BREEDING, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE SAME. 317 



bo slow in making it the basis of rational action in warding off 

 disease, and in promoting the integrity of their existence ! The 

 reason is, our education is incomplete. We are all that Nature 

 intended in elementary ability, and only deficient in Its use. 

 The means are anatomical and physiological studies ; the time is 

 in youth, when the mind is pliant, capable of receiving permanent 

 impressions. The place for the engrafting of the same is in our 

 common schools and at the fireside, the mother and the teacher 

 wielding a common scepter of instruction. 



Some people do not realize that our organizations are the result 

 uf the most positive laws of Nature, and that our ailments are the 

 result of our own ignorance or folly. The mass of mankind are 

 not aware that our physical systems are capable of improvement 

 analagous to the mental. No ; they generally think and act on 

 the false and ruinous proposition that our diseases, aches, and 

 pains are so woven into the filamentary mechanism of the living 

 citadel as to be beyond the power of either art or science to eradi- 

 cate — a proposition that should never, for a moment, be enter- 

 tained ; for, if we live right up to the laws of life, we are then 

 within the impregnable ramparts of physiology, where our ac-. 

 quired and fashionable maladies can not obtain. 



Within the bulwarks of physiology certain conditions are im- 

 posed upon us, and we must observe them. For example, we 

 require a pure atmosphere, at all times, to vitalize the blood, and 

 thus deprive it of those defiling elements acquired by venous blood, 

 and which would otherwise operate, as they often do, in our 

 crowded assemblies and un ventilated sleeping-rooms, as the germs 

 to excite unnecessary disease. Next, the body should be kept erect, 

 so that the muscles and organs may acquire and maintain natural 

 action. We require vigorous daily exercise of all the muscles of 

 voluntary motion ; freedom from all compression by dress ; apparel 

 that shall afford needed protection ; a quantity of food and drink, 

 at intervals, that shall furnish materials for the wants of our sys- 

 tems, and that control of feeling which enlightened reason and 

 virtue demand. Our time should be distributed into daily periods 

 of labor, rest, and amusement ; and, above all, we must bear in 

 mind that infirmity wedded to infirmity is a sin against our na- 

 ture — a wanton violation of the law of Nature and of our existence, 

 to which a fearful penalty is appended, even unto the " third and 

 fourtli generations." 



