than a good appetite for a warm dinner or a cheery fireside. The boy who, as was supposed, caught a fearful cold one warm day last week, from merely stepping to the door bareheaded, stole away yesterday, when the _mercury_ was _twenty or thirty degrees lower_, and bareheaded and barefooted, paddled in the frog-pond until his clothes were wet through and his lips blue with cold, and yet he turned out this morning without a trace of disease! Can we learn nothing from constantly occurring instances of this character? The simple fact is, in such cases, in the first instance the victims were in bad condition, they had found the end of their rope, so to say, _i.e._, they had reached a point where from continued bad living the system could no longer contain the accumulated impurities and the overflow had to come, and come it would, sooner or later (and the later, the more severe), without even the influence of the slightest current of air, or any form of exposure. If a slight chill was experienced it arose from the internal fever, and not, as was foolishly supposed, from the puff of pure air that was felt _co-incidently_. But in the second instance, the “cold” of last week had _cleansed the system_ more or less completely, and now, owing to the improved condition, the really severe exposures give rise to no symptoms of disease——the temporary inconvenience from the wet or the cold is all. Personally, I have been a life-long sufferer from colds, and as with every one (how many pass a year without “a cold” of some sort?) they came in a variety of forms, from the “snuffles” of crammed infancy and the “hay fever” of adult age, to neuralgia, rheumatism, and the like. No matter what name may be settled on, finally, to describe the disease, whether rheumatism, neuralgia, sick headache, kidney complaint, bilious fever, or what not, the victim is sure to say: “I caught a severe cold some way, and it settled”——wherever the uneasy symptoms are felt.[10] “A succession of colds” is the commonly-named _excuse_, and the honestly-believed-in _cause_ of lung affections, including consumption; but as the phrase is usually understood, it is the veriest blunder——the most pernicious blunder possible. Hence the space devoted to this subject. Some years ago I made a change in my habits as to diet and clothing: I quite abruptly abandoned the use of heavy-weight garments, heavy flannels, and the practice of “bundling up” upon occasions of exposure, and I gave up the three-meal system, and the fish, flesh, and fowl, and most of the accompaniments of the flesh diet, and have since lived mainly on vegetable food. I eat twice a day, nominally, but invariably skip a meal if there is any sign of indigestion, or whenever I think I should be better off without eating. I eat on an average about a dozen meals a week, each less in amount, though more nutritious than formerly. This keeps my appetite always perfect, but