ranging from two months to two years, twenty-seven showed severe injury to the constitution and insufficient growth; thirty-two showed the existence of irregularity of the heart's action, disordered stomachs, cough and a craving for alcohol; thirteen had intermittency of the pulse and one had consumption. After they had abandoned the use of tobacco, within six months, one-half were free from all their former symtoms, and the remainder had recovered by the end of the year.

A great majority of men go far beyond what may be called the temperate use of tobacco, and evidences of injury are easily found. It is only necessary to have some record of what the general health was previous to the taking up of the habit, and to have observation cover a long enough time. The history of tobacco in the island of New Zealand furnishes a quite suggestive illustration for our purpose, and one on a large scale. When Europeans first visited New Zealand they found in the native Maoris the most finely developed and powerful men of any of the tribes inhabiting the islands of the Pacific. Since the introduction of tobacco, for which the Maoris developed a passionate liking, they have from this cause alone, it is said, become decimated in numbers, and at the same time reduced in stature and in physical well-being so as to be an altogether inferior type of men.-New York Medical Journal.

A LOSS TO MENTAL SCIENCE.

A Chicago woman has gone crazy under the mind-cure treatment of two local metaphysicians." Brethren, hers is evidently the very kind of a mind that that kind of a mind-cure fits. It is a great pity that she went crazy. She seems to have been just enough of an imbecile to have completed the regular "metaphysical" university course in three weeks, and then, great Webster! what a teacher she would have made. Well, well; we suppose there must always be some asses in the world. The money invested in asylums for the feeble-minded would be a great loss if all the fools should suddenly have a spasm of common sense and die; two things which no fool was ever yet known to do. The Emperor William dies, Garfield dies, Hendricks dies, Conkling dies, Grant and Lincoln die; but the people who could die a great deal better and more acceptably than they live; the people who live merely for the the purpose of taking up room, the people whose places in the world could be supplied most easily by a set of clothes hooks, and an automatic digestive apparatus, they live on and on and on and on and on.-Burdette.

TREATMENT OF RHEUMATISM.

A combination of salicylic acid and iron is recommended in the treatment of acute rheumatism, the formula for which was obtained in the the following way:

About a year ago a hospital nurse was pouring into a common receptacle some remnants of different medicines, when she noticed that a black precipitate formed by iron was turned into a transparent solution of a rich red hue, as soon as she poured the fluid contents of another bottle into it. Being a young woman of an inquiring turn of mind, she asked the house physician the cause of this phenomonon. The house staff, to help her in her desire for information, experimented with the drugs that she had been throwing out, and ascertained that her manipulation of chemicals had been this: she had first poured into the receptacle a salycilic acid. Into this she had poured a solution of iron, with the result of producing a black precipitate. To this she added some sodium phosphate, with the result of producing a clear red solution.

This at once gave a clue to the means of combining iron and salycilic acid without forming a precipitate. The facts were submitted to the apothecary of the hospital, and from them he produced the following formula; which has been in constant use nearly a year.

The bathing season, though not yet advanced, has already been marked by the levy of that fatal tribute which year by year is exacted of the ignorant and the indiscreet. The recent death by drowning of a young man in the public baths at Poplar suggests one cause of accident which is too apt to be overlooked. The deceased had entered the water soon after partaking of a hearty meal, and the fatal result was attributed to cerebral congestion due to sudden immersion at such a time. What may have been the particular appearances observed after death in this case we have no means of judging, but it may be well to consider shortly some reasons why the practice of bathing soon after meals is justly condemned. Effusion of blood in or upon the brain, when it occurs in such cases as that already referred to, is probably not a primary cause of mischief, but rather a consequence founded on other circulatory and nervous disturb

ances.

It is an evidence of eclampsia, and the physiological basis upon which this is founded consists in that inward diversion of blood toward the alimentary tract which characterizes normal digestion, the other tissues, notably the brain, being at the same time proportionally anæmic, and the action of heart, and lungs impeded by a distended stomach. A natural result of cold immersion at this stage is to encourage or induce a tendency to syncope, to concentrate surface blood still more about the central organs, including the heart, which especially, if at all unequal to its duties, labors ineffectually to readjust the blood pressure, and finally succumbs with lungs and venous system engorged by passive congestion. It is as if an enemy occupied the outworks of a fortress left for a time unguarded, and forthwith paralyzed the resistance of the citadel. It is best, therefore, to wait for at least an hour and a half or two hours after a good meal before bathing. Another danger to be avoided is that of a cramp. This is particularly apt to occur after severe exercise or long immersion. The effect of cold being to prolong the contraction, while exhaustion lowers both the power and the elastic recoil of muscle, it is evident that we have in a combination of these forces all that is required for the production of this dangerous condition. The obvious warning implied in these remarks requires no further admonition to impress the fact that the bather in cold water must be economical of time and free from any appreciable signs of muscular exhaustion.-Lancet.

THE VITAL FUNCTIONS.

