-PHYSICIAN fop diseases of the and LUNOa American 'Sax': ,\c.c Cc. .A. V v THE A SEQUEL TO FOR TUB USB AND BENEFIT OF mplogmg |u!jalaiions writer tbe iterations of / DR, 39, B. Physician Special, for Treating Diseases of the Throat, I 'W/\ on the healthy condition of the human I % system that to neglect to notice some in a ! becoming manner, in connection with pulmo- nary disease, would be to be faithless to one of our most important duties. Medicines are I instrumentalities for restoring health, but in- i' formation is necessary to guide and govern us that we may know how to retain it. Health, in a comprehensive sense, may be said to be harmony in the distribution of the vital forces through the system. To maintain this harmony we must have knowledge of the laws regu- bating our being. Disease is the converse condi- $ ™ ( GuidQ--BoQkl don, and may be considered as the offspring of ignorance and crime against ourselves. The most important study that can engage the mind of man is himself, not in an egotistical sense, but fr07n a philosophical stand-point. But we do not intend to enter on so stupendous a subject in this place. We allude to it only to give direction to the mind of our sick friend, who is suffering the penalties of wrong-doing, inflicted by the grand and majestic laws of his indwelling spirit. Could the causes of all sickness be traced suc- cessfully, they would be found to consist in antag- onizing the laws divinely appointed for the gov- ernment of our physical or spiritual structure. The major duty of the physician is to make known these causes ! That constitutes the fundamental treat- ment of disease for knowledge has power not only to heal, but to maintain good health, if not per- versely employed. It is the minor duty of the physician to prescribe a medicine for a special ef- fect in the promotion of health. It is a logical axiom that the same causes that will produce an effect, if left intact will continue the effect indefinitely. This proposition is as true in regard to health as it is in physical science. Now let us make the application for the benefit of “ all . concerned.” Hints £q? the Management q£ Health* The lungs are organs that gather vital elements from the respired air, that supply our spiritual being with animal life. Their functions may be said to be, to digest the air we breathe for spiritual appro- priation. Their importance and value to the well- being of the physical structure can not be too highly estimated. Now we would think that their protec- tion against injury, for the important offices they perform, would challenge and secure our best al- legiance and our first devotion. But this is not the fact, and it is much to be deplored that it is not. If we would have good health we must have an abundance of pure fresh air, both day and night, to supply the ceaseless consumption by the lungs. While sleeping, our chambers should be well ven- tilated, not only for the admission of pure air, but also to facilitate the escape of noxious gases. Do n’t be afraid of night air, for the millions of dwellers on the earth, can get no other; and when it is pure, it is as invigorating as day air, and more so, if you are in repose at seasonable hours. The night air of parties, theatres, churches, and dances, after nine o’clock, becomes poisonous and as pes- tiferous as the atmosphere of the plague-house. I would advise all people with common sense, and who have any regard for their health, to avoid all such localities after night-fall; and to frequent them as little in dav-time as the condition of their moral . - \ J V Guide-Book, and physical health will permit. A youth of sixteen years was found in company with two adult assas- sins, who recently murdered a citizen of Cincinnati. The whole three were hanged to death. The young- ster, with the rope around his neck, edified the ap- palled spectators with a comic dance, and urged the sheriff to hurry up his work as he wanted to be in time to make the train on the other side. “ He was insatie,” but not more so than the pitiful fools who half-dressed, and shamelessly too, dance their health away in the stewing night air of the fashion- able ball-room where they contract colds that ex- cite cough and which terminate in coffins. Poor Richard’s advice to go “ Early to bed, and early to rise,” has something more in it than a jingling allitera- tion. Of a kin to the unhealthy localities spoken of is that of the ill-ventilated workshop, office, or studio. A contemporary writer, though a non-professional man, observes that “ some classes of men seem so intent upon riches, position, or place in society, that the powers of Nature are often overtaxed, sufficient refreshment from sleep is seldom allowed, while the food provided for nourishment is often scanty and unwholesome. Though such people may attain old age, such a state of life will be laden with in- Hintsj iQr the Management pi Health., firmity and disease. The tissues of the lungs are so delicately formed, the nervous system is so ten- der and keenly sensitive, that the sudden changes of our atmosphere, in consequence of the opening of the pores of the body, arising from undue warmth or exercise, by which the nerves and blood become exposed to chills and night airs, while the lungs are exposed to the same changes through