hence it is usually the first to become disordered and diseased. To be brief, and to keep to our point, the carbon and hydrogen of the food which do not find a sufficient outlet from the body either by the liver or the other organs, are united to form fat, which is deposited in the cellular tissue of different parts; at first, it is placed where it can serve to protect important organs, as those of the abdomen; and afterwards in other parts, until it becomes a hinderance to bodily activity.

The component elements of adipose matter, or fat, are the superfluous and unconsumed elements of calorification, the heat-causing elements; and, under other and opposite circumstances, they are often again required by the wants of the system. This occurs more rarely to the human system than to that of certain warm-blooded animals. The circumstance has illustration in the well-known fact, that in them a store of fat in their bodies becomes a means of supply for the generation of heat, against the time when it may be needed. Hence it is found, that when they are deprived of all food, the duration of life in them is in proportion to the amount of fat they have previously accumulated. Animals which are liable to great privation during the winter, or which spend that period in a quiescent state of what is termed hibernation, have a great tendency to accumulate a large store of fat in the previous autumn. This depends on the nature of their food. We see it, particularly, in those birds and mammals which live upon seeds and grains. When these become ripe, they abound in carbon and hydrogen in their oily matter; and thus they become suitable food for the purpose of fattening.

Again, in regard to the common practice of fattening cattle, you also see the point illustrated. The animals are fed upon those substances which most abound in carbon and hydrogen; such as oil-cake of linseed, and food containing either saccharine or oily matter: and, whilst the animals are thus in preparation for the butcher, they are kept in a state of rest; and, as much as possible, in a warm atmosphere. The same principle is likewise in constant operation in regard to the human body, with those individuals who eat largely of fatty and saccharine food,

who take little exercise, and who wear much warm clothing. You see, that excess of clothing prevents the exposure of the body, and thus prevents, also, the internal demand for the generation of heat; prevents the consumption of carbon and hydrogen; and, consequently, favours the formation of fat.

Let us glance at the effects of excessive eating on the human system in another direction. I mean the excess of nitrogenous or azotized elements. When the supply of such food becomes much beyond the wants of the system for the renewal of the muscular, nervous, and cellular tissues, you must not suppose that it can, in any way, be stored up in solid flesh, in the manner that non-nitrogenous food causes fat to be stored up. You must bear in mind, that the increase of muscular substance depends on the exercise of the muscles. Certainly this increase cannot take place without a proportionate supply of plastic elements of food; but, do remember, that no degree of richness of blood, nor amount of proteine plastic elements, can produce increase of muscular substance and muscular power. Remember, that any accumulation of such nutritive matter in the blood can serve no purpose but that of evil, and to produce disease.

We are constantly witnessing the fact, that those who indulge in what is called high living, as to quantity and quality of food, are proportionately liable to disease and death. Those organs of the body which can serve, in a limited degree, to relieve it of excessive fulness and richness of blood through their functions of excretion, become disordered and diseased from excitement and over-action; especially the liver and the kidneys, the liver excreting hydro-carbonaceous elements, and the kidneys those of a nitrogenous nature. In the catalogue of evil consequences are to be reckoned-rheumatism, gout, apoplexy, palsy, and various inflammatory diseases; and life itself is placed on a slippery foundation. Thus, dear Sir, we too often see the advantages of riches insanely overbalanced by the evils they are made to bring upon their possessors; whilst the sons and daughters of poverty and want have often the compensating blessings of health and long life. I need not tell you, that

not one of a thousand of the latter class duly appreciates the advantages he enjoys; for it is more of necessity than of choice that they belong to him.

Wine, beer, and spirits are in Liebig's list of elements of respiration. You can now understand how the habit of taking these intoxicating drinks becomes so very injurious to the human frame. You are aware that alcohol is the enemy which lurks in all of them. It is a powerful enemy.

Whatever may have been the mistakes or the mismanagement of Total Abstinence Societies, they have certainly effected an incalculable benefit to the world, in disabusing the public mind of the very erroneous notion which long prevailed concerning alcoholic liquors: namely, that the internal use of them can be necessary, or at all conducive to the health and strength of the human body. These societies have been the means of making more known to the world the great fact, that the use of alcohol in the various beverages of wine, beer, and spirits, has ever been a giant evil, and the most prolific cause of human crime, and misery, and disease, and death.

