being balm and life, was converted into the venom of death. And yet in one case as in the other, God's great gift, the ineffably pure, sweet atmosphere, subsisted in boundless profusion within a very few inches of the miserably perishing sufferers. I hope now that you will bear with me and try, which you will not find it difficult to do, to follow me yet further in this inquiry. Air once respired, as I have shown, extinguishes flame, cuts short life. Air once respired, hinders the depuration and decarbonisation of the blood. But air less impure than this, air, containing two, or even one per cent, nay, less even, of carbonic acid gas, is also most hurtful, hinders in its degree, when habitually respired. the fitting purification and unloading of the vital fluid, the blood. It does not, indeed, go the length of causing rapid death, as does air containing 4 per cent of carbonic acid gas when respired. but it induces death not less surely if more slowly. It hinders the sufficient oxidation and decarbonisation of the blood, causes the carbon waste to accumulate, until at length the fouled blood, unable to get rid of it by oxidation, and not otherwise able longer to retain it, precipitates it among the lining tissues, entailing various maladies, but especially consumption and death. If, I say, you breathe habitually air any portion whereof, be it more or less, has been respired before, as in some close chamber or ill-aired bed-room you are sure to do, the inevitable result, sooner or later, is the accumulation of the carbonaceous waste in the blood, and its final deposit, more or less rapidly, as tubercle in the living structures This, then, is the declaration, as I most firmly and intimately believe it to be, of a natural, a Divine law, and of the consequences of the violation of that law, and never as thus before, was declared and set forth by anyone. Let us now dwell for a little, and yet only to some extent, on the mortalitythe, in fact, frightful ravages entailed by the habitual respiration of an atmosphere tainted with the immediate products of respiration among our fellows: In Scotland consumption destroys annually In England In Norway, Sweden, and Denmark... In Russia in Europe In Holland ... 10.000 persons. 60.000 200,000 In Germany... In Switzerland... In the United States There are, indeed, few parts of the world in which a greater or less mortality, owing to tubercular deposits, does not ensue. In some countries, however, the mortality is very much less than in others. In fact the ratio of the frequency and fatality of consumption and scrofula is very exactly regulated by the quality of the in-door air respired, and the amount of the products of respiration with which it is contaminated, for no out-door air, whatever may prove its quality otherwise, occasion, or can occasion, for the reasons already specified, consumption in any form. If you live much out-of-doors, and take care to admit the out-door atmosphere into your chambers, and more especially your sleeping chambers, no tubercle, no scrofula, no decline, can by possibility affect you or yours, were you or they to live twice ten thousand years. Yes, all truth is simple. Physical truth is simple. Spiritual truth is simple likewise. Everything, in fact, is so that concerns the material and moral welfare of our kind. Indeed, so simple is the cause which I allege for the production of tubercle and the frightful consequent fatality, that I never cease wondering how it happened that no one arrived at the truth before. And yet it lies before us. It is as if our fingers touched it. It claims, as it were, as indeed does all truth, to be known. Ah, simplicity too often is the very last thing we care for. Mankind in general prefer a mystery, something altogether incomprehensible and not to be explained away. Observe, however, that I advocate not simplicity in disaccordance with nature and nature's realities. Nevertheless, all great truths, whether moral or material, are simple as they are beautiful and necessary. They are alike reasonable and intelligible, for they are the same, to man and angels. When the perfect truth, as I conceived, of the important positions I have taken up became apparent to me, I announced them forthwith in the medical journals of the day. I wrote a volume on the subject, which has been translated into German, and the various memoirs which I have drawn up have been severally submitted, personally or by proxy, to the leading medical associations of these countries and the Continent. At the Medical Society of London, which I had the satisfaction of addressing, I experienced some able support, as well as a good deal of, at any rate, courteous opposition. During the conversation which afterwards ensued I obtained some fresh corroboration from gentlemen who had not addressed the meeting. "While I was residing at Vienna," observed Dr. Althaiis to me, "I was walking one day with Rokitansky. The subject was the prevalence of tubercle. And you know," he added, "that Rokitansky has