h advantage, in order to
prepare the mind for those changes, which the physician wishes to
produce, they should be used with the greatest caution, and never
left in any degree to the discretion of the patient. The cure,
however, depends chiefly on regulating the state of the mind, or
interrupting the attention of the patient; and diverting it, if
possible, to other objects than his own feeling.

Whatever aversion to application of any kind we may meet with in
patients of this class, we may be assured that nothing is more
pernicious to them than absolute idleness, or a vacancy from all
earnest pursuit.

The occupations of business suitable to their circumstances, and
situations in life, if neither attended with emotion, anxiety, nor
fatigue, are always to be advised to such patients; but occupations
which are objects of anxiety, and more particularly such as are
exposed to accidental interruptions, disappointments, and failures,
are very improper for patients of this class.

To such patients exercise in the open air is of the utmost
consequence. Of all the various methods of preserving health and
preventing diseases, which nature has suggested, there is none more
efficacious than exercise. It puts the fluids all in motion,
strengthens the solids, promotes digestion, and perspiration, and
occasions the decomposition of a larger quantity of air in the lungs,
and thus not only more heat, but more vital energy is supplied to the
body; and of all the various modes of exercise, none conduces so much
to the health of the body, as riding on horseback: it is not attended
with the fatigue of walking, and the free air is more enjoyed in this
way, than by any other mode of exercise. The system of the vena
portarum, which collects the blood from the abdominal viscera, and
circulates it through the liver, is likewise rendered more active, by
this kind of exercise, than by any other, and thus a torpid state,
not only of the bowels, but of this system of vessels, and the
biliary system, is prevented.

When a patient of this class, however, goes out for the sake of
exercise only, it does not in general produce so good an effect, as
might be expected; for he is continually brooding over the state of
his health: there is no new object to arrest his attention, and he is
constantly reminded of the cause of his riding. Exercise will
therefore be most effectual when employed in the pursuit of a
journey, where a succession of pleasant sce