sons subject to it imagine that if they can only get some wash which will remove it from the skin the difficulty will be cured, not thinking that they are simply driving it from the surface to some internal part which will suffer more than the skin by its presence. In thus treating it the humor is almost sure to attack some portion of the inside skin, called the mucous membrane, so that it is only transferred from the surface skin to that which lines the throat, lungs, stomach, and other cavities, in consequence of which pulmonary, catarrhal, or dyspeptic affections follow. The only safe treatment for it is that which will eradicate the disease, and the disease is scrofula. External treatment alone is absolutely dangerous. (See essay on Scrofula.)

Fig. 145.

Spinal Curvatures

Are curable or incurable, according to their na ture and the age of the patient. They are almost invariably caused by an impure or weak state of the blood. Scrofula, one of the worst forms of blood disease, is the most frequent cause of weak or deformed spines. It is apt to attack the spongy texture of the vertebræ, and induce suppuration which soon destroys the fine net-work of muscies sustaining the ingenious structure. In speaking of this form of the disease, Dr. Syme remarks as follows: "When the pus ceases to be confined near the bone, and begins to drain away from it, the patient generally experiences great relief from his complaints. The pain becomes very much lessened, and the use of his limbs is often, in some measure, or altogether regained. But this amendment is usually accompanied by a serious change to the worse in another respect, since the vertebral column is apt to bend under its superincumbent weight when weakened by the destruction of bone and intervertebral car tilage which attends the suppuration. The curva ture in this case takes place forward, and being confined to a small extent of the spine, causes an NATURAL SHAPE or acute projection behind, so that one or more of the spinous processes appear to be dislocated backward.

THE VERTEBRAL

COLUMN.

This change of shape does not take place either when the extent of the disease is small in proportion to the size of the bones in which it is seated, or when it is so great that the patient is constantly confined to the horizontal posture; but the latter circumstances are comparatively rare in proportion to those which favor the occurrence of curvature. The surface of the abscesses either heals with approximation and consolidation of its parietes, the vertebræ concerned appearing as if run into one mass, or a state of caries remains, and gradually wears out the patient's strength." Spinal disease of this nature is often curable in children, but it is a difficult and almost hopeless complaint in those of adult age. The treatment must be such as will cast out the scrofulous humors, and only in this way can the progress of the disease be arrested. An invalid thus affected, even far advanced in life, may be greatly relieved, and have his days upon earth lengthened by the use of such remedies as will purify and nourish his blood.

Fig. 146.

Spinal curvature often arises from weak and innutritious blood, or, as is more commonly expressed, from general debility. When the muscles which maintain the vertebræ in their natural position become weak and relaxed because of a want of proper nourishment from the blood, curvature is likely to result. The position of the spine in double curvature is represented in Fig. 146. Here the spine bends both to the right and the left, throwing up the right shoulder and hip and depressing those of the left. I have frequently cured cases of this chanical, and medicinal remedies; and it is skillful application and administration of these that a cure can be effected.

Notwithstanding curvature originates in an impure or debilitated

state of the blood, as before remarked, an immediate cause is usually traceable. In scrofulous cases, I have already shown that suppuration destroys the props which sustain the vertebræ and sometimes the vertebræ themselves. But in such cases as arise from weak blood or debility, bad positions in sitting, standing, or lying are the active or immediate causes. Lounging in a half horizontal position with the entire weight resting on the elbow, is bad for weak spines. By a frequent repetition of such a position by weakly and delicate persons, the spine will lose its natural form, and become curved. Many young women exhibit this deformity by a depression of one shoulder and an upward projection of the other. When discovered by themselves, corsets, shoulder braces, and other mechanical means are resorted to, to conceal the deformity, and although they frequently succeed in this, their muscular system becomes still more relaxed in consequence of artificial support, so that when divested of these things the spine exhibits far greater distortion. No mechanical remedy should be used in these cases, unless accompanied with such medical and electrical treatment as will restore the system to its wonted strength, for it is useless to endeavor to remedy effects so long as causes remain, and in spinal deformity it is worse than useless. If produced by scrofula, that humor must be eradicated before a cure can be permanently effected; if by debility, the blood must be increased in quantity and quality. For treatment, see Chapter XIII.

Scrofula.

Here the medical axe-man strikes the root of fully one-half the ills that afflict mankind. What is scrofula? I reply that it is a poison as imperceptible to the human vision as air. You cannot see air, but when in motion you observe its effects in the flutter of the leaf, the waving of the grass, or the snapping of your hat-band. Then, too, you feel it when, on a warm day, it dries the perspiration on your brow, or in winter when it makes your eyes water, and your ears whistle. You cannot see the insidious poison called scrofula. but you can see its effects upon the blood when it melts the white corpuscles and gives them a cheese-like appearance, and im parts to the red corpuscles a ragged outline and a fiery or inflammable property.

