ORIGIN OF SOME OF OUR ILLNESSES. 35 



like steeples on its devoted back. Patience, and ability to bear disappointment 

 are necessary to the student of insect transformation, and add to the delight 

 which follows the cases of perfect development. 



MEDICINE AND HYGIENE. 



ORIGIN OF SOME OF OUR ILLNESSES. 



Our illnesses arise from a variety of causes, and when we consider how many 

 agencies of evil are at work to undermine health, the wonder is that we escape 

 disease as well as we do. Sickness of any kind is simply chemical disarrange- 

 ment of bodily organs or functions, or mental disturbances which concern the 

 brain and nerves. We live in a peculiarly constructed house, a house complicated 

 in every part, but exceedingly well adapted to our wants. As regards the mate- 

 rials of the structure, there is nothing about them very stable or peculiar. Apart 

 from the bones, the human body is nothing more than a few pounds of earthy 

 salts and animal tissues suspended in five or six buckets of water. The bones, 

 the only solid portion, in no respect differ from our marble wash-basins and man-, 

 tels, save in the amount of phosphoric acid they contain. So far as materials go, 

 we have nothing in our tabernacle of flesh to boast of; but the unstable molecules 

 are arranged in a marvelous manner, and, being subject to chemical laws and 

 changes, like all organized matter, they often change places and assume new 

 forms in an abnormal way. If we could contrive to keep chemical and mental 

 action always under normal conditions, we should never be ill; we should die 

 of old age, like the perfect combustion of a candle, which dies out for the want 

 of more wax or parafitine. Whether it was originally designed that we should 

 never be ill — that death, barring accidents, should result from the exhaustion of 

 old age — is a question we may discuss and consider, and never reach any positive 

 conclusions. We find ourselves existing in a world governed by law, and from 

 the exactions of law there is no escape. There is one law which requires us to be 

 temperate in eating and drinking, another requires us to hold in check our pas- 

 sions, another demanding that we protect ourselves from changes of temperature, 

 and that we avoid external agencies which disturb the equilibrium of chemical 

 forces ; indeed, there are many laws, the violation of any one of which causes 

 illnesses more or less severe. 



Sudden "colds," so called, originate a formidable array of illnesses, many of 

 which terminate fatally. What is a cold? This term is one well understood, 

 and, in a popular way, means any illness resulting from changes in the tempera- 

 ture of the body or any of the organs. A cold is a disturbance in the circulation ; 

 the blood is turned away from its normal circuit, the functions of the skin are 

 suspended, the heart's action is quickened, and the temperature of the body is 



