"I aver, from my own knowledge and custom, as well as from the custom and observations of others, that those who drink nothing but water, or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by the climate, and can undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience." 11*

If we take a climate the very opposite of that just spoken of, viz: the extreme north, where winter reigns six months in the year, and where the intense cold would seem to justify, if not, require, the ingestion of some unusual stimulus, we shall still find that water, as it is the habitual drink of the inhabitants, so is it that best adapted to persons from other countries, compelled by accident or trade to remain there for any length of time. The late experienced and accomplished Dr. MILLER, of New York, in his published Medical Works," holds the following language on this point:

"A great proportion of all persons, found in our hospitals and almshouses, are the victims of sottishness. I can add nothing to the weight of the remonstrances which have been often presented to the public, on the morbid and corrupting influence of this vice. For the purpose, however, of refuting the vulgar opinion, that spirituous liquors are useful in enabling people to bear extreme cold, it is only necessary to state, that in all the frequent attempts to sustain the intense cold of winter, in the arctic regions, particularly in Hudson's Bay, Greenland, and Spitzbergen, those crews or companies, which had been well supplied with provisions and liquors, and enabled thereby to indulge in indolence and free drinking, have generally perished; while, at the same time, the greatest number of survivors have been uniformly found among those who were accidentally thrown upon the inhospitable shores, destitute of food and spirituous liquors, compelled to maintain an incessant struggle against the rigours of the climate, in procuring food, and obliged to use water alone as drink. This fact is too decisive to need any comment." p. 231.

Similar testimony is furnished by Professor HITCHCOCK, in the work from which we have repeatedly made extracts.

The opinion of Professor HosACK as given in the first number of the present volume, is in strict accordance with that of the distinguished men just quoted. We need not repeat it here.

Our readers can now determine, whether the eulogies which we have given to water, as a drink, in the different numbers of this Journal, and the expressions, that "simple water is, after all, the beverage best adapted to all classes and descriptions of persons”"—"pure water is the only fitting drink for man"-"pure water, without any addition, is confessedly the drink most friendly to health, and the one which ought invariably to be adopted"-are not fully sustained by the concurrent opinions of the most observant, learned, and distinguished physicians of all countries, and by the amplest experience of the inhabitants of every climate. The singular courtesy and novel logic displayed by the anti-temperance editor, in briefly replying to all this weight of facts and authorities, by the epithet nonsense, can now be fully appreciated. Our readers can also contrast the tenor of the present article, with the wonderful discovery repeated by this editor, of water being "the most mischievous of all beverages, it being very seldom pure, and usually impregnated with some noxious substance." And yet this writer asserts, that he does not mean "to decry the wholesomeness of water." He would have better served the cause of humanity, by inserting, in his paper, the various processes for purifying water, which we detailed in the 7th No. of the 1st Vol. of this Journal; and, by attention to which, it is in the power of every individual to obtain this liquid, pure and wholesome, without having an excuse, in any case, to resort to the poisonous addition of ardent spirits, or the exceedingly dangerous substitute of diluted wine and malt liquors.

* Journal of Health. Vol. I. p. 21.

American Annals of Education and Instruction, and Journal of Literary Institutions, embracing a Record of Schools, Colleges, and Lyceums. Vol. I. No. 1. Boston. Carter and Hendee.-This is the third series of the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. It is conducted by WILLIAM C. WOODBRIDGE, assisted by several friends of education. It appears monthly, in numbers of from 40 to 50 pages. Terms-$3 a year, in advance.

The zeal and talent displayed by Mr. Woodbridge, in the cause of education, are now so generally known, and, we trust, appreciated, as to require no additional eulogy from us. The class of persons to whom his Journal is immediately addressed, and for whose benefit it is mainly intended, is so large in our country, as to be of themselves sufficiently numerous to extend adequate patronage to the work. But it must also be regarded with an encouraging eye by all intelligent parents, anxious to glean information of the best means for the moral and physical education of their children. We hope to have space hereafter to notice more fully, than at present, some of the articles in the present number. The "Editor's Address" merits an attentive perusal, and the articles entitled, 1. Progress of Education in Germany and Switzerland: II. Biographical Sketch of Fellenberg: III. Sketches of the Fellenberg Institution at Hofwyl: IV. Infant Education, are ali germain to the matter, and contain much that is amusing even to the general, shall we say lazy, reader. The remainder is occupied with a review of the Report of the Manual Labour Academy of Pennsylvania,' and another on 'Foster's Carstairian Penmanship;' also articles on an Asylum for the Blind,' and 'Methods of Teaching to Read.'

