There has never been anything bordering on a proper attention to the skin, until recently; and even now, any care commensurate with the importance of the organ, is the exception rather than the rule. Thirty years ago, Abernethy, when asked by a gentleman as to the probable success of a bathing establishment, said that the profession would not be persuaded to attend to the subject; and that, in respect to the capital which the gentleman proposed to invest in it, he had better keep the money in his pocket. This was said in relation to the general importance of attention to the skin, and also in connection with making it the portal for the introduction of medical agents generally. Abernethy was, in fact, the first who introduced into this country Lalonette's method of affecting the system by mercury applied to the skin in vapour. Hydropathy deals with a very potent agent, and applies it to a very powerful and important organ, the skin; and it employs in combination the energetic influences, temperature and moisture; so that we may be assured there will be very little that is equivocal or infinitesimal in _its_ results; that in almost every case it must do good or harm. But it does not limit itself to these agencies. It has "establishments;" that is to say, pleasant rural retreats, tastefully laid-out gardens; plain diet; often, no doubt, agreeable society; rational amusements; and, as we understand, good hours, with abstinence from alcohol. These are, indeed, powerful agencies in a vast variety of diseases. So that, if hydropathy be not very scientific, it is certainly a clever scheme; and as there are very many people who require nothing but good air, plain living, rest from their anxious occupations, with agreeable society,—it is very possible that many hydropathic patients get well, by just doing that which they could not be induced to do before. But here comes the objection: The skin is, in the first place, only _one_ of the organs of the body, and it is in very different conditions in different people, and in the same people at different periods.