HORSE-BACK RIDING. 



Diseases of the Organs of Respiration, 



a. Phthisis. — Accidental or hereditary causes may- 

 or may not develop the tuberculous diathesis ; when 

 developed, it may be grave or slight, curable or incur- 

 able. At least such is the only deduction that can 

 be drawn from the contradictory facts daily recorded 

 by chemical observers of the unexpected develop- 

 ment or absence of the rapid growth of or unlooked- 

 for recovery from that disease. From a diagnostic 

 point of view, nothing gives us a better account of 

 the differences of which tuberculous modifications are 

 susceptible than the more or less intense and persist- 

 ent effect experienced by the nutritive functions. 



We may go further and state that the alterations 

 in the digestive and assimilative functions is the 

 proper characteristic of the morbid modifications of 

 the organism, upon which the development of tubercle 

 depends. 



This is not a new theory, for, long before our time, 

 physicians and physiologists had recognized the fact 

 that any agent which tended to diminish the physical 

 energies of the system might give rise to tubercle ; 

 but it is only to-day that these views have received a 

 scientific demonstration. 



A few years since, Royer-Collarc called the atten- 

 tion of the physicians to an art which had been sadly 

 neglected, and, according to his statements, one from 



