"We must train the patient gradually but steadily to the giving up of all luxurious habits. He must adopt early hours, and pursue a system of graduated muscular exercises; and it will often happen that, after perseverance in this system, the patient will be enabled to take an amount of exercise with pleasure and advantage which at first was totally impossible owing to the difficulty of breathing which followed exertion. The treatment by muscular exercise is obviously more proper in younger persons than in those advanced in life. The symptoms of debility of the heart are often removable by a regulated course of gymnastics or by pedestrian exercise, even in mountainous countries, such as Switzerland, or the Highlands of Scotland or of Ireland. We may often observe in such persons the occurrence of what is commonly known as 'getting the second wind;' that is to say, during the first period of the day the patient suffers from dyspnoea and palpitation to an extreme degree, but by persevering, without overexertion, or after a short rest, he can finish his day's work and even ascend high mountains with facility. In those advanced in life, however, as has been remarked, the frequent complications with atheromatous disease of the aorta and affections of the liver and lungs must make us more cautious in recommending the course now specified." {194} If any proof of Stokes' ability as an observer and a teacher were needed it would be readily found in his original description of the form of respiratory disturbance since known as Cheyne-Stokes respiration. The passage is besides a model of succinct completeness of description that would well deserve to be in the commonplace book of physicians who write, for so many of them need to imitate his conciseness and clarity. It is to be found in his book _Diseases of the Heart and the Aorta_, p 336. "A form of respiratory distress, peculiar to this affection (fatty degeneration of the heart), consisting of a period of apparently perfect apnoea, succeeded by feeble and short inspirations, which gradually increase in strength and depth until the respiratory act is carried to the highest pitch of which it seems capable, when the respirations, pursuing a descendant scale, regularly diminished until the commencement of another apnoeal period. During the height of the paroxysm the vesicular murmur becomes intensely puerile."