examined a greater number of remains than any other man. Well, then," said he, "Rokitansky assured me, and my own experience goes far to confirm his, that he never yet made a post-mortem examination without discovering tubercle more or less. The lungs might be generally free, but, when the scalpel penetrated the lung-apex there, deposits of tubercle, more or less distinct, were sure to be disclosed. It may seem strange that at our very doors and in immediate contiguity to a population that suffers so much from tubercular disease, there should yet subsist a district where consumption may be said to be unknown. There is, in fact, no such thing among the islands and islanders proper of the Hebrides and the dwellers in the adjacent towns and shores-unless, perhaps, in places where civilisation and ceiled houses have penetrated. To what fortunate contingency, you will ask, is this happy immunity owing? How wise must be the inhabitants, how intelligently obedient to nature's laws! Yet they are a simple folk. They hardly know their own great, good fortune. They did not seek it in the least. It came upon them, without knowing or intending it, unawares. In truth, these Western Highlanders and Hebrideans, I speak of and refer to the humblest classes only, live in houses of but one chamber. They have no ceilings overhead, and their hearths are chimneyless. A peat-fire burns day and night, and always, for the most part, in the centre of the dwelling. This maintains a ceaseless upward current, and as ceaselessly renewed an atmosphere. The smoke, with all the impurities accruing from respiration, finds vent through a hole in the roof. The fire is never quenched, and the vent is never closed. It is impossible, therefore, that the inhabitants, those, at least, of them who live thus, should not remain exempt from tubercle, since, as the waste carbon is continually burnt off, it cannot remain behind in the blood, cannot be deposited as tubercle in the living tissues. In short, they are exempt, and were I to ask for proofs freshly confirmatory of my views, I could not think of anything more cogent or conclusive. Yet, will it be credited, this wonderful immunity has been ascribed to the inhalation of peat-reek, as if peat-reek and consumption did not meet abundantly elsewhere. In short, the inhabitants of the Western Islands and Highlands of Scotlands, speaking of the humble and poor, are the only people in Britain, nay, in Europe, if not the world, wholly and entirely exempt from the kindred scourges I have so often named, and that, through bare compliance with nature's law, and the avoidance, however unwitting, for purposes of respiration, of air respired before. THE JERKED BEEF OF LA PLATA. (As sung at Social Science Gatherings, to the air of "The Roast Beef of Old England.") (From the Pall Mall Gazette.) Oh, the jolly jerked beef is a source of cheap food, And oh, the Brazilian jerked beef. It may not, perhaps, be inviting in look, Oh, the jerked beef, &c. But analysis shows it contains nutriment, Thus all the material of muscles abound; And then by its cheapness its merits are crowned- But it is not the stomach alone that it suits; If at table the carver's exertions are vain, For the carver-the artist-a substance we gain, Indeed, to its uses no limit we see; So we wish all success to the bold company THE BUNCH OF LARKS. Portly he was, in carriage somewhat grand; There be some things that may be carried-yes, I met him in the street, and turned about, Yes, four-and-twenty larks baked in a pie: How many dusty wanderers of the earth Have those stilled voices lifted from the dust! And now to end their almost heavenly mirth But as he picks their thin ambrosial throats, Of grassy glebes, and heaven-descending notes, "Give me," be cries, "the substance of a thing- Larks for the dainty meal.” Well, he may have his substance, and I mine. His passes with the pie. ROBERT LEIGHTON. Reviews and Notices of Books. On Food as a means of prevention of Disease. By ERASMUS WILSON, F.R.S. London: John Churchill. "THE following address" we are told in the preface "was delivered at a meeting of the Medical Officers of Health, of London, on the 17th of December, 1864." Had it not been for this notice, it would have been quite possible to assign it a date at least 800 years earlier, and to have imagined that the borrowed initi Is F. R.S. had relation to some society of that day. A more absurd, fallacious, and ridiculous treatise has scarcely issued from the English press on the question of diet, as far as we know. By whose advice it has been printed and circulated we know not, but if anyone besides the author has thought such a step desirable, we should be amazed to hear it. The epithers we have applied are plain but not too strong, and we would not have employed them to express our opinion formed from a special point of view, but we shall be prepared to justify them to the full, and it is a case in which it would be mistaken kindness to flitter even by silence. According to the writer, "the