I am often asked, What constitutes the scrofulous diathesis, so called, or the scrofulous “taint” supposed to be the inheritance of so many of the children of our times? My reply is this: Scrofulous persons are those, mainly, perhaps it should be said wholly, who from current bad habits (as to diet, air, and all the requirements, or any part of them, which are necessary for the maintenance of health), manufacture bad, instead of pure blood. Such persons become more and more depraved, and incapacitated for bequeathing to their offspring great vital power. In consequence the children of such parents are endowed with a feeble organism; that is, an organism incapable, at least until virtually, or nearly as possible made over new, of putting forth in any direction a great degree of force, whether of the voluntary muscular system, the brain, the digestive or excretory systems, or what not. Children of this stamp may, they often do, exhibit precocity in one or another direction——being unbalanced, so to say——and may evince much alertness, both in muscle and brain, but they soon tire: it will always be found that they are incapable of prolonged effort in any direction, without exhaustion. They may develop a fondness for study and for play, but in neither direction have they any staying power: they are _called_ over-ambitious, often; they _are_ undernourished always. And this, not because they do not swallow a large quantity of food (though some children are kept so surfeited as to have little relish for food, and may, consequently, eat but little, being all the time a few days ahead of their stomachs, so to say), but generally because, of all the food swallowed, not enough is digested and assimilated to sustain them, and keep them in a vigorous state. They are, like all animals, when not suffering from nausea or lack of appetite through somebody’s fault, very ambitious in the way of eating; having——not inherited——but rather, I should say, _acquired_ during the involuntary cramming of infancy——that special school for gluttony, which graduates near thirty per cent. of its pupils into premature graves before their first year is ended——and the injudicious feeding of the survivors in childhood, a full, perhaps rounded measure of appetency, especially for the very things which scrofulous children, of all born children, should not have. They may be greedy for study and for food (though often enough, excess of the latter makes them listless and unfit for either study or play), but have for neither, sufficient capacity for digestion and assimilation, to make them either learned or strong. It follows, if they are fed like their robust fellows who can bear up under the burden, that by reason of quality, frequency, and amount of food eaten, no portion, not even such wholesome articles as fruit, vegetables, etc., as they may have in abundance,——no portion of their food is properly digested and assimilated. It is unnatural in