VALUE OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 47 



been implanted by the time they have attained their fortieth 

 year. Would it not be wiser to make the first rudimentary 

 appearance of anything in the shape of local or general 

 derangement into a casus belli, the ground of a regular attack, 

 rather than to wait till offensive hostilities appear in the form 

 of painful symptoms ? An unwonted sensation, or a marked 

 change of function, amounting in neither case to positive 

 inconvenience or distress, may, nevertheless, be significant of 

 approaching ill, since we know that here also, " coming events 

 cast their shadows before." It is reasonable to suppose that 

 suitable antidotal means might often be devised, based upon 

 the physiological changes going on, to prevent those structural 

 alterations which are sure to follow abnormal action longcon- 

 tinued. This, however, can only be called prophylactic in an 

 accommodated sense ; but we would go further, and urge the 

 necessity of a true prophylaxis. The transmission of hereditary 

 tendencies to disease is of constant occurrence ; individual 

 peculiarities are often attended by a proclivity towards certain 

 forms of physical derangement ; a misguided early training 

 may have warped the frame in an evil direction ; certain 

 employments or modes of life lead, without fail, to injurious 

 and well-known results. All these, and many others that 

 might be mentioned, are instances in which a careful system 

 of preventive measures, not taken up and applied inter- 

 mittingly, but dovetailed, so to speak, into the economy of life, 

 would seem to be the dictate of true wisdom. People are 

 so much in the habit of thinking that men must die of disease, 

 that a healthful old age is looked upon as remarkable, 

 something for the attainment of which no special effort can be 

 made. No legitimate object of human desire can fail of at 



