f /-? r xx^ax ^> MEDICAL COMMON SENSE; APPLIED TO THE CAUSES, PREVENTION AND CURE OF CHRONIC DISEASES, AND UNHAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE. BY EID-WAMD B. FOOTS, M- 13- * /' THERAPEUTIST AT SARATOGA 8FEIICOS. BOSTON: WENTWOBTH, HEWES & CO. 66 WASHINGTON STREET. 1858. Annex QT Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by EDWARD B. FOOTE, M. D., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of New York. TAN LEXTBUVSEN, STEI'.EOTVrER. ALBANY, It. T. PREFACE. "Common Sense," I am aware, is quoted at a discount; especially by .O the medical Profession, which proverbially ignores everything that has not *nT" the mixed odor of incomprehensibility and antiquity. Medical works are generally a heterogeneous compound of vague ideas and jaw-breaking •-*- words, in which the dead languages are largely employed to treat of living subjects. Orthodoxy in medicine consists in walking in the beaten c t- paths of JJsculapian ancestors, and looking with grave contempt on all S; who essay to cut out new paths for themselves. Progress is supposed to be possible in everything except medicine; but in this science, which " all admit has room for improvement, the epithet of " Quack " is applied to every medical discoverer. My prayer is that I may prove worthy of Allopathic denunciation. To this end, and the amelioration of human suffering, is this work written. To uproot error and do good should be the first and paramount aspiration of every intelligent being. He who labors to promote the physical perfection of his race—he who strives to make mankind intelligent, healthful and happy, cannot fail to have reflected on his own soul the benign smiles of those whom he has been the instrument of benefiting. My intention in getting up this work is to supply a desideratum which has long existed, i. e., a medical work, reviewing first causes as well as facts and ultimate effects, written in language strictly mundane and comprehensible alike to the rustic inmate of a basement and the exqui- site student of an attic studio; and if successful in fulfilling the promise of the title page, I have too much confidence in the intelligence of the IV TUEFACE. masses and the erudition of the unprejudiced scholar to believe that it will be received with unapprcciation and indifference. Many of the theories which these pages will advance are certainly new and antago- nistic to those of " old fogyism," but it does not follow that they are incorrect or unworthy the consideration of the philosophical and physiolo- gical enquirer. They are founded upon careful observation, experiment, and extensive medical practice, and if the truth of the theories may be judged by the success of the latter, then do they unmistakably possess toumlni's as well as originality, for living monuments to the skill and success of the author have been and are being daily raised from beds of sickness and debility in every part of the United States. If these remarks sound boastful, be not less ready to pardon the conceit of a successful physician than that of a victorious soldier. The successful military chieftan is notoriously conceited; is it not as honorable and elevating to save life as destroy it? If a man may boast that he has Blain hundreds, cannot his egotism he indulged if he has saved the lives of thousands? I shall claim the soldier's prerogative, for when medical charlatans, at every street corner, are blowing their trumpets, it does not behoove the successful physician to nurse his modesty. What I write, however, shall be written in candor and with an honest intention of enlightening and benefiting humanity. CONTENTS. PART I. DISEASES-THEIR CAUSES, PREVENTION AND CURE. ----#» CHAPTER I. PAGE Are mental, nervous and blood derange- Physicians ignorant of the real offices of nerves, arteries and veins.......... ] The brain the capitol of the nevous sys- tem ............................. 1 The brain an electrical reservoir....... 2 The brain pulsates as well as the heart. 2 The cause of muscular motion......... 2 Vital electricity performs digestion..... 3 Experiments on rabbits................ 3 The body permeated with electricity.... 3 The stomach a galvanic battery........ 3 Animal acids and alkalies generate elec- tricity .......................... 4 THE FOOD WE EAT. Pork causes blood impurities........... 8 Hogs not made lo eat.................. 8 The use Christ made of them......... S People leap down their own ihroals.... 8 Pork generates vermin................ 9 'J'npe worm produced by pork eating... 9 Distillery fed swine.................. 9 Cattle killed by eating swine's cuds.... 10 Use of all animal food condemned by many............................. 10 lis moderate use uninjurious........... 10 Beef, mutton and venison wholesome meats............................ 10 Horse flesh a wholesome mem......... 10 In a!l respects superior to pork......... 11 Young children should not eat meat... 11 Ignorance Ihe cause of mortality....... 11 Children full of vital electricity........ 12 Thei/diet should be plain............. 12 Increase its strength with their age..... 12 We inhale electricity................. 4 The brain Ihe residence of the mind.... 4 The nerves like telegraph wires...... 4 The brain telegraphs to the various or- gans when in trouble.............. 4 Its influence on the stomach........... 5 Sudden menial emotions produce death. 5 Mental depression produces sickness.... S Disease may arise from blood derange- ments............................ 6 All organs of the body nourished by the blood........................... 6 Heart contracts 4,000 times per hour.... G Animal machinery slopped by humors.. 7 What is necessary for good health...... 7 Meats good for adult age............... 13 In old age necessary.................. J2 The error of mothers................. 12 Meal makes men pugnacious.......... 13 Its excessive use sinful................ 13 Excites the lower faculties............ 13 Is a non-conductor of electricity..... 13 Resists the action of nervous fluids..... 13 Long intervals between mealsshould be avoided.......................... 13 Gastric fluids require food to act upon.. M Overloading the stomach............. 14 THE LIQUIDS WE DRINK. Their effects should he understood...... 14 The beverages used by different nations 14 Hot drinks popular with Christian and savage........................... 15 Healthful for many................... 15 Tea bad for nervous people............ lfi Gttod for lymphatic end bilk/us people.. 16 CHAPTER II. The Causes of Nervous Derangements and Blood Impurities. pie m elinies good for nervous people.... 1 Many cannot drink hot beveruges...... 10 v ■ Reason explained on electrical principles 10 Beer an ancient beverage............. 10 Good for some temperaments.......... 10 — Adulterations in beer and porter. 17 Their deleterious effects............... 17 Vinous and distilled liquors............ 17 Done much good and mischief......... 17 How they are adulterated............. 17 Strychnine in whiskey................ 18 Renders delirium tremens incurable... 19 Adulterations in wines................ IS All adulterated liquors dangerous!"..... 1^ Pine milk healthful...... ........... 10 Adulterations in milk................. 19 Stall ltd milk more injurious........... 19 Coiifiiu-mem makes cows unhealthy.... 19 The effects of feeding still slops........ 19 Milking cows till they drop dead....... 10 Effects of bad milk on infants.......... 20 Pure milk not good for all............ 20 Water sometimes causes disease....... 21 Pure water the healthiest beverage..... 21 Criticism on river waters.............. 21 Rain wuter nut always pure........... 21 bpidcniics spread by its use........... 2] Should be filtered..................... 21 PAOE. Hot-nir furnaces unhealthy............. 29 Nothing like the old fire-plac< Brook waters unsafe. THE ATMOSPHERE WE LIVE IN. Source of blood and nervous derange- _ ,ne,,ts............................ 22 The composition of air................ 22 The influence of electricity in the atmo- uch or too litlle injurious........ 23 of electricity from the body.. 23 bfe perspiration.... 23 Rad, Philosophy of No book leaches tl The ignorance of phy lilhons of pores in ihe body.... Dry weather promotes electrical radiation. 24 Rainy weather does not............... 24 A popular error refuted.......!!!..'.".'! 25 The lungs aid the stomach............. 25 How the system is supplied with electri- city in sleep................... 2G Why persons breathe harder in sleep."!! 26 W'rong to eat on going to bed.......... 26 Effects of sleeping ni badly ventilated Lungs should not be compelled "to*cheat The deadly effects of carbonic acid!!!! 27 Scrofula rendered contagious through the medium of the air................ 27 Air affected by diseased animal cxhalal lions............................ 23 Necessity of good ventilation'!!".!"!"! 28 Pure air as necessary a>- pure water.... 2h iHJurio;» effects of stove heat.......... X ault of the old Cathedral Church at Bremen................ 30 Human und other animal bodies pre- served in it....................... 30 Well enough fordead bodies, bad for live ones............................. 31 A hint to mechanics who work in metal 31 .•Shops should he aired daily ., ....... 31 Churches after as well us before service 31 Advice for every body................ 31 THE CLOTHES WE WEAR. Tight clothing stops electrical radiation. 32 Men and women -'hide-bound"...... 32 A return to the " breechclolh "........ 32 The costume of the Turks............. 33 Knit shirts and drawers injurious....... 33 The use of ihmuel commendable...... 34 Injurious effects of plasters............ 31 Ductors who recommend them guilty of mal-practice..................... 34 One small plaster covers 30,000 pores!! 34 Like killing prisoners in Monte Video.. 34 Pores as necessary an safety valves to •K- engir- God has made 1 35 mde of skins unhealthy... ihealthy.......... 35 iof j ai Ov India rubbei Prevent the Objections to low iieck dresses unfounded 35 Bronchitis prevented by exposure of neck 35 Fur tippets pernicious................. 30 Fur collars and comforters, do......... 30 Second-hand clothing____........!.', 30 Clothes infected with the diseases of" the wearer.......................... 30 The philosophy of.................... 35 Deceased reladves' clothes .!".!!!!..... 3d Should not be worn...........I!!!" "! 3.......... Diseased and healthy children should not sleep together.................... The effects and prevalence of masturba- The prescription of civilization........ The diseases produced thereby......... Children should be properly instructed.. This work shall not be incomplete..... Standing on the head.................. Injurious effects of.................... Turning around to become dizzy....... How to make healthy men and women. BAD HABITS OF MANHOOD AND WOMENHOOD. The use of tobacco................... Statistics regarding same.............. Should only be usetl as a medicine..... Illustrations of its destructiveness....... Experiments on cats, dogs, squirrels, mice, &c........................ Hottentots use it to kill snakes......... Disease produced by its use............ Young men killed by it................ Indian hemp eaters................... Opium eaters......................... Mankind bent on self-destruction....... Human inconsistencies................ Tight lacing—its effects............... The expansive power of ladies' lungs.. How the power of the lungs may be tested............................ God's works are perfect............... S nful to attempt to improve them...... I he out-spoken sentiments of a lady... She describes the Venus de Medicis.... Fashion vs. Nature...............---- The measure of a perfect figure........ Medicine-taking................•-...... Country flooded with patent medicines.. Their origin and effects............... " One's cure another's poison "........ The law of temperament.............■ Farmer understands temperament of Physicians do* not understand tempera- ment .............,.....•........ Inscription on an English tombstone... Turning nig** »»t° aa>'................ No book teaches man why he should lie down at night and rise with the sun The reason explained on electrical prin- ciples............................ The sun arouses all animal life......... The earth's electricity makes life slug- Fast t nig. Liquids should not be drank with food., 11 Habit second nature"............... Remarkable illustrations............... First nature demands settlement....... UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. Destroying the tone of the nervous and vascular fluids.................... Unlike other troubles.................. Runaway husbands and wives........ People keep domestic troubles to thein- The offspring of unhappy marriages--- Sin of ihe parents visited on their children PROSTITUTION AND LICEN- TIOUSNESS. A sea of physical corruption........... The world becoming contaminated..... The effects of venereal poison.......... 100.000 harlots in the United States..... 30,000 persons become diseased nightly. Virtuous ladies become sufferers ...... Is prostitution a necessary evil ?....... Who are to be the vice-doomed?...... The causes of prostitution............. Bad training of children............... The small wages paid female labor..... Strange more do not turn harlots....... "Hard times'' drive women into harlotry The remedy.......................... Ignorance of man's magnetic power.... How girls are seduced................ Warning to young ladies.............. The duly of mothers.................. The whole race becoming inoculated with venereal poison.............. FAILURES IN BISINESS. Destroying the harmony a." the system....................... The brain compared to a bank..... The organs compared to merchants A physiological " panic " "Hard phy increase the labors of i ___umber made insane in 1S57...... The extravagance of married ladies--- Not the whole truth told............... Men deceive their wives.............. The wife's condition hard enough...... The duty of men to their wives........ The poor Southerner who thought lie had married a rich wife............... The young lady who thought she hod married a rich husband............ How both were deceived............ ■ Failure after failure follows in the wake of ihe defaulter................... His conduct carries thousands to prema- ture graves....................... How to avoid failures................. ADULTERATED MEDICINES. An exhibition of man's cupidity........ The extent adulteration is practiced ... Vegetable medicines adulterated....... Or rendered inefficient by being gathered at the wrong season............... Country people should gather their own Botanic physicians not particular enough How the botanic practice has suffered m consequence ..................... How opium is adulterated............. Cow-dung; sometimes mixed with it.... Adulteration of mineral medicines...... Patients make ugly faces at their family doctors.......................... CHLOROFORM. Doing a world of mischief............. Facts elicited........................ Remarkable statements of the dentists of New York....................... How funny people act under the effects of chloroform.................... Immediate death sometimes ensues..... Ten occurred in one year.............. PAOI Mesmerism ffood to produce anaesthesia 81 Ice good for the same................. 81 Galvanic forceps for extracting teeth... 81 The use of chloroform should be stopped bylaw.......................... 83 EXCESSIVE STUDY. The mind may be overloaded.......... 62 Injurious to nervous system............ 82 Literary world full of physical wrecks.. S3 Can cultivate but not increase a man's capacity......................... 82 When study is improving............. 83 EXCESSIVE LABOR. The system needs rest................. 83 One day in each week set apart for rest by all nations..................... 83 What the business man does Sunday... 83 What the literary man does Sunday.... 83 The mind needs rest.................. 83 MELANCHOLY. People keep pet griefs................. 84 Borne people feel best when they feel worst............................ 84 Griefs like bulrushes.................. 84 Melancholy disturbs the nervous circula- tion.............................. 84 Cheerfulness should be cultivated by every one........................ 84 The value of a laugh................. 84 CHAPTER III. Common Sense Remedies, Hippocrates the " father of medicine " Some are bom physicians............. Redfield describes the natural physician, VEGETABLE MEDICINES. The trees, herbs, &c. possess all the medicinal properties of minerals.... Are better adapted to human infirmities. Singular fact illustrating the power of plants to select food............... A bone turned into a flower!.......... What human chemist can do this?... . Absurd to go to the mineral world for an- tidotes ........................ Paracelsus the Adam of the medical What his biographer says of hi in!!!".!" The origin of the term " Quack "...... I. belongs to mineral doctors........... Mercury as a remedial agent........" Its injurious effects exhibited..........! Prescribing according to books.... L:.zy doctors........................] Harmless remedies effective........... Tnc Molanics more successful.......... How Allopaths blunder................ No substitute wanted for mercury...... Ve:r<-i:ible r<-ni'vbes in profusion....... Medn-al pruit»sur» worshiping the metal calf.............................. The anger of JEsculapius............. 93 His command........................ 93 How many have beeu slai;i............ 93 Defects in the present system of medical An Allopath owning up.............\'m 93 "Medicine a humbug"............!" gg "Doctors are mere empirics "......... 93 The sick man needs only nourishment 94 The brute creation more enlightened than the Allopathic profession........... 93 A sick horse eats dock..............[' 93 A sick cat eats catnip.............[H'm 95 The medicines of other animals......! {15 Remissness of Botanic physicians..... 113 Cultivated herbs worthless............! 95 THERAPEUTIC ELECTRICITY. Electricity tested in Europe.......... 9fl Employed in the best institutions..... 9 matrimony but can'l'get out 210 Happy marriages may be made without experimenting...... «.« R-itlTh g "' °Pe" warfare.... 214 1 " b,e,mnde lo comP<-l men and wol rueu to contract .uitabl. marriage.. 2tl m . - PAGE. The laws of Switzerland.............. 214 Marriage now a Icttery............... 215 Need not be..........................215 Effect upon offspring.................. 215 Marriages now made to conform to social position.......................... 217 Should be made to comform to mental and physical adaptation...........217 A new divorcing power...............217 Judges have no qualifications to decide matrimonial quarrels..............217 Legislators have not................... 218 An amusing specimen of legislation.....216 A couple applies for divorce........... 218 Advised to "stick il out"............. 219 And beware of bigamy................ 2l£ Law makers and law courts keep people in hot water......................219 A proper divorcing tribunal............ 2U Unhappy marriages make men and wo- men bad......................... 220 11 Underground railroad "..............220 How to preserve in purity monogamic marriage......................... 221 CHAPTER V. Three Phases of Marriage Bagnerreotyped. MENTAL MARRIAGES. Mental marriages defined............. 222 Nearly happy......................... 222 Napoleon and Josephine's a mental mar- Elopements frequent................223 The reason........................... 223 Barrenness common..................223 Issue follows the union of contrarieties. 223 The French remedy..................223 PHYSICAL MARRIAGES. Physical marriages defined............ 225 Tolerably happy...................... 225 Where husbands spend evenings.......22a Elopements not common.............. 225 Reason............................. 226 Physical marriages prolific............ 226 Impossible to acquire each other's tastes 22tf LUCIFER MATCHES. Lucifer matches defined...............227 Old men with young wives...........227 Old ladies with young husbands........227 Marrying for money.................. 227 Gold kidnaps ladies.................... 529 Would change places with prostitutes.. 228 Marrying to please relatives...........230 Milton's first marriage................230 500 in the United States in 1857........ 233 Ascribed to human depravity.......... 233 Not so—the real cause................ 233 Explained on chemical principles.......233 Alcohol married to gum camphor......234 It elopes with water.................. 234 How Mr. C. came to runaway with Mr, A.'swife.........................234 How snakes charm birds..............23a CHAPTER VI. Philosophy of Elopements, Ladies tamper with i \ electric pow- . 236 Ladies magnetize gentlemen...........23G Ignorance of the philosophy of sexuality 236 Negligence in dress................... 237 11 It is only my husband ".............. 238 Husbands sometimes stingy............ 238 What people do in the trap of matrimo- ny. CHAPTER VII. Intermarriage of Relatives. The natural law.................... 240 The results of its violation.............240 Why they are so......................241 Explained on electrical principles...... 241 A cross between nations............... 242 The reason Anglo-Americans are so en- terprising ........................ 242 Parents responsible for the infirmities of children..........................343 CHAPTER VIII. Essays for Married People Only. SEXUAL EXCESS. The effects of Health and happiness curtailed thereby. 