respiration, must invariably prove injurious to health and life. Suitable clothing should be at hand, and every precaution taken by which the proper tem- perature of the body may be preserved ; while sud- den transitions from a warm to a cold atmosphere, and so also vice versa, should be observed with much caution. Diseases of the throat, chest, and inflam- matory diseases generally, arise, in many instances, from a due want of care in this regard. As the blood supplies the waste and decaying portions of the body, and is formed from the food we receive and the atmosphere we inhale, its purity should be carefully preserved. This may be produced by pure air, wholesome food, and sufficient exercise. Scrof- ula and contagious diseases are, doubtless, the re- sult of impure blood.” Is it to be wondered at, when to the anxieties of business and the cares of family, is added the depressing influence of impure air, that the health of the most robust should at last give way, Commonq Guides Book., and the lungs become involved in disease? The first duty of man is to preserve good health, that he may serve himself, his family, and friends. When his circumstances will not permit him doing this, he is to be pitied as much as if his freedom was taken from him by force, and he compelled to serve involuntarily a loathsome tyrant the balance of his days. But what shall we say of the man who willfully destroys the integrity of his health by the volun- tary use of | ITS effect on the nervous system is most appall- ju ing; but as an agent for promoting thoracic - ■: diseases it has no parallel in the seductive deviltries of perverted taste. We have but little sympathy with these filthy moribunds, how- ever much we pity them. Old Dr. Warren, of Boston, one of the few intel- ligent physicians who dared to look this monster vice in the eye and speak of it as he knew it, said: “ Many persons, and some of them wise and val- uable men, impair their health and shorten their lives by this poison, the effects of which are visible in their pallid countenances, relaxed muscles, yel- low lips, and languid, listless postures. We hear them complaining of lost appetites, pains in the^ TOBAGO© ? Hints igr the Management q£ Health. chest, palpitation of the heart, and daily indigestion, till finally some irremediable disease carries them to their graves. The number of persons of intel- lectual pursuits in this country who voluntarily place themselves in this suicidal list is too great to be counted. Within my own experience a great number of cases of diseased lungs and stomachs have been explained by the habit of chewing to- bacco ; and the relinquishment of the practice has been followed by restoration to health. “ The habit of smoking, which has insinuated it- self more extensively than other modes of using tobacco, impairs the natural taste and relish for food, lessens the appetite, and weakens the powers of the stomach. Tobacco being thus drawn in with the vital breath, conveys its poisonous influence into every part of the lungs. These organs, by reason of the countless number of cells which form their internal structure, have a surface greatly exceed- ing that of the whole exterior of the body. The lining membrane of these cells has a wonderful absorbent action, by which they suck in the air de- signed to vivify the blood. If this air is, even in a weak degree, impregnated with fumes of tobacco, the great extent of surface in which the absorbent action takes place necessarily impregnates the whole blood with the deleterious properties. The noxious fluid, entangled in the innumerable spongy Common=§ense Quide-B00k. air-cells, has time to exert its influence on the blood, which, instead of being vivified by the air that is breathed, is thus vitiated by it. The effects of this narcotic action are eruptions on the skin, weakness of the stomach, heart, and lungs, dizziness, head- ache, and confusion of thought. When there is any tendency to phthisis in the lungs, the debility thus caused in these organs must favor the deposit of tuberculous matter, and thus sow the seeds of consumption.” Thus it is shown that the inhalation of tobacco fumes will “favor the deposit of tuberculous mat- ter” in the lungs, and “sow the seeds of consump- tion.” Is not the truth sufficiently obvious, then, that while the influence of tobacco is maintained in the system, there can be no remedy -to remove disease from the lungs. Let it be distinctly under- stood that it is wasting time, money, and health to use tobacco in any form at any time, but most es- pecially when the effort is being made to remove disease from the respiratory organs by Medicated Inhalations. I have no hope of accomplishing any good while the influence of tobacco is maintained in the system. Asthma, especially, can not be cured—I assert it as my deepest conviction—while the use of tobacco is indulged; and the same may, with equal truth, be said of Nasal Catarrh, x and diseases of the throat and bronchia. Its use Hints ion the Management al Health« must be abandoned at once if you wish to regain your health. The Antidote.