some cases of confirmed hypochondriacism, no earthly amusement, no change of scene, no mental impressions or excitement, no exercise of the body, can cheer the gloom that spreads itself over every object presented to the eye or the imagination! With them, change of place is only variety of woe-colum non animum mutant. Yet, from two or three instances which have come within my knowledge, of the most inveterate, and apparently indomitable hypochondriacism being mitigated by travelling, (though the mode of conducting the journey was far from good) I have little doubt that many cases of this kind, which ultimately end in insanity, or at least in monomania, might be greatly ameliorated, if not completely cured, by a system of exercise conducted on the foregoing plan, and urged into operation by powerful persuasion, or even by force, if necessary. The change for the better, in such cases, is not perceptible at the beginning of the tour; but when the functions of the body have once begun to feel the salutary influence of the journey, the mind soon participates, and the gloom is gradually, though slowly dispelled. Where the mental despondency is clearly dependent on disorder of the digestive organs, and has not yet induced any permanent disease of the brain, an almost certain cure will be found in a journey of this kind, for both classes of complaints. It is hardly necessary to observe that beneficial effects, to a greater or less extent, will be experienced in other sombre and triste conditions of the soul, resulting from moral causes, as sorrow, grief, disappointment, crosses in love, &c. by a tour conducted in such a manner as strongly to exercise the body, and cheerfully excite the mind.

In a former part of the work has been shewn the powerful influence of moral causes in deranging the functions of the body through the medium of the intellectual functions. The same functions may be made the medium of a salutary influence. In the greater number of nervous and hypochondriacal complaints, the attention of the individual is kept so steadily fixed on his own morbid feelings as to require strong and unusual impressions to divert it from that point. The monotony of domestic scenes and circumstances is quite inadequate to this object; and arguments not only fail, but absolutely increase the malady, by exciting irritation in the mind of the sufferer, who thinks his counsellers are either unfeeling or incredulous towards his complaints. In such cases, the majestic scenery of Switzerland, the romantic and beautiful views in Italy and the Rhingau, or the keen mountain air of the Highlands of Scotland or Wales, combined with the novelty, variety, and succession of manners and customs of the countries through which he passes, abstract the attention of the dyspeptic and hypochondriacal traveller (if any thing can) from the hourly habit of dwelling on, if not exaggerating, his own real or imaginary sensations, and thus help to break the chain of morbid association by which he is bound to the never-ending detail of his own sufferings. This is a paramount object in the treatment of these melancholy complaints; and

PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF TRAVELLING.

27 I am convinced that a journey of this kind, in which mental excitement and bodily exercise are skilfully combined, would not only render many a miserable life comparatively happy, but prevent many a hypochondriac and dyspeptic from lifting his hand against his own existence. It would unquestionably preserve many an individual from mental derangement.

This principle was well understood long before medicine was established as a science. At the extremities of Egypt were two temples dedicated to Saturn, and to these the melancholics or hypochondriacs of ancient days were sent in great numbers. There the priests worked on the body as well as the mind by the pretended influence of supernatural, and the real influence of medicinal agents. The consequence was, that miracles, or at least miraculous cures were daily performed. The Romans sent their invalids to Egypt for change of scene; and Hippocrates has distinctly recommended those afflicted with chronic diseases, to change the air and soil-'In morbis longis solum mutare.' It would be going out of my province to speak of the benefits of travelling in any other moral point of view than that which is connected with the restoration of health: I shall, therefore, proceed to a consideration of the effects of this combination of mental and corporeal exercise on our bodily functions.

Physical Effects.-The first beneficial influence of travelling is perceptible in the state of our corporeal feelings. If they were previously in a state of morbid acuteness, as they generally are in ill health, they are rendered less sensible. The eye, which was before annoyed by a strong light, soon becomes capable of bearing it without inconvenience; and so of hearing, and the other senses. In short, morbid sensibility of the nervous system generally is obtunded, or reduced. This is brought about by more regular and free exposure to all atmospheric impressions and changes than before, and that under a condition of body, from exercise, which renders these impressions quite harmless. Of this we see the most striking examples in those who travel among the Alps. Delicate females and sensitive invalids, who, at home, were highly susceptible of every change of temperature and other states of the atmosphere, will undergo extreme vicissitudes among the mountains, with little inconvenience. I will offer an example or two in illustratration. In the month of August, 1823, the heat was excessive at Geneva and all the way along the defiles of the mountains, till we got to Chamouni, where we were, at once, among ice and snow, with a fall of 40 or more degrees of the thermometer, experienced in the course of a few hours, between mid-day at Salenche, and evening at the foot of the Glaciers in Chamouni. There were upwards of fifty travellers here, many of whom were females and invalids; yet none suffered inconvenience from this rapid atmospheric transition. This was still more remarkable in the journey from Martigny to the

great St. Bernard. On our way up, through the deep valleys, we had the thermometer at 92° of reflected heat for three hours. I never felt it much hotter in the East Indies. At nine o'clock that night, while wandering about the Hospice of the St. Bernard, the thermometer fell to six degrees below the freezing point, and we were half frozen in the cheerless apartments of the monastery. There were upwards of forty travellers there-some of them in very delicate health; and yet not a single cold was caught, nor any diminution of the usual symptoms of a good appetite for breakfast next morning.

