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from the habit, but have felt difficulty in doing

so.

We would, therefore, in concluding our remarks, offer a few directions for their benefit.

Before laying down our rules, however, we must put a few questions to them, and if these questions be answered in the affirmative, they may rest assured that there is some hope of their being cured of these hurtful practices:

Do you desire to be free from the habit of using narcotics? Would you, if you could, cease the use of opium, tobacco, snuff, or alcohol to-day?

Are you willing to do anything for yourselves in this matter? We know you will do whatever you like to do if you can. What we want you to do then is to follow our rules for a sufficient length of time.

First. As to opium, tobacco, and alcoholic liquors. Whenever you feel a desire for your accustomed dose, or pipe, or glass, before you touch it, resort to the use of pure cold water. Drink a pint or more- -as much as you can get into the stomach; then apply the water freely to your head and face. Persevere in doing so until your appetite for these narcotics ceases.

Second. As to snuff. Whenever you wish to take your usual pinch, have recourse immediately to a basin of cold water, and from your hand sniff a quantity into your nostrils, and then let it out again; continue doing this for some minutes. The object is to bring the

water into contact with the nerves which have been perverted by the snuff, and if a little pains be taken, the method here prescribed will be the means of entirely restoring them to their natural healthy condition.

We have no hesitation in saying that if these rules be adopted, a liking for the narcotics named may be entirely eradicated. This may be done often in a few days, or weeks at most, and always with perfect safety and beneficial results.

The late Sir Benjamin Brodie had a horror of narcotics, especially of tobacco, and made it his practice, when consulted by a smoking patient, to take down a volume containing an article contributed by Dr. Parris to a medical encyclopædia, which exhibited, in forcible language, the deleterious properties of the nicotian weed. Scared by the earnest warnings of Sir Benjamin, and by the strenuous protest against the use of tobacco which the great surgeon borrowed from the page of Dr. Parris, many an epileptic sufferer has gone forth from the well-known house in Savilerow with a resolute determination to abjure smoking thenceforward and for ever.

A sick man's appetite desires that most which would increase his evil.

We have all a propensity to grasp at forbidden fruit.

We should enjoy our health when good; be patient when it is bad; and never apply violent remedies except in extreme necessity.

ON MENTAL EXCITEMENT.

Oh! grief hath changed me since you saw me last
And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand,
Have written strange defeatures in my face.

;

EVERY observant person knows that the vicissitudes of life, even in the ordinary hourly intercourse of society, subject us to a great variety of mental emotions. Not one of these emotions, however transient, passes away without having had an effect upon some part of the body. Every degree of mental anxiety, from whatever cause; every little disappointment; every excitement, either of joy or of sorrow; every feeling of shame, surprise, or alarm, has its action upon the functions of the body; and when we consider the many thousands engaged in commercial speculations, the numbers tortured by failures in business, by disappointed ambition, blighted affections, or sudden losses, by the angry excitement of political and religious warfare, and by petty social troubles, in every grade of life, we need not be surprised at the fact, that the amount of infirmity and disease from mental causes alone is beyond all calculation. A man may, through favourable circumstances, travel

comparatively unscathed through the physical evils which surround him, but he is so hemmed in by moral agencies, that sorrow or anxiety, in one form or another, is sure to overtake him sooner or later, and when it does overtake him, is sure to do its work upon that frail tenement, his body.

Although it is almost superfluous to enter here into a minute explanation as to this subject, still it is necessary that a few facts should be stated, showing how mental excitement, in various forms, operates upon the body and affects the health. It is through the nerves that emotions of the mind are communicated to the body, and that the vitality of every portion of our system is sustained. The nervous system is, so far as our physical functions are concerned, the seat of power and the source of health.

When the mind is subjected to some strong emotion, nervous power will be withdrawn from the stomach, digestion will be impeded, and only a small quantity of food will be assimilated. The stomach will therefore call for less food, and the appetite become reduced, insufficient nutriment will be taken, and, as a consequence, the health will suffer.

Anxiety of mind will produce such effects, but anxiety and grief do not affect the digestive organs alone; the circulation becomes languid, and the sufferer, absorbed in one or other of

these emotions, becomes incapable of any great exertion either of body or mind.

Strong alternations of hope and fear, as in the excitements of ambition or speculation, affect more particularly the action of the heart and the motion of the blood, causing feverish excitement of the brain and the heart, not unfrequently ending in disease of those important organs; and when the functions of these organs are deranged, the health must of necessity give way. What the ultimate effect upon the body may be will depend, in a great measure, upon individual peculiarities of constitution.

Many mental emotions have an instantaneous and powerful effect upon the action of the heart. When the mind is paralysed by fear, the contractile power of the heart being relaxed, the venous blood rushes back to fill its cavities; the skin consequently becomes pale and blanched, and if the frame be very weak, or the emotion very excessive, the action of the heart ceases, and fainting ensues-sometimes even death.

When, on the other hand, the mind is excited by a pleasurable emotion, the action of the heart receives an impulse of nervous energy, a thrill of agreeable sensation pervades the body, the countenance becomes radiant, and the skin is suffused with an increased flow of blood. These are the general results; but even this emotion may be so excessive as to vent itself in such

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