Nutrition is the grand factor in the prevention or cure of disease. It may be said, truly enough, that the blood-_aerating_ capacity remains throughout equal, often superior, to the blood-_making_ capacity; and consumption may be appropriately described as _dyspeptic starvation_. (See “Saline Starvation.”) In those instances where the capital stock (of vitality) is exhausted the victims of this disease must die; but thousands of cases pronounced after a long course of medication and stimulation, hopeless, have been restored by a simple diet and an out-door life. Even hygienic institutes have failed to apply this principle in its entirety when brought face to face with cases that demanded “heroic treatment;” influenced in some measure, possibly, by the popular distrust of their methods, especially the deep prejudice against a restricted diet——now, however, rapidly disappearing——they have hitherto erred continually on the side of excess. Nevertheless, they restore to health, or greatly benefit, ninety per cent. of the broken down invalids who come to them, usually, as a last resort. I desire here to note particularly the change now going on in the minds of the most eminent and practical physicians in this and European countries, concerning the use of beef-tea. It is found by chemical analysis to be almost identical with “chamber-lye”——the favorite prescription of our grandmothers——and although more agreeable to the taste than urine, even when the latter is drowned in treacle, it is, in my opinion, always injurious, especially in sickness, when, of course, the excretory system is already taxed to the utmost. Most people, even in health, have more than they can well do to excrete their own, once, without swallowing any portion of the waste of animals! Says Dr. Brunton: “We find only too frequently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is sure to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef-tea can only be got down; but I think it a question whether beef-tea may not very frequently (?) be actually injurious, and whether the products of muscular waste which constitute the chief portion of beef-tea, beef-essence, or even the beef itself, may not, under certain circumstances, be actually poisonous.”