NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
             Washington
Founded 1836
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Public Health Service 
 
 
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ESSAY ON  HEALTH:  ,
BY
JUSTIN  HAYES, M.D.,
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN TO
Medical and Electrical Institute,
CHICAG
              CHICAGO:
       STREET, PEARSON & CO., PUBLISHERS,
         •    ioi Washington Street.
                1S67.
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insriDiEix:.
                                                  PAGE.
Artificial Stimulants,.......14
Change of Climate,   -    -......21
Function of Digestion,.......4'S
Food—Quantity and Quality,......y.5
Four Telegraphic Stations,......G
Mental Depression,........10
Miss Blank's Programme.......55
Medical and Electrical Institute,.....81
Mind, and its Relation to the Bodily Organism,     -    49
Mistaken Happiness,........18
Nostalgia,  or Home-Sickness,    -         -    -    -    12
Notices of the Press,........82
Overworked Students,.......59
Power of Habit,......-    -  G4
Sleep,..........(55
The Physician and the People,.....72
Vital Force,  -            ......3
Waste and Repair,    - •.......28 
ESSAY  ON  HEALTH;
JUSTIN HAYES, M.D.,
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN TO
Medical and Electrical Institute,
CHICAGO.
A'O
"^:oitC^y
      CHICAGO:" gtoniv*
STREET, PEARSON & CO., PUBLISHERS,
      101 Washington Street
         1867. 
    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867,
             BY  STREET, PEARSON  & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of  the District Court of the United States,
            For  the Northern  District of Illinois.
*
H. A.  Newcombe & Co., Steam  Printers,
          101 Washington Street. 
HEALTH.
              CHAPTER I.

            VITAL  FORCE.
One of the greatest gifts to a mortal being is
a sound mind in a sound body.   It is lamen-
table that the few through life  maintain it,
while the masses most wantonly or ignorantly
squander this noble inheritance.
  The Divine Being does all things with the
least possible expenditure of force.  His laws
are easy to be understood, if the search is to
the Divine Economy.   They are immutable,
and  the violator's plea of ignorance does not
save him from suffering the penalty.  Every
sane person knows that fire will burn, and the
destruction is greater or less, according to the
exposure; and that a limb  once amputated
never grows out  again.   These are simple 
4                HEALTH.
laws, comprehended by all. There are higher
laws that have to do with and govern  the
physical  organization,  which  but few ever
attain to ; but the great majority of the laws
of life are easy and accessible to all.
  The sum of the entire apparatus of human
life is but a due balance of forces.  From
their familiar use, it might be inferred that
Physical Force, Nerve Force, and Vital Force
could easily be defined.  Great efforts among
the wise and talented have been made to
define the latter, and their failure has been
as signal as the inventors of perpetual motion.
That this wonderful force has an intimate rela-
tion with Heat, Electricity, Chemical affinity,
and other agencies of the  inorganic world, is
clearly known.   Alexander Von Humboldt
defined Vital Force to be the unknown cause
which prevents the  elements from following
their original affinities.  This definition is not
satisfactory, yet  it may be profitable as  one
of the land-marks in a cursory view of some
of the important points in the bodily organi-
zation. It is not necessary to have as minute
an anatomical and physiological knowledge of
the human system as the scientific physician, 
VITAL F0ECE.              5
to make good use of the means found in the
wholesome rules of hygiene.   But a certain
degree of knowledge must be possessed, or
blunders will be constantly  occurring most
deleterious to life and  health.   The  great
success in  preserving and  sustaining good
health, is in the just adaptation of appropri-
ate means to the individual case.  For lack
of this knowledge, great masses of the people
perish.  Mr. Advisewell, suffering with men-
tal depression and overwork, takes a change
of air, visits Europe, and returns in one year
in good health.  Messrs. Brown and  Smith
are at once placed on ship-board.  Mr. Brown
being in  the last stage of consumption, is
buried at sea.  Mr. Smith's  cancer of the
stomach proves fatal the day after his arrival
in London.
   Not far back in the vista of time can light
be found upon the  nervous  system.  The
phenomena of life transacted upon this won-
derful theatre, has in a great measure  eluded
the grasp of the physiologist.  During the
last decade of years much has been done to
furnish a clue to the key that unlocks this
 wonderful instrument — the great telegraph 
6                HEALTH.
line between mind and matter.  Upon this
line there are, if you please, four telegraphic
stations, called the nervous  centres.   They
consist, technically speaking, of the cerebrum
and cerebellum, the medulla oblongata and
the medulla spinalis.  And from these centres
nerves  are connected with every portion of
the  organic  system.   There  are  but three
kinds of telegrams ever transmitted over this
line, viz.:  sensation,  thought, and  motion.
"But their variations are innumerable.  It is
pretty  clearly, demonstrated  that Electricity
is the force that transmits all emotions in the
animal frame, as by it all nervous action is
exerted, from the complacent smile upon the
infant's cheek, to the powerful mental emo-
tion that  shocks and exhausts the nervous
battery of the strong man beyond reaction,
 and lets death reign king over its victim with-
 out a moment's warning.  To know what the
 true enjoyment of life is, labor must alternate
 with repose;  avoiding tedium  on the one
 hand, and rapid and violent changes  on  the
 other; ever seeking to obtain the due balance
 of forces in the organism.
   A knowledge of the function of Digestion 
VITAL F0ECE.
*
is most important to the well-being of man,
that he may avoid, on the one hand, delete-
rious aliments, and choose on the other, that
which  will prove  the most beneficial to the
building up  and maintenance  of  the whole
organism.  There are many organs immedi-
ately connected with the function of  diges-
tion ;  and in case any of them should have
their normal action interfered with, there
results a greater or less disturbance in all the
rest; and, in fact, the whole body sympathises
with the injured organ in  proportion to the
injury.
   All  the  changes which food  undergoes
during the process of digestion and assimila-
tion is not clearly known; but that it sus-
tains life and  makes  hair, nail,  bone, and
tissue, is evident to all.  Many theories have
been taught, setting forth  the best diet for
man, and as many on the time for eating;
also quantity and quality of food, used with
and without drink.  A favored few of  the
writers lived long enough to learn that it
 was not wisdom to take  ice  to  the Frigid
 Zone  to liquify it. Although no universal
law can be laid  down for man,  yet it is  a 
8                HEALTH.
 matter of much practical importance to form
 a  correct average estimate;  climate, occupa-
 tion, quantity, and quality of food have much
 to do in making the estimate.  Man being hv
 nature omniverous, a mixed diet of  animal
 and vegetable food is best fitted for his nature
 as a whole, being most in accordance with
 his organization ; and this fact ought to serve
 as a sufficient reply to  all those who decry
 either  animal or vegetable diet   The judg-
 ment of  an  individual in his own case, in a
 judicious selection of food and the amount
 required, is a  far  better  guide  than  all
 the dogmatic teachings of rheumatic brains
 extant.   But few should eat to satiety, unless
 they are  free from a morbid craving appetite,
 and appropriate full  time for mastication;
 then the stomach responds  readily, and  no
 telegram of  distress is sent from the function
 of digestion to the brain.
  The  nervous system bears such  an intimate
 relation to digestion and assimilation, that it
 needs no other reason opposing the theory of
 an exact adjustment of food and labor to the
individual case.  Every person  has  in  his
 own case ample proof of this  fact.  In youth 
VITAL FORCE.
9
the anticipation of the party or social gather
ing lessens the quantity of food taken, and
not unfrequently with nervous temperaments
the previous meal is lost.  Great  anxiety in
business also  produces  the same  effect, and
if continued long, proves most deleterious.
When overwork causes the waste of the body
to exceed  the supply, prudence  dictates  a
change in the daily avocation.  Sudden and
violent mental depression produces  for the
time  almost, if not quite, the suspension of
the function of digestion, destroying the equi-
librium of all the organs and tissues of the
body ; the censorium is reached, the capillary
forest seems to rise in consternation, the hand
involuntarily presses  the forehead, as though
it would press back the nervo-electrical ten-
sion that threatens immediate destruction to
the throne of vital  force.   This is death.
One  and all of the  aids and material that
contribute to keep the body in tranquility,
and sustain the due balance of forces, should
be recognized as  a grand compact or unity,
giving each its proper place  and function. 
CHAPTER II.
       MENTAL DEPRESSION.
  There are many points connected with the
nervous system  and function of digestion,
that must be kept in mind, to appreciate fully
the great  importance of sustaining the due
balance of forces, so conducive to health and
happiness.  The beautiful form and rounded
muscle of  the athlete, and the power of the
strong man, do not come by continual fear,
mental agitation, or despondency.  Fear robs
the body of the balance of forces, and always
means "fail;"  and "hope  deferred "-is her
eldest sister.
   Miss Blank, six months ago, was the  pride
and admiration of home and the social circle.
Her mind was  fraught with independence,
magnanimity, and  every womanly virtue ;
