their occupations, while the "farmers" were one hundred and twenty six, and the "laborers" were one hundred and twelve.

Dr. Jarvis says: "Education causes but little insanity. In a table of one thousand seven hundred and forty-one cases, whose causes are given, from sixteen hospitals, only two hundred and five are from excess of study, two hundred and six from mental struggles and anxiety, and sixty-one from excitements, one thousand one hundred and thirty four were from business trials and disappointments. For if we understand the generally approved theory of insanity, we can see from the statements just made, that the normal student is less liable to insanity than are most other occupations in life. We have so meager an idea of what mind—or spirit-is, that we do not know how it can be disordered, diseased, or impaired in itself."

"Reason cannot be unreason," says Dr. Hickok. The organism, however, through which alone the mind must act, may be so disordered that mental action will be distorted, imperfect, or irregular. But how the spiritual element, about the nature of which we know absolutely nothing, can be diseased, it is impossible to form any conception.

Water may hold in suspension or solution impurities and foreign substances. But the filter and chemical reagent can remove these without in the least affecting the water. So the mind-for the most part the director and source of power in the body-may be seriously disturbed in its action by the disorder or disarrangement of a single organ in the body, and yet when hygiene and medicine shall have restored this organ to its healthy state, the mind clear and unclouded will hold its sway again. And the scholar, who of all men can the best understand the laws of the healthy body, and has at his command the most ready means to keep his bodily health perfect, who has the temperament least liable to common and sweeping diseases, who possesses the greatest liberty of men, who holds the calm and guiding element within him of a religious faith, he surely is the one who certainly never should fear or allow within himself the potential elements of that great scourge of modern civilization.

ARTICLE II.-BIBLE HYGIENE.

THE advantages and general superiority of preventive over curative measures in disease, and the now generally acknowledged importance of the science and art of Hygiene, doubtless destined to be the main element in the medicine of the future, impel us to examine the philosophy of health preservation from every point of view and to seek for sanitary information from every available source.

The Old and New Testaments may appear a strange source in which to seek for information of this kind; a curious mine in which to dig for health hints. Still there is no apparent reason why this wonderful compendium, in which so many kinds of knowledge are incidentally imparted, should not also contain medical instruction. Nay, more, if the Bible is of divine origin, is not this revelation the most natural authority to which we could resort, and the likeliest to contain sanitary laws for the body as well as for the soul?

Investigation shows that the Bible does contain matter of this nature, and that its hygienic maxims are not only numerous and varied, but also accurate and profound. They are not crowded into one chapter or even book, but are scattered all over both testaments, generally in the form of pithy sentences imbedded in other matters, like precious gems in a setting of gold. Almost every one of the sixty-six books contains something of this nature, couched either in the form of a direct hint, or an indirect warning or promise which may be turned to practical account, and made of hygienic value. In some places they are numerous, especially in the Pentateuch, which contains the general and special laws promulgated by Moses for the guidance of the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness. And they embrace suggestions not only for individual or private hygiene, but also for the wider and more important subject of public sanitation. So that, though apt to be overlooked or slighted, as they have long been, amid the mass of general information which everywhere crowds the

pages of the Bible, in a collected form they constitute a code of health laws which claim our best attention, as being not only the most ancient but also the most complete that can anywhere be found, even in modern times, and that has no parallel in the sayings and writings of any of the great sages and teachers of antiquity.

The great minuteness with which the subject is treated, the strong language in which the health-hints are couched, the strictness with which they were enforced, and the rarity of rules for the cure of disease as compared with those given for its prevention; all prove how much more important hygienic were considered by Moses than therapeutic measures.

The Bible makes many valuable remarks regarding the most important objects of individual or personal hygiene. Thus hints are found respecting the food, drink, and air we consume, as well as about clothing, rest, exercise, cleanliness, mental, moral, and spiritual culture; and in fact, almost every subject embraced under the title of hygiene. And so ample are these, that out of them a complete hygienic decalogue might be constructed. Health depends largely on the care with which these several indications are followed in private life, and therefore the value of the scriptural maxims can scarcely be overestimated.