This was like a change from Calcutta to Melville Island in one short day! So much for the ability to bear heat and cold by journeying among the Alps. Let us see how hygrometrical and barometrical changes are borne. A very large concourse of travellers started at day-break from the village of Chamouni to ascend the Montanvert and Mer de Glace. The morning was beautiful; but, before we got two-thirds up the Montanvert, a tremendous storm of wind and rain came on us, without a quarter of an hour's notice, and we were drenched to the skin in a very few minutes. Some of the party certainly turned tail; and one Hypochondriac nearly threw me over a precipice, while rushing past me in his precipitate retreat to the village. The majority, however, persevered, and reached the Chalet, dripping wet, with the thermometer below the freezing point. There was no possibility of warming or drying ourselves here; and, therefore, many of us proceeded on to the Mer de Glace, and then wandered on the ice till our clothes were dried by the natural heat of our bodies. The next morning's muster for the passage over the Col de Balme shewed no damage from the Montanvert expedition. Even the Hypochondriac above-mentioned regained his courage over a bottle of Champagne in the evening at the comfortable Union,' and mounted his mule next morning to cross the Col de Balme. This day's journey shewed, in a most striking manner, the acquisition of strength which travelling confers on the invalid. The ascent to the summit of this mountain pass is extremely fatiguing; but the labour is compensated by one of the sublimest views from its highest ridge, which the eye of man ever beheld. The valley of Chamouni lies behind, with Mont Blanc and surrounding mountains apparently within a stone's throw, the cold of the Glaciers producing a most bracing effect on the whole frame. In front, the Valley of the Rhone, flanked on each side by snow-clad Alps, which, at first sight, are taken for ranges of white clouds, presents one of the most magnificent views in Switzerland, or in the world. The sublime and the beautiful are here protended before the eye, in every direction, and in endless variety, so that the traveller lingers on this elevated mountain pass, lost in amazement at the enchanting scenery by which he is surrounded on every point of the compass. The descent on the Martigny side, was the hardest day's labour I ever endured in my lifeyet there were three or four invalids with us, whose lives were scarcely worth

PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF TRAVELLING.

29

a year's purchase when they left England, and who went through this laborious, and somewhat hazardous descent, sliding, tumbling and rolling over rocks and through mud, without the slightest ultimate injury. When we got 'to the goat-herds' sheds in the valley below, the heat was tropical, and we all threw ourselves on the ground and slept soundly for two hours-rising refreshed to pursue our journey.

Now these and many other facts which I could adduce, offer incontestible proof how much the morbid susceptibility to transitions from heat to cold— from drought to drenchings—is reduced by travelling. The vicissitudes and exertions which I have described would lay up half the effeminate invalids of ́London, and kill, or almost frighten to death, many of those who cannot expose themselves to a breath of cold or damp air, without coughs or rheumatisms, in this country.

The next effect of travelling which I shall notice, is its influence on the organs of digestion. This is so decided and obvious, that I shall not dwell on the subject. The appetite is not only increased; but the powers of digestion and assimilation are greatly augmented. A man may eat and drink things while travelling, which would make him quite ill in ordinary life.

These unequivocally good effects of travelling on the digestive organs, account satisfactorily for the various other beneficial influences on the constitution at large. Hence dyspepsia, and the thousand wretched sensations and nervous affections thereon dependent, vanish before persevering exercise in travelling, and new life is imparted to the whole system, mental and corporeal. In short, I am quite positive that the most inveterate dyspepsia (where no organic disease has taken place) would be completely removed, with all its multiform sympathetic torments, by a journey of two or three thousand miles through Switzerland, Germany, or any other country, conducted on the principle of combining active with passive exercise in the open air, in such proportions as would suit the individual constitution and the previous habits of life.

There is but one other effect of travelling to which I shall allude, before I close this Section; but I think it is a very important one-if not the most important of all. It is the influence which constant change of air exerts on the blood itself. Every one knows the benefits which are derived from change of air, in many diseases, when that change is only from one part to another, a few miles separated. Nay, it is proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the change from what is considered a good, to what is thought a bad air, is often attended with marked good effects. Hence it is very reasonable to conclude, that the mere change of one kind of air for another has an exhilarating or salutary effect on the animal economy. It is true, that we have no instruments to ascertain in what consists this difference of one air from another, since the composition of the atmosphere appears to be nearly the same

on all points of earth and ocean. But we know, from observation, that there are great differences in air, as far as its effects on the human frame are concerned. Hence it would appear that the individual, confined to one particular air, be it ever so pure, languishes at length, and is bettered by a change. This idea is supported by analogy. The stomach, if confined to one species of food, however wholesome, will, in time, languish and fail to derive that nutriment from it, which it would do, if the species of food were occasionally changed. The ruddy complexion then of travellers, and of those who are constantly moving from place to place, as stage-coachmen, for example, does not, I think, solely depend on the mere action of the open air on the face, but also on the influence which change of air exerts on the blood itself in the lungs. I conceive, then, that what Boerhaave says of exercise, may be safely applied to change of air. Eo magis et densum, et purpureum sanguinem esse, quò validius homo se exercuerit motu, musculorum.' It is to this constant change of air, as well as to the constant exercise of the muscles, that I attribute the superiority of the plan of travelling which I have proposed, over that which is usually adopted—where HEALTH is the entire object. On this account, I would recommend some of my fair country-women, (who have leisure as well as means) to improve the languid states of their circulation, and the delicacy, or, more correctly speaking, the pallor of their complexions, by a system of exercise in the open air, that may give colour to their cheeks, firmness to their muscles, tone to their nerves, and energy to their minds.”*

* DR. JOHNSON ON INDIGESTION.