276 NATURE STUDIES. 



evidenced by the memory immediately recovering its 

 vigorous activity." It would, however, be unwise to 

 infer that this sportsman, in thus prescribing for theso 

 attacks, showed himself the " physician " of the pro- 

 verb relating to fools and physicians. The remedy 

 was a dangerous one. His was specially a case where 

 prevention was better than cure. The transient 

 attacks of loss of memory showed that the hard day's 

 run with the hounds overtaxed his strength. Ho 

 would have done wisely to have limited his exertions 

 in the field (not giving up hunting, but restraining his 

 zeal on those occasions when the day's run promised 

 to be harder than usual). 



The effect of wine used regularly, not in pint * 

 draughts, is in many cases undoubtedly good where 

 the memory is apt to fail. We have an illustration of 

 this in the following case, belonging to the first of tho 

 two classes above considered. A gentleman whoso 

 mental and physical powers had been severely taxed, 

 lost all power of recollecting recent events. " Whilst 

 engaged in active conversation, he was able, by a 

 strong effort of will, to retain possession of the ideas 

 suggested by others to his mind ; but if there were 

 the slightest interruption, even to the extent of a 

 minute, in the conversation, he lost all recollection of 

 what he had been previously saying. This gentle- 

 man had been living for some weeks below par, with 

 the view of enabling him to perform an amount of 

 mental work requiring for its execution the lengthened 

 concentration of clear and vigorous intellect. He 