Without further allusion to it as a dreadfully demoralizing agent, you can now understand its injurious action on the human frame. Alcohol, you know, consists chiefly of carbon and hydrogen, with a very small amount of oxygen. It acts very harmfully on the brain and nerves, as a noxious stimulus. Besides this, however, you can now see how harmful must be its action on the entire tissues of the body. By its carbon and its hydrogen it continually robs the blood of that oxygen which ought to act in preserving their freshness and purity. Mark you, it ever tends to keep the arterial blood of venous character. Think of this: for it is a point of great concernment.

As I stated in my treatise on the Water Cure, "no wonder that nutrition becomes imperfect; and that the liver, the kidneys, the lungs, and the skin are deranged in their functions; and that the waste and noxious matters of the body find not their proper outlets, because of the constituents of alcohol which combine with that oxygen which is required to unite with those matters for their elimination. It is readily ac

counted for why such individuals possess unhealthy blood and unhealthy tissues, and have so little power to resist the influence of morbific agents. No wonder that with blood so deficient in vivifying oxygen, and so replete with qualities of opposite nature, such persons are without energy; and their brain being so supplied, that they suffer from lowness of spirits, excepting at the times when they are under the hurtful stimulus of alcohol."

The action of alcohol on the human system has been more strictly investigated and more correctly defined of late years than formerly. Although certain cases and emergencies may require the occasional use of wine, beer, or spirits, the continued and habitual use of any of them becomes very unfavourable to health and long life. You can now understand why such fatal disease of the liver so constantly overtakes the tippler and drunkard. The liver in such people becomes doubly liable to disease: the blood which flows through it becomes charged with the alcohol which has been taken into the stomach: and thus the liver becomes wrongly stimulated, and its biliary secretion is increased and vitiated. This is a great evil, and a frequent cause of disease and death.

Besides this, however, the liver suffers the great evil of being overworked in order to eliminate or to rid the body of surplus refuse matter caused by the action of the carbon and hydrogen of alcohol. These have robbed the blood of its oxygen which was to have combined with and eliminated the same by the proper outlet of the lungs. In addition to liver disease, the use of these alcoholic beverages is particularly liable to cause disease of the kidneys through the like mode of excessive stimulation. You can now perceive how greatly and how wrongly they must impede the depurating processes of the human system; and, consequently, how impure and unhealthy must become the blood and the entire tissues of those who habitually use them.

LETTER IV.

ABSORBENT SYSTEM-LACTEALS AND LYMPHATICS-GLANDS AND VESSELS-PROOFS OF ABSORPTION-ENDOSMOSE AND EXOSMOSE-THE

THREE GRAND SURFACES OF ABSORPTION, &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

THAT the function of absorption is highly important, must be sufficiently manifest, so deeply is it concerned both in the causation and in the removal of diseases. Therefore it becomes quite necessary that you have a clear understanding of its entire nature. You will, I hope, give me your earnest attention whilst I treat concisely on this very interesting part of the wonderful and most admirable system of man.

The function of absorption is a very extensive one, and the action of the absorbent vessels is constantly going on. Every fluid and solid of the human body, in all its tissues, are subject to the process, and by it all the component parts of the body are continually undergoing renewal.

The instrumentality or apparatus of the absorbent function has been termed general, and special. Blood-vessels and membranes are the general apparatus. The special apparatus consists in a certain system of vessels exclusively for the purpose; these are the lacteals, and the lymphatics; having also a certain system of glands in connection.

The lacteal absorbents have been already mentioned by me, as the means of removing the nutrient part of the food from the small intestines to the thoracic duct, by which it is conveyed, mixed up with the lymph, to be commingled with venous blood about to enter the heart. After due assimilation in the lungs, it constitutes the nutrient part of arterial blood for the purposes of nutrition. The lacteals are the special absorbents for their important office as noticed above, and they arise from the internal surface of the small intestines.

I wish you to keep in mind, that the other special absorbents, the lymphatics, which carry a water-like fluid, and hence their