the
one is preservative and conservative, the other curative and
restorative. These discriminations are as radical as health and
sickness, as distinct as physiology and pathology, and to confound them
is as unnatural as to look for the beauties of health in the chamber of
sickness.

The true physician brings to his aid Physiology, Hygiene, and Medicine,
and combines the science of the former with the art of the latter, that
restoration may be made permanent, and the health preserved by the aid
of hygiene. But when any one makes Hygiene exclusively the physician, or
deals wholly in hygienic regulations with little respect for physiology,
or lavishly advertises with hygienic prefixes, we may at once consider
it a display, not of genuine scientific knowledge, but only of the
ignorance of a quack. Some of the modern twaddle about health is a
conglomeration of the poorest kind of trash, expressing and inculcating
more errors and whims than it does common sense. Many persons dilate
upon these subjects with amazing flippancy, their mission seeming to be
to traduce the profession rather than to act as help-mates and
assistants. We do not believe that there is any real argument going on
between the educated members of the medical profession but rather that
the senseless clamor we occasionally hear comes only from the stampede
of some routed, demoralized company of quacks.

In the following pages we shall introduce to the reader's attention
several important hygienic subjects, although there are many more that
ought to receive special notice. Such as we do mention, demand universal
attention, because a disregard of the conditions which we shall
enumerate, is fraught with great danger. Our lives are lengthened or
shortened by the observance or neglect of the rules of common sense, and
these do not require any great personal sacrifice, or the practice of
absurd precautions.

PURE AIR FOR RESPIRATION.

Ordinary atmospheric air contains nearly 2,100 parts of oxygen and 7,900
of nitrogen, and about three parts of carbonic acid, in 10,000 parts;
expired air contains about 470 parts of carbonic acid, and only between
1500 and 1600 parts of oxygen, while the quantity of nitrogen undergoes
little or no alteration. Thus air which has been breathed has lost about
five per cent. of oxygen and has gained nearly five per cent. of
carbonic acid. In addition the expired air contains a greater or less
quantity of highly decomposable ani