[Footnote 27: An eminent Maine statesman has recently died, who might have recovered and lived for years, but for the mistaken theory that food is a daily need under all circumstances: To constantly feed an irritated stomach is like kicking a man when he is down. And yet this is being done with fatal effect constantly all over the world. In certain cases, and especially with aged patients, this system is as surely fatal as strychnine, if less speedy. There are many besides myself who believe that President Garfield died from fatty degeneration, chronic dyspepsia, and constant feeding during his illness, rather than from the effects of the bullet. True enough, he might have lived on for years in his disordered physical condition but for the wound; still, on the other hand, it is equally probable that he might have lived, and that his sickness would have restored him to health even, but for the constant tampering with his stomach, which needed rest as much as the great and good man himself. No rest for the stomach, no rest for the man, is an axiom which I would submit to my brother practitioners, as one worthy of all acceptation. It is being constantly proved right before their own eyes, and yet very few have learned the lesson it teaches.] As illustrating the influence of an out-door life, with partial or transient fasting, I will cite THE CASE OF MR. VICKERS. Joseph Vickers, born and raised in England, but now of Biddeford, Me., whose home is near my own, and the man himself well known to me, was very “low with consumption” at one time, when in his twenty-second year. His disease was attributed, and without doubt justly, to a severe chill resulting from wading the river on one of his hunting bouts, and being compelled to dry his clothes on his back——a feat he had previously performed repeatedly, except that on this occasion, being very much fatigued, and night coming on, instead of continuing vigorous exercise while his clothes were drying, he “went into camp” and “shivered throughout the night in his soaked garments.” Declining very rapidly, with every symptom of pulmonary consumption, his case was considered hopeless by his friends. Medicine seeming to him useless, he gave up taking it, and his physician consequently gave him no encouragement or hope of recovery. His digestion was very imperfect——as he put it, “Nothing I ate seemed to do me any good”——and to the disgust of his parents and friends he often refused to eat anything for an entire day. Able to be up and dressed a good portion of the time, he would spend as much of the day outdoors as possible, and at night “never slept without a window open in the bed-room.” Gaining a little strength, and being “badgered,” as he says, “all the time, when at home, about eating,” and being very fond of hunting, and not sleeping well, he would rise very early, take his gun and, as he expressed it, would “crawl off to the woods,” and sit or lie