—Learn to hate it. A knowl- edge of the fact that it is your enemy should de- stroy your love for it. Your love is unnatural—it is a slavish submission to its power, not love for the filthy thing, that commands your homage. Know well the relation you sustain to it, then change it. Renovate your pockets; get the smell away from you ; brush your teeth, and wash your person ; now fill your pockets with crackers or crusts of bread. When the craving comes for a chew of tobacco— and it will come to the old slave with overwhelming appeal—simply chew a cracker, and lodge it around the inside of the mouth and teeth. The saliva will soon wash it away. The tobacco craving will give way, but to return again, when you will repeat the antidote as before. You will soon begin to respect yourself, and that is death to tobacco. Try it, and then with Francis Quarles join, and say: “ Come, burst your spleens with laughter to behold A new-found vanity, which days of old Ne’er knew ; a vanity that has beset The world, and made more slaves that Mahomet; That has condemned us to the servile yoke Of slavery, and made us slaves to smoke.” CQmmQH*&en§g Guidg^Booki wm. ski®— M mN the economy of health, after feeding the lungs jjl, with fresh air, not tainted with tobacco or de- ;Y, praved with carbonic acid gas, ranks next in importance a healthy condition of the skin. Indeed, it is a question whether the free exit of the insensible perspiration from the system through the capillaries is not of coequal importance in keeping alive the holy flame of life with the intro- duction of oxygen through the pulmonary structure. Space will not permit an amplification of this subject. I find so much to say that is valuable to the victim of pulmonary disease, that much must be omitted for want of space ; still, I wish to call special attention to the fact that the office of the skin in the economy of health is of the greatest value. It should be kept in the best condition. Twice a week it should be well oiled and washed with tepid water and soap, and then rubbed dry with the hands of the patient or assistant. On the other five days of the week, every morning, it should be briskly rubbed with a wet towel, from the feet to the head, and the lower the tempera- ture of the water can be endured, the more tonic its influence on the pulmonary structure, and the more protection it affords to the system against Hints for thQ Management of Health* the effects of sudden vicissitudes of heat and cold. All persons who have a proper estimate of the value of good health, know well how to estimate the luxury of the bath. But the invalid more espe- cially requires this general ablution of the skin, in order not only that the diseased secretions of the insensible perspiration may be removed from it, but also that the facilities for decarbonizing the general circulation through the capillary vessels may thus be effectually augmented. Every day, then, the consumptive should either oil and wash, or be rubbed with a cool wet towel all over his person, that he may enjoy the double blessing, the baptism of pleasure and health. The spine of the hack, after bathing, should be well rubbed, and the more vigorously patted or slapped it is the better, if the patient can endure it. Being the grand center of the sympathetic system, from it is distributed the nervous power that gives life or vitality to the whole physical structure. Persons with diseased lungs or habitual cough are in the habit of protecting their chest by wearing cotton and woolen pads over their breast, which is well enough when a low condition of flesh exists, but the protection would be more effective, and the results more satisfactory, if the spinal column was vigorously manipulated every day by an assistant with vitalizing liniment, and then pro- Common - S ens @ Guide- Boo k. tected, in cold weather, with two extra ply of cotton flannel, large enough to cover the whole back, worn or attached to the back of their under-garment. However, sufficient clothing should at all times be worn to preserve a comfortable temperature of the whole body, including the feet, hands, and head. But it is necessary to be brief. I wish, specially, to impress several truths upon the mind of the pul- monary invalid, even at the hazard of losing his good opinion by repeating much already said. With your lungs blocked up with tubercles, or sloughing with ulcers, you should get out of your “ warm, comfortable room,” where you are surely dying by inches. “Conquer your prejudices,” and bathe in freedom and sunlight. When your health will permit, take plenty of outdoor exercise, and stretch your legs in long walks through the coun- try. You can walk a great deal within a mile of your home. Don’t be afraid of fresh air, and sun- light, and shade. Go forth a trusting child of Nature, with goodness in your heart, and charity in your spirit, and ramble over the green fields. Linger by the brook, climb the sunny hill-side, and pluck flowers while you listen to the merry carol of birds. Persons with diseased lungs should live out- of-doors as much as possible ; the house will do to sleep in. . Remember, I have said many times, nothing is Mint® for the Management oi Health., better for your health than pure, fresh air. There is no medicine in the Pharmacopoeia, of quack or regular, to be compared to it. It is prepared in the great laboratory of Nature, by a Master chem- ist, and hence is better adapted to purposes of health than any vaunted human nostrum. Twenty- five