It has, like other organs, its mode of dealing with powerful or with injurious influences; and _if it deal with them_ in the full force of the natural law, it affects (and, in disease, almost uniformly) favourably the internal organs; but, on the other hand, _if there be interfering influences opposed to the healthy_ exhibition of the natural law, so that the skin do not deal with the cold, or other agencies, to which it is subjected, _as it naturally should do_, then the cold, moisture, or other agent, increases the determination of the blood to the internal organs, and does mischief. This it may do in one of two ways: we have seen both. 1st. The blood driven from the surface, increases, _pro tanto_, the quantity in the internal organs: it must go somewhere; it can go nowhere else. Or, if cold and moisture produce not this effect, nor be attended with a reactive determination to the surface, there may be an _imperfect_ reaction; that is, _short_ of the surface of the body. In the first case, you dangerously increase the disorder of any materially affected organ; in the latter, you incur the risk of diseased depositions; as, for example, Tumours. We here speak from our own experience, having seen tumours of the most malignant and cancerous character developed under circumstances in which it appeared impossible to ascribe the immediate cause to anything but the violently depressing influence of hydropathic treatment on the skin, with a co-existing disordered condition of internal organs. In one very frightful case indeed, the patient was told, when he first stated his alarm, that the tumour was a "crisis" or reaction; as sure enough it was; but it was the reaction of a cancerous disease, which destroyed the patient. But, as we have said, hydropathy has many features which obviously minister very agreeably and advantageously to various conditions of indisposition, whilst they favour the _bonâ fide observance_ of something like a rational diet—a point of immense consequence, and too much neglected in regular practice. Here again we speak from actual observation. One man allows his patient to eat what he pleases. An eminent physician replied to a patient who, as he was leaving the room, asked what he should do about his diet, "Oh, I leave that to yourself;" showing, as we think, a better knowledge of human nature than of his profession. Another restricts his patient to "anything light." Others see no harm in patients eating three or four things at dinner, "provided they are wholesome;" thus rendering the solution of many a question in serious cases three or four times, of course, as difficult. Now we do not require the elaborate apparatus of a hydropathic establishment to cure disorders, after such loose practice as this; and we do protest against the assertion that any such treatment can be called, as we have sometimes heard it, "Abernethy's plan, attention to diet," and so forth.