"I have called to consult you about the strangest thing in the world. I will tell you all. I am twenty-three years old. When I was nineteen I weighed 122 pounds; now I weigh 209; I am all filling up with fat. I can hardly breathe. The best young man that ever lived loves me, and has been on the point of asking me to marry him, but of course he sees I am growing worse all the time and he don't dare venture. I can't blame him. He is the noblest man in the world, and could marry any one he chooses. I don't blame him for not wishing to unite himself to such a tub as I am. Why, Doctor, you don't know how fat I am. I am a sight to behold. And now I have come to see if any thing can be done. I know you have studied up all sorts of curious subjects, and I thought you might be able to tell me how to get rid of this dreadful curse." She had been talking faster and faster, and with more and more feeling (after the manner of fat women, who are always emotional), until she broke down in hysterical sobs. I inquired about her habits--table and otherwise. She replied: "Oh, I starve myself; I don't eat enough to keep a canary bird alive, and yet I grow fatter and fatter all the time. I don't believe anything can be done for me. We all have our afflictions, and I suppose we ought to bear them with fortitude. I wouldn't mind for myself, but it's just breaking his heart; if it wasn't for him I could be reconciled." I then explained to her our nervous system, and the bearing certain conditions of one class of nerves has upon the deposition of adipose tissue. I soon saw she was not listening, but was mourning her sorrow. Then I asked her if she would be willing to follow a prescription I might give her. "Willing? willing?" she cried. "I would be willing to go through fire, or to have my flesh cut off with red-hot knives. There is nothing I would not be willing to endure if I could only get rid of this horrible condition." I prepared a prescription for her, and arranged that she should call upon me once a week, that I might supervise her progress and have frequent opportunities to encourage her. The prescription which I read to her was this: 1. For breakfast eat a piece of beef or mutton as large as your hand, with a slice of white bread twice as large. For dinner the same amount of meat, or, if preferred, fish or poultry, with the same amount of farinaceous or vegetable food in the form of bread or potato. For supper, nothing. 2. Drink only when greatly annoyed with thirst; then a mouthful of lemonade without sugar. 3. Take three times a week some form of bath, in which there shall be immense perspiration. The Turkish bath is best. You must work, either in walking or some other way, several hours a day. "But, doctor, I can't walk; my feet are sore."