In a former part of this volume, we have spoken of several impositions upon the credulity of the public, in matters appertaining to health. The astrologists have told us that "some plants are only to be plucked at the rising of the dogstar, when neither sun nor moon shine, while others are to be cut with a golden knife, when the moon is just six days old." To some particular plants "a string must be fastened, a hungry dog tied thereto, who, being allured by the smell of roasted flesh set before him, may pluck it up by the roots." At one time, the vegetable oil of swallows was considered a potent remedy. It was prepared "by compounding twenty different herbs with twenty live swallows, well beaten together in a mortar." Another medicine was prepared from the raspings of a human skull; another from the moss, growing on the head of a thief, who had been gibbeted and left to hang in the air. In addition to these, we have had "the powder of a mummy; the liver of frogs; the blood of weasels; an ointment made of sucking whelps; the marrow of a stag; and the thigh bone of an ox." And we have numerous modern nostrums scarcely better than these, by which the gullible public are often sorely victimized.

There are many opinions among the people, which prove highly deleterious in being carried into practice. For instance, that we must "stuff a cold to cure it," when the reverse of the case is the only safe mode of procedure. In a cold, the lungs are already loaded and congested with accumulations of muco-purulent matter, which is increased by taking large quantities of food.

Erroneous views, in regard to cleanliness, often lead to great mischief. There is a notion with some that dirt is really healthy, especially for children. This idea probably originated from the fact, that those children who are allowed to play in the dirt are often more healthy than those who are confined in the nursery or parlor. But it should be remembered that it is not dirt which promotes their health, but active exercise in the open air. This more than compensates for the injury sustained by the dirt. There is, however, something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy appearance of these children, who, like some four-footed animals, are allowed to wallow in mire and dirt; for they actually suffer more, not only from chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in better circumstances. The pores of the skin, as we have shown in the Family Physician, published by us a few years since, cannot be closed with filth for any length of time, and the subject remain uninjured. It is true, some years may pass away before the bad effects appear; but in after life, scrofula, rheumatism, jaundice, and even consumption, often arise after the cause which first gave rise to them is forgotten, if indeed it were ever suspected. It is our candid opinion, that a larger part of the deaths that occur among children by typhoid, scarlet fever, and other baleful diseases, is owing to some defect in management, as to diet, air, dress, or exercise, which we will briefly show in this connection.

There are some, in adult life, who abstain wholly from external ablutions, and never think of washing their bodies from one year to another. Now, such persons must be considered, to say the least, to be of an uncleanly habit; and such a habit is not only unfavorable to health, but to morality. Mr. Wesley reckons cleanliness to be second only to godliness. We venture to affirm that he who is most guilty of personal neglect will generally be found the most ignorant and vicious. I am well acquainted with a whole family who neglect their persons from principle. They are a sort of new lights in religious things, and hold that the true Christian should "slight the hovel, as beneath his care." But there is a want of intelligence, and even of common refinement, in the family, that certainly does not, and cannot, add much to their own happiness or comfort, aside from the fact that it greatly annoys their neighbors.

We do not pretend to say but that there are some great and good persons who are slovenly in their general appearance; but these are only exceptions to a general rule. On the contrary, common observation teaches us that it is a distinguishing mark of low-bred rowdyism, and of vicious and intemperate habits, to see young men dressed in the most loose and careless manner. A person of refinement and cultivation would feel ashamed to appear in such a manner before the public gaze.

Neglect of proper ventilation leads to incomparable mischief. There are many persons who live through the day in closely confined and excessively heated apartments, and also sleep in small contracted bed rooms, without the least opportunity for a current of fresh air. Who can wonder that they rise in the morning with wearied limbs, languid and listless, with a furred tongue, parched mouth, and headache? They are continually subjected to inhaling, over and over, the poison, the miasma, of their own bodies, which cannot but result, in the end, to the great detriment of health. We are perfectly astonished, oftentimes, to see to what an extent such a thing is carried. Take this, in connection with eating improper and badly-cooked food, fat meats, gravies, and pastries, the want of suitable protection against atmospheric changes, and active exercise in the open air, and who can marvel at the prevalence of deadly fevers, consumption, or cholera even? It is only a matter of surprise that there are not ten deaths where there is now one.

Look at the quality of the meats purchased for use. It is now a common practice with farmers (in order to save the milk) to sell their calves for market as soon as born; and people eagerly purchase this immatured meat because afforded at a low price. Then look at the enormous quantities of pork consumed. Go past the sausage factories, in the cities of Jersey, and you behold it heaped in piles, ready for the work of the hundreds of "choppers," driven by steam. Then look into the groceries, see the array of pound sausage meat, and cheese heads, so called. A grocer in Newark city informed us, last winter, that sausage meat and buckwheat cakes formed three quarters of the aliment of the citizens. And in Paterson, New Jersey, in the hottest of the season, calves were lying upon the pavements, ready to be slaughtered, and almost as momentarily devoured, as occasion demanded. Even the poor fowls, their legs swollen with inflammation from the cords with which they were bound, and half famished for water and food, and fevered by fright and exposure, were readily purchased by men and women, to satisfy the cravings of a perverted appetite. When we behold such practices, we cannot think it strange that mortality should be so rife as it is at times, especially when the atmosphere is in a condition to affect the body in a predisposed state, favorable to the development of diseases, such as that of small-pox, cholera, fever and ague, scarlet and typhoid, (i.e., decomposing fever,) which is the concentration of all others. The food we eat may convey the disease within, and unless the state of our system is healthy and harmonious, the resisting power will not be equal to the force and action of the external elements, and consequently we shall become a prey to the contagion, whatever type or form it assumes. We are somewhat inclined to think that A. J. Davis (who is a physician by profession) is correct, when he says, "The atmosphere has had the cholera, more or less, for thirty years, and will continue to have it until there occurs a geological change in many portions of the earth; and from the atmosphere the disease has been, and is, communicated epidemically to the predisposed potato plant, and also to the human system." A late English writer remarks, that "certain diseases prevail at the approach of the equinoxes."