Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/103

Rh be exposed to cold or hard muscular work, like a draper's shop, or to some occupation of an in-door character. By this grand, ignorant, and fatal mistake, many victims are added to the list of the phthisical class of the community.

In many in-door occupations a double mischief is at work. The patient is not only confined in an impure air, but is made also to inhale some foreign agent, present of necessity from the character of his work, and with which the air is charged.

Some sedentary occupations beget a habit of muscular inactivity. Unworked machinery always resumes work lazily, and muscles long left to a passive nutrition respond slowly to the dictation of the will. The physical inertia conquers the mental powers. Hence some patients can not be persuaded to give up their inactive pursuits, even when they have the opportunity. To prescribe to these individuals a walk of two miles a day is felt as a cruelty. Nor are these difficulties met with only in anæmic young girls, bleaching in millinery establishments, or in no establishments at all. They extend to men of various sorts: to men of letters, to men given up to sheer indolence, and to sedentary workmen, such as watch-makers, shoe-makers, and tailors.

On the other side, almost all occupations implying muscular exertion out-of-doors, without undue exposure to wet and damp, may be pursued by the consumptive as long as possible, and with advantage. Work keeps the mind occupied and in healthful tune.

I remember a patient once who, in the first stage of consumption, insisted on coming into town each morning from a considerable distance in the country, to look after his business, and to return home again in the afternoon. It mattered not that the sky looked threatening, for he was not afraid of such a trifle, although he thoroughly knew his critical condition. When expostulated with by his advisers (and, I am ashamed to say, by myself, for I was ignorant then of the truths I now state), his reply was: "My brothers and sisters have all died of consumption; they were coddled up, nursed, carried about, confined to bed, and bound in the cords of helplessness by the kindest hands, to the satisfaction of the doctor and of all concerned. But they soon died. I inherit the proclivity to the same disease, and I too shall die; I know it; but my course is different, for I have made up my mind to die in harness; I have kept at my business in resistance to all entreaties, and I am the only one of the family left," The plan adopted by this man was right; he bore the brunt of the disease for months, and is alive and occupied still.

I recommend all in whom consumption is hereditary, whose occupation is in the open air, to take to heart the motto of this man, to make up their minds "to die in harness." They will live the longer for the resolution.

At the same time, as there is a medium in all things, so is there in work and exercise. Excessive and violent muscular fatigue is next