392 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



* 



an evil which ought to have been obvious namely, that, 

 with your diminished lung capacity, the continued breathing 

 of a more or less vitiated air would be doubly detrimental. 

 Lungs with good capacity must manifestly feel the evil of 

 a bad air much less than lungs of diminished capacity. It 

 seems now highly probable that your depressed and ener- 

 vated apathetic state is in large measure due to this double 

 diminution of respiratory action and consequent lowered 

 state of vital activity. Purer air and artificially aided cir- 

 culation (as by massage) will, I am quite sure, brighten the 

 aspect of things to you and make you feel that it is better 

 to fight on even under difficulties than to surrender. I 

 may say, by way of example, that I have myself of late had 

 very discouraging views, my circulation a while since 

 being so bad that I dared not walk from here across to my 

 office or down to the bottom of the Gardens. Indeed, I 

 was so bad that sometimes I could not stand up without 

 producing intermission of the pulse. However, I have 

 persevered, and, on the whole, with considerable improve- 

 ment ; so that now the tendency to intermission has 

 almost disappeared, and my spirits as well as my power of 

 writing have greatly improved. Be encouraged therefore, 

 by my experience, to feel pretty sure that by judicious 

 management the state of things, even when apparently very 

 serious, can be got over. 



July 20, 1886. 



I was much saddened yesterday to receive a verification 

 of the fears I have been for some weeks entertaining, that 

 your silence was due to illness. Perhaps the condition of 

 things is not so bad as you think ; for, as I know from re- 

 cent personal experience, one is apt to put unduly unfavour- 

 able interpretations on the facts. Doubtless it may be said 

 that friends do the reverse ; but on the whole the estimates 

 of medical men and friends are perhaps the more to be 

 trusted. 