years’ practice has convinced me that the more medicine a consumptive takes into his stomach the sooner he dies. Fresh air is the food of the lungs—the lungs digest it for the spirit. To get it, go forth from your crib. If the day is raw or damp, put on extra clothing, and heavy brogans to keep your feet warm. A wet day outdoors is better for the consumptive than a dry day in-doors. I have recommended walking as a proper exercise for the invalid ; the next best exercise is horse- back riding. A canter gallop is a darling medi- cine. Carriage riding is better than none at all, and should only be indulged in by ladies who have no practice in the saddle, or the very weak and debilitated. Railroad cars should be avoided as you would a pest-house. Another mode of taking exercise I strongly com- mend to your attention, if you have strength to practice it. When you rise in the morning, get into the middle of your chamber, fill your lungs, and commence flinging your arms round and about ) you rapidly for some time ; then posturize by plac-. GQmWQM*(3gng§ Quida-BQok.^ ing the body in strange positions; then circulate the legs as you did the arms; then bend the body forward till the face almost touches the knees, and suddenly bend backward again. Do this several times rapidly in succession. Then stand erect, place your elbows akimbo, your feet apart, and rotate your body in a quarter or half circle rapidly for a few minutes, right and left. Then stand firm upon the floor, take a deep and prolonged breath, till the chest is fully expanded, then pound and slap yourself upon the breast severely and rapidly, as long as you can hold your breath, with clinched or open hand. These chamber gymnastics over, take your sponge bath or wet towel rubbing, and dress yourself for a morning walk; go see the sun rise. The sun looks like “a golden wheel on the rim of the sky,” a half mile from your sleeping place. Go, by all means, and see it. Take an orange with you every morning—a sweet orange— and suck its delicious juices while you are walking. You can then walk comfortably home, and, if you feel fatigued, lie down and take “a morning nap.” One hour’s sleep after such an experience is full of health and comfort, and will repay you a thousand times for your trouble. Your bedroom should be large, light, and airy, with the windows looking sunward. It should be kept cheerful with pictures, and, in season, with Hint® iQ? the Management Qi Health* flowers. At night the flowers should be removed to the open air, if you would prolong their life and preserve their beauty. They can not live on such night air as your bedroom supplies. Their lungs absorb carbonic acid gas during the day, and thus purify the air of the chamber; but at night they throw it off, more impoverished and poisoned, to gather oxygen. You want all this element in your chamber for your own use, to nourish the beautiful flower of life, the spirit. Fresh air should at all times have access to your chamber. You will, of course, not think of having a stove in your bedroom, and yet you must keep the chill out by a little fire in the grate or fireplace. Burn wood in preference to coal. Let your bed be snug and warm, and if you can get along comfortably without feathers it is best to do so. In the warm seasons the use of feather-beds should be entirely ignored. A cotton mattress on a straw tick makes a desira- ble Winter bed—hair or straw mattresses alone for hot weather. Sleep between woolen blankets in Winter, between cotton sheets in Summer. Your chamber should never be used for a sitting- room, nor should any other person sleep in it if it is small. Persons in advanced stages of consump- tion, who have hectic fever, night sweats, and pro- fuse expectoration of pus, should always sleep alone. The person of the patient should be kept com- Qommotn- Sqxisq QuidQ^Book. fortable by clothing. Half-cotton and half-woolen fabrics as garments are preferable to be worn next the person, and under no circumstances should a tri-weekly change of under-clothing be omitted. Two suits a week in Winter-time will be sufficient, one airing while the other is worn, and so alternat- ing. Use your own discretion in the number of changes you make in Summer-time. The exposure of the body to dampness and chill, when in a negative state, throws the life-principle or vitality inward; the circulation becomes im- peded, and there is no ready flow of the currents of life ; thus an inward inflammation is created, the pores are clogged, and the skin does not fulfill its office; the mucous membrane is called upon to throw off the refuse matter. It becomes irritated and inflamed, and in time diseased. In this man- ner we have produced, in startling numbers, throat diseases, lung affections, chronic diseases of fe- males, and a long list of other prevailing evils. At such times take no medicine, but use a tepid bath, rub well, and have the spine vigorously rubbed and slapped. There is no truth more firmly established among medical men than that disease follows fashion as much as dress leads it. When tight lacing and thin shoes are the styles of the “ ton,” then con- sumption is the prevailing epidemic with females Mint® tnx ths Management o>£ Health* in every fashionable community of the country. When low-necked dresses are in the ascendant, sore