Cases are recorded of individuals of excessive obesity, who, being subject to the authority of an absolute master, have been submitted to most rigorous treatment for the purpose of reducing their fat. They have been shut up in a room, and fed upon an amount of food only sufficient to sustain life, and consisting solely of dry bread and water. Dry bread and water however, in sufficient quantity, and an endurable captivity, are not infallible means of inducing leanness. A foreign prince, still young, and subject to the will of his father, has been submitted to this treatment for some length of time, in the hope that his excessive fatty development might be arrested. But in spite of violent exercise, and the use of medicinal means, the prince weighs, at the present time, over three hundred and fifty pounds. In the case of horse-jockeys requiring to reduce their weight to the necessary standard, we may observe that, in order to accomplish their object, they put on a large amount of extra clothing, and take violent exercise (by running or otherwise) during several hours, and afterwards, while bathed in perspiration, are submitted to violent friction by means of a coarse cloth. The employment of such means is not devoid of danger; but the fat lost is soon recovered if the general health has not suffered impairment. Drinking vinegar is a means unfortunately too frequently resorted to for the reduction of corpulence. This acid destroys the mucous tufts of the absorbents in the alimentary canal, and consequently only an insufficient quantity of nutrient matter is introduced into the system, thereby inducing a general wasting. When death does not result, the patient is for a long time, and frequently ever afterwards, subject to gastralgia, &c. A lady once consulted me who, during a whole month, had taken every morning, while fasting, a spoonful of citric acid with syrup. It had not the effect of reducing her _embonpoint_, but had given rise to painful sensations in the stomach, which lasted for several years. I am sorry to say that I have known medical men, who, from their standing in the profession, ought to have set an example of prudence, when consulted in reference to the reduction of corpulence, have ventured to prescribe the use of iodine, iodide of potassium, and even arsenic in small doses. Patients whom I have seen, and who have followed these prescriptions, have told me that they have been compelled to abandon them before obtaining the desired effect, owing to the troublesome consequences attending the use of these powerful medicinal agents. The law takes cognizance of crime less serious than that committed by the physician, who prescribes such poisons when not imperatively called for.