WONDERS OF RESPIRATION.--The perfection of the organs of respiration challenges our admiration. So delicate are they that the least pressure would cause exquisite pain, yet tons of air surge to and fro through their intricate passages, and bathe their innermost cells. We yearly perform at least seven million acts of breathing, inhaling one hundred thousand cubic feet of air, and purifying over three thousand five hundred tons of blood. This gigantic process goes on constantly, never wearies or worries us, and we wonder at it only when science reveals to us its magnitude. In addition, by a wise economy, the process of respiration is made to subserve a second use no less important, and the air we exhale, passing through the organs of voice, is transformed into prayers of faith, songs of hope, and words of social cheer. FIG. 33. [Illustration: A, _the natural position of the internal organs._ B _when deformed by tight lacing Marshall says that the liver and the stomach have, in this way, been forced downward almost as low as the pelvis._] DISEASES, ETC.--1. _Constriction of the Lungs_ is produced by tight clothing. The ribs are thus forced inward, the size of the chest is diminished, and the amount of inhaled air decreased. Stiff clothing, and especially a garment that will not admit of a full breath without inconvenience, will prevent that free movement of the ribs so essential to health. Any infraction of the laws of respiration, even though it be fashionable, will result in diminished vitality and vigor, and will be fearfully punished by sickness and weakness through the whole life. 2. _Bronchitis_ (bron-ki'-tis) is an inflammation (see Inflammation) of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes. It is accompanied by an increased secretion of mucus, and consequent coughing. 3. _Pleurisy_ is an inflammation of the pleura. It is sometimes caused by an injury to the ribs, and results in a secretion of water within the membrane. 4. _Pneumonia_ (_pneuma_, breath) is an inflammation of the lungs, affecting chiefly the air cells. 5. _Consumption_ is a disease which destroys the substance of the lungs. Like other lung difficulties, it is caused largely by a want of pure air, a liberal supply of which is the best treatment that can be prescribed for it. [Footnote: If I were seriously ill of consumption, I would live outdoors day and night, except in rainy weather or midwinter; then I would sleep in an unplastered log house. Physic has no nutriment, gaspings for air can not cure you, monkey capers in a gymnasium can not cure you, stimulants can not cure you. What consumptives want is pure air, not physic, plenty of meat and plenty of bread.--DR. MARSHALL HALL.]