diet on which the labouring classes subsist, they pass all at once, with appetite, digestion, and health in their fullest vigour, to the confinement of a house, to the impure atmosphere of a crowded city, and to a rich and stimulating diet. Appetite, still keen, is freely indulged; but waste being diminished, while nutrition is increased, fulness is speedily induced, followed in its turn by inflammatory disease or fever, which sometimes cuts short life, where, with better management, health might have been preserved for years. In many instances, again, life is saved by the digestive powers being the first to give way, and refusing either to receive or to concoct the same quantity of aliment as before, and the patient then escapes with the minor evils of protracted indigestion. This latter result ensued in an instructive case mentioned by Heidler, where a moderate acquaintance with the laws of the animal economy might have saved months of suffering, and even of danger, to the patient:A young woman, of a healthy constitution, brought up in all the simplicity of country habits, passed at once, on her marriage, to a less active Heidler, Marienbad, et ses differens moyens mode of life, and to a much more elegant | curatifs dans les maladies chroniques, p. 62.

The operation of the same principle is equally conspicuous in girls sent from the country to the work-rooms of fashionable milliners and dress-makers in the larger towns. Accustomed to constant and varied activity in the open air, they are transferred at once to the confinement all day, and even to a late hour at night, in the impure atmosphere of a crowded work-room, and there, engaged in sedentary occupations of the most monotonous description, which, so far from allowing them any opportunity of enjoying adequate muscular exercise, scarcely admit of their even changing their position. Under such circumstances little waste takes place, and the appetite and digestive powers both give way, because less food is now required to repair the diminished loss. If the individual adapts her eating to her change of circumstances, she may escape severe disease; but if, as generally happens, from pure ignorance, she continues to eat to the same extent as before, head-aches, sickness, bilious disorder, and indigestion, will be among the smallest of her evils, and she will

have reason to be thankful if she does said in regard to the necessity of proper not become the victim of confirmed bad management during the period of tranhealth. In establishments of this de-sition from youth to manhood-a period scription the provision of the means of during two or three years of which, exercise, even by dumb-bells, shuttle- more good or more mischief may be cock, or otherwise, in a large room with done to the human constitution, than open windows for a few minutes, several during almost any other ten years of times a day, would not only prevent life. That, in times past, pressmen much suffering, but even repay itself in have suffered at least as much from their an economical point of view, by pro- own mismanagement as from the nature ducing an increased aptitude for work, of their employment, is rendered proand less frequent absence on account of bable by their proverbial dissipation. illness. In these days of wide-spreading In utter ignorance of the structure and philanthropy, considerations of this kind laws of the animal economy, they not ought to be more attended to. unnaturally sought to relieve the exhaustion under which they suffered, by the stimulus of spirituous and other intoxicating liquors, instead of seeking it

tined, and at a cheaper rate—in a more wholesome and nourishing diet. It is gratifying to perceive, however, that in this, as in many other trades, the progress of knowledge is already leading to the prevalence of more rational ideas, and to the consequent formation of better habits.

The necessity of proportioning the supply of food to the expenditure incurred and to the mode of life, is still farther illustrated in the case of indi--where only it can be effectually obviduals changing from an agricultural or other employment carried on in the open air in the country, and involving no very great bodily labour, to one of a mechanical kind carried on in an impure atmosphere, in a city, and requiring a severe and continued muscular exertion. It is a matter of experience, for example, that the stout young men from the country, who are generally selected as apprentices for the laborious occupation of letter-press printing, almost uniformly break down during the first ten or twelve months, and it is only after some years' training that they are are able to withstand the fatigue. The vitiated atmosphere in which they work has some share in producing this result, but the chief cause is undoubtedly the inadequacy of their ordinary diet to repair the great expenditure of muscular energy to which they are habitually subjected, and for which they have not been previously prepared. Four strong and healthy lads were engaged in the summer of 1835 as pressmen, and put to work along with an equal number of experienced men. Before the following February, every one of the former had been laid up from sickness for weeks, although the whole of them are of the most sober and steady habits; while not one of the older and more experienced men felt any inconvenience from his exertions. This very instructive fact is also deserving of attention, as corroborating what I have elsewhere

