1810.] 
year. This domiphobia* may be opposed 
to the hydrophobia, inasmuchas a patient 
affected with the former complamt, so 
far from bétraying any dread of water, is 
fur the most part impelled by an almost ir- 
_ resistible impulse, to places of resort where 
that element is to be found in the great- 
est abundance. . London, which at other 
timies Serves as a nucleus for an accumu- 
lated population, seems now to exert a 
surprising centripetal force, by which 
are driven to a distance from it a. large 
proportion of those inhabitants who 
are not fastened to the spot upon which 
they hve by the rivet of necessity, or some 
powerful local obhgations. Men whose 
personal freedom is not in like manner 
restricted within geographical limits, glad- 
ly escape, in the present state of the at- 
mosphere, from the perils, real or imagi- 
Mary, of this crowded and artificially 
heated capital : 
. —--pexicula mille 
Sevz urbis. K 
An already immense and incessantly ex- 
panding city, on every side of which new 
streets are continually surprising the view, 
a8 rapid almost in their formation, as the 
sudden shootings of crystallization, it is 
reasonable to imagine, cannot be particu- 
Jarly favorable to the health of that mass of 
human existence which it contains. But 
it is at least a matter of doubtful specu. 
Jation how far those maladies, which are 
attributed exclusively to the air of this 
great town, inay arise from the perhaps 
more noxious influence of its fashions and 
its habits. Man is not in so humiliating 
a degree dependent, as some are apt to 
suppose, upon the particles that float 
about him. eis by no means consti- 
tuted so, as necessarily to be the slave of 
circumambient atoms. As the body va- 
ries little in its heat, in all the vicissitudes 
of externa: temperature to which it may 
be exposed, so there is an internal power 
of resistance in the mind, which, when 
roused into acuiol, is in most anstances 
sufficieut to counteract the hostile agency 
of extraneous causes. “the reporter has 
repeatedly been acquainted with the in- 
stance of a female patient, who, at a tine 
when she feit too teeble and innervated 
to walk across a room, could, notwitl- 
standing, without any sense of inconve- 
nience or fatigue, dance the yreater part of 
a night with an agreeable partner, Sore-" 
* An extremely well-written and inter- 
esting account of the Domiphobia, a com- 
plait which is not even noticed in the scho- 
lastic systems of nosology, may be perused in 
one of the earlicy volumes of the Menthly 
Magazine, 
Report of Diseases. 
359 
markably does the stimulus of a favorite 
and enlivening amusement awaken the 
dormant energies of the animal fibre. 
Upon a similar principle, they are, 
for the most part, only the vacant and 
the indolent, those *‘ lilies of the vale 
ley, that neither toil nor spin,” who 
suiler in any considerable degree from 
the closeness of the air, or the changes 
of the weather. One whose attention 
is occupied and whose powers are 
actively engaged, will be found in a 
great measure indifferent to the eleva- 
tions or depressions of the thermometer. 
Leisure, although not the sabject, is the 
principal source of all our lamentations. 
There is no disquietude more intolerable 
than that which is experienced by per- 
sons who are unfortunately placed in 
what are called easy circumstances. 
Toil was made for man, and although he 
may sometimes inherit what is necessary 
to life, he is, in every instance, obliged 
to earn what is essential to its enjoyment. 
The vapors of melancholy most frequent- 
ly arise from an untilled or insulficiently 
cultivated soil, 
Although habitual industry is of such 
indispensable importance to our physical 
as well as intellectual weil-being, it will 
not be found sufficient to secure the cone 
tinuance of either without the co-opera- 
tion of temperance, which indeed is ils 
usual and natural ally. 
Temperance ought to be regarded as 
a virtue of more comprehensive mean- 
ing than what relates merely to a salu- 
tary discipline in diet. ‘Temperance im, 
pliesa certain regulation of all the feelings, 
and a due but restricted exercise of all: 
the faculties of the frame. There is no 
species of dissipation or exertionin which 
we may not pass beyond the bounds of a 
wholesome moderation, A man may be » 
intemperately joyful or sorrowful, inten: 
perate in his hopes or in his fears, inteni~ 
perate in his friendships or his hostiliness 
intemperate in the restiessness of his ane 
bition, or 1n his greediness of gain. 
The state of the pulse depends so much 
upon the beating of the passions, that 
the former cannot be regular and 
calm whilst the Jatter are violent and per- 
turbed. ‘The science of medicine, liber- 
ally understood, takes in the whole of 
man. Ee who in the study or the treat- 
‘ment of the human machinery, overlooks 
the intellectual part of it, cannot but en- 
tertain very incorrect notions of and 
fall into gross and sometimes fatal bluns 
ders in the means which he adopts for its 
regulation or repair, Whilst he is di- 
recting his purblind skill to remove or 
relieve 
