D.—It is natural for healthy girls to romp, as you call it. What would a boy be worth, if he were not allowed plenty of exercise? Girls must have their plays and sports, otherwise they will suffer in health. Thus you perceive when your daughter goes to the country, takes plenty of exercise, eats plain food, avoids excess in study, and lives mostly in the open air, she very soon becomes well. Some, perhaps, might tell you that all this is merely the result of a _change_; but, I ask, if it is merely a change that makes her so much better in the country, why does she not grow still better even when she changes back to the city? The truth is, it is not so much a change, as it is the healthful influence of air, exercise, diet, and freedom from excessive study, which work so great a benefit to her health. You perceive, also, it is not medicine your daughter needs. What has your family physician said about this? M.—Well, be sure, Dr. K—— used to give a great deal of medicine, but lately he has changed; he says, in such cases it is not of much use. All he ordered was some iron pills, as he called them; and he did not seem to make much reckoning of these, either. D.—I suppose not. He is an intelligent man—a man of great experience; and he knows well that all well-informed physicians have given up the idea of _emmenogogues_, or medicines, which have a specific effect to bring on the monthly periods. The pills of iron are supposed to be tonic; that is, they invigorate the system somewhat for the time being; but these, even, soon wear out. You have to take more and more of them, until at last they lose their effect altogether; and worse than that, they in the end become debilitating. That is the way with all medicines, not excepting even tonics. Physicians are in the habit of thinking that they must order something from the apothecary’s, even if it is nothing more than bread pills, colored a little, to make them look _like_ medicine. They think they must do something, or else it would not be fair to charge for their visit. Medical men, you know, must live by their profession; and people have not been in the habit of thinking they must pay, unless the doctor _does_ something. For my part, I think that physician deserves the most pay who does the least; that is, who will teach people to cure themselves, and to keep well without medicine.