the oedemia disappeared and the albumin in the urine diminished.  As potatoes are particularly rich in potash salts, this case is significant, as showing contrary to expectations, that such quantity as they contained had not the irritating effect of added common salt.  Salt and other chlorides have been shown by several observers, to be injurious, not only in diseases of the kidneys, but also of the liver and heart.  In these diseases the excess of salt is retained in the tissues, it causes a flow of fluid into them, and so produces oedema and favours the increase of dropsy.  The good effect of milk in such diseases has long been known; it is probably due to its relative poverty in sodium and potassium chlorides.  Even in the case of three healthy men, by an abrupt change from a diet extremely rich in chlorides to one deficient, they were able to reduce the body-weight by as much as two kilos. (4 lbs. 6 oz.); this was by the loss of an excess of water from their connective tissues.  Sodium chloride diminishes the solvent action of water on uric acid and the urates; but potassium salts, on the contrary, do not, they may even increase the action.  Although nearly all the medical experience recorded has to do with diseased persons, such cases are instructive; it is only reasonable to suppose, that more than a very small quantity of salt in excess of that natural to the food, is a source of irritation in the body, even of the ordinarily healthy individual.

Summary.—­Enjoyment of food is dependent upon appetite quite as much as upon the nature of the food.  Better a simple repast with good appetite than sumptuous fare with bad digestion.  There is indeed a causal relationship between simplicity and health.  The savage likes the noise of the tom-tom or the clatter of wooden instruments:  what a contrast this is to the trained ear of the musician.  Uncivilised man has little enjoyment of scenery or of animal life, except as in respect to their power of providing him with food, clothing or other physical gratification.  What an enormous advance has taken place.  In the case of the painter, his eye and mind can appreciate a wide range and delicacy of colour.  Man has improved on the crab-apple and the wild strawberry.  From a wild grass he has produced the large-grained nutritious wheat.  Vegetables of all kinds have been greatly improved by long continued cultivation.  In tropical and sub-tropical climates, where wild fruits are more plentiful, high cultivation is of less importance than in temperate regions.  In sparsely inhabited or wild, temperate and cold regions, in times past, when deer and other animals were plentiful, and edible fruits few, flesh could be obtained at less labour; or such intelligence and industry as is required for the cultivation of fruits, cereals, and other foods scarcely existed.  Flesh almost requires to be cooked to be palatable, certainly this much improves its flavour.  The eating of flesh tends to produce a distaste for mild