How often do we hear it said of some man lying at the point of death that as long as his digestive functions are duly performed there is hope; and how often, after the crisis is past, do we learn from the jubilant doctor that the patient's stomach was his salvation! "If _that_ had failed, nothing could have saved him." Let me recommend, as the pre-eminent duty of the sensible reader, care of the stomach and the alimentary apparatus.

By care I do not mean dosing.

With too many people the science of hygiene is confined in their imagination and practice to remedial measures.

Of the weightier matters of precaution they reck nothing.

Once in so often they "take a course of physic." This is done not so much because it is needed, as on principle, and because they have somewhere heard that it is a good thing to do.