244 plained--- Frequency begets satiety..............244 Sexual excess in Excess breeds disgust................. 245 Uon........ Re» jrmationdepends on knowledge.... 246 better than masturba- PAGB. THE PREVENTION OF CONCEP- TION. Common modes produce disease.......247 t^nai-k nostrums and " recipes ".......2-17 Prevention pills.......................248 The diseases induced thereby.......... 2IH Wii>hes and injections injurious........ 2-lrf " Withdrawing"—terrible effects......24d So gradual as not to excite apprehension 24& But little better tliau self-pollution......24S Other pernicious practices............. 21'J The necessity of prevention in many cases............................ 219 Harmless and sure means............. 250 SEXUAL INDIFFERENCE. Cause of matrimonial infelicity........250 Often caused by unadaptation.......... 2.50 Can be remedied....................250 Other causes for indifference...........251 Can be cured......................... 251 IMPRESSIONS ON UNBORN CHILD. Effects of mother's mind on the fcetus.. 251 PAGE The mind's electricity.................251 Interesting instances.................. 252 Teach the necessity of a happy stute of mind in pregnancy...............250 Impossible if unhappily married........256 Deformed people should be kept away from public places................236 FOOD FOR PREGNANT WOMEN. Pains of child-bed diminished...........256 Calcareous mailer produces bone.......256 The fetus nourished by ihe food eaten by the mother....................... 256 Should avoid food that makes the bones of the fetus large...............257 Wherein pregnant ladies err........... 257 What kinds of food contuiu most calca- reous matter.....................257 What kinds contain least.............257 Rules lo be observed..................257 How slightly ladies suffer who do observe them.............................257 Card to married people................ 25S CHAPTER IX. Essays for Toung and Old, hearing on Happiness in Marriage, EARLY MARRIAGE Physiologists differ in opinion.......... ! Argument of opposers of early marriage ! Jumping at a conclusion...............: God implanted two passions............! What follows starvation............... ! Nature indicates when the appetite should be gratified.......................j Prematurity induced by bad habits..... ! When girls commence menstruating... i Boys victims to masturbation at 13..... i Nature's directions destroyed.......... i Argument in favor of early marriage... J The age at which men and women mar- ry iii England.................... 5 The age at which they marry in this Early marriage does not produce puny offspring.........................; Tie yourself to somebody............J Preventive of prostitution..............i Don't wait till you get rich............ * Celibacy incompatible with virtue......! A bachelor like a Chinese junk ....... i His manners described................; BUSINESS AVOCATIONS SHOULD BE OPEN TO FEMALES. Hf w present custom increases unhappi- cess in marriage..................S Marriage the only refuge.............. ! Ladies should be given practical educa- tions .............................| Now only fixed up for the matrimonial market...........................j Remarks of Mrs. Jamieson............'. No more cats and lap-dogs.............! A woman needs character.............! Woman should not be dependent upon Capable of self-maintenance........... ! How it was in the reign of Ann of Aus- Her position in ancient Egypt..........266 Advice to ladies......................267 LADIES SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO " POP THE QUESTION." Have preferences which they should be allowed to indicate................267 Tyranny of custom...............*!!.'* 267 Ladies should rebel...........",".".'.'.", 268 Women often wish themselves men!.!* t)G8 What Robert Southey said......!!!""' Take the first offer for fear of not having another How the system works..! .".*,".".'!!!.'!!! 269 Ladies, declare your independence.*!!.'! 270 Lash masculine gossipers.............[ 271 ILLTJSTH^TIONS. Frontispiece—Portrait op the Author. PAOi, Capitol or the Nervous System,.............................. 2 Prop. Brains' Telegraph,.................................... 4 A First Class Porker—A pretty looking thing to eat,........ 9 Sheep—wholesome to the eye and wholesome to the stomach,. . 11 The Chinese Gathering Tea,................................. 15 The Man who Drinks Modern Liquors,....................... 18 The Man who Don't,......................................... 19 The Autumn of a Temperate Life,............................ 19 Teeth of a Stall-fed Cow,................................... 20 Teeth of a Grazing Cow,..................................... 20 Electrical Radiation,....................................... 23 The Costume of a Turkish Fruit Vender,.................... 33 A Healthful Neck Dress,................................... 35 Bad Position in Sitting,..................................... 42 Positions of the Diaphragm,................................. 53 A Contracted AVaist,........................................ 55 Natural Waist,............................................ 55 A Perfect Female Figure,...... ............................ 56 The Salivary Glands,....................................... 62 Arterial Circulation,....................................... 76 Venous Circulation,........................................ 77 A Specimen of what Chemist Nature produces in her Labobatost 87 A S alivated Patient,....................................... 91 The Electro-Magnetic Machine,............................. 99 Lungs and Heart,........................................... 117 Bronchial Tubes and Right Lung............................ 119 XVlii ILLUSTRATIONS. FAO. Body Covered with Scrofula,............................... **o Nerves of the Stomach,...................................... 1°" Natural Position of the Womb,.............................. 1"' The Womb Fallen Backward,................................ I°6 The Womb Fallen Forward,................................ 137 Natural Shape of the Vertebral Column,.................... 140 Double Curvature,.......................................... 141 Paralysis of the Facial Nerve,.............'.'................ 143 The Heart, its Chambers, etc.,............................... 114 Adam and Eve,.............................................. 154 A Japanese Lady,........................................... 160 A Central African,......................................... 162 An English Lady,........................................... 165 A Spanish Lady,............................................ 169 An Italian Lady,........................................... 172 A Turkish Lady,............................................ 175 A Mestizos Girl,............................................. 177 An American Lady,.......................................... 183 Randolph,................................................... 192 Mental Organization,........................................ 203 Sanguine Temperament,...................................... 206 Phlegmatic Temperament,.................................... 206 Bilious Temferament,........................................ 207 Nervous Temperament,....................................... 207 Rebels of the Year 1900 against old Kino Custom,............ 268 PART I. DISEASES-THEIR CAUSES, PREVENTION AXD CURE CHAPTER I. The Causes of Disease. Disease of every character, except that which is induced by accident to body or limb, originates in a disturbed mind, an obstructed cir- culation of vital electricity, or an impure condition of the blood. Wherever it begins unless speedily checked, the whole system is soon convulsed in its grasp, because of the close relationship existing between the various organs of the body. Those who have neglected the study of physiology, as well as all who have merely scanned the pages of ancient and modern superficial writings, will not readily comprehend the truth of these propositions. The most illiterate men of the civilized world are aware that they have a brain, and that their bodies have nerves, arteries and veins; but few physicians, especially of the old school, know the real offices of them. Doctors who have brandished scalpels in the dissecting room can point out the exact locality of every nerve, vein, muscle, tendon, etc., but the means by which each performs its appropriate part Seldom awakens their curiosity. Turn to a medical dictionary for a definition of the brain. The learned physiological lexicographer wisely says—" The use of the brain is to give off nine pairs of nerves, and the spinal marrow, from which thirty-one pairs more proceed, through whose means the various senses are performed and muscular motion excited." This is all very well so far as it goes, but it will not satisfy the mind of a thorough inquirer, nor illustrate the truthfulness of my first remark. The sublime powers and superior beauties of the brain are undisco- vered in such a superficial definition. The object of this chapter requires a better one, because that organ is the capitol of the nervous 2 THE CAUSES OP DISEASE. system, at which the immortal principle presides. The brain is the great receiving and distributing reservoir of vital electricity, just as the lieart is the receiving and distributing reservoir of the blood. The nerves are the wires over which the electricity is sent to every part of the body. This element moves through the entire system at every pulsation of the brain, the same as the b'.ood circulates by the pulsations of the heart. Doubtless all parents have noticed the heavings of the brain in the heads of small children,'before the skull bones have closed together; the effort of that function to distr:tu;e the electricity, commonly termed nervous fluid, is the cause of these. With this view of the subject, it is easy to comprehend how the mus- cles are moved, because it is an established fact in philosophy that electricity has the power to contract and expand any substance. Fig. 1. CAPITOL OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. The above represents a horizontal section of Ihe bone, of iho skull and brain ; a a, outer layer of ash-colored mailer; 6 6, the white medullary central pan of brain; e, the corpus callosum. The brain, in reality, performs a more important part in the ani- mal economy than the heart, because the contraction and expansion of the latter, k-own as the pulsations, are produced by the action of THE CAUSES OP DISEASE. 3 that organ through its agent electricity. The digestion of food, by which process blood is manufactured, depends upon the electric cur- rents sent by the brain through the pneumo-gastric telegraph or nerve to the stomach. The correctness of this hypothesis, as well as that of the preceding one, is illustrated by experiments tried by Dr. Phillips, of England. In these a couple of rabbits were selected, which had been fed with the same kind and quality of food~ On one of them he performed the operation of cutting the pneumo- gastric nerve leading to the stomach. The latter being deprived of the nervous stimulant, the animal soon died. The other rabbit which was not operated on, was killed after an interval of almost twenty-six hours, and on examination it was proved that the food in his stomach was entirely digested, while in that of the former the food remained almost as crude and undigested as when it left the mas- ticating organs. This experiment shows that the stomach depends, for the performance of its office, on the electric or nervous fluid. Another experiment was made upon two more rabbits in the same manner, except that after the nerves leading to the stomach were cut, the electro-galvanic battery was applied in such a way as to send the current through the disconnected nerves to the seat of digestion. At the end of twenty-four hours they were both killed, when it was found that the food in the stomach of the one whose nerves had been severed and put in connection with the galvanic battery was nearly as well digested as in the other which Jiad not been operated on. Similar experiments were tried on the heart and other organs, in all of which they ceased to perforin their functions when the nerves were cut, and commenced again as soon as the galvanic fluid was applied. Hence we see that the whole body is permeated with electricity which is controlled by the brain. The sources from which it is derived must now be explained. The stomach is a galvanic battery, and large quantities of the vital element are generated by the disso- lution or digestion of food. The oxygen of air is electricity, and consequently we receive the element in its gross state into the lungs, by which means the blood is impregnated with it. Large quantities are also generated by the alkalies and acids of the animal organism. The mucous membranes are continually excreting a semi-fluid called alkali, and the serous membranes an aqueous or watery fluid called acid, and, according to the testimony of Dr. Bird, if these fluids are so placed as to be connected by parietics of an animal membrane or THE CAUSES OF DISEASE. Fig. a. through any porous diaphragm acurrent of electricity is evolved. So we find that not only are our stomachs generating electricity, but the external or serous and internal or mucus surfaces, united as they are by animal parities and por- ous diaphragms, are producing the same in large quantities, while our lungs are inhaling it. As it enters in, or is produced by- the system, a refining process commences so as to prepare it for use, and it is received by the brain for that purpose, through the numerous branches of nerves or conductors. Thus we can see how delicately the animal fabric is constructed, and how easily, by exposure to cold, damp or poisonous vapor, the harmonious action of the numerous organs may be disturbed. The reader can now no longer doubt that multitudinous diseases arise from a disturbance of the ner- vous system. From the foregoing reasoning it is equally apparent that dis- eases may often originate from trouble or depression of mind, So closely allied are the brain and the nervous or telegraph system, that it is impossible for one to be disturbed without exciting the sympathy of the other. The brain, beside being the receiving and distributing reservoir of animal electricity, is the residence of the mind or the spirit, and this immortal principle controls its action. When, then, anything occurs to disturb the equanimity of the mind the brain at once telegraphs the melancholy news over the wires or nerves to every organ of the body, and like a well regulated and affec- tionate family, all join in sympathy for the afflictions of the one which they regard as the head and provider. The nervous system loses its THE CAUSES OP DISEASE. S healthy action, and through it the vascular; and when the manufac- ture of pure blood and its faithful distribution through the various functions dependent upon it for support are in any degree suspended, general debility if not actual prostration must ensue. Says Combe, " The influence of the brain on the digestive organs is so direct, that sickness or vomiting ire among the earliest symptoms of many affections of the head, and of wounds and injuries to the brain; while violent emotions, intense grief, or sudden bad news, sometimes arrest at once the process of digestion, and produce squcamishness or loathing of food, although an instant before, the appetite was keen. " The influence of the mind and brain over the action of the heart and lungs is familiar to every one. The sighing, palpitation and fainting, so often witnessed as consequences of emotions of the mind, are evidences which no body can resist. Death itself is not a rare result of such excitement in delicately organized persons." The reader will now understand why the state of the mind is so influential in the production and progress of disease. " In the army, this principle has often been exemplified in a very striking manner, and on so large a scale as to put its influence be- yond a doubt. Sir George Ballingall mentions in his Lectures on Militar3' Surges, that the proportion of sick in garrison in a healthy country and under favorable circumstances, is almost five per cent; but that during a campaign, the usual average is never ten per cent. So marked, however, are the preservative effects of cheerful- ness and the excitement of success, that, according to Vaidy, the French army cantoned in Bavaria after the battle of Austerlitz, had only one hundred sick in a division of eight thousand men, being a little more than one in the hundred. When, on the other hand, an army is subjected to privations, or is discouraged by defeat or want of confidence in its chiefs, the proportion of sick is often fearfully increased." The awful fatality which attended the allied armies at the Crimea was, undoubtedly, more attributable to bad management on the part of the commanding officers, than to inclement weather. The soldiers having lost confidence in their commanders, became depressed in spirit. They were filled with fearful forebodings. The buoyancy of their nervous systems was disturbed, and thereby digestion impaired. Thro'these discouragements they were made susceptible to disease, however favorable the climate; and a slight change in a 6 THE CAUSES OF DISEASE. foreign atmosphere, under such circumstances, would induce the most fatal results. The English press attributed the sudden death of Lord Raglan to the censures heaped upon him at home. Many politicians in this country, ascribe the brief illness which ended the career of one of our most illustrious statesmen, to disappointment in not receiving the presidential nomination from a convention of his party. Thus we perceive the influence of the mind on the body is generally admitted, although few stop to divine the means by which it is effected. It must, therefore, be understood that every organ is notified, on the telegraphic system, if anything offends the spirit of the human being. Or, if through any accident to the limbs, or impurity of the blood, the harmonious evolutions and circulation of the electric principle in any part of the body occurs, the brain feels the loss, discovers the cause and faithfully informs every member of the family, who endeavor to conciliate the difficulty, and if they fail the whole sys- tem is thrown into discord. Next I will speak of the blood. AH diseases which do not arise from a disturbance of the nervous system or troubles of mind, I con- tend, have their birth in the vascular system. This is self-evident when the reader reflects that the component parts of all animal matter are found in the blood. The bones, muscles, cartilages, all the fluids, acids, alkalies, &c, pertaining to the animal structure, are developed and nourished by the blood. Combe remarks that " the quantity and quality of the blood have a most direct and material influence upon the condition of every part of the body. If the quan- tity sent to the arm, for example, be diminished by tying the artery through which it is conveyed, the arm, being then imperfectly nourished, wastes away, and does not regain its plumpness till the full supply of blood be restored. In like manner, when the quality of that fluid is impaired by deficiency of food, bad digestion, impure air or imperfect sanguification in the lungs, the body and all its functiois become more or less disordered." The heart undergoes four thousand contractions every hour. Each ventricle is reckoned to contain about one ounce, and therefore we are brought to the astonishing realization that two hundred and fifty pounds of blood pass through it in that brief space of time. Now if the blood is impure, and nature, in addition to being deprived of its proper nourishing qualities, is obliged to counteract and throw off its cor- rupt particles, there is certainly a decided chance for the human THE CAUSES OP DISEASE. 7 machinery to become weakened if not stopped by the accumulation of poisonous humors. And the body, instead of being strength- ened by the. large quantities of blood sent through it by the heart, must inevitably sink under it. If weakness in the muscles, pains in the bones, head-ache, cutaneous diseases, scrofulous swell- ings, etc., ensue, to what do we trace them ? Why, manifestly to the blood. It now having been shown that a free circulation of vital or ner- vous electricity, an unruffled mind and pure blood are essential to good health, it requires only a moderate exercise of " common' sense" to perceive that all diseases originate from a disturbance of these indispensableconditions. There may exist hereditary organic weaknesses, but even those had their origin in conception or in fcetal life from the disturbed vital fountains of the parent, thus not allow- ing a single exception to my theory. The attention of the reader will next be directed to the principal causes of nerve and blood derangements, or the primary causes of disease. But before concluding let me ask the reader if the foregoing does not lead to the irresistible conclusion that electricity, cold water, cheerfulness and good vegetable blood medicines are the remedies which nature demands for all kinds of diseases with which mankind are afflicted. CHAPTER II. The Causes of Nervous Derangements and Blood Impurities. The subject of this chapter opens a boundless field for the investi- gation of the physiologist. Indeed, should I attempt to trace out nil the influences, immediate and remote, which tend to destroy the mental and nervous equilibrium, and render the blood a fountain of death rather than life, I should fill many volumes like this, and then my task would be unfinished. I shall therefore limit myself to an explanation of the principal causes; those over which we have the easiest control. Each shall be treated under its appropriate head, with such variety of matter as may be necessary to make it enter- taining as well as instructive. 