RESPIRATION. 131 



with a salutary effect. The best climate is the Brazils, at Para, 

 situate on the river Amazon. An excellent preventative for 

 chronic bronchial affections is the application, two or three times 

 a day, of cold water to the neck and chest, followed by friction with 

 a coarse towel. The irritating plaster is also very valuable. For 

 more particular medical treatment, see my Reformed Practice. 

 Also for other diseases of the lungs. 



The Stethoscope has of late become very common -among phy- 

 sicians in forming a diagnosis or opinion of pulmonary diseases. I 

 have very little confidence in it myself. Lugol, of Paris, has the 

 following remarks on the use of it : 



^ The numerous checks and repeated deception to which phy- 

 sicians are daily exposed in the DIAGNOSIS and TREATMENT of tu- 

 berculous diseases, do they not prove that it is necessary to leave 

 the beaten track of inquiry and pursue some other which is less 

 fallible 1 You all know that auscultation and percussion are use- 

 less in the diagnosis of pulmonary tubercles. Both alike insuffi- 

 cient to announce the commencement of the mischief, they are 

 superfluous at the very time that they become capable of indicating 

 the presence of the tubercles ; for then these are discoverable by 

 other means, and, alas ! are too far advanced in their development 

 to warrant our hopes of arresting their progress at least in the 

 generality of cases. I will even go a step further, and say that the 

 unlimited confidence placed by the greater number of practitioners 

 of the present day in auscultation and percussion, has had the effect 

 of too often inspiring a fatal security in many tuberculous diseases, 

 which are thereby allowed to advance in their progress, until this 

 is revealed by physical phenomena at a period when remedial mea- 

 sures have but little chance of effecting any good. 



" But what are the means, you will say to me, that are to be sub- 

 stituted in the room of auscultation and percussion? I answer, 

 gentlemen, induction. Examine by these boasted methods this 

 patient, and tell me what results you obtain. Negative results, 

 you will reply. And yet I maintain that he is tuberculous ; for his 

 father, his mother, and his brothers have all died of tuberculous 

 disease ; and he himself is affected with it in his chest at the pre- 

 sent moment. Believe me, this plan is much less deceptive than 

 the other one. I tell you, the inductive method cannot mislead 

 you, for nature is invariable in its causes as in its effects ; and the 

 external signs of tuberculous scrofula must give you assurance that 



