adopt the regimen and diet of the great Gargantua— the tonsof beef, mutton, and gammons, the botargos, the sausages, and the mustard by the shovelful,-rations, which though they might agree well enough with the stomach and appetite of Gargantua, would probably be rather oppressive to a dyspeptic Grahamite, who has been compelled all his days to restrict himself to brown bread without butter, and black tea without

cream.

Ill Effects.-The great and obvious objection to the habit of too constant reading is, that it prevents thought, reflection, and rumination, without which reading is merely idle amusement, or unprofitable labour. By preventing also a due amount of physical exercise, it tends to disorder and destroy the bodily health; and to no one can it be more important than to a physician to have a healthy body as well as a healthy mind. A course of excessive and protracted study rarely fails to injure both body and mind. Don Quixote, we are told on the unexceptionable authority of his niece, was accustomed to pore over his books of Knight-errantry not infrequently forty-eight hours in succession; and this exorbitancy was no doubt one of the causes which inflicted so much detriment upon "the very best headpiece in all La Mancha."

Danger to Health.-Ill effects are especially apt

to be occasioned by excess of study when it is suddenly commenced by one who had previously been accustomed to different habits. Of this I have witnessed numerous illustrations. During the session of our College some winters ago, I was called on by a member of the class for advice respecting his health, which was very much out of order. He suffered from sleeplessness, headache, vertigo, confusion of thoughts, failure of memory, and various other symptoms indicative of great disorder of the nervous system. I made several inquiries in relation to the causes of his indisposition without obtaining any satisfactory information. At length, being from my long acquaintance with students of Medicine aware of their proverbial tendency to excessive study, I asked him how many hours he devoted to reading. He replied that he had been studying industriously all the session, and endeavouring to do his best; that he was constantly thinking of the final examination, and generally read twenty-six hours a day. Not, he added in explanation, that he studied twenty-six hours in any one day, for that, to be sure, was impossible; but that he often read twenty-six hours "right ahead, and without stopping." Upon hearing this, I explained to him that it was his heroic but rather injudicious industry which was injuring his health; that he would never get ahead in his studies

by such a right-a-head method of studying; and that the brain, like the lungs, the stomach, the muscles, or any other part of the system, may be fatigued, exhausted, or destroyed by immoderate or ill-regulated exertions.

Be not too Cautious.-Yet I almost repent that I have referred to the subject of danger from excessive study. The evil of not studying sufficiently, or not studying at all, is at present so much more common among those who are called students, that a teacher may in general exhort all who are intrusted to his care to use their utmost industry, without any apprehension that they will follow his counsel too far, or impair their health by undue exertion. The caution which I have ventured to give against excess of study, you will therefore please to understand in a restricted and limited sense, and as intended for the few, and not for the many, for the feeble and delicate, not for the vi gorous and robust, against extraordinary and manifest imprudence, and not against proper and reasonable application. In almost all cases, study is an exceedingly wholesome and healthy occupation, and by no means apt to injure the health of its votaries, except when pursued with extreme and gross indiscretion. Not one of you, I think, is in the least danger of being injured by it. The tendency of scientific and literary studies is to maintain good health and

secure long life. Many of those, both among the ancients and moderns, who have been most constantly and successfully engaged in such studies have attained great longevity. I might mention the names of Plato, Xenophon, Socrates, Locke, Newton, Humboldt, Bossuet, Chaucer, Dryden, Lafontaine, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Johnson, Goethe, and a host of others; but it is unnecessary to dwell upon this subject, as such cases are familiar to every one. The waters of Hippocrene and Castalia appear, indeed, to possess in some measure the virtues of that Fountain of Rejuvenescence which Ponce de Leon sought in vain among the ever-glades of Florida. Physicians are said to be, as a class, short-lived; if this be so, it is certainly not owing to their studious habits; I have never heard of one of them being destroyed, or known one of them to be in the smallest degree endangered in wind or limb by such habits. The general brevity of their lives probably depends on the fatigues and exposures belonging to their business; or perhaps on their constant succession of cares and anxieties from sympathy with the sufferings of their patients. You have for the present no cares of this kind, and none, I hope, of any kind, to disturb your health; and of injury from the prosecution of your professional studies with the utmost ardour of which you are capable, you may dismiss all apprehension, provided you observe such

obvious precautions as your own good sense and experience will dictate, without counsel from others.

How much Study?-With regard to the amount of your daily reading, you should arrange it with proper reference to your mental and physical habits, strength, power of endurance, and the demands of other modes of study, and of other duties. In this, as in every thing else, the student should endeavour to avoid extremes. He should read industriously, as knowing that reading is one of the most important means for acquiring knowledge, and that he who neglects to read can never become acquainted with science. But at the same time his industry and ardour should be tempered with discretion. He should not read forty-eight hours in succession, or even twenty-six hours in a single day. And above all, he should not be so immersed in books as to spare no time to listen, to converse, to observe, and to reflect.