Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/55

Rh senses of the word, would prove a serious handicap upon the efficacy of the disease fighters, and, moreover, could be solved only in a perfunctory manner. The ingesta would have to be concocted and hurried out without real benefit to the department of nutrition.

In the case of mental affections that precaution has sometimes a peculiar by-purpose. Care, worry, but especially fits of rage, have a tendency to vitiate the humors of the system, and precautionary Nature shuts off the kitchen-supplies to prevent more serious mischief.

Dr. Carpenter in his "Mental Physiology," quotes the experience of an Austrian doctor who was called to the death-bed of a child poisoned by the milk of its own mother. A soldier had been quartered in the house, and one day came in drunk and promptly picked a quarrel with the paterfamilias—a poor Bohemian shoemaker. A scuffle followed, the drunken ruffian drew his sword and the cobbler was getting worsted, when suddenly his wife rushed in and with the superhuman strength of fury overpowered the intruder, snatched his sword and snapped it into pieces. Neighbors interposed, and the cobbler's wife, still