The cure of these complaints is at least obvious, if not easy. It consists in deserting crowded and heated rooms, at least for part of the time they have been usually occupied; in abstaining from strong wines; in keeping the bed rooms moderately cool; and retiring to rest at a proper hour. With respect to the effects of nutriment, in producing asthenic diseases, we may observe, that all watery vegetable food, too sparing a use of animal food, as also meat which is too salt, and deprived of its nutritious juices by keeping, when more nutritious matter is at the same time withheld, constantly weaken, and thereby tend to produce asthenic diseases. Hence would appear to arise that remarkable imbecility of body and mind which distinguishes the Gentoos. Hence arise the diseases with which the poor are every where afflicted; hence scrofula, epilepsy, and the whole band of asthenic diseases. But intemperance in eating and drinking, or taking nutritious and highly stimulant substances too freely, will, infallibly, bring on asthenic disease, or a state of indirect debility, by exhausting the excitability; and it must be observed, that this species of debility is much worse to cure than the direct kind; for in the latter we have abundance of excitability, and a variety of stimuli, by which we can exhaust it to the proper degree, and thus bring about the healthy state; whereas, in indirect debility, the vital principle or excitability is deficient; and we have not the means of reproducing it, at pleasure, absolutely under our command. Besides, the subtraction of stimulants, which is one of the most certain means we have of accumulating excitability, if carried to a great extent, in diseases of indirect debility, would produce death, before the system had power to reproduce the lost or exhausted excitability. Hence the cure, in these two kinds of debility, must be very different: in cases of direct debility, as in epilepsy, we must begin with gentle stimulants, and increase them with the greatest caution, till the healthy state is established: we must, however, guard most carefully against over doing it; for, if we should once overstep the bounds of excitement, and convert the direct into indirect debility, we shall have a disease to combat, in which we have both a want of excitement and of exciting power. In cases of violent indirect debility, as, for instance, in gout, when it affects the stomach: it would be wrong to withdraw the stimulus, for the excitability is in such an exhausted state as to produce no action, or very imperfect and diseased, from the effect of the common exciting powers; we must, therefore, here apply a stimulus greater than natural, to bring on a vigorous and healthy action, and this stimulus we should gradually diminish, in order to allow the excitability to accumulate, by which the healthy state will be gradually restored.