Antiquiores, tùm propiorum temporum Doctores, sed non eodem omnes successu, nec fortè eadem intentione. Prolixiores fuerunt Veteres, in illis δυνάμεσιν, αἷς διοκικεῖται τὸ ζῶον, ut ipsam púow Hippocratis describit Galenus lib. de Crisibus, et 1. 5. de Sympt. Caus. Facultatem Corporis nostri Rectricem optimo jure Naturæ nomine insigniendam, decernit. Sed inundavit hinc Facultatem variarum, congeries, & omnem Physiologic antiquioris paginam adeò absolvit, ut nihil offenderetur, quam meræ Facultates, Vitalis, Naturalis, Animalis, Genitalis, Rationalis, Expultrix, Retentrix, Attractrix, Locomotrix, Coctrix, Excretrix, Sanguifica, Chylifica, &c. &c.'

To the Homœopathic delusion, or shall we call it 'persuasion,' whose chief merit and mischief it is to be 'not anything so much as a nothing which looks like a something,' we owe the recognition, in a much more practical way than before, of the selfregulating principle in living bodies-the physician inside the skin. It is hardly necessary to state, that the best modern exposition of this doctrine, and its relation to therapeutics, is to be found in SIR JOHN FORBES' courageous, thoughtful, and singularly candid little book, Art and Nature in the Cure of Disease.

Many years ago, a countryman called on a physician in York. He was in the depths of dyspeptic despair, as often happens with the chawbacons. The doctor gave him some plain advice as to his food, making a thorough change, and ended by writing a prescription for some tonic, saying, "Take that, and come back in a fortnight.' In ten day Giles came in, blooming and happy, quite well. The doctor was delighted, and not a little proud of his skill. He asked to see what he had given him. Giles said he hadn't got it. 'Where was it?' 'I took it, Sir.' 'Took it! what have you done with it?' 'I ate it, Sir! you told me to take it!' We once told this little story to a Homœopathic friend, adding, 'Perhaps you think the iron in the ink may be credited with the cure?' 'Well,' said my much-believing friend, there is no saying.' No saying, indeed! and no thinking either! such matters lie at least in the region of the non-knowable.

DR. HENRY MARSHALL AND

MILITARY HYGIENE.

To labour diligently, and to be content,' says the son of Sirach, 'is a sweet life.'

My greatest delight has been to promote a melioration of the condition of soldiers, and in the prosecution of this important object, I hope I have done some good.'-Dr. Marshall.

DR. HENRY MARSHALL AND

MILITARY HYGIENE.

TWEN WENTY-FIVE years ago, the British soldier (taking ninety-nine out of a hundred) was a man who, when in the eye of the law a minor, had in a fit of passion, or when drunk, or from idleness, want, or to avoid civil punishment, sold his personal liberty, his life-in one word, himself to the State without reservation. In return for this, he got a bounty of £3, 10s., which was taken back as soon as he was attested, to pay for his outfit-his kit, as it is called, —and he enjoyed an annuity of is. id. a day, out of which, after paying his share of the mess, his shoes, etc., there remained of daily surplus about 3d. The State provided lodging and medical attendance, and the name, but little else, of religious and general education. In return, he put his will in the hands of the State, and was bound, at any time, and upon any ground, to destroy any other man's life, or lose his

1

own, at the word of command. He was, as rapidly as possible, drilled into that perfect man-slaying instrument, that consummate destroyer, that we and our enemies know him to be. And having no hope, no self-respect, no spiritual progression, nothing to look forward to, he sank into the sullen, stupid, indomitable human bull-dog. He lived in hopeless celibacy, shut out from the influence of any but the worst of the other sex. He became proverbially drunken, licentious, and profane. He knew his officer only to obey him, and often to hate and despise him. Memory and hope died within him; for what had he to remember but his own early follies and fatal enlistment, or to anticipate but the chances

1

1 Every one knows Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh's account of this in that fantastic and delightful book Sartor Resartus:— 'What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net-purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five-hundred souls. From these, by certain "Natural Enemies" of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them: she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two-thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot, in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting