EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
747 
to give them power, precision, facility of action, and to 
strengthen the breathing function; the exercise for the ab¬ 
straction of unnecessary matter, for the removal of fat, is no 
longer requisite; for that the bath will amply and sufficiently 
provide."’^ 
Mr. Wilson has likewise shown, in his paper on the 
Treatment of Disease by Immersion of the Body in 
Heated Air,’^ published in the British Medical Journal, how 
we can so far excite the emunctory power of the skin as to 
make it the means of carrying off the elements together 
oftentimes with the seeds of disease. Of this he adduces 
two illustrative proofs, as follows : 
“ 1. Adaptation of the hath to the preservation of the health of 
the horse. 
‘‘ My friend G., who has had much and the best kind of ex¬ 
perience in the management of horses, tells me that for more 
than twenty-five years he has been in the habit of having his 
horses washed whenever they returned to the stable in a state 
of perspiration, and with the result that his stable w-as remark¬ 
able for the health and condition of the animals. His process 
was as follows :—The horses w'ere thoroughly sponged over 
with warm water; then with tepid water; and, lastly, wdth 
cold; the water was then scraped out of their coats with a 
scraper, {strigillnm), and they were well wiped down with a 
leather. After this they were covered with a cotton sheet, 
and their legs w'ere bandaged with cotton rollers. In fifteen 
or twenty minutes the sheet was raised gradually, first at one 
corner, then at another, until it \vas completely removed; 
the uncovered portion being thoroughly wiped before the next ’ 
w^as proceeded with, and the process being continued until 
the animal was completely dry. After this treatment, there 
was no fear of any subsequent breaking out, and how’ever 
sharply the horses had been w^orked, frequently after a run 
of ten miles in half an hour, they w^ere ready and willing for 
a double feed of oats. 
How different this picture from that of the common con¬ 
dition of horses under similar circumstances; breaking out 
into a profuse and often a succession of profuse perspirations 
after being put into the stable, and unable to eat their corn 
from faintness and exhaustion.” 
