been esteemed in all ages as the most worthy of admiration and applause. Very different, however, are the effects produced by intense mental excitement, in him having the cares of empire reposing on his shoulders, or in the case of the merchant engaged in deep and involving speculations. Compared with the comparatively tranquil mental exertions of the student, the effects here induced are not unlike those of the passions and emotions, beneath which the most towering intellect may succumb. Although man's organization proves that he was designed by his Creator to exercise both his intellectual and corporeal powers, yet nature allows these faculties to be exercised in the most unequal degree in different individuals. Thus, while the coal-heaver or hodcarrier is straining daily, like an Atlas, under his load, without any exercise of the thinking faculties, the barrister, on the other hand, puts an equal strain, during as many hours of the day, upon his brain, without scarcely calling his muscular system into action. Nevertheless, this disproportion between mental and corporeal action has its limit, to go beyond which is an infringement upon the laws of our organization, which is sooner or later resented by nature. Look upon the care-worn countenance of the majority of the denizens of our city-an aspect which, to a certain extent, may be regarded as peculiarly American. Why it is that the American generally presents a countenance more sombre, care-worn, and prematurely old than the European, is a question still open to discussion; but there is a care-worn expression of face peculiar to the Londoner and New Yorker, which cannot escape general observation. "To mask or conceal this expression," that is, of our feelings and our passions, says Dr. Johnson, "is the boast of the villain-the policy of the courtier-the pride of the philosopher-and the endeavor of every one. It may appear remarkable that it is much easier to veil the more fiery and turbulent passions of our nature, as anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, &c., than the more feeble and passive emotions of the soul, as grief, anxiety, and the various forms of care. The reason, however, is obvious. Vivid excitement and tempestuous feeling cannot last long, without destroying the corporeal fabric. They are only momentary gusts of passion, from the effects of which the mind and the body are soon relieved. But the less obtrusive emotions, resulting from the thousand forms of solicitude, sorrow, and vexation, growing out of civilized life, sink deep into the soul, sap its energies, and stamp their melancholy seal on the countenance, in characters which can neither be prevented nor effaced by any exertion or ingenuity of mind." The permanent impressions of these apparently subordinate emotions of the soul on the "human face divine," are not unlike the soft breeze and gentle shower, which effect more in disturbing the present order of geological phenomena than the devastating impetuosity of the volcano. There is, in truth, not a more obvious mark of the wear and tear of mind, as evinced in modern civilized life, than the care-worn countenance. Closely connected with this careworn aspect is that etiolation or blanching of the complexion, by which the inhabitants of a city may be readily distinguished from those of the country. Independent of much thinking or mental anxiety, this effect seems to depend on physical causes, such as sedentary avocations, late hours, breathing an impure atmosphere, want of exposure to the light of heaven, &c. Hear Dr. Johnson: "When a gardener wishes to etiolate, that is, to blanch, soften, and render juicy a vegetable, as lettuce, celery, &c., he binds the leaves together, so that the light may have as little access as possible to their surfaces. In like manner, if we wish to etiolate men and women, we have only to congregate them in cities, where they are pretty securely kept out of the sun, and where they become as white, tender, and watery as the finest celery. For the more exquisite specimens of this human etiolation, we must survey the inhabitants of mines, dungeons, and other subterranean abodes; and for complete mine the complexions of stage-coachmen, contrasts to these, we have only to exashepherds, and the sailor on the high and giddy mast.' Modern Babylon furnishes us with all the intermediate shades of etiolation, from the green and yellow melancholy' of the Bazar Maiden, who occupies somewhat less space in her daily avocations and exercise, than she will 6 6 ultimately do in her quiet and everlasting abode, to the languishing, listless, lifeless Albinos of the boudoir, etiolated in hothouses by the aid of motley routs and midnight madrigals,' from which the light as well as the air of heaven is carefully excluded. What does this blanching indicate? In the upper classes of society, it indicates what the long nails on the fingers of a Chinese indicate-no avocation. In the middling and lower orders of life, it indicates unhealthy avocation; and among the thinking part of the community, it is one of the symbols or symptoms of wear and tear of constitution. But different people entertain different ideas respecting etiolation. The fond and fashionable mother would as soon see green celery on her table as brown health on the cheek of her daughter. When, therefore, the ladies venture into the open carriage, they carefully provide themselves with parasols, to aid the dense clouds of an English atmosphere in preventing the slightest intrusion of the cheerful but embrowning rays of Phoebus. In short, no mad dog can have a greater dread of water, than has a modern fine lady of the solar beams. So much does this Phœbophobia haunt her imagination, that