again, in the desire to escape suffering, fear of dissolution is removed. We seldom encounter scenes of mental horror occasioned by the approach of the king of terrors. It is chiefly while in health or in the early period of disease that fear of death is at its acme. The uncertainty regarding the time and method of death enhances the dread of dissolution.

The Scriptures say, "All that a man hath will he give for his life." The English dramatist has drawn the picture in this wise:

"The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death."

Death, which is thus so dreaded, we observe at every period of existence, commencing with the fœtus in utero, at a time so beautifully described by Cowley in his tribute to Dr. Harvey, when

"The untaught heart begins to beat

The tuneful march to vital heat,"

and we encounter through the various ages of life until that stage delineated by Shakespeare as

"second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

It is said in the Scriptures, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble." Again: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore, yet is their strength labor and sorrow."

We boast of the advances made in medical science, and can scarcely repress a smile when we think of

the sages of antiquity consulting the physicians of their time. But nature,

"Which hath an operation more divine

Than breath or pen can give expression to,"

was scarcely less beneficent in the mythological age than she is in the nineteenth century, and consequently we read of instances of longevity among the ancient philosophers.

Cicero, in his treatise "concerning old age," informs us that Plato died while writing, in his 81st year; that Isocrates wrote his book the Panathenaican in his 94th year, and lived five years after, whose master, Gorgias, the Leontine, completed 107 years without ceasing from his labors. Of Sophocles he records, that he "wrote tragedies up to the period. of extreme old age; and when, on account of that pursuit, he seems to be neglecting the family property, he was summoned by his sons into a court of justice, that as, according to our practice, fathers mismanaging their property are wont to be interdicted their possessions, so, in his case, the judges might remove him from the management of the estate as being imbecile. Then the old man is related to have read aloud to the judges that play which he held in his hands, and had most recently written, the Edipus Coloneus, and to have asked whether that appeared the poem of a dotard; on the recital of which he was acquitted by the sentences of the judges."

There is no reason to suppose that these venerable men passed through life without encountering various disorders; on the contrary, it is probable that—

over them triumphant, Death his dart

Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invok'd."

Were the instances we have given of common occurrence in ancient times, our profession might hesitate to compare practical experiences with their medical brethren of the olden days; but on consulting the tables of Ulpianus, founded on observations of 1,000 years, we learn that the mean term of Roman life was only 30 years. This was the average length of life at the commencement of the Christian era, and its brevity has been attributed to the licentiousness prevalent in Rome during the period referred to.

On examining the tables of Madden, Dunglison, and others, we learn that in modern times there have likewise been examples of unusually long lives in various callings. Old Parr lived to the age of 152 years; Jenkins, of Yorkshire, to 169 years; and Walpole tells us of the Countess of Desmond, who—

“died at the age of one hundred and forty, From over-indulgence in ways that are naughty."

The latter personage, remarkable for her activity until almost the close of life, was outstripped in length of days by Lady Vaughan, who, according to a tomb-stone in Conway churchyard, died in 1766, at the age of 192 years. Such examples of longevity, however, are as rare at the present time as they have been either in recent or in remote periods. I exclude from present consideration the patriarchal epoch.

The occupations of life inseparably connected with advanced civilization seem inimical to health.

Mental tension seems almost a necessary concomitant of civic associations. This has doubtless ever been the case. In all ages it has been remarked that the long-continued and extraordinary exertion of the mental faculties has generally, directly or indirectly, induced disease. Ovid says of the student, "pallor in ore sedet, macies in corpore toto." Frederick the Great expressed the opinion that "man seems more adapted by nature for a postilion than a philosopher." Dr. Dickson, of England, in writing in the early part of this century, remarked: "Unfortunately the physical is too often in the inverse ratio of the intellectual appetite, and with the Bulimia Doctorum there is too frequently associated a stomach as weak as blotting-paper, to use Vogel's just but rather ludicrous comparison."

As an instance of the selection and recommendation of an unwholesome dish as an article of diet, I recall the fact that the Rev. Sydney Smith has given a recipe, in verse, for dressing salad, which, if fol lowed and taken, is almost capable of inducing a new disease for our nosology, and yet the receipt ends in this wise

"O great and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl."

The infirmities of genius are too often attributable to derangements of the digestive organs, partially induced by improper food and drinks.

If our dyspeptic literary friends cannot mend their sedentary and other insalutary habits, would it not be wise for them to adopt a modification of the diet

ascribed by Fletcher, in the Spanish Curate, to the miser, who

'grew fat by the brewis of an egg-shell,

Would smell a cook-shop and go home and surfeit,

And be a month in fasting out that fever?"

We do not admit as a physiological fact that mental culture must be associated with asthenia, though we unfortunately often find them concur

rent.

Shakspeare, who so thoroughly understood human nature, has, in various passages, expressed the fact that extreme physical vigor and a high grade of mental energy were generally not observed in the same individual. For example, he represents Cæsar as speaking of Cassius in these words:

“Would he were fatter,

For if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,

He is a great observer, and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men."

And again he has elsewhere remarked, as a warning to those whose habits favor obesity, that

"Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits

Make rich the sides, but banker out the wits."

The same author has further shown what we have also sometimes recognized, that Fortune

"either gives a stomach, and no food,-
Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach,—such are the rich;
They have abundance, and enjoy it not."