1st. THE FOOD WE EAT. One of the most common causes of blood impurities is the use of pork. It has been said that all things were created for some wise purpose. This is undoubtedly true, but hogs were never made to eat. We read that Christ used them to drown devils; they can never be appropriated to a more beneficent use. As an article of diet, pork exerts a most pernicious influence on the blood, overloading it with carbonic acid gas, and filling it with scrofula. The ho Few, if any. Strychnine destroys the equipoise of nature—au- ments the alkalies of the mucous membranes, and thereby destroys CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 19 the harmonious evolutions of vital electricity carried on by the combined action of the internal and external fluids. Having has.ily reviewed the physiological effects of the most com- mon beverages concocted by man, I will now call the attention of the reader to those fluids which nature has so abundantly furnished for the use of mankind. Many may be surprised to find that these are not entirely above criticism. Milk is the first liquid which is permitted to enter the human stomach; and, perhaps, considering the ignorance, indiscrimination and reckless folly of the mass of human animals, it were better if others had never been provided. True, milk is extensively adulterated in large towns, but the articles used for that pur- pose are usually comparatively harmless, except to small children whose delicate little stomachs are hardly prepared to digest or expel such substances as yolks of eggs, sheep's brains, flour, subcarbonate of pot- ash, chalk and hard water. So much is not to be feared from adulterated milk as from that obtained from diseased animals. Cows are kept the year round in stables by many ..... _ _ . A MAN WHO DON'T. dairymen in cities. By confinement, if not by bad food, they become diseased just as men and women do when shut in from open air and exercise. Their disease as a matter of course, renders their milk unwholesome and innutritious. When, together with confinement, cows are fed on still slops, their milk becomes actually poisonous. Some hard stories are told of New York dairymen, who, it is said, keep their cows closely tied up in sheds and fed on still slops till they actually drop dead in their stalls. From the specimens of milk that I have seen in that city, and the dishonest character of many of those engaged in the milk traffic, I am not disposed to doubt THE Atmrjis of a temper- ATE LIPE. their entire truthfulness. The shocking consequences of such speculative recklessness falls with particular severity on the juvenile portion of a metropolitan 20 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. population, and it is sad to contemplate that the perversity of man can lead him to the perpetration of such wholesale slaughter of innocent babes who, by reason of maternal disability, are denied tho nourishment of a mother's breast. But the cupidity of the unprinci- pled money-seeker knows no limit, and the fact that such imposi tions arc practiced, should lead the consumer to guard himself against them. Fig. 9. TEETH OP A STALL-FED COW. Pure milk is not congenial to every one. In some, by its dilution of the gastric fluids of the stomach, together with the resistant action of its oily property, the generation of vital electricity is impeded and Fiir. 10. TEETH OF A GRAZING COW. drowsiness induced. In others, who are predisposed to catarrhal difficulties, the gluten of milk increases slime and tends to aggravate the complaint. But with the majority of people milk is a highly CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 21 nutritious drink, and when copiously added to tea and coffee often renders these beverages harmless to those who otherwise could not use them. Water is sometimes the cause of blood diseases. If good, pure spring water could be obtained in all parts of the world, it would be the healthiest drink for man. And so would it be if nature were n.ore bountiful in the distribution of such streams as the Croton, Cochituate and Schuylkill of America; the Seine of France; and the dashing rivulets which play in the mountains of Switzerland. But when the thirst can only be quenched by the muddy and sewerage waters of the Ohio, the Mississippi and Thames, pregnant as they are with the filth of cities and the decomposed matter of vegetables and dead animals, it is not strange that the vitality of the blood is impaired by their vegetable and animal exuvise. Many of the deni- zens of Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, New Orleans and London, flatter themselves that their river waters are very wholesome! But it is a proverbial fact that every traveller must have a dysentery or something approaching thereto on initiating his stomach into the use of them. Like an unwilling slave, the system can after awhile be whipped into submission, but it reposes only long enough to collect in the blood sufficient impurities to revenge on the individual in the form of diarrhoea or bilious, typhoid, intermittent or yellow fever. Hence, together with bad diet, the frequency of these forms of dis- ease in the cities mentioned. Some of the residents along the shores of these rivers are aware of the injurious properties of their waters, and resort to rain water. Unfortunately they only "jump from the frying pan to the fire." In the large cities designated, the air above is no cleaner than the streets beneath. It is the reservoir of the animal effluvia of crowded populations. The breath of thousands of diseased men and animals mingle with the rains as they descend, infecting them with their poisonous gases. I have no doubt that, in seasons of epidemics, the seeds of the prevailing diseases are often drank with water. Conse- quently those who drink rain water should first expose it for several days to light and air and then to filtration. By these means it may be rendered wholesome, and better by far than the heterogeneous compound of decayed vegetation, solution of dead horses and dogs, and the city slops, which flow in the channels of many rivers. The well water of limestone countries is productive of gravel and kidne-r difficulties, while that of new countries is often rendered 22 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. unwholesome from the drainage of decayed vegetation. The former is known by its hardness and the latter by its peculiar odor and fre- quent discoloration. Brook-streams which have the appearance of purity are not always safe to be drank, in consequence of the possible presence of dangerous animalculse; many instances of frogs, evets and worms in the stomach, having occurred in consequence of want of care in this particular. Those having their sources or channels near marshes, frog ponds, hog-pastures, cesspools, distilleries, poultry yards, slaughter houses and saw mills, may with good reason be avoided. Pedestrian travelers and sportsmen, when overtaken with thirst should look for some farm house and regale themselves with a bowl of milk, rather than suck in the waters of an unknown brook. Everywhere that good milk can be obtained it may safely be regarded as the mo9t v holesome and nutritious drink. 3rd. THE ATMOSPHERE WE LIVE IN. This is a fruitful source of nervous derangements and blood impuri- ties. And as my views with regard to the influence of air upon the human system are somewhat peculiar, and a proper understanding of them necessary to aid the reader in readily comprehending many important points in subsequent pages of this work, I shall subserve both the purposes of this chapter and many which are to follow, by a general treatise on the nature and effects of this wonderful element. Air is composed of 78 per cent nitrogen, 21 per cent oxygen or elec- tricity, nearly 1 per cent of carbonic acid gas, and more or less vapor of water, according to its temperature. I am not alone in believing that oxygen is identical, or nearly so, with electricity, but if I were, my opinion would remain unchanged until some good philosophical argument could be adduced to show the contrary. The origin and real nature of both are unknown, but certain it is their effects are similar, and whatever difference is observable may be occasioned by its combination with other substances, for, according to generally received opinion, "nature never presents it solitary " Still, this view of the subject is not vital to the theory I am about to advance, for it is now universally admitted by scientific men, that electricity permeates everything—the air around and above us as veil as the earth beneath our feet. The quantity of electricity diffused in the air exerts a potential influence on the health of man, and an excess of the element in the CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 23 <&& atmosphere, is as injurious as a moiety. In dry and pleasant weather the human system is relatively in a positive and the air in a negative condition; that is, the former possesses more electricity than the latter. The result produced by this disparity between the body and the element which surrounds it, is a constant radiation from the former, or in other words a continual flowing off of the electrical element into the atmosphere, as represented in the annexed cut. It is well known to physiologists, that when the pores of the skin are in a healthful „. . ... . . Fls- 11- condition, there is an incessant discharge from the skin of what j ^ -■; ■■ ;-l-__ .. is termed insensible perspira- tion; but nothing is said of the motive power by which the effete particles of the sys- tem are thus so wonderfully carried off. Now, if a doctor should retire at night with his garden strown with filth and rubbish, and on arising in the morning should find the whole mass emptied into the street, he would naturally enough inquire who or what had re- removed it. Surely dead and waste matter could not remove itself. Strange it is, then, that the astute professors of anatomy and physiology have never thought to ask them- selves how the corrupt parti- cles of the system day by day, and year by year, during the natural life of man, are emptied into the great thoroughfare of life—atmospheric air. The pores posse== no power in themselves to throw them off, and if, by the act of con- traction, they should succeed in expelling these impurities, with no motive power to carry them away from the skin, the latter would daily become coated with the diseased exudations of the body. There are about seven millions of pores in the human body, and the quantity of useless matter that is daily discharged from them amounts to from twenty to forty ounces. The reader can see, there- RADIATION. 24 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. fore, how soon the avenues of the skin would close up, were the dis- charge of effete matter produced by merely a contracting process of the pores. Nature has manifestly employed a motive power, and that agent is the same which the mind of man uses in controlling his muscular organization, and the same, too, that the Almighty employs in moving and sustaining the planetary systems of innu- merable worlds. Dry and pleasant weather, then, is most conducive to health, because the relative conditions of the atmosphere and the body, arc best calculated to promote this electrical radiation which carries off the rubbish of the external portions of the system. In damp or rainy weather, the air is unusually charged with electricity, as is often evinced by vivid flashes of lightning. There is a greater pro- portion of oxygen in water than in air, and it is probably from this source that the undue presence of electricity is derived. Owing to this, a partial equilibrium is produced between the body and its sur rounding element, on rainy days, and the healthful radiation of elec- tricity with its loads of impurities, is for a time suspended. Then rheumatic and neuralgic invalids complain of increased pain, because the damming up of the impurities of the system prevents the harmo- nious circulation of the nervo-electricity, and thus aggravates inflam- matory symptoms; and it is for this reason that the application of the galvanic battery to such persons usually gives partial relief; by it, the system is thrown into a positive condition, or, in other words, rendered more electrified than the atmosphere, so that the radiation of impurities is renewed. No one feels as well on a rainy day, except those whose fluids radiate too much to the surface, leaving the mucous membranes dry, and such, of course, feel better while the air is moist and electrified. Catarrhal invalids, vice-versa, are made worse thereby. For other reasons the air is not as wholesome in wet as in dry weather. When the latter prevails, the density of the air causes a rapid passing off of earthly, vegetable and animal impurities, which, owing to their vapory form, rise with such rapidity as to scarcely affect the air we breathe. But when it is damp or rainy, the air is lighter, as is evinced by the falling of smoke. One would naturally suppose that owing to the unusual presence of oxygen, it would be heavier, but it must be remembered, that hydrogen is one of the ele- ments of water and vapor, and that it is the lightest of any known Sibstance. When, therefore, it rains and the air is ljght, the gases CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 25 of decaying vegetation and animal effluvia ( which are also light) mingle with the air we breathe. A popular writer, who has said a great many good things, erroneously remarks as follows: " The amount of exhalation and effluvia which rise from the ground depends much upon atmospheric pressure. When the air is heavy, these substances are, as it were, confined to their sources, that is, they are liberated at the slowest rate; but as the barometer falls the pressure is taken off, and the miasmatic emanations rise much more freely." A more palpable error was never uttered. It is contrary to the laws of gravitation. Investigate it any way you choose and you w ill find it wrong. If you suppose the miasmatic emanations heavier than air they remain near the ground in consequence of their own weight. Suppose them lighter and it is impossible for them to be held down by the pressure of the air, for the latter will then settle down under them and raise them up. Who ever heard of putting a flat stone on water to hold it down? No, the quotation is absurd, and contrary to fact. Miasmatic emanations are lighter than air on a clear dry day, and rapidly rise above the strata of air we breathe; but on damp and wet days, when the air is also light, miasmatic emanations rise sluggishly, and mix with the air we breathe. From this it appears that nature sometimes disturbs one of the chief elements oi life, a fact which rather disproves the writings of some fanatics, who assert that there is no reason why a man may not live on earth for ever, if he strictly observes the laws of life and health. It is well enough to say that few men live as long as they might, for that is true ; and I shall now proceed to treat upon matters relevant to this subject, which go to prove the fact. If pains were taken to preserve the purity of the air we breathe, health would be promoted and longevity increased. The venous blood which enters the lungs, is in a negative state, and it depends upon the oxygen or electricity of air to electrify it, remove its carbon and restore its arterialization. Hence the air we inhole may contain its natural constituents in their due proportions, but that which we exhale contains almost the usual quantity of nitrogen with eight or nine per cent of its oxygen replaced with an equal amount of car- bonic acid. The stomach, in the digestion of food, cannot produce all the electricity which is necessary to move the animal machinery, and therefore the lungs, with their curious mechanism receive the blood from the nervous system, and expose it to the electrifying 4 26 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. influence of the atmosphere. I may be asked why the blood is not, like the body, electrically positive in relation to the air. 1 reply that it is, when it leaves the lungs; but in passing through the arterial system it distributes its electrical properties, and returns through the nervous system destitute of that element. The lungs are very generous to the stomach and keep up a neccessary supply of electri- city during the hours of sleep, when the digestive organs are per- mitted to take partial repose. Did ever the reader notice what long, deep inhalations a person takes while sleeping? While the stomach is enjoying rest the lungs work their utmost to keep up a supply of vital electricity, and although they exhale the useless gases with the same rapidity that they do when the individual is awake, they draw in deeper and more copious draughts of the electrifying element. The stomach being on such.amicable terms with the respi- ratory apparatus, and having made such excellent arrangements with it to aid in doing its work during the hours of partial repose, ( for the stomach never sleeps sound) y bad air. That it is rendered contagious through the medium of ;he air is certain, but I am hardly inclined to believe that Scrofula would directly arise from breathing the atmosphere of a crowded room unless there were persons in the apartment affected with it. Scrofula and all diseases are rendered in a measure contagious by the diseased animal vapors from the lungs and pores of persons affected with them. These vapors mingle with the natural ingredients of air in a confined room, and are conveyed to the blood of others through 28 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS, the respiratory apparatus, and hence, impure air may, in one sense, be said to produce Scrofula. Certain it is, that it will convey the disease to those not affected with it, if it is rendered impure by the presence of scrofulous persons. Every man and woman is constantly perspiring or radiating from the skin, and exhaling from the lungs, waste animal matter, and if a person is diseased, these vapors par- take of the nature of that disease. Inasmuch, then, as there is at least one diseased person to every ten sound ones, in every community, the reader can see how liable he is to contract disease in a crowded lecture or show-room. The best ventilation does not render us entirely safe, but improper ven- tilation makes the spread of disease positively certain. Prof. Fara- day gives his experience regarding the atmosphere of crowded rooms, as follows: " Air feels unpleasant in the breathing cavities, including the mouth and nostrils, not merely from the absence of oxygen, the presence of carbonic acid, or the elevation of the temperature, but from other causes depending on matters communicated to it from the human being. I think an individual may find a decided difference in his feeliivs when making part of a large company, from what he does when one of a small number of persons, and yet the thermometer give the same indication. When I am one of a large number of persons, I feel an oppressive sensation of closeness, notwithstanding the temperature may be about 60° or G5°, which I do not feel in a small company at the same temperature, and which I cannot refer altogether to the absorption of oxygen, or the inhalation of carbonic acid, and proba- bly depends upon the effluvia from the many present; but with me it is much diminished by a lowering of the temperature, and the sen- sations become more like those occurring in a small company." Were mankind generally aware of the effects of the diseased radia- tions and exhalations of invalids, popular lecturersand preachers and favorite dramatists and negro-dancers, could hardly induce the con- vocation of the crowded audiences that they now do, and people would be as particular in the air they breathe as the water they drink. The use of stagnant waters could not be more deleterious to the nervous and vascular systems than the inhalation and absorption of vitiated air. Still most men are regardless of the latter, while they throw out with disgust, a glass of water which has sediment or color. ^ 'The introduction of stoves for purposes of heat, has been as injurious to health as it has been universal. Air to be healthful CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 29 must possess a certain amount of moisture (which is more electrical than dry air) to prevent a too copious radiation of the electrical ele- ments and fluids of the body. The effect of stove heat, as every one knows, is to render the atmosphere dry. But if this were the only objection to the use of stoves, some means might be devised to over- come it. Says Prof. Youmans: " While, in point of economy, stoves are most advantageous sources of heat, yet in their effects upon the air they are perhaps the worst. We saw that in the stoves called air tight, the burning is carried on in such a way that peculiar gaseous products are generated. These are liable to leak through the crevices and joinings into the room. Carbonic oxide gas is formed under these circumstances, and recent experiments have shown that it is a much more deadly poison than carbonic acid. The slow, half smothered burning of these stoves requires a feeble draft, which does not favor the rapid removal of injurious fumes. Besides, carbonic acid being about half as heavy again as common air, must be heated 250° above the surrounding medium to become equally lyht, and still higher before it will ascend the pipe or flue. If the combus- tion of the fuel is not vivid, and the draft brisk, there will be regur- gitation of this gaseous poison into the apartment." The same writer continues: " Probably all stoves, from their imperfect fittings, are liable to this bad result. Hot-air furnaces, also, have the same defect. They are cast in many pieces, and however perfect the join- ings may be at first, they cannot long be kept air-tight, in consequence of the unequal contraction and expansion of the different parts under great alternations of heat. Combustion products are hence liable to mingle with the stream of air sent into the room." Dr. Ure also remarks: " I have recently performed some careful experiments upon this subject, and find that when the fuel is burning so slowly as not to heat the iron surface above. 