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EXERCISE, AIR, AND SLEEP.

(_Abridged from Mr. Richards's "Treatise on Nervous Disorders."_)

The generality of people are well aware of the vast importance of exercise;
but few are acquainted with its _modus operandi_, and few avail
themselves so fully as they might of its extensive benefits. The function
of respiration, which endues the blood with its vivifying principle, is
very much influenced by exercise; for our Omniscient Creator has given to
our lungs the same faculty of imbibing nutriment from various kinds of
air, as He has given to the stomach the power of extracting nourishment
from different kinds of aliment; and as the healthy functions of the
stomach depend upon the due performance of certain chemical and mechanical
actions, so do the functions of the lungs depend upon the due performance
of proper exercise.

Man being an animal destined for an active and useful life, Providence has
ordained that sloth shall bring with it its own punishment. He who passes
nearly the whole of his life in the open air, inhaling a salubrious
atmosphere, enjoys health and vigour of body with tranquillity of mind,
and dies at the utmost limit allotted to mortality. He, on the contrary,
who leads an indolent or sedentary life, combining with it excessive
mental exertion, is a martyr to a train of nervous symptoms, which are
extremely annoying. Man was not created for a sedentary or slothful life;
but all his organs and attributes are calculated for an existence of
activity and industry. If therefore we would insure health and comfort,
we must make exercise--to use Dr. Cheyne's expression--a part of our
religion. But this exercise should be _in the open air_, and in such
places as are most free from smoke, or any noxious exhalations; where, in
fact, the air circulates freely, purely, and abundantly. I am continually
told by persons that they take a great deal of exercise, being constantly
on their feet from morning till night; but, upon inquiry, it happens, that
this exercise is not in the open air, but in a crowded apartment, perhaps,
as in a public office, a manufactory, or at a dress maker's, where twenty
or thirty young girls are crammed together from nine o'clock in the
morning till nine at night, or, what is nearly as pernicious, in a house
but thinly inhabited. Exercise this cannot be called; it is the worst
species of labour, entailing upon its victims numerous evils. Good air
is as es