with  hope elate, her carriage  was noble —
her step firm and elastic ; in short, her health
was perfect.  The brief space of a few months
shows clearly that she has been robbed of
one of the ruling incentives of her life.   The 
MENTAL DEPRESSION.
11
beautiful equilibrium of forces is no longer
in harmony in the organism.  One sad men-
tal emotion, consecutively nursed, has done a
fearful work.  Her step is no longer firm and
steady; her whole body is as easily agitated
as the aspen leaf in the breeze ;  the cadaver-
ous,  inexpressive face,  save of " hope defer-
red," reigns regal lord where so recently the
Great First Cause had commingled beauties
untold.  The prescriptions of physicians were
unavailing in her case, save in coinciding with
the malady, and hastening the fatal hour of
death by inanition.  Solicitous  persuasions
and  kind  admonitions  of friends, were as
fruitless, as the epithets and vituperations of
the careless and indifferent were cruel.  How
one mental emotion, continually dwelt upon,
proves so deleterious and fatal, is a question
of no small consideration among physicians;
the people have a right to the investigation
of the problem.  When parents  and  friends,
necessarily interested, scan their mental hori-
zon  with the true moral  and physiological
guide, they will find balm in Gilead.  This
reflex action of the nervous system hurtling
on to  the  brain, with its dangerous  freight, 
12               HEALTH.
robbing the function of digestion of its accus-
tomed supply of nervo-electrical force, and
opening the door of the inner heart, that a
vampire may seek the life-blood of its victim,
should be tranquilized.
  Many of the cases of aberration of mind
and mental depression might be avoided,  by
dint of prudence  and forecast.  There are
three sources from which mental and bodily
ailments proceed; namely:  ignorance, impru-
dence and willful folly. The latter, if persist-
ed in long, clearly shows  that a man's for-
tunes are  the  fruits of his character ; and
the victim finds, at no distant day, that  he
is physically enervated and morally out of
health.
  Nostalgia, or  homesickness, is prominent
among the causes of depression of spirits and
indigestion.  This  disease  is  not limited to
childhood; but  extends to the farthest  ex-
treme of human existence.   The child sepa-
rated from its pleasant home  unwillingly, is
moody and irritable, the function of digestion
is disturbed, and appetite lost.  The aged,
whose minds  ever  revert  to the  scenes  of
early years, often  feel a  despondency not 
MENTAL DEPRESSION.          13
easily  removed by passing events, as they
retrospect the far-off old homestead and other
monuments of separated friends and associa-
tions.   The soldier, whose patriotism moved
him to  volunteer his service for his country,
bade adieu to home and all the endearments
of  domestic  happiness  with  firmness and
noble  demeanor;  with  steady  nerve and
heroic valor, he periled life in many a battle.
But the tedium of guarding  a distant land
brought ever fresh to his mind the endear-
ments of home.  He cherished the thought
till it  robbed him of health,  manly dignity,
and life.   It is a significant fact,  that  the
soldier from the  country, and  the moun-
taineer,  are  more liable  to fall  a prey to
homesickness than the citizen.
     " The intrepid Swiss who guards a foreign shore,
      Condemned to climb his mountain cliffs no more,
      If chance he hears the songlo sweetly wild,
      Which on those cliffs his infant hours beguiled,
      Melts at the long lost scenes that round him rise,
      And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs."
   In every avocation of life, it should be the
interest of all  to  have  a well  established
policy  in physical education,  that disease
may be prevented, and life  and  happiness
prolonged. 
CHAPTER  III.
     ARTIFICIAL STIMULANTS.
  The great victory of life is happiness.   But
who knows where happiness dwells ?  Mind
has become the universal sovereign of the
world; and man is acknowledged a free moral
agent.  Sacred History and Metaphysics teach
that there is is in man a  moral law, a law of
duty,  which unconditionally commands the
fulfillment of its behests.  The world, filled
with the useful and the beautiful, is for man,
his use and delight.   With reason and the
history of the past, for his guide; and with
a life so fraught with disappointments in at-
taining the much desired  physical power and
happiness, it is a subject  that should be well
investigated by every rational mind.
   A man may come  in  possession of great
wealth by the death of  a friend;  may con-
tract bad habits, catch the ague, the cholera,
or the plague; but cannot long possess a good
bodily organization, virtue, and wisdom with-
out toil. 
AETIFICIAL  STIMULANTS.        15
  It  may be averred  with some propriety,
that there is in man, constitutionally, a desire
for  artificial stimuli.  All nations, barbarous
and civilized,  have produced and  consumed
that narcotic stimulus  which they  supposed
best adapted to their own physiological state.
"Hence, Siberia has its fungus; Turkey, In-
dia  and China their opium; Persia, India and
Turkey, with all Africa, from Morocco to the
Cape of Good Hope, and even the Indians of
Brazil, have their hemp  and hashish; India,
China and the Eastern Archipelago, their be-
tel-nut and betel-pepper; the Polynesian Is-
lands, their daily ara;  Peru and Bolivia their
long used coca; New Grenada and  the Him-
alayas,  their red and  common thorn-apple;
Asia and America, and all  the world, we may
say, their tobacco."  And spirituous liquors
with varieties multitudinous.
  Who, among the participants in habitual
use  of narcotic stimuli, so  brave that, when
he is about to pass the charmed boundary of
human existence, can look  up to heaven and
say, "Lord, I have not buried the talent that
thou gavest  me."   The athlete, being pre-
pared for extraordinary feats, and  the pugil- 
16
HEALTH.
ist training himself for great strength of mus-
cle, power of endurance, and steady nerve for
his brutal work,  do not excite  their brains
during the training, with spirituous liquors,
or stultify their nervous systems with narcot-
ics ; their bill of  fare for diet, and round of
healthful exercise, is not to be found in the
epicure's catalogue.  It is a fact, attested by
repeated example, that man can  endure more
hard labor, and exposure to extreme cold, in
the Arctic regions, without the use of  spirit-
uous drrinks than with them.   Vessels strand-
ed upon sandbars off our own shores, covered
with ice, during extreme cold weather, have
been unloaded by men fed upon milk porridge,
as hot as the stomach could bear, who signally
failed to accomplish  the work by the use of
spirituous drinks or hot coffee.    Society  is
filled with manifold monuments of warning
against the search after happiness in the hab-
itual and free use of narcotics and spirituous
drinks.   To  prevent the  evil,  kings  have
issued  their  bulls, penal statutes  have been
enacted,  and*the  offender punished by tor-
ture, imprisonment, and even death. Coercive
laws have been spurned with contempt, and 
ARTIFICIAL STIMULANTS.        17
the JRisis Sardonicu-s has rung  in the  ears
of the minority, while, numerically, the per-
sons using narcotic stimuli are increasing, as
humanity sweeps on the cycles of time. 
CHAPTER  IV.
       MISTAKEN  HAPPINESS.
  If a man would be guided by Reason more
than by Imitation, in  his search after happi-
ness, the sad wrecks  of humanity would be
far less.  The ante-chamber of vices  and dis-
sipation  is  ever  decked  with meretricious
ornaments and subtle enchantments.  It is no
wonder, when the facts in the premises are all
canvassed, that the young man  of  fortune,
classical education, good moral character, and
a normal physical organization, takes his
first lesson  unsuspecting, joyous,  and in full
anticipation that he  will be  crowned  with
success  in  attaining happiness, the desired
object of his life.   He advances courageously
in the degrees, till he hears roarings in his
ears, and the exhausted nerves begin to 'tell'
upon his bodily N organization ;  and  when
he  attempts to  concentrate his  mind upon
business, finds his brain like a kaleidoscope.
These symptoms,  he fears, are  ominous  of 
MISTAKEN HAPPINESS.         19
danger.  Reason is put aside, and imitation
still is the incentive;  others are before him,
with inviting mien and the sparkling chalice.
The indulgence is  continued, and ere long
spectres are flitting through his room, with
skeleton  ribs and  menacing dart, thicker
than the flashing meteors during a meteoric
rain.   Narcotics are  administered,  and the
senses  are for a moment overcome, and held
in paralytic  sleep ;  he is awakened  by an
erotic  or  sensual dream,  a draft which the
constitution is not able to honor.  Dementia
is written upon the forehead, and the  bodily
organization is bankrupt forever.
  If the reader is on this course to happiness,
and is not  satisfied  that dissipation  is the
road to "death in life," he  is referred to the
last prayer and epitaph  of S. T. Coleridge,
written by his  own hand.  Let him  lend  a
listening ear to the voice of reason, and not
be  carried on the tide  of popular vices and
dissipation till  he reaches the  maelstrom of
undying shame  and remorse.
   Persons free from disease have a  standard
of health by which they compare themselves.
But happiness  and  health are not  always 
20                HEALTH.
associated, in their greatest perfection, in the
same human organism.  Happiness is no for-
tuitous gift to a portion of mankind, but is a
free offering to all humanity, and is enjoyed,
more  or  less,  according  to the  reasonable
pursuit and capacity  of  the individual for
enjoyment.  Hope is the great incentive in
this life,  and reaches  from the darkness of
this world into  the  brightness of the  Life
Beyond.
       " Whatever that is cheerful or serene
       Supports the mind, supports the body, too;
       Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel,
       Is Hope—the balm and life-blood of the soul;
       It  pleases—and it lasts."