throat and quinsy are the raging maladies. When “ bustles ” and “bishops” make their appear- ance, spinal affections become, literally, the “ ag- ony.” The .reign of corsets is denoted by collapsed lungs, dyspepsia, and a general derangement of the digestive organs. Indeed, so immediately are dress and disease connected, that a doctor can almost determine what a majority of the women are dying of if he has an inventory of their wardrobe handed to him. A healthful reform has commenced in the clothing of the feet. Thick-soled, high boots are fashionable now. But the limbs must also be pro- tected. Over-drawers of flannel, fastened below the knee, are indispensable for street wear. Noth- ing else will prevent the noisome vapors from as- cending and acting dangerously upon the delicate tissues of the body. The arms must be protected warmly as low as the elbow, and the wrists must have close bands. True elegance of attire com- bines comfort with grace. Food should be taken with more regard to qual- ity than quantity. Gluttony, however, is as preju- dicial to good health as it is to good morals and gentility. Food should be plain, simple, and nu- tritious. A mixed diet of animal and vegetable matter is better than either one exclusively. Fat,s Guide^BQok. pork, hard salted meats, and salt fish are not much better than periwinkles and buff leather in the stomach. I have said nothing against oysters. All kinds of ripe fruit and vegetables in season are healthful, unless contra-indicated by idiosyn- crasy of constitution. Beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, all kinds of poultry and game, are health- ful when well cooked and desired. But there is very much in the cooking. Mark that. Sweet cream is more nourishing than cod-liver oil, and is always entitled to the preference when increase of nutrition is desired; but better still is milk warm from the udder of “our second mother,” the cow. Drink as much as you can digest. As already intimated, the habit of retiring late is very prejudicial to any body’s health, but es- pecially so to the consumptive. Old Ralph Farm ham, the last veteran of Bunker Hill, who died a few years ago at the ripe age of one hundred and five years, wrote, one month before his death, as follows: “I am the first one up in the morning, and the first one in bed at night; I rise at five and re- tire at seven, and continue this Summer and Win- ter. I have always been temperate, and for thirty years have not tasted liquor or cider. I was never sick in my life so as to require the attention of a physician.” What a glorious old hero! Just be- fore his death he said, “My room is full of beauti- Hint® igz the Management o£ Health* ful angels.” Is it any wonder that this old man’s life was so much prolonged, or that the beautiful angels ” should visit him as convoys to take his spirit over the shimmering river, to the golden “ summer land ?” When convenient, we should sleep with our heads to the north, as the brain is a magnet. It is better to go to sleep on the right side, for then the stomach is very much in the position of a bot- tle turned upside down, and the contents of it are aided in passing out by gravitation. If one goes to sleep on the left side, the operation of emptying the stomach of its contents is more like drawing water from a well. If you sleep on your back, es- pecially soon after a hearty meal, the weight of the digestive organs, and that of the food, resting on the great vein of the body, near the backbone, compresses it, and arrests the flow of the blood more or less. If the arrest is partial, the sleep is disturbed and there are unpleasant dreams, but if the circulation is obstructed for a short time, look out for the night-mare, for she will dash you, with clattering hoof, into yawning abysses, or over ap- palling precipices. Persons affected with asthma, or catarrh of the head, should never use feather pillows, but substi- tute a hard shuck or straw pillow in their stead, on which the head can rest without heating. Common=&ens§ Quid e-Book., The sick-room should be large, airy, and cheer- ful. Let the sun shine freely into it—let the air pass freely through it. No foul smell or untidy look should be permitted in it. Nothing so relieves the tedium of a sick-chamber as adorning it with evergreens and flowers, and cheerful pictures upon the walls. Cheerful conversation falls like a balm upon the spirit of the invalid; but good Lord de- liver us from the doleful monger of ills, and aches, and afflictions ! When such unwholesome people begin to suggest some medicine for you to try, as it did so much good to Mrs. Bty, I always give my consent to have them incontinently pitched out of the window, as the only way to abate the nuisance. Such people mean well enough, but good intentions will not abate the penalty of a mistaken judgment. As a rule, it will hold good, that the more ignorant persons are, and the less knowledge they possess, the more ready they are to advise you what to do! They will dose your stomach for the good of your lungs, you know, and if you ask them, perhaps they can tell you how many ribs a man has attached to his backbone, and from which side the one was taken to make a meddlesome woman. Consumption and indoor civilization are contem- porary institutions. The Arabians