CONSUMPTION BENEFIT OF CHANGE. 37 



It must not be supposed that successful attempts of nature 

 to check the progress of this formidable complaint are of 

 rare occurrence. As an instance of the life-protracting influ- 

 ence of modern therapeutic agents, it may be mentioned that 

 Dr. J. B. Williams than whom no man is better qualified to 

 speak on the point asserts that the average duration of con- 

 sumption, formerly estimated at two years, may, under improved 

 treatment, be fixed at four years. If these things be so, and 

 we are entitled to entertain a reasonable share of hope, even 

 in the case of so formidable a disease as consumption, with 

 how much greater propriety may this be done in most other 

 complaints ? Advanced life, in connection with disease, 

 affords less ground for hope ; but in early and middle life, we 

 do well to have faith in the reparative powers of Nature, 

 assisted by the resources of art, especially when the system has 

 not been undermined by a previous career of debilitating 

 excesses. 



A change of residence from a humid atmosphere to a mild 

 dry one promotes the equable distribution of the circulating 

 fluids over the whole system, increases the activity of the 

 capillaries of the surface, and in the same proportion 

 diminishes the congestion of internal organs. The continued 

 action of a bland atmosphere upon the delicate surfaces of 

 the respiratory tubes, lessens irritation and assists in the more 

 efficient production of those changes of the blood so essential 

 to health. These are sufficient reasons to account for the 

 importance of change as a means of recovery in various 

 forms of illness. The hope engendered by a new movement 

 taken towards recovery ; the cessation of business cares and 

 anxieties, novel scenery, new associations, and the other 



