being rapidly developed. At birth these organs are fitted for scarcely any function; the muscles are unable to contract firmly, the brain cannot think, and the osseous system is unable to support the weight of the small body. The creature is then but a growing animal. There is great irritability in the muscles and nervous system, while the muscular force and nervous energy are weak. All the organs required for the nutritive functions are large. Thus, the weight of the heart is to that of the entire body as one to a hundred and twenty or a hundred and fifty, whilst the proportion in the adult is one to two hundred. The circulation is very rapid, the pulse beating from 130 to 150 a minute, during the first month, 120 to 125, during the third, and 105 at the end of the ninth month. The capillary vessels are infinitely numerous, so that the blood flows in an innumerable multitude of currents. The number of these vessels gradually diminishes during youth. The urine is almost as clear as water, inodorous, and does not appear to contain, in the earlier months, urea and phosphate of lime, but we find at this time benzoic acid in the urine. The muscles are becoming gradually firmer, and the process of ossification makes a visible progress. At the end of the ninth month the infant has increased from six to eight inches in length, and in weight from ten to twelve pounds.

During childhood, which extends from the end of the first to the end of the sixth year, the distinguishing characteristics are, great activity in the nutritive powers, and a slow process of waste in the organised tissues. The static force is greater and more powerful than the dynamic. We have, for example, the development of the forms of the different parts of the body. We have the organs of the senses being greatly enlarged, so that the inlets for external phenomena may be early perfected and fitted to admit, without derangement, the different phenomena without to the conscious self within. We have the muscular tissue becoming fit to make active contractions; we have gradually increasing nervous power; and we have the Osseous tissue being gradually increased in firmness to support the growing trunk. The infant endures external cold better; the pulse diminishes in frequency, so that it beats only 100

during the third year, and 80 during the sixth; the capillary vessels are decreasing in number, and the distinction between the parenchyma of the organs and the blood becomes much more distinct. The urine is more coloured at the end of the second year, and is found to contain sensible traces of phosphoric acid and urea. This is the stage of life in which the activity of growth is only exceeded by that of the former year, and this is the epoch in which the mortality is the second highest.

Youth, considered in a general sense, is characterized by a certain equilibrium between the nutritive power and the process of waste. This period extends, as we have before said, from about the age of eight to the fourteenth or sixteenth year. Life is not endangered during this period by any great increase of development, or any considerable change in the character of the tissues. Growth increases more gradually than before, and less energetically; nevertheless, the plastic force steadily increases, the appetite is strong, and the multiplicity, variety, and energy of the animal movements require a considerable consumption of food. The approaching period of puberty also requires that there be prepared a great abundance of nutritious matter, just in the same way as the larvæ of the insect requires to have prepared for its last development a sufficient supply of nourishment. The aliments preferred at the same time, are unstimulating substances, though sufficiently nourishing, such as fruits and farinacia. The blood is highly arterealized, and the movement of this fluid is not so quick as in the two former epochs, the number of beats of the pulse in the minute being rarely above 90, and usually as low as 85, and sometimes as low as 80.

This is the period of non-excitement, either of the intellect or the passions: the former being more objectively than subjectively engaged, the latter are yet scarcely at all developed. The static force is strong, and the dynamic force is only somewhat weaker, while the reactive energy is good. Towards the end of this period we find that the amount of mortality falls to its minimum.

The period of adolescence extends from the commencement

of the development of those organs by which the earth is prevented from being depopulated of its tenants to their full increase, that is from about the fifteenth or sixteenth year in man to the twenty-fourth, and from the fourteenth to the twentieth year in woman. Sometimes in this period a sudden increase in height takes place, while during the whole period there is observed a general excitement of the forces. The vitality is more energetic; the feebleness of the infant has disappeared, but the firmness of the man has not yet developed itself. We seem to have too much of life in every part of the organism. All the functions act rapidly, and are performed with energy. The vascular system predominates; the blood is in a high state of arterealization-vermilion in colour, plastic, and with much fibrine. The heart is firm, and the blood-vessels more consistent. The pulse is vigorous, and beats between 75 and 80 times in the minute. The lungs increase and acquire their permanent volume. The thorax is widened. The trachea becomes more ample, and the voice stronger. The muscular substance becomes firmer and redder. The urine has its characteristic odour, and contains a greater quantitity of urea than it did formerly. This is the age of beauty, in which the harmony of form revels in the plenitude of vitality. We have here every thing to preserve health and continue life, yet the mortality is greater in this epoch than in the former, or in the two periods which immediately follow.

