and active nervous energy, must be followed, therefore, as a natural consequence, by an exhaustion of vital power; in which condition there would be evidently an increased susceptibility to all morbific influences, and a marked predisposition to any exciting causes of disease which might be brought to bear upon it.

“It is well known that certain individuals are more severely affected by any ascertained cause of disease than others; and also that the same exciting cause may at one time produce serious disturbance of health, while at another, and under precisely the same conditions, as far as known, no injurious effect is produced. How frequently do we observe during the same epidemic, as, for instance, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria (and even of sporadic forms of disease), a marked difference in the character and severity of individual cases. Even in members of the same family, under apparently similar conditions, some are stricken down with the most malignant form of one of these diseases, while others may, at the same time, be but slightly affected by it, or perhaps entirely escape an attack. It can not be that they who are the most severely affected receive a larger or a stronger dose of the morbific agent which has produced the disorder, than the others, and that the disease-producing influence, in consequence of larger quantity or greater strength and power, acts with more severity and force on one than on another. For, leaving out of consideration all effects of existing

predisposition, we know that a person unprotected by a previous attack or by vaccination, would be, in all probability, just as severely affected by the contagious influence of a case of small-pox, whether he was exposed for a few moments or for several hours; and besides, it would make no difference whether the case happened to be a mild one or of a more malignant form.

“It is, therefore, difficult to account for this variable operation of disease-producing agents, unless we admit the existence of such a latent predisposition as that already mentioned, and acknowledge that the system, at the time of exposure to disease-producing causes, is thereby made more or less susceptible to their effects in proportion to the development of such a predisposition. The less the power of resistance and the greater the degree of impressibility, the more aggravated will be the character of every disease which affect the system while it is thus predisposed; or, in other words, the severity of the disease will be proportionate to the degree of departure from the standard of health.”[2]

Predisposition is that state of susceptibility produced by the continued operation of the predisposing cause. Exciting causes are those which tend to the immediate development of diseases, especially in a system already having a predisposition thereto.

But in my opening remarks, I had in view, particularly, the common sicknesses that prevail among us,

and which are not classed as contagious. Not one in the thousand of our population so lives as to feel an assurance of absolute health for, say, a single month, much less for the coming twelve months. There are, however, among the class I shall hold up as examples to my readers, further on, individuals who would be willing to stake their lives on their ability to meet any engagement depending upon a mental and physical state, equal to that enjoyed at the present moment, on any day, week, or month, during the next year or ten years; and every ordinarily healthy person, who can fairly be called a free agent, ought to be able to feel such an assurance in his own case; and if he be at middle-age, or under, and afflicted with ailments, other than organic and incurable, he should be able to count with certainty on being a better man, physically as well as morally, ten years hence than he is to-day.

But how is it in practice? Why, even our national salutation (which is, also, about the same among all civilized nations) is significant in this connection, as we shall observe, further on: if sickness was the exception and not the rule, health would not be the stock question everywhere and always—the principal theme of conversation—as it is now. People seem to delight in a subject that they know nothing about, like a good old Methodist preacher I once knew, who said on one occasion, at prayer-meeting: “I love to talk about religion—I have so little of it.”

We talk about enjoying good health, and some of my readers would, I dare say, make the claim for

themselves, although too well aware of occasional lapses, and indeed the great proportion of our people, in spite of heredity, might obtain, and rest secure in, a high state of health; but, living as they do, a truly sound person is almost the rarest thing in the world.

“How are you?” is the question on meeting an acquaintance. “First-rate, although I have my old sick headaches occasionally.” Another replies, “Pretty well, now—have just had a touch of neuralgia—you know I always had that now and then.” Another has a “bad cold in the head.” Smith enjoys good health, although “troubled a good deal with dyspepsia, constipation, etc.,” which means that he is constantly annoyed by symptoms inseparable from his disease. Jones is “tip-top,” with an occasional “attack” of cholera-morbus, or a bilious spell. Brown “never was better in his life,” but could tell you of a fearful sickness last spring—“like to have died,” and no wonder—he had three drug doctors and a gallstone! Robinson is “tough as a knot”—just now—since getting cleaned out by erysipelas—an eruption of the accumulated poison resulting from his bad habits. It was a fearful “attack,” as he says! “The doctor called it the worst case he ever saw—my head was swelled so I couldn’t see for weeks—used up a bushel of cranberries in poultices, when I had counted on having cranberry sauce all winter—did not get a spoonful.” Of course Robinson exaggerates about the quantity of cranberries.

Tom, one of the healthiest-looking specimens, recently had typhoid fever and came near dying. Mrs.

Dick had “slow fever” the past summer and managed to keep it a-going for three months. She says it was a dreadful “attack”; and she tries to explain it by saying that several years ago, she had it every summer for three summers, and “it generally leaves the seeds in the system!” Harry’s wife had stoppage and inflammation of the bowels—a deadly sickness for six months, entailing infinite distress on the large family that needed her about so much. “The doctor’s big bill isn’t paid yet,” she mourns, “and mercy only knows when it will be.” She has always been a well woman, so-called, has always seemed pretty well until this terrible disease “attacked” her.

The list is endless, of the so-called healthy ones who have been from time to time “attacked” with one disorder or another and recovered,—while the mortality reports from week to week tell the final story of the premature taking off of thousands of men, women, and children who, although always regarded by themselves and friends as healthy, have suffered the death-penalty after a longer or shorter imprisonment.

How often we hear such