THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 5 



scopic parasites, that multiply like the spores of a prolific mushroom. 

 The first development of these lung-devourers would seem to amount 

 to a sentence of speedy death ; yet their fecundity hardly exceeds 

 that of certain intestinal parasites, and the vis vitce has methods of 

 her own for dealing with such foes, and is ever ready to begin the 

 battle for life, on the sole condition that we do not complicate the 

 difficulties of the undertaking by counteracting her efforts or by per- 

 petuating the influence of the original cause. Cease to feed the lungs 

 with azotic gases, and Dr. Koch's animalcula will starve and disappear 

 as surely as maw-worms will starve and disappear if we change a pork 

 and sourcrout diet for bread and apples. 



About the comparative advantages of a dry and cold or moist and 

 tropical climate, opinions are divided, with a preponderance of argu- 

 ments in favor of the former ; but so much is certain, that in all lati- 

 tudes of the temperate zone the disease known as pulmonary consump- 

 tion is caused by the breathing of vitiated air and can be subdued by 

 out-door exercise. In certain cases cured would be an ambiguous term. 

 The respiration of vitiated (azotized and dust-impregnated) air results 

 in the corruption of the pulmonary tissues, and finally in a process of 

 disintegration that fills the structure of the lungs with ulcerous cavi- 

 ties. These cavities often cicatrize, but it is not probable that they 

 can be entirely healed, i. e., that the wasted tissues can be reproduced. 

 Yet in all but its last stages the progress of the disease can be arrested 

 by out-door life alone. The voice of instinct adds its testimony to the 

 teaching of science. In the language of our senses, every feeling of 

 discomfort suggests its own remedy. If the proximity of a glowing 

 stove begins to roast your shins, the alarmed nerves cry out not for 

 patent ointments, not for anti-caustic liniments and " pain-killers," but 

 for a lower temperature. Nothing else will permanently appease 

 them. Millions of prisoners, school-children, and factory-slaves, pine 

 for lung-food as a starving man yearns for bread ; and that hunger 

 can not be stilled with cough-pills, but only with fresh air. 



There are adjuvant remedies which will be noticed hereafter, but 

 their co-operation is not indispensable. Without a sufficient supply of 

 wholesome food, without warm clothes, without domestic comforts, 

 under the disadvantage even of excessive hardships and protracted 

 fasts, a three months' mountain-excursion, with or without tents, will 

 cure all the symptoms of the disease with the exception of an acceler- 

 ated pulse and a panting respiration during active exercise. Canadian 

 trappers who leave their supply-camp with a bad cough, get rid of it 

 on the fifth or sixth day " out." They may get foot-sore, and, if game 

 is scarce, hipped and homesick, but the feeling of haleness about the 

 chest continues. Night-frosts do not affect it. Fatigues rather im- 

 prove it. They may wake up with a feeling of frost-cramp from their 

 chilblained toes to their shivering knees, but the lungs are at ease : 

 no cough, no asthmatic distress, no stitch-like pains, no night-fever. 