New England Farmer. Boston. Edited by T. G. FESSENDEN.-We are always pleased at looking over this valuable paper. We regard it as a friend and powerful assistant to our cause. For it would be of little avail to us to recommend to the people to use bread made of good wheat or corn, fresh vegetables, suitably matured, and fruits in their season, if our agricultural and horticultural fellow-citizens were not apprized of the best means of cultivating the soil, so as to insure a regular supply of these supports of life, and pleasant and allowable means of gratifying appetite. Information on all these, and sundry other topics, such as grazing, raising stock, &c. are well taught and illustrated in the New England Farmer. We obtain the following brief items from this source:—

The rich not to be envied.-The poor do not have the dyspepsia, the rich do. The healthy poor may consume as much superfine flour as they can get, while the dyspeptic rich are condemned to bran.

Grapes. Considerable attention is now bestowed on the culture of this wholesome fruit, in Nantucket. A correspondent writes us that one gentleman has now a number of bushels of Isabella grapes on his vines. Three or four years ago not a vine was raised there. The culture of fruit trees is also extending.

In the same path of usefulness, and under similar able guidance, is the New York Farmer. The following case, related in this paper, is one of many thousands which might, if the same pains had been taken, be recorded :—

Expense of Ardent Spirits.—A farmer in Connecticut, who has occupied the same farm, on lease, for about thirty years past, was lately complaining that he had been able to lay up nothing, from his thirty years' labour. A neighbouring storekeeper offered to explain to him the reason; and proceeded as follows:-" During the thirty years that you have been on that farm, I have been trading in this store, and the distilled spirits I have sold you, with the interest of the money, would have made you the owner of the farm you hire." On examination of the books of the storekeeper, his assertion was found correct. The farm was worth about five thousand dollars.

The JOURNAL OF LAW, a popular periodical, conducted by an association of members of the bar, is published at the office of the Journal of Health, No. 108 Chesnut street, Philadelphia, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month price $1 50 per annum, in advance. Agents for the Journal of Health are hereby authorised to receive subscriptions.

POSTAGE on both works the same as on newspapers in general.

HOWEVER great have been the advances of the moderns in science, and in multiplying the resources of art, they are still inferior to the ancients (we mean more particularly the Greeks and Romans) in a knowledge and practice of the union of physical with mental culture. Until of late years, there seemed to be no medium between, on the one side, monkish seclusion of youth, to the sacrifice of their health and bodily vigour, and, on the other, an addiction to rough sports and training for corporeal feats, to the neglect of intellectual and moral improvement. If the youth at school or college indulged in exercise, it was either irregular, forced and violent, or so unnatural as to deform and retard the growth of the whole body, by the too exclusive use of a single limb. Examining the subject in its medical bearing, it is, we must needs say, a doubtful point, whether all the resources which chemistry has now placed at the disposal of a physician, in such a variety of the most powerful mineral preparations, and active principles of vegetables, are not counterbalanced by a neglect and ignorance of the combined power of regimen, and methodical, yet varied, exercise, on which many of the ancients laid such emphasis, and in the employment of which they were often so successful.

It is thought sufficient, with us, to cultivate the mind by written and oral instruction-and we leave the body to rust or waste, as individual caprice may prompt. Every reader of history knows that the Greek and Roman youth were treated after a very different method. Strength of body and endurance of fatigue were not then thought incompatible with easy and graceful movements-finished delivery in speech, and the sublimest speculations in philosophy. The education of the Greeks (the LacedæVOL. II.-7

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Benefits of Gymnastic Exercises.

monians excepted) consisted of four principal branches, viz: the Gymnastic exercises, Letters, including oratory and philosophy, Music, and Painting.

