ing, by free urination and by the phlegm which caused the cough and which prevented the pent up air from passing out, loosening a little, then more and more until large mouthfuls are expectorated at a time, and by early day light the patient is sound asleep. At length he wakes up, spends the day in comparative comfort with the prospect, however, of a similar night, but not so violent, the attacks become more and more moderate until the patient' regains his usual health, and in a few days after, one would not suppose any thing had ever been the matter with him. And thus he remains until a fresh cold, a torpid liver, constipated bowels, or over feeding calls him to a new reckoning, and the bill, the penalty, like a bank notice, “must be paid.” I consider asthma as an incurable disease. That is, incurable by artificial means. Children who have it sometimes grow out of it. It sometimes wholly disappears during the marriage state. At the "turn of life" in women it occasionally leaves the system, not to return. When I say that asthmatic disease is incurable, I mean only that the system will be always liable to an attack. A fit of asthma cures itself generally. Like a common cold, it runs its course just as measles or small-pox, if nothing is done until it is fully established. But if attacked in the very beginning of its onset, asthma, like a common cold, can be cut short off. Persons subject to asthma have generally some feeling a day or more beforehand, which warns them of its approach, and if proper means are at once employed, the attack is almost, if not entirely forestalled. But when the person delays, in the hope that it may not come on, that it may pass off of itself, as it sometimes does, but not generally, then they have to suffer, and sometimes die for their inattention. All persons are liable to take colds as long as they live; that liability may be very greatly diminished, but never can be wholly got rid of. In the same manner an asthmatic person will be always liable to an attack of asthma, but, as in the case of a common cold, proper care and attention, and habits of life, will indefinitely postpone both. In this sense only is asthma curable—it may be indefinitely postponed. By regulating the general system, by using means to make it less susceptible to taking cold, by suitable attentions to the skin, the feet, the condition of the stomach, liver and bowels, a person who is liable to an attack every few weeks may not have one in five years. This I have succeeded in doing wherever a patient is found willing to use systematic efforts for the accomplishment of the object. There is one form, which may be called Chronic Asthma, not amenable to remedial means. It is a kind of perpetual asthma, seldom very violent, never wholly absent. The person always feels stopped up or bloated. Such patients are generally of full habit. They are always taking cold or getting bilious; constipation, snuffling of the nose, discharges of" thickish stuff" from the nose and lungs; tongue furred, dry, whitish, or of a red or yellow tinge; no appetite, even a loathing of food. In the intervals of a cold or biliousness these symptoms are not present, except in part and to a slight extent; but all the time there is a distressing breathlessness. Going up a few steps, walking a little fast, causes them to pant for breath; and often in walking along the street at a moderate gait, they are compelled to stop to get breath. Looking so well all this time, and not being willing to be considered invalids, they employ themselves in looking around while thus panting to get breath, as if they were expecting some persons, or were examining an object at a distance. aggra This is a most distressing affection, because it is always present in a greater or less degree, and is vated by so many slight causes. Much may be done to mitigate this form of asthma, and make it bearable, but it lasts with life. It may be of some satisfaction to the asthmatic to know that it does not destroy life soon, except now and then. Usually asthmatic persons live to the age of fifty and sixty years or more, with good health between the attacks. It is generally an inherited disease, not always. Asthmatic people do not die of consumption, at least I have never known a well authenticated case of the kind. Consumptive persons usually recover when asthma supervenes, provided there is no serious disease in other important parts of the system. I consider asthma curative of consumption. In consumption the air cannot get into the lungs, in asthma it cannot get out in quantities sufficient to answer the purposes of health and life. A NEW CLASS OF CASES. Applications are made to me by persons who have one or all of the following three complaints: 1. Some slight affection in the throat; 2. Cough more or less troublesome; 3. Pains of various kinds and degrees about the chest. But in connection with one or more of these ailments, which indeed are slight of their kind, there are symptoms of another character more or less annoying, far more dis tressing than the three first named. I will name and number the more prominent of these symptoms, not meaning that any one person has them all at one time; but the most of them are present in the course and progress of the disease, with varied degrees of aggravation. 1. Feet uncomfortably, painfully cold. 2. Pit of stomach has a raw, burning, sore or heavy feeling. 3. Spirits more or less depressed all the time. 4. Frequent feeling of chilliness. 5. A sensation of discouragement. 6. Oppressed with forebodings of the future. 7. Difficulty of mental concentration. 8. Pain or weakness in small of back. 9. Swelling or tight feeling over the stomach. 10. Great thirst, causing fullness or oppression if satis fied. 11. Food sours in the stomach. 12. Pure water causes sourness sometimes. 17. Disposed to sweat on falling asleep. 18. Wandering, shifting pains all over the body. 19. Burning spots on top of head, shoulders, back and elsewhere. 20. Sleep restless, unsound, unrefreshing. 21. Disturbed by disagreeable dreams. 22. Bad taste in mouth of mornings. 23. Lumpy feeling in throat and at edge of the ribs. 24. Burning feeling in throat or along breast bone. 25. Great deal of wind on stomach. This long array of symptoms arises from a single form of disease, and are often complicated with slight affections of the throat and lungs, and strange as it may appear to the general reader, I look upon such cases as more hopeful of cure than when the lungs or throat alone are decidedly affected, inasmuch as other parts of the body divide the violence of the disease with the lungs. Sometime ago I saw a tall spare gentleman, 1104, aged 38; had been ailing fifteen years; symptoms became gradually worse until he had to give up his business, and when I saw him he had been confined to his home for some weeks, not being able to go from one room to another without discomfort, causing cough, chilliness, fatigue. He had constant night sweats, great constipation, unsatisfying sleep; large expectoration of whitish mucus, and greenish yellow thick matter; coughing it up day and night, a teacupfull perhaps in twentyfour hours; appetite variable and poor; pain, heaviness, weight, load in stomach all the time; pain in the forehead, temples, between the eyes, aching of the limbs, great thirst, extraordinary chilliness, pulse weak and very rapid, spirits depressed, had fallen away very much. This was certainly a formidable array of symptoms, but considering their character and connection, I expressed an opinion that there was greater hope of arresting the progress of the disease than if the lungs only had been affected. I saw him next, fourteen days after my first visit. His appetite was regular and good; his sleep satisfactory; constipation removed, night sweats entirely gone, walked half a mile out of doors daily in March, with comfort and advantage; expectoration entirely changed, and cough very much abated, although nothing had |