Seidlitz powders (are so named from the village of Seidlitz or Sed-litz in northern Bohemia, where there is a spring of natural aperient mineral water with similar constituents) and are composed of 120 grains of tartrate of soda and potash, and 40 grains of bicarbonate of soda reduced to powder, mixed and enclosed in a blue paper, and thirty-eight grains of powdered tartaric acid in a white paper. The contents of the blue paper are dissolved in from half a tumbler to a tumbler of water, and those of the white paper are then stirred in. The mixture should be taken while the effervescence from the liberation of the carbonic acid is still going on. These powders act as an agreeable and mild cooling aperient.

The nutritive fluid of the tissues, as well as the great carrying agent of the body, is the blood. As such its functions are of a three-fold nature: (1) it conveys the food material to all the tissues of the body. (2) removes thence the waste products; and (3) its red corpuscles are the great carriers of oxygen, without which the act of respiration could not be carried on. The blood going to the tissues (arterial blood) is of a bright red color, due to the presence of a large excess of oxygen obtained in the lungs; whereas the blood returning from the tissues back to the heart and lungs (venous blood) is of a dark purple color, its oxygen having been removed from it in the tissues, and a large quantity of carbonic acid having been added to it.

There were 2,180 lepers in Norway in 1883. The number in Spain and Italy is considerable In the Sandwich Islands the disease is so prevalent that the island of Molokai is set apart for lepers, who are under the direction of a French Jesuit priest. The death of Father Damien, in 1889, called attention to the noblest instance of self-sacrifice recorded in the nineteenth century. His place is now filled by a younger member of his order, who voluntarily sacrifices his health and life to aid the outcasts. In the Seychelles Islands leprosy is also common.

The limits of vision vary with elevation, conditions of the atmosphere, intensity of illumination and other modifying elements in different cases. On a clear day an object one foot above a level plain may be seen at a distance of 1.31 miles; one 10 feet high, 4.15 miles; one 20 feet high, 5.86 miles; one 100 feet high, 13.1 miles; one a mile high, as the top of a mountain, 95.23 miles. This allows 7 inches; or, to be exact, 6.99 inches, for the curvature of the earth, and assumes that the size and illumination of the object are sufficient to produce an image.

Stammering, or stuttering, is an infirmity of speech, the result of failure in co-ordinate action of certain muscles and their appropriate nerves. It is analogous to some kinds of lameness; to cramp or spasm, or partial paralysis of the arms, wrists, hands, and fingers, occasionally suffered by violinists, pianists, and swordsmen; to the scrivener's palsy, or writer's cramp, of men who write much. For speech - like writing, fencing, fingering a musical instrument, and walking - is a muscular act involving the co-ordinate action of many nerves and muscles. The words stammering and stuttering practically denote the same infirmity.

In the small pox epidemic of 1881, in England, the returns showed 4,478 deaths per million inhabitants - 98 vaccinated to 4,380 unvaccinated or in the proportion of 44 to 1. In the epidemic at Leipsic in 1871, the death rate was 12,700 per million, 70 per cent of whom were unvaccinated. In Boston the proportion was 15 to 50, and in Philadelphia 17 to 64. During theFranco-German war the Germans lost only 263 men from this disease, the French 23,499, the former having been revaccinated in barracks. In the war in Paraguay, the Brazilians lost 43,000 men from malignant or black small-pox, that is 35 per cent, of their army, nine cases in ten proving fatal.

Longevity is the term used for great length of life attained by individuals, many remarkable instances of which are on record. Among those on record in England may be mentioned Thomas Parr (died 1635) aged 153; Cardinal de Solis (d. 1785), aged 110; Charles Macklin, the actor (d. 1797) aged 107; Anthony Beresford (d. 1874) aged 101; Mrs. Bags-ter, wife of the well-known publisher, Samuel Bagster (d. 1887) aged 100; Sir Moses Montefiore (d. 1889), aged 100. The expectation of life taking the averages as given by several assurance offices, is as follows: Aged ten expectation 48*36 years longer life; twenty, 41'49; thirty, 34*43; forty, 27*28; fifty, 20*18; sixty, 13*77; seventy, 8*54; eighty, 4*78; ninety, 2*11. The average duration of life is longer for women than men.

Epizootics (Gr. epi, "upon," and zoon, "an animal") are diseases of animals, which manifest a common character, and prevail at the same time over considerable tracts of country. A curious circumstance in connection with them is that they usually follow the same line of route as the diseases of the human race; and, as a rule, when there has been a great epidemic, it has been followed or accompanied by an equally destructive pestilence among animals. The cause of epizootics is not t altogether clear, but there can be little doubt that insufficient food and overcrowding have great influence. Being apt to take on a low type of fever, they are better treated by supporting than by reducing remedies. Influenza in horses, and pleuro-pneumonia and vesicular epizootic in cattle, are examples.

Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, When drooping health and spirits go amiss? How tasteless then whatever can be given ! Health is the vital principle of bliss, And exercise of health.

- Thomson.