and as an essential part of the economy of living systems. They are the lights within us, placed there to guide us in those matters which reason is incompetent to regulate; and he who would extinguish or disregard them, on the plea that science (so called) has discovered surer and better lights, will find, sooner or later, that he has dreamed, he has put out his eyes, that he might the better see.

We should be glad to speak more particularly of the effects of a too innutritious or meager diet on the health, especially on those who have been accustomed to better fare, but we have hardly space or time. Notwithstanding a frequent effect of a sudden change of this kind is to give temporary elasticity and excitability to the body and the mind, accompanied, however, by gradually increasing emaciation and debility; yet such diet weakens the tone of the stomach, impairs digestion and breaks down the energies of the system, physical and mental. Besides these effects, it is occasionally the cause of two among the most formidable and fatal of diseases, to wit, insanity and pulmonary consumption. Many deplorable cases of the former disease, from inadequate nourishment, may be found among the records of insane hospitals. As it relates to the latter malady, we will only quote the remarks of Dr. Combe, who says, "when from defective food, or impaired digestion, the blood is impoverished in quality, and rendered unfit for adequate nutrition, the lungs speedily suffer, and that often to a fatal extent. So certain is this fact, that in the lower animals, tubercles (the cause of incurable consumption,) can be produced in the lungs, to almost any extent, by withholding a sufficiency of nourishing food. The same circumstances operate to a most lamentable extent among the poorly fed population of our manufacturing towns; whereas it is proverbial, that butchers, a class of men who eat animal food twice or thrice a day, and live much in the open air, are almost exempt from pulmonary consumption."

In conclusion of this part of our subject, we repeat, that men in health, who have the smallest share of common-sense, are adequate to the regulation of their own dietetic management; that men who are sick, cannot safely trust themselves to empirical prescriptions, either as it respects regimen or medicine; that invalids do not all require and will not tolerate the same kind and quality of food, drink, sleep, etc.; that in the ordinary cases of the valetudinary, the appetites are not so perverted or so faithless as to render them unsafe to be trusted; that these appetites, as a general thing, are sufficiently true, even in them, to secure against material error or excess; that the sedentary, the studious and dyspeptics do not commonly eat too much or too nourishing food, nor are they in great danger of indulging in that of an improper quality; that the direction to the disciples to eat whatever was set

before them, as well as the command to ask no questions for conscience's sake, was not only an injunction of religion, but a dictate of philosophy, and is as proper now as in the primitive age of the gospel; that those friends of humanity who are forever preaching abstinence in food and talking cant about weak stomachs, and who enjoin their followers to discard nature at the table, and to substitute rules and standards, weights and measures in its place, are inisguided men, the authors of more evil than they have ever dreamed; and that it is folly in any man, particularly if he be an invalid, to endeavor to make the whole world eat or starve, sleep and walk, think and breathe, precisely after his own individual fashion or fancy.

ART. VII.-INFLUENCE AND EFFECTS OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.

Change of Air, or the Philosophy of Traveling; being Autumnal Excursions through France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Belgium; with observations and reflections on the moral, physical, and medicinal influence of traveling-exercise, change of scene, foreign skies, and voluntary expatriation. To which is prefixed, wear and tear of modern Babylon. By JAMES JOHNSON, M. D., Physician Extraordinary to the King. New-York: Samuel Wood & Sons.

THE work before us contains much that is instructive and valuable on a very interesting topic. It is the more strongly commended to our attention by the professional character and standing of its author. Dr. Johnson is known to the medical world, as the author of treatises on the "Diseases of Tropical Climates,' on "Indigestion," and still better, as the editor of the "MedicoChirurgical Review and Journal of Practical Medicine," of which and its superior merits it is needless for us to speak. The present work was occasioned by a journey on the continent, undertaken chiefly for the sake of health, in the year 1829. A short extract from the preface will acquaint our readers with the subjects of the volume:

The work consists of three parts, united by the thread of the subject. The FIRST contains some observations on that WEAR and TEAR of mind and body, which we particularly remark in civilized life, and specially in large cities, together with some suggestions as to the antidote or remedy. The SECOND part consists of reflections and observations made during excursions through France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, in the years 1823 and 1829; partly for recreation-but principally for renovation of health. The THIRD division contains some remarks and speculations on the moral, physical, and medicinal influence of foreign, and especially of an Italian climate and residence, in sickness and in health.' p. iii.

A pretty correct idea of the nature of the work, as well as of

the manner in which it is executed, may be obtained from the title page. What writer of the least pretensions to clearness of thought and purity of style, would ever put upon the very front of his book such a loose, indefinite, unmeaning and illogical inscription as we here find? "Change of Air, or Philosophy of Traveling, being Autumnal Excursions, etc."! Such an introduction would prepare us for all the looseness of arrangement and carelessness of expression which we actually discover in the body of the work. We could append a long list of the grossest barbarisms, inaccurate expressions, and inelegancies of style, which have come under our eye in perusing it; such as, "salubrity of traveling;" "paucity of soil;" "object and end of an edifice;" "march of intellect, of agriculture, of elegance, and of convenience;""necessary to minutely describe;" "wave after wave of these invaders perished by the sword;" "the intermediate countries are little better than hordes;" "dirt evaporated or withered;" etc. etc. We might also point out many passages objectionable for their coarseness of language, and obscurity and confusion of thought. But we forbear. We have heard it remarked, how truly we do not say, that gentlemen of the medical profession, almost invariably contract a slovenly habit of style, and that purity and accuracy are not to be expected of them. Why they should be allowed this indulgence, we are unable to conceive; our author, however, deems himself entitled to the forbearance which, for some reason or other, has been thought due to the profession, and we are not very reluctant to concede it; especially as he himself is aware of his faults, and pleads only want of time and the pressure of professional duties in extenuation.

