Tubercular diseases, their variety and malignancy-Conflicting Physic remedies all abortive-The testimony of Sir John Forbes-Sources of Tubercular disease-The curative properties of the Bath and Hydropathy-A change of climate delusive and unnecessary- What sound Physiology dictates to be done.

CONSUMPTION has been incidentally alluded to as one of those forms of disease over which the Bath exercises a powerfully remedial influence. "Among the whole range of human infirmities," observes Sir James Clarke, "tuberculous diseases are the most deserving the study of the physician, whether we regard their immense frequency or appalling mortality. Confined to no country, age, sex, or condition of life, they destroy a larger proportion of mankind than all other chronic diseases taken together. If we add to consumption, tuberculous disease of the glandular system, of the brain, of the large joints, of the spinal column, &c., we shall probably be within the truth in stating that one-third part of the mortality of this country arises from tuberculous diseases; and if to this frightful destruction of mankind we add the numerous crippled and disfigured sufferers whom we daily meet with, the blind, the deaf, and the maniacal-for mania is not an infrequent form of this disease-and, above all, the painful reflection that the predisposition to this destructive class of maladies is transmitted from the parent to the offspring-we shall surely have no need to press upon medical practitioners the claim which tuberculous disease has, above all others, upon their earnest consideration. -Cyclopædia Pract. Med., Art. Tubercular Phthisis.

Like cholera and other serious diseases, consumption has utterly baffled all the resources of Drug medication. The remedies proposed have been as various and conflicting as the opinions entertained respecting the nature and cause of the disease itself. As Sir John Forbes observes:

"It is a melancholy fact that no plan of treatment hitherto proposed can boast of even the humblest success in permanently arresting the progress of this dreadful malady. It is at once melancholy and humiliating to review the enormous farrago of drugs and agents of different kinds brought forward, within the last few years, as more or less infallible cures for Phthisis; brought forward, too, for the most part, by men within the pale of the profession, and then to reflect on the present position of those remedies in the estimation of all rational and experienced practitioners. Should not this consideration alone teach us that the propounders of such remedies were all on the wrong track?"—British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. xix., p. 140.

The following are only a portion of the "remedies" Sir John alludes to:-Chlorine inhalations; iodine inhalations; mercury; hydrocyanic acid; creosote; iodide of iron; digitalis; sal ammoniac; carbonate of potassa; common salt; chloride of lime; inhalations of the vapour of tar; the production of emphysema by a system of forced respiration; dry cupping or traction; liquor potassa; the application of a seton; daily vomiting under the influence of emetics; iodide of potass and sarsaparilla; cod liver oil; wet linen rags to the chest; mechanical extraction of the tuberculous matter through the walls of the chest; besides which there have been numberless other quackeries recommended and prescribed by physicians more eminent for the practice they have managed to obtain than for the possession of physiological wisdom to guide them. The propounders of all such remedies, so repugnant to Nature, could not possibly be on the right track, for, if Consumption is ever to be arrested or cured, it is by following what Sir John describes as "the physiological, hygienic, or natural system of curing diseases, in contradistinction to the pharmaceutical or empirical drug plan."

That Consumption is curable by such a plan of treatment,

which is essentially the Hydropathic plan, admits of no doubt whatever, but, as a general rule, that treatment is not resorted to in time. In the early stages of the disease, when its cure is most practicable, the baneful practice of drugging is followed, until between the drugs and the disease the constitution of the patient becomes so impaired that cure is hopeless, and all the most skilful Hydropathist can then do is to mitigate suffering and procrastinate the fatal issue.

No thoughtful, experienced, and conscientious practitioner is now to be found professing faith in any plan of Drug treatment as curative of Phthisis. Dr. Hayle Walshe, one of the most recent writers on the subject, admits that medical art may aim at palliation, but cannot legitimately aim at curing. He says:

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Experience shows that the treatment of the phthisical may, with legitimate confidence, aim at either maintaining a status in quo-at producing -slight local and general improvement or marked improvement of this kind -at effecting a total removal of subjective symptoms, while the physical signs remain partially active-or at accomplishing total removal of the symptoms, and bringing about a quiescent state of the physical signs, while the general health, weight, and vigor have improved to such an extent that the patient shall believe himself totally free from disease, and that the medical observer might be disposed to share his opinion, did not passive physical changes remain.