Poets may sing, Physiologists teach, Physi-
cians  prescribe wholesome  rules and means;
but man will suffer  the penalty of violation
as long as he continues in ignorance, and per-
sists in willful folly, ignoring  the  knowl-
edge  of  his organization, and treating with
deaf and  blind  contempt the Divine Power
of his creation. 
CHAPTER  V.
      CHANGE   OF  CLIMATE.
  Every year  has its  marked follies, and
distinguished votaries.  Man has ever been
struggling with his own weakness.  A con-
test  is continually going on for the ascend-
ancy, between  reason and  the force of imi-
tation ; and the masses are more often carried
by the  latter, even in that which is of the
most vital importance to themselves.  Errors
are commensurate with man's first lessons;
and,  like  comets,  run in one  eternal  cycle.
The healing art was never more replete with
good and established means than  now.  But
charlatans and  quacks have a strong hold on
the credulity of the masses; and when reme-
dies and means are stripped of their secresies,
and fairly placed before the people, they lose
power for want of the mysterious embellish-
ment.
  Reasoning minds are  well establishing the
great importance of preventing disease, and
restoring the convalescent,  by change of air, 
22
HEALTH.
and a proper regimen.  The marked benefi-
cial results of a change of air are seen, even
in a few weeks, by removal  to a locality not
varying much in temperature from the home
residence; but the change of scenery, leisure
from business, and relief from the tedium of
the daily routine, in these cases, should have
a due estimate in the recuperation.
  The mild type of the/ numerous family of
aguish disorders found in the malarial regions,
soon disappear when  the sufferer  changes to
a locality where the air is not charged with
malaria.  It  is not prudent to trust  exclu-
sively to change of air in intermittent fever
the disease has  been produced by a specific
cause, and generally requires a specific remedy
for its complete cure.   Patients suffering with
the severer forms of malarial diseases, need
not look  for  a  perfect  re-establishment  of
health,  without a complete  change  of resi-
dence for a considerable time.
  It is  all important  to the invalid that the
change  of air should not be recommended in
an indiscriminate manner, without regard  to
his constitution, the nature of his disease, and
the place where he is sent.   Let  the air of 
CHANGE OF CLIMATE.          23
the locality be appropriate for the case, and
the hopes of the invalid and friends will not
so often be disappointed.
   The feeble and irritable patient  will not
bear a keen and exciting air, whatever may
be his disease;  whereas, the invalid possess-
ing a  constitution of an opposite character,
will feel increased vigor while breathing such
an atmosphere.  The following example will
hold as good in dyspepsia, rheumatism, gout,
and all diseases amenable to change  of air, as
in bronchial  affection:  Mr. A  is  a  feeble,
sensitive, irritable person, and has bronchitis,
with little expectoration, and a disproportion-
ate degree of irritation of the bronchial tubes
to the real organic lesion, and the  cough is
excited by the slightest causes.  He takes a
change of air, and selects a locality  of dry
and sharp atmosphere. The cough is increased
at once, and soon alarming pulmonary symp-
toms appear.   Mr. B, suffering with the same
disease, quite as far advanced, but with a
more  languid habit,  and  less sensibility  of
the mucous  membrane, and more copious
expectoration, is relieved at once, and in a
few months is free from his bronchial distress 
24               HEALTH.
If Mr. A had been rightly directed to a mild
and even humid air, his recovery might have
been as perfect as Mr. B's.
   The great central idea is an appropriate
remedy for the individual case, in medicine,
hygiene, or change of air.  When physicians
cease to prescribe for the name of the disease,
and take into due consideration the nature of
the malady  and  the  constitution  of  the
patient, and the invalid is moved  by reason
and good common sense, and not by the force
of imitation, the exigency of the case will be
more properly met, and the number of suffer
ers and mourners lessened.
   In recommending a change of air, the sea-
son of the year should always be considered.
The more sheltered parts of the interior form
the most eligible residences for all classes of
invalids, during spring and early part of sum-
mer.   Midsummer and autumn, the coasts of
the northern lakes and the seaside.  General
rules,  only, can be offered, to which there are
many exceptions.  There  are peculiarities of
constitution which can only be learned from
information communicated by the patient.
   Some persons never feel well by the  sea- 
CHANGE OF CLIMATE.
25
side, in any situation, or at any season; while
others will improve during a residence on
the coast, under the most unfavorable circum-
stances of situation and season.
  There  are but few persons who require
change of air,  either with the view of pre-
venting disease or removing its effects, that
will not  derive greater benefit from repeated
changes  than from  a long  continued resi-
dence in any  one situation,  however judi-
ciously selected.   And no change, or succes-
sion of changes of air, will produce any great
permanent benefit, unless strict attention be
paid to regimen, more especially as regards
diet.
  The United  States (to  which  the sugges-
tions upon the  change of air in this article are
confined) has as  great a  variety of climate
as any country in the world.  Her mineral
springs  are legion,  and  many of them are
deservedly popular resorts for the invalid.
Away in the wilds of New Mexico  and Ar-
kansas, comforts  are found for the feeble pa-
tient, while  he enjoys the remedial power of
the water from the Hot Springs.   And from
the  noted White  Sulphur " Springs in  Vir-
  B 
26               HEALTH.
ginia, and the popular Saratoga's, to the pure
soft water gushing from the rock,  far up the
mountain side,  in New England,  can  be
found all the necessaries of life for  an epicure
or a valetudinarian, with an efficient corps of
physicians and attendants, a change  of air,
water, and exercise, for  the  corporeal  man,
and amusements for the  mind,  which are as
necessary for man as sunlight.
   And  "more, if not least," Water Cures,
Hygienic Retreats, etc., with  which  is con-
nected a significant fact, that the majority of
the guests are cured of their maladies, or im-
proved  in their general health.  This fact is
before the people, and the physicians in gene-
ral practice would save more of their patrons
from medical infidelity by obtaining a knowl-
edge of these institutions, and directing those
that desire a change of treatment to the  best,
rather than  branding them all  with  "hum-
bug!"
   The importance of change of  air cannot be
too strongly impressed  upon the minds of
physicians and the people,  especially upon
parents who have  children pent  up  in the
poisonous air of the  crowded  city.   Send 
CHANGE OF CLIMATE.         27
them to the country  during  the summer
months, if  it be but for a few weeks.  Let
them romp in the fields and groves, or work
in the soil.   The Great First Cause has freely
and bountifully given to man the earth,  with
all  of the  useful and  the beautiful, and  he
should  wisely and reasonably acknowledge
the gift, by keeping his "house in order" till
the last earthly mutation. 
CHAPTER  VI.
        WASTE AND REPAIR.
  How  to keep  the due  balance  between
waste and repair in the human organism, is a
question of no  small magnitude.   If physi-
cal or mental labor, and the normal functional
waste, were all the draft  made upon the
supply of the body, it would be easy to make
rules which the masses could follow  with im-
punity,  and preserve a normal  well-being.
But as there are so many causes that disturb
the tranquillity of the organism, great caution
should be taken, even in making suggestions
for the many.  The majority of writers on
dietetics have been weighed in the balance and
found wanting, many' of them being  epicures,
that  continued to live  after their good con-
stitutions  were destroyed,  by  adopting  a
strict regimen of diet  appropriate  for their
individual  cases, which  was their experience,
written  in a book against the world,  and fit
only for the digestion of fools  with  one idea. 
WASTE AND REPAIR.
29
If on any subject the golden mean is of im-
portance, its paramount  weight  should  be
duly  and reasonably considered, in a subject
of so vital importance as what shall man eat
that will sustain life and give the greatest
amount of healthful action to  his organism.
The causes that aid or  disturb  healthful  di-
gestion are intimately  connected  with  the
quantity and quality of food, time of eating,
mental and physical labor, and atmospheric
changes.   The  Creator has given to the lower
animals instinct for their guide,  and mind
for man,  which is  the  great distinguishing-
characteristic by which he inquires, improves,
records his progress, and looks to the life be-
yond.  This reasoning mind is a gift  which
man's  imperfect nature cannot bear without
the tribute of occasional inconvenience, from
which the less privileged animals are exempt.
The inordinate  mental exertion and vehement
impression of which the mind is susceptible,
tends to  exhaust the nervous  energies,  de-
stroying   the   nervo-electrical   equilibrium,
robbing  the physical part of the system of
much of its power, and if the mind be taxed
to over-exertion long, the bodily organs cease 
so
HEALTH.
to perform  their functions  properly.   The
function  of  digestion, though supplied  with
the best  and richest  viands earth affords,
under  these circumstances is almost power-
less in the assimilative process. This subject
is not well understood, and too often unheed-
ed by those who have the knowledge.
  Every one knows how easy the blush is
brought  to the  cheek of the susceptible, or
with  what force the  blood mounts to the
face and engorges the eye of the athlete when
his honor is impugned.  These  are but me«
teors in man's organic system, yet their meas-
urement  must  be taken in  the estimate of
causes that  disturb the action of the digest-
ive apparatus.   Long continued  mental de-
pression and anxiety of mind produces effects
which are deeper and not as immediately visi-
ble.   Still as the lethal of death, the vampire
of disease is fastened  on a vital  organ, and
death is  fast approaching by structural dis-
ease of the lungs or heart.  The  victim now
has a  realizing  sense  of his danger  and is
astonished that he was not alarmed before,
when loss of appetite and deficient  nutrition 
WASTE AND REPAIR.         31
had been demanding the fulfillment of their
behests for months previous.
  All  cases of heavy mental depression and
anxiety do not prove fatal.   Who has not
seen the  happy change when relief came?
Perhaps  it was a mother,  after a  long and
painful watching over a dear child, suffering
with malignant disease, which had  carried it
down to the charmed boundary of human  ex-
istence, and a grain's weight threw the bal-
ance of power  in mortality's favor, and it was
restored  to health.   Or perhaps  a man of
wealth struggling to sustain his honor during
a great  financial crisis; after many restless
nights and days of  feverish anxiety, that set
the brain on  fire, prostrating his bodily or-
ganism like a Libyan Sirocco, relief comes,
he finds his "margin" all right, and feverish
anxiety gone.   In each example the different
organs of the  body begin to resume  their
usual normal  action, the happy  effects of  a
tranquil state of mind,  the improved appe-
tite, the appropriate  assimilation,  the  in-
creased  nutrition, the  good sleep, and  the
train  of cheerfulness that show the bodily
organs are in  healthful action, and that  the 
32               HEALTH.
nervous system will not be overtaxed without
making a draft on the function of digestion
paramount to its  weight  and continuance.
These  are but few of the  emotional causes
which  act upon the apparatus of human life;
they are more under the control of man than
atmospheric  changes,  which bring  in their
invisible embrace health or pestilential poi-
son.   It is averred with confidence that could
the ear of the citizen and countryman  be
reached, and the advice heeded, the next gen-
eration might  increase its length  of life a
decade of years.
  Statistics  show that the farmer's life is not
as long as the citizen's, and that insane asy-
lums are furnished  with the greater number
from the country.  This-seems impossible, at
first  sight, but figures substantiate the fact.
It is said that he  is  a benefactor of his race
who makes  two spears of  grass grow where
there  was  but one;  and truly he  is a phi-
lanthropist  who  shall point out one cause
that shortens life, which  was not  known
before.
  The beauties of the rural  district have been
rehearsed in prose, sung in poetry, and paint- 
WASTE AND REPAIR.          33
ed by the artist, yet its  real usefulness and
beauty is beyond the  tongue or the pencil.
The sunlight, the salubrious winds, the first
ripe fruit, the flocks and herds on the hills
and in the  valleys, are the farmer's  enjoy-
ment and subsistence,  which would seem to
sustain the bodily organization against great
odds.  Where lies the bane?  Take a  ster-
eoscopic  view, by the light of science,  of the
farm house and  its immediate surroundings
at night, and let good common sense draw
the inference.  The location for the house was
well selected; the hog-pen is five rods west of
the  house;  the  cow-yard four rods east; the
barn stands near  by,  with  its mouldering
straw stacks; a  few rods to the south is the
vegetable garden, which was well "manured"
in  the spring, with animal  and vegetable de-
cay,  now filled  with a luxuriant growth  of
vegetables;  at  the north  side,  under the
window  of the  bedroom, is a surface drain
that receives the slops from the kitchen; the
upright  part of  the house has a cellar under
it,  and  in  winter is  filled with vegetables
and fruits, now has three barrels  of soft soap,
one tub of rancid soap grease, a few  old de- 
34
HEALTH.
caying vegetables, and scraps of rusty pork.
The "ground floor" is occupied by the fami-
ly,  four  children  sleeping in  a room eight
by sixteen, the father and mother occupy one
still smaller, with two children in a "trundle
bed," it  is ventilated by one  window,  and
the door which opens into the kitchen.   Let
the wind blow from what direction it may, it
comes to the  sleeping apartments surcharged
with noxious gases that arise from decaying
matter from without, or percolating the walls
and floors of the house  from the cellar, fur-
nishing a medium for ozone and inordinate
waves of  electricity, either positive or nega-
tive, robbing the body of its normal electrici-
ty, acting magnetically upon the protoxide of
iron in the blood, destroying life slowly, by
weakening the function of digestion, and the
nervous system,  or immediately, by cholera
infantum, congestive fever, black vomit,  and
black death. 
CPIAPTER VII.
FOOD —QUANTITY  AND QUALITY.
  Man is left no longer to fortuitous conject-
ure,  and endless experiments, in the kind of
food most  appropriate  for his consumption.
The judicious administration of it, should be
directed  upon  the principles,  derived  from
the science of  physiology, and  chemistry.
It may  reasonably  be asked, how are the
masses that know, comparatively,  but  little
about the sciences, to be guided ?  Let every
community support  a sufficient corps of phy-
sicians, and let the prevention of disease, be
the great  desideratum of their practice; by a
judicious and timely administration of a pro-
per  regimen in diet, exercise, or rest, as the
exigency of the case may demand.   To pre-
vent disease is greater than to cure.
   The absolute quantity and  quality of food
required for the maintenance of the human
body  in health, varies  much with age, sex,
 constitution, habits  of  the individual, place 
36               HEALTH.
of residence, and circumstances  in which he
may be placed; so that the ordinary observ-
er requires no labored argument to be con-
vinced of the truth of the assertion.  But the
difference  in the  amount  of food  different
persons may use in a given time, is not with-
out wonder to the most  scientific observer.
It is stated by good authority, that a man by
the  name  of  Cornaro, subsisted  upon  12
ounces of vegetable matter, with  14 ounces of
light  wine per day,  for a period of 58 years.
The half-breed voyagers of Canada, and the
wandering Cossacks of Siberia, habitually
devour from 12 to 20 lbs of meat per day.
And  there is a case on record  of a Hindoo
who  ate  a  whole sheep  at a time;  this is
probably  the greatest case of gluttony  on
record.
   Man can endure continued hard physical
labor in the United  States, and  be sustained
pretty well upon 40 ounces of solid nutriment
per day;  but it must be a mixed diet, of ani-
mal and vegetable food or symptoms of dis-
ease,  after a time, will appear,  showing the
want of proper aliment to sustain the bodily
organization.  It would not be  necessary to 
FOOD--QUANTITY AND QUALITY.     37
insist upon the importance  of a mixed diet,
if  the composition of the  human body  be
taken into consideration,  as it  is devoid of
the power to create  elementary substances.
Therefore, it would be but  reasonable to be-
lieve  that the system must be supplied with
food containing all the elements  which enters
into its composition.  If the main-spring of a
watch be  broken, a man would be  considered
insane,  or a fool, to  have  it replaced with
putty.
   The difference of opinion,  that exists among
writers on food,  and the digestive process,
would be narrowed  down  to small  propor-
tions, if the horizon of their survey was more
comprehensive, taking in the races of man at
present inhabiting the earth, considering each
in his own  climate, and mode of life.  The
Creator has  conferred  upon man  an Adapt -
iveness, to qualify him for subsisting on those
articles of diet, whether animal or vegetable,
which are most readily obtained in different
parts of the  globe, thus removing obstacles
which a necessary restriction to  any one kind
of food, that had it been otherwise, would have
opposed an  universal diffusion  of mankind 
38
HEALTH.
upon the earth.   This adaptive^hess of man's
nature is exemplified in his easy use of nar-
cotic stimuli;  he may, by the habitual use of
arsenic for a few months, take with impunity
at one  dose,  an amount  that would  kill a
number of persons  unaccustomed  to its  use.
When the adaptiveness of man's  organiza-
tion is fairly considered, it furnishes a clue to
an argument that will forestall the dogmatic
teachings of persons that oppose a  mixed diet
of animal and vegetable food in the temperate
climate.   Persons living in  the extremes of
hot and cold climates, will take care of them-
selves, from the necessity of the case.  The
Hindoo  may  subsist  upon  rice,  the  West
India negro  fatten  upon  sugar,  those of
Senegal upon gum, while the Esquimaux gluts
himself upon the blubber of the seal.
  The  human  organism is  now  pretty
thoroughly understood, every bone, muscle,
nerve, blood-vessel, tissue, and structure dem-
onstrated, every function of the body assigned
its proper place,  and duty, in the great work
of sustaining human life;  even the electrical
polarities  of the minute  molecules  of this
wonderful human structure, have been ascer- 
      FOOD--QUANTITY AND QUALITY.    39