Air is not noticeable except in motion, and scrofulous poison is not

perceptible unless active. In its hereditary transmission it may often be observed in grandparent and grandchild when it does not exist apparently in the intermediate link that connects the two-the parent. The poison in many cases is kept in subjection by the strong recuperative powers of the individual; these powers paralyzed, by great exposure, excessive toil, grief, or dissipation, and the sleeping visitor awakens to a knowledge of the changed physical condition, and forthwith asserts its supremacy, just as a revolutionary element in a government, when the latter becomes weak, rises and seizes control. Thus it often happens that a grandparent by exposure and over-work, has exhibited marked evidence of a scrofulous diathesis; the parent of this line of descent under more favorable auspices and with temperate and studied habits, passes through life apparently free from it; while the child of this parent by sedentary occupation, irregular habits, trouble, or dissipation, is crippled by the distemper. Physicians cannot tell any one exactly what scrofulous poison is composed of; nor can the chemist tell you precisely what fire is made of. You see the fire burn, and witness with wonder the rapidity with which it demolishes a stick of wood that you worked away upon with axe in hand till the perspiration rolled off your face. It laughs at you with its flickering flames while it reduces the tough fibre to impalpable powder. You may, if you will, see how scrofulous poison can take hold of a man whom "your big brother cannot whip," and melt away the substance of his blood, relax his muscles, crumble his bones, and make him as limpsy as a rag-baby. We know what will quench fire, and the doctors-some of them— know what will destroy scrofula. We also know many of the ways in which scrofulous poison is contracted. Living on the northern or western slopes of high hills or mountains, where the magnetic rays of the sun fall only a few hours of every twenty-four, may in a few generations, if not in a few years, render the inhabitants thereof scrofulous (see pages 259 and 358). A long residence in damp localities, habitually sleeping in chambers where the sunlight seldom pen.. etrates, daily exposure to cold, damp air, insufficient food, a pork diet, impure air, and personal uncleanliness may induce it. I have already spoken of its hereditary transmission. It may also be contracted by impure vaccination (see page 190). The late Dr. Byrd Powell, after twenty years or over of careful observation, decided that it generally presented itself in the offspring of healthy parents who had disre

garded the laws of adaptation in contracting marriage. Finally, vi tiated and dissipated habits, and all influences which have a tendency to depress the vital forces may open the doors of the system to the devil's breath and inaugurate scrofula.

Scrofula is a peculiar distemper, and is more various in its effects than any other. It may attack the cuticle and cover it with blotches, pimples, pustules, or ulcers; it may enter the glands in any part of the body and make them lumpy or tumorous--nearly all swellings or enlargements of the neck are of a scrofulous character; it may present itself in the mucous membrane and cause sore throat, catarrh, bronchitis, consumption, dyspepsia, and ulceration of the bowels. It may cause ophthalmia and blindness; ulceration of the ears and deafness; it may penetrate the bones anywhere and crumble away the osseous frame-work, causing spinal deformity, crooked limbs, protuberances of the breast-bone, and displacement of the hipjoints. There is no disease that has so much power for mischief.

The writings of medical men are singularly conflicting with regard to the atmosphere best suited to scrofulous persons. Some unqualifiedly condemn mountainous air, because goitre and other external manifestations of the disease are more frequently observed in a mountainous, high and dry atmosphere, than in regions where it is warmer and damper. This deduction is partly due to the influence of the northern and western slopes which necessarily exist wherever there are southern and eastern slopes. Others favor mountain air, and cite as evidence in favor of their opinion the greater frequency of tuberculous consumption in warm and changeable climates. Now, so far as the prevalence of scrofula is concerned, I do not believe that there is much difference between a cold and dry and a warm and changeable climate for its development, for in the latter we can find enough consumptives and others affected with internal scrofulous deposits to offset those in the former who have the external manifestations of the same disease; but, I contend, there is a decided choice between the two, for in a warm, damp, and changeable climate, in which there is always a preponderance of electricity, the electrical radiations from the system are sluggish, predisposing the humors to locate internally on the delicate mucous membrane of the head, throat, lungs, stomach, etc. A mountainous, dry, and negative atmosphere, if sought on the healthful slopes, by accelerating electrical radiations predisposes the disease to locate externally (see page