250° or 300°, there is a constant deflux of carbonic acid into the room." To warm an apartment there is nothing like the old-fashioned fire- place, and all who have ever had the felicity of warming themselves before it, will join with me in this assertion. A fire on the hearth does not heat the air, but, as a writer truly remarks, " the heat rays dart through it to"warm any object upon which they may fall." The sun passes his floods of light through the atmosphere without warm in" it a particle. Air is made to be breathed, and we again discover Providential wisdom in the arrangement by which the sun warms us, without disturbing, in tlw slightest degree, the respiratory medium. 30 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. But if we heat the atr itself, we at once destroy the natural equili- brium of its composition, and so change its properties that it becomes more or less unpleasant and prejudicial to health." Modern grates are very good substitutes for fire-places, and should take the places of stoves, particularly in churches, theatres and show rooms, where the animal effluvia of a crowded assemblage are suffi- cient to render the air vitiated without the further addition of stovo or furnace heat. Too much care cannot be taken for the maintenance of the natural purity of air. School-houses, churches, theatres, dwellings and fac- tories, should be daily aired, in cold as well as hot weather. The permanency of impure air in a close building, is forcibly illustrated in a recent account given by the American Medical Gazette, of the vault of the old Cathedral Church of Bremen. Hundreds of years ago, when the old church was built, the plumbers occupied the vault for melting and preparing materials for the roof, and since that time its atmosphere has possessed the peculiar property of preserving f.'om decay all bodies placed therein. That paper remarks— " Visitors are shown eight human bodies, besides a number of cats, dogs, monkeys, birds, etc., all of which, by mere exposure to this atmosphere, have become dried and free from all offensive effluvia; resembling in appearance coarse parchment. " The body nearest the door is that of an English major, said to have lain there one hundred and eighteen years. " The second that of a German student, who lost his life in a duel. The hard, dry flesh, still shows the sabre wounds on his throat and arm. His body has been here one hundred and seventy 3'ears. " The third, that of a Swedish Countess, whose body has remained free from the lot of common mortals for one hundred and forty years. " The fourth, that of a Swedish General, who was killed in the " Thirty Years' War," and whose throat still exhibits the mark of the wound of which he died. " The fifth is that of his aid-de-camp, who lost his life at the same time, by a cannon ball striking him in the side. The destruction of the parts is plainly visible. " The sixth body is that of a workman, who fell from the steeple of the church when near its completion—four hundred years ago— and broke his neck. Owing to this accident, the peculiar properties of the vault became known; for the body of the deceased workman was laid in this vault for a few days, and, having evinced no signs of CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 31 decomposition, the singularities of the fact induced the authorities to permit it to remain, and here it has remained during all that time. " The seventh is the body of an English lady, who died 130 years since of a cancer on the lower jaw; the ravages of the disease are still perceptible in the ulcerated flesh. " The eighth is the body of a working man, who has lain here for sixty j'ears. " In a marble sarcophagus, standing in the middle of the vault, ai e said to repose the mortal remains of the Swedish Chancellor, Van Englebrechten; but they are not permitted to be exposed to pub- lic view, on account of some still surviving relative of the family. " Each of these bodies retains to a great degree the appearance peculiar to itself in life. Thus, the Swedish General was a short round-faced man inclined to corpulency; his aid-de-camp was a slen- der, well-proportioned man, in the prime of life. As in general appearance so also in facial expression do these bodies differ ; the parchment-like skin, though drawn tightly over the bones, still shows something of the manner in which the muscles beneath once worked. ' No other part of the church possesses this peculiar atmosphere, and we can only suppose that the entire chamber became so sur- charged with lead, that it has continued ever since to give forth vapors, which, forming an antiseptic chemical compound of lead, have operated upon the cadavera exposed to its influence." Now this condition of the air is well enough for dead bodies but baneful enough to live ones. Mechanics Who work in metal can see from this, how prolific of diseases their work shops may become by being daily and nightly closed, as they frequently are in winter. There can be no doubt, too, that churches, closed up as they gene- rally are, at the end of every Sabbath, retain a great deal of the dis- eased emanations of unhealthy visitors, which cannot he removed by a day's airing towards the end of the week when sextons usually sweep and ventilate the buildings. Churches should, therefore, be aired immediately after, as well as just before the day for services, and an airing every day would be still better. Those who are struck down by the hand of disease and marvel at the cause of their afflictions, because, perhaps, they have been regu- lar in their habits of eating, drinking and sleeping, may find in this essay a solution of the secret. That it may have a happy effect upon mechanics who build houses; upholsterers who furnish them; ser- 32 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. vants and housewives who have the care of them; the artizan in the workshop; the pale faced woman in the cotton factory; the hotel keeper who entertains lodgers; the conductors of railways; the par- son ; the sexton; the dancer ; street commissioners ; the frequent visitors of cemeteries; and the mothers of large families, is the hope of the author. 4th. THE CLOTHES WE WEAR. It is almost useless to speak of the evils of dress. If fashion should decree that men and women must adorn themselves in their grave clothes, the mandate would be cheerfully obeyed. In these days of " fuss and feathers " an ephemeral life of gaiety and glitter is est emed more desirable than a long life of quiet usefulness. But inasmuch as the clothes we wear exert a mighty influence on the health of the vascular and nervous systems, this chapter would be incomplete without a few remarks on the subject. Reference to the pernicious effects of tight lacing will be deferred for another essay. In this I shall turn my attention to other evils equally destructive to health. Tight clothes of any description are injurious. Knit shirts, knit drawers, tight stockings, tight pants, close fitting vests and waists, tight shoes, tight boots and tight caps and hats, all tend to obstruct the electrical radiation which carries off the impurities of the system. So long have these habits of dress been indulged in, that a very large proportion of the men and women of civilized coun- tries may be said to be "hide-bound;" that is, the pores of the skin have been closed and gummed up by the noxious exhalations of the skin which have not been permitted to pass off naturally. Were it not for offending the prudish modesty of many who might be termed doubly extra civilized, or, in the language of flour dealers, "extra superfine," "superlative," &c, I should advocate a return to the breech-cloth, hoping thereby to get some one to meet me half way. I may yet, before I leave this subject. With the exception of savages, who go nearly or quite naked, the semi-barbarians who envelop but a small portion of their bodies in clothing, and the "Turks who wear loose pants, tunics, robes, &c, there are no people in the world who approach health and comfort in their fashions of dress. The indigent and mercantile classes of the Ottoman Empire particularly, indulge themselves in a peculiarly comfortable costume. Fig. 12 represents a Turkish fruit vender. At least a couple of pairs more of brawny legs with their hauDohes CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 33 could be easily stowed away in his loose breeches, and his sleeves, etc. correspond with the expansivencss of his nether habiliments. There is some chance here for electrical radiation to go on unob- structedly. Fig. 12 THE COSTUME OF A TURKISH FRUIT VENDER. The inventio'n and adoption of knit shirts and drawers have done much to destroy the purity of the blood and the harmonious action of vital jlectricity. The use of flannel as an article of under dress ill 5 34 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. changeable climates is certainly commendable. But to obtain the benefit which wearers usually seek, i. e. health, such garments must be made loose, and changed often. Knit shirts usually set close to the skin, and very often draw so tight around the chest as to prevent a free action of the lungs. I have frequently had occasion to ex- amine consumptive invalids, who were hastening decline by wearing flannel shirts so closely fitted to their skin that Indian rubber could not have been much more objectionable. Flannel shirts should be made up from the cloth, and loose enough to admit a free circulation of air between them and the skin. It is well to wear two during the week, changing every alternate day. Every other day hang the one last worn in the air and sunlight, so that the impurities which it may have absorbed can pass off. In this connection I would not omit to warn invalids against the use of plasters. Almost daily am I consulted by those who have been in the habit of wearing them more or less for years. " But," says one, " they are recommended by my physician." Shame on your physician! If he knows the offices of the pores of the skin, he is guilty of willful malpractice; if he does not, he ought not to be your physician. I know that by thus speaking I shall incur the maledictions of the " regulars," and not a few of those who call themselves " reformers," but what do I care—I have them already. There are said to be nearly three thousand pores in eyery square inch of the human body, and there are from seven to ten square inches in an ordinary sized plaster. Now think, for one moment, of the effects which must ultimately ensue from plastering up twenty to thirty thousands of those useful little orifices through which the electrical radiations of the system carry off the noxious and waste matter of the blood. True, you feel a temporary suspension of pain, but do you not know that skillfully prepared embrocations will produce this happy result as well, while they allow the machinery of nature to go on uninterruptedly ? When an invalid comes to me plastered up from the top of his neck to the extremity of his spine, I am invari ably remindcdi)f the way in which some South Americans kill pris- oners. It is at Monte Video, I believe, that they sew them up in a wet hide, leaving only the head and neck exposed to the vitalizing influences of the atmosphere. When the hide becomes dry it sticks just about as close as a " pitch plaster," and the unfortunate victim dies a slow, but excruciating death. Why, " Mr. Doctors," (as the Germans sometimes call the members of our profession) do you not CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 35 know that the pores are of as much importance to the human system as the safety valves to the steam engine ? The pores are actually safety valves t« the animal machinery, and the Divine architect has not made one more than is necessary. Do not, then, delude the suffering victim to disease, who has already more noxious and health- destroying matter in his system than he can carry, with the hope that a plaster can be of any possible benefit to him. If he has pains and you cannot cure them with unexceptionable remedies, pass him over to some of your brethren who can. " There is a balm in Gilead, and a physician there." Over-coats made of the skins of buffaloes are extremely warm in cold climates in winter, and rubber coats in all climates in rainy weather. Garments of both descriptions are unhealthy, because their texture is of such a nature as to prevent the escape of the insensible perspiration. They are, undoubtedly, comfortable for a day, but their injurious effects may last for a life-time. Much has been said for and Fig. 13. against low-neck dresses for ladies. Some physiologists, even, have raised their voices against them, and pronounced them the cause of consumption in many cases. That ladies may and often do take cold by sud- denly changing their cos- tume from high to low neck, I will not gainsay. But that does not prove the lat- ter style injurious; but simply that an instant change from one to the oth- er is productive of evil. On the contrary, I believe that a general adoption of low- neck dresses by the ladies, would cause a decrease of that terrible disease among their sex. The exposure of the neck, I have found to be highly effi- cacious in lung and bronchial diseases. By exposure it soon becomes A HEALTHFUL NECK DRESS. 36 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. toughened like the hands and face to the changes of weather. Then, too, the pores of the skin have perfect freedom to perform their offices, whereas the high-necks usually set as close as the skin. Ladies should be cautious in the spring when they change from high to low, and then wear no other but low-neck dresses till cold wea- ther sets in again. It must be borne in mind that constant or occa- sional changes are what produce mischief. The use of fur tippets by ladies, and comforters and fur collars by gentlemen, are a great source of bronchial difficulties, and ought (though I suppose will not till fashion says so) be abandoned. By the use of such superfluities the neck becomes tender, and liable to affections on the slightest change of weather. Many cases of bron- chitis may be entirely cured by the simple abandonment of neck cloths. I have practically tested this theory and with satisfactory results. Second hand clothing is a medium through which many an aristo- cratic disease is conveyed to poor people. A wealthy invalid who gives his coat to a poor man bestows no blessing. No man can wear a garment for one week without imparting to it a portion of himself, and if he be diseased his garment is also diseased. A dog will recog- nize his master's clothes by the smell, and I have seen those whoso clothes any body with less acute olfactories could recognize by their odor. There is a perfectly simple and philosophical solution of this phenomenon. The electrical radiation of the impurities of the sys- tem, commonly known as insensible perspiration, enters the minutest threads of the cloth, and an old coat and pair of pants contain many ounces of waste animal matter from the body of the wearer. Bring these in contact with the absorbing pores, and a person is at once innoculated to a certain degree with the noxious matter contained in them. Syphilitic and other venereal diseases are frequently trans- mitted in this way, and other complaints, probably quite as often, only the latter are not as immediately detected as the former. Persons should never wear their deceased relatives' clothes, unless they consist of articles which can be thoroughly washed, and then it is doubtful if they can be entirely cleansed of the diseased radiations which must have taken place weeks and perhaps months prior to the last sickness of the wearer. Although individuals of robust consti- tution often appear well till thrown at once on a bed of sickness, there are unhealthy conditions of the system which always precede acute attacks and render the clothing unfit for the use of others. CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 37 Some philosophers and reformers have recommended a return to the fashion which the God of nature introduced before the fall of Adam, i. e. nudity. According to an account given in a late number of the Dublin Ev ning Mlail, the experiment of ascertaining whether clothing can be dispensed with, is actually being tried on a child in Ireland. That paper remarks as follows: "The subject of the costume of the ancient Britons has often been discussed; it has been asserted that they were naked. Those who opposed that view, adduced as reasons the coldness and variable nature of the climate. The question has been set at rest by an experi- ment which has recently been made on a child at St. Anne's, Blarney, near Cork. The child is 14 months old, and is the son of Mr.----, who determined to ascertain what the human frame would bear. The child is perfectly naked night and day; he sleeps without any covering, in a room with the thermometer at 38 degrees; from this he goes into a bath 118 degrees; he sometimes goes to sleep in the bath; he is perfectly indifferent to heat or cold, is lively, active, cheerful and intelligent; his appearance constantly reminds the observer of the best efforts of our best painters and sculptors Therein is the beau ideal; he is the reality. His simple, natural, easy, graceful and ever varying postures are charming. He arrests the attention and commands the admiration of all who see him. The peculiar character of his skin is very striking; it is exquisitely healthy and beautiful. It may be compared to the rays of the sun streaming through a painted window. " During the progress of the experiment he has cut three teeth without manifesting, any of the disagreeable symptoms usual to children in that condition. He appears to be quite insensible to pain. Occasionally he has an ugly fall, but not a sound escapes from his lips. His manners, demeanor and general behavior are equally striking. His mode of saluting a person is to take the hand in a graceful manner and kiss it. He is under the complete control of his father, and is perfectly quiet during meals, and also whenever he is told to be so. He goes about all day amusing and occupying himself in a quiet way. No one accustomed to children would know there was a child in the house. So incredible are these results that some of the residents of St. Anne's regard the whole matter with mingled feelings of horror, amazement and wonder. "He has two meals—generally boiled rice, which is put on a napkin on the ground, and he picks it up to the last grain. After 38 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. that, wheaten flour cake with butter, and a cup of milk which he drinks. While eating his rice he looks a different being; there is at once a pride and an enjoyment of performance. He has the air of an orator addressing an audience. " During the day he goes to sleep when he like3, merely lying down on the floor. The attitude he assumes in sleeping is that of a Mussulman making prostrations—on his knees with his hands spread out before him which could not be if he suffered from fatigue; but his muscles are too hard for that. By this means he concentrates the caloric in his stomach, and so it is indifferent to cold; however cold, the limbs (and they get frightfully cold to the touch) are never numb, being, on the contrary, mottled red; the loins are always warm. The problem he presents physiologically is this; a develop- ment of the nerves producing pleasurable sensations, and a corres- ponding deadening of those of the contrary. The intensity of the enjoyment which he derives from contact with the skin, is only equalled by the insensibility of the flesh. We have never known him since his exposure to extreme cold to cry from pain." This appears like a cruel experiment, but I question whether that parent inflicts as much suffering on his child as the majority of parents do on their children by loading their little bodies with unnecessary, and too close-fitting raiment ; and, I further question, whether this child in a state of nudity, may not grow up with a far better and healthier physical organization than will any of his little mates in clothes. The experiment, so far, is really a triumph, and, after all, only proves what physiology, deeply studied, teaches. It is quite a mistaken notion that a great amount of clothing is necessary for comfort and health in cold weather. The ancient Spartans who were distinguished for their physical powers and beauty, were allowed but scanty clothing in childhood, even in the depth of winter. Our extreme sensitiveness to changes from heat to cold is mere- ly the result of tenderness induced by long habits of pernicious dress. In conclusion, I would say, that if costume is indispensable, there are three rules to be observed to secure that which is healthy, viz: 1st. Cover no more of the body than the dictates of sound modesty require. 