PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 725 



reaction by divertiog sports ; improvise hunting expeditions and 

 mountain-excursions, or Olympic games ; between exciting diversions 

 and sound sleep the toper will forget his tipple, and every day thus 

 gained will lessen the danger of a relapse. 



It can not be denied that poison-habits (the opium-habit as well as 

 " alcoholism ") are to some degree hereditary. The children of con- 

 firmed inebriates should be carefully guarded, not only against objec- 

 tive temptations, but against the promptings of a peculiar disposition 

 which I have found to be a (periodical) characteristic of their mental 

 constitution. They lack that spontaneous gayety which constitutes 

 the almost misfortune-proof happiness of normal children, and, with- 

 out being positively peevish or melancholy, their spirits seem to be 

 clouded by an apathy which yields only to strong external excitants. 

 But healthful amusements and healthy food rarely fail to restore the 

 tone of the mind, and, even before the age of puberty, the manifesta- 

 tions of a more buoyant temper will prove that the patient has out- 

 grown the hereditary hebetude, and with it the need of artificial stimu- 

 lation. 



Chlorosis J or green-sickness, is a malignant form of that dyspeptic 

 pallor and languor which one half of our city girls owe to their seden- 

 tary occupations in ill-ventilated rooms. The complaint is almost un- 

 known in rural districts, and the best cure is a mountain-excursion, 

 afoot or on horseback ; the next best a course of " calisthenics," a 

 plentiful and varying vegetable diet, fun, frequent baths, and plenty 

 of sleep. " Tonic " drugs are sure to aggravate the evil. It is only 

 too well known that a fit of nervous depression can be momentarily 

 relieved by a cup of strong green tea. The stimulus goads the weary 

 system into a spasm of morbid activity : the vital strength, sorely 

 needed for a reconstructive process (one of whose phases was the ner- 

 vous depression), has now to be used to repel a joernicious intruder ; 

 and this convulsion of the organism, in its effort to rid itself of the 

 narcotic poison, is mistaken for a sign of returning vigor the patient 

 *' feels so much better." But, as soon as the irritant has been elimi- 

 nated, the vital energy diminished now by the expulsive effort has to 

 resume the work of reconstruction under less favorable circumstances ; 

 the patient now "feels so much worse" by just as much as the reac- 

 tion following upon the morbid excitement has since increased the 

 nervous depression. In the same way precisely a " tonic " medicine 

 operates upon the exhausted organism, and in the same way its effect 

 a morbid and transient stimulation is mistaken for a permanent 

 invigoration. 



Pulmonary consumption^ in its early stages, is perhaps the most 

 curable of all chronic diseases. The records of the dissecting-room 

 prove that in numerous cases lungs, wasted to one half of their normal 

 size, have been healed, and, after a perfect cicatrization of the tuber- 

 culous ulcers, have for years performed all the essential functions of 



