610 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



private laugh. Wealthy bachelors should at once pack a valise, and 

 (as the period of their martyrdom will generally coincide with the 

 excursion-season) take a steamboat-ticket to some popular picnic 

 grove, and associate with the noisiest and merriest of their traveling- 

 companions. Mirth itself has a stimulating effect. Sorrow deadens 

 the energy of the vital powers, for Nature is too economical to pro- 

 long a losing game, and, if the burdens of life begin to outweigh its 

 pleasures, the organic apparatus gravitates toward a suspension of its 

 functions. The mainspring has lost its tension. But, if life becomes 

 visibly worth living, the soul procures a new lease of vital power ; 

 every organ seems to work with a will, and asthenia disappears with- 

 out the aid of Dr. Brown's brandy-bottles. " Being happy," says 

 Ludwig Boerne, " is a talent that can be cultivated " certainly a tal- 

 ent of great hygienic value ; the gift of confining the flow of ideas to 

 a pleasant channel, of wearing roseate spectacles as others would wear 

 an electric belt, of enjoying life by a sheer effort of will-force, may 

 be a faculty that can only be exercised during a limited period, but 

 that period suffices for the cure of various distressing complaints, in- 

 somnia, for instance, and many symptoms of chronic dyspepsia, but 

 especially chronic asthma. Asthma does not prevent longevity ; there 

 are people who have smoked stramonium-leaves for half a century, 

 and, if they had chronicled their experience, they would find that in ' 

 the dullest years they had to light the greatest number of pipes. A 

 piece of good news is worth bushels of asthma-weeds ; buoyant spirits 

 seem to react directly on the stringency of the bronchial tubes, and 

 the relief thus obtained is not apt to be followed by a relapse. 



There is also a curious correlation between asthma and close stools. 

 They come and go together. Any thorough and permanent aperient 

 serves at the same time as an asthma-cure. Drastic purges act only 

 for a day or two, and then leave the bowels in a worse condition than 

 before. The cathartic effect of Glauber's-salt, for instance, is almost in- 

 variably followed by an astringent reaction. For a permanent relief 

 of costiveness a change of diet is the safest plan, and no dietetic 

 aperient of the Graham school can compare with the three legumina 

 beans, lentils, and peas. Stewed prunes rank next, and next such 

 household remedies as blackberry -soup, clabber and rye-bread, or mo- 

 lasses with warm water. But the aperient effect of molasses decreases 

 after each repetition of the dose, while stewed peas taken like medi- 

 cine, three times a day, will prevail where Glauber's-salt fails. As an 

 asthma-cure it can do no harm to apply the remedy beyond the ali- 

 mentary wants of the system, temporary overeating being a lesser 

 evil than continual under-breathing. At the end of the second or third 

 day the bowels will yield, and the simultaneous improvement of the 

 asthma-synrptoms is generally permanent.* 



* Hospital statistics have revealed the fact that the inhabitants of the beer-drinking 

 countries of Southern Germany enjoy a remarkable immunity from asthmatic affections, 



