MISTAKEN NOTIONS OF TOURISTS. 251 mineral waters that are possibly not equal to those of Cheltenham, or chalybeate waters not better than those of Tunbridge Wells, or sulphuretted waters not comparable to those of Harrowgate. It may be very well to say to the man of wealth and independence, Medicine is really not calculated to effect your cure. Get together your travelling conveniences, your carriage, and your servants, and go to the continent, and visit the Brunnens of Nassau, or the Tyrol, or the south of France, or Rome, or Naples.' But this sort of advice, if given to the great mass of the people of Great Britain, even of the middle classes, is only like filling their hands with water, which, thirsty though they be, is never likely to reach their lips, or suspending viands before their eyes which are destined for ever to elude their famishing and eager grasp. It may be said to such with sufficient truth, that they have little cause to envy their wealthier brethren the unbounded freedom of far and wide migration; that, to taste all the pleasures which the best and most health-giving of all kinds of travelling affords, they need not to leave their native land; but, with some shillings and pounds, according to their means and their expectations, and a bundle containing a change or two of linen and an extra pair of shoes, hung over the shoulder by a stick, they may wander over the highlands of Scotland, over Cumberland, or Westmoreland, or Wales, or last, but not least, Derbyshire; and admiring the beauties of the woodland plains, or the grandeur of unequalled or unsurpassed mountain scenery; warmed into a taste for the sublime and the beautiful by seeking nature in all her inimitable, unartificial, and untouched grandeur, and by seeing her decorated and made more useful by the hand of man, they may, after a ramble of weeks and months as may be, return home with the assured conviction that what travelling and change of air and scene can do for man's health they have done for theirs. "It is this sort of travelling, this total removal from ordinary and every-day habits, this constant exercise, this continual change of air, which does most good; that, if the man is in moderate health, is calculated to give vigour to his system, freedom to his limbs, and clearness to his mind; that has, like magic, uprooted many a case of long-continued dyspepsia, and caused many a case of chronic disordered action, threatening to degenerate into something worse, to be no longer felt. Change of air may be too great, but it cannot be too frequent, if the powers of the system are not materially impaired. "In many, the majority of the cases of indigestion, the spirits are either very much depressed, or the mind is in a state of highly morbid excitability. There are few diseases in which the remarkable sympathy which subsists between the body and the mind is so clearly seen as in dyspepsia. The consequence of this sympathy is, that the patient looks at everything in the darkest and blackest light-magnifies trifles into affairs of moment —is tormented with a constant cavilling, wretched sensitiveness. It is necessary, then, not only that the body should be exercised, and its muscles actively used; not only that the stomach should be as little distressed by work as possible; not only that change of air, frequent change of air, should be enjoyed, but it is necessary, moreover, that the mind should be taken away from its cares and troubles, from the customary sources of vexation, and be amused with variety without knowing how an amusement that is well furnished by the fresh scenes, the fresh faces, and the various and numberless interesting matters for observation that a tract of country before unknown to him must ever present, even to the commonest observer. 66 Travelling, and especially pedestrian travelling, presents, among its many other points of excellence, this in a remarkable degree-it acts directly on the mind as well as the body. I am satisfied that if the measure were tried in cases of hypochondriacism, and even in many a case of incipient insanity, numbers would be restored to their INFLUENCE ON MIND AND BODY. 253 reason, their families, and their friends. The effects of such travelling can hardly be sufficiently estimated. It would enable many an invalid, at a cheap and easy rate, to show a 'clean bill of health,' and there are few who would consider the prescription to be otherwise than palatable." CHAPTER XVI. HINTS TO THE AGED AND THE VALETUDINARIAN. "You are old, Father William,' the young man cried, You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man- "In the days of my youth,' Father William replied, And abused not my health and my vigour at first, "You are old, Father William,' the young man cried, And yet you lament not the days that are gone- "In the days of my youth,' Father William replied, I thought of the future whatever I did, "You are old, Father William,' the young man replied, You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death- "I am cheerful, young man,' Father William replied, In the days of my youth I remember'd my God, SOUTHEY. "Though old, he still retain'd His manly sense and energy of mind; ARMSTRONG. IT is a circumstance worthy of notice, as it may contribute to the comfort of invalids, that long life is not EFFECTS OF SENILITY. 255 necessarily connected with high health, for it is certain that many attain to a great age under a very delicate state of health; whilst neither the conveniences nor the luxuries of life, with all their apparent advantages, are by any means peculiarly favourable, either to the preservation of health, or to the prolongation of life. The circumstances which seem to have contributed chiefly to longevity are, being born of healthy parents, and simplicity of diet earned by daily labour. "The age of sixty may, in general," observes Sir Anthony Carlisle, "be fixed upon as the commencement of senility. About that period it commonly happens that some signs of bodily infirmity begin to appear, and the skilful medical observer may then be frequently able to detect the first serious aberrations from health. Long-continued professional experience has taught me to seek for such incipient disorders in the evidences of the state of the stomach and its dependencies, and from the condition of the blood and its vessels. Overfulness of the vessels, contamination of the blood, impaired digestion, and consequent crudities mingling with the elementary materials of the blood, are to be reckoned the leading causes of many diseases, and a scrupulous attention to these points will often discover the beginning of bad health. 66 "The fibres in old persons are relaxed, and the flexible solids, together with the blood-vessels, are more yielding than they are at a more vigorous period. From the same cause that muscular engine, the heart, labours under a diminished power, while it is obliged to drive on the circulation under the disadvantages of weakened and distended vessels. "The separating of fluids from the blood, called the secretions and excretions, is also lessened and deteriorated, so that the ordinary methods of its purification, and of balancing its quantity, become impaired. Hence in extreme old age the blood is liable to be disproportioned, or to be vitiated in its composition. 66 The heart and the blood-vessels are subject, how |