Southern Coast of England* ^tSf 



. ** These observations are supported by the fact, that during 

 youth, the various functions employed in supplying nourishment to 

 the body, are far more active than in the after periods of life, having 

 now a double duty to perform, not only to sustain organization 

 already existing, but to extend and mature it ; whilst, on the con- 

 trary, in succeeding years, a supply, for the waste which results 

 from constant action and employment, is all that is demanded from 

 the functions of nutrition. 



*' As food is the source whence the nourishment of the body is 

 derived, so the air, by the change it produces on this nourishment, 

 through the medium of the blood, adapts it to the purpose of sup- 

 porting our existence; the mutual operation, therefore, of food and 

 air, in effecting the important process of nutrition, it being impos- 

 sible that either should duly perform its office, without the perfect 

 co-operation of the other, renders it evident, that pure and whole- 

 some qualities in the atmosphere are as essential to the healthful 

 development of the body, during youth, as the same qualities in the 

 food which is employed. 



*' The constitutional demand for food is made known to us by 

 feelings which cannot be mistaken ; and, in childhood, these are 

 even still more powerful and frequent, than in later periods of life. 



" The want of wholesome air, however, does not manifest itself 

 on the system so unequivocally, or imperatively, no urgent sensation 

 being produced comparable to that of hunger, and hence, the greater 

 danger of mistaking its indications ; the effects of its absence are 

 only slowly and insidiously produced, and thus, too frequently, are 

 overlooked, until the constitution is generally impaired, and the 

 body equally enfeebled. 



" A child so circumstanced, although it neither suffer from pain 

 or fever, loses the ruddy appearance of health ; its countenance be- 

 coming pallid, and acquiring a certain anxious expression ; it often 

 ceases to grow in proportion to its years, and a degree of listless^ 

 ness, and a morbidly increased, or a diminished appetite for food 

 prevails; until, if recourse be not had to the only rational remedy, 

 that of a removal to a more salubrious situation, disease, in some 

 positive form, creeps on, as the natural result of this state of priva- 

 tion ; as may be so constantly observed in those, naturally, healthy 

 children, which reside in crowded and confined situations." 



We fully coincide with Dr. Harwood in the belief that the 

 efficacy of sea water is too much overlooked as a medicine in the 

 present day ; we shall, therefore, subjoin also his observations 

 on its utility in scrofula. 



** These disorders are frequently combined with an habitually 

 confined state of the bowels, which greatly favours their progress, 

 and impedes their cure ; and this condition seems, sometimes, to be 

 -connected with constitutional fulness of habit. 



H 2 



