DEBILITY. 



207 



water, barley-water, and linsccd-tea, are very soothing, and often serve effectually to 

 allay the troublesome tirklin^ or irritability in the throat. When there is not 

 much expectoration, an Hl'ort of the will often does much to restrain the violence of 

 the cough. When there is anything to come up, the sooner it is up the better ; but 

 in other cases it is a bad plan to give way to the cough. 



DANDRIFF. (See BORAX, Materia Medica.) 



DEBILITY. 



The term debility is used somewhat loosely, it must be admitted to indicate a 

 condition in which there is no actual disease, but in which all the functions of the 

 body are performed, if not imperfectly, at all events with less than their accustomed 

 ir. The patient has no actual complaint; his heart, and lungs, and kidneys, and 

 so on, are, as far as he knows, healthy, but still he feels that he is " below par " and 

 that he is not " up to the mark." This condition is a veiy common one, and is met 

 with in all ranks and classes of society, from the hard- worked, half-starved general 

 servant to the rich city banker with thousands and tens of thousands at his command. 

 There is a general want of energy, a disinclination for work, and a disrelish for 

 everything. The patient cannot point to any particular region and say, " This is the 

 seat of my disease" but he feels " queer all over." He knows he is ill, and yet cannot 

 say exactly what ails him. Everything seems a trouble, a bother, and a nuisance ; not 

 only is work performed with difficulty, but there is even a disrelish for amusement. 

 Invitations are declined, and a dinner or party is regarded with absolute aversion. 

 When one is " seedy " one almost hates the sight of one's fellow men. The once 

 companionable and jovial fellow becomes morose, and cares little for the society of even 

 his most intimate friends. He goes home as soon as he can, and lies on the sofa, heavy, 

 dull, and fretful, discontented with himself and all the world besides. Nothing 

 interests him, nothing amuses him ; he is a misery to himself and to everybody else. 



This condition is frightfully common, and may be induced by a variety of causes. 

 It is frequently seen in school-girls ; and we don't wonder at it, considering that now-a- 

 days they are compelled to cram their heads with French, German, Italian, rhetoric, 

 composition, the elements of astronomy, geology, geometry, chronology, and a host 

 of things their grandmothers never even heard of. Boys do not suffer in the 

 same way, although they work equally hard, because they get plenty of 

 good, healthy out-door exercise. Debility often arises, not from over- work, but from 

 dissipation. The young man of fortune who enters upon his worldly career full of 

 health and strength, and runs a course of riotous living, spending his substance and 

 himself like the " prodigal son," soon finds himself in a state of profound debility, 

 which, unless he will consent to turn over a new leaf and live more in accordance 

 with the laws of health and the dictates of common sense, soon ends in serious organic 

 disease. Young married people often suffer from debility, and have to leam that for 

 the maintenance of health it is necessaiy to be moderate in affection as in every- 

 thing else. Some people get debilitated as the result of over-work ; others as the 

 result of under- work. To preserve the balance of health it is necessary for every one 

 to do something : there must be an outgo as well as an income. Many people fail to 