But it is chiefly to the public hygiene of the Bible that we wish meanwhile to call attention, because it illustrates more completely than do the hints regarding personal hygiene now spoken of, how far-seeing and complete the medical science of the Scriptures are. Private individuals can usually control matters that influence their own hygiene. But it not unfrequently happens that they are powerless regarding those of the community to which they belong. For example, a citizen can regulate his own food and drink, the ventilation and cleanliness of his house or room; but not so easily, if at all, those of the community in which he dwells. This is a matter of im portance, for while a mistake or omission in private hygiene involves the health of one individual, a blunder or negligence in public sanitation may implicate the health and life of thousands; nay, in extreme cases those of nations. Public sanitation therefore is as important and as necessary for the

welfare of the masses, as private hygiene is for that of individ uals; and is a matter of comfort or misery, health or sickness, in every community and country. And experience proves what theory suggests, that the highest standard of health is attained under that public hygiene which is most carefully regulated.

The effects of a defective public hygiene vary according to the matter in fault. Thus, for instance, the health and strength of a whole community, or even an entire nation have deteriorated under scanty or improper food, or a lax morality. The inhabitants of an entire village, town or city, may be slowly poisoned, and become sallow, emaciated, weak, and on the borderland of disease, by defective drainage, badly ventilated dwellings, and so forth. And, just as by persistent want of cleanliness of the person, clothing, or household, the seeds of some of those loathsome infectious diseases,-small-pox, scarlatina, typhus, and so forth, may thereby find a suitable soil in which to become developed in a family; so these very ailments may spread over an entire community by imperfect public sanitation and a careless quarantine.

The most numerous and important sanitary rules given the Israelites by Moses, were mainly of the public kind. A brief summary will show how cogent and comprehensive these are. Those regarding disinfection-disease-prevention-and cleanliness are detailed with marked emphasis and minuteness, mainly because of their importance in the prevention and restriction of the infectious and contagious diseases now spoken of, some of which afflicted them as others still trouble us. A very large proportion of the sickness and mortality which has occurred among mankind from the earliest ages to the present day, has arisen from disease of this kind. And hence the best means of preventing them or staying their progress, was and still is a matter of the greatest moment.

The nature of these specific diseases has not yet been positively ascertained. They are supposed to arise either from inconceivably minute particles of septic, that is, decaying animal or vegetable matter, or more probably of living animal or vegetable embryos which are carried about in the air we breathe or the water we drink, till they find a suitable person

in whom to settle and develop indefinitely. One great object therefore, when a contagious or infectious disease arises in our midst, is evidently to prevent the air or the water in the vicinity from being contaminated by its germs. Or, if this is impossible, to lessen or altogether destroy the contagion with which either or both of these have been charged, and thus prevent its spread to other individuals. The former is evi dently the more important aim, and often the most easily accomplished.

The most prominent hygienic rules of the Bible are of this class, and were devised to prevent or limit the chief disease of which the Scriptures speak, namely, leprosy, sometimes called the plague; a peculiar and as some think a distinct skin disease. to which the Israelites of that day appear to have been espe cially liable. The disease was very contagious and transmissi ble from person to person by touch, garments, wood, leather, and other things. It is not known what originated it, but fresh cases were continually occurring, and if not checked, the malady would soon have overrun the camp and become unmanageable. This leprosy was of several kinds; namely, that of the body, of garments, and of houses. The nature and phenomena of garment and house leprosy are not only unknown, but wholly unintelligible at the present day; proving that this, like some other diseases of ancient times, has become extinct. Three varieties of human leprosy or Berat are mentioned in Leviticus, namely, Boak, which did not render the afflicted person unclean; Berat Lebena, or bright white Berat; and Berat Cecha, or dusky Berat, spreading in the skin. Of these only the second and third were what Moses calls Isorat, that is, venomous or conta gious; and of these again, one is at first undistinguishable from a harmless eruption.

Strict rules were laid down in the Pentateuch for its manage ment, both when the disease was doubtful, and when it proved to be real leprosy. Frequent and careful inspection was neces sary when it prevailed. If suspected, the patient was taken before the High Priest or Priest, whose intelligence and skill decided whether the case was one of true leprosy or not. When this was doubtful, the patient was put in quarantine outside the camp for seven days. And then, if the disease was not true