"I say medical art may legitimately aim at these ends, because, on the one hand, these ends have been actually obtained; and, on the other, the man has not yet appeared who can point to results more perfect than the best of these, as the positive, direct, and traceable effect of any known system of medication. This latter clause is not in the least at variance with the well-known fact, that Phthisis sometimes spontaneously undergoes permanent suspension of its course."-Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Lungs, third edition, p. 501.

But the system of medication which Dr. Walshe recommends, as likely to bring about any of these partial results is not confined to Drugs, but is largely Hygienic, for Hydropathy has already achieved the signal triumph of having, to a considerable extent, revolutionized physic practice in the treatment of chronic disease. The "heroic practice" of a quarter of a -century ago is now almost universally superseded, yet Physic

Doctors, while they are learning to pronounce the term Hygiene, still rail at Hydropathic principles and sneer at their application; at the same time, however, they covertly pilfer those principles and apply them in their own practice, for no sensible practitioner has now faith in the "pharmaceutical filth" he works with to cure any chronic disease.

Even Dr. Walshe concludes that "equal in importance to the medicinal treatment of the consumptive is their Hygienic management," but the result is that, by combining such opposite and antagonistic systems of treatment, the good naturally produced by "Hygienic management" is neutralised by the destructive drugging of the "Medicinal," and even when not entirely neutralised, the good produced is falsely ascribed to the "medicinal treatment," and thus the delusion is kept afloat that there is some natural remedial virtue in Physic-that drugging, in any form, is a natural and salutary process.

Tuberculous disease is either the product of predisposing causes acting on an inherited predisposition, or is the effect of improper habits of life that induce tuberculous cachexia-that is, a depraved condition of the body which predisposes to the disease.

I. "That pulmonary consumption is an hereditary disease-in other words," says Sir James Clark, "that the tuberculous constitution is transmitted from parent to child, is a fact not to be controverted; indeed, we regard it as one of the best established points in the etiology of disease.". Parents labouring under tuberculous cachexia not only entail on their offspring a disposition to the same affection, but there are other diseases a predisposition to which is also transmitted by that bodily condition of parents. Dyspepsia, which results from an impaired state of the digestive organs, is so inherited, and is the prolific source of torturing ailments that

"Make sleep a pain,

And turns its balm to wormwood."

"The mischief which springs from the disorders of the functions of digestion is not limited to the individual," says Dr. T. J. Todd;

"it extends to the offspring; for the disposition of these diseases being hereditary and increasing in virulence as it descends, the dyspepsia of one generation becomes scrofula, consumption, or some other malignant disease in the succeeding ones; hence the decay and extinction of families, and all the manifold attendant miseries." "Of all diseases," says Sir James Clark, we consider dyspepsia the most fertile source of cachexia of every form, for this plain reason, that a healthy condition of the digestive organs, and a proper performance of their functions, are essential to the due preparation of the food, and consequently to the supply of healthy nourishment to the body. The adjusting powers of the system may do much to correct a disordered condition of the different functions concerned in the progress of assimilation, by means of the increased activity of the healthy organs; but the system cannot continue long in a healthy state when any one important function connected with nutrition is materially deranged."

Here, then, we have one great source of tuberculous disease, and it is now generally admitted that the medicinal treatment" of children with a view to correct constitutional predispositions, and obviate those derangements which increase and develop such predispositions, is not only utterly futile and illusory, but positively injurious. Medicine only tends to magnify the latent evil-to nurse it into mischievous and fatal maturity, while the only treatment that can on sound physiological principles hope for success-nay, ensure success-when skilfully directed and judiciously followed, is what Sir John Forbes characterised as "the physiological, hygienic, or natural system in contradistinction to the pharmaceutical or empirical drug plan"—that is, Hydropathic treatment which, as we have explained (page 216), keeps inherited predispositions in check, counteracts or eradicates them altogether, by strengthening and invigorating the natural functions of life.

We have seen how strongly enlightened scientific members of the medical profession have testified in favour of the Bath as the most generally applicable, the most powerful, salutary,