tained.   The solids  and  fluids  have been
chemically analyzed,  and  their  component
parts found  and named; so has it been with
every kind of food and drink, from the pe-
pered beefsteak, and cognac enjoyed by the
epicure, to the bland  arrow-root,  dealt spar-
ingly to the convalescent.
  What has  been gained by the  labored re-
search of the chemist, and physiologist, for
supporting the normal balance of the human
organism, and fortifying it against premature
waste and decay ?  Much in every way.  The
educated  physician, of good judgment, keen
perception, and an ability to meet exigencies
of cases, by a timely and proper use  of prof-
fered means has in these sciences,  an unmeas-
ured power.
   A good machine is soon out of order, if run
by a workman ignorant of its construction,
but  when the science, the machine,  and the
operator, are in  harmony,  the  cogs mesh
mathematically,  and  the  bearings  glide
smoothly, without  undue  waste.  An igno-
rant person by a knowledge  of the fact, or
hearsay, may save  the life of an individual
suffering, with sea-scurvey, by directing the 
40
HEALTH.
use of onions and sauer-kraut, but he does not
know what chemical change was needed in
the condition of the fluids to free the  system
of its malady.   But by the light of chemis-
try an inordinate  amount of alkali is found
acting upon, and destroying the animal tis-
sue which is readily neutralized by vegetable
acids.
  One kind of food does not yield a  supply
of nutriment for every part of the  human
organism.   Tapioca,  sago,  potato-starch,
sugar and butter furnish elements of respira-
tion, and if used in greater quantities than is
necessary for  combustion in the lungs,  the
surplus goes to increase the fat of the body,
buif never furnishes the necessary ingredients
or the growth of bone, cartilage, ligaments,
muscle,  membrane,  or cellular tissue.  The
carbon  and hydrogen of  butter  and  the
carbon of the sugar of milk, do not make
blood.   The young  child receives the  con.
stituents of its blood, from the casein of milk.
Nitrogenized food makes  and  supplies  the
bone and solid textures of the body.  If the
bones in the organism need to be stronger
and firmer, make free use  of the kind of ali- 
FOOD—QUANTITY AND  QUALITY.      41
ment that contains an appropriate amount of
the phosphate of lime, and in due time they
will become solidified.  So may  every com-
ponent  part of  the body be supplied with
the proper element, from the nail upon the
finger,  to the  red corpuscle  of blood, that
sends its crimson index of life to the cheek.
These  facts are triflles in the ears of the
masses, yet they are none the less valuable—
learned,  and observed,  much suffering and
misery would be prevented, and life prolonged.
  The  winds, over which man has no control,
may hold in their embrace an epidemic, and
pestilence slay its thousands  in a day.  But
there are endemics which man can govern
or prevent; the responsibility rests  heavily
upon the statesmen, magistrates, health offi-
cers, naval and  military officers, physicians
and surgeons;  and upon this knowledge, and
efficiency, depends the life of a considerable
portion  of  the  community,  especially the
inhabitants of cities, the inmates of public
institutions, asylums,  hospitals, prisons and
armies.  The scurvy has been known to pre-
vail fearfully and mortally in hospitals, and
houses of correction, in consequence of scanty 
42
HEALTH.
and inappropriate food, which  permanently
disappeared upon the  administration of a
sufficient quantity, and quality of aliment.
  These facts are echoed from the city to the
country, and the monuments that whiten the
city of the dead, would  be  more truthful, in
the majority  of cases, if the epitaphs read,
Came to a premature death, by willful or
ignorant  violation of the laws  that govern
human life. 
CHAPTER VIII.
     FUNCTION  OF DIGESTION.
  It is  a simple  operation to eat, but to eat
judiciously, and understandingly, is too often
neglected.
  There is  no lack of talk, or systematic
theorizing upon food and the digestive pro-
cess, and after all that, a  greater and more
universal disobedience to the law that gov-
erns the function  of digestion, does not exist
than  improper  mastication  of  food,  and
insalivation.   From what  has been said,  a
few thoughts at this time, on the destination
of food, and some  of  the  changes  wrought
during  the process  of digestion and assimila-
tion in the human organism, may be opportune.
  The infant draws from the maternal bosom
its food, which possesses all the essential con-
stituents for the  repair of the bodily organ-
ism, and increasing the growth, making hair,
nails, teeth, bone, and tissue.  In due time,
as  the  child  advances in  age,  the  system 
44
HEALTH.
demands a more substantial nutriment.  The
undeveloped teeth  press their way  through
the tender  gums, and stand  crowned  with
enamel, as sentinels well panoplied with pow-
er to  guard the passage  through which the
life-sustaining food  must pass.  Before this
mutation, the child received its food, guid-
ed by instinct, but now, as the system demands
the solid, and more substantial aliment, imi
tation and reason take its place.  When the
teeth  are fully developed they exibit a formid-
able power for mastication, and  argue well
for the  trituration  of food, and it is certain
that  the health  of an  individual  depends
much upon their sound condition, as well as
upon  their proper use.   As soon  as food is
taken into  the  mouth, the salivary glands
send  forth  fluid to moisten  and  assist  in
reducing  it  to  a proper condition  for the
stomach.
   The promoting of the  mechanical reduc-
tion of food during the act of mastication,
is not the only important action of the saliva;
it has a chemical action on  the farinaceous
elements of food, and is an auxiliary to the
gastric juice of the stomach.   The complete 
FUNCTION OF DIGESTION.       45
disintegration of alimentary matter is of great
consequenee, and if it is imperfectly effected,
the subsequent processes are liable  to be de-
ranged   There is not a more frequent source
of Dyspepsia than imperfect mastication, and
it  is of but  little consequence, whether the
food is too hastily swallowed, or poorly masti-
cated for the want of teeth, the result is the
same to the stomach.  There can be but one
excuse rendered for the imperfect reduction
of food, viz: toothlessness with extreme  pov-
erty.  If the teeth are  decayed, they should
be filled, or removed, as the case may demand,
and their places supplied with artificial ones;
the  fillings  should be of  the  same kind  of
metal, and if partial, or whole sets  are placed,
let  the  plates  also be of the same material.
By observing this rule, there will be no gal-
vanic currents produced in the mouth; but if
different metals, of opposing chemical action,
be used,  there will be galvanic currents act-
ing on the salivary fluid, and disturbing the
normal  action of the pneumogastric  nerve,
causing  a derangement  in the  function  of
digestion, let the  food  be  masticated never
so well. 
46               HEALTH.
  The food is carried to the stomach by the
muscular action  of the sesophagus: the pro-
cess in the sesophagus is automatic, and does
not depend  on volition,  or the will.   The
food enters the stomach through the cardiac
orifice in successive  waves, and is  at  once
subjected to  a peristaltic  movement, which
thoroughly intermingles it with the  gastric
fluid.  The  alimentary substance  is usually
carried from  the  large  curvature  of the
stomach,  to  the  small  or pyloric  end,  and
back again, completing its revolution in from
one  to three minutes.  In addition  to the
peristaltic movements of  the  stomach,  it is
constantly agitated by the act of breathing;
there  are many causes  that  influence  its
motions, so that  no  precise or very accurate
estimate of its action can be made.
  If the general system is in good condition,
and  the food taken at the  meal, proper, as to
quantity, quality,   and  temperature,  the
churning motion of  the stomach  is at once
set  up, and continues until it is thoroughly
prepared to  pass the pyloric  orifice, unless
checked  by  some sudden  draft made  upon
the  nervous  system  by an  injury or violent 
FUNCTION OF DIGESTION.       47
mental emotion.  It is well known that the
system will not  bear up  under an  injury,
nearly  so  well  after a full meal, as  it does
after the assimilative process is fully set up.
When the  Chyme, or product of the gastric
digestion, reaches the Duodenum, it is  subject
to the action of the bile, pancreatic fluid, and
the  secretion from the glandulae of the walls
of  the intestine, which serve  an important
purpose in this stage of the digestive process.
The injestive matter, which has now under-
gone a very  important change within this
portion of  the  canal, is gradually propelled
onward by the peristaltic contractions of its
walls, and as it reaches the small intestines,
the  nutritious  portion is  taken up by the
blood-vessels and absorbents; the residue is
carried into the large intestines,  and assumes
the character of excrementitious matter.
  These are some of the important series of
operations, by  which the nutritive materials
are prepared for further action, beyond the
function of Digestion /  the nutritive material
is  taken up by the  blood-vessels,  and  the
absorbent vessels; that which is taken up by
the blood-vessels, is carried through the liver, 
48                HEALTH.
and  there  receives an  important  change;
that which is taken up by the absorbents, or
the vital  endowment  of cells, is yielded up
by  the Lacteals, and  receives the  name of
Chyle, and  passes through a long  and tor-
tuous system of  absorbent vessels and glands,
and  receives a  decided  alteration  in  its
properties,  and as it  reaches the  Thoracic
duct, approaches quite near to blood in its
general character,  which indicates  that the
process of organization, and vitalization, has
commenced.  The chyle,  thus modified,  is
conveyed  into  the sanguiferous  system  of
vessels, and flows directly  to the heart, and
passes with the mass  of blood, to  receive in
the lungs, the crowning act of vitalization,
with its ensign of red it returns to the heart,
the center of the circulatory system, and is
conveyed by the arteries to every  portion of
the body, endowed with vitalized properties,
 sufficient to meet the exigencies of waste and
 repair of this wonderfully  and fearfully made
 human organism. 
CHAPTER IX.
MIND  AND ITS RELATION TO THE
          BODILY ORGANISM.

