Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/154

148 sure to dislodge the lurking imps of dyspepsia. Violent movement-cures may not be advisable in the far-gone stages of debilitating disorders, but, on the whole, will do for a crapulent organism what a brisk gale does for the forests of a tropical coast-swamp that may vegetate in a calm, but cannot get rid of their dead leaves and mouldering branches. Microbes have a predilection for a quiet boarding-house and do not often frequent a blacksmith's body. Woodchopping answers the same purpose, and in a climate like that of our lake-shore States it would be worth while to weather-tighten and warm a shed, in order to try Mr. Gladstone's favorite prescription without the risk of frozen toes. The "Sage of Hawarden" worked in the open air, but the winter-climate of Southern Britain, under the parallel of Montreal, is in reality milder than that of Maryland. Wood-choppers indulging the luxury of a weather-proof building—heated, perhaps, with a chip-fire flickering in an open fireplace, can now and then give their lungs the benefit of a draught of purer oxygen by stepping out in the storm and fetching additional logs from the wood-pile. Asthma-patients, with a little experience in the