WATER. | 725 
something of doctors that (well, I thought Moliere had had 
enough of them, but he’s complimentary to what I shall be after 
this). Thanks for all your good love, but do try to understand 
me a little better, indocilest when I choose of human creatures, 
but vet your’s most affectionately, John Ruskin.” 
Dr. Morton, of New York, claims that the healing properties 
of many mineral springs, attributed hitherto to chemicals 
contained therein, do in reality depend on imprisoned sunlight, 
which can now be revealed by the X-rays, radium, and ultra- 
violet rays. When a patient swallows a solution (notably of 
quinine) it gives off within him, ifrendered fluorescent by radio- 
activity, sunshine rays which are luminous if radium be held near 
the body, so that practically the patient’s interior is thus bathed 
in sunlight. A hope is entertained, with no little confidence, 
that this discovery may lead on to a scientific cure of internal 
cancer by an extension of the same means. 
Scientific dentistry has recently discovered that by a patient’s 
gazing intently for a while at an electric light within a bulb of 
blue glass, the operation of immediately extracting a tooth is 
rendered almost painless. 
In past times sufferers from small-pox were surrounded by 
some English doctors with red fabrics as to bed clothing, curtains, 
and window blinds ; which practice has incurred modern ridicule, 
and amused derision. But Finsen, the famous scientist of 
Copenhagen, has ascertained that by excluding from such 
patients during this disease the chemical rays (blue, violet, and 
ultra-violet) of light, and admitting only the heat rays (red, and 
yellow) thereof, under such conditions no deep pitting of skin 
results from the pocks, and no secondary fever ensues. Finsen 
was first led to form these conclusions in 1832 when watching 
the successful treatment of small-pox patients in dark rooms. 
It is claimed by some medical thinkers, and with no small 
show of reason, that water absorbs nerve energy, and may be pur- 
posely charged therewith, for a sick person’s benefit, by ‘‘ passes ic 
from a sound, healthy, vigorous, plain-living, pure-minded indi- 
vidual, who lives much in the open air, and is of regular habits, 
without any excessive, or harmful indulgences ; such water should 
be forthwith drunk by the patient, between two meal-times. On 
this showing, the ideal master of the healing art is the man who 
has an abundance of nerve energy, some of which he can transfer 
at need, and likewise possesses the power of imparting to the 