   Some of the more important changes that
food undergoes, during the process of diges-
tion, absorption, and  assimilation, have been
placed before the reader:   Food alone will
not sustain life; there are many things neces-
sary and inseparable  in maintaining life, in
the complicate human organism.  One organ
or many, may be lost, and life not materially
shortened; but if the individual be deprived
of water a few days, his life is in  great peril,
and if deprived of air a few moments, death
takes place.   These  are  facts  within the
knowledge of every rational human being.
  But that which steals slowly and insidious-
ly upon the  citadel of  life, is tolerated and
even nursed  with a  morbid infatuation  of
present gratification, when but a mere flash
of reason declares its toleration premature
decay and death.   Society in  its  present
  c 
50                  HEALTH.


artificial and gesthetic state, should let reason
have its full sway in the judicious fuUfilment
of the law that governs the human organism,
as in etiquette and finance.

   This wonderful unit, man, has a mind, and
its finite existence depends  upon  the health
and life of the bodily organism.   Why should
not  that which  is of so  much value have its
place  in  the  front  rank  of judicious  and
reasonable acts?   The past is  not  a blank
decade or century of monumental failures, as
certain modern progressionists would have it.
Plato   and  Aristotle  declared  the  human
body to be the instrument  of the mind.

   " What am I, whence produced, and for what end ?
   Whence drew I being, to what period tend ?
   Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance,
   Dropp'd by wild atoms in disordered dance ?
   Or, from an endless chain of causes wrought,
   And of unthinking substance, born with thought.
   Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood,
   A branching channel with a mazy flood ?
   The purple stream that through my vessels glides,
   Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides,
   The pipes through which the sircling juices stray,
   Are not that thinking I, no more than they;
   This frame, compacted with transcendent skill,
    Of moving joints, obedient to my will,
   Nursed from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
   Waxes and wastes,—I call it mine, not me. 
MIND--ITS RELATION TO THE BODY.  51
    New matter still the mould'ring mass sustains ;
    The mansion chang'd, the tenant still remains;
    And, from the fleeting stream, repair'd by food,
    Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood." *
   The mind  sustains  an  important part  in
the healthful action  of  every  organ  and
function  of  the  body.   Yet some  of the
functions do  not seem to be under  the direct
control  of the  mincl; being sustained by
involuntary  action,  and  continuing  their
accustomed round of duties  during sleep  as
well as in wakefulness.  In case of death by
grief, anger or fright, no  one hesitates for a
moment to decide that the whole organism
was  destroyed   by  the  powerful  mental
emotion.
   When all the organs and functions of the
body are in healthful harmonious action, and
the undue mental emotion is not soon after
partaking  of  a  hearty  meal,  -the  system
sustains  itself with an ample reaction, unless
the mind  is thrown  into a continuous  des-
pondency, destroying the normal  action  of
the function  of  digestion and  assimilation.
But if an individual is suffering with general
debility, the  due  balance of forces  is not
* Arbuthnot. 
52
HEALTH.
easily  kept, and  every overt act causes dis-
tress in  some part of the body; it may be
the liver, and indicated  by severe pain  in
that organ; if in the stomach, by cramp  or
spasms, and  if in  the  nervous centers and
heart, by palpitation and  fainting.
  There is a class of persons who are not
suffering with what is called organic disease,
but are fearfully feeble.  The general rules
that pertain  to diet, exercise, rest,  sleep or
mental labor are not for them.   The reading
of an editorial in the morning paper, exhausts
them for the day; an unexpected call from a
friend  throws them  into  a paroxysm  of
nervousness;  an harsh unkind word, does not
make them angry,  but  causes palpitation of
the  heart, chilliness  and headache.   The
ordinary exercise or walk so grateful to most
persons, that  sends the blood hurtling to the
extremities with life-sustaining  vitality,  is
rank poison to them; the cheeks grow pale,
and the extremities cold,  from the time they
leave the house until they return, and there
is a  feeling of oppression in the  chest,  in
consequence of too great a pressure of blood
upon the vital organs; the vitality being too 
MIND--ITS RELATION TO  THE BODY.   53
 low. to send it back to the extremities.  A
 trivial  calamity in the morning, destroys the
 appetite for the day; if a meal has just been
 taken,  the process of digestion is  at  once
 arrested, and the function of digestion dis-
 turbed to such an extent that the system is so
 deprived of its  nutrition that the involuntary
 act of  respiration is suspended during the
 first  attempt  to   sleep,  which rouses the
 person, and respiration is regained.
   Even when  the system has appropriated
 sufficient   nutriment  to  maintain  the due
 balance  of  forces during sleep, should an
 unwelcome thought flash across the mind as
 the senses are being locked in sleep, the nerves
 are agitated, the  heart palpitates, and the
 system cannot be tranquilized for hours.  No
 class  of persons  are  more misjudged  and
 abused  by society, their  friends and physi-
 cians.   It does not matter whether they are
 found in the humble cottage of the poor, or
 the magnificent  palace of  the rich.
  The dawn of a brighter day has come for
 this  class   of   unfortunate  sufferers.   The
 scientific physician stands foremost in the
van, with  the herald of mercy,  issued from 
54               HEALTH.
the lore of the Pathologist and Physiologist,
by which he is enabled to send joy to the
strong as well as  to  the weak; and  drive
empiricism to the shades of conjecture.
  There  are many things within the  reach
of the enervated  and anaemic sufferer,  if
followed consecutively, that  would tend to
make  life  more  pleasant  and  raise the
standard of vitality higher.   The All-Wise
dispenser  of good  has given man the earth
with its blessings, and left the responsibility
of his life and happiness at his own disposal
to a greater or  less  extent.
  If an individual  has by birth a proclivity
to a feeble organization, the probabilities are
that  he  will  not  rise to greater vigor  of
constitution than his parents, unless proper
means are commenced quite early and per-
severed in, fortifying the system against the
disease which his hereditary tendency favors.
If persons who have no inborn tendency to
disease should  have the system brought low
by sickness, and .no vital organ in the body
has received a  structural lesion, the chances
of perfect recovery are quite probable.   But
it is  as necessary to  observe the  law that 
MLNTD--ITS RELATION TO THE BODY.  55
 governs the human organism, in the  latter
 case  as in the former; each  has a  standard
 of health,  from  which  they  take  daily
 observations.
   Miss  Blank has  general  debility, her
 appetite precarious, does  not rest well  at
 night, feet and hands  cold most  of the time,
 is made sick by every trivial excitement, and
 what is overdoing with her,  is but pleasure-
 able  amusement with  those in good health;
 has no inclination to take exercise in the
 open  air,  because  she  feels greatly  fatigued
 by it and it  produces some local  distress,
 depriving her of entertaining her friends,  of
 her accustomed reading, etc.
   Let the  following programme be followed
 one month:  Rise  at seven in the morning,
 breakfast at eight, eat the food that actual
 experience has proven to set well  on the
 stomach  and give the most strength; if the
 appetite is inordinate, let reason be the guide
 as to  quantity taken, not satiety,  leaving the
table  with  a good  relish, use no high-seasoned
condiments, use moderately of warm drink,
the temperature should not be above blood
heat,  pure  Rio or Mocha coffee or black tea 
56
HEALTH.
 are not objectional, if made weak.  Rest one
 hour without book or consecutive thought,
 after which, walk in the open  air with the
 feet well protected, and the person properly
 clothed to meet the exigency of the weather,
 continue  the  walk  until  wearied, but not
 until actually fatigued.   After the exercise,
 lie down or take the  easy chair, away from
 company, exclude all care or close consecutive
 thought as far as possible.   Dine  at one
 o'clock, observing the rules enjoined at break-.
 fast, except using  more food, and if warm
 drink  is  dispensed with,  use  cold  water
 sparingly.   After dinner  take the lounge or
 easy chair, which ever you like best; at three
 o'clock ride, either in a carriage or on horse-
 back.  If the weather should be unpropitious
 and  stormy, use the  parlor-skates  or the
 dumb-bells of the Light Gymnastics.   Light
 reading and conversation  may occupy the
 time until six  o'clock, at which time take
 supper, using no animal food or sweetmeats;
 after supper while away the time as best you
may until eight o'clock,  at this time  take
exercise for the purpose of inviting the blood
to the lower extremities; a very good exer- 
MINI)--ITS RELATION TO THE BODY.  57
 ciso is marching about the room, sometimes
 on tiptoe and some of the time stamping the
 feet.   Retire  at  nine, but before retiring
 have an assistant take a soft linen napkin,
 wrung out of cold water, press it on the back
 of  the  neck, carrying it quickly the  whole
 length  of the spine, wipe dry with a warm
 soft flannel,  after  which, rub  the back with
 the hand.
   There  is too large a class of persons in
 community,  that  are incapable of realizing
 the feeble condition of the  invalid,  whose
 blood is fearfully impoverished in consequence
 of  deficient  nutrition.  They have not felt
 the yearning of  inanition, in  a  physically
 depraved organism, struggling in the midst
 of  death for  life.   They have no inclination
 to  consider  the laws of  their organization.
 Their nerves are  like the  rigging  to a ship,
 and perception so obtuse  that  they stand
 aside, to let  their own image in the mirror
pass.  The  feeble  hands  that  were often
 extended for mercy and   refused, press  a
lifeless heart, and the echo from the tomb of
the injured, brings not a tear.
  The time is near at hand when the people 
58               HEALTH.
will more earnestly enquire after their own
bodily confirmation and the laws that govern
them, morally and physically.   Let the great
lights of the medical profession look well to
their  duty to  the people, ever  letting  their
scope of knowledge exceed  their prejudices;
unlocking their reticence in the presence of
the sick on all  proper occasions, and teach
them the great principles of hygiene and the
importance  of a well regulated regimen in
daily  life, as the great means of preventing
disease, premature decay and death. 
CHAPTER  X.
      OVER WORKED  STUDENT.
   Man was not made for incessant toil, phy-
 sically  or mentally.  Far down in the vista
 of time, over-leaping centuries and antedating
 man, God made the diurnal cycle of day and
 night.  And no  vain ambition of  man can
 abrogate the law, and turn day into night  or
 night into day, or make continuous day.  Yet
 as self-evident  and impossible as this fact is
 to every  rational  mind, the  imbecility  is
 apparent in the  efforts  among the  living.
 And wrecks are traceable in every generation
 of man, among  the  worthy and  laudable
