strains and stimulations, until a day and a quarter of its hard work compressed into one day, a fourth of the vital spring of the organ for that day is lost for good, as so much taken from the sum total of life. She should know how the heart is sympathetically moved in its action, and may be weak or strong, regular or irregular, calm or excitable, by the influence of external impressions which, in passing, may seem nothing and yet be everything. She should learn that in early days the whole after life may be shaped, I may say, by the tone that is given to the heart, and that whether in its pilgrimage a Faintheart or a Greatheart shall occupy the stage on which a young life is to enter may turn absolutely on this one educational feat, the skill of the trainer of that susceptible mechanism, the human heart, while yet it is susceptible, fashionable and undetermined. Nor should she, in respect to the healthy organism, be less informed concerning that breath of life which is ever being breathed into the living thing by the Eternal Chemist whose constructions and resolutions are the motions, visible and invisible, of his eternal universe. The complete structure of those breathing lungs should be as plain before her as the outward form of the things she knows best. The course of the blood, like a curve from one side of the heart to its other side, through the maze of spongy lung-tissue, should be easily traced. The expansion of the six hundred millions of little vesicles of the lungs which the air inflates that it may, over so vast a surface, expose itself to the circulatory blood in its rapid passage through the vesicles; the change that takes place in the blood during the passage; the gas that is robbed from the air by the lungs; the gas that is given up to the air by the lungs ; the changes in the colour and character of the blood that attend these processes; the course of the changed blood, bearing its vital air, or oxygen, in myriads of tiny cells, through the arteries to the body at large; the spreading out of this blood over the vast sheet of minute vessels which make up the vital expanse, the vital furnace, the vital foundry of the body; the consumption of vital air there; the unloading of new material or pabulum there; the removal of old and effete structure there; and the recharge of the blood with the gaseous products of animal combustion there;-these things ought to be as familiar to the mind of our scholar as the commonest things in life; the letting in of air to feed the fire, the entrance of the servant with coals, the burning of the fire in the grate, the use of the fire for various domestic purposes, the opening of the ventilator to allow the smoke to ascend the chimney, and the removal of the ashes and débris that more new fuel may be supplied to keep the fire alive. Equally clear to her should be the leading facts bearing on that receptive system of the body into which the external universe transports itself; and from which, in reflex response, the acts of life, the expressions, the movements, the thoughts, return in wave-like repetition back again, to become themselves external phenomena, linked, as such, with all the visible universe. Those nervous centres, locked up in the skull and spinal cord, to receive and retain and remit; those doublyacting nervous cords, bearing the impressions to the centres and bringing them back again; those exquisite nerves, so finely set and balanced and distributed for play of reason and volition; and those other sympathetic nervous centres in the trunk of the body, allied to the viscera which they serve, and governing the automatic motions on which the volition has but indirect control,-centres of emotional and what is commonly understood as instinctive faculties,—these parts, these systems, all, in respect to general function and vital value, should be as familiar as the course of the sun, from which, in essence, they spring. And with these nervous organisms the fields of the senses, too, should be made clear; the outline of the plan of an organ of sense being as simply comprehended as the plan of a camera or other well-known human instrument. us. Let me interpose one practical illustration here of the value of knowledge bearing on the organs of the senses. Recall how many young people and middle-aged people are going about in spectacles, unable to see any object with the naked eye that is not uncomfortably near! Recall how many of these have also their back distorted! Why this strange combination of deformity? Mr. Liebreich has told The greater part of it is induced while acquiring the art of writing. When the body is still being formed and is unconsolidated, the child is permitted to sit with the chest and back bent forward, and with the eyes close to the paper. Thus the natural refraction of the lenses of the eyeball is permanently perverted; the parallel rays of light are brought to a focus before they reach the retina, and there is produced the deformity of short sight, for the correction of which an artificial lens or glass is required. At the same time the back, abnormally bent, retains its abnormality, and short-sight and curved spine go together, twin defects of one error which ignorance of the simplest principles permits the devoted and affectionate parent to overlook, as it were a necessary and therefore irrepressible and irremediable evil. Let us suppose that the women of our country were trained to a knowledge of the first and elementary truths about visual function, and is it not all but certain that another deformity would in a generation become virtually a physical misdemeanour of the past? To the knowledge of nervous function it would be advisable to add to the store of elementary principles a few facts respecting the glandular system of the body; that system of organs which produces digestive and other active secretions, the saliva, the bile, the pancreatic juice; which absorbs the food; which takes up and, as it were, drains the tissues and eliminates those fluids and excretions by which the effete and useless animal material is removed from the body. Of those little fleshy engines which clothe the skeleton, which are the active organs in animal motion, and which, impelled and directed by the nervous system, are the active workers, the night and day labourers of the body, the muscles, the woman should learn the strains and stimulations, until a day and a quarte Nor should she, in resp of little vesi chang proc OXY la T about acer from a. ges of so cised, shall d as far as d systematic an which the model of the s of the genus cular engines are engine, she should ith its outlines of form, She should ascertain up of two parts,—an organic of support, and an earthy part not be supplied with material for as without yielding a deformed skeleton. ic gelatinous part, it will become brittle ut, deprived of its earthy part, it will be dise weight of the body, and yield bended limb, diminutive form as the result of this one and of constructive material. The educated woman exquisite build and symmetry of the skeleton; en measurement of the cavities in which such vital organs and heart are placed; who had fixed in her mind's eye l curve of the spinal column; who had gathered the main the sustaining parts of the