ould benefit by these exercises. The list is a long one,
and would include practically all growing children and adolescents--in
order that adenoids, narrow chests, debility in general, malnutrition
and a host of other abnormal states might be either cured or
prevented. Innumerable adults would also benefit by such exercises:
those who are in health, in order to keep so; those who are depressed
mentally, or who are suffering from constipation, dyspepsia, anaemia,
obesity, debility, etc.

Even those who are "getting on" in years could, with care and caution,
go through such exercises to advantage, providing, that is, that their
heart, lungs and blood vessels are fairly normal; it is only where
there is serious organic disease such exercises must be withheld.

Thus we have a big field for such a system which Mrs Lazarus has
described so fully in this little work of hers; it deserves wide
recognition, and my final word to the reader is not only to keep the
book as a "boon companion," but to encourage others to purchase it and
to carry out its most excellent teachings.

J. STENSON HOOKER, M.D.

LETTERS OF A LAYMAN.

1.--DOCTORS AND HEALTH.

Medicine is a progressive science--and art, if we judge by the
statistics given of the fall in the rate of mortality. Even this,
however, must be carefully analysed, because a good deal of the fall
of mortality is due to the great reduction in the birthrate which has
taken place in the last twenty years. Still, after this has been
allowed for, there is probably a balance in the doctors'
favour--something to the good of the science and art of medicine.
Doubtless the science is improved and the practical advice offered by
medical men is better and more effectual than it used to be.

A layman, nevertheless, may be forgiven if, with all due deference, he
is tempted to believe that many of the benefits attributed to medicine
have been achieved through attention to sanitation--cleanliness and
ventilation. Of course this is due to the work of science, which
necessarily includes the members of the medical profession, but it is
not due to medical science _qua_ medical science.

The terms 'sanitation' and 'sanitary' nearly always connote only ideas
associated with cleanliness, free ventilation, etc. They scarcely
connote ideas of food management, or, if they do, it is only to the
extent of inferring that food shall not be adulterated or of bad
quality--and perhaps that there shall