obviously, have to be disposed of in some other way, and the task of so disposing of it must be prejudicial at once to the organs of nutrition and the organs of excretion. In a word, the persistence of the disease complained of, and the accompanying emaciation, may be, in a great measure, owing to the excess of food taken. In other words, when what is called a good nourishing liberal diet is prescribed in the class of cases to which we refer and they are a numerous class-the remedy becomes the cause of the persistence of the disease. The superfluous food taken is worse than wasted. The stomach, &c. cannot effect the amount of good digestion and nutrition that they otherwise would, because they are irritated and oppressed; and hence it is easy to understand how one should become stouter and fatter after reducing the amount of food one-third, and, at the same time, increasing the amount of exercise. The unhealthy evacuations from the bowels, turbid urine, vomitings of bile, offensive odour from the skin and breath, do, in many cases, a "tale unfold," in reference to this matter, that is too little heeded or understood. Careful experiment and observation will enable any patient to ascertain the amount of food suitable in his individual case. When there is distress of stomach after eating, heat and heaviness of head, and dullness of spirits, it is more than probable that a less quantity of food would have done more to nourish the body and supply strength. The quantity should be gradually reduced, until a real diminution of strength begins to be apparent, and then very slightly increased. Care, however, must be taken that timidity and groundless fears are not allowed to mar the experiment, and that the feeling of weakness, along with increased capacity of enjoying rest, which for a time follows the diminution of irritability, is not mistaken for loss of organic strength. As in the case of high delirium in fever, although of course, in a very inferior degree, a feeling of strength attends many kinds of irritability, which is merely the result of an excessive expenditure of strength. When the irritability is removed, a temporary feeling of weakness, along with increased quietude, does not denote a real want of strength. The patient has then only discovered the true amount of strength which he possesses. Of course, all who wish to have strength and health must take a large share of active exercise in good air. This will pull the body quickly down, and, as we have indicated, it may seem to be rather lean, although rapidly and soundly nourished. In such a case a good liberal diet will be necessary, but not, perhaps, the diet that many at the present time would consider as such. We hope the day is coming when all will eat heartily, and be the happier and the better for so doing; but the grand point before us is, how can those who are at present unable to do so become able? and in many, very many instances, there can be no doubt a reduction of their present amount of diet is an indispensable step in that direction. Any increase of muscular exercise, and the practice of cold bathing, would, doubtless, tend to render excess of diet less hurtful, or, in other words, such increase would, of course, give rise to a need for a larger quantity of food than would otherwise be proper. Patients who are under the water-cure require, therefore, more food than those who are less active, &c. It is a bad indication when those who have been for any considerable length of time in a water-cure establishment do not eat heartily, but even then some cases may long require caution, and at the commencement of a course of treatment many would profit by being put, for a few days at least, upon "short commons." It would be much better, however, if many of those who intend to repair to such institutions would somewhat limit their ordinary diet for a few days before leaving home. This would not reduce their real strength, if they have previously been continuing to take part in business or other labour. They should have the idea that strength will not be a point of the first importance when they arrive, as they will be released from ordinary labour, and will not be required to be more active at anything than the degree of strength they will carry with them will be found to qualify them for; while the comparative rest to the organs of digestion, purity of blood, &c., which the partial abstinence would secure, would be much in favour of their subsequent improvement in health. Extra work of brain or body is often gone through in making preparations for leaving home for the water-cure. This is no objection against the limitation of diet we recommend. It is rather an argument in its favour. Especially when there is an increase of brain-work upon any particular occasion, it is advisable to limit the quantity of food, as the stomach fails to be supplied with its usual energy in such circumstances. And even in serious increase of bodily exercise, when the increase does not extend over any very lengthened period, the amount of food taken should be very slightly increased, if at all. Many lose half the benefit of an extra day, or a few days of opportunity of taking increased bodily exercise, by two much increasing the supply of food. It can be scarcely necessary to add, that those who have the amount of bodily exercise to which they have been accustomed reduced, either by accident laying them up-removal from country to town-from physical labour to study, must reduce the amount of food that they could formerly turn to good account, if they would now preserve their health.