gist is simply this proper food, properly used produces a sound set of organs, while improper food produces an unsound and a weak organ, and one prone to fall into a state of disease."J. S. Mill comments upon those reasoners who have made the mistake in method of se-king for the cause of an effect, instead of the causes, so here it is assumed there is but one cause of health-proper food; and one cause of disease-improper food. It is true the concluding paragraph contains what is intended as a saving clause, in favour of "light, air, cleanliness and exercise, the kindred of food;" but it comes too late, and the door has been closed upon these causes and the sole possession given up to proper food If, as above quoted, proper food produces a sound set of organs, and improper food a state of disease; light, air, &c., must be merely luxuries, not necessary but pleasant and preferable to their opposites. We suppose the writer does not mean this, but we have to complain, that throughout the pamphlet the same conclusion is continually forced upon us, and we are constrained either to adhere to what is said and come to the conclusions expressed above, or suppose the writer means something different or opposite, from what he says. To show that we are not captiously seizing a paragraph that is exceptional, we quote again from the preface, which contains only thirty lines altogether-" while proper food produces a sound brain, sound lungs, and a sound heart, improper fo d produces an unsound brain, unsound lungs, and unsound heart; or to substitute function for organ, im, roper food produces insanity, imbecility, consumption, and sudden death." The conclusion of the whole matter is thus summed up: "It would seem as if the roast beef and the barley brew of Old England were the natural medicine of our climate and the soul of existence." How is such an important statement supported? By reasoning in relation to roast beef, such as we will presently examine, and by neither reasoning nor fact to prove or illus rate the later. At this day no writer can authoritatively make such a declaration without being confronted by a writer of equal em nence, and it is an affront to thousands of our fellow-countrymen's sense to tell them that when they have left disease behind by cas ing away the habit of drinking the bailey brew, they must admit a conclusion that is contrary to their own experience and not supported by a single fact. A serious responsibility, in a moral point of view, lies at the door of men assuming to lead their fellow-men, and doing so in a way that has led to shame, lingering disease, and death, so many persons who fel under their very eyes. The following extract shows the basis of the theo y laid down in the pamphlet under notice:"We have one grand example before us, in which Nature prepares the food of the human being with her own hand, and a ministers hat food at stated periods, and according to a prescribed rule. We may ask, What is that food? What are those periods? What is that rule? "Th› food is milk; the first food of the newly-born man; an animal food. The periods are determined by the sense of appetite or want, and the rule which determines these periods is the space of time occupied by digestion and assimilation. If we examine this food, we shall find that it is composed of a variety of principles; if we regard the periods, we shall find hat they present a perfect regular y of time; if we examine the rule, we shall find that it has its origin in the necessities of the animal economy. And we may fairly deduce from our inquiry the three following laws :— "The food of man must possess a variety of composition, in which the animal principle should predominate. The food of man must be repeated a regular intervals, such intervals during the waking hours b ing not less than three in number. And, thirdly, looking to the fact that the desire for food originates in the necessities of the individual, that the food should be uniformly nutritious. Let me put these propositions in a different manner :"MAN REQUIRES VARIETY IN HIS FOOD. "HIS MEALS MUST BE REGULAR. "EVERY MEAL SHOULD BE EQUALLY NUTRITIOUS." It is here assumed that Nature indicates in the provision made for the child, what should be the food for the man, but the limit is placed arbitrarily upon the inferences to be drawn from the assumption. Why not infer that a man should live on liquids, which the author fiercely condemns as slops? Why not confine the liquid to milk? Why not restrict the misk to human milk? If the child's food be a rule for man why not adhere to the rule? Again, if from a child's food being animal, we are to infer that a inan's food should be animal, why not infer the same of a cow or horse, or any other vegetable feeder that sucks at birth? To call milk an animal food and to infer the use of flesh on that account, viz., because it is called animal, is as sensible as to call it warm, and infer a diet of warm water. The statement "that Nature administers the food at stated periods the