of a morning is one that seems as far as possible beyond the reach of physic; but even for that typical example of a conscious voluntary habit, the aid of drugs has been invoked, as the following will show.

Among other eminent literary characters who have felt what Dr. Bain calls "the volitional solicitations of a strong massive indulgence" to be too much for them, was James Boswell, the author of Dr. Johnson's 'Life.' In that biography he has the following remarks with reference to his difficulty in getting up of a morning after he had been wakened :* "I said [to Johnson] that was my difficulty, and wished there could be some medicine invented which would make one rise without pain, which I never did, unless after lying in bed a very long time. Perhaps there may be something in the stores of nature which could do this. I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually, but that would give pain, as it would counteract my internal inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the vis inertiæ, and give elasticity to the muscles. As I imagine that the human body may be put, by the operation of other substances, into any state in which it has ever been, and as I have experienced a state in which rising from bed was not disagreeable, but easy, nay, sometimes agreeable; I suppose that this state may be produced, if we knew by what."

Johnson's reply on this occasion is wanting in its usual bluntness and force, for the excellent reason *Life of Johnson,' chap. xli.

that he himself, like Swift and many more of the literary class, was a late riser, and could hardly help joining in Boswell's wish for "some medicine which would make one rise without pain."

Besides the habits that are based upon conscious and voluntary actions, I have purposely omitted a very obvious class of morbid habits which fall more properly within the sphere of unconscious memory, namely, epilepsy, chorea, and hysteria. Among these diseases we find a good many sufficiently familiar instances not only of habit becoming ingrained in the individual, and transmissible to the offspring, but also of the still more remarkable property of mimetic contagiousness for others. An interesting chapter might be compiled of a variety of cures of these complaints, and of hysteria in particular, exhibiting them as habit-breaking cures.* Having given much space to the more remote or dubious instances of unconscious memory or habit in disease, it will not be necessary for

* Dr. Weir Mitchell ( Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System,' 2nd ed., 1885, p. 161) records the following cure in a case of “habitchorea " :- "He took at first a good deal of valerianate of zinc, and had cold douches to the spine, and also arsenic internally. Meanwhile he was taken from school and set free in Virginia on the sea coast to ride, swim, shoot, and fish. Notwithstanding these wholesome aids, we got no further in the way of relief until we began to use hypodermic injections of arsenic. For this Fowler's solution without the lavender was used thrice a week, in doses rising from two drops to twelve; and, as this heroic medication was followed by rapid subsidence of the symptoms, it was continued for nearly three months. A sea voyage and residence at an English school completed his cure, and then we had also the favouring influence of approaching puberty."

me to enlarge upon these more admitted and obvious instances.

The doctrine of habit, and the rule of alterative treatment apply, also, to a large and miscellaneous class of cases, many of which do not fall readily under the heads of a nosological classification. Such are the conditions when people are "out of sorts," or "run down," or overworked and needing a change, or merely bored by ennui and want of occupation, or suffering from the tedium vitæ in one form or another. To do the same things, in the same way, in the same succession day after day, and with the same degree of zest, or rather want of zest, is the commonest of all sources of morbid habit. The art of living, like the art of dining, or the pursuit of pleasure at large, is based upon the principle of change or variety. Most people require from time to time some fillip or stimulus, or something to take them out of themselves. due administration of such alteratives calls for some exercise of the imagination. George Eliot somewhere says that a good many persons have no other ecstasy

The

-or standing-ground outside themselves-than that which is provided by gin. Not always more intelligent or more permeated by a free play of imagination is the routine of society's so-called pleasures, although they are primarily designed to counteract the monotony of living. Even Watson's "good dinner with extra glass or two of wine" would fail of its end, unless it were resorted to in the spirit of that famous repast of Milton's:

Of Attic taste, with wine; whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air.

He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

There is one alterative remedy, not in the drug class, which requires a more special reference-I mean a trip to sea. The change from terra firma to the mobility of water, from the land atmosphere to that of the ocean, from the life ashore to that on board ship, is a very radical kind of change; and where benefit results from a sea-voyage, the good effects may be claimed as largely alterative. But a sea-voyage is something of a two-edged weapon; and there is no doubt that it has been prescribed too indiscriminately. I shall content myself with giving a single case, where the undoubted benefit got from a trip to sea may be reasonably set down as an alterative effect in the sense of habit-breaking or memory-effacing.

The particulars were told to me by the patient, who is a resident Fellow of a college at Cambridge; and he was afterwards good enough to write them down for me (6th January, 1882). I may premise that the illness was directly and solely due to a concussion of the head, or neck, or back, from a fall in the huntingfield.

"Your general view of my case is correct. The injury, I believe, was a slight concussion of the brain. The immediate symptoms passed away (after a week or two), and then showed themselves again some three months later in the manner described in your letter, e.g. loss of power in the legs (a sort of numbness in the heel) and general debility. I ate and slept very well, but could not exert myself. I have no

doubt the symptoms were aggravated by unconscious neglect (I went through all the work and excitement of the May term.) Then, in June, I was violently sick, after a journey, and by degrees became seriously ill. [He then consulted a London physician," who prescribed lying down as much as possible."] In July I went to the seaside for two or three weeks. In August I was up in Yorkshire two or three weeks, but could not shoot on the moors. Then came the chance of a cruise. I think I was on board the yacht something more than a fortnight in September cruising about in the Channel, and derived the greatest possible benefit in every way. I should no doubt have regained my strength much sooner could I have prolonged the voyage, but I had to return to Cambridge for the Michaelmas quarter-day; and then came the October term with our audit and other engagements, which I got through as well as I could, improving slowly, but feeling all the time that the cruise had given me a real start which I never lost. I have always been fond of the sea.

"I take it, the benefit in such cases as mine is due to the buoyancy of motion and the fresh air giving keen appetite without the fatigue of exercise and the entire absence of care or worry-the dolce far niente sort of life-combined with a pleasing sense of change and novelty in watching, or taking part in, the management of the vessel."

This case of shock to the spinal cord and (or) brain, like other cases of the same, illustrates the memorydoctrine in one or two points. The long and serious train of symptoms were the effect of a single commotion, which was probably molecular only. Secondly, the serious symptoms showed themselves first after an interval of some three months-an illustration of that postponement of liability which would appear to be a special form of unconscious retentiveness. Thirdly, the serious symptoms threatened not only to continue but to go from bad to worse, as they often do in such injuries. The improvement which followed the trip to sea was too marked, in the judgment of the patient,