Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

people take — partly, at first, by order of the doctor and continued afterwards, and still more from the taking of quack medicines. When a doctor comes to the house, he should be given every chance, and obeyed in all he says ; but when he is dismissed, his medicines should go with him, and all amateur doctoring should be of the simplest kind — abstinence first and foremost, and various applications of hot and cold water. One of our great physicians two or three years ago, in his opening address to his hospital pupils, said that seventy per cent, of the patients in a great London hospital (think what that means !) would not be there if they were teetotalers and vegetarians ; and this statement passed unnoticed in all the daily papers in which the address was reported. If doctors could convince their patients of this, I fear their profession would be a less lucrative one, and that the health of the community would be far better — at any rate, fewer of the leisured moneyed classes would have to go to German watering-places, homceopathists, and quacks. It is quite a latter-day thing for doctors to talk in this way about abstinence in health, but I shall never forget what I owe to an old-fashioned country doctor, who told me, whenever my children were ailing, to knock off at once all animal food — meat, soup, and even milk. Later in my life, I remember it was a favourite saying of Sir William Gull's : ' First get your patient hungry, and then keep him so.' The first book I recommend is called 'On Slight Ailments and on Treating Disease,' by Lionel Beale. This is a collection of lectures delivered at King's College, London, on the principles and practice of medicine. If the book has a fault, it is that it is too comprehensive and medical to suit the palate of the ordinary amateur. The next contains the wisdom of the serpent and the sim- HEALTH 305 plicity of the dove, and has the attractive title of ' A Plea for a Simpler Life,' by George S. Keith, a well-known Edinburgh doctor. This little book is short, clear, and wise. ' Food and Feeding,' by Sir Henry Thompson. This is a much-to-be-commended and really instructive book. It goes into first principles, both of health and of the chemical properties of food, and would be far more useful to take to wild places or distant lands than any ordinary cookery book. The commonplace of living is taken up and handled for our benefit by a man of great talent and learning. Everybody who has not got it, ought to buy it — and study it, too. The next is what, I suppose, would be called a quack- book, and its name is ' Power through Eepose,' by Annie Payson Call. It is an admirable, healthy, and useful little book, particularly suited to the straining, and striving, and overworking of the age. It will be found most helpful to the sleepless and the nervous, if they will study it and give attention to its directions.