with the professionals, who resent the intrusion of others on their domain. Some who have grown grey illiterate, and yet grown rich, have discouraged the efforts of youth to acquire a further education than their forefathers, and they quote this proverb to drive home the admonition. So some politicians oppose all reform, and would have the people stick to their last, and not intrude upon the functions of government. But in science, and politics, and commerce, the proverb will not always prove so flexible as some would wish. History shows that cobblers have sometimes wandered from their lasts and done gloriously. The prophet Tekoah, fisherman Peter; Paul, the tent maker; Bacon, the philosopher; Burns, the ploughman; old George Fox; John Bunyan, the tramp tinker; and drum-boy Herschell, these have achieved immortality, although throwing away their lasts. Indeed, as if in warning against too rigorously applying the proverb, I believe cobbledom has furnished more illustrious names than any other handicraft trade. It is said to be a contemplative employment. Let no man think the humbleness of his circumstances an excuse for listlessness, or resignation to good-for-nothing-ness. He who

applies the proverb to excuse himself is a fool. In conclusion, the lecturer said he might have spoken many homely and vulgar things, but he esteemed the olden wisdom of olden times, and if he had succeeded in refreshing their memories and furbishing up its lore, quaint and unpoetical as it was, and in inducing them to study and adopt for practical and necessary use its stereotyped maxims, he should have accomplished the task which he had undertaken.

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS:

How To OBTAIN THESE BLESSINGS BY WORK, FRESH

AIR, AND EXERCISE.

By C. RADCLYFFE HALL, Esq. M.D. Physician to the Torquay Hospital for Consumption, &c.

(Continued from page 352.)

The improved protein, the liver-sugar, and the liveroil, which the healthy liver makes, mix with the blood which is conveyed away from the liver to the heart. The heart pumps it into the lungs, where it gives off carbonic acid and water and receives oxygen. This oxygen puts the finishing stroke to the blood-making, and the living cells in the blood already there now find in the material supplied all they require for making real living blood. This blood conveyed to all parts, furnishes each with precisely what it requires for its own use, and carries away the old used-up materials which have already done their duty. It carries fibrin

to the muscles; it carries fat, phosphorus, and albumen to the brain; it carries lime to the bones and oil to the skin; it carries horn and iron to the hair. We have seen that health depends upon the excellency with which the changes in the organs take place, and that this depends upon the amount of exercise. But, of course, it also depends upon the blood which is brought being good in its quality; and upon its being freely supplied. Let us see how it is made good, and how it is freely conveyed. How much gastric juice do you suppose there is made and poured into the stomach i

24 hours in an ordinary man? A wine-glass full or two? There are 16 pints. There are used in the same time, of mouth-saliva, 3 pints; of bile, 3 pints; of pancreatic saliva, pint; of intestinal juice pint : in all 23 pints of fluid are poured out into the digestive canal in 24 hours. About one-sixth part of an ordinary sized man! What becomes of it? Why it goes in again. During digestion it is constantly being poured out thin, and taken in thicker. It is outwardbound-empty; homeward-bound-laden with cargo. It leaves home poor; it returns rich. By its chemical qualities it digests the food which it meets; and by its mere quantity it washes it into the blood-vessels. Is then the bile all re-absorbed? Not all, but 15 parts out of 16 are, and furnish a fuel to the blood, very easily burned, to assist in maintaining animal heat.

In order to circulate the newly-made blood freely, it requires that the nutritious fluid be freely drawn in from the digestive canal; that it be freely moved on through the liver; that it be freely pumped on by the right heart through the lungs; that it be freely pumped on by the left heart to all parts of the body; that it be freely passed on through the small capillary blood vessels in every organ to the veins; and that it be freely returned again for purification, after going its round, by the veins. How is all this to be managed? Is there any one thing by which all and every one of these requirements can be fulfilled? There is one, and only one thing— exercise, judiciously apportioned to the strength. And power of exercise, like fire, grows on what it consumes. The body strengthens for exercise as exercise uses up, within proper limits, the body.

For a muscle to act it must have a supply of oxygen. It can only obtain this through the blood. Accordingly the circulation in exercise is quickened by the action of the muscles which want oxygen. This quickened circulation quickens the breathing. By this more air is inspired and more oxygen carried away in the bloodvessels. Hence nature ties together muscular exertion,

quickened circulation, quickened breathing. You cannot separate them. And as muscles use up more oxygen, they make more carbonic acid; this must be removed and expelled through the lungs. So that if one exerts himself over-much, to such an extent that the carbonic acid cannot be cleared off quickly enough, he feels short of breath, and presently looks "black in the face." He is obliged to rest from his running, or other kind of severe exercise, until his blood has freed itself from its self-made poison. Exercise then promotes breathing;-that in its turn fulfils the requirement of supplying oxygen for completing the change of food into blood, and also of elearing off impurities from the blood. Exercise promotes muscular action and thereby gradually builds up muscle and strength, both in the muscles that are used in the limbs and in all internal muscles, such as the heart, blood-vessels, stomach, intestines, and bronchial tubes. Exercise, by promoting ventilation in the lungs, enables the right heart to work well. The right heart working well, enables the blood freely to leave the liver, and thus prevents that organ from becoming congested. The liver having its circulation good, enables the absorption from the intestines to go on well; and thus by a sort of physiological "House that Jack built," every one, to build himself the best house that his means afford, must perforce take a proper amount of exercise. I will show you that this must be true. The first step after the food has been made ready for admission into the system is its absorption into the blood-vessels. This is promoted in three ways. 1. When a thick fluid is separated by a membrane from a thin fluid, the thin fluid runs through the membrane into the thick. 2. When an alkaline fluid is separated by a membrane from an acid fluid, the acid runs through the membrane into the alkaline. 3 If the thicker fluid is in rapid motion, far more rapid is the suction exercised over the thinner. What we require is that the chyle on one side of the fine mucous membrane of the digestive canal be sucked through

into the blood contained in the blood-vessels on the other side. For this purpose the blood-vessels should be minute and numerous, so as to offer a large surface to the chyle; the blood should be alkaline and the chyle acid; and lastly the blood should be actively moved on through its vessels. And if there be a certain degree of pressure exerted on the chyle by the hollow muscular organs in which it is placed, this will assist absorption. Now these are precisely the conditions which exist. The blood is thicker than chyle; the blood is alkaline whilst the chyle is acid; the blood is circulated actively in proportion to the exercise which we take at the time when stomach-digestion is over and the more elaborate parts of the food-liquor have to be absorbed and this chyle is pressed by the muscular coat of the intestine and by the little muscles of the villi which project from the mucous membrane, in proportion to the muscular exercise we are taking. A man cannot exercise any part of his body without more or less compressing the organs of digestion. Hence we see how exercise has a very direct influence in assisting the absorption of nutriment after the first digestion-namely that which makes food into blood. The mode in which the blood is always kept thick and alkaline is highly interesting. We eat soda and potash in vegetables and in flesh. The potash is principally wanted for the muscles and the blood corpuscles. The soda for the bile and for the blood-liquor. Therefore we require a constant supply of soda, and we have it in table salt, which is muriatic acid and soda-muriate of soda (or chloride of sodium). In the stomach we want the muriatic acid; in the liver the soda. Some of the salt furnishes these. But a larger portion is simply dissolved in the juices it meets with and absorbed into the blood as muriate of soda. It is because cows and horses find chiefly potash in their vegetable food that they crave after salt to supply soda for their blood. Hence, the practice of putting a lump of bay salt in the manger. We all know that salt water is easier to swim in than