There is no period of life during which it is of greater importance to follow the intentions of Nature in the regulation of diet, both as to quantity and quality, than during the earliest part of childhood; for at no period is the neglect of them more fatal. Surprise is sometimes expressed at the number of children who are carried off before completing their first or second year; but when we consider the defective education and entire ignorance of the human economy, not only of the nurses and servants to whose care the young are entrusted, but of the parents themselves, our wonder ought to become greater that so many survive, than that so many die. There is, perhaps, not one mother in ten thousand, who, before becoming such, has ever inquired into the nature and wants of the newlyborn infant, or knows on what principles its treatment ought to be directed; and hence the hurtful and superstitious notions of the human economy which still linger in the nursery, long after they have ceased to prevail in the world of science.

(To be continued.)

THE CURING OF COLDS.

We do not know that we need here to say. much on diet. The meal at nightthe third meal we mean-often causes the night cough, when, if it had been omitted, all would have gone on well; but

many prefer the cough rather than to omit the meal. The first part of the homely old saying, "Stuff a cold and starve a fever," does not, however, hold good.

SCROFULA-A CASE.
BY M. S. GOVE, U.S.

MISS L. S., was a child of diseased application.) This process was conparents-the father a drunkard, the tinued unremittingly the first twentymother died young of consumption. four hours, and, in all cases, should be This child was attacked with purulent continued till the heat abates. The next ophthalmia at two years. The glands morning after her first attack, she was of the throat were also affected. Health washed in Castile soap suds. After this, conditions at her home were almost all clean water was poured over her as she wanting. The food of the child was stood in the tub, and then she was very bad, pork and lard making a con- thoroughly rubbed. After the first siderable portion of it. At the age of twenty-four hours the fever had so far ten years she went to reside with a abated, that frequent changes of the wet relative, who fed her on plain substan- sheet did not seem needful; but, for tial food, giving her no flesh, but the several days, almost constant bathing of lean muscle, and this but once a day. the head, arms and feet were resorted She was bathed daily in cold water. to, and the sheet was renewed once an The first year after being thus treated, hour. After the fever abated, so that she had a fever. In the course of the next the patient could be put in dry clothes, year, she was affected with scrofulous she was wholly bathed several times in sores in the head. A large quantity of the day, and she bathed constantly her matter was thrown off. Shower bathing arms, chest and head. The quantity of and constant bathing the head, and scrofulous matter discharged from the syringing the ears were resorted to. throat was almost incredible. The throat The first attack was in autumn. The was gargled at first with Castile soap next autumn she passed through a suds, and afterwards with clear cold similar affection of the head, with the water very frequently. This fever might same treatment. The third year after well be termed a crisis, in which the sea bathing, she was attacked with scar- system relieved itself of psoric matter. let fever. The writer was called early In three weeks the patient was convaone morning, with the information that lescent. During the whole illness, the L. S. was ill and delirious. Found her only substance used which could be in a raging fever, the scarlet rash ap- called medicinal, was the soap. The pearing like a flame over the whole food was gruel made of wheaten meal, surface of the body. She was imme- and bread of the same. diately undressed and put in a common shower bath, and a large quantity of water poured over her. The steam arose as if the water had been poured on hot iron. After this bath she was thoroughly rubbed, and wrapped in a wet sheet, and put in bed. The heat continued intense, the throat was terribly swollen, but the delirium was gone. The wet sheet was wrung out of a tub of cold water once in fifteen minutes, and the tub of water changed once an hour. (It would have been better to have had clean water for each

After she became convalescent, a physician called and advised a cathartic. I objected strongly, and none was taken, or needed. The triumph of cold water was complete in this case, and the cure created much remark, where the scrofulous habits of the patient were known. After this fever, she had no affections of the head, nor any indications of scrofula. Previously she was dull and stupid-now she is active and bright.

more

This case was treated several years since. I should not now use soap, as I then used it.

THINGS WORTH KNOWING.