2d. Let the clothes be made of new material, and of such as will allow the uninterrupted egress of the bodily impurities. 3d. Mantuamakers and tailors must make cl ithing to hang loosely about the body. When men and women become wise enough to observe CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 39 these, the adoption of the more primitive style of our first parents, will appear less called for. 5th. WEALTH. Wealth, with its attendant dissipations, is a prolific source of ner- v his derangements and blood impurities. Many ph3'siologists have described money as the " elixir of both mind and body." Dr. Hall, in his Journal of Health remarks as fallows: " This idea of the hygienic va'ue of money on men is strikingly illustrated in the report of M. Vallerme, secretary of the poor house commissioners in Havre, where the average age of the rich is twelve years greater than that of the poor. Thus, 1088 prosperous persons died at an average ago of 42 years; 4791 of the middling classes at 29 years; and 19.849 poor at 20 years." Now these statistics, at first glance, look like "knock-down argu- ments;" but those who argue from them that wealth is a promoter of health and longevity, overlook one important consideration which strikes at the very root of their philosophy, to wit: health begets wealth, instead of wealth begetting health. It must be remembered that a large proportion of mankind is born into the world with here- ditary disease or enfeebled constitution, which disqualifies them for the active pursuits of life, and consequently, unless they become heirs to wealth they must live and die poor. Look over our country now, and learn the history of its wealthy men; what do we find? two-thirds at least have been the architects of their own fortunes. They have amassed their wealth by that indomitable perseverance and industry which they could only have maintained under the encour- agement of vigorous physical organization. What chance has the invalid to gain wealth, or even a competency ? He is interrupted in his business pursuits by the visitations of disease, and the har- vests he may reap during the intervals of comfortable health, are at once absorbed in the expenses of sickness which follows. If, as the statistics indicate, the average age of wealth over poverty is only twelve years, the argument is in favor of the latter; for if, with good health to start with, and subsequent wealth to enable them to live as they choose, rich people cannot exceed an average of twelve years over a class, a majority of which is born in sickness and physical deformity, we may justly conclude that wealth, with its usual dissi- pations, shortens the lives of its possessors. Dr. Hall has fallen into 40 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. the same error that many other physiological writers have in treat- ing orr this subject. Men who have been gifted with that mental and physical energy, united with extraordinary powers of endurance, which has enabled them to stem with success the opposing currents of life, ought to live from 20 to 50 years longer than the sickly crew who follow in their wake with spirited oars to-day, and exhausted strength to-mor- row. But it appears that they can only average twelve more, and probably these are obtained from the extraordinary longevity of the m< lority of wealthy men, who have attained remarkable age in con- sequence of an adherence to temperate and industrious habits, unal- lurcd by the vices of wealth. A few men use riches as if they were a loan from God—strewing the paths of indigency and suffering with blessings; many men value riches only because they enable them to live in sluggish idleness—to glut their bellies with besotting wines and rich viands—to gratify in full measure their stimulated passions, and dazzle the world with glittering gcw-gaws. The former possess placidity of mind and har- mony of body; the latter, mental uneasiness and physical debility, and from the dissipations of these arise the common evils of wealth. The mind, under constant excitement, the blood hot with excessive stimulus, and the muscles paralyzed with habitual inactivity, can- not fail to destroy the tone of the nervous and vascular system. There is a happy medium between wealth and poverty, which pro- motes physical health and social comfort, and beyond this boundary 'twere well if none could pass. Inasmuch as man can carry nothing with him at the close of life except a record of good works, he who possesses a competency during life, enjoys all the pleasures that money can buy without surfeit. But some wish for wealth to be enabled to do good. An excellent lesson for such, may be found in the life and sayings of Socrates: A Grecian youth, who saw the errors and fellies of the people, and wished to reform the world, exclaimed :__ " 0 that I were rich, and famous as an orator, I would move the world so soon! Here are sins to be plucked up, and truths to be planted. 0 that I could do it all! I would reform the whole world— and that so soon." Socrates, hearing the youth, said: •' Youn» man, thou speakest as silly women. This gospel in plain letters is written for all—'Let him that would move the world, move first himself.' It asketh neither wealth nor fame to live out a noble life. Make thy light thy life; thy thought thy action. Others CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 41 will come round, and follow in thy steps. Thou askest riches to move the world. Foolish young man, as thou art, begin now. Reform thy little self, and thou hast begun to reform the world. Fear not, thy work shall never die." The general tendency of wealth is not Benevolence, but prodigality, selfishness, idleness, and gluttony. There is more true benevolence exhibited by the poorest than the wealthiest classes. Hon. Geo. S. Ililliard has beautifully remarked—" I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words arecommonly used. Heaven is said to be a place for those who have not succeeded on earth; and it is surely true that celestial graces do not best thrive and bloom in the hot blaze of worldly prosperity. Ill success sometimes arises from a superabun- dance of qualities in themselves good—from a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too romantic, a modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, with a living poet, that the ' world knows nothing of its greatest men,' but there are forms of greatness, or at least excellence, which ' die and make no sign ;' there are martyrs that miss the palm, but not the stake; there are heroes without the laurel, and conquerors without the triumph." The view I take of the physical effects of riches is sustained by Dr. Channing. He gives it as his opinion that the difference between the rich and the poor in regard to physical suffering is not as great as has been imagined, in support of which he says: " That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more die from eating too much than from eating too little; vastly more from excess than from starvation. So as to clothing, many shiver from want of defence against the cold; but there is vastly more suffering among the rich fiora absurd and criminal modes of dress which fashion has sanctioned, than among the poor from defi- ciency of raiment. Our daughters are oftener brought to the grave by their rich attire, than our beggars by their nakedness. So the poor are often over worked; but they suffer less than many among the rich who have no work to do nor interesting object to fill up life; to satisfy the infinite cravings of man for action. According to our present modes of education, how many of our daughters are victims of ennui, a misery unknown to the poor, and more intolerable than the weariness of excessive toil." 6 42 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 6th. BAD HABITS OF CHILDREN AXD YOUTH. Many of the blood and nervous derangements of adult age are but the harvests of seeds sown in childhood and 3*outh. The injurious habit in which children arc usually indulged, of devouring meats and other stimulating food, has already been discussed under the head of " The Food we Eat." I shall herein treat of other habits common to immature age, which exert an influence more or less destructive to health and longevity. At school children acquire many injurious habits, one of which is illustrated in Fig 14. The effect of this posture is to cramp the lungs, thereby preventing the usual quantity of elec- trifying air from coming in contact with and arterializing the venous blood. It also curves the spine, the great nervous trunk, and in a measure interrupts the harmonious distribu- tion of the nervo-electric fluid. Hence, both blood and nervous derangements are induced thereby. Parents and teachers are not parti- cular enough in observing and criticising the posture of the school boy. Many a case of spinal disease and pulmonary consumption had its origin on the bench of the school- room Seats should always be provided with suitable backs for the support of the spine, and children should be required to maintain a cor- rect posture. A great error is generally committed by parents in sending their children to school at an age so tender that the development of the mental faculties seriously interferes with the vigorous formation of their ph3-sical parts. A child of three or four years of age seated on a bench in school, is no more in his place than a twelve years old boy would be on the judge's bench in a court of chancery. What does he care about letters or syllables? What he learns is not the result of a gratification of a thirst for knowledge, but of a severe and health destroying discipline, which effects a forced growth of the mind at the expense of the body. The vital nervo-electric forces withheld from the generous development of the chest, the vital organs and the muscles, are consumed in nourishing and enlarging CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 43 the brain. In art mankind exhibit common sense. The master builder who is about to decorate his grounds with a superb edifice, first lays a strong and perhaps an inelegant foundation, upon which to raise the monument of his superior skill in architecture. So the parent, who wishes his child to occupy a commanding and useful position in society, when he shall have arrived at the stature of manhood, should take pains to secure for him a physical foundation which can firmly sustain the mental superstructure. To this end children should be kept out of school and allowed to dig play-houses in the sand, play horse with strings, jump ropes and roll hoops until their little limbs become hard and chests broad, and, too, until they evince some desire for study. If this desire is manifested before the age of five or six, it should not be encouraged. The first six and even ten years of boyhood are none too long to prepare the ph3rsical trunk for the nourishment of mental growth. It is related of a gentleman now occupying a seat in the United States Senate, that his wife taught him his letters after marriage, while he prosecuted his calling as a journeyman tailor. But advancing step by step, reading with avidity, studying closely, and striving constantly to inprove his condition, he has at last attained one of the most eminent positions in the gift of his countrymen. Nor is this an isolated instance of the rapid mental progress of a mind after the body had gained, not only strength, but maturity. History is embellished with such. The great Patrick Henry was mentally a dull boy, and hated books, but when the flowers of his mental garden, enriched by the nutriment of a strong and matured physical organization, did bloom, the whole country was intoxicated with their fragrance, inspiring the American patriots with an enthusiasm which naught but success could satiate. In the face of such facts, let not parents make intellectual prodigies and physical wrecks of their children. If they have the germ of greatness in them, there is no danger but it will become developed by the time society, the state, and the nation have need of them. Colored candy eating is a habit in which many parents indulge children to an extent calling loudly for the warning of the faithful physician. The innocent darlings are almost ready to bound out of their shoes, when papa or mamma brings home from the confectioner a sweet little package of beautiful striped, red, blue, green and yellow sugar-plums; of course they are, for they have the most implicit confidence in their dear parents, and know they will not 44 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. give them any thing which will injure them! But parents may not know that there are fatal poisons concealed in the pretty spiial streaks which ornament the confectionary, and papas are so absorbed in business and mammas in fictitious literature, it is a chance if they either of them ever find out. So long as no immediate fatalities occur to the little ones, it is supposed that such indulgences are harmless. As in excessive meat eating, and other bad habits, nature does not cry out at once, and as a consequence physical injury therefrom is not dreamed of. But ignorance docs not shield the juvenile or adult from the deadly^ consequences of pernicious habits, which gradually under- mine the constitution and induce premature decay. A brief specification of some of the drugs used for coloring candies, I trust, will suffice to show parents who peruse these pages, that however pretty sugar-sticks and toys are to look at, they are entirely unfit to enter the susceptible little stomachs of children. Reds are often obtained from red lead, vermilion or bisulphuret of mercury, bisulphuret of arsenic, Iodide of mercury and Venetian red. Greens from false verditer or subsulphate of copper and chalk, emerald green or arsenite of copper, Brunswick greens or ox3'chlorides of copper, verdigris or diacetate of copper, mineral green, green ver- diter or subcarbonate of copper, and mixtures of the chromates of lead and indigo. Yellows from gamboge, massicot, or protoxide of lead, the three chrome yellows or chromates of lead, yellow orpiment, or sulphuret of arsenicum, King's yellow or sulphuret of arsenicum, with lime and sulphur, Iodide of lead, sulphuret of antimony or Naples yellow, yellow ochre. Blues from indigo, cobalt, Antwerp blue, a preparation of Prussian blue, Prussian blue, or ferrocyanide of iron, smalt and blue verditer or sesquicarbonate of copper. Litmus is also used in coloring blue, which, if unadulterated, is harmless; but it is frequently adulterated with common arsenic and peroxide of mercury. Browns are often obtained from umber and Vandyke brown, while purples are generally made by mixing bonie of the objectionable minerals used to produce other colors. "It may be alleged by some," says Hassell, "that these sub- stances are employed in quantities too inconsiderable to prove injurious; but this is certainly not so, for the quantity used, as is amply indicated in many cases, by the eye alone, is very large, and sufficient, as is proved by numberless recorded and continually occurring instances, to occasion di.sease and even death. It should be remembered, too, that the preparations of lead, mercury, copper, CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 45 and arsenic, are what are termed cumulative, that is, they are liable to accumulate in the system, little by little, until at length the lull effects of the poisons become manifested." Continues Hasscll—" That deadly poisons should be .laily used for the sake of imparting color to articles of such general consump- tion as sugar confectionary—articles consumed chiefly by children, who, from their delicate organization, are much more susceptible than adults—is both surprising and lamentable. It is surprising on the one hand, that the manufacturers of these articles should be so reckless as to employ them; and, on the other, that the authorities should tolerate their use." Many confectioners do not sufficiently understand the chemical properties of the colorings they use, to know their poisonous effects. They have learned the trade of candy making, but have never stopped to enquire into the nature of the articles used for ornamenting their pretty drops, sticks and toys. For this reason, if no other, parents should not feed their children colored candies. Those which are not colored, will please the little folks quite as well, if they do not see the others. Candies flavored with the ordinary essences, such-as peppermint, wintergreen, lemon, sassafras and rose, are also less hurtful than those which are flavored with almond, pineapple and peach. The latter often contain fusil oil and prussic acid. From the foregoing remarks, the reader will see that cake orna- ments, composed as the3r are, of colored confectionary, are equally objectionable, and should not be eaten by child or adult. If they are necessary as ornaments, no one is obliged to eat them. Going " barefoot," a very common practice among the children of the indigent in cities, and those of all classes in the country, is a common cause of blood diseases. In large towns the streets and gut- ters are the receptacles of filth of every description, a partial specifi- cation of which would embrace the diseased expectorations of men and animals, dead carcasses of flies, cockroaches, rats and mice, killed by poison, poisonous chemicals and acids swept from drug stores and medical laboratories, filthy rags which have been used in dressing foul ulcers, mucus from syphilitic sores, etc., the bare touch of which is polluting. But when, as is almost daily the case, the barefooted urchin "stubs his toes" against a projecting stone, rupturing the skin, and then brings his bleeding feet in contact with this hetero- geneous compound of mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons, the 46 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. blood is sure to receive an impure inoculation which, unless eradi- cated by vegetable medication, clings to the individual through life, rendering him ever a susceptible subject lor epidemics, colds and chronic diseases. In villages, although less exposed to corrupt ani- mal inoculations, barefooted children are liable to have the purity of their blood contaminated by contact with poisonous plants, which abound in country places. And merely a thoughtless gallop through stubble fields, where wheat or oats have been harvested, may impart to the blood of the barefooted child, a humor which is sooner or later to cause his death. Because serious effects do not manifest themselves immediately, many parents flatter themselves that the practice is not attended with bad results. But blood impurities are generally insi- dious, and produce disease when it is least expected. I do not believe God ever intended that every child should pass through the retinue of diseases which is considered the lot of child- hood. All tender mothers appear to think that their children must have the mumps,whooping cough, measles, and scarlet fever, and tho sooner the " darlings" have them the better. Now is it reasonable to suppose that human nature requires these diseases as settlers, the same as coffee requires eggs or codfish-skin ? If children are brought up properly, the3' may escape all these diseases. What, with stimu- lating animal diet, poisoned confectionary, bare feet, and so forth, by which the vital fluids of the system become rivers of death, can be expected but nursery diseases ! Corrupt blood is that which renders the child a ready victim to a whole train of juvenile ills. A habit which is considerably prevalent in almost every family, of allowing children to sleep with elder persons has ruined the nervous vivacity and physical energy of many a promising child. Those having dear old friends, whose lives they would like to perpetuate at the sacrifice of their innocent offspring, alone should encourage this evil; but every parent who loves his child, and wishes to Dreserve to him a sound nervous system, with which to buffet successfully tho cares, sorrows and labors of life, must see to it, that his nervous vitality is not absorbed by some diseased or aged relative. Children, compared with adults are electrically in a positive con- dition. The rapid changes which are going on in their little bodies abundantly generate and as extensively work up vital nervo-electric fluids. But when, by contact for long nights with elder and negative persons, the vitalizing electricity of their tender organizations is absorbed, they soon pine, grow pale, languid and dull, while theit CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 47 bed companions feel a corresponding invigoration. King David, the Psalmist, knew the effects of this practice, and when he became old got young women to sleep with him that his days might be lengthened. Dr. Hufeland, the German physiologist, attributes the frequent longe- vity of schoolmasters to their daily association with young persons. Invalid mothers often prolong their existence by daily contact with their children. I once knew a woman who, by weak lungs and min- eral doctors, had been prostrated with incurable consumption. Her infant occupied the same bed with her almost constantly day and night. The mother lingered for months on the verge of the grave, her demise being hourly expected. Still she lingered on, daily dis- proving the predictions of her medical attendants. The child, mean- while, pined without any apparent disease. Its once fat little cheeks fell away with singular rapidity, till every