PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION.

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little to the fashion of sitting up late, eating- hot suppers, andspending every evening over a bowl of punch, or other strongliquors. These liquors, when too freely used, not only hurt thedigestion, and spoil the appetite, but heat and inflame the blood,and set the whole constitution on fire.

In tracing the various causes of consumption, I entered intominute details, to put people more upon their guard, as the disease,when deeply seated, seldom admits of a cure. Not but there areplenty of persons in London who confidently undertake to performcures in the most hopeless stages of the complaint, though physi-cians have not been so happy as to find out the art. Perhaps theonly art which the »thers have discovered, or which they haveever studied, is the art of impudence and deception.

But to return to my former argument: as consumptions seldomadmit of a cure, the utmost care should be exerted to avoid them.The best general caution I can give is to guard against catchingcold, the fruitful mother of consumptions, and of many other dis-orders. How this is to be done, will be more fully explained whenI come to treat of colds and coughs, the bane of this island, andthe source of numberless diseases, especially among the young,gay, and thoughtless part of the community, who have no fear ofany ill Until it overtakes thorn, when it is generally too late to pre-vent the fatal consequences.

ON THE MEANS OP PREVENTING PULMONARY CONSUMPTION.

Human beings are so constituted that they can exist but for avery short space of time without inhaling a fresh portion of atmos-pheric air. The uninterrupted repetition of this process, whichis absolutely requisite for the support of life, implies a perpetualstate of activity in the organs by means of which it is carried on.This alternate state of dilatation and contraction of the lungsnecessarily forms a great impediment to the cure of any wound orulceration taking place in their substance, by the same processemployed by Nature to heal injuries in other parts of the livingbody, which admit of a temporary state of quietude and repose.The slightest degree of diseased action occurring in an organ soessentially important to the maintenance of existence, is sufficientto create alarm, which our melancholy experience of the inefiicacyof the art of medicine to remove chronic affections of the organsof respiration has no tendency to diminish. A single opportunityof inspecting the state of the lungs of a person dead of pulmonaryconsumption, might, I have frequently thought, suffice to corredthe pretensions of those who propose to cure the disease after it isconfirmed, by the administration of medicine. But the impracti-cability of a cure ought to render us proportionably more attentiveto the means of prevention, from which much may be expected,provided they are employed at a sufficiently early period.

Pulmonary consumption may be divided into two kinds, whichit is of importance, even in a prophylactic point of view, to dis<-criminate from each other. — The lungs may be injured by a blow,or pierced by a wound. Inflammation may take place in themfrom over-exertion, in consequence of the stoppage of some custom-