Now this mother, young as she was, was a woman of convictions, and with courage to follow each to an ultimate conclusion. She had heard of miracles resulting from only three feedings per day during the nursing period; and so, notwithstanding a storm of opposition from a vast circle of relatives, she put this first-born rigidly on the three-meal plan, with the result of immediate cessation of the bowel trouble, but with rapid decline in weight. This caused anxiety, and I was called upon for advice. In every respect except the weight-loss the improvement was wonderful. After much thought there was a sudden flash of the truth: there were an abnormal weight and bulk, due to the general dropsy of debility, similar in character to the swelling of the feet and limbs in the old and feeble. The thickened walls of the bloodvessels, toned with health, caused absorption; but the eyes of the friends would not open to the miracle for a very long time, and so render justice to the heroine, the young mother. As an aider and abettor of such a flagrant system of starvation, I had my full share of opprobrium; but, aided by the strong-minded, sensible mother, Nature gained a sweeping victory, and thus this case cleared my mind from confusion as to the anomaly. One of my medical friends with whom calomel was as a sheet-anchor often asserted that babies would actually get fat on it. That bulk would actually increase by use of the forceful medicine is likely; but that the increase would be dropsical I think is unquestionable. The dropsy of debility is due to a loss of tone of the vascular system; the walls of the vessels become thinner and therefore dilate. In the feet and limbs of the old and greatly enfeebled by disease the veins become distended to abnormal size by the force of gravity, resulting in effusion of water into the cellular tissues, which increases when in the upright position during the day and decreases when in the horizontal position at night. A toning up of the entire vascular system, by which a reverse current from the tissues into the bloodvessels is made possible, is the only means for relief. This flash-light upon the part physics plays in the cure of disease put me upon the true lines of investigation, and furnished a key for the solution of many problems. From this time on I was to be kept busy, not in winning victories, but in studying them. This new physiology was not fully apprehended until long after the no-breakfast plan was taken up. It came to me link by link; but the missing link was the fact that food only restores waste, that lost strength is only restored by sleep; and it now seems to me that I was very dull not to have found it out long before I did. It seems to me that no method of health culture, none in the treatment of disease can have any physiological basis where these facts are not taken into account.