-Aberdeen Sanitary Reformer. NEITHER Would I; because such a man is wanting in the quality of mercy. He is a selfish man, and therefore unfit for friendship in the best sense of the term. His "fine sense" is merely apparent; his “polished manner" is put on for the same purpose as his diamond ring, and as easily taken off, when occasion is supposed to call for it. Should he tell me that the life he takes is but that of a worm, I reply that his defence is, unwittingly it may be, a sneer at the wisdom and skill of the Creator who fashioned the so-called "meanest things" as well as the highest intelligences of the universe. But trampling a worm to death is, in most cases, an unpremeditated act of cruelty-a palliation which cannot be extended to those fashionable hordes who, since the Twelfth," have been prowling over the moors and through the forests in search of birds and beasts conventionally considered worthy of being slaughtered by their gun. In this half of the nineteenth century of the Christian era-this age of Bibles, of missions, of associations innumerable for the amelioration of mankindthis relic of barbarism still holds its place in our beloved land. Its only defence is its worst feature-it is "sport." A pleasant pastime to employ the superior sagacity with which man is endowed, in waylaying and entrapping the graceful and timid deer of the forest, or the grouse of our Highland moors, in order to fire bullets into their bodies, and witness their dying agonies; albeit also to indulge their wretched vanity of showing friends such ghastly trophies of skill with the weapon of death! Sad it is to contemplate such a mode of enjoying a holiday, or dispelling ennui, as that adopted almost exclusively by the so-called "educated classes." Defective, indeed, must have been their education, if it failed to reach the moral sense of the pupils if it did not teach them to be harmless and merciful, and to view, as a sin against God, the destroying of any of his creatures unless the necessities of man demand it. The education which recognises cruelty as a legitimate ingredient of recreation is sadly at variance with the school of Christ, whose maxims are meekness, gentleness, mercifulness. Association, circumstance, companionship are ever continuing our education-ever evoking our faculties in a right or wrong direction. In this slaughtering occupation, familiarity with the expressions of suffering by those creatures, dumb brutes though they be, and the effort to repress compassion for them, cannot but destroy the finer sense, and brutalise those who find pleasure in such sport. Its votaries, too, are men of "social position "-of influence; and, moreover, cruelty is of itself a very infectious crime. It is, therefore, with concern that the Christian contemplates the moral turpitude made to permeate society by means of the 66 respectability" "which is accorded to cruel sports by the dignitaries of the country and the leaders of the people. The holiday of the Christian, like every other day, must be characterised by a sense of his duties to God, to his brethren in Christ, and his brethren of the world. If, however, he can, consistently with these duties, leave his usual sphere at this delightful time, and commune with the " 'visible forms" of nature, and through them with the God of nature, also the God of his salvation, it will conduce very much to exalting his ideas of the Deity, increasing his gratitude, and expanding his heart and mind with a larger and nobler love. Not without their beneficial lessons-best enforced and most pleasantly learned now-are the "moors and the forests;" the mountains and rivers; the fields, lately green, now golden with ripe grain; the benign sky and balmy air; the gladsomeness of vegetable life matured, and all nature in the mood and array of joy.—W.—Christian Advocate, September, 1861. WHAT WE NEED TO EAT. [We are indebted for the following article to the Phonetic Journal, a weekly contemporary, devoted to the Reading, Writing, and Spelling Reform. It often contains valuable papers bearing on Dietetic Reform, Temperance and other good movements. We commend it to our readers' notice.] EATING is one of the necessities of life; but when, what, and how much we could eat, every man must settle for himself, since the saváns have failed to agree upon any system. If we are governed by appetite, and the sense of taste, stimulated by all the refinements and inventions of gastronomy, we are very likely to err on the side of gluttony, and bring upon ourselves serious diseases. If, on the other hand, we are too abstemious-but there is so little danger of that, we need not take time to enlarge upon it. Even the experienced trainers of the prize-ring cannot decide what is the best food for training men up to their greatest powers of endurance. In England they have a prejudice in favour of mutton chops and underdone beefsteaks, but it is by no means sure that this is the best. The Roman soldiers, who conquered the world, and built roads from Lisbon to Constantinople, and who were all trained athletics, marching under a weight of armour and baggage that few men in our day could carry, lived on coarse brown wheat or barley bread, which they dipped in sour wine. In our own day the Spanish peasants are