THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. 549 



turbed circulation, such as dyspnea, asthma, vertigo, angina pectoris 

 and prostration, rapidly lessened or disappeared far better than by the 

 use of aconite, iodides and nitrites, although it occasionally transpired 

 that when these last were also used the progress was more satisfactory. 



It occurred to me to review the analysis of the various mineral 

 waters, and I was surprised to find how many of them exhibited like- 

 wise many of these ingredients, in varying proportions, along with one 

 or other factor to which the virtue of the water was chiefly attributed. 

 Hitherto these factitious items have been regarded as indifferent or to 

 them have been attributed various hypothetic or conjectural virtues. We 

 have been long recognizing that the use of certain of the alkaline 

 waters lessened the acidity of the urine and presumably of the blood, 

 and the laity have been taught, partly by the profession but chiefly by 

 the manufacturing chemists and the public press, that if ever the 

 demon of uric acid can be laid, by the ingestion of enough of lithia 

 salts or of some of the new and wonderful substances the special prod- 

 uct of the great laboratories, their imperiled lives can be saved and 

 most ills removed. The reaction against this notion has set in, but 

 the fad remains, and will prevail long among the people, and the non- 

 reading of the profession, that alkalies are helpful in a vast variety of 

 vague states accompanied by the output of the uric acid in the urine 

 common to about one fifth of the community. The real point of effort 

 should be the restoration of the functional activity of the liver, whicH 

 has to do with the conversion of ammonium cyanate, uric acid and 

 other end products into urea. This is to be accomplished in a number 

 of ways, the basis of which is to bring about bettered circulation in 

 the liver and more complete functional power. For this, as well as to 

 accomplish many other functional betterments, no single measure is 

 comparable to regulated, deep breathing exercises. Complete expulsion 

 is even more necessary than full inspiration. The abdominal muscles 

 can thus be made to press upon the viscera, especially the liver and 

 great organs, aiding largely in vascular interchanges hence secretion 

 and excretion. By this means chiefly, if not alone, bowel action is 

 sometimes regulated, and kidney competence enhanced. 



There may be, and it seems that there is, considerable efficacy in 

 the use of natural mineral waters, which exhibit a reasonable propor- 

 tion of those salts that exert a solvent action on lime salts or other 

 adventitious substances. Drugs, however, serve a temporary purpose 

 and, in such conditions as the discomforts arising in beginning de- 

 generative processes of age, would seem to need an indefinite con- 

 tinuance. The real curative remedy and defensive measure is in aiding 

 oxidation of the tissues by all rational means, special movements and 

 stimulation of the vasomotor mechanism of the great eliminating 

 organs. 



4^'JL,- 



