78 HORSE BACK RIDING. 



(1683), says of exercise in this disease : " Exer- 

 cise practised daily and long continued prevents 

 this misfortune, by dissipating with the sweat the 

 humor of the gout ; as to the exercise to be chosen, 

 Jwrsc-back riding is preferable to all others, when 

 the sufferer is not too- aged, and has not the stone. 

 And, indeed, I have long thought that were a man 

 to discover a remedy as efficacious for gout and 

 most chronic diseases as long-continued exercise on 

 horse-back, and make a secret of it, he would gain 

 great riches." 



/. Diabetes, — Diabetes is a constitutional affection, 

 characterized by the secretion of a large quantity of 

 urine containing sugar ; urgent, constant thirst, diffi- 

 cult to allay ; a voracious appetite, and a progressive 

 loss of flesh. Though many theories have been ad- 

 vanced as to its cause and nature, they only teach us 

 that there exists some anomaly of organic metamor- 

 phosis, due especially to a disturbance of the function 

 of assimilation or innervation. The disease is to-day 

 no longer beyond the resources of the healing art. 



When diabetes is the result of over-exertion of 

 some function of the economy, especially if of the 

 nervous system, and the glycosuria is in that unde- 

 termined state which certainly is not health, and can 

 scarcely be called disease, then exercise is impera- 

 tively indicated. 



The following extracts from Chassaigne support 

 the above view : ** M. Bouchardat, in his magnificent 