among the strongest and most agile men in the world. One of them will not hesitate to take a mad bull by the horns. will work all day in a copper-mine, or at the olive-press, or the wine-press, under a hot sun, and then dance half the night to the music of a guitar. What does he live on? A piece of black bread, an onion, perhaps half a water-melon. You may see him dipping his piece of bread into a horn of olive oil, and then into some vinegar made hot with pepper and garlick, and he is happy. Sometimes he gets a draught of harsh, sour wine, but not strong. All the strong wine is sent to England. He The Smyrna porter walks off with a load of 800 weight. His only food, day after day, is a little fruit-a handful of dates, a few figs, a bunch of grapes, some olives. He eats no beef, pork, or mutton. His whole food does not cost him a penny a day. And the climate of the south of Spain, or of Smyrna, where the plague is almost endemic, cannot be considered better than ours. The Coolie, living on his rice, can outwork the negro fed on bacon. The Arab, living on his rice and dates, conquered half the world. Not only may the most tremendous muscular force and great powers of endurance be nourished upon a very light vegetable diet, but great mental energies as well. For example: Saint Gregory Nazienzen lived on bread, herbs, and salt. The great Saint Ambrose, of Milan, lived in rigorous abstinence, and seldom broke his fast before noon. Saint Chrysostom, called on account of his eloquence the Goldenmouthed, ate one meal a day of bread and herbs. Saint Augustine lived on apples and herbs. Saint Bernard, the ablest and most influential man in Europe in the twelfth century, lived on coarse bread softened in warm water; and great numbers of the ablest and most eminent men, in all times, have lived in great abstinence. We eat too much. Many people eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper-five meals a day, and four of them hearty ones, with various kinds of fleshmeat and prepared dishes. A majority of Americans eat flesh three times a day. Irish labourers, who never ate flesh a dozen times in their lives, come here rosy with health and strong as oxen. They fall into the habits of the country-eating pork, and drinking tea, coffee, and whisky-and in two or three years they lose their rosy cheeks, bright eyes, their strength and endurance. They have sallow skins, bad teeth, and rheumatism, They lay it to the climate. It is to be attributed far more to the change in their habits of eating and drinking. If Irishmen who come here would live here just as they do at home, they would not complain of the climate. The smartest Irishwoman we know of a little woman who can roll a barrel of flour up to a room in the third story, and walk ten miles without prejudice to a hard day's work-has not tasted meat for twenty years, and lives every day on a little bread, and a pennyworth of milk boiled up with a very weak cup of coffee. Our sanitary reformers have not looked to the diet question; will they allow us to call their attention in that direction? The stomach is the centre citadel of organic life. It is worth a little consideration, as well as the lungs and skin, which depend upon it.-New York Weekly. THE TURKISH BATH. THE hygienic properties of the Turkish bath are thus stated in a work by Mr. Erasmus Wilson : The skin, from its large extent, deserves to be ranked among the great organs of the body, and belongs especially to that group that are commonly called emunctoryin other words, the cleansers or purifiers of the blood. In this sense it ranges side by side with the liver and kidneys; and all things considered, it would be a difficult problem for any physiologist to solve, to determine which of the three deserves to stand before the others in importance. These three organs are sometimes called the scavengers of the body; and they may with considerable truth be regarded as three great and important systems of purification and drainage. Now, if to drain the system of its impurities, to cleanse and purify the blood of the animal economy, three grand systems of drainage are required, the inference is plain, that one would not be enough-that two might perform the office, but with a strain upon the machinery. But to be perfect, to perform the office completely and efficiently, to be, in fact, in health, to constitute health, all are needful. Therefore, if in the course of these observations I can show that one of these scavengers is weakened in its powers, and being weakened in itself, throws an additional degree of labour on the remaining two; if, in fact, our present mode of management of the skin tends to deteriorate its powers as a purifier of the body, and consequently produces a strain on the liver and kidneys, which leads to their deterioration and disease, I shall, provided I can also show that the bath preserves the health of the skin, make out à primâ facie case in favour of the bath. But it is not as an emunctory or purifier only that we must regard the skin; its influence and power have a wider range of action in the maintenance of health. Besides comprehending a vast system of drainage tubes, which open on the surface by seven millions of pores, and which in actual measurement would stretch over nearly thirty miles if laid end to end; besides this, which belongs to its purely emunctory function; besides, also, a wonderful and perpetual labour by which the skin is