bone in its face was visi- ble. Finally it had imparted to the mother its last spark of vitality, and simultaneously both died. I saw it recently stated in a news- paper that a man in Massachusetts had lived forty-one daj-s without eating anything, during which period he had been nourished alto- gether by a little cold water, and "by the influences absorbed by him while daily holding the hand of his wife." Many old men who marry young wives are aware of the nourish- ing effects of such unequal unions, and are not such " old fools " as many pronounce them, while the young women who become their wives are bigger "young fools" than they are ever reputed to be. So...e old ladies, tenacious of life, and wickedly regardless of the welfare of others, often coax children or compel their servants to sleep with them. Parents, therefore, who feel that affectional devo- tion to their children which is usually instinctive, should exercise vigilance and protect their offspring from a robbery which can never be repaired. Great care should also be taken to have diseased and healthy children sleep in separate beds. Although the effect of put- ting them together is favorable to the former, it is attended sometimes with fatal and always injurious results to the latter. It is better, in raising a family of children, to preserve in health a rugged child, even if its puny brothers and sisters die, than to distribute his full measure of vitality among two or half a dozen, and thus place him on a debilitated level with the whole. Masturbation, or self-pollution, is a very prevalent vice among both children and youth. The amative passions, prematurely deve- 48 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. loped b3- stimulating diet, importune gratification which cannot bo granted in the manner prescribed by nature, because marriage is an institution only fitted for adults. Ignorant of the physiological effects of resorting to artificial means, and goaded on by the perusal of popular romances, the unsophisticated youth falls an easy victim to a habit which taps the very fountains of nervo-electric vitality. It has always been surprising to me to see some parents allow their tables and book shelves to become loaded with yellow-covered litera- ture, while they carefully exclude every book which treats on physi- ological matters. If Mr. Beelzebub should write out a proscription for the ruination of young men and women, and in its punctuation use a grave for a period, its adoption could prove no more fatal than has the prescription of civilization. Am I asked what is the latters Then I will tell you. In utero-life, before the child has breathed tho atmosphere of this world, the treatment begins. Excessive sexu- ality between the parents imparts to the unborn child a too great preponderance of the animal organs. After its birth this excess continues, and through the milk which it sucks from its mother's breast these organs derive immoderate nourishment. Before the natural fountains are dried up, animal broths are introduced into its active little stomach, and ere it reaches the age of three years it daily gluts itself with the diet of a full grown man. Coffee and steak for a three years old child ! Next it is learned to read, and at the age of ten or fourteen years, while it feeds its stomach with highly seasoned meats and drinks, it quenches its mental appetite with fictitious romances. Is it strange then that masturbation is a prevalent vice ? Some of my readers may not think it is. This only proves their physiological ignorance. Five children in every ten over twelve years of age bear the marks which the disgusting vice stamps on the countenances of its victims. Children of both sexes are included in this estimate, although the evil is not as prevalent with girls as with boys. Should I speak of boys only, I would say, at least, seven of every ten were addicted more or less to it. The fatal consequences of masturbation are painfully apparent when viewed from the observatory of the medical profession. It acts slowly but powerfully in destroying the harmony of the nervous system, pro- ducing ultimately a great variety of diseases according to the idiosyn- crasies of its slaves; but most commonly insanity or consumption. I am dailj written to by invalids from all parts of the counUy, who freely confess the cause which led to their ill health. CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 49 Although physiological works generally fail to explain the reason why masturbation is worse in its consequences than sexual indul- gence, most of them are good for something, because they serve as a warning to thoughtless 3'outh. I have never, as yet, read a physio- logical or medical work, which exhibited the real difference between the effects of self pollution and those of sexual intercourse. In fact, many young people, who have studied the writings of medical men considerably, have asked me why masturbation moderately indulged in is any more injurious than a natural gratification of the pas- sions. This work shall not be incomplete in this particular; it shall not only sound in the young ear the tocsin of alarm, but give philo- sophical reasons why the former is positively deleterious and the latter, in a measure, beneficial. Such an explanation, however, is reserved for Part Second, in which all matters pertaining to the ama- tive passion and sexuality will be thoroughly discussed. Let all of both sexes, old and young, read it, for no one should hesitate to obey the injunction—" know thyself." The juvenile feat of standing on the head, is quite extensively practiced by school boys without a knowledge of the injurious effects. I have seen urchins remain in an inverted position till the blood appeared as if ready to gush out of their eyes and cheeks. The effect of this exploit is to impair the circulation of both the blood and nervous fluids, and congest the brain. On a par with this exercise, is that of turning around sufficient to become dizzy and fall down. Little girls are most addicted to this practice. It is injurious to the optic nerve, which is irritated by the sudden changes of objects passing before it, and also to the brain, whose functions of distribu- ting nervo-electricity to the system is partially suspended. A rapid spiral motion, in brief, tends to destroy the general harmony of the animal functions. School teachers should have an eye to their pupils out as well as in school, and discourage all practices so obviously injurious. To make healthy men and women, an entire revolution is neces- sary in the training of children. Very few girls and boys, now-a- da3-s, bloom into womanhood and manhood with healthy physical organizations. Some of the causes are indicated in what has been said in this essay. The principal errors in their training have been briefly alluded to, and a thousand minor ones cannot fail to suggest themselves to the experienced mother. 7 ^7j//y 50 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 7th. BAD HABITS OF MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD. One of the worst of these is the use of tobacco, which is indulged in by about eight hundred thousands of the world's inhabitants, and to an extent almost incredible. In New York city alone iyl(>,ii(Ui a day is spent for cigars, while only ^8,500 are expended for bread. And in the United States about $12,000,000 are expended annually for tobacco in some form. The gentlemen smoke and chew, and the ladies snuff and sometimes puff. Now tobacco is a medicinal plant and should not be indulged in by healthy persons any more than cathartics and emetics. It is a very active narcotic and sternutatory, and should only be used by neuralgic and catarrhal invalids, or those troubled with constipation, and then only by the direction of a physician. Its use by healthy people is attended with injury to the nerves and blood. The poisonous pro- perties of tobacco are forcibly exhibited in the following extracts which I make from a little work by Dr. Alcott. " By the ordinary process of distillation, an alkaline principle in small quantity is obtained, called by chemists " nicotin" as well as an oily substance called ' nicotianine.' A drop of either of these, but especially of the former, is found sufficient to destroy life in a dog of moderate size; and two drops destroy the largest and most fierce. Small birds perish at the bare approach of a small tube holding it. " There is another oil procured from tobacco by distilling it at a tem- perature above that of boiling water, called empyreumatic oil. It is of a dark brown color and has a smell exactly like that of old and strong tobacco pipes. A drop of it forced into the lower portion of the intestine of a cat, causes death in most instances, in about five minutes; and two drops, applied in tKe same way to a dog, are often followed by a similar result. "The experiments on which these conclusions ars based, have been repeated and verified, in this country, by Dr. Mussey. His subjects were dogs, squirrels, cats and mice. The following are among the most important of his experiments: " Two drops of oil of tobacco, placed on the tongue, were sufficient to destroy life in cats which had been brought up, as it were, in the midst of tobacco smoke, in three or four minutes. Three drops rubbed on the tongue of a full-sized young cat, killed it in less than three minutes. One di jp destroyed a half-grown cat in five minutes- CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 51 Two drops on ihe tongue of a red squirrel, destroyed it in one minute. A small puncture made in the tip of the nose with a surgeon's needle, bedewed with the oil of tobacco, caused death in six minutes. " Mr. Barrow, the African traveler, assures us that the Hotten tots use this plant for destroying snakes. ' A Hottentot,' says he, ' applied some of it from the short end of his wooden pipe, to the mouth of the snake while darting out his tongue. The effect was as instantaneous as that of an electric shock. With a momentary con- vulsive motion, the snake half twisted itself, and never stirred more; and its muscles were so contracted that the whole animal felt as hard and rigid as if dried in the sun.' " ' The tea of twenty or thirty grains of tobacco,' says Dr. Mussey, ' introduced into the human body for the purpose of relieving spasm, has been known repeatedly to destroy life.' " Dr. Rush says, that even when used in moderation, ' tobacco causes dyspepsia, head ache, tremors, vertigo and epilepsy.' ' It produces,'he again says, 'many of those diseases which are sup- posed to be seated in the nerves.' 'I once lost a young man,'he adds, ' seventeen years of age, of a pulmonary consumption, whose disorder was brought on by. intemperate use of cigars.' " Dr. Woodward, after presenting a long array of facts showing the tendency of tobacco to produce disease—apoplexy, aphony, hypo- chondria, consumption, epilepsy, headache, tremors, vertigo, d3'spep- sia, cancer, and insanity—concludes with the following inquiry:— ' Who can doubt that tobacco, in each of the various ways in which it has been customarily used, has destroyed more lives, and broken down the health of more useful members of society, than have been sufferers from the complaint in question, (bronchitis) up to the pre- sent time, or than ever will be hereafter ?' " Prof. Silliman mentions ay affecting case of a young student in Yale College, who fell a victim to tobacco. " He entered," says he, "with an athletic frame; but he acquired tho habit of using tobacco, and would sit and smoke whole hours together. His friends tried to persuade him to quit the practice, but he loved his lust, and would have it, live or die,—the consequence of which was, he went down to the grave a suicide." Prof. S. mentions also the case of another young man, in the same institution, who was sacrificed by the same poisonous weed. Prof. Pond, of the Bangor Theological Seminary. relates one or two similar cases of students whom he knew at Ando- vei and elsewhere " 52 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. " The German physicians state in their periodicals, that, of the deiths occurring among men in that county, between eighteen and thrty-five years of age, one half die from the effects of smoking. They unequivocally assert, that " tobacco burns out the blood, the teeth, the eyes and the brain." It has been observed, that the man- ufacturers of this article carry pale, ghastly countenances; and it is also said that few of them live to old age. Agriculturists say that it soon poisons the soil on which it grows, or rather, that it impov- erishes the soil more than any other plant in thevegetablekingdoin." In the form of snuff, tobacco is a common cause of palsy. Several cases, corroborative of this assertion, have occurred under my own observation. In some countries Indian Hemp is the fashionable Doison, in others the betel nut, and to sum up all, there are about three hundred mil- lions of opium eaters ! Verily, it seems as if mankind were univer- sally bent on self destruction, and that those who put the razor to the throat are the impatient few who cannot await the gradual results of the popular methods of suicide. The prevalence and fatal consequences of intemperance in the use of ardent spirits have been fully considered under the head of " The Fluids we Drink," likewise the injurious results of excessive meat eating under the caption of " The Food we eat." It is only neces- sary to advert to them in this place, in order to remind the reader that there are other popular habits, equally as destructive to health as the use of tobacco. It is a peculiarity of human nature " not to see ourselves as others see us, "and, frequently the tobacco-chewer will upbraid his brother for drinking, and vice-versa, and the exces- sive meat-eater moralize on both of these practices, while the pork- eater considers himself the very paragon of sobriety and Christianity. Probaby two-thirds of the temperance philanthropists who are mak- ing such strenuous efforts to put down the rumsellers, are themselves constant patrons of the hog-butcher, and do not dream that they are inconsistent. By eating distillery fed pork, they actually consume second-hand liquor, or in other words, eat it after the hogs have drank it, and still they would religiously refuse a piece of mince pie which was known to contain brandy. Now, my object in writing thus is not to throw ridicule upon the philanthropic movements of the day, but rather to suggest for them a wider scope. Bad habits in dress have been investigated under the head of " The Clothes we Wear;" but as I declined in that place to treat of the evils CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS, 53 of tight lacing, I will devote a little space to them here inasm ach as it is a practice more destructive to health and longevity in fashionable circles than tobacco chewing, liquor drinking or pork eating. The ladies who " will not put their arms through rum-jugs," (as some have appropriately termed the elbows of liquor topers,) must not consider themselves immaculate, which they may be inclined to do if one of their iniquitous habits is not exposed in this connection. One of the most injuri- ous effects of tight lacing can be seen in noticing the peculiar office of the diaphragm as represent- ed in Fig. 15; d d exhibit the diaphragm, and it M M the abdominal mus- cles. The first view re- presents the diaphragm as it appears when air is inhaled, the other as when the air is expelled. The diaphragm rises and falls to aid the lungs in inhaling vital air, and exhaling that which has been deprived ofitselcc- positions of the diaphragm. trie property and loaded with animal effluvia. How common it is for ladies to complain of shortness of breath! Strange it is that they do not know the cause, when they compress the chest so tight that the free action of the diaphragm is interrupted. Of over thirty thousand ladies whose lungs I have examined, at least 75 per cent, of them could expand the upper parts of their chest from one to three inches, by tape measurement, while the expansive powers of the lower portions were often less than half an inch and seldom exceeded one. In those persons who have not habituated themselves to the wearing of tight clothes the expansive power ol the upper and lower portions of their lungs varies only about a quarter to half an inch, whereas, in fashionable ladies, it almost invariably varies from one to three inches. Any lady can try this experiment and convince herself, with a tape measure, placing it first around the chest immediately under the arms, and then to the lower 54 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. extremity of the lungs. The experimenter, after adjusting the tape, should exhaust the air from the lungs and then draw the tape as close as possible; then inhale, gradually allowing the tape to slip through the fingers until the lungs are swelled out to their utmost capacity. The figures on the tape generally give a result which will convince the fair experimenter that she has been from childhood a constant violator of nature's laws. The disturbance of the functions of the diaphragm is by no means the only evil of tight lacing. The circulation of the blood and the electrical radiations are impeded thereby, in addition to which there is a still greater and more alarming evil. I allude to the pressure which is thrown upon the bowels, and from the bowels upon the womb. The peculiar organization of woman renders the practice ten fold more injurious to her than it would be to the male. The shocking prevalence of prolapsus uteri, commonly termed falling of the womb, is greatly owing to the pernicious practice of tight lacing. The greatest mystery to me is that the ladies lace at all. A majority of them who do are members of Christian churches, and are instructed weekly from the pulpit that the works of God are perfect; do they then mean to willfully insult the wisdom of their Creator by attempting to improve upon them ? Now this question is a poser to those who belong to the Church of Christ, but as a faithful physiologist I am in duty bound to ask it. The fact is, it is a mistaken notion that wasp waists are pretty. They look perfectly horrible ! I would rather see a woman's waist as big round as a bushel basket than to see it contracted to a size a trifle larger than the neck. I am glad to see that many of the ladies themselves are beginning to regard small waists as physical deformities. One of them, a Mrs. Merrifield, speaks right out as follows: " The very expression * a small waist' implies a disproportion. A small waist is too small for the general size of the figure to which it belongs, just as a low-pitched room or a narrow room is too low or too narrow in proportion to its height. A well-proportioned room has none of these defects, and the waist of a well-proportioned person should be in harmony with the other parts of the figure. " The ancients do not appear to have recognized the virtue of small waists: and a modern lady would be in an agony if her waist were of the proportional dimensions of those of some antique statues. The celebrated Venus de Medicis—' the bending statue that enchants the world'—has what would, at the present time, be called a large CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 55 waist; yet modern connoisseurs and artists have unanimously declared that this is the most perfect female form which the art of ancient or modern times has transmitted to us. They commend, not only the faultless shape of each part, but the admirable proportion of one part to another. Let us devote a short space to a few observations relative to the dimensions of the waist of this figure. " The Venus has been frequently Fi? 16 measured, and with great accuracy, by artists; but the view taken is a painter's view of a flat instead of a round surface; consequently, instead of the whole circumference of the waist, we have only its breadth from side to side, and from back to front. " The whole figure is divided into seven heads and three-quarter parts; each head into four parts, and each part into twelve minims. The diame- ter of ^he waist from side to side is one head (or four parts) and eight minims, or nearly one-seventh of the entire height, the diameter from front to back is only three parts of seven minims; it is, therefore, nearty one-fourth longer in one direction than the other. This is the first point in which fashion is at va- riance with the finest forms of nature and art. Fashion requires that the waist shall be round instead of oval, and she attains her object by compress- ing the lower ribs, which are forced closer together. To such an extent is this construction sometimes carried, that the impression of the ribs is left permanently upon the liver. " But it is not sufficient that the waist should bear a due proportion to the height, it must also be proportioned to the breadth of the shoulders. Now, the Venus is just two heads, three parts, A CONTRACTED WAIST. 