skin, and opening the safety-valve of life, which, if you read carefully, and study for yourselves, will save you much anguish, and preserve you many a blossom that will be sweet and dear to you, and will grow up into life, and be a source of joy and comfort in years to come. To the Medical Profession. Before closing with the last lines, I must ask the medical profession to pardon anything I have said in reference to any treatment they may disagree with. What I have experienced I know; and that experience which has cost so much, is given for other's benefit. Every man is responsible to his fellow-man to the extent of his knowledge, and everyone should do his duty to his fellow-man. The responsibilities of the profession are very great. Every man places his life in your hands, and you make noble efforts to do whatever you can to recover your patient back to health and life. You are marching on with science to promote your knowledge, and to elevate your profession to higher degrees of attainment. The treatment of fifty years since, you look back upon as the practice of ignorance, and in fifty years hence that practice will then be considered as quite incomprehensible, and quite opposite to advanced medical knowledge. It is within the last few years you will remember a Continental monarch being ill, who was bled six or seven times in as many days, and he died. Well, we have got over this idea and this practice, and we shall, I hope, soon see the practice of all medical treatment carried out on the true principle, the principle of the laws of nature. By considering the first process of medical relief, is to look to the skin, and relieve The Safety-Valve of Lite.” APPENDIX. Magnetic Communication. As it may interest the reader, the following, which was cut out of a local paper, published June 20th, 1882, is inserted to show what was thought nearly 2000 years ago upon this subject: A correspondent of the London Echo writes:-"The following extract from Addison's Spectator (No. 241), being an almost exact description of the Wheatstone machine in present use, would tend to show that nearly 2000 years ago correspondents had telegraphic communication with each other without the aid of a connecting wire. I draw attention to this interesting paragraph, not with a desire to make the proverbial sneer at the result of Mr. Willoughby Smith's labours, but rather with the intention of guiding the genius of the inventors of to-day into what would appear to be an old channel. Strada, in one of his prolusions, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends, by means of a certain loadstone, which had such a virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, one of the needles so touched began to move the other, though at never so great a distance, at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial plate, inscribing it with the four-andtwenty letters in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked on the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates, in such manner that it could be moved round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this, their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and cast his eye upon his dialplate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant, over cities or mountains, seas, or deserts. If ever this invention should be revived, or put in practice, I should propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written, not only the four-andtwenty letters, but several entire words that always find a place in passionate epistles, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle." A Drop of Water Magnified. More than forty years since, on a visit to the Polytechnic in London (which I am sorry does not now exist), I saw a drop of water magnified three million times the size of its diameter, by an oxyhydrogen microscope. It formed on the sheet a disc thirty feet in diameter, and exhibited an amazing number of living creatures, of many and various sorts. There were some, in shape and size, like small rats, which huddled together in a group, and appeared to be in the greatest terror, within this drop of water. There also appeared a mighty large and powerful creature, whose voracity was something fearful, and no doubt was the cause of all the fear exhibited. He was something like the shape of a crocodile, and compared with the other creatures, was very large, perhaps twenty times their size. I called him a Dragon, being very like in appearance to the celebrated Dragon which the famed so-called St. George of England was supposed to have conquered; however, here he was, in full health and vigour, and very hungry. When the drop of water was dark, the whole of the population appeared not to know the position they were in; but as soon as the powerful light was thrown through the water, they discovered each other, the greedy Dragon flying furiously after the smaller creatures, with his jaws snapping at each chance he had, to gather in the smaller fry, who did all they could to escape their formidable foe. Among the many of those rat-like creatures, was one of a larger size, which, having caught, he tried to swallow, but it was almost too much for him -it nearly settled him. He was all but choked. He gulped again and again, but there, this poor unfortunate little thing stuck in his throat. There he was, plain enough to be seen, the very powerful light making him quite transparent. The poor little creature being fixed there, the Dragon seemed to use extraordinary exertions of muscle and body to complete the swallowing, which, after much exertion, he managed, to the gratification of the audience, who evinced the interest they felt by repeated plaudits at the scene exhibited in this drop of water! Can we pass this by without reflecting for a moment, and ask the question, Who could dissect an eye of one of those creatures; who could describe the functions of their stomachs, or the muscular action of their hearts; who could describe their nervous system, or the capabilities of their brain power, for they possess all these things, and many others? Stop, shall we ask, Who made them? The same that made the universe, and all things from the smallest creature, of which ten thousand live in a single drop of water, or ten thousand times ten, in the same space of atmosphere, up to the eternity of the boundless heavens, with its countless suns and systems. Stay, O man, what dost thou know? The more knowledge thou seekest, the more thou knowest of thine own ignorance-yet thou pretendest to know so much! And though thy pretentions are so very great, thy knowledge is still so little-so absurd! "Man know thyself," and let thine ignorance dominate its power over thyself, still to teach and urge thee further to seek on, and seek forever, that knowledge may give thee power, and that that power may give thee still greater knowledge to teach thee "charity, without which, thou art nothing worth"! Sewage and Health. When cholera, fevers, or any other epidemic is marching on in its career of devastation, and slaying its victims by thousands, in any part of the world, it naturally creates an interest to the thinking portion of mankind, who say, "Supposing a wave of this disease should visit us, are we prepared to receive it? are we in a position to meet the enemy so that his visit may be short, and may be soon compelled to leave, with our population unscathed? Have we taken every precaution to have our courts and alleys in proper order Where the glorious orb of day To see these places in the poorer districts thoroughly cleansed and kept clean; that there should be no dirt or filth accumulating to interfere with the health of the neighbourhood? Are the sewers free from all unpleasant smells? Are they so constructed that no unwholesome gases can be emitted to poison, so as to breed or invite pestilence among those who breathe it?" These are |