knew but little of this scourge of modern society. There is no disguising this fact, that we live too much indoors. Hints for the Management q£ Healths Our occupations do much to deprive us of air, sun- light, and earth, but the tyrant Fashion does more. Healthful labor should not be considered incom- patible with the dignity of the true gentleman or accomplished lady. Go to the plowman for a sam- ple of health; or look at the muscular arm and healthful glow upon the face of Bridget. Blood will show itself, and muscle will win when the rouge- cup and padded dress have essayed in vain to em- ulate them. I am told that many young ladies die without ever having touched the earth with their dainty feet. They generally die of consumption. People who run barefoot occasionally, when the earth is warm, seldom have cold feet or bronchial irritation in cold weather. Sun-tan is said, by a French medical writer, to cure consumption. The skin requires sunlight to keep it healthy. Consumptives should always find some outdoor occupation. Working in the garden or the farm, or “fixing things in general,” is better than quiet- ude. Thinking of one’s disease will surely aggra- vate it. Imagination can kill a man—so can it cure. You will get well under the professional care of a doctor in whom you have confidence, when the same treatment by others would fail to relieve you. Medicine borrows much of its effi- ciency from the imagination of the patient. Turn Common -§ensg Quide =. BQQki the bright side up. Never despair! Have confi- dence in Nature to cure you, but try to understand her laws. Do n’t undervalue the mind as a physi- cian—the “will to get well.” This is more potent than all the pills or powders in Christendom to restore health. Cheerfulness is an attribute of health, and you should woo childhood for your companionship. Never give audience to people who delight to talk of their physical infirmities. They will tell you of a thousand ills to which they are heirs, and secretly regret that they have no more to stun you. Shun them ; let them alone in their glory. They are afflicted with a disease called dry brains. If they had no auditors they would have no ills. Breathing should be done through the nose. The moisture of the membrane and the warmth of the chamber through which the air first passes be- fore it enters the lungs, is wisely provided for com- fort and protection to the delicate membranes forming the air-cells, whose office is to filter it for vital purposes. When breathing is done habitually through the open mouth, the integrity of the lungs is always in jeopardy. The position or carriage of the person with weak lungs should be upright when walking. The shoul- ders should be well back, the chest projected, and the chin slightly forward. By taking deep breaths Hint® igr the Management e£ Health. at such times, you expand the chest and increase the entire capacity of the lung-structure. If there are any bad teeth in your mouth which afford a lodgment for food, or are in a decaying condition, they should be extracted or put into a better condition at once. Keep in mind that your lungs live on pure, sweet air, and this you can not have when every breath you draw is poisoned with the odor of decaying teeth. All persons, but es- pecially those who expectorate depraved secretions from the lungs, should be particular to wash the teeth daily, and rinse the mouth with plain or med- icated water two or three times between morning and evening. When a person’s health is not absolutely broken down, sometimes travel is beneficial, especially so if the patient is desirous for a journey; but if the health is so much broken as to require an assistant or traveling companion for the help he affords, be- ware how you leave the friendly comforts of home; for the icicles hanging from the eaves of your own cottage, humble though it be, are more dear to the heart and more beautiful to the eye of the invalid, when hallowed by the smiles of affection and the presence of those who anticipate your every wish by reading the mute language of your appealing eye, and supplying your every want, than all the gor- geous scenery of the vine-clad hills of France, the. Sense Quide^Book., flower-blooming gardens of sunny Spain, or the castle cliffs of the storied Rhine. For these only would serve to remind you of the truth that you are a wanderer in a strange land for a boon which your own denies you, and with this thought a sense of terrible desolation waves itself over your soul. What a beautiful sentiment is conveyed in the Oriental benediction, “May you die among your kindred1” It is wicked to advise a sinking patient to leave his home for the uncertain comforts of traveling. Persons afflicted with cold feet are more liable to consumption and asthma than those who keep them habitually warm. Feel them, and if cold to the touch, give them immediate attention, and do not remit your exertions to restore warmth till you have accomplished your purpose. Bathe them every evening before going to bed, in a pailful of hot water, with a little soda or ashes added, and then have them well rubbed by an assistant, and slapped on the soles and up the limbs to the knees between the hands, till they fairly glow and burn. Repeat this nightly till you succeed in getting them habitually warm. Persons