56 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. and eight minims across the shoulders—exactly half a head more than the diameter of her waist from side to side. When, therefore, there is more or less than half a head proportionate difference between the breadth across the shoulders and the waist, the figure is deficient in just proportion. It is to be observed that some individuals are tall Fig. is. A PERFECT FEMALE FIGURE, AS DESCRIBED BY MRS. IfERRIFIELD. and slight, others short and broad; in all cases, however, there must be a corresponding agreement between the breadth of the shoulders and that of the waist. CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 57 " As we know the two diameters of the waist, we are able to cal- culate the circumference, which is equal to three heads and four min- ims, or somewhat more than two-fifths of the entire height. We shall assume this approximation to be correct. Now, the real height of the Venus de Medicis being four feet, eleven inches and two lines, and her proportionate height seven and three-quarter heads, the pro- portionate, circumference of her waist, being three heads and four minims, is equal to twenty-four inches, eight minims, more than two-fifths. It may be considered, then, that a well-proportioned waist should be at least two-fifths of the height of the figure: what- ever is smaller than this, is disproportioned. According to this scale, therefore, the waist of a person five feet three inches high should not be less than twenty-five and a quarter inches; of five feet five inches, twenty-six inches; of five feet seven inches, twenty-six and three- quarter inches; of five feet eight inches, twenty-seven and a quarter inches. " We have heard of a young lady of the middle height, or perhaps somewhat under that standard, who found fault with her stay-maker for having made her stays nineteen inches round the waist, when she knew that the young lady's measure was eighteen inches! Eighteen inches! According to scale of two-fifths of the entire stature, which, as we have seen, is under the mark, the height of a young lady whose waist did not exceed eighteen inches, should have been three feet nine inches!—the height of a child, with a proportionate of a woman. " Enough has been said," concludes Mrs. M., " to convince our readers that a very small waist is a defect rather than a beauty, and nothing can be truly beautiful which is out of proportion. Would that we could also convince them that they cannot possess an exces- sively small waist without the certain sacrifice of their health!" Would that the female portions of civilized society were made up of Mrs. Merrifields, and my word for it, men would have merrier and more beautiful wives, and healthier children. I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Merrifield, and know not if she is prett3' or ugly, but if, by any possibility, she be the latter, her offspring cannot fail to be both handsome and healthy, as a reward to the mother for her obedience to nature's laws. In the next place I should treat of some of the pernicious habits of married people, in their private relations, were it not for the fact that extended remarks on these will be given in Part Second. They 8 58 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERAM OEMENTS. might with propriety be introduced here, for they are common causes of nervous and blood derangements. But the consideration of all matters relating to marriage, its excesses, etc., will be deferred for the place specified. There is one habit growing with fatal rapidity in the United States, which demands the criticism of the physiologist, and that is medicine taking. The country is flooded with patent medicines, and every village store has shelves appropriated to the display of this kind of semi-apothecary merchandize. If they would remain shelved no injury could ensue from their preparation; but unfortunately there is a ready market for them, as is evinced by the rapid accumu- lation of wealth by those who manufacture them. The origin of each one of these medicines is something like this: Mr. Unfortunate has a wife or other relative sick with consumption; he tries every thing and every body with little or no success; finally he resorts to something which his own fertile brain suggests, and, astonishing to say, the invalid actually recovers. The surprised discoverer at once thinks he has found an infallible remedy for consumption, and the bottle maker and the printer at once receive stupendous jobs—tho former to make some quart bottles with a jaw-breaking name blown :n one or all sides, the latter to get up labels and flaming posters. He is received at once by credulous invalids as a great benefactor, and by the old school doctors and "knowing ones," as a huge hum- bug. But, reader, he is neither of these two—only a mistaken man. He does not understand the law of temperaments. Many physicians do not. I might say further : the majority of the medical profession do not. Notwithstanding the adage "what is cure for one is poison for another," has become trite from daily repetition, its true import is not comprehended. It should be understood, that every variety of temperament denotes as many varieties of human beings, the same as the leaves and bark of trees indicate different varieties of trees. For this reason a medical man or a discoverer of patent medicine should not give to a black haired, brown complexioned man the same medicine which has cured a light haired and fair complexioned indi- vidual, even if his disease is the same. It is plain that patent medicines must act upon the principle of " kill or cure." They are absolutely dangerous and the amount of mischief they are doing is incalculable. Many an invalid is rendered hopelessly incurable by experimenting with these nostrums before CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 59 consulting a skillful physician. I have frequently been called upon by poor emaciated creatures who have swallowed forty or fifty bottles of different panaceas. If their cases are at all curable, a great deal has to be undone before any relief can be administered. If people would exercise half as much discrimination in dosing as they do in man3' other things of less importance, patent medicines would be robbed of half their power to harm. They understand why Parson A's coat will not fit Capt. B's back—why the pretty dark dress of blue eyed Mary does not become " black eyed Susan," and wh3' a hymn in long metre does not sound well to a tune of short metre, but it does not occur to them that the rule of adapta- tion extends equally to medicine. Let it be understood, then, that difference in form, size and complexion, indicate difference in tem- perament, and that difference in temperament indicates difference in constitutional peculiarity. Next we arrive at the irresistible infer- ence that what is beneficial to a man of a nervous temperament may be injurious to one of a bilious temperament, &c. The intelligent farmer understands the temperaments of soils, and throws on such manure as they require. On soil deficient of alkali he strews ashes .. or lime; on that deficient of ammonia, the gleanings of the stable, etc. A majority of intelligent physicians do not understand the laws of temperaments, and such not unfrequently have to bear the name of " kill or cure doctors," and such they manifestly are. It will now be seen by the preceding, that while those who buy and take patent medicines are often ingloriously humbugged, the manufacturers are by no means, in all instances, humbugs. Many honest men and women think they are doing a great amount of good in the world by compounding and selling "one-cure-alls." Their error lies in the head and not in the heart. Patent medicine eaters and drinkers should, therefore, be careful what they put down, and take nothing in the form of medicine unless necessary. It is said that there is a tomb-stone in one of the English cemeteries, on which are inscribed the following words:—"I was well, took medicine to feel better, and here am I." There are thou- sands of tomb-stones in America which might truthfully bear this same inscription. Turning night into day is an injurious and prevalent custom, par- ticularly in fashionable life. Observation and experience have taught almost every one of adult age, that the habit is destructive to the nervous system, but these teachers often fail to improve any one in 60 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. the absence of testimony founded on philosophy. I have looked in vain in the writings of medical men and physiologists for any rational reason why man should lie down at night and rise with the sun. The effects of the non-observance of this hygienic rule are plainly exhibited by many popular medical authors, but frequently not so forcibly in their literary productions on the subject as in their own faces, which bet ray the secret that the physiological teacher does not always practice what he preaches. Such is the happy predominance of the social faculties in the best classes of human beings, the social circle is more attractive than the embraces of morpheous, and most persons are ready to attribute the injurious physical effects of unseasonable hours for rest, to any other cause than the true one. There is, therefore, great need of new light on this subject—something which will appeal to the reason of men, and demonstrate the fact that one hour of sleep at night is worth more than three after the sun has risen. From the investiga- tions I have made, I have come to the conclusion that during the day the magnetic or electric currents from the sun predominate, and, descending perpendicularly or obliquely the upright body is brought in harmony with the descending currents, while at night the magnetic or electric currents of the earth predominate, and flow from A or/A to South, horizontally, in consequence of which the human body should be in a recumbent position, with head to the north, in order to preserve the harmonious circulation of the nervo-electric fluids. That this h3'pothesis will be favorabl3r received by those who have had much experience as electrical therapeutists, I am confident, for all who understand the proper application of electricity, know that, with few exceptions, the electrical currents from the machine must be passed from the positive to the negative in the directions which the nerTes ramify. This being the case, ought not the electrical currents from the sun during the day and those of the earth from North to South during the night, be made to observe the same rule by a conformity of the position of the body to them? In applying the galvanic bat- tery, if the electrical currents are passed contrary to the nervous rami fications, or from their termini to their source—the brain—nervous irritation ensues, and the patient is rendered more nervous. Such it seems to me, must also be the result of a non-conformity to the directions of the en-rents of the earth and sun. In fact we see it exhibited in a majority of those who turn night into day. True, there are a few whose strong nervous organizations appear to resist CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 61 all such influences, but the continual dropping of water wears away a stone, and these exceptions finally favor the truth of this philo- sophy. The sun exerts a powerful magnetic influence on the earth, arousing all animal life to activity, from the merest insect to the noblest work of God. The fowls of the air, the beasts of the field and all human beings who obey the laws of nature, feel inspired with new life when the golden ra3's of the rising sun radiate from the east. The activity of the animal fluids increases till she reaches her meridian, and then gradually decreases until she sinks to rest in the west. When " old Sol" retires, the colder magnetic currents of the earth prevail with greater power; animal life becomes more sluggish; the wearied body seeks repose; and the most perfect repose is obtained by reclining in a position consonant with the earth's currents. Fast eating, a universal habit with Anglo-Americans, is highly injurious to the nervous and vascular systems, and induces those conditions in the system which usually ultimate in dyspepsia. It is eminently characteristic of the Yankee to do every thing in a hurry. Not satisfied with praying fast, walking fast, working fast and traveling fast, he generally, and that too unconsciously, eats fast. His jaws keep time with the locomotive's wheels, and his arms and elbows with the rapid alternate movements of the piston rods. I was once much amused with an illustration an Italian gave of a Yankee at a steamboat table. Just previous to the sounding < f the dinner gong, he was descanting most wittily in broken English, on the customs of the Americans, and, when dinner was announced, he proposed to show how a Yankee enjoyed (?) a good meal. With true Yankee impetuosity he rushed to his seat at the table; knives and forks flew in every direction; one arm shot to the right for one thing and the other to the left for another; while the fork was per- forming a rapid trip to the mouth, the knife, which had just dis- charged its load, was nervously returning to the plate. A few such spasmodic motions, and impulsive calls to the waiters, ended the repast, and with a whirl of his chair, he turned almost breathless from the table. Nor was his delineation over-wrought. I have myself seen just such spectacles hundreds of times at public tables. At home, at his own table, the Anglo-American is not much more moderate in eating. The mouth is crowded with food and succes- sively washed down with tea, coffee or some other liquid. Now it is the duty of the physiological writer to admonish the reader of the 62 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. effects of this habit, and if, after knowing tho consequences, it is still persisted in, no one will be in fault but the sufferer, if the worst form of dyspepsia is the result. Fig. 19. THE SALIVARY GLANDS. 1, Parotid gland; 2, iuiluits; 3, Submaxillary gland; 4, its ducts; 5, Sublingual gland. The thorough lubrication of the food with saliva is necessary to promote good digestion. Saliva is an alkali, and, electrically speak- ing, a negative, while the gastric fluid in the stomach is an acid and a positive. When, therefore, food descends into the stomach, only half masticated, and lubricated with some other fluid than saliva, digestion for some time is almost suspended, because the nega- tive fluid is wanting to attract the immediate action of the positive fluid, and the presence of other liquids tend to dilute and destroy the power of the latter. In addition to this, the labor of the jaws and teeth is thrown upon the disabled stomach. How surely, then, must the electrical or nervous machinery of the digestive apparatus be disturbed. Then again, food in the stomach, unless at once acted upon by the gastric fluid, commences a process of decomposition and fermentation, by which means the blood also becomes involved in the pernicious results which follow. If a person eats slowly, masticates thorougly, and omits all drinks, nature furnishes threear jour ouncs of salival fluid with which to moisten his food, preparatory to its CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 63 entrance into the stomach. No one requires liquids to drink at the table. This habit is the result of fast eating. The salivary glands cannot furnish lubricating fluids fast enough for the rapid eater, so he depends on artificial liquids, which dilute what little saliva is used as well as the gastric juices. Liquids should never be swallowed till after eating, and then not to the extent that they are usually Eat slow and depend only on the fluid nature furnishes to moisten your food. " Habit is second nature." So says the proverbialist. How important then it is that we should form such habits as will tend to develop physical health and mental vigor, instead of ph3rsical decay and mental imbecility. Habit is not acquired in a day—seldom in a year. It creeps upon an individual gradually, and if its effects are disastrous to health and longevity, so imperceptible are the changes it produces in the system from day to day, the victim is seldom aware of the cause of a disease which is developed by it. Experiment has demonstrated that a man may endure, without pain, the heat of an oven hot enough for baking purposes, if he be placed there while the oven is cool, and the heat is slowly raised to the baking point. But does any one believe that a person kept in such a temperature, however comfortable it may become to him, will live as long as if he were surrounded with a temperate atmospheric clement? Dr. Kane and his gallant band of Arctic navigators, became so habituated to a cold temperature, that they could walk themselves into a comfortable perspiration with the thermometer at forty-two degrees below zero, or seventy-four degrees below the freez- ing point! But their enterprising adventure made sad inroads upon their ph3'sical organizations and the brave commander of the Ameri- can Polar Expedition, with several of his heroic companions, have since paid the forfeit with their lives. Thus we see the flexibility oi the human body to conform to whatever conditions we force upon it, and we also perceive how fatal to longevity are all deviations from the injunctions of first nature. We may change our natural habits of eating, drinking, sleeping, &c, to some others acquired, as easily as we can accustom our systems to extreme temperatures, and expe- rience no immediate discomfort; but first nature will some time demand a settlement and second nature will turn bankrupt, throw- ing the loss upon his superior. Those who strive to save the souls of men counsel all to take a daily retrospect of their conduct, to see if they have violated any 64 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. moral law. I would also advise a daily retrospect to ascertain if any physical law has been disregarded; for how can the immortal spirit maintain purity and complacency in a corrupt tabernacle. It is also the duty of the Christian mother to watch over the physical as well as moral tendencies of her children, and to train them into habits which will conduce to a healthy corporeal and mental development. 8m. UNHAPPY MARRIAGES. These conspire to destroy the tone and vigor of both the nervous and arterial fluids. The mind, chafing in the galling fetters which bind it to an uncongenial companionship, almost forgets its corporeal dependency, and consumes within itself the nervo-electricity which should be dispensed through the nervous system, to impart healthy action to the blood and the organic machinery. Unhappy marriages are unlike any other troubles, because society is so constituted that a majority of their victims prefer rather to fall suicides to their self- inflictions than to encounter the frowns of their friends and acquaint- ances by practically severing a contract which yields little but mental disquietude, affectional suffocation and nervous and vascular debility. The world little knows the extent of matrimonial inharmony. Each pair who find themselves unhappily mated imagine that they belong to the unfortunate few who have made the great " mistake of a life time;" but the physician, in whom is generally confided the secrets of the broken heart, after the constitution has also become broken, knows from the frequency of such confessions that they form a part of the great majority instead of the minority. An English paper states that in the year 1854, there were in London 1,132 runaway wives; 2,348 runaway husbands; 4,175 married people legally divorced; 17,345 living in open warfare; 13,279 living in private misunderstandings; 55,340 living in mutual indifference, while only 3,175 were regarded as happy; 127 nearly happy; and 13 perfectly happy. In what way the English statistician obtained these facts, if they are facts, I am unable to say. In this country it would be impossible to gain correct information of the amount of connubial infelicity as compared with the real happiness in the domestic relation, unless every physician of extensive practice should contribute the results of his observa4ions. Seldom arc the most gossiping neighborhoods of the United States acquainted with the actual state of feeling existing between the husbands and wivos which live therein, and it CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 65 is not uncommon for husbands and wives to deceive each other, witb regard to their real sentiments when they find that they have mis- takenly entered into a companionship distasteful and perhaps dis- gusting to one or both. I was once called upon by a lady, in one of the New England States, whose mind was distracted and nervous system nearly exhausted, because she had formed an unhappy alliance with a man whom she found she could not respect and love. But she had great benevolence, and rather than make him unhappy by a disclosure of her feelings, she had concealed them from him, and they were secretly gnawing away the nervous threads that connected her spirit with her body. Ah! how many wives whose eyes fall upon this story will see in it the mirror which reflects their own miserable situa- tion. Rest assured that lady is not the only one whose benevo- lence and pride bind her to an unnatural union, and a concealment of her wretchedness. Unhappily, the victims to uncongenial marriages, are not alone sufferers thereby. The nervous, puny offspring, which is the issue of such adulterous alliances, opens his eyes on a world of physical and moral wretchedness, and hence the sin of the parents is visited upon their children of the first and every succeeding generation. So marked are the physical influences of unhappy marriage on the off- spring, that I can generally tell at once, when I see a family of children, whether the father and mother are happily or unhappily mated. Both mental and physical suffering is the inevitable inheri- tance of the unfortunate child who is born of ill-mated parents; and if he survives the fatal tendencies of a poor constitution till he him- self becomes a father, his child, in turn, will possess at least a trace of his progenitor's infirmities, and so on through the whole line of his posterity. For further remarks on this subject, embracing a treatise on the causes, effects and remedies for unhappy marriages, the reader is referred to Part Second of this work, where it will receive the attention its importance demands. 