WITHIN the recollection of our octogenarians the disciples of Esculapius were considered prepared to encounter disease if armed with calomel and the lancet. During the last half-century more attention has been paid to therapeutics, and for every symptom or new form of the patient's complaint the physician diligently consulted his repertory. Each disease not only had its specific remedies, but these were again classified so that each remedy was allotted to each particular symptom exhibited. The failures of these to perform the work assigned to them by the medical authorities were apparently more numerous than the successful cases, and these exceptions caused the honest physician to hesitate and act more cautiously. Instead of blindly shooting at the disease with its accredited drug, the wideawake doctor now turns his attention to assisting the vis medicatrix naturæ by recuperating the nerve-forces and enabling them to conquer the encroachments of disease and eliminate from the system the disturbing elements. Thus in cases of consumption and severe bronchial trouble the patient is given cod-liver oil and sent to Florida or Colorado. Not that the oil has any direct action upon the disease, or that the air in those localities is a special remedy, but because they help to build up the system by producing healthier action and increased vitality in all the natural functions. The power of Nature to restore itself when unimpeded, and to re-establish equilibrium, was practically acknowledged by our old-time doctors. When a child had a limb broken the old M. D. did not resort to his calomel and lancet, but went to work setting the bone, bandaging the limb, and left Nature to do the knitting and the healing, thus acknowledging the law of Nature to concentrate its restorative powers upon that spot most needing immediate attention. Nor is it surprising, now, that the progressive physician of the present day should marvel that the old time doctor did not apply the saine principles, governing the healing of a broken limb. to that of the abnormal condition of any organs of the body. It is an acknowledged fact that those physicians are most successful who make the least use of drugs and rely mostly upon Nature itself expelling the invader, armed anew with the increased force derived from the revitalizing elements placed within its reach and for which it has an affinity. The most popular recuperative agent of the present day is that universal element, oxygen, and particularly in its allotropic form-ozone; and hundreds of physicians have been and still are experimenting how best to obtain the oxygen in this form. That it exists in purer atmospheres and in high altitudes is perfectly true, but to remain in the latter is impracticable owing to rarity of the atmosphere. The almost universal detection of ozone in rooms or offices where, by means of telegraphic wires or other conductors, flashes of lightning, during storms, have passed through them, has led to a vast number of experiments to produce ozone by means of electrical batteries or machines. But the apparent insurmountable difficulty of collecting and storing so ethereal an element for future use, has proved a strong barrier against its manufacture by electrical agency alone. As the true chemist sees the allotropic form of carbon in the charcoal, plumbago, and diamond, so does he see the possibility of the same principle in oxygen in the form of ozone. In the search for this, scores of scientists have experimented, fruitlessly though not despairingly. It certainly seemed possible that some one should be successful and discover the hidden process. A score of years form the epoch since a New England physician discovered the combination of oxygen and nitrogen that could be advantageously used therapeutically. This was valuable as an office practice. It was five years after this when the medical world was obliged to recognize that Drs. Starkey and Palen, after a long series of experiments, were crowned with success in producing an ozonized oxygen in such portable shape as to become an invaluable home treatment. Since that day 50,000 sick and afflicted have tried this home treatment, and tens and tens of thousands rejoice that Compound Oxygen has restored them to health-a health that they had in vain for years tried to find and thought forever lost. Twelve years of experience in dispensing the Compound Oxygen Home Treatment among 50,000 patients has most substantially confirmed its superiority as a remedial agent, especially in all chronic diseases. The following testimonial is one of the thousands received in recognition of its power and efficacy: My NEWPORT, R. I., March 30, 1887. "How much I prize the Compound Oxygen Treatment! It seems to me I shall never want to be without it after what it has done for me. lungs are gradually growing stronger, if I would only let them. As I said before, I feel my lungs are gradually improving, but I am very apt, the days I feel exhilarated, to overdo, and then I suffer from the inflammation. They are quite sensitive to the touch and movement of the arms to-day, but last Saturday, Sunday, and yesterday I felt almost like a new being, and exposed myself more in the cold rooms than I have in one year. I presume I ventured too far, consequently I am having to be very cautious to-day. As soon as my suffering begins to going beyond what I am able really to do; have subside I forget myself, and my great trouble is in been gaining faster than at any previous time since I began the treatment, and I think that, with proper care, I will continue healthward. Each day as I go on I can not be half thankful enough for the testimonial I saw in the Zion's Herald of a minister who had been cured of lung trouble of a very serious nature, and by his testimonial there it was brought to my notice. The following week I wrote you for