XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



are cold and flabby, the circulation becomes irregular, and there is considerable 

 shortness of breath. In addition, they get loss of appetite, dyspepsia, flatulence, 

 palpitation, and all manner of evils. The only thing is to make them take more 

 exercise. Plato had such a high opinion of exercise that he said it was a cure even 

 for a wounded conscience. A distinguished London physician recently stated that 

 no young man could hope to keep in " good form " who did not walk at least ten 

 miles a day, or take an equivalent amount of muscular exercise in some other form. 

 Many people say that they cannot do this because they have not time, but attention 

 to health is very good economy of time. Then, again, in addition to physical work, 

 a man must do a certain amount of mental labour, for if he does not his intellect 

 soon suffers. It is often said in the case of a delicate child that he or she should nob 

 be allowed to read or learn anything, and that the brain must be kept quiet. That 

 is all nonsense ; you cannot put the brain up in a splint, as you would a broken leg. 

 The brain is incessantly working, and it would be all the better for having some 

 healthy employment. Of course, what it wants is gentle exercise, and care should 

 ken that it is neither over-worked nor reduced to a state of stagnation. Then, 

 again, when a man has been over-worked, he is told he must go down in the country 

 and keep quite quiet, and not do anything. The result is that his life is a misery 

 to him ; he has been an active, busy man all his life, and now you cut him off from 

 his old friends, his letters, his paper, and, in fact, everything that makes his existence 

 enjoyable. The time hangs heavily on his hands, the days are like weeks, and the 

 weeks pass like years, and the result is that he soon gets heartily sick of it, and 

 instead of getting any better, rapidly gets worse. No, what you want to do in a 

 rase like this is to change his mental sphere, and not to knock off his work alto- 

 gether. Try and get him to take an. interest in farming, in. the rotation of crops, 

 botany, zoology, geology, archaeology, agrarian outrage, or anything he likes, but, 

 at all events, give him something to do that he can take an interest in, and do not 

 leave him to wander about all day with his hands in his pockets. This is apropos 

 of the necessity for brain- work in some shape or other. 



We have pointed out the necessity for the elimination of certain materials from 

 the blood, but this elimination must not be excessive. It may be very good for a mo.n to 

 ha\ -c a motion every day, but it does not follow that it would be twice as good if he 

 had two motions daily. Excessive elimination is always an evil. Nothing more 

 quickly pulls a man down than persistent diarrhoea. Women whose periods are 

 too profuse are seldom healthy, and it may be stated in general terms that an 

 excessive or long-continued discharge of any kind has a tendency to reduce the 

 vital power. Over-work is another form of excessive secretion of force. We know 

 that by the inordinate use of certain muscles, or sets of muscles, we may get either 

 spasm or wasting. Of this we have examples in the diseases known as writers' 

 cramp and wasting palsy. Then the over-work may be mental rather than physical. 

 It would seem that some people are not adapted to all kinds of mental work, and it 

 is probable that in many of us certain faculties practically remain undeveloped. 

 Many people who are good classics could not work the simplest problem in Euclid 

 to save their lives. If a man lias no capacity for doing a certain thing it is useless 

 to try and make him do it. If a uuin wants to be soldier, it is no good trying to 



