late; but do not ask for miracles! Do not suppose, that art can furnish, at command, the phosphate wanting in the bones of scrofulous individuals, when the whole constitution is debilitated, and life endangered. Do not ask of science to restore a tuberculous, suppurating, or gangrenous lung, as if by magic; for science cannot reach the pectoral cavity, to cauterize the wounds, and separate the gangrenous from the healthy part. Ask of man, things that are in his domain, and not those that are in the power of the Deity alone! but if parents be gifted with reason, let them not wait till the disease has reached its apogée ere they call for the assistance of art.

When parents are subject either to madness or epilepsy, or when there is scrofulous predisposition, and that there have been several victims to consumption in the same family, let the children be guided by a clever medical man, not by a pedagogue. "The most important and practical inference that can be induced," says Dr. Brown, "from the knowledge of the hereditary propensity of certain diseases, is that the descendants of those who labour under any hereditary disease should be shielded as far as possible from its exciting causes; for the predisposition is of various degrees; in some so intense, that at a certain period, the disease occurs by the spontaneous act of the constitution; but in others so

slight, that the co-operation of numerous agents is required to render it manifest.

Hence, the descendants of the gouty should observe the most rigid temperance; certain climates should, if possible, be selected till a certain period of life, for those of the consumptive. The offspring of the maniacal should be guarded, as much as possible, from mental irritation, and from all habits of life calculated to call their inherent tendency into action; whilst a meritorious and invigorating regimen and warmth should be appropriated to those who there is reason to think have derived the scrofulous diathesis from their ancestors. Another practical inference should be the propriety of avoiding matrimonial alliances between kindred families, as few are free from some congenital weakness or susceptibility.

CHAP. II.

Cerebral and Nervous Constitutions.

THE ancients termed diathesis that aptitude or facility with which some persons contract disease; diathesis may, therefore, be considered as synonymous with organic predisposition. Predisposition to certain diseases cannot be denied; they are not the same in all individuals. In children, born of parents nervous and irritable, or subject to any cerebral affection, excitation instead of acting on the whole economy, is concentrated towards the brain, and manifested in infancy by convulsions, chorea, epilepsy, and idiotcy, and in adult age by hysteria, hypochondria, or madness.

During childhood," says Bichat, "all that relates to sensibility is forcibly marked; the nervous system compared to the muscular system is proportionately more considerable than in the succeeding years. It was undoubtedly this consideration which induced Alphonse Leroy, Hoffman, Sthalh, and other learned men, to suppose that the seat of all acute diseases was to be found in the brain. Without exclusively sharing the opinion of these authors, we cannot fail to observe, that there exists in childhood a great disposition to cerebral diseases. At this period of life, the evolutions, and organic diseases, are generally reverberated towards the centre of

sensibility, of which the trouble and emotion are soon manifested.

Who has not seen convulsions during dentition, during rapid growth, or owing to any moral commotion, or serious visceral disorder? Most authors have not failed to signalize the influence of the whole organization on the brain. It would be easy to show on the other side, the influence of the brain on the whole economy. Where the nerves do not reach, life is arrested during the fœtal state. A paralyzed limb, or a limb deprived of cerebral stimulus, is diseased and withered.

We do not write for the faculty, and we must, as much as possible, avoid entering into scientific questions: to us they would be of the highest possible interest, but our readers might not be prepared for them. It is difficult, however, nay, we may say impossible, that this work should be entirely free from what is medical, when we have to treat of deviations from the regular laws of life, which are so immediately in the province of medicine.

We find in the study of the anormal state, the division we originally established between the two species of constitution, which resume all individual varieties; and we shall soon find that the diseases of childhood are grouped round these two primitive elements-nervous matter, and sanguine fluid; and as all these cerebral affections have a common symptom, made evident by the disorder of the sensibility, or the

movements at which the nervous system presides, we shall see that all the affections depending on the alteration of the sanguine element-principle of all growth, will present a character common in the alteration of the sanguine fluid, and its products.

In the midst of this disorder of growth and organization, we still find a certain degree of order. Thus, convulsions, chorea, epilepsy, idiotcy, and madness, are found in individuals endowed with a nervous constitution, according as the nervous state may have been more or less excited or deranged; in diseases principally dependent on the fluids of the human body, we shall also find a sort of order in the midst of disorder. Thus scrofula, rachitis, tubercles, are only developed at certain periods. To prevent convulsions, would often prevent the diseases that succeed to them; to prevent scrofula, would often be to prevent consumption.

When the constitution is healthy, and the individual placed in favourable conditions, he will be developed almost alone, and with little care: in the contrary case, all will go wrong, and from bad to worse. In no circumstances is it more important to arrest the evil in its early stage, for convulsions and scrofula are the forerunners of a short and miserable life.

Let us now, in the interest of physical education, see in what manner we are to consider

convulsions, chorea, and epilepsy, so common in childhood.