THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 607 



though it diminishes the danger of future attacks. We have seen that 

 a strenuous physical effort can under circumstances become the direct 

 cause of an asthma-paroxysm, yet under proper precautions exercise is 

 the best corrective of an asthmatic disposition ; for all vital vigor is 

 based upon muscular strength. It would be a mistake to suppose that 

 the invigoration of the lungs alone could be a protection against 

 asthma. An asthmatic diathesis may coexist with a perfect freedom 

 from the usual symptoms of weak lungs ; nay, chronic asthma seems 

 to counteract the development of pulmonary phthisis. The asthmatic 

 predisposition seems rather to consist in a general want of vital energy, 

 and the object of the treatment should therefore be the invigoration 

 of the whole system, not by means of " chest-expanders " alone, but 

 by out-door life, pleasant exercise such as gardening, hunting, or co- 

 operative gymnastics by a free use of cold water, and a liberal but 

 non-stimulating diet. The latter proviso would exclude a large num- 

 ber of comestibles which the Brunonians would enumerate among the 

 essentials of a " tonic regimen " : The beef-and-beer cure deals in 

 sham-remedies. We are not nourished by what we eat, but by what 

 we digest. Plethora is not strength, but often its very opposite : the 

 accumulation of expletive fat impairs the disease-resisting power of 

 the organism ; a gaunt wood-cutter, a wiry peddler or mail-rider, will 

 survive epidemics that slaughter hecatombs of stall-fed burghers. The 

 modern macrobiots, the long-lived inhabitants of the Ionian Archipel- 

 ago, subsist on figs, goat-milk, and maize-bread ; the herculean natives 

 of the eastern Caucasus live on honey, barley-cakes, and poor cheese. 

 The self-made Samson of modern times, Dr. Winship, of Boston, satis- 

 fied his craving for animal food with an occasional box of oiled sar- 

 dines, and, on a diet of fruit and farinaceous dishes, spiced with daily 

 gymnastics, made his body a complex of superhuman muscles and sin- 

 ews. A constitution, built up after that pattern, might not secure the 

 possessor against heart-disease, nor if he confined himself to in-door 

 gymnastics against consumption, but it would insure him against 

 asthma. In ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, an asthmatic disposi- 

 tion is combined with a deficient muscular development. 



The pathological peculiarities of the disease make it safest to begin 

 the movement-cure in midwinter, and suspend it during premature 

 spring weather, and again during the moist, hot weeks of early summer 

 June being, par excellence, the asthma-month of the year. I knew 

 people who could foretell the very week when they had to get their 

 " asthma- weeds " ready. By a permanent suspension of his exercises an 

 hygienic gymnast would gradually lose the gained vantage-ground, but 

 during a few days' pause the unemployed surplus of vital energy is put 

 at the disposition of the organism. Such pauses, therefore, become ad- 

 visable whenever the premonitory symptoms of the disease indicate the 

 agency of asthenic influences, and for greater security also after every 

 annoying mental emotion. The occasions for such annoyances should, 



