Health and disease are physical conditions upon which pleasure and pain, success and failure, depend. Every _individual_ gain increases public gain. Upon the health of its people is based the prosperity of a nation; by it every value is increased, every joy enhanced. Life is incomplete without the enjoyment of healthy organs and faculties, for these give rise to the delightful sensations of existence. Health is essential to the accomplishment of every purpose; while sickness thwarts the best intentions and loftiest aims. We are continually deciding upon those conditions which are either the source of joy and happiness or which occasion pain and disease. Prudence requires that we should meet the foes and obviate the dangers which threaten us, by turning all our philosophy, science, and art, into practical _common sense_. The profession of medicine is no _sinecure_; its labors are constant, its toils unremitting, its cares unceasing. The physician is expected to meet the grim monster, "break the jaws of death, and pluck the spoil out of his teeth." _His_ ear is ever attentive to entreaty, and within his faithful breast are concealed the disclosures of the suffering. Success may elate him, as conquest flushes the victor. Honors are lavished upon the brave soldiers who, in the struggle with the foe, have covered themselves with glory, and returned victorious from the field of battle; but how much more brilliant is the achievement of those who overwhelm disease, that common enemy of mankind, whose victims are numbered by millions! Is it meritorious in the physician to modestly veil his discoveries, regardless of their importance? If he have light, why hide it from the world? Truth should be made as universal and health-giving as sunlight. We say, give light to all who are in darkness, and a remedy to the afflicted everywhere. We, as a people, are becoming idle, living in luxury and ease, and in the gratification of artificial wants. Some indulge in the use of food rendered unwholesome by bad cookery, and think more of gratifying a morbid appetite than of supplying the body with proper nourishment. Others devote unnecessary attention to the display of dress and a genteel figure, yielding themselves completely to the sway of fashion. Such intemperance in diet and dress manifests itself in the general appearance of the unfortunate transgressor, and exposes his folly to the world, with little less precision than certain vices signify their presence by a tobacco-tainted breath, beer-bloated body, rum-emblazoned nose, and kindred manifestations. They coddle themselves instead of practicing self-denial, and appear to think that the chief end of life is gratification, rather than useful endeavor.