the parasol is up even when the skies are completely overcast, in order, apparently, and I believe designedly, to prevent the attrition of the passing zephyr over her delicate features and complexion." Between mind and body there exist certain reciprocal relations. In the words of the Psalmist, man is "fearfully and wonderfully made." He is, in truth, a curious and compound machine, a combination of matter with a spiritual essence. While many of his functions are voluntary, he has also many organs that acknowledge not his control. Those operations by which his food is digested, his blood circulated, and the wear and tear of the day repaired, maintain their ceaseless round without his knowledge or consent. By means of his intellectual nature, he becomes the "lord of crea tion; " but that he pays for this superiority a heavy tax in health and happiness, it would not be difficult to demonstrate. The immaterial part of man, notwithstanding it will survive the material portion in "another and a better world," is, in the world here below, linked with the latter in the strictest bonds of reciprocal influence. It is, indeed, a subject fruitful with the highest interest and importance to the physician, whose duty it is to watch the workings of mind as well as of matter, in the human microcosm. Thus Shakspeare, that faithfullest observer of Nature, makes the courage of Cæsar to sink annihilated beneath the influence of an invisible, but a material agent-malaria : «He had a fever when he was in Spain; And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake His coward lips did from their color fly; Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas! it cried-Give me some drink, Titinius,' As a sick girl." be made to feel the depressing influence Every faculty of the soul may thus of material agents. But the mind fails not to reciprocate upon the body these disturbing effects; for to mental perturbation and tribulation are due more than a moiety of our corporeal discomforts, and even diseases. Any strong emotion of the mind, as a transient sense of fear, a sudden gust of passion, or an unexpected piece of intelligence, may cause a palpitation of the heart, a trembling of the muscles, or a suspension of the digestive functions. Even the minutest capillary tube bearing the vital current, responds instantaneously to the influence of mental perturbation. While the emotion of shame will crimson the cheek, that of fear will blanch it. These organic laws might easily be illustrated by a thousand examples. Let it suffice, to remark in conclusion, that in proportion as man congregates in cities, does the exercise of the intellect predominate over that of the body; and in the same ratio will there be an augmentation of the range of corporeal effects resulting from the increased "play of the passions." In this way does the morale act most injuriously upon the physique; for diseases of the heart, for instance, as is observed by Corvisant, were extremely common during the period of the French Revolution, when the public mind in all classes was scarcely ever free from agitation and alarm. The question now arises, whether, when these ills, which we have desig ceed." He next alludes to the mental de spondency produced by bad health, and especially by disordered states of the digestive organs, which is far worse to removal of this kind of melancholy, he bear than corporeal pain; and for the thinks there is no other moral or physical remedy of half so much efficacy as a judicious tour : nated as the consequences of the wear of that invaluable blessing, as we proaud tear of civilized, and especially of city life, have actually supervened, there does not exist any remedy or antidote. The experience of every summer, indeed, tells us, in language admitting of no two-fold meaning, that they may all find reparation, in some degree at least, in the relaxation and corporeal exercise sought in a pure rural atmosphere. Look at the pale and sickly aspect of the denizen of our metropolis, as he sets forth on a trip of a month for Saratoga and the White Mountains, for Niagara, Quebec, and the Great Lakes, or the medicinal springs abounding in the mountains of Virginia. Behold him again on his return; the care-worn countenance "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," is now tinged with the glow of health. In this manner does the British metropolis annually pour out its thousands of citizens, seeking health and recreation among the lakes of Cumberland, the lochs and mountains of Scotland, the valleys of Wales, and the green hills of Erin; others swarm the routes that lead them to the Alps, or to the Appenines. It is, indeed, fortunate for the well-being of the civic inhabitant, that a temporary abstraction from smoke, and dust, and din, is thus afforded; and that one annual interval of relaxation is thus experienced in the cares of commerce, the thirst of gold, the struggles of competition, the madness of ambition, and the riot of dissipation. The salutary moral and physical effects, induced by change of air during travelling, are admirably and judiciously depicted by Dr. Johnson. As regards the moral effects, he says: "If abstraction from the cares and anxieties of life, from the perplexities of business, and, in short, from the operation of those conflicting passions which harass the mind and wear the body, be possible under any circumstances, it is likely to be so on such a journey as this, for which previous arrangements are made, and where a constant succession of new and interesting objects is presented to the eye and understanding, that powerfully arrests the attention and absorbs other feelings, leaving little time for reflection on the past, or gloomy