io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fat stifles tubercles. The dairy-districts of the chilly Netherlands en- 

 joy a remarkable immunity from pulmonary diseases. Sandor Czoma, 

 the Hungarian traveler, who passed several years in the highlands of 

 Thibet, states that the Thibetan (Buddhist) monks prolong the lives 

 of consumptives by heroic doses of clarified butter. 



The iEsculaps of the future will issue their almanacs with a list of 

 household remedies. The knowledge of a few simple dietetic correc- 

 tives would enable thousands to dispense with the use of costly patent 

 medicines. Common sugar is an effective receipt for depurating the 

 morbid secretions of the air-passages. It relieves hoarseness, and in 

 bronchial affections alleviates the painful, dry cough, by loosening the 

 phlegm and relaxing the stringency of the laryngeal muscles. Various 

 kinds of sweet fruits share this property, and the most palatable form 

 of the specific is perhaps the saccharine element of good layer-raisins. 

 California raisins are now retailed at ten to twenty-five cents a pound, 

 and half a pound of a medium quality can be warranted to afford as 

 much relief as a dollar-bottle of the best cough-sirup. Besides, the 

 demulcents of Nature induce no unpleasant after-effect, while repeated 

 doses of medicated sirup soon become nauseating. A quart of cold 

 water, either pure or slightly sweetened, taken just before going to 

 bed, is a pulmonary febrifuge, and a reliable preventive of night- 

 sweats. It also promotes the easy breathing which to far-gone con- 

 sumptives comes otherwise only after hours of troubled sleep. Dysp- 

 noea, or want of breath, like dyspeptic asthma, can be greatly alleviated 

 by an aperient diet : water-melons and buttermilk in summer, and 

 baked beans, peas, or lentils, in winter. Combined with out-door ex- 

 ercise, digestive correctives often afford permanent relief from the dis- 

 tress of asthmatic affections, for that dyspnoea does not necessarily in- 

 dicate an irremediable waste of pulmonary tissue is proved by the 

 fact that it often occurs and permanently disappears with the symp- 

 toms that characterize the transient affections of the upper air-pas- 

 sages. 



Permanence of relief is the best criterion for the value of a reme- 

 dial agent. The cathartics and alcoholic stimulants of the old-school 

 practitioners suppressed the symptoms of the disease, but the sup- 

 posed relief was nothing but an interruption of a reconstructive pro- 

 cess. While the vital forces were fighting the battle of life against 

 the chronic enemy, we obliged them to suspend their efforts in that 

 direction, in order to meet a more imminent danger at another point ; 

 for Nature can fight only one disease at a time. If an asthmatic per- 

 son is seized with a climatic fever, the respiratory trouble is temporarily 

 suspended : Nature, as it were, postpones the asthma-case in order to 

 give her undivided attention to the fever-affair. Fever and ague give 

 way to small-pox, a drunken man can be " sobered up " by an heroic 

 dose of arsenic, and intoxication relieves the pangs of neuralgia, gout, 

 and rheumatism for a day. But, at the end of the day, the mal- 



