s, the finest and fairest of the human family
may be sunk to the grave. The power of staying the demon of
destruction sometimes displayed by the cod-liver oil is marvellous.'
Dr Burgess, however, although witnessing the same results even in
far-gone cases, limits their duration to a year or eighteen months,
after which the medicine lost its effect. Although the oil, therefore,
is serviceable through the process of nutrition, he considers it no
specific, and concludes on the subject thus: 'All that our present
knowledge enables us to state positively on the subject is this:
cod-liver oil is the most effectual stay to the progress of
consumption, in a great majority of cases, that we possess; this
salutary action is not always lasting, and there are cases in which
its administration cannot be borne, and others in which it produces no
good effects whatever. In those cases in which the stomach rejects the
pure oil, if it be given in combination with phosphoric acid, it will
generally be borne easily, and the acid will assist the tonic action
of the oil.'

The non-professional notion respecting the curative powers of climate
is, that by breathing a mild and soothing atmosphere, the phthisical
patient withdraws irritation, and leaves nature at liberty to effect
her own cure. But this, it seems, is entirely erroneous, inasmuch as
it is through the skin, not the lungs, that a warm climate acts
beneficially. When an atmospheric change takes place so as to produce
a chill, 'whereby the cutaneous transpiration is instantly checked,
the skin then becomes dry and hard, so that the respiratory organs
suffer from the excessive action they now undergo, for the matter of
transpiration must be eliminated through the lungs if the action of
the skin be interrupted.' This is illustrated by the instantaneous
relief usually afforded by free perspiration in cases where difficult
breathing and oppression of the chest have been occasioned by
artificial heat. What really soothes, therefore, is _equability_ of
climate, not high temperature. Some authors even think that a cold
climate is more suitable for consumption than a warm one, and point to
Upper Canada, with its pure, dry, tonic atmosphere, affording hardly
any trace of the complaint at all.

Here we might stop, as the nature of our work precludes our following
Dr Burgess in his exposition of the action of climate on the lungs and
skin; but it may be useful, and at any rate amusing, to tra