having cold feet will never succeed in keeping them warm unless they keep their legs well protected with comfortable clothing; nor can they keep their hands warm unless the arms to the wrist are likewise provided for. These suggestions Hint® Iqv the; Management of Hesltk* should be well considered by persons who follow teaching, seamstresses, professional men of close, studious habits, and all people who follow indoor business, or who have sedentary occupations. No- body but a snobby egotist or a contemptible cox- comb would practice the cruelty of “ tight boots ” at the expense of health, comfort, and manhood. People who value “a neat little foot,” are generally the nurslings of Mrs. Grundy, who has never yet reared a healthy child in the world. The use of stimulating drinks—“good old Bour- bon,” or “brandy obtained at a drug-store,” where it is “kept for medical uses,” etc., are quite obnox- ious in their influence on persons who are weak- ened by disease. Let it be remembered that stimulating the system does not strengthen it. A whip to a tired animal exhausts the vital power, never increases it. The whip has the same effect upon the animal that the stimulant has upon the human system. You can arouse the forces, but they the sooner completely fail. Of a like char- acter is the use of opium in suppressing Cough, and for obtaining sleep. It should always be borne in mind that, however severe a cough may be, it will do less injury to the system than the stupor induced by the use of opium. Besides, cough has its beneficent purposes, and unpleasant as it may be, it performs one of the most important Common Sezsse Guide Book. services in removing the unhealthy secretions from the air-tubes and lung-cavities, which, if permitted to remain undisturbed, would soon drown the pa- tient with the putrid accumulations. Beware, then, of all cough preparations that contain opium, for if you succeed in arresting the cough in advanced stages of pulmonary consumption, it is at the ex- pense of life itself; and when rest is only sought to be obtained by such means, the prime object— ?'ecuperatio?i—is not effected ; for medical stupor is but the simulation of sleep, and affords not the blessings of the latter. The rest or sleep that is most valuable to the feeble invalid should be unin- fluenced by any agency but exhaustion, when na- ture will be prompt to repair the wasted energies, if not obstructed in her divine operations by the bale- ful influences of poisonous narcotics. In concluding these suggestive hints, I wish to impress upon my invalid friend, that acquired dis- ease is simply the penalty of a law transgressed; and that nothing but a knowledge of those laws, enabling you to live in harmony with their divine principles, will ever secure you the blessings of health, which, while on earth, is all that we can realize of heaven. 54 ©'JH3-IST'H3)«, Y j \V\ MM\ j LL intelligent persons are supposed to 11understand that the stomach is de- 1 W signed to receive and digest food for I JU the support and upbuilding of the body. IM- The process of separating the solid from I' ; \ fluid portions of the food is the same both \ in the animal and human organization. In ii itself the stomach has no power to perform '!> the chemistry of digestion, but its structure j[ is perfect for the work when the nerve en- ergy of the brain-life is exerted as a force to put the machinery in motion. It is not our object to say any thing about the origin and character of the brain-life, for the obvious reason that we have not space in this little book. The membrane lining the stomach is thickly corrugated with mucous follicles, or pits, which may be termed digestive batteries. When food is re- ceived the mechanical activities and muscular Quide^Book, power of the organ are aroused and sustained by the life-fires of the lungs and brain, communi- cated through the pneumogastric nerves. Indeed, the brain is the power that carries on digestion, but that power is gathered up through the lungs from the boundless ocean of imponderable ele- ments which constitute the divine breath. Thus it may be understood that the stomach can do nothing in carrying on digestion without the brain ; and the brain is equally destitute of power unless obtained through the lungs. In this way we see that “ the celestial elements of infinity ride straight through the lungs into the blood, thence to the great battery of all energy, the brain, which imme- diately distributes to each part of the body the principles of motion, life, and sensation.” Digestion, it will be seen, depends upon the vivifying proper- ties of the air we breathe. No food would be nu- tritious without this energy to digest it. The gastric fluid, with its inherent pepsin, lactic and hydro- chloric acids, could make no appropriation of nutri- tion without receiving a constant supply of oxygen, or nerve-power, from the atmosphere, through the lungs. Thus the lungs are ever asserting their im- portance in maintaining the operation of every organ of the human structure. They receive the immaculate fire that transforms all food into rosy health. Now let us trace the process of digestion Digestion., that we may the better illustrate the prime object of this article; namely, to show the absurdity of pouring drugs into the stomach with