“We have heard of such evils,” was the reply, “but science and common sense united have combated them effectually. Two of our finest statues are in honour of a couple of scientists who must be ranked amongst the most famous benefactors of their kind who have ever lived. I allude to Koch and Pasteur, whose discoveries inaugurated a happy era of immunity from disorders which once killed thousands of human beings annually. Unfortunately for their contemporaries, the world at large looked upon their discoveries as only interesting from the scientists’ point of view, failing to recognise the fact that a gigantic revolution in medicine was impending. In some of our archives mention is made of a Dr. Austin Flint, who asserted that such a revolution was not far off. But his utterances fell on ears that were mostly deaf or unheeding. And yet, to the discovery and study of bacteria the most incalculable benefits to the human race are to be attributed. So perfect has the knowledge on this subject now become, that the cause of every infectious disease is well known. They are all easily preventible, but where, through possible slight relaxation of watchfulness, they may break out, they are so easily curable as to cause no alarm. It is, however, many years since a case of infectious disease occurred in New Amazonia. Science has succeeded in affording us absolute protection against scarlet fever, measles, yellow fever, cholera, whooping cough, and many other dreadful ailments which formerly decimated nations.” Naturally, I was very much interested in all these statements, and our conversation branched into various departments of the curative art. I was considerably amused by Principal Grey’s information relative to the Dietetic Hospital, as fine a building as any I had yet noticed in Andersonia. The patients in this hospital were nearly all people in physical health, and they pursued their ordinary daily avocations with a cheerfulness which I had never before observed in an institution patronised solely for its curative properties. The Dietists, as they were called, resorted to this hospital in search of cures for mental and moral failings, and implicitly obeyed the specialists who sought to effect their cure by means of a wise and judicious selection of food. Thus the violent tempered found their nature considerably modified and sweetened, after being for a few months subjected to a daily diet in which a peculiarly prepared carrot-soup was the _pièce de résistance_. Nervous disorders were very few here, but the slightest suspicion of a tendency to be nervous or fidgety was provocative of a temporary flight to the hospital, which, owing to the speed and cheapness of the water-cars, was easily accessible to every denizen of the island. Green peas and scarlet runners were prohibited to those whose natural tendencies ran in a choleric direction, since they were held to be provocative of violent temper.