drawing from the blood certain organic elements in the fluid state and converting them into solid organic formations, which are known as cells and scalesthese cells and scales being the tesselated mosaic with which the skin is finished upon the surface, so as to render it capable of existence in the atmosphere of the external world; besides this, and much more, unnecessary in this place to detail, the skin is converted into a kind of sponge by the myriads of blood-vessels which enter into its structure-blood-vessels, that many times in an hour bring the whole-aye, every drop-of the blood of the body to the surface; bring it that it may furnish the materials for the microscopic pavement; that it may be purified by the abstraction of its unwholesome principles; that it may breathe the vital air of the atmosphere without; besides this, also, the skin near its surface is one vast network of nerves-nerves, mysterious organs, that belong in their nature to the unknown sources of the lightning, the electric currents of the universe. And besides these, again, there is every variety of animal tissue and contrivance by which all this apparatus is held together and maintained in the best state and position to insure its safety and perfection. In truth, the contemplation of the structure and functions of the skin, when viewed with the eyes of the mind, is almost overwhelming; and as we gasp breathless, to gain an instant of reflection, the words of the poet break upon our memory :— "In human works, though labour'd on with pain, Yet serves to second, too, some other use." One word more as to the importance of the skin in the animal economy, and that word a summary of its functions and principal vital attributes. The skin is a "sanitary commissioner," draining the system of its impurities; it is an energetic labourer, in that perpetual interchange of elements which in its essence constitutes life; it is a regulator of the density and fluidity of the blood; it performs the office of a lung in supplying the blood with oxygen and abstracting its carbon; it changes the crude organic elements of the blood, so as to render them capable of nutrition; it emulates the heart in giving speed to the circulating blood; it is the minister of the brain and spinal marrow in its properties of sensation; and it feeds and nourishes, and keeps in the highest operative condition, that part of the nervous system which is confided to its care. Viewing the skin in this way, and recognising its just claims to consideration as an important animal organ, we are led to the conclusion that the skin is a part of the digestive system, like the liver and kidneys, by virtue of its emunctory and nutritive powers; it is an appendage of the heart and a part of the system of circulation of the blood; it is a surface lang, a breathing organ; and it partakes of man's intellectual nature by its close connection with, and dependence on, the brain. In the lower animals the skin combines in itself alone the feeling, seeing, smelling, hearing, and judging organ, The structure of the skin-with its drainage tubes requiring a free exit, its streams of blood seeking for oxygen from the air, its nerves demanding the contact and stimulus of the atmosphere-obviously points to the relation which should subsist between man and the external world-to the fact that his natural and intended state is one of nakedness. Certain portions of the skin in different parts of the world, and among different nations, are commonly exposed to the air, as Nature doubtless intended the whole body to be. Our face and hands; in women, the neck, and often the shoulders; among the Highlanders, the lower limbs-these portions of the body are naked, are unblushingly exposed, and, as we all know, without inconvenience. Who ever feared to take cold because his hands and his face were open to the free air of heaven? What lady ever complained of inconvenience resulting from her décolleté shoulders at an evening party or the opera, or even from the bitter draughts of night air that frequently close those entertainments? Who ever heard of a Highlander suffering from rheumatism in the knees? That charming friend and companion of our youthful dreams, Miss Jane Porter, who was always taking colds from the slightest exposure of her skin to the air, once said to her brother, who was a physician, "How I wish that my skin were all face!" "Try and make it all face," was his reply. And she partially succeeded; but for complete success she wanted the knowledge of the Turkish bath. The bath has the property of hardening and fortifying the skin, so as to render it almost insusceptible to the influence of cold. The feeling after quitting the Calidarium is one of defiance of cold; the bather has a longing for the cool air of the outer world, and with no other covering than his cotton mantle, a lawn or a terrace would be his chosen resort if the opportunity were within his reach. LONGEVITY ANd Vegetable DIET.-The more man follows nature, and is obedient to her laws, the longer will he live; the further he deviates from these, the shorter will be his existence. Instances of the greatest longevity are to be found among men who, from their youth, lived principally on vegetables, and who, perhaps, never tasted flesh. –HUFELAND. A man who covers himself with costly apparel and neglects his mind, is like one who illuminates the outside of his house and sits within in the dark. |