PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 163 



proved by the immunity of fruit-eaters in the swampiest regions of the 

 equatorial coast-lands, as well as by the frequency of yellow-fever epi- 

 demics in such places as Vera Cruz and Pernambuco, whose neighbor- 

 hood rivals that of Persepolis in sandy aridity. In other words, fevers 

 are caused by the folly of aggravating the influence of the summer 

 heat by superfluous clothing and calorific food (meat, greasy-made 

 dishes, and ardent spirits), and not by fruit or cold water. 



G. The Spa Fallacy. According to the theory of the anti-natu- 

 ralists, a man's instincts conspire for his ruin ; whatever is pleasant to 

 our senses must be injurious ; repulsiveness and healthfulness are sy- 

 nonymous terms. To every poison known to chemistry or botany they 

 attribute remedial virtues ; to sweetmeats, fruits, fresh air, and cold 

 spring-water all possible morbific qualities. But, for consistency's sake, 

 they make an exception in favor of mineral springs. Spas, impreg- 

 nated with a sufficient quantity of iron or sulphur to be shockingly 

 nauseous, must therefore be highly salubrious. Solitary mountain- 

 regions afflicted with such spas become the favorite resort of invalids ; 

 dyspeptics travel thousands of miles to reach a spring that tastes like 

 a mixture of rotten eggs and turpentine. Faith does wonders, but the 

 cure of a large proportion of the many thousands who annually visit 

 such watering-places as Ems, Carlsbad, and White Sulphur Springs, 

 need not be ascribed to the effects of imagination alone. The motion 

 and the excitement of traveling exert a beneficial influence on many 

 disorders. Mountain-air is almost a panacea. Woodland rambles, 

 changes of diet and of general habits, conversation, and even music, 

 are not unimportant co-agents of materia medica* But the spa itself 

 in the case of bona fide health-seekers, at least is a decided draw- 

 back upon such advantages. Saline and sulphur springs are purgative ; 

 the system hastens to rid itself of an injurious substance. A very 

 small dose might operate as a moderate aperient ; but the trouble is 

 that the digestive organs come to rely on such excitants as they would 

 upon alcoholic tonics, hence the chronic constipations that so often fol- 

 low upon the return from a watering-place trip : the stimulant being 

 withdrawn, the organs become remiss in their functions. From a hy- 

 gienic standpoint a sanitarium without a spa is therefore by no means 

 a Hamlet-drama minus the Prince ; the mountain-air of Meran in the 

 Tyrol or the sweet grapes of a Rhenish Trauben-Kur are worth a mill- 

 ion sulphur-springs ; and, if people knew half the value of up-hill 

 pedestrian exercise, there would be a " Hygienic Home " wherever a 

 steep mountain overlooks a populous plain. 



7. The Ascetic Fallacy. The origin of asceticism is widely dif- 

 ferent from that of the frugal philosophy which consoles itself with 

 the reflection that the reduction of our wants is equivalent to the en- 

 largement of our means. A man of simple habits may be both happier 

 and healthier than the lover of artificial luxuries, but the anti-natu- 

 ralists make war upon earthly enjoyments as such ; they try to suppress 



