10. Prominent among all other measures for the maintenance of Health, is personal cleanliness. Activity in the functions of the skin is essential to perfect health, and this can only be secured by thoroughly bathing the entire body. Strictly, a person should bathe once every twenty-four or forty-eight hours. The body should be habituated to contact with cold water at all season of the year, so that warm water may not become a necessity. The simplest and most convenient bath, is the ordinary sponge-bath. An occasional hot-air, or Turkish bath, exerts a very beneficial influence. It cleans out the pores of the skin and increases its activity. 11. The emotions and the passions exert a powerful influence over the physical organism. It is important, therefore, that they be held under restraint by the reasoning faculties. This rule applies equally to joy, fear, and grief; to avarice, anger, and hatred; and, above all, to the sexual passion. They are a prolific source of disease of the nervous system, and have caused the dethronement of some of the most gifted intellects. * * * * * PART III. RATIONAL MEDICINE. CHAPTER I. THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE. During the last half century a great change has taken place in the treatment of disease. Medicine has advanced with rapid strides, from the narrow limits of mere empiricism, to the broader realm of rationalism, until to day it comprehends all the elements of an art and a science. Scientific researches and investigations have added many valuable truths to the general fund of medical learning, but much more has been effected by observation and empirical discovery. It is of little or no interest to the invalid to know whether the prescribed remedy is organic or inorganic, simple, compound, or complex. In his anxiety and distress of body, he seeks solely for relief, without regard to the character of the remedial agents employed. But this indifference on the part of the patient does not obviate the necessity for a thorough, scientific education on the part of the practitioner. Notwithstanding all the laws enacted to raise the standard of medicine, and thus protect the public from quackery, there yet exists a disposition among many to cling to all that savors of the miraculous, or supernatural. To insure the future advancement of the healing art, physicians must instruct mankind in Physiology, Hygiene, and Medicine. When the people understand the nature of diseases, their causes, methods of prevention and cure, they will not be easily deceived, and practitioners will be obliged to qualify themselves better for their labors. The practice of medicine is every year becoming more successful. New and improved methods of treating disease are being discovered and developed, and the conscientious physician will avail himself of _all_ the means, by a knowledge of which he may benefit his fellow-men. The medical profession is divided into three principal schools, or sects.