 pursuits, as well  as in the nightly revels and
 feasts of Bacchus.
   The incentives urged upon students at the
 high schools and colleges, to have their les-
 sons  bear the  marks of the consuming  of
midnight oil, will do for the few, but not the
many.   It  is probable, that  not more than
one in an hundred is able  to endure the heavy
night and day work, for the term required to 
60               HEALTH.
finish a classical  education, without enervat-
ing  their  physical  constitution.    Many,
stimulated with a laudable desire for distinc-
tion in their class, allow themselves less than
the needed amount of repose, and at first feel
it  difficult  to resist the  demands  of sleep.
But soon outraged nature  gives the alarm,
that the brain is being overtaxed, and sleep,
which was so hard  to resist,  becomes  more
difficult  to  obtain.   The  state of general
restlessness and feverish  excitement  should
be  a  sufficient warning;  and they that heed
these premonitory  symptoms do well,  and
save themselves from the  possible  chance of
living through an attack of inflammation of
the brain, apoplexy, paralysis or insanity.
  The  student that retires from school, as
soon  as  he feels  his bodily health crippling
under his long hours of study, and allows the
system to  regain its former vigor, is almost
always capable of accomplishing more in the
end.   Should the convicts  in the penitentia-
ries be required  to work  as many hours in
the twenty-four, as the young and growing
student  in many of the  public schools  is
tasked, it  would be  a financial loss  to the 
OVER  WORKED STUDENT.        61
 state, and the people would call  it inhuman
 and barbarous.
   There  are far too many young men, who
 enter college with a religious dogma on the
 brain, so  radical that the great scope of the
 classics fails to break the boundary of their
 infatuation.  They ignore nature's immutable
 law that governs their physical organization,
 and their ails  are attributed to the "provi-
 dential doings of the Lord."   They cram the
 mind in season and out of season, and expect,
 if they get the prescribed  quantity of dead
 languages, to be efficient leaders of the flock
 or the people.
       " Mistaken souls that dream of Heaven."
 The emaciated body, the woe-begone counte-
 nance, the ghastly socket  guarding nervous
 eyes, the  pimpled nose saddled with specta-
 cles, the lily-white hands supporting dyspep-
tic   bowels  are indices of sad  neglect of
obedience to the law of recuperation, which
is found in rest and sleep.   No high state of
moral  culture   will  guarantee  to man  the
right to violate the physical law of his being.
Prayer will not repair the inroad made upon
the organism, from long privation of sleep, 
62
HEALTH.
 no more than  sunlight will quench thirst.
 Yet prayer is as  essential to the holy life of
 a  Christian, as breath is to the existence of
 an individual.
   There are examples in every avocation of
 life, where the brain has been robbed of its
 proper  repose, and the sad result marked by
 failing  strength and aberration of mind.   It
 is  beyond doubt, that there  is in the human
 organism, a  periodical  tendency  to sleep.
 When persons are kept actively engaged for
 a considerable proportion of the twenty-four
 hours, a sense of  fatigue is usually experi-
 enced, which indicates that the brain requires
rest; and it is only under some very strong
physical or  moral  stimulus,  that  mental
energy  can be sustained through  the whole
cycle.    The  amount  of sleep required  is
varied much  by temperament, bodily vigor
and habit of the individual.  It is said that
Frederick  the  Great   and  John  Hunter
required only five hours of sleep out of the
twenty-four;  and that General Elliott, cele-
brated for his defences of Gibraltar, did not
sleep more than four hours during the twenty-
four.    It will  be remembered  that these 
OVER  WORKED STUDENT.        63
examples  are  exceptions to the general rule.
The briefest sleepers have usually been men
of the greatest mental activity, with a hardy
constitution.
  Avocations or business, that do  not  have
a  great  diversity  of excitement,  can  be
endured with impunity, longer than a variety,
widely differing and requiring great intensity
of thought.  If the  labor  be mental, and in
its  accomplishment the physical is moderate-
ly exercised in the open air, a greater portion
of the diurnal cycle may be used consecutive-
ly without making any material inroad upon
the constitution.  The influence habit exerts
in predisposing to sleep,  is more  powerful
than the masses are aware of.  The man that
has acquired the power of the will to with-
draw the thoughts  from  exciting  subjects,
and bring  the  whole  system into  a  tran-
quilized repose, has  gained a signal  victory
over organs and functions that often prove
unruly members, and hard to subjugate even
in time of great necessity for the well-being
of  the whole  organism.   The celebrated
pedestrian, Capt. Barclay, when  accomplish-
ing his extraordinary feat of walking one 
64               HEALTH.
thousand miles in as many successive hours,
obtained at last such a mastery over himself,
that he fell asleep the instant he lay down.
  It is a wonderful power that habit exerts
over man in all his conditions in life.   Force
of habit and fixed attention are made to guard
the slumberer, and when fatigued and locked
in sleep, come at  the designated hour, and as
with  a  guardian angel's  impress, bid the
sleeper awake from his semblance  of death,
and on to  duty.  The physician, after days
of great anxiety and exhaustive labor with
the sick, retires to rest; and in his first
profound sleep, the cry of  Fire! fails to pro-
duce even  a sensation, but the first stroke of
his nigdit-bell arouses him.
     o
  Persons  that are accustomed to  rise at  a
particular  hour wake regularly at that hour,
whether they retire early or late.   But what
is more remarkable is that many individuals
have the power of determining at the time
of going  to rest the hour at which  they
shall rise.   With some, an  effort  to wake
at an  unusual hour would produce a  nerv-
ousness that would be fatal to the tranquilized
state of the brain and quiet repose. 
CHAPTER  XL
                 SLEEP.
  The National  Government of the United
States,  presents  to the  American  people,
great inducements  for  physical and mental
labor.  There is no barrier to prevent man
from  amassing material wealth, or rising to
distinction in the arts and  sciences, if he be
endowed with original ability.  The intelli-
gent laborer, whether in the galleries of art,
or in  the  halls of science, in the field, in the
mine, or  on  water, finds in  none  of the
various avocations  of life,  an equal appor-
tionment  of labor  and rest.  This is left to
man's free  agency, and the  masses make
suicidal use of this—one of the greatest of
gifts  that God ever bestowed upon man for
self-control.
  While these wonderful resources are held
out to the American people, as mighty incen-
tives to action, there are other considerations
that should be well weighed in the balance
of calm, deliberate judgment, before jeopar- 
66
HEALTH.
dizing the present life and happiness, in the
wild frenzy for wealth or honorary distinction.
"Will it pay?11 is the stereotyped and uni-
versal question that unlocks the ante-chamber
of the future, and the answer comes:—"As a
man thinketh so is he;"  and the scheme or
enterprise  is undertaken at  once,  without
considerate reflection.
  A reasonable amount of labor is as neces-
sary  to  the  well-being  of man's physical
organization, and prolongation of life, as fuel
is to sustain fire.
  Men that are ambitious, and have a desire
to labor, find, that to learn to labor, is easy;
but to learn to wait, is the rub.   To those
who are  far out upon the sea of adventure,
and require the tranquilizing  and recuperat-
ing power of repose and sleep, a few sugges-
tions  are made.   A  wail  comes in every
avocation in  life, from the over-wrought, for
sustaining rest, like  the  cry of a drowning
crew, from a wrecked ship.   If gold could
purchase the sweet sleep of childhood, how
freely it would be given.  Activity brings
the system into a condition for repose; and
repose calls for activity.   The  amount  of 
SLEEP.
67
sleep required by different individuals is very
much influenced by temperament; thin, wiry
persons, in whom  the  nervous temperament
predominates, do not require nearly so much
sleep, as heavy, passionless1 people,  of  the"*
lymphatic temperament, who are never more
than half awake, only on great and exciting
occasions.  Old persons require more sleep,
in consequence  of want  of energy  in  the
function of digestion and the nutritive opera-
tions.  There are  persons who toil mentally
and  physically,  many  hours  during  the
twenty-four, with a constant feeling  o£ ago-
ny;  and  the few hours allotted for rest are
taken  up  in snatches of  sleep  and  ugly
dreams, when, if but a few hours more  be
taken for repose, sleep would be sweet and
refreshing, and labor pleasurable.
  If  persons  would  get  outside of their
business, even once a year,  and take  a view
of themselves, their habits  and their avoca-
tion, it would be  of more value to them, if
considerately done, and the warning, where
dangers lie, properly  heeded,  than  all  the
narcotics and soporifics in America or Turkey.
A strong  man  may  raise  his  hand  above 
68
HEALTH.
 his head, and have  sufficient force of the
 heart,  despite the action of gravitation, to
 send the blood coursing to the extremities of
 the fingers, with but slight diminution of the
^eins,  while a feeble person's heart could not
 send blood enough in a similar effort, to mark
 the passage, even of  the veins.   In many
 cases, unrest and wakefulness are  due to a
 want  of blood in the nervous centers, which
 can  be  greatly remedied  by  lying down
 frequently upon the back,  with  the  head
 slightly  raised and in a  warm room.  It is
 quite  apparent that if the  hand of a feeble
 perso*n  cannot  receive  blood when  raised
 above  the head, that the head cannot receive
 a due  supply in long-continued efforts in an
 erect  position.   The  blood presses  heavily
 upon the vital organs .of the chest, producing
 unrest, and if long-continued, causes irrepara-
 ble organic disease.  Let the strong person
 measure  and   use  his  strength,  by   his
 standard of  health, and  the  feeble by his,
 and their work  will be  done in accordance
 to  their  proportionate  ability;  and  their
 organism sustained  with a  due amount of
 sleep. 
SLEEP.
69
  The morbid impression produced on some
persons by a disappointment that pertains
to the honor, the moral and domestic rela-
tions in life,  causes  a  singular phenomena,
in which the four nervous centers seem to
take  part.  The sufferer has no desire for
sleep, so long as he  continues to nurse the
morbid infatuation into which he bas been
drawn; he may sit  gazing for hours at a
bright light, without  winking, or an inclina-
tion to sleep; occasionally the  attention is
withdrawn  long enough to  realize  that a
hurtling chill is sweeping up the spine, or
an  aura of the nervo-electric fluid flashing
from the solar  plexus  of the great sympa-
thetic, with  a force  tha^t  excites the  abdo-
minal muscles to a slight spasmodic contrac-
tion,  somewhat  analagous  to the spasmodic
action of the diaphragm and heaving of the
chest, caused  by  grief; but  not as violent
in its action, its  force being  spent in  a
downward direction,  upon   the  abdominal
viscera.  If the  sufferer is not drawn away
from  this  singular  aberration  of   mind,
obtaining quiet  repose, he  soon becomes  a
confirmed maniac, or dies by inanition.   Let 
70
HEALTH.
no maudlin excuse be given by friends, for