It is well understood that the vital functions are more or less processes of combustion, and are subject to laws similar to those which regulate the burning of coal in our fire-places. We are apt to put on too much coal, or allow the fire to be smothered in ashes. The child pokes the fire from the top to make it burn faster; but the wise man pokes it from below to rake out the ashes and allow free access of oxygen. And so it is with the functions of life, only that these being less understood, many a man acts in regard to them as a child does to the fire. The man thinks that his brain is not acting because he he has not supplied it with sufficient food. He take meat three times a day, and beef tea, to supply its wants, as he thinks, and puts in a poker to stir it up in the shape of a glass of sherry or a nip from the brandy bottle. And yet, all the time, his brain is suffering from accumulation of ash, and the more he continues to cram himself with food, and to supply himself with stimulants, the worse he ultimately becomes, just as the child's breaking the coal

may cause a temporary blaze, but allows the fire to be smothered in ashes.

INDIGESTION.

Indigestion is something more than simply an inconvenience. A body which is served with food by a dyspeptic stomach, receives very poor material of which to rebuild its tissues. None of the food is perfectly digested, and hence the quality of all the tissues is deteriorated. Besides this, the septic changes which take place in the stomach and bowels, produce various poisonous substances, which are absorbed along with the food, and which poison and irritate the brain and nerves, and produce various disorders and discomforts which are ofttimes attributed to other causes. Even the imperfectly digested food is treated by the system as waste or poisonous material, and instead of being used to repair the wastes of the body, is excreted, or thrown off by the liver and kidneys, with the waste elements of the system.

The stomach sometimes holds up wonderfully under the heavy burdens laid upon it, and digests a much larger amount of food than is necessary to supply the wants of the body. In such cases, the excessive amount of nutriment received is either at once excreted, or accumulates in the tissues, clogging the various organs, and interfering with their proper activity. Accumulations of this sort are the chief cause of gout, rheumatism, biliousness, and numerous other disorders which are usually attributed to other causes.

Eating when tired, and engaging in active mental or physical exercise immediately after a hearty meal, are two of the most common sins against dietetic rectitude in our modern civilization. An old medical writer tells us that a hundred years ago it was the custom among the merchants of Edinburg to take two hours' "nooning" for dinner in the middle of the day, during which time the shops were closed, and all business suspended. It is quite hopeless to attempt a resurrection of this good old-fashioned custom in these fast times; and the best thing we can suggest is that no hearty meal should be eaten during the active business hours of the day, unless at least an hour or two can be allowed after the meal has been taken, to give the stomach opportunity to get the digestive process well under way. The plan which our personal experience leads us to prefer is to defer the hearty meal, as did the old Romans, until the latter part of the day, say four o'clock in the afternoon, taking if necessary, an apple, a bunch of grapes, an orange or two, or some equally simple food at midday, to appease the the clamoring of the stomach, un

til it has become accustomed to the lengthened interval between the first and second meals. Two meals a day are in every way preferable to a larger number. The ancient Greeks and Romans took but one meal per diem.. During the republican era, the Roman custom was to eat twice a day, breakfast being simply a light repast of fruit and bread. At the present time, the two-meals-a-day plan prevails quite extensively in France and Spain, especially among the better classes. The inmates of the hospitals in Paris are supplied with but two meals a day. The same is true respecting the soidiers of the French army.- Good Health.

SOME CAUSES OF CANCER.

Whether this terrible disease be constitutional or not in its origin, there can be no question that the determining cause of its appearance is in very many cases an injury (as a blow), or a condition resulting from an injury (as a scar), or the persistent application to a particular spot of something that keeps the tissue inflamed and "angry" (such as a jagged tooth which chafes the tongue). Workers in paraffine and petroleum are peculiary liable to cancer of the parts which are habitually exposed to the action of these substances. When soot commanded a good price, it had to be sifted; and "chimney sweep's cancer" was a frequent result. Now-a-days it does not pay to sift the soot, and the disease to which it gave rise has disappeared.

Among causes of local irritation, heat is certainly one of the most active By far the most common seat of malignant disease in men is the mouth, which is more exposed than any part of the body to irritation by hot substances. Every surgeon is familiar with this fact. Whether it be a lower lip on which the hot stem of a clay pipe or the smouldering paper of a cigarette has rested day after day; or a tongue exasperated by the frequent contact of acrid tobacco smoke, or the mouth-piece of a foul pipe, or made raw by ardent liquors, or stung and blistered by fiery condiments, the cause is essentially the same, viz: the searing or irritation of the superficial covering by prolonged heat or pungent impres sions. In Cashmir, where hot braziers are often applied to the abdomen and thigh, cancer of the parts is not uncommon, though all but unknown in either of these situations elsewhere.

It is highly probable that, in addition to the local irritation, some particular predisposition must exist in the patient, though in what this consists we do not know. That in a large number of cases the tendency to cancer is hereditary, there can be no question.-Mackenzie's "Fatal Illness of Frederick the Noble."