Notwithstanding the prevalent belief among physicians and laymen to the contrary, a belief based upon the result of a form of treatment as irrational as it is uniform and universal, I agree with Dr. Oswald, who, in his new work——the most entertaining, as well as the soundest health-book extant——asserts that “_Pulmonary consumption_, in its early stages, is perhaps the most curable of all chronic diseases. The records of the dissecting-room prove that in numerous cases lungs, wasted to one-half of their normal size, have been healed, and, after a perfect cicatrization of the tuberculous ulcers, have for years performed all the essential functions of the sound organ. Still, the actual waste of tissue is never perfectly repaired, and fragmentary lungs, supplying the undiminished wants of the whole organism, must necessarily do double work, and will be less able to respond to the demands of an abnormal exigency. “But the lungs of a young child of consumptive parents are sound, though very sensitive, and, if the climacteric of the first teens has been passed in safety, or without too serious damage, the problem becomes reduced to the work of preservation and invigoration: the all but intact lungs of the healthy child can be more perfectly redeemed than the rudimentary organs of the far-gone consumptive; the phthisical taint can be more entirely eliminated and the respiratory apparatus strengthened to the degree of becoming the most vigorous part of the organism. The poet Goethe, afflicted in his childhood with spitting of blood and other hectic symptoms, thus completely redeemed himself by a judicious system of self-culture. Chateaubriand, a child of consumptive parents, steeled his constitution by traveling and fasting, and reached his eightieth year. “By a relapse into imprudent habits, however, the latent spark, which under such circumstances seems to defy the eliminative efforts of half a century, may at any time be fanned into life-consuming flames; but in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases it will be found that the first improvement followed upon a change from a sedentary to an outdoor and active mode of life.”[6] [Footnote 6: Oswald’s “Physical Education.”]