anticipations of the future. To this may be added, the hope of returning health, increased, as it generally will be, by the daily acquisition no "It is true that, in some cases of confirmed hypochondriacism, no earthly amusement, no change of scene, mental impressions or excitement, no exercise of the body, can cheer the gloom sented to the eye, or the imagination! With that spreads itself over every object prethem, change of place is only variety of woe calum non animum mutant. Yet, from two or three instances which have come within my knowledge, of the most inveterate, and apparently indomitable hypochondriacism being mitigated by travelling, (though the mode of conducting the journey was far from good), I have little doubt that many cases of this kind, which ultimately end in insanity, or at least in monomania, might be greatly ameliorated, if not completely cured, by a system of exercise conducted on the foregoing plan, and urged into operation by powerful persuasion, or even by force, if necessary." In other states of mental depression resulting from moral causes, as grief, disappointment, reverses in fortune, &c., similar beneficial effects will frequently follow. As the corporeal organs often become deranged through the medium of the moral and intellectual functions, so these last may, on the contrary, be made the medium of a salutary influence. The attention of nervous and hypochondriacal patients, it is well known, becomes so steadily fixed on their own morbid feelings, that to divert it from this point demands extraordinary impressions. To effect this object, the circumstances of domestic life in consequence of their monotony are quite inadequate; while any attempt to reason with the sufferer, so far from alleviating, actually increases his distress, inasmuch as he suffers vexation from the belief, that his advisers are either unsympathizing or incredulous as regards his torments: "In such cases," says Dr. Johnson, "the majestic scenery of Switzerland, the romantic and beautiful views of Italy and the Rhingau, or the keen mountain air of the Highlands of Scotland or Wales, combined with the novelty, variety, and succession of manners and customs of the countries through which he passes, abstract the attention of the dyspeptic and hypochondriacal traveller (if anything can), from the hourly habit of dwelling on, if not exaggerating, his own real or imaginary sensations, and thus help to break the chain of morbid association by which he is bound to the never-ending detail of his own sufferings. This is a paramount object in the treatment of these melancholy complaints; and I am convinced that a journey of this kind, in which mental excitement and bodily exercise are skilfully combined, would not only render many a miserable life comparatively happy, bnt prevent many a hypochondriac and dyspeptic from lifting his hand against his own existence. It would unquestionably preserve many an individual from mental derangement." The physical effects of travelling are happily portrayed by Dr. Johnson, in the following quotation, which, notwithstanding its length, will, we doubt not, be no ways exceptionable to the reader : "The first beneficial influence of travelling is perceptible in the state of our corporeal feelings. If they were previously in a state of morbid acuteness, as they generally are in ill health, they are rendered less sensible. The eye, which was before annoyed by a strong light, soon becomes capable of bearing it with at inconvenience; and so of hearing and the other senses. In short, morbid sensibility of the nervous system generally is obtunded, or reduced. This is brought about by more regular and free exposure to all atmospheric impressions and changes than before, and that under a condition of body, from exercise, which renders these impressions quite harmless. Of this, we see the most striking examples in those who travel among the Alps. Delicate females and sensitive invalids, who, at home, were highly susceptible of every change of temperature and other states of the atmosphere, will undergo extreme vicissitudes among the mountains, with little inconvenience. I will offer an example or two in illustration. In the month of August, 1823, the heat was excessive at Geneva and all the way along the defiles of the mountains, till we got to Chamouni, where we were, at once, among ice and snow, with a fall of forty or more degrees of the thermometer, experienced in the course of a few hours, between mid-day at Salenche, and evening at the foot of the glaciers in Chamouni. There were upwards of fifty travellers here, many of whom were females and invalids; yet none suffered in-convenience from this rapid atmospheric transition. This was still more remarkable in the journey from Martigny to the great St. Bernard. On our way up, through the deep valleys, we had the thermometer at ninety-two degrees of re-flected heat for three hours. I never felt it much hotter in the East Indies. At nine o'clock that night, while wandering about the Hospice of the St. Bernard, the thermometer fell to six degrees below the freezing point, and we were half-frozen in the cheerless apartments of the monastery. There were upwards of forty travellers there-some of them in very delicate health; and yet not a single cold was caught, nor any diminution of the usual symptoms of a good appetite for breakfast next morning. "This was like a change from Calcutta to Melville Island in one short day! So much for the ability to bear heat and cold by journeying among the Alps. Let us see how hygrometrical and barometri cal changes are borne. A very large concourse of travellers started at daybreak from the village of Chamouni to ascend the Montanvert and Mer de Glace. The