6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



present method is so little of an improvement that the patients of a 

 future century would probably prefer to resume the Whitehall pilgrim- 

 ages. Instead of ventilating our houses and abolishing our sauerkraut 

 (the long-notorious cachexia of the ill-housed and ill-fed classes having 

 sufficiently indicated the cause of the malady), we suppress the morbid 

 symptoms by sarsaparilla, iodide of potassium, or patent " medicines ": 

 only reliable liver-pills and infallible blood-purifiers in other words, 

 we believe that the cure of a common disease depends upon the acci- 

 dental or providentially ordained discovery of some mysterious com- 

 pound. The bottom error is the same as in the king's-evil delusion, 

 and can be easily traced to the radical fallacy of our speculative dog- 

 mas ; we still regard sin and disease as something normal, aboriginal, 

 and unavoidable, and expect salvation from mysterious, extra-natural 

 remedies, Avhile the truth of the very contrary is becoming more and 

 more evident, namely, that all evil, including moral and physical un- 

 soundness, is due, and generally traceable, to wholly abnormal causes, 

 and (those causes being removed) recovery the effect of the self-acting 

 and self -regulating laws of Nature. The removal of the cause is a 

 remedy which the sufferers from almost any disease might prescribe 

 for themselves, and here especially : fresh air and abstinence from in- 

 digestible food, particularly pickles and fat meat. Pork is not the 

 only unwholesome kind of animal food, for Jews are not exempt from 

 scrofula, and were formerly subject to a still worse skin-disease ; and, 

 if we had not forgotten the art of interpreting the language of our in- 

 stincts, we would not overlook the significancy of the circumstance that 

 ninety-nine per cent, of all young children detest every kind of fat 

 meat except in the form of taste-deceiving ragouts. Farmer-boys, who 

 have to share the out-door labors of their parents, can eat with com- 

 parative impunity many things which only the hardiest of their city 

 comrades can digest : pork, greasy and pickled cabbages, fritters, and 

 salt beef. Even young Hottentots could not eat such stuff without 

 being sooner or later the worse for it, whenever the counteracting 

 hardships of a savage life alternate with a period of physical inactivity. 

 But children afflicted with cachectic symptoms should at once be re- 

 stricted to a wholly vegetable and non-stimulating diet farinaceous 

 preparations, boiled legumina, and, if possible, ripe, sweet fruit. 



The summer diet of a scrofulous child can not be too frugal^ in the 

 ancient sense of the word, and, where a supply of ripe tree-fruits can 

 be easily obtained, I should think it the best plan to disj^ense alto- 

 gether with made dishes for a while, even with farinaceous dishes. 

 Parents who have no hesitation in cramming their children with salt 

 pork, beer, and sauerkraut, would shudder at the idea of feeding them 

 on fruit alone, yet the happiest of all visitors to the southern Rhine- 

 land are probably the patients of a Swabian Trcmhen-Kur, where dys- 

 peptics, etc., are fed almost exclusively often for days together quite 

 exclusively on ripe, sweet grapes. Combined with plenty of exercise 



