Gully, "a cold foot bath of 12 or 15 minutes followed by a walk of half-an-hour, is the most certain way to warm the feet that can be devised; just as per contra, the most certain way to ensure cold feet, is to soak them in hot water. The same applies to the hands. When the patient is in a condition to take it, a walk is necessary to obtain the circulating reaction alluded to:" he adds, "the warmth remains for several hours. Very frequently I have heard persons say that they have not known cold feet since they began to take cold foot baths."

We would next make some observations on the different modes of treating that fatal and mysterious disease, which has so long baffled the curative efforts of the most eminent physicians of their day, we mean pulmonary consumption, and it is gratifying to find that a great step towards a rational and successful mode of treatment based on sound physiological principles haslately obtained in the case of this disease, which mode of treatment we hope soon to see generally adopted by the medical profession.* The unsuccessful treatment of this disease has hitherto cast a slur on medical science, and it is not to be wondered at, that little success should have attended on the old mode of treatment, since recent observation, and matured experience have shown, on physiological principles, that no worse mode could have been devised for curing it, nor a surer one adopted for producing an aggravation of its symptoms. This new view of the matter is very ably set forth in Dr. Lane's work, which we heartily recommend to the perusal of our readers, as a sensible and modest statement of the benefits resulting from Hydropathic treatment in cases of this description. Dr. Lane looks upon consumption as essentially a blood disease, in which opinion he is confirmed by the first physiologists of the day, and by those physicians who have had most experience in the treatment of that particular disease, Sir James Clarke, Professor Bennett, Dr. Balbyrnie, and others. These physicians all agree in stating that indigestion or derangement of the stomach and digestive organs is a universal forerunner of pulmonary consumption, and without this derangement, consumption cannot exist; consequent on this diseased state of the digestive organs, imperfect blood is assimilated, defi

We do not pretend to assert, that consumption is curable when ORGANIC disease of the lungs has actually been established, but we maintain that the disease is perfectly curable in its incipient stages, though not by drugs, nor banishment to a foreign clime. The latter may somewhat prolong the disease, but will not cure it unless by accident, when of a very mild form.

cient in its oleaginous elements, and containing an undue amount of albuminous materials, that in consequence of this deficiency of oleaginous elements, the blood is incapable of being converted into true cellular tissue to replace the effete material of the lungs, and the superabundant quantity of albumen has a tendency to exude upon the lungs on their exposure to cold in the form of tubercles, which process is unaccompanied by inflammatory action; these facts are based on long observations and direct chemical analysis of the substance composing the tubercles, which consist of almost pure albumen, and on this theory the wonderful effects of cod liver oil in consumptive cases, and the great emaciation of body which results from the disease are satisfactorily explained; in the one case, the cod liver oil supplies in a light and digestible form the oleaginous element in which the blood is deficient; in the other the system has recourse to the fatty or adipose matter of the body to supply the oleaginous principle, but now the question arises, supposing that indigestion is the universal precursor of consumption, from what does this indigestion, and consequent imperfect assimilation of the blood proceed? this question Dr. Lane does not touch upon, but we believe that Dr. Barter, the well-known Hydropathic physician of Blarney, considers that it arises from defective vitality* in the blood, caused by deficiency of oxygen in the system, more immediately proceeding from defective capacity of the lungs and imperfect action of the skin. The skin and lungs, it must be remembered, are supplementary organs-stop the action of either, and death inevitably ensues, and on their perfect or imperfect action, perfect or imperfect health depends. This view of the disease is illustrated by the history of the monkey; in its wild state, the best authorities state, it never gets consumption, but domesticate the animal, so inducing bad action of the lungs from want of sufficient exercise, and wholesome air, and imperfect action of the skin arising from the same cause, and it usually dies of this disease; these observations equally apply to all cases of scrofulous degeneration, which physicians estimate as carrying off prematurely 1-6th of the whole human family. Of this terrible

The temperature and vitality of our bodies depend upon the continued and rapid combination of oxygen with the oxydizable products of the blood; if the necessary supply of oxygen be interfered with, the vitality of the system flags, and disease results.

The very name of scrofula points to the origin of the disease, it being derived from the Latin Scrofa, a pig, in allusion to the condition of the skin in those persons in whom a scrofulous habit has been engendered.

disease, the scourge of the human race, we may here observe, that consumption is merely a form of it, and that it is moreover hereditary, thus showing it to be a true blood disease.

Having referred to the fact of the lungs and skin being sup plementary organs, the principal duty of both being to aerate the blood, it may be interesting to lay before our readers the following extracts from the results of experiments bearing on this point, which have been made by Monsieur Fourcault with the view of ascertaining the effect of the suppression of transpiration by the skin, in animals, by coating their bodies with an impermeable varnish. The committee of the French Institute thus describes these experiments.