morning was beautiful; but, before we got two-thirds up the Montanvert, a tremendous storm of wind and rain came on us, without a quarter of an hour's notice, and we were drenched to the skin in a very few minutes. Some of the party certainly turned tail; and one hypochondriac nearly threw me over a precipice, while running past me in his precipitate retreat to the village. The majority, however, persevered, and reached the Chalet, dripping wet, with the thermometer below the freezing point. There was no possibility of warming or drying ourselves here; and, therefore, many of us proceeded on to the Mer de Glace, and then wandered on the ice till our clothes were dried by the natural heat of our bodies. The next morning's muster for the passage over the Col de Balme showed no damage from the Montanvert expedition. Even the hypochondriac abovementioned regained his courage over a bottle of champaigne, in the evening at the comfortable Union,' and mounted his mule next morning to cross the Col de Balme. This day's journey showed, in a most striking manner, the acquisition of strength which travelling confers on the invalid. The ascent to the summit of this mountain pass is extremely fatiguing; but the labor is compensated by one of the sublimest views from its highest ridge, which the eye of men ever beheld. The valley of Chamouni lies behind, with Mont Blanc and surrounding mountains apparently within a stone's throw, the cold of the Glaciers producing a most bracing effect on the whole frame. In front, the valley of the Rhone, flanked on each side by snow-clad Alps, which, at first sight, are taken for ranges of white clouds, presents one of the most magnificent views in Switzerland, or in the world. The sublime and the beautiful are here protruded before the eye, in every direction, and in endless variety, so that the traveller lingers on this elevated mountain pass, lost in amazement at the enchanting scenery by which he is surrounded on every point of the compass. The descent on the Martigny side was the hardest day's labor I ever endured in my life, yet there were three or four in valids with us, whose lives were worth scarcely a year's purchase when they left England, and who went through this laborious, and somewhat hazardous descent, sliding, tumbling, and rolling over rocks and through mud, without the slightest ultimate injury. When we got to the goat-herds' sheds in the valley below, the heat was tropical, and we all threw ourselves on the ground and slept soundly for two hours-rising refreshed to pursue our journey. "Now these and many other facts which I could adduce, offer incontestible proof how much the morbid susceptibility to transitions from heat to cold-from drought to drenchings-is reduced by travelling. The vicissitudes and exertions which I have described would lay up half the effeminate invalids of London, and kill, or almost frighten to death, many of those who cannot expose themselves to a breath of cold or damp air, without coughs or rheumatisms, in this country. "The next effect of travelling which I shall notice, is its influence on the organs of digestion. This is so decided and obvious, that I shall not dwell on the subject. The appetite is not only increased, but the powers of digestion and assimila. tion are greatly augmented. A man may eat and drink things while travelling, which would make him quite ill in ordinary life. "These unequivocally good effects of travelling on the digestive organs, account satisfactorily for the various other beneficial influences on the constitution at large. Hence dyspepsia, and the thou sand wretched sensations and nervous affections thereon dependent, vanish before persevering exercise in travelling, and new life is imparted to the whole system, mental and corporeal. In short, I am quite positive that the most inveterate dyspepsia, (where no organic disease has taken place), would be completely removed, with all its multiform sympathetic torments, by a journey of two or three thousand miles through Switzerland, Germany, or any other country, conducted on the principle of combining active with passive exercise in the open air, in such proportions as would suit the individual constitution and the previous habits of life." We In these opinions we most heartily coincide, more especially as they have been confirmed by our own experience. In civil life, to sleep between damp sheets is considered almost equivalent but not so, as Dr. Johnson says, with to having one's death-warrant signed; the philosophic traveller; and not so, as we say, with life in the tented field. The writer of this article has seen, in Florida, an army lie down night after night for weeks in succession, upon the wet and marshy soil, often without even the protection of a tent, and not unfrequently exposed to showers so incessant that even all the fires were extinguished; and notwithstanding this less than when these same men had all exposure, the sick-list was generally the advantages of a garrison. have known soldiers confined to bed by measles, at a temporary fort in Florida, when orders came for its abandonment; and as the means transportation were scarcely adequate to carry what was indispensable to camp-life, it became necessary for the sick to arise and walk, or to remain behind victims to the scalping-knife. Led along by their fellow-soldiers through marshes often more than knee-deep, and occasionally drenched to the skin by cold and chilly rains, these patients in the various stages of measles would yet gradually improve. The second day would find them better than the first, and so of the third; and before the end of the march, some would be convalescent, whilst others would be actually again on duty: |