any view of producing a uniform and salutary action on the health of the sick. When food is taken into the stomach, after mas- tication, it forms a pulpy mass which is called chyme. It is mixed with the salivary juice and the fluids of the stomach. In this softened condition it passes into the second stomach, or duodenum, where, by the mixture of the pancreatic fluid and the bile, the chyme becomes converted into chyle, a milk- white liquid, which flows steadily into and through all the small intestines. Now commences the work of separation of the nutritious portion of the liquefied mass from the non-nutricious or excre- mentitious residuum. The membrane lining the intestinal canal is thickly cropped over with lacteal vessels and mesenteric glands, which take up the chylic portions of the mass and form them into minute corpuscles or globules of blood. The crude or unappropriated residuum passes forward into the larger and lower bowels, and is thence rejected with the broken-down blood globules and other excrementative material. The chyle is sucked up through the lacteal passages and the mesenteric glands into the thoracic duct, from which it is poured into a vein from behind the collar-bone, and Qaide-Book, is discharged into the positive side of the heart, where it is mixed with the venous or negative por- tions of the blood. What is meant by negative blood is that portion which is cold, dead, and non- nutritious. Until now, the system is not sustained, nor has it derived any value from this contribution of food. But now commences a beautiful phenomena of life, to which we must at once accord wisdom and be- neficence in its divine Author. The heart is an organ of power, a pump of pro- pulsion, and its office is to force this chyle and venous blood from its valved chambers through the pulmonary vein into the lung-structure. O, here is a grand process of digestion—the beautiful opera- tion of the divine economy, in which we behold dead matter converted into living sustenance, whereby the soul constructs about it a living tem- ple, in which to worship and adore the Divine Fa- therhood of God, the motherhood of Nature, and the brotherhood of man ! Now let us pause a moment and examine the subject so far as we have gone. Food unquestion- ably undergoes a chemical decomposition before it enters the pulmonary structure; but that it imparts no strength to the system until, in the form of chyle, it passes through the lungs, is very evident. Oxygen is the agent by which the chyle is vitalized Digestion,J and prepared to reconstruct the ponderable body. If there is a deficiency of this element in the air we breathe, the effect is instantly impressed upon the fluid material, and all parts of the digestive process at once become disordered. Medicated inhalations are most valuable in supplying the sys- tem with this vitalizing principle. When the lungs are corroded with tubercles, or broken with ulcers, persons may eat much, but unless they breathe much, they gather no strength. Digestion, indeed, is never perfect unless the respiration is full. It is the common lament of persons who neglect their lungs and feed them only with the most unhealthy gases, that they suffer from indigestion ; that they are troubled with headache half the time ; that their liver is diseased, or torpid; and that their bowels will not move without taking medicine. And this is the point we have in our mind in writing this article. It is to caution my patients, and all others, against the pernicious folly of swal- lowing poisonous drugs into the stomach with the view of removing disease from any part of the di- gestive system. Do you not see how intricate your organization is, and how much more liable you are to injure its beautiful operations than to improve them by resorting to the use of drugs? Drugs never cure, but are agents of evil, as a rule. Swal- lowing .a disgusting mass of medicine is never Qommon^Sensg Qiiide^Book._ necessary to good health any more than a weekly dose of morality is indispensable to our happiness after death. We must learn to think first, and then to exercise our best judgments in removing disease by the divine energies of the mind. Intelligent physicians of the progressive school, sudh as Hahnemann, Bischoff, Bell, Dixon, Muller, Hall, Marshall, Thompson, and others, confesfe' that the human system demands almost nothing besides good treatment in nursing, bathing, dieting, and magnetizing during the different stages of any known disease. If people would study the phys- iology of the laws of health, and live obedient to them, they would soon “ throw physic to the dogs,” and wink smilingly at the doctor. “ If, however,” says a contemporary writer, “ any person should flat- ter himself that he can violate the conditions of health, and at the same time, by simply yielding to the self-restoring mercies of his spiritual consti- tution, recover all his original vigor and bloom, his disappointment will be complete.” There is no infallible remedy, no specific nostrum, that can forgive the transgression of a human law. All the medical isms, and myths, and pathies, from Hippoc- rates to the last “ medical discovery,” can not per- form the pardoning act. Let every ear hear it, let every eye read it; there is no safety in habitual disobedience to organic law.