piles in the after part of the day, the symptoms will revive during the same hours to-morrow; thus giving your mind the impression that periodicity is a law as much in disease as in health.

REMEDY.-The treatment recommended for this disease, is different in different schools of medicine. The remedies are almost innumerable, and yet, the disease prevails throughout civilization. Thousands have the piles without whispering the fact to their nearest friend. People seem to regard with indelicate suspicion, if not with mortification, certain parts and functions of their organization. Excessive modesty is not the sign of intelligence and refinement, but it is,. rather, a symptom of conscious embarrassment-a momentary loss of self-possession-while in the presence of those who are supposed to think unworthily of the subordinate functions of physical organs. Intelligence and refinement, instead of masking and falsifying themselves in furtive glances and prudish expressions, will throw a white halo of significance and respect around the least of things.

Physicians of every school, when they ascertain that their patient is afflicted with piles, will prescribe, in addition to phy sical treatment, mental quietude and freedom from muscular exertion. The disciples of Hahnemann have found sovereign remedies for piles in their minute pellets and powders, because they very judiciously started with the theory that the disease is a spiritual disturbance; and hence, logically, that prolapsus ani and hemorrhoids will yield to the spiritual parts of Nux vom. and Sulphur, Belladonna, Arsenicum, Carbo-veget., Mercur. sol., Ignatia, Cocculus, or to the active principle of some other remedy or combination in the pharmacopoeia of infinitesimalism. All the success of homeopathic physicians, according to our perception, is attributable to the practical application of

a correct theory in their possession, that disease is spiritual in its origin, and that symptoms, consequently, are the voices of the internal disturbances, which may be hushed and forever silenced by the prompt administration of whatever they (the voices,) infallibly call for-this, more than the "like-cureslike" principle, is the central secret of the triumphant progression of Homeopathy. But more of this hereafter, when we come to write a few articles on the "isms" in the world of Medicine.

In order to treat piles, or prolapsus ani, successfully, it is necessary to obey all the psychological by-laws, and comply with all the mechanical conditions which the disease suggests to the understanding. First, you must cease straining to discharge the excrementitious contents of the intestines; second, you must conform to rules heretofore given, by which "costiveness" is effectually cured without medicines; third, you must not occupy your thoughts and dissipate your Will-power while performing your bodily functions; fourth, you must not procrastinate the hour of obedience to this demand of your being, but the utmost system and regularity are required, and if your daily labor calls you early, so that you cannot attend to this function, then adopt the hour before bed-time as the most appropriate, and insist upon teaching your intestines to respond promptly at this period; fifth, if the vessels or lips of the anus protrude after the operation, lean forward and push them fully upward within the orifice, to their proper position. Never neglect this mechanical adjustment of the fallen and distended vessels, for there are reasons why the contracting muscles cannot always accomplish this important result. If the vessels are allowed to remain without the rectum for a few days, they become strangulated and hardened-perhaps ulcerous and exceedingly sore

so that a surgical operation is sometimes the only way of escape from results more serious.

Ointments and salves are not curative. They seldom do anything more than soothe the external and exposed parts, while they almost certainly inflame the cellular membranes of the rectum. The drug stores are full of quack medicines for piles, hernia, &c., not one of which is likely to accomplish more than temporary relief. One of the best palliative treatments is that of our hydropathic establishments-correct diet, frequent bathing, and cold water syringes. But the cure, whenever accomplished, occurs by and through the restoration of the primeval equilibrium between the nervous and the venous systems, or, more properly speaking, by establishing a balance of the spiritual forces (dynamics,) in the circulatory organism, which includes every possible ramification of the veins and arteries, beginning in the brain, pouring through the moderator, called the "heart," and diffusing its life-principles to the minutest bounds of the structural economy.

Recently our attention was arrested by the assertion of a scientific gentleman in this city-one of our first inventorswho declared that, without being able to give a philosophical reason, he had been cured of piles by simply carrying a horsechestnut in his pantaloons' pocket. The discovery of this peculiar power in the horse-chestnut was accidental on the part of another gentleman, who had been previously cured. It was found that, so long as he carried the chestnut about his person, the piles, although exceedingly annoying and painful before. were kept in subjection, and at last entirely overcome.

We have examined the emanations of the horse-chestnut since the above fact came to our knowledge, and do not hesitate to prescribe the experiment to our patients. Indeed, we do not recommend it as an "experiment," but as a remedy; inasmuch

as the active principle of the nut is friendly to the removal of hemorrhoidal swellings; but it is not a remedy under violations of by-laws and conditions already specified.

The subtile penetrations of certain metals and plants are exceedingly curious and magnetical. Much superstition and folly have been developed by too much reliance upon the virtues of various herbs and mineral bodies. And yet, there is a scientific truth at the bottom of all mythology, alchemy, and astrology. The ancients were peculiarly, but often erroneously, impressed with the spiritual properties of salts and herbal preparations. Alchemists, for example, found much spiritual (i. e., dynamic and psychologic force or) energy in what they termed the "Volatile Salt of Vipers." One writer says: "To judge well of the effects which this Volatile Salt can produce in our bodies, we must know its manner of operation, which is to open, to comminute, to pierce, to attenuate, and to drive to the extreme parts of the body, and through the pores of the skin, all the impurities and all the strange bodies that can get out by those ways. Further, it is an enemy to all corruption-very friendly and very agreeable to our nature, which it assists and fortifies, enabling it to expel, not only by the pores of the skin, but by siege, and by all the emunctories of the body, the superfluous humors which molest it; whence it comes to pass, that it produces admirable effects upon a thousand occasions, curing a great number of sicknesses, or, at least, giving great relief therein, even in those that are most refractory and most difficult to cure-such as apoplexies, lethargies, convulsions, agues, and many other maladies, believed to have their source in the brain."

With this singular quotation from one of the ancient alchemists, who was evidently impressed with the aural powers and odyllic energies of mineral bodies, we will conclude-hoping to hear from correspondents after carrying the horse-chestnut for

a few weeks. It seems to us that the constant presence of the chestnut for the cure of particular diseases, will arouse and coneentrate your pneumogastrical powers.

Piles Cured by Horse-chestnuts.

FREMONT, Ind., June, 1861.

To A. J. DAVIS: Recently, in conversation with a gentleman (a mason by trade,) he stated that, some years since, he was attacked with the piles, which readily disappeared, in consequence (as he verily believes,) of carrying a horse-chestnut in his pocket, and continued well for about five years; during which time he carried it (the chestnut,) in his pocket; becoming worn out, he threw it away. The disease returned in a few weeks, but was again promptly removed by resorting to the same remedy, which he still uses.

He also informed me that an acquaintance of his (also a mason,) related to him a similar experience respecting the sanative influence of this apparently very simple remedy.

The Cause and Cure of Hydrophobia.

"MY DEAR SIR: Please inform me, as soon as you possibly can, what is the best medicine for preventing or curing Hydrophobia. Mad dogs have been lately very numerous through this neighborhood. Do, for humanity's sake, inform your readers what is the most efficacious treatment of Hydrophobia, and you will, I assure you, be instrumental in saving many of your fellow beings from misery and an untimely grave."

ANSWER. The best known natural prevention of the disease called "Hydrophobia" is, a wholesale destruction of all dogs in Christendom. But the pound of "cure" is more popular. Of the symptoms of Rabies in the human being we need not say anything. They are, unhappily, familiar to thousands. The poison may remain latent in the human body for days, weeks, months, and even years, and then break forth with all its terrible symptoms of paroxysmal destruction.