"The substances which he used were givet-glue, dextrine, pitch and tar, and several plastic compounds, sometimes the varnish was made to cover the whole of the animal's body; at other times only a more or less extensive part of it. The accidents which follow this proceeding, are more or less complete or incomplete, general or partial. In every case the health of the animals is soon much impaired and their life in danger. Those which have been submitted to those experiments, under our observation, have died in one or two days, and in some cases in a few hours only."

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*the

"In the opinion of the committee, these experiments are full of interest for the future,* experiments of M. Fourcault cannot fail to throw a new light upon the physiological and pathological phenomena, depending upon the double function of inhalation and exhalation of the cutaneous system."

Monsieur Fourcault himself, thus writes:

"The mucous membranes were not the only parts affected by the artificial suppression of the insensible perspiration. We also observed the production of serous effusions in the peri cardium, and even in the pleurae. These effusions thus demonstrate that dropsies are found in the same body as mucous discharges. Several dogs died with paraplegia, and could only drag themselves along on their forepaws; some died atrophied and their lungs contained miliary tubercules, which appeared to me from their whiteness, and softness to be of recent formation. It was therefore, now impossible to doubt the influence of the suppression of the insensible perspiration of the skin upon the changes in the blood, the mucous and serous exudations, and finally upon the development of local lesions.

"But the results of these experiments differ in toto according as the plastering is partial or general, or as it suspends the action of the skin incompletely or completely. In the first case the alteration of the blood is not carried so far, as to cause the dissolution of its organic elements; it can coagulate, and present, in some few cases, a buffy coat of little consistency, bearing some resemblance to that which is found in inflammatory blood. As to the tissues affected, they however appear to me to present the anatomical characteristics of the consequences of local inflammation.

"But when the application of very adhesive substances upon the whole of the body quickly suppresses the cutaneous exhalation, and consequently prevents the action of the air upon the skin, death takes place much more speedily, and appears to be the result of true asphyxia. The breathing of the animals experimented upon is difficult, they take deep inspirations in order to inhale a larger quantity of air than usual; their death is violent, and is often accompanied by convulsive movements. On dissection, we find in the veins, and the right cavities of the heart, sometimes also in the left, but very rarely in the arteries, a black diffluent blood, forming sometimes into soft and diffluent coagula, and coagulating very imperfectly when exposed to atmospherical air. This dissolution of the blood from the formation of large ecclymoses and of effusions into the lungs and other organs; the capillary vessels are usually injected. One can see that the alteration of the blood has been the true cause of the stagnation of the circulation in this order of vessels.*

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"It is important to state that man, in the same way as animals, dies from cutaneous asphgria when his body is covered by impermeable applications. I shall detail, in another work, the results of my researches upon this subject, and facts which still belong to general history will enter into the province of medicine. Thus at Florence, when Leo X., was raised to the pontificate, a child was gilt all over, in order to represent the golden age. This unfortunate child soon died, the victim of a physiological experiment of a novel kind. I have gilded, silvered and tinned several guinea-pigs, and all have died like the child at Florence."

Monsieur Fourcault in summing up his researches remarks as follows:

"Nasal catarrh, diarrhaea, paralysis, marasmus, convulsive

movements, and finally the phenomena of asphyxia are also the results of the same experiments. Cutaneous asphyxia may cause the death of man and animals; in this affection the blood presents, in the highest degree, the refrigerant, and stupefying qualities of VENOUS* blood."

The above extracts are our answer to those superficial medical objectors, who would argue, that death is not occasioned in the above cases by the exclusion of atmospheric air from the system, but by the suppression of poisonous salts secreted in the skin; the effects of the suppression of the most poisonous and irritating of these is well known to the physician, but the phenomena which they present bear no analogy to those presented in the case before us, which exhibit all the symptoms and appearance of true suffocation; if however the evidence of these experiments be not sufficient to convince him, we will be prepared to meet him, on a more convenient battle field, where arguments which would only prove tedious and unintelligible to the non-professionable reader, may be adduced without reserve, in support of our position.

Now if it be conceded that the main cause of consumption (tracing the disease back to its earliest stage) is to be found in an insufficient supply of oxgyen to the system (which certainly the success attendant on the treatment, based upon this theory would lead one to suppose) we would ask our readers seriousiy to reflect how can consumption be cured by drugging, and how can the much required oxygen be supplied to the system by any such proceeding? We think that the results of such a system afford a satisfactory answer to this question; failure marking its course wherever it has been tried. Again as regards the fashionable remedy of going abroad, how are we likely to get more oxygen supplied to us abroad than at home? A mild climate may certainly prove less irritating than our native air to a diseased and disordered lung and the suffering and uneasiness consequent on the irritation may be thereby allayed, but we are not a whit nearer being cured, nor have we properly gone to workt to remove the main spring and origin of the disease.

When blood is overloaded with carbon, and deprived of its necessary supply of oxygen, the term "Venous" is applied to it.

Where consumption has been relieved by residence abroad, the benefit derived must be attributed to the action on the skin produced by the hot climates to which the patient is usually ordered, but recovery in this way has been confined to very mild forms of the disease, and cannot be looked upon, as a scientific mode of treatment; the