scrupulous attention, the gradual wasting of his strength. In several parts of his melancholy memento, he declares that he felt it harder to bear the agonies of thirst than those of hunger. He confesses that he was frequently on the point of yielding to the desire of drinking. He nevertheless resisted.

"He was surprised to find his sight become more and more clear, strong and accurate; it appeared to him like the development of a new sense. The nearer he approached his latter moments, the more his power of vision seemed to increase. On this subject he thus expresses himself: 'It appears as though I could see. through the thickest walls. His sense of feeling likewise attained the most exquisite sensibility. His hearing and smelling improved in a similar degree. His album contains many curious statements on these subjects.

"The Sieur V. had devoted some attention to anatomy and physiology; and he attributes the increased acuteness of his senses to the way in which the intestinal irri tation acted on the nervous system.

"His ideas, he says, were numerous and clear, and very different from anything he had experienced in moments of excitement or intoxication. They were all directed to logical investigation, whether he applied them to an analysis of material objects, or to philosophic contemplation. He also felt himself inspired with a singular aptitude for mathematical calculation, a study for which he had previously felt very little inclination. In short, he declares that he never derived so much gratification from his intellectual condition, as throughout the whole duration of his physical torture.

made notes in his album to the last moments of

his existence. He had scarcely strength sufficient to hold the pencil with which he traced the following words: 'My pulse has nearly ceased to beat but my brain retains a degree of vigor which, in my sad condition, is the greatest solace Providence could bestow on ne. It is impossible that I can live out this day. My jailers watch me, and fancy they have adopted every precaution. They little think that I have outwitted. them. Death annuls the sentence which has been pronounced on me. In another hour, perhaps, they will find nothing but a cold corpse.'

"V. expired as he foretold. His album has been carefully preserved. It is a record replete with interest to medical professors. The slow torture, endured with so much courage, and described with such remarkable clearness, renders it one of the most curious documents in the annals of medical science."

Illustrating the same point, a gentleman, Mr. I. F. H. stated to the Author that he was once under medical treatment for some affection of the eyes, requiring a very scanty diet. His general health was excellent, but he was always hungry; yet so far from having any sense of debility, he had, when he went out into the street, an elasticity of mind and body, an instinctive desire of locomotion, which caused him to feel as if he could almost fly, and a joyousness of spirit, which was perfectly delightful.

These two cases strikingly show, that with a smaller amount of food, and consequently of blood, men are cheerful in mind and active in body; therefore, a small amount of food, perfectly digested, gives more health and strength than a larger, if not so.

It is better,

incomparably better, to feel a little hungry all the time, than to feel full, oppressed, heavy, with over eating.

Every patient of mine, who ever expects to get well, must keep this fact constantly and practically in view. It is too much the custom to measure one's health by the avidity of his appetite and his increase in flesh, as if he were a pig; forgetting that a voracious appetite and fat, are always indications of a diseased body. A uniform, moderate appetite, is the attendant of good health. A racer's ribs must be seen before he is fit for the track, because then he is most capable of endurance.

The next incident shows, that with a moderate amount of substantial food and cold water, such being prisoner's fare, men may live for many years, with but little exercise, in the dark vaults of a prison, breathing all the time an atmosphere not very pure, as may be readily oposed. And it is earnestly hoped that the incidents arrated will leave upon the mind of every reader a lifeSong impression as to the value, both to the sick and the healthy, of living habitually on a moderate allowance of plain, substantial, nourishing food. It may be well to recollect here, that it is not the quality, so much as the quantity of food, which lays the foundation every year of innumerable diseases and deaths. Let it be remembered, also, that men need a variety of food; living on only one kind for a length of time will always undermine a healthy constitution. Milk only, has all the elements of life; and any other one kind of aliment, used indefinitely as to time, will as certainly deteriorate the constitution, bodily and mental, as anything that is planted will deteriorate, if kept for successive years in the same field, unrenewed. The popular notion that one or two kinds of food at a meal is most whole.

some, is wholly untrue. On the contrary, several kinds at a meal, other things being equal, are more conducive to our well-being. Quantity, and not quality, is the measure of health.

COUNT CONFALIONERI

wrote from the great jail of Vienna as follows:

"I am an old man now, yet by fifteen years, my soul is younger than my body: fifteen years I existed, for I did not live. It was not life in the self-same dungeon, ten feet square. During six years I had a companion; nine years I was alone. I never could rightly distinguish the face of him who shared my captivity in the eternal twilight of our cell.

"The first year we talked incessantly together. We related our past lives, our joys forever gone, over and over again.

"The next year we communicated to each other our ideas on all subjects.

"The third year we had no ideas to communicate; we were beginning to lose the power of reflection.

"The fourth, at intervals of a month or so we would open our lips, to ask each other if it were indeed possible that the world was as gay and bustling as it was when we formed a portion of mankind.

"The fifth year we were silent.

"The sixth, he was taken away, I never knew where, to execution or to liberty. But I was glad when he was gone: even solitude was better than that pale and vacant face. After that, I was alone.

"Only one event broke in upon my nine years' vacancy. One day, it must have been a year or two after my companion left me, my dungeon door was

6

opened, and a voice, I knew not whence, uttered these words: By order of his Imperial Majesty, I intimate to you, that one year ago, your wife died.' Then the door was shut. I heard no more. They had but flung this great agony in upon me, and left me alone with it again."

Having shown the bearing which food has on health, I desire to make some statements as to the value of air and exercise in the same direction. These will be given succinctly, in the hope that the intelligent reader will study them and apply them at length, especially if he should come to me for medical advice. My habit is not merely to cure, when I can, the patient who comes to me, but to induce him to study and understand his own case and constitution, so that by the application of general principles, he may afterwards be able to regulate his health under all ordinary circumstances, as far as it can be done by diet, air, exercise, and regularity of personal habits: but never venturing to take an atom of medicine, however simple, except by the special advice of an educated, experienced physician.

IMPORTANCE OF PURE AIR TO HEALTH.

Men are reported to have lived three weeks without food, but without air we cannot live three minutes. The lungs of a full-sized man weigh about three pounds, and will hold twelve pints of air; but nine pints are as much as can be inhaled at one full breath, there being always a residuum in the lungs; that is, all the air that is within them can never be expelled at once. In common, easy breathing, in repose, we inhale one pint. Singers take in from five to seven pints at a single breath. We breathe, in health, about eighteen times in