The Gymnasia were schools for all manly exercises, to give robustness to the frame, and to preserve it in the plenitude of health, while, at the same time, it became better prepared to endure the fatigues and privations of war. The five principal exercises practised in these establishments, and subsequently in the national games or festivals, were running, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus or quoit, and leaping. To these some think we ought to add the contest of the javelin. Not only was muscular power increased by these means, but the senses were also rendered more acute, and the facilities for acquiring knowledge through these important, and, indeed, only channels, greatly increased. The connexion between the efforts of the mind, and feats of bodily strength and agility, was formally acknowledged, not only in the practices of many of the most distinguished statesmen and philosophers of antiquity, but, also, in the fact of prizes being disputed at the Olympic games, for history, poetry, and eloquence, as well as for the exercises already mentioned. Herodotus recited the nine books of his history at these games: and Sophocles is said to have expired through joy at receiving a poetical prize at them.

Gymnastics has been defined "the art of regulating the movements of the body, in order to develop its strength, to improve its agility, its pliancy, and its powers; to preserve or re-establish health: it is intended, in fact, to enlarge the moral and physical faculties." We may study gymnastics under several points of view, such as in reference to the means and processes employed; its application to the study of the Olympic games, and military exercises; and, finally, its use in Hygiene and Thérapeutics, or to the preservation of health and cure of disease.

Herodicus has been regarded as the founder of medical gymnastics; although Galen refers to Esculapius as one of long anterior date, who gave directions on this head. Herodicus, by following his own maxims of exercise, from being a valetudinary became healthy and robust. He has been accused of being somewhat empirical in his directions: and it was left for his pupil Hippocrates to give method and consistency to this branch of the healing art. The latter recommends gymnastic exercises in many parts of his treatises on diet and regimen. Celsus, his imitator and admirer, was very particular in pointing out the gymnastics applicable to the diseases of which he speaks. Galen, in his different works, gives precepts on the application of methodical exercise.

But our object is not so much a history of gymnastics, as to persuade our readers of the great importance of the subject, in whatever light we regard it. To parents, public_instructors, physicians, and legislators, it is one full of interest. For the present, we shall close our remarks by an account of some cases, in which regulated muscular exercise was productive of marked beneficial effects on the invalid and infirm. They are from a report of the committee of the French Institute, on a work on Gymnastic Exercises, by Captain Clias.*

"A student in medicine, attacked with a cerebral affection which kept him in a sleepless state, owed his complete cure to the movements of the superior extremities, practised twice a day until he was fatigued. A man of fifty, attacked by a complete sciatica, did not receive any relief from the most appropriate medicines which had been administered unto him, nor even from blisters; by means of a series of movements, executed in his room, he regained in three days his pliability; he was able to go out, to walk, and to arrange his affairs, in a fortnight. Mr. Clias communicated to us a known fact, which deserves to be related to you.-A child, aged three years, could scarcely stand; at five he walked badly, and supported by leading strings; and it was only after dentition, at seven years old, that he could walk without assistance, but he fell frequently and could not rise again. Given up by the physicians, he continued in this state till the age of seventeen, when the loins and lower extremities could scarcely support the upper part of his body, the arms were extremely weak and contracted, the approximation of the shoulders contracted the chest and impeded respiration, the moral faculties were quite torpid, in short, nature was at a stand still. In the month of November, 1815, this unfortunate youth was presented to Mr. Cliás, by several students, who intreated him to receive him into his academy; on admission, his strength was tried; that of pressure by the dynamometer was only equal to that of children of seven or eight years. The strength of pulling, ascending, and of jumping, was completely void.

"He ran over the space of a hundred feet, with great difficulty, in a minute and two seconds, and could not stand when he had finished.

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Carrying a weight of fifteen pounds made him totter, and a child, of seven years old, threw him with the greatest facility. Five months after he had been submitted to the Gymnastic regimen, he could press fifty degrees in the dynamometer; by the strength of his arms, he raised himself three inches from the ground, and remained thus suspended for three seconds; he leapt a distance of three feet, ran 163 yards in a minute, and carried on his shoulders, in the same space of time, a weight of thirty-five pounds. Finally, in 1817, in the presence of several thousand spectators, he climbed to the top of a single rope, twenty-five feet high; he did the same exercise on the climbing pole, jumped, with a run, six feet, and ran over five hundred feet in two minutes and a half. Now that he is a clergyman, in a village near Berne, he can walk twenty-four miles on foot, without incommoding himself; and the exercises, which he has always continued, have occasioned, instead of his valetudinary state, a vigorous constitution.

* An Elementary course of Gymnastic Exercises, intended to develop and improve the Physical Powers of Man-and a complete Treatise on the Art of Swimming. By Captain P. H. Clias. 4th Edition, with 71 Engravings. London, 1825.