skeleton; would, moreover, the physical demonstration a series of inferences which w make her turn pale with dread and disgust whenever she one of her foolish sisters strangling her body in tight corset rous belt, to make it hideous as well as useless, or intent destroying the perfect arch of the foot in a contracted foot-vice elerated on a peg top. Lastly, the woman should attain so much instruction in reference to the membranous expanses of the body as to know them also. She should 90 study with special care that extended membranous expanse, sensitive to external influences of heat and cold, the skin. She should learn how this is a breathing surface, giving up from its myriads of little sweat-glands volumes of invisible water-vapour and gases, which, left in the body, must either be expelled by the lungs or remain to dull the sensorium and reduce physical activity. She should learn the necessity of keeping the surface of the skin in perfect cleanliness and condition for work, so that the bath, seen to be more than a luxury, should be considered as one of the necessities of the daily life, like a daily meal of cleanly substance. The living house thus learned, the sanitarian helpmate for man should be tempted to study, until she completely mastered it, the mysterious construction of that deadly-lively domicile, which until Woman as a Sanitary Reformer. Woman as a Sanitary Reformer. 675 exquisite nerves, an firely set and ing the impressions to the out and receive and retain and remit; the dv retson and volition; alti me 677 itect and builder have pitchforked into street and and contented wisdom of wigwam descent. She ke Madam Ischomachus, to grasp all the details, as the old Phoenician merchant, or as the nows the details of his immaculate craft so hurricane, or fire, all his resources are quire in these days to know this and ave to learn how the immaculate with at least moderate ventilation. how, most effectively and economically, arying seasons an even and equable temaim to consider in what way she could keep Ꮧ e free of that most objectionable of mischiefs, demand to have marked for her on a map or plan osition of every drain-pipe in the establishment, and st, with intelligent skill, on having every drain kept as atically clean as the china in the housemaid's cupboard, or the al covers that make so many bright and effective objects over ne dresser of the well-arranged kitchen. She would see, not trusting to the mere word of anyone, that those drains were properly ventilated, so that sewer air could never enter the domain except as a burglar might enter by special skill and violence, against which there is no absolute protection. She would learn enough of the chemistry of water to enable her to determine with as much facility as she could tell when a looking-glass is clear enough to reflect back, without fault, the image of her face, whether a water was wholesome and drinkable; and she would acquire a sufficient amount of skill to direct how an impure water might be purified and made safe for her and hers to drink and to use for all domestic requirements. She would see that sunlight found its way as freely as is possible into every apartment. She would see that damp had no place in any apartment. She would insist that where any living thing that ought not to be present in a house exists in it, that house is unclean, and in some way uninhabitable for health; since health will not abide with anything that is uncleanly. She would see to the annual purification of the dwelling as though a Passover were still a universal belief and practice. She would make the very act of cleaning and cleansing clean; she would make the very places for cleaning and cleansing, the scullery, the landing, the bath-room, the laundry, the cynosures of the household. In the art of perfecting health, the educated woman should bring her best energies to understand the selection, the purification, the preparation, and the administration of foods and drinks. have shown from striking examples how, by a simple application of knowledge, she might prevent two great national disfigurements and disgraces of ignorance. She might go far beyond that advancement, great as it is. As she would keep seeds of pestilence from I structure. She should also be made aware of the advantages of so training the muscles to work that they shall be daily exercised, shall not be subjected to overstrain, shall be equally subjected as far as possible to healthful labour, and, by good and simple and systematic culture, shall form that external build of man and woman which the classic ancients of the classic age would accept as the model of the most powerful, symmetrical, and beautiful of the types of the genus homo. And of the bony skeleton, on which the muscular engines are laid, the passive framework and levers of the engine, she should gather enough information to be conversant with its outlines of form, its joints, and its chemical construction. She should ascertain from her teacher that the bone, made up of two parts,-an organic gelatinous part for shape and basis of support, and an earthy part for strength and durability,-cannot be supplied with material for construction in unequal portions without yielding a deformed skeleton. That, deprived of its organic gelatinous part, it will become brittle and easily fractured; that, deprived of its earthy part, it will be distorted, bent under the weight of the body, and yield bended limb, crooked spine, and diminutive form as the result of this one and serious deprivation of constructive material. The educated woman who had seen the exquisite build and symmetry of the skeleton; who had taken measurement of the cavities in which such vital organs as the lungs and heart are placed; who had fixed in her mind's eye the graceful curve of the spinal column; who had gathered the main facts about the sustaining parts of the skeleton; would, moreover, collect from the physical demonstration a series of inferences which would make her turn pale with dread and disgust whenever she detected one of her foolish sisters strangling her body in tight corset and murderous belt, to make it hideous as well as useless, or intent on destroying the perfect arch of the foot in a contracted foot-vice elevated on a peg top. Lastly, the woman should attain so much instruction in reference to the membranous expanses of the body as to know them also. She should study with special care that extended membranous expanse, so sensitive to external influences of heat and cold, the skin. She should learn how this is a breathing surface, giving up from its myriads of little sweat-glands volumes of invisible water-vapour and gases, which, left in the body, must either be expelled by the lungs or remain to dull the sensorium and reduce physical activity. She should learn the necessity of keeping the surface of the skin in perfect cleanliness and condition for work, so that the bath, seen to be more than a luxury, should be considered as one of the necessities of the daily life, like a daily meal of cleanly substance. The living house thus learned, the sanitarian helpmate for man should be tempted to study, until she completely mastered it, the mysterious construction of that deadly-lively domicile, which until |