periods are determined by the sense of appetite, or want" would almost warrant the supposition that the writer has no children of his own, and knows nothing of the habits of others. So far is Nature in the child from fixing times of feeding, or the child from knowing its own wants and being regulated by them, it is the hardest matter to enforce regularity upon infants, and they give frequent evidence of feeding to excess. In what region the author found his facts, unless it be in fancy, we are unable to imagine, and if from that region they are wilder than are usually suffered to appear in serious print. Why the animal principle should predominate, or indeed what is meant by the animal principle we are unable to discover. If animal principle be animal product, it covers more than can be used for food, and if it is to be in food in the same proportion as infants take it, all other food must be excluded. In truth, nature has not provided us sufficient animal food for such a purpose without eating one another. Again, milk possesses a variety of principles or chemical constituents, and hence comes one of the three logical divisions of the subject treated by the writer, and stated by him as man requires variety in his food." If variety of chemical constituents be meant we have no objection, but if variety of dishes, it is not in the premises, and must be discovered by experience of another kind, if at all. The third position has the merit at least of being fairly deducible from the evidence, but we think it must be obvious that the food and habits of an infant are only remotely applicable to the wants and ci cumstances of the young or adult persons. A child cries for every discomfort, should a man do the same? It sleeps much more than it wakes, it requires to be fed and carried, what are the inferences applicable to advanced growth? That meals should be equally nutritious depends not solely upon the length of time between them. Suppose the morning be given to labour and the afternoon to study, then the arrangement would be inapplicable. It needs to take all circumstances into consideration, and not here as in other cases reason from a single fact or circumstance. We pass over inferior blunders such as abound on every page almost. On p. 12, we come to a condemnation of a dietary which contains flesh only once a day" the exact opposite of that which I consider should be the standard diet of children, viz., one-third vegetable and two-thirds animal." The dietary is not one-third animal to which reference is made, but that is of no consequence; and as to the force of the argument which consists of "I consider," we leave the reader to judge. Let us say, however, to the writer that, if he would be taken for a wise man, he will in future use that style throughout, and not attempt arguments in which he ignominiously fails. His diet for children consists of meat three times a day, with drink of milk, tea, cocoa, and possibly beer, besides the usual vegetables at dinner."Rice and mylaceous food should have no place in the diet of health, but should be reserved for the sick room.” Where be found an infant that had been supplie with beer by nature we do not know; and turning his own theory against him, we are unable to understand why he should permit any vegetable food whatever. Ordinary feeling he stigmatises as two slops and a meal, and he would cure the habit of giving improper meals in the evening, by changing the name from tea to supper, a name which he is sure no human being could apply to bread and butter and tea. He declares he has obtained many a child a substantial evening meal by suggesting this change of name, a fact which seems to us as wonderful as the reasoning we have found in the book. The derivation of the term supper would lead to a contrary course, and would b ́ing us back to the practice, of that happy period of childhood, when we had not been perverted (according to the writer) to the practice of consuming vegetable productions. What a facility the author has in arriving at conclusions may be further exemplified by a quotation from p. 14, which suggests that the writer probably has adopted the method used by the Scotch student, who applied his profe-sor's theory of the power of association, to the workings of mathematical problems, and got his answers not by knowing how to solve the problems, but, as he said, by the power of association. These are his words:"I knew a lady who brought up her children on mutton lone, because she herself could digest nothing but mutton. Her children were a feeble, pun, sheepish race, always in the doctor's hands." To conclude a notice which our readers may think longer than the subject deserved, and which has only been extended because of the author's position and probable influence, we will reproduce a note appended to the paper or address: "NOTE. While this paper was going through the press, a boy was brought to me with an eruption on the scalp. He is nine years of age-a pupil at a public school; in appearance |