Narcotics.--The use of these to give temporary relief, often degenerating into a habit, causes so much serious disease that we have felt constrained to insert an article warning our readers in regard to it. The use of tobacco we have found a fruitful source of dangerous illness. It tends to destroy nerve power, and through this to relax the muscular system. It has a most dangerous effect upon the mind, relaxing the brain, and even causing some of its functions to cease. It hinders clear reasoning, and in many cases brings on incipient paralysis. It is a fruitful source of cancerous diseases of the mouth. It destroys keenness of vision. It is of no use to quote exceptional cases in such an argument. Great men have smoked, as some great men have habitually drunk, to excess. But that is no argument for the average man of whom we speak. The very difficulty he has in giving up the use of tobacco indicates a diseased state of the nerves, which no wise man will willingly bring on himself. The effect of the continued use of opium, chloral, and many drugs taken to gain soothing or sleep is _dreadful_: so much so that we have seen patients who were deprived of them, after some time of continuous use, perfectly _mad_ with agony. Let our readers remember that the relief given in using such drugs comes from a benumbing of the vital nerves. Their influence is _deadening_, and, if strong enough, kills as surely as a bullet. The wise medical man will, if he does administer such drugs, take care they are only taken once or twice. If a doctor orders their continual use he is to be distrusted. By all means let our readers avoid the terrible snare of ease and sleep obtained through narcotics. It is generally easy to give relief, in the various ways described in these papers, without resort to any such hurtful methods.