526 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
greater evidente of the disturbing action oi light in the spring 
than at any other season; and nature herself responds to this 
quickening impulse, for growth is greatest, and most vigorous 
when the chemical activity of the sun’s rays is highest; and 
that is, of course, in the spring.” The vital processes, as concern- 
ing recovery from, or yielding to morbid states, are specially 
influenced by the atmospheric conditions of spring-time ; notably 
consumptive persons are reputed capable of resisting the 
advance of their disease if they surmount the month of May. 
Tennyson, who was a faithful observer of natural operations, 
gives heed to this vernal influence in his touching poem, 7 he 
May Queen :— 
“* All in the wild March morning I heard the Angels call, 
And in the wild March morning I heard them call my soul. 
Furthermore, the early morning air contains more ozone than 
that of mid-day, which fact is to be explained by the electrical 
action of the dew for an hour or more after dawn, with an 
increase of peroxide of hydrogen beneficially, than in air later 
in the day. Dew is probably of vital importance to the well- 
being of both patients, and animals, to a greater extent than 1s 
known; and the beautiful expression in our Prayer Book, 
‘Pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing,’” may be 
specially remembered in this connection. “ Itineris matutint 
gratiam accipimus.” Charles Kingsley when away from his 
living at Eversley, 1849, for recovery after a severe illness, 
wrote home thus: “a tremendous gale of wind has acted on 
me exactly like Champagne, and a Cathedral organ combined 
in one.” ‘“‘Anythink for air and exercise ’” (exclaims Sam 
Weller, in Pickwick), “as the wery old donkey observed ven 
they voke him up from his death-bed to carry ten gentlemen 
to Greenwich in a tax-cart.” : 
During the first century of the Christian era, Celsus prescribed 
for combating consumption in certain cases the process of gestation, 
or mild shaking of the body. A modern physician now instructs 
thus : “I have been very much struck by the beneficial effects 
following a motor-car drive of from thirty to forty miles. — Along 
with a feeling of marked exhilaration, an increased appetite, and 
improved sleep, there is a heightened healthy glow, which after 
a few days’ prolonged treatment tends to become permanent. 
Also the disposition to cough is (in a consumptive patient) much 
