that some persons are more susceptible of these attacks than others, and the practical question is how may this susceptibly be remedied. The morbid impression on the mucous membrane, leading to catarrh, cough, etc., is sometimes first felt locally in the nose, and as the membrane is continuous, it passes on and downward to the bronchia. If we can harden, so to speak, the membrane, we render the attack less likely.

I. Habitual smokers are, as a rule, less susceptible to attacks of catarrh and bronchitis than those who do not smoke.

2. The habitual use of cold water, simply, or with the addition of a teaspoonful of common table salt to half-a-pint of water, as a gargle to the throat, is very useful.

3. An astringent gargle used freely night and morning.

4. Friction over the throat externally with a rough towel wetted with cold water once or twice daily.

When the attack begins-i.e., the cold is caught -it may be arrested in the nasal cavities, or at the upper part of the air-passages by applying freely

the vapour of pure ether. Inspiring it by the nostrils from a small wide-mouthed phial, and expiring it through the mouth; or the contrary way, when the glottis is first struck. This proceeding cannot be extolled too highly; it is very efficacious. And even when cough is established, or the lower bronchia affected, it will afford the most speedy and safe relief.

The means recommended for treating cough are innumerable. Little or no discrimination is exercised, and hundreds of lives fall victims to misapplied remedies.

At first, when bronchitis of a sharper kind comes on, the fluid poured out by the membrane and coughed up is fluid and frothy. The use of opiates and other medicines to arrest it in this stage is attended with great danger. In fact, the physician only should guide the treatment.

When the secretion becomes thick and slimy, opiates are, and will be, used. But if the specific action of the Thapsus verbascum (mullein) were known, it would be universally substituted.

Chronic cough in aged persons, with expectora

tion of much mucus, must be cautiously dealt with, as all judicious writers testify; but the beneficial influence of thapsus, internally or when smoked, is not known, or it would be had recourse to more frequently. The use of opiates should be locally, and in very minute quantity. It is a clumsy and dangerous way of arresting a cough in aged persons to give them doses of opium, laudanum, or morphia, so large as to affect the local trouble only through the brain.

There is one domestic remedy which cannot be too highly extolled, inasmuch as it never does harm, is easily applicable, and confers great benefit, even often to the extent of effecting a perfect cure: and it is equally useful in the earliest stage of bronchitis as in old chronic cases. I mean the inhalation of the vapour of water heated to near boiling. If no instrument is at hand, a narrowmouthed jug may be used. The vapour breathed in through the mouth, and expelled through the nostrils. It is best done when the patient is in bed, and continued for fifteen or twenty minutes. The hot vapour soothes the membrane, removes the secretions, and allays irritation, and thus gene

rally gives a night's rest from the cough. See note on apparatus.

THE HEART.

This is one of the most important organs of the whole body. Its structure appears at first sight to be very complicated; but its functions being entirely mechanical, it is readily understood. The heart is a double force-pump, having two receptacles appended to it, and being provided with valves to direct the course of the fluid (the blood) on which it acts. Its cavities are hollow muscles, by the contraction of which the blood is moved, and its circulation throughout the whole body effected. These cavities contract in succession. One receives the blood through the vessels from all parts of the body. These vessels are the veins. It passes it into another, which throws or injects it through the lungs, whence it returns into a third cavity. From this it passes into a fourth (the most powerful of all), which forces it again through the arteries into every part of the body. This constitutes the circulation of the blood, for the discovery of which Harvey is so celebrated.

By slightly compressing any artery with the finger, we feel the jets of the current: this is the pulse. In health, the action of the several parts of the heart are regular, rythmical, and produce pulsations numbering from fifty to eighty or ninety in a minute. The pulse is quickest in childhood, gradually becoming slower in adult life, and is slowest in old age. Of course, I mean in a state of health.

Excitement of any kind, mental emotions, fever, inflammation, and other disorders, render the pulse more frequent than natural. Some diseases, particularly of the brain, cause it to beat more slowly.

There are many other qualities of the pulse besides its speed which we notice, corresponding to, and significant of, changes in the action of the heart. Thus we have a hard and a soft pulse, full and small, irregular, intermittent, fluttering, etc. Moreover, we are able by the ear, aided by the stethoscope, to ascertain the state of the heart at any time.

It is one of the marvels of our nature that the action of the heart and the consequent circu