not rendering timely aid to this peculiar class
of sufferers.
  The position is assumed that the mind can
both will and suspend its act, of will.  It is
apparent  to  all that the great  office of the
will, is  to produce acts that will supply the
wants  of  the mind or  body, and that the
mind has power or liberty to suspend volition
from one  subject  and place it upon another.
If this  can be done (which no one doubts)
has  it  not the power to  a  greater or less
extent,  to suspend  action  on all subjects?
By  willing, a  condition  can be produced
favorable  to sleep; many  ordinary  experi-
ments  are  resorted  to, such  as counting,
listening to the reading of  a dull story, by a
monotonous reader,  etc., which will not here
be examined, as they are  well known, and
fail, in the majority of  cases, to produce the
desired result.  Persons who are harassed with
wakefulness  should, before retiring  to rest,
take some preparatory steps that a condition
favorable to  quiet repose may be secured.
   First—That  the room be properly venti-
lated, and secured against intrusion. 
SLEEP.
71
  Second—That the feet are warm.
  Ihird—That no bundle of news be admit-
ted, for the over-wrought brain to digest.
  Fourth—That  all the various  kinds  of
business of the day or year be left in their
respective places.
  Fifth—Let all wants  demanding effort be
neutralized by the knowledge that repose is
required.
  Sixth—Place the  faculties of the mind in
the most complete state, of careless indiffer.
ence  to everything,  without  desiring  or
willing an  act, ignoring the immediate object
of every act of  the will  which  would,  if
allowed, move some portion of the body, or
influence mental activity.
  It  should not  be expected that  by one
effort the  quiet repose and sleep, that had
been driven away by months or years of over
work and excitement, could be fully regained
in one  night.  Let  one tithe of consecutive
effort,  that was made in  excessive toil,  be
made in the right  direction,  and a  signal
victory will be won. 
CHAPTER  XII.
THE PHYSICIAN AND THE PEOPLE.
  Amid all the laudable pursuits of life, no
one receives a smaller amount of forecast and
judgment  than that  of  health.   Present
happiness  is  the  great  desire of  all,  and
health is the great requisite for  its consum-
mation.  He whose organs and functions are
in healthful and  harmonious  action  is not
only capable  of  enjoying  more happiness,
but his organization is fortified with  power
to resist a greater amount of injury, than
one  suffering  with functional  or organic
disease.
  Persons  in  health  do  not  accord  to the
physician his  due  relation to society.  He is
too often looked upon as a man that desires
sickness, because his pecuniary support comes
from  the  unfortunate sick.    If a man  is
worthy of  his hire,  the  physician should
obtain for services rendered, value received.
His mission is not as lucrative  as the majori-
ty of avocations,  and if it was not for a 
THE  PHYSICIAN AND THE PEOPLE.    73
consciousness of doing good and saving life,
their  number  would diminish, instead  of
increase.  There is a wrong  existing in so-
ciety, which not only impairs his scope  of
usefulness, but fosters disease and premature
death.  His exposures to  the vicissitudes of
weather and unhealthy localities at all times
during  the  twenty-four  hours, his irregular
meals and dangers of contracting disease at
the bed-side of  those suffering with malig-
nant maladies are no ordinary risks of health
and life.  In acquiring the honorary degree
of  the  profession,  life  is periled upon  the
cadaver, and the experience  with  the  dead
is for knowledge that will mitigate the suffer-
ing and prolong the lives of the living.  For
all  this, no demand  will be  made  here, on
society, for  an extenuation of  the physician's
latitude of  usefulness to humanity,  but  for
the sake of  the immediate and remote benefit
accruing to the health and happiness of  the
people,  there  will  be a  demand.  When a
member of  the family is dangerously ill  the
counsel  of  the physician  is received  and
orders are obeyed with  alacrity.  They  are
aware that  something must  be done right 
74                HEALTH.
speedily or the family compact will be  brok-
en.   The act of  obedience is  no mark of
wisdom, for the  foolish, rash and indolent
have the  absolute power to decide without
even an examination of the merits or demerits
of the  case.  The heathen in time of  great
calamities forsake their  idols and call upon
God.   A great  want coming suddenly  and
unexpectedly must be met by rash decision.
The wise, the prudent, and the industrious
are somewhat prepared  to meet events with
forecast and judgment, especially  those that
pertain to  trade  or  their  daily routine of
business;  but the event of sickness or acci-
dent  which  they  know may  come at  any
moment  finds the majority with the foolish
virgins.
  A gentleman taking a drive in the country
discovers  a drove of  cattle breaking into a
wheat-field; he rides  up to the farmer's resi-
dence  and informs him  that cattle are  des-
troying his wheat.   The  servants are sent
post-haste to  the  rescue, and the  informant
receives  great praise  for  being a  " clever
gentleman."   The next day the family phy-
sician is called to visit a child of the thankful
    D 
THE rilYSICIAN AND  THE PEOPLE.   75
family,  but before his  arrival a congestive
chill has accomplished its fatal work, and the
innocent child is numbered with  the dead.
A mere  glance  at the  surroundings  of the
house reveals to  the Doctor, the cause of the
death  of the child,  and  feeling  that  the
bereaved parents are in a condition to receive
instruction and guard the remaining members
of the family if possible against  an attack
of the pernicious  disease, he kindly remarks
that there is a local cause for malarial fevers,
arising from the effluvia produced by the decay
of animal and vegetable matter, and he sug-
gests that the slops from the cheese-house, the
surface  drain half filled  with  debris  and
dirty water, for want of  sufficient fall, the
cow-yard, in  which  are  herded fifty  cows
night and morning,  the  adjacent hog-yard,
containing from seventy-five to one hundred
hogs and the hot summer's sun  are  enough
to produce  even  this which they have just
witnessed.   The Doctor's suggestions  cause
the  trash that  obstructed  the drain to  be
"hoed  out" and left upon the bank, and
they also cause much grumbling, wishing that
the  doctor would mind his own business and 
76               HEALTH.
attend to the sick.  The farmer by heeding
the timely information of the gentleman and
using appropriate  means  saved his  wheat
from destruction, and himself from pecuniary
loss; in heeding  the Doctor's suggestions he
has the prevention of disease and possibly
of death.  The reader will have no trouble
in drawing the inference.
   It is necessary for the people to make the
prevention of disease of more importance,  if
they expect  to be  guarded against sickness,
and increase the length of life in the present
and future generations.   If life is worth its
estimate, the steps  for maintaining and pre-
serving health should stand first before every
other act or  consideration.   It is true there
are many who are poor in this world's goods
and have to toil for their daily bread,  endur-
ing fatigue and exposure that they know are
deleterious to health,  and shorten life, yet
those who are in affluent  circumstances are
the greater  violators of health duties.  The
restraint  upon the  appetite taxes the moral
resolution of those  who have an abundance,
and he who  judiciously  controls  it  is  in
possession of a great virtue. 
THE  PHYSICIAN AND THE PEOPLE.   77
   In the  treatment  of acute  diseases, it
requires the  keenest  perception and  best
judgment of the physician to determine the
time to discontinue his medical treatment,
and rely upon the recuperative power of the
patient's constitution, supported by an appro-
priate diet.  Here rests a great responsibility
too often left to the discretion and capricious
appetite of the patient, which is pampered
and gratified  by his friends even to  a fatal
relapse  which the  physician too often  and
most unreasonably  has to  bear.  The first
few  days of  the  convalescence  should  be
watched by the physician,  to  relieve local
congestions, should any arise, and see that a
proper  quantity  and   quality  of  food  is
administered.   This may seem quite unneces-
sary to many, but  the sad sequel of disease
in those that might have fully recovered, and
the fatal relapse, are stubborn facts to sur-
mount.  Not  long  since a physician of emi-
nence, residing in an Eastern city, was visiting
a  German family  of wealth  and respecta-
bility, whose  child of  three  summers  was
dangerously ill  with Dysentery; he  called
one day after the crisis had passed, the appe- 
78
HEALTH.
tite returned, and the child was considered
out of danger.   The  mother held it on her
lap and was feeding it bread  and  butter,
roast  corn and cheese.   The Doctor remon-
strated at the  gross violation of  his orders
and upbraided the mother for such a violent
and  imprudent  act,  to  which  the father
replied, "we be  the  nurse  and you be the
doctor."
  It would seem with an intelligent people
that  the  love  of life  and  health would
stand paramount to  every  other  object of
effort.   Physical  Science and Material Prog-
ress have the precedence, and it is not prob-
able that a change will be effected as long as
humanity responds to their incentives  with
so little consideration or forecast upon the
momentous subject of  the preservation of
health and the prolongation  of life.   It  is
well understood by  all that beasts  of  prey
are lurking all  along  the journey of  life,
with  mouths festering  with pestilential poi-
son,   and  some  one  will  sooner  or  later
accomplish the fatal work, without consulting
man's  interests in his  schemes or  material
work,  which have so hazardously led him on 
THE  PHYSICIAN AND THE  PEOPLE.    79
to death before his allotted time. When men
are attacked by any of these beasts of prey,
they too often send for the doctor with as
little regard  to his  success  in  driving away
the beasts, 'or his merit to his title of physi-
cian, as they lived careless to] the laws that
govern life.                      ^
   If thousands of  dollars  would  be freely
paid for the prolongation of life one hour,
when  disease is offering the last fatal symp-
tom, why not in health, bestow  upon this
momentous subject the better judgment and
consideration?   It is true there are inviting
signs  and placards  at  every corner of the
street,  of  boasting  skill or  modest worth,
efficient  and inefficient.   The crowning argu-
ment of the puerile  and inefficient is, "it will
do you  no hurt, if it  does  you no good."
The inconsiderate and foolish are taken with
the argument, and are often caused to regret
their  sin of omission.   He who offers him-
self to  the people as their best and dearest
friend  in the  hour of their struggle with
disease, should be armed with the best  pos-
sible means  of the profession, to  stay the
vampire  and let the  victim go free.   Old 
80
HEALTH.
Dr. Fogy, who had practiced medicine all his
life in the bonds of infidelity,  and in  his
dotage, said that " medicine killed more than
it cured," is often quoted by persons in health
with  an air  of  belief which they  seldom
adhere to in sickness.  Let consistency have
as important  a place in health pursuits as in
financial avocations,  and  less sickness,  and
more happiness, will greet mankind. 
MEDICAL   AND   ELECTRICAL  INSTITUTE,
    ESTABLISHED 1862, FOR THE TREATMENT AND CURE OF