On what does this unlooked for relation depend? Partly on the circumstance that the firm basis of manhood is wanting, but principally on the series of metamorphoses going on in several of the organs, with, at the same time, a great increase in the strength of the passions. The boy is just passing into the man, and the girl into the woman; the faculty by which new beings are formed is being superadded to those functions which are required to maintain the perfection of the animal's own structure and activity of condition. This development exercises a considerable influence on life; for not only are their particular organs developed, but the entire form of the body and the physiognomy, along with the character of the mind and feelings, also change; the respi

ratory organs, especially in man, acquire an increase in volume; and the vocal apparatus undergoes those changes of dimension and acoustic properties so generally observed. The whole body, at this stage of life, attains its most perfect form; and the features receive their stamp of individuality, though, perhaps, not so deeply as afterwards; and thus give expression to the passions, if not in the boldness of a more advanced age, yet in a gentler innocency.

At adult age man arrives at his full maturity. Here we have a harmonious development between the different parts of the organism, so that each part of the machine is able to retain its just relation to the others. An equilibrium among the forces, then, is an essential characteristic. This equilibrium has the character of persistence. It is, indeed, true that the "march" of life ever continues; but there is, comparatively speaking, a fixity during the adult age; and hence this term of life is sometimes called the "stationary period." The hill has been climbed; the flat, smooth, equable surface has been gained, along which life can move, changeless in bulk and figure, but changeable in age, to the margin where declivity commences and descent takes place. This epoch has to do with the present; the former ones were the preparing, this is the prepared. The forces are to act for the now; the intellectual life dares not with impunity be thrown away in ideal reveries-it must descend into the realities here, to produce and to create.

During this age there is scarcely any increase in length, according to Quetlet-rarely more than two lines; the organised tissues increase slowly, and only very slightly, in bulk, for the equality of the waste and the supply makes the body remain nearly the same in weight during the twenty-four hours. The digestive process is not so active, but it is more energetic; hunger can be supported better, and with less bad effects, than it can at any other epoch. The vascular system predominates over the lymphatic; the heart increases in capacity, but the capillary vessels contain less blood; cold and heat are better supported; the muscles are stronger and firmer; the bones are more dense; the sleep is lighter and shorter,

for vigour is promptly restored to the economy; the senses and the animal movements have arrived at their culminating point; the muscular force is capable of more powerful efforts than before, and at the same time is possessed of great dexterity; the intellectual faculties make continual progress. Now commences the real seriousness of life; the wrestling forces which characterised youth, and the excitement of powers which marked adolescence, are removed by the equilibrium established between the individual portions of the organism. We have here the full-formed man, all his organs fitly balanced against each other, and all working harmoniously to a given end-health. Now, had we, in this epoch, only the pure aspirations after the Infinite, without the ill-directed ambition which goads society onwards to its hurt, we should be rarely required to record a death during this period of existence; yet, in spite of this strong preventive to health, mortality is at a minimum; and, at the same time, we have a strong static force, with an equally powerful process of waste, joined to a high amount of reactive energy.

Within this circle of processes lies the curative power. Is it not a monstrous absurdity, to think that the drug-physician, with his nightly draughts, his morning purgatives, and his noonday stimulants, can expect to bring the nice relationship we have just described, when out of tune, again into a proper harmony? This question we shall endeavour to answer in

our next article.

(To be continued in our next.)

QUACKERY.

"Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's right truth would have made them free."-Past and Present.

THE term heading this article is of great significancy, and its cause, meaning, and effect, ought to be deeply and carefully pondered over by the "twenty-seven million heads" in this island of ours.

To produce just and efficient results, however, they must