e milk. Fruits, either
raw or cooked, were frequently among the staples at dinner, but never at
supper.

This treatment, with slight variations, would be applicable to most
persons suffering with lingering complaints, and to persons in health,
as a means of invigorating their systems; but my present purpose is,
chiefly, to speak of it as a remedial agency in the particular case of
this young man.

I had hoped to be able to effect a cure on him in about a month. But I
was happily disappointed in finding him recover so fast that he was
dismissed and sent home on the twenty-fifth day. Nor has his consumptive
tendency ever again appeared with much severity. Since the spring of
1856--now between two and three years--it has not appeared at all.

This method of cure, by deep breathing, consists simply in using the
lungs freely, without overworking them. They may be overworked as well
as used too little; though the danger is generally in the latter
direction. They are made, most undoubtedly, for a great amount of
action, in breathing, conversation, singing, reading, etc.; and yet, in
all these respects, they are sadly neglected.

Our ordinary conversation is such as hardly to exercise the lungs at
all. We talk with the mouth and throat rather than the lungs. So is it,
for the most part, with our singing. And, as for breathing, we only
breathe a little way down, even when our dress is such as to form no
impediment. Full breathing, except in making violent efforts, is hardly
known.

CHAPTER LXXX.

SPIRIT-DOCTORING.

One of the most amusing incidents of my "Forty Years among Pills and
Powders," is found at full length of detail in the following chapter.
The amusement it affords has, however, a tinge of sadness.

A young man came under my care in the early part of the year 1854, who,
for the sake of convenience, I will call Thomas. He was about eighteen
years of age, but as delicate, sensitive, and effeminate as a female
directly from Broadway would have been, or as a plant reared in a
hothouse. In truth, he had been reared very much like many females of
the present day, in a manner entirely sedentary--the creature of
over-tenderness and over-kindness.

His disease was scrofula; but, with his scrofulous tendencies were
conjoined some other difficulties, more obscure and still more
unmanageable. His joints were enlarged; and in particular portions of
his body were various watery swellings or sacs.

As it was a