As to the spirit of the work, we have more decided objections to urge; especially to the spirit of narrow prejudice, selfish pride, and vanity, which, we are sorry to say, too often sullies its pages. Such characteristics are too often found in English travelers; yet they are by no means the less reprehensible. A wellfounded conviction of the general superiority of our own political and social condition, furnishes no valid ground of justification for empty boasting and unfair disparagement. None are perfect. All have their blemishes as well as excellences. Why should a consciousness of excellence in some respects, or even of general preeminence, lead us to disparage and obscure what is really good and commendable in others, however tarnished and dimmed by the neighborhood of faults, deformities, and vices? We might expect better things, at least of a man of science; of one who is professionally conversant with the frailties and infirmities of humanity, and who should therefore have learned to treat them with forbearance; of one who makes some pretensions to the possession and exercise of a religion which breathes the spirit of hu

mility and charity. Yet, from beginning to end, in this work, we regret to see developments, now and then, of this spirit of vaunting, arrogance and scorn, and of prejudice and partiality.

Did our limits permit, we might notice particular instances of spleen and illiberal prejudice; but our object is not to condemn. We wish only to exhibit a fair character of the work, and we gladly pass to that which we consider truly excellent and valuable in it, and which renders it a most desirable acquisition to the reading public; most of whom, we believe, are unacquainted with its merits, though it has been published a number of years. Our readers have already inferred from what we have said, that it is peculiar in its kind. It is indeed out of the beaten track of journal-writing and travelingsketches. Although loose and immethodical in its arrangement, marred by some blemishes of style, and occasionally exhibiting outbreakings of national pride and vanity, it contains much that, so far as we are aware, is to be collected from no other source, much that is particularly interesting in these days of of universal locomotion. Especially does it deserve the attention of that rapidly multiplying class of individuals, who seek the restoration of health from the benign influence of traveling-exercise and excitement. So numerous has this class lately become, that we are quite confident we do not exaggerate in affirming, the most common motive to travel now to be the restoration or confirmation of health. Not that of the numerous wanderers from home, the majority are the decided victims of disease, the proper inmates of the sick-room or the hospital. There may be no actual exhibitions of disease. Nature, in her faithful guardianship over the well-being of the system, may not have deemed it necessary to give such decisive intimations of disorder, such fearful warnings of danger, as delirium, convulsions, fever, or total debility. But there may be, and observation tell us there often is, a state of the body which is far from being the condition of perfect health; which relaxes the elasticity of the spirits, chills and dampens the intellectual energies, and indisposes for all active exertion, though accompanied by none of the extreme indications of vital derangement. The heavy eye the thin and pallid countenance, the frequent but causeless sigh, the soft relaxed muscle, the excessively irritable nerve, the stooping posture and the languid gait, are the external indications of this unnatural though common condition. This state of the body, in the great majority of those who seek relief from the influence of travel is occasioned by what Dr. Johnson significantly terins "the wear and tear of the living machine, mental and corporeal." It results, in his opinion," from over-strenuous labor or exertion of the intellectual faculties rather than of the corporeal powers, conducted in anxiety of mind and in bad air." The cause, however, we VOL. VIII.

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conceive, is more general than is here suggested. It is mental labor, ill-regulated in regard to degree, time and circumstances. Excessive, unseasonable, intellectual exertion, without respect to the condition of the body, to nourishment, exercise, air, and cleanliness, or to the state of the moral nature, the peculiarity of the affections and feelings, is a most efficient eause of that mental debility, prostration of spirits, and bodily infirmity, which, in these days of bustling enterprise, busy care, and struggling ambition, are thinning the ranks of our most promising men, in all the departments of active life. But however it may be induced, it is a sense of this weakness, this indisposition to effort, this mental impotency, which now drives so many, and will probably drive many more, to seek abroad renovation of health, invigoration of frame, and the recovery of former vivacity and energy. This class of sufferers will read with interest the general observations with which Dr. Johnson has prefaced his volume on "the wear and tear complaint," as he quaintly terms it, and on its causes, indications, and tendencies. The results of an experiment as to the effects of "a constant change of scene and air, combined with almost uninterrupted exercise, active and passive, during the day, principally in the open air," upon a debilitated constitution, will also be regarded by such with interest. The journey now alluded to, was undertaken by the author in company with other valetudinarians, and their domestics, (a necessary part of an English traveler's equipage,) in the year 1823. They traveled in the months of August, September, and October, about 2,500 miles, through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium, for the sole purpose of regaining health. Our author made the circuit. entirely in the open air; that is to say, in an open carriage,—in char-a-bancs,-on mules and on foot." The journeys varied from twenty to fifty or sixty miles in the day, and were generally concluded by sunset. The usual routine of meals, was coffee at sunrise, a breakfast, or dejeuné à la fourchette, at noon, and dinner at eight o'clock in the evening. This excursion, with the succeeding one, conducted in a similar way, but over different ground, together with his medical experience and information, and repeated observations of the effects of travel on other invalids, has qualified Dr. Johnson to speak with some degree of authority on this important subject. After having noticed the author's sketches of this second journey, to which he has devoted nearly nine-tenths of the volume, we propose to take up this point,—the effects of travel,— and dwell upon it more at large.

Dr. Johnson's second journey was commenced in the autumn of 1829. It led him over a distance of 3,500 miles, in a little more than three months; to say the least, an expeditious journey through such countries as France, Switzerland, and Italy. In his