one of your brochures and found there the name of Mrs. Mary A Livermore. That week she came to lecture in our town. I sent by a friend to consult her personally about it, and from her own lips heard even more minute details than her testimonial presented. It came to me just as I was about to give up. "Mrs. LYDIA B. CHACE." The whole story of Compound Oxygen is pleasantly told in a little brochure of two hundred pages, issued by Drs. Starkey & Palen, No. 1529 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. This will be mailed freely to all who write requesting it. HA UCT 20 1837 LIBRARY THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. NOVEMBER, 1887. THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. BY HON. DAVID A. WELLS, LL. D., D. C. L. V. the preceding paper of this series (No. IV), evidence was submitted to the effect that the remarkable decline in prices which has occurred during the last ten or fifteen years—or since 1873—in the case of the various commodities which constitute the great bulk of the trade, commerce, and consumption of the world, has been so largely due to conditions affecting their supply and demand that, if any or all other causes whatever have contributed to such a result, the influence exerted has not been appreciable; and, further, that if the prices of all other commodities, not included in such analysis, had confessedly been influenced by a scarcity of gold, the claims preferred by the advocates of the latter theory could not be fairly entitled to any more favorable verdict than that of "not proven." But have commodities, other than those whose production and price-experience have been submitted-more especially such commodities as have not in recent years experienced any marked change in their conditions of supply and demand-exhibited in their recent price-movements any evidence. of having been subjected to any influences attributable to the scarcity of gold? The answer is, that not only can no results capable of any such generalization be affirmed, but no one commodity can even be named, in respect to which there is conclusive evidence that its price has been affected in recent years by influences directly or mainly attributable to any scarcity of gold for the purpose of effecting exchanges. In the first place, all that large class of products or services, which are exclusively or largely the result of handicrafts; which are not capable of rapid multiplication, or of increased economy in production, and which can not be made the subject of international competition, VOL. XXXII.-1 have exhibited no tendency to decline in price, but rather the reverse. A given amount of gold does not now buy more, but less, of domestic service and of manual and professional labor generally than formerly; does not buy more of amusements; not more of hand-woven lace, of cigars, and of flax, which are mainly the products of hand-labor; of cut-glass, of gloves, of pictures, or of precious stones. It buys notably less of hides and leather, which are the sequences of cattle-growing, which in turn involves time, and for which, in point of economy, large sections of the earth are not adapted; of horses, and most other animals; of pepper; of cocoa, the cheap production of which is limited to a few countries, and requires an interval of five years between the inception and maturing of a crop; of malt liquors, eggs, currants, and potatoes; and also of house-rents, which depend largely upon the price of land, and which in turn is influenced by fashion, population, trade, facilities for access, and the like. How little of change in price has come to the commodities of countries of low or stagnant civilization, that have remained outside of the current of recent progress, is strikingly illustrated in the case of a not unimportant article of commerce, namely, the root sarsaparilla; which, with a gradually-increasing demand, continues to be produced (collected and prepared) in Central America, by the most primitive methods, and, without any change in the conditions of supply, save, possibly, some greater facilities for transportation from the localities of production to the ports of exportation. Thus, in the case of Honduras sarsaparilla, at New York, which is the principal distributing market of the world, the average price for the best grade is reported as identical for the years 1881 and 1886; while for the "Mexican," the average reported for 1881 was eight cents per pound, and for 1886, with much larger sales, from seven to eight and a quarter cents. All the evidence, furthermore, tends to show that there has been very little decline in recent years in the prices of such of the commodities of India as constitute her staple exports, which can not, as will be hereafter shown, be clearly referred to agencies entirely disconnected with any influence assumed to have been occasioned by any increase in the purchasing power of gold due to its absolute or relative scarcity.* Now, all of the commodities referred to, including labor and personal service, and many others which might be specified, whose condition in recent years has not been materially influenced by changes * According to Mr. Robert Giffin, in his testimony before the British Commission, "On the Changes in the Relative Values of the Precious Metals," 1886, the general result of a comparison of India prices submitted to the Commission "On Trade Depression," shows a fall of only two per cent in 1880-'84, as compared with 1870-'74, or with the period immediately before the fall in silver: "The general conclusion appears to me to be that the effect of the present relations between gold and silver have not told appreciably on prices in India, or on the relative progress of her import and export trade."-Testimony of Sir LOUIS MALLET, late UnderSecretary of State for India, Trade Depression Commission, 1886. |