        Crosby's Building, 84 and 86 State St.,

                  CHICAGO.

   The Medical and Electrical Departments are very elaborate
and complete.   The Electro-Thermal Bath we aver to be
superior to  any yet invented, as to facility in changing and
directing the currents, and is one of the most efficacious Baths
in use. And we are also confident  that its power in arresting
Colds and removing local congestion is not surpassed by any
other bath.
   No one remedy is used to the exclusion of all others.   The
sj-stem of practice is to meet the exigency of the case with an
appropriate  remedy which  science and experience have fur-
nished for the suffering patient.
   Prominent  among the diseases treated are:  Nervous
Diseases,  Palsy, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Scrofula,
and General Debility,  Diseases of the Lungs and
Heart, Catarrh  and Bronchitis, Liver, Spleen, and
Kidneys,  and
    D0SSASI3 @^  WQNtE$  AM©  GM8L0RI&8.
    The majority of our patients are those whose diseases are
of long standing, and Rave been treated by other physicians
without  success, and come to our Institute of their own free
will, or  through the advice of  their physician,  who  was
acquainted with the  current literature and improvements of
the profession.
   The time has come  which  makes it imprudent to brand
every  educated  specialist that does not use one remedy, or a
certain class of remedies, to the exclusion of  all others, with
"Humbug," or "Quack."   We quote Austin Flint, M. D.,
Professor of tlie Principles  and Practice of Medicine in  the 
82
NOTICES  OF THE PRESS.
Bellevue Hospital Medical  College,  and  in  the  Long  Island
College  Hospital; Fellow of tlie New York Academy of Medi-
cine ; Author of the "Principles and Practice of Medicine"etc.,
as authority quite sufficient on this point:

   " The  division  of medicine  into the three  departments
which have been named is natural, and has contributed to the
knowledge acquired in each department.  Subdivisions have
also been found convenient and useful.  The latter are com-
monly  known  as specialties, and they  who devote themselves
to particular subdivisions are called specialists.  The institu-
tion of specialties is  a natural result of an accumulation of
knowledge sufficient  to render it difficult or  impossible for
one mind to compass all that has been ascertained in either of
the three departments of Medicine.   Doubtless the number of
specialties will be  increased as our knowledge continues to
accumulate^* The  special  cultivation  of   the  several sub-
divisions  of medicine leads to a  greater development of
knowledge relating to each subdivision,  and, hence, con-
duces  to the progress of  medicine."

                        JUSTIN HAYES, M.D.,

                                    Resident Physician.
       NOTICES  OF  THE  PRESS.

                 [From the Chicago Tribune]]

      ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT.

  The batteries employed  are of the most complete character,
and  some of them probably the largest and most powerful in
the United States.   It is by means of these powerful agencies
that a  quantity current can be applied  to the patient;  not a
succession of shocks  and thumps here, there and everywhere
at random, but a strong equalizing and steady flow of the fluid.
We have personally visited Dr. Hayes' establishment, and can
speak with still more  confidence of the success of electricity as
a curative agent in the hands of  the Doctor, from the fact that
many of our friends and acquaintances have placed themselves
under his treatment, and  received material benefit  thereby.
The Doctor  is a thoroughly educated physician  of  the old
school, and we have no hesitation in endorsing him  and recom-
mending him to the sick and suffering everywhere. 
NOTICES OF  THE  PEESS.            83
  [From lion. 0. P. Brown, Ohio, in a letter to the Cleveland Herald.]
  " In speaking of Dr. Hayes, I may say, that, with his thorough
medical education in the regular schools—his long experience
as a successful  practitioner, and the means he commands for
curing chronic  diseases,  no one,  however, severely or long
afflicted, availing themselves of his  aid, need  despair of relief
or a permanent cure.  His electrical battery and apparatus is
the most  perfect and powerful in use  in this country.  The
electrical  baths are wonderful  in their healing  powers.  To
these facts his hundreds of restored patients, in every walk of
life and in all parts of the country will bear me evidence  Dr.
Hayes was formerly from Cleveland, and his numerous friends
from Northern Ohio will be glad to hear of his prosperity and
usefulness.
[Extract from a special correspondence of the  Cleveland Leader, Chicago,
                        July 30, 1806.]
   It becomes us to make the candid and unqualified confession
that Cleveland  has given us a physician who ranks among the
very foremost.    *   *   *   He gives himself wholly to hia
proper work and his rooms are always thronged with those
whom the cured have sent to be cured.  I have heard from the
eager  lips of a score of friends, almost literally  renovated at
his hands, stories such  as one may indeed  read  in various
advertising columns, but such  as it is rare  to hear from  a
patient's own mouth.
   Chicago to Cleveland, greeting: Thank you for  Dr. Justin
Hayes!   But do  not think to get  him back.  He is here to
stay.
               [From the Chicago Times, 1865.]
   Dr. Hayes is a  member of the regular profession, and  has
been in practice for seventeen years.  He stands high with the
 medical faculty in this city as a thorough, experienced and suc-
cessful practitioner.  The new system  of treatment  by the
powerful agent of electricity, which is rapidly gaining confi-
dence everywhere, has  been the  subject of deep  and patient
investigation by  Dr. Hayes  for  many years, and the success
 which has invariably attended his practice,  has been attested
by many of the most prominent men of this city, as well as
throughout  the adjoining states.  He has labored diligently,
 and  in  the most unostentatious manner, in perfecting  this
 admirable method, never  taken any care to blazon himself to
 the world, or  shouting " Eureka,"  as  the empirics of the pro-
 fession are so fond of doing, but laboring earnestly to find out
 what he conscientiously believes to  be  a truth.   Apart from
 the invigorating influence of the electro-thermal bath, and the
 relief it 'is calculated to afford to sufferers, the pleasurable sen- 
84           NOTICES  OF  THE  PPvESS.
sations experienced in the process might in itself be an induce-
ment.  The patient is placed in a bath, fitted up much in the
ordinary way, and filled with water of a temperature which  is
varied according to the nature of the case.  By the side  of tlie
basin stands the  electric apparatus,  which connects by  means
of wires with the  water.  By turning certain keys in this
instrument, the electric current can be directed to any part of the
body, or made to permeate the whole system equally.  One
seems to feel a new life running through him, a creeping, ting-
ling sensation being felt from head to foot, which is particularly
agreeable.   If there is any weak spot in  the body, an  appli-
cation of  the sponge, which also  connects with the  wires,
seems to strengthen and restore  it.  The patient rises from the
bath refreshed and purified, and, if previously exhausted and
fatigued with mental or physical exertion, he will emerge from
it as much  refreshed as from a night's rest.
  The apparatus now in preparation for the new building is on
a much  larger scale than  that now in use, and, together with
all the other appliances for  the preservation of health  adopted
by  Dr. Hayes, the  institution will  become one  of the most
popular  resorts in  the west for all who stand in need  of the
healing art.
              [From the Chicago Evening Journal.]

               DR. HAYES1 INSTITUTE.

  It is with unfeigned pleasure that we direct the attention  of
the  public  to  Dr. Hayes' Medical and Electrical Institute now
located in Crosby's  new building, Nos. 84 and 86 State Street.
**********

  An experience  of eighteen years in the regular practice  of
medicine has  given Doctor Hayes a knowledge of disease, its
causes and the best means of cure, such as comparatively few
physicians   possess.   The   new  and  elaborate  electrical
apparatus and  electro-thermal baths used  by Dr. Hayes,  in
connection with others of the best remedies of the profession,
are unquestionably among the  most potent agencies that can
be applied  to the cure of chronic diseases.  The Doctor's elec-
trical rooms are the most complete of any in the  West; there
are two  distinct  departments, one for the ladies and the other
for gentlemen, each being  furnished with  intelligent and effi-
cient assistants.  The therapeutic power of  the electro-thermal
baths has been clearly demonstrated in thousands of cases, and
is daily becoming  more apparent to  all  who use  them   or
witness  their effects upon others.  From personal knowledge,
we regard Dr. Hayes' Institute as a public blessing. 
   Sargent's Concentrated Solution
                          OF

CHLORIDE    OF    ZINC,
            FOR  DEODORIZING AND PURIFYING
Hospital Wards,  Sicfc Chambers, Cellars,  Sinks,
      Cesspools, 'Vaults, Cabinet  and Chamber
         Vessels;  'Preventing the Spread of
              Infectious "Diseases, etc.

   The following is proof of its great value :
                          Chicago, III., April 3d, 1866.
Mu. E. H. Saiwent:
       Dear Sir—Your communication  requesting my  pro-
fessional opinion of the  value  of Chloride  of Zinc,  as a
deodorizer, etc., is received.  I reply that there  is abundant
scientific authority—with which my own experience  accords
—to prove, beyond doubt, the immense value of this agent as
a deodorizer, and, in a high degree, as a disinfectant.  While it
is equally as prompt and efficient as  Chloride of Lime—the
bsst known and  the longest used of the deodorizers—it has
over it the great advantage that it has no offensive odor of its
own, when neutral, and may be freely used about the persons
and clothing of the  most  sensitive persons without exciting
any feeling of disgust.   It has  a great  advantage over the
preparations of Iron and  Manganese, which are used  for
similar purposes, for use within  doors, that, when pure and
neutral, it may be freely sprinkled upon the person's clothing
and bed-clothing of the sick, without injury or stain, provided
only, that they be first well soaked and washed with pure
water, before using soap or an alkali for their cleansing.
  It may be freely used for mopping and cleansing the floors
of sick rooms and the wards of hospitals, with the effect to
remove  all odors, and  rather to preserve than injure  the
durability of the wood.  Clothes moistened with the solution,
suspended in a sick room, will promptly remove all unpleasant
odors, emanating from the excretions of the patient,  and ,
materially contribute to the comfort, and diminish the proba
bility of infection of nurses and friends.  As a  deodorizer, for
use in  closed apartments, and within dwellings for general
family use, I am of the  opinion that the Chloride  of Zinc is
the most safe, the most prompt, and the most efficient of
the deodorizers now furnished for general distribution.
    Very Respectfully, etc.,      JAS". V. Z.  BLANEY,
             Prof, of Chemistry Rush Medical College, Analytical and
                             Consulting Chemist.
Prepared by E. H. SARGENT, Chemist and Druggist,
       Corner Randolph and State Streets, Chicago. 
        AMERICAN   MUTUAL


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