of disease would disappear under such treatment as
under any other, yet there are probably not a few to whom it would be
utterly unadapted.

CHAPTER LXXII.

THE CLERGYMAN.

An Ohio clergyman, just setting out in his ministerial career, consulted
me, one day, about his health and future physical prospects. His nervous
system and cerebral centre had been over-taxed and partially prostrated;
and his digestive and muscular powers were suffering from sympathy. In
short, he was a run-down student, who, in order to be resuscitated,
needed rest.

It was not, however, the rest of mere inertia that he required, but rest
from those studies to which his attention had been long and patiently
confined. His bodily powers were, indeed, flagging with the rest; but
then it was impossible for him to be restored without _some_ exercise.
In truth, it was not so much a _rest_ of body, mind, or heart that he
needed, as a _change_.

I will tell you what a course he had been, for five or six years,
pursuing. Though his father was reckoned among the wealthier farmers of
Ohio, yet, having a large family to sustain and educate, he did not feel
at full liberty to excuse his children from such co-operation with him
as would not materially interfere with their studies. Hence they were
required--and this son among the rest--not only to be as economical as
possible, in all things, but also to earn as much as they could,
especially during their vacations. They were not, of course, expected to
do any thing which was likely to impair their health, but, on the
contrary, to take every possible pains to preserve the latter, and to
hold labor and study and every thing else in subserviency to it.

The son for whom I was requested to prescribe, not only attended to his
father's wishes and expectations, and endeavored to fulfil them, but
went much farther than was intended, and did more than he ought. Besides
keeping up with his class, he taught school a very considerable portion
of the time, so that his mental apparatus, as I have already more than
intimated, was continually over-taxed; and he had been a sufferer, more
or less, for several years, when I met with him.

My advice was that he should leave his studies, entirely, for two years,
and labor moderately, in the meantime, on his father's farm. His
principal objection to doing so, was, that he was already at an age so
much advanced, that it seemed to him like a wrong done to society, to
de