9th. PROSTITUTION AND LICENTIOUSNESS. Prostitution maybe compared to a vast sea of physical corruption, in whose waters the licentious lave and come out lepers. Where the bcaii.iful river, lake or ocean contributes to the commercial prosperity of any city, there also this great sea of corruption rolls most unob- 9 66" CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. structedly, and thousands of peaceful villagers, who dai y or yearly frequent a metropolis, in an unguarded moment get submerged in its dirty waters, and then carry home to their faithful wives a disease more loathsome than a suppurating cancer. The blood of the whole human race is becoming contaminated with venereal poison. Do you question this assertion ? Look at the fact that in the United States there are not less than one hundred thousand harlots, and in London alone nearly an equal number, nightly deal- ing out sensual pleasure and physical death to a still greater number of inconsiderate men. But they are not all diseased, says one. Admit that; it is safe to presume that one-third of the whole num- ber are, and a little exercise in simple division shows to us that the seeds of venereal poison are communicated nightly to over 3O,0OU persons in the United States, many of whom have wives or bed com- panions, to whom they impart the disease. Next, perhaps, offspring become infected, and they, with their ulcerated little gums communi- cate it to the nipples of nurses who have been called to supply tho places of diseased mothers in nurseries, and they in turn impart it to other innocent babes. And so the infection spreads like fire on the prairie, throughout the whole human-family. The " street walkers " of New York city have been vulgarly termed " Pox Peddlers," but a more significant name cannot be found in the English vocabulary, and I quote it because it explains more forcibly than many pages could, the real nature and consequences of their vocation. Thousands of virtuous married ladies in our country to-day are suffering with aggravated forms of fluor-albus and annoy- ing humors, which originated from the syphilitic diseases of the wretched women who nightly promenade the great thoroughfare of the metropolis of America. These abandoned creatures are supported by the stangers who daily throng the commercial mart, for the resi- dent population are well aware that they are but painted sepulchres, full of disease and rottenness. How well they are maintained by the floating population, is a question which their gaudy and expensive cos- tumes answer with more force than language can express; for it is a pro- verb that they, "like the squirrels, cover their backs with their tails." It has been argued, and with a show of plausibility, that prostitu- tion is a necessary evil. That did it not exist, our wives and daugh- ters would be unprotected from the insidious advances of libertines and the forcible outrages of men of reckless passion. My own obser- vation has convinced me that libertines in towns of moderate size, CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 67 where prostitution is not tolerated, are more given to the seduction of thoughtless wives and unsophisticated young girls than the same class in large cities. But the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw asks, and with good propriety,—" What special title have the wives and daughters of those who employ this plea to the protection of their virtue, more than other wives and daughters? Why are theirs to be protected at the expense of others, and not the others at the expense of theirs? Who, in the community, are to be the victims—the vice doomed safeguards of the virtue of the rest—the wretched safety valves of unprincipled and unbridled passions? Are we to have a decimation, by lot, of the virginity of the country?—or is some inferior class to be sacrificed to the demon of lust for the benefit of those above them? Is vice essential to the preservation of virtue? That were indeed a hard necessity. Where is the individual, male or female, and in what rank soever of society—whom I am not to dissuade from vice?—whom it would be wrong so to dissuade?—the successful dis- suasion of whom would be an injury to the public?—by prevailing with whom to give up the evil course, I should incur the responsi- bility of one who shuts a high pressure safety-valve?—where the individual whose body and soul I am bound to leave to death and perdition, lest perchance some others should come to be exposed to temptation? " These questions are suggestive, and cannot fail to awaken reflection on the part of those who claim that prostitution is a necessary evil. Perhaps a little inquiry into the causes of prostitution will settle this difficult question. One of the primitive causes, I maintain, is the premature development of the amative passions of youth by a too stimulating diet. Most parents allow their children in swaddling clothes to indulge in a diet only suitable for adult age. Do they not know that condiments, animal food and coffee early arouse the slumbering sexual passions of the young? These articles of diet at once impart undue warmth to the blood, and awaken early sexual desires in their children, leading boys to early acquire the arts of the libertine, and rendering girls susceptible to the amorous advances of the opposite sex. Thus, from one parental error, spring up on one side a host of amative libertines, and on the other scores of volup- tuous women who have not the power to resist temptation, all of whom are required by custom to abstain from legal marriage until they have nearly or quite passed their teens. The remedy for this evil suggests itself. 68 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. Another cause is unhappy marriages. These create thousands of bad men and women. The indissolubility of the marriage con- tract drives both parties to desperation; makes the husband a willing patron of the harlot, and the wife an easy victim to the liber- tine. Ignorant of the laws which should govern marriage, men and women are daily rushing into matrimony whose ph3*sical and mental uncongcnialities are only discovered to them after the " honeymoon " has -eooled down their impulses, and left their reasoning faculties unobscured by the infatuation of passion. But when they awake from their dream, they find the civil law a reality, and that they must content themselves to live in adultery, one with the other, or incur public disgrace by the commission of some crime which will entitle them to a divorce. A remedy for this evil will be given in Part Second. Another fruitful cause of prostitution in large cities, is the small compensation awarded to female labor. In consequence of this few are able to earn more than enough to supply present necessities, and when " hard times" prevail they have neither work nor the means of subsistence. In such an extremity a very few whose pure souls abhor a life of shame, choose death rather than the princely abode of the courtesan, and end their existence by poison or drowning. But many rush into harlotry, for observation has taught them the humi- liating fact that men will pay dollars for sexual gratification who will only bestow cents in charity. When such reward is offered for vice, and want and threatened starvation held out to virtue, it is only sur- prising that more do not abandon the flickering night-lamp and needle, for the dazzling chandelier and easy cushioned tete-a-tete of the fashionable brothel. The "hard times" of 1837, '54 and '57 drove hundreds of NTew York seamstresses and shop girls to a life of prostitution. The streets of that metropolis throng with this class of females, when- ever there is a financial pressure, local or geneial. Some thirty thousand women are dependent upon the products of their needle in New York, many of whom have helpless parents and children who look to them for subsistence. Imagine their terrible extremity when thrown out of employment. It is said that out of 5,000 prostitutes in Paris whose cases have been minutely examined, 1,400 were reduced to that state by sheer destitution! A writer remarks that "there are fifty or sixty families in Edinburgh who are almost wholly supported by the CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 69 secret prostitution of the mother, and three times that number who are partially maintained in the same manner. A daughter had struggled on six years to support herself and bed-ridden mother by the needle; before sacrificing her virtue she sold the last blanket fiom her mother's bed, and her own last dress. " Who will deny that these are startling considerations. And what is true of European cities, is true of American ones, to a greater or less degree. Young girls can always get money in our large cities by bartering their virtue. It is an unfailing dernier resort. Why should it be thought strange that a female, pressed by pale want, should do that which a male will do in the absence of this necessity, and without a scruple ? And why, especially, should it excite wonder, while black hearted seducers and procuresses, knowing this want, swarm thick around, ever ready to take advantage of their distressed condition?" For this evil it is difficult to suggest an immediate remedy, such is the spirit of rivalry and speculation in the commercial world. But there is one which time and change in public opinion may intro- duce. It is to educate girls as we do boys, in the practical business matters of life, and then open to their pursuit all trades and profes- sions, in order that their field of industry may not be so unreason- ably circumscribed. Still another cause of prostitution has its origin in the general ignorance which prevails concerning the power and phenomena of animal electricity, or magnetism, as it is generally termed. All classes of females, from the daughters of the affluent to the pretty shop girls, contribute inmates to the brothel, in consequence of igno- rance on this point. They are not aware that some men possess an electric power to charm, like the snake. The philosophy of this will be thoroughly explained in Part Second; but the consequences demand at least an allusion here. Coquettish ladies are apt to invite the attentions of preposessing strange young gentlemen; and coquet- tish young ladies, lam sorry to say, are numerous. They commence flirting with their admirers with the pre-determination of keeping their affections to themselves. Still they will venture much to ascer- tain the sentiments of their pretended lovers. Gradually the latter practically mesmerize them, when pretty coquettes find themselves, like the fluttering bird ^before the charming serpent's mouth, utterly unable to control themselves. The keepers of houses of ill-fame in lar»e cities, know that many men possess this singular power to 70 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. charm, though perhaps not one of them know the mysterious agent they employ to produce this fascination. The result is, that men who are so powerfully electric or magnetic as to be able to exercise such a controlling influence over young ladies, are stationed in all large manufacturing towns where female operatives are numerous, to furnish fresh victims for the fashionable dens of prostitution. A partial remedy for this evil may be given in few words. Young ladies must not make too free with young gentlemen whose characters are not favorably known in the neighborhood in which they reside. Observance of this rule may sometimes cause Miss Julia to turn her back upon an angel, but as devils are most numerous in traveling pants and waistcoats, sa serious a slight will seldom be given to celes- tial broadcloth. In reviewing some of the principal causes of prostitution, can we not see that if it really be a necessary evil, it is so because of import- ant errors in the training of children; in indiscriminating civil laws regulating marriage; in despotic custom, circumscribing the indus- trial sphere of women; in the ignorance of the electrical power of every individual, for good or evil? Reformation in the training of children is the first place to begin to do away with prostitution. So long as the sexual passions of children are stimulated to precocity by an exciting regimen, and goaded to illicit gratification by the romantic yellow-covered literature of the day, so long will there be men who will violate the marriage bed and destroy virgin purity where the institution of prostitution is not tolerated; and so long will houses of ill-fame be annually furnished with voluptuous young females from all ranks of society. Were it universally known to what an alarming extent the perni- cious physical effects of prostitution are felt throughout all commu- nities, more decided measures would be adopted under the paternal roof to cut off one of the main tributaries to this gigantic evil. The word of the mother is the law of the household, and she seldom dreams, even if suffering with disease induced by venereal poison, that prostitution can ever inflict a pang in her sheltered home. Why, I have cured hundreds of ladies from nearly every State in the Union, whose diseases arose directly or indirectly from syphilis, and who would have died of grief had I divulged to them the real nature of their complaints. I will not venture to compute how many have been my patients for the cure of venereal disorders, or diseases arising therefrom. Fowler, in a little work on Amativeness, remarks, CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 71 " Many do not know how prevalent this disease is in its various forms. Its victims keep their own secrst as long as possible, and doctor themselves, except when their case becomes desperate; and then confide it only to their medical adviser, whose very profession forswears him to keep the secret. Oh! how many of our young men have ruined their constitutions, and become inva.Ws for life, solely by means of this disease or attempts to cure it. Indeed, its prevalence at the Sandwich Islands actually threatens the extinction of that nation; which at its present rate of mortality, it is computed to effect in about sixty years! And if it goes onto increase in the ratio of its past progression, it will ultimately cut off our race itself ! " The fact that several thousand copies of a little work of less than twenty pages, on the cure of venereal diseases, are sold every month: at one dollar per copy, and that other works of this class sell in proportion, shows conclusively that there are several thousand new victims every month! No patient wants more than a single work, yet twenty thousand per month does not equal the sales of these works, and of course falls short of the number of victims, for none but venereal patients will pay thus dear for so small a book, of no manner of interest to those not thus afflicted. All this, besides all those who indulge with other than harlots by profession! Almost incredible but nevertheless true!" I have not the least doubt—and my estimate is based on authorita- tive "figures which cannot lie"—that thirty thousand males are daily infected with venereal poison in the large cities ef the United States, a majority of whom are residents of inland towns, whither they return to spread the seeds of the loathsome disorder! Men of vicious habits.in cities are generally too well acquainted with the different grades of courtesans to contract disease. They know who are " sound," as they express themselves. Their acquaintance with lewd women is not so limited but that they can exercise the privilege of choice. Still, the boasted smartness of these men does not always avail. When the medical seine is drawn, this class is quite as numer- ously represented as fishermen usually find the catfish at each "haul." The reader cannot fail to see from the foregoing that prostitution is a prolific source of blood disease, and that it is rapidly converting the great fountain of life, as originally imparted to man by his Crea- tor, into a slough of death. Of all blood impurities, there are none which 'ead to such endless varieties of disease as those induced by the virus with which whoredom is inoculating the whole human race' 72 CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 10th. FAILURES IN BUSINESS. Of those casualties which, through their depressing influence upon the mind, disturb the harmony of the nervpus system, there are none, which prudence has power to avert, more prolific of nervous derangements than failures in business. In fact, financial prosperity often sustains men in apparent health, whose systems are loaded with diseases in embryo, and the first stroke of misfortune which causes the brain to withhold and consume within itself the measure of vital electricity which it habitually dispenses to the various organs of the body, removes the restraining power which holds the latent disorders of the system in check, and, all at once, the unfor- tunate business man becomes the tenant of a sick bed or the inmate of a lunatic asylum. The human brain sustains a similar relation to its dependency— the body—that the bank does to the commercial world. Its medium is not "rags," but vital electricity; and its depositors and patrons are not merchants and manufacturers, but organs and functions. When trouble overtakes a man, a physiological " panic " ensues, and the brain discounts sparingly. If a " run " is made upon it, it par- tially or wholly " suspends." The process of digestion and the action of the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, etc., are dependent upon the vital electric forces emanating from the brain, and when the lat- ter is over exercised with trouble and hard thinking, it reserves its electricity for its own use, leaving the body only partially supplied; and if the organs retaliate by denying nourishment to the brain, as they are obliged to do, in a measure, the delicately organized man becomes a lunatic, and the vigorous man, whose system is filled with inflammatory matter, a victim to some corporeal disease, acute or chronic. " Hard times " invariably increase the labors of a physician, although they do not always increase the gold in his coffers. A bankrupt man is generally an invalid, a prostrate patient, or a men- tal imbecile. The commercial revulsion of 1857 increased the num- ber of inmates in lunatiir asylums more than twenty-five percent., and in Pennsylvania, where its effects were the most immediately and severely felt, the Insane Hospital in West Philadelphia, and the State Asylum at Harrisburgh, were filled to the extent of their acco- modations. Such were the commotions between mind and matter that many severed the unhappy relation existing between the two by CAUSES OP NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. 73 suicide. Failures in that year were numerous, and disease, insanity and suicide increased pro rata. Such being the effects of business failures upon the health of a peo- ple, they should be avoided, as far as possible, by prudence and eco- nomy. " Live within your means " is an old and good proverb, and he who does not, almost invariably brings upon himself nervous derangements which are sure to lead to fatal results. Every married man should confide to his wife the real condition of his finances. Much is said of the extravagance of married ladies. Their conduct is often pronounced the cause of their husband's ruin. Much truth is uttered in such assertions, but not the whole truth. Men are apt to represent their pecuniary resources much greater than they actually are. As a sequence, wives laugh at their admonitions of economy—think their consorts "sting3' "—and govern their wants by the supposed capacity of their purses. Nothing short of a failure ' reveals to them their insolvenc3r. The. wife's condition, under the most favorable.circumstances, is a hard one, and she cannot be blamed for reaching for the good things of life, if her husband leads her to believe he is rich, particularly if he gives plausibility to her delusion by indulging in such superfluities as Havana cigars and expensive wines. It is high time that men began to appear to their wives exactly what they are, pecuniarily, morally and socially. Frankness in these respects would not only tend to lessen the number of business failures, but would greatly diminish the evils of prostitution. But deception, in most cases, commences with the moonlight nights before marriage, and continues until some pecuniary or physical disaster reveals things as they are. This sometimes happens unexpectedly early. Fowler gives an amusing illustration in commenting on the motive which induces many to marry: " A distinguished young man from the South, making great pre- tensions to rank and wealth at home, paid attentions to a young lady residing near New York Bay, whose father had been very wealthy, but owing to reverses had become quite reduced in circumstances; still, the family maintained their style, ar?d the display of affluence equalled fully what it had been in their palmier days, and, by so doing, sustained their reputation in society, in order to allow the young lat'ies a better opportunity of settling in life. The new comer, prompted b3' the desire of securing the prize, and thinking she pos- sessed sufficient of the " needful " to pay all expenses, dashed out in 10 74 CAUSES OF NERVOUS AND BLOOD DERANGEMENTS. fine style, ran into every extravagance, and displayed the fastest and most beautiful horses,