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ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. By Professor Huxley,
F.R.S.

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SOME CONTEMPORARY POETRY. By M. Betham-Edwards, Author of "Kitty," &c. .

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OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. SECOND SERIES.—No. XLIII. Tom Taylor.
With a Biographic Sketch by John Sheehan, of the Inner
Temple

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TWELVE OUNCES OF BLOOD. By an Old Contributor

129

133

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141

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THE LABOURER'S LEISURE. By Keningale Cook, LL.D.

EPIGRAM. The Shades

. 192

THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF IRELAND. By Lady Wilde.
THE OCCULT AND ITS PROFESSORS. By Francis Roubiliac Conder, C.E. 205

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THE MAIDEN IO, WHO WAS IN LOVE AND KNEW IT NOT

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"FIRST NIGHTS AT THE PLAY. By W. Tighe Hopkins AN ANNIVERSARY. By Gerald Massey

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THE SON OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. By Mabel Collins
THE JOHNSTONE Legend

LITERARY NOTICES :

Selections from the Talmud. -Taylor's Sayings of the Jewish Fathers.-Lightfoot's S. Clement of Rome.-Oliver Goldsmith's "Asem the Man-hater," with an editorial introduction-Garth Wilkinson's Human Science and Divine Revelation.-Masson's Milton, Globe Edition.-The Oxford Bible for Teachers.- West's Hospital Organisation.---Carte Astronomique de l'Univers. Wemyss Reid's Charlotte Brontë 241

LONDON:

HURST & BLACKETT,

13, GT. MARLBOROUGH ST., W.

DUBLIN:

W. RIDINGS,

117, GRAFTON STREET.

PARIS: J. G. FOTHERINGHAM, 8, RUE NEUVE-DES-CAPUCINES.

MELBOURNE: GEORGE ROBERTSON.

SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

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MR. HENRY IRVING,

Together with an intimate Biographical Sketch of this distinguished Tragedian and Shakespeare Student.

The Dublin University Magazine for July contains:

THE SUPERNATURAL; AND "SUPERNATURAL RELIGION." By F. R. Conder, C.E. ONCE UPON A TIME. By Mortimer Collins.

OUT OF HER SPHERE: a Philosopher's Fancy. By Mabel Collins.

THE ANCIENT FAITH OF EGYPT. By Keningale Cook, LL.D.

SIR FEATHERBRIGHT. By Richard Hengist Horne; author of "Orion," &c. OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. SECOND SERIES.-No. XLII., Samuel Birch, LL.D., D.C.L., &c.

FERNAN CABALLERO. By J. H. Ingram; editor of the Works of Edgar Poe. THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF IRELAND. By Lady Wilde.

THE FLOWERS OF THE BIBLE. By Leo H. Grindon; author of "Life : its Nature and Varieties," &c.

By Gerald Massey.

THE BANNER-BEARER OF "OLAF THE SAINT."
THE BASIS OF IRISH NATIONALISM. By R. Bagwell.
THE DARK HOUSE ON THE MOOR. By an Old Contributor.
THE GROSVENOR GALLERY. By Oscar Wilde.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Opinions of the Press on the July Number, which begins Volume Ninety.

"One of the best magazines of the month."-Globe.

"Thorough.... . genial .... of character and power."-Standard.

"Bold and able. . . . well-written."-Mail.

"Among the best of the monthlies."-Press.

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An admirable number."-Sunday Times.

"Full of excellent articles of a very high order "-Echo.

"Fully equal to its well-earned reputation."-Weekly Times.

"It is gratifying to observe that this long-established serial maintains so honourable a position."-Queen.

"The new Editor certainly possesses the merit of enlisting a brilliant entourage in the service of the Magazine. We trust that, so supported, he will succeed in replacing the University in its old lustre.-Freeman's Journal.

"Worthy of the best days of this once famous periodical."-Saunders' Ners Letter. "Learned

interesting .... an excellent number."- Belfast News Letter.

"Maintains its intellectual vigour with a consistency and strength that must make it the envy of younger rivals.-Bath Herald.

"Fresh and vigorous."-Derby Mercury.

"Of intense interest."-Brighton Eraminer.

"Does not depend upon padding for its buik. Everything is original and good."-Brighton Gazette.

"One of the few among the old magazines that 'age cannot wither, or custom stale.'"Sunderland Times.

This first-rate publication."-Cheltenham Telegraph. "Quite an array of first class writers.

Express.

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...

Altogether an excellent number."— Cambridge

A very attractive number of an old favourite."-Surrey Comet.

Appears to have got into new hands, and is certainly improved."-Manchester City News. Appeals to a wide circle of readers by the variety and excellence of the material provided." -Exeter Flying Post.

"A valuable issue of a magazine of acknowledged standing.”—Highlander.

"The number is an excellent one, with interesting and varied contents, a happy mixture of grave and gay."-Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal.

"Strikes out in a line peculiarly its own."-Huddersfield News.

"Vastly improved both in taste and ability."-Rochdale Observer.

Preserving its historical reputation thoroughly and effectively."-Doncaster Gazette.

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THE chief ground upon which I venture to recommend that the teaching of elementary physiology should form an essential part of any organised course of instruction in matters pertaining to domestic economy, is, that a knowledge of even the elements of this subject supplies those conceptions of the constitution and mode of action of the living body, and of the nature of health and disease, which prepare the mind to receive instruction from sanitary science.

It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist and the physician should find something in the public mind to which they can

appeal; some little stock of universally acknowledged truths, which may serve as a foundation for their warnings, and predispose towards an intelligent obedience to their recommendations.

Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease, and death, one is often led to entertain a doubt whether the speakers believe that the course of natural causation runs as smoothly in the human body as elsewhere. Indications are too often obvious of a strong, though perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, undercurrent of opinion that the phenomena of life are not only widely different, in their superficial characters and in their practical

*This Paper is identical with that which formed the basis of a discussion on the 18th of July, at the First Annual Congress of the Society of Art, held in Birmingham, when a gathering of Educational Institutions met to discuss the important question of the teaching of Domestic Economy as a branch of general education,

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Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of belief in the value of knowledge respecting the laws of health and disease, and of the foresight and care to which knowledge is the essential preliminary, which is so often noticeable; and a corresponding laxity and carelessness in practice, the results of which are too frequently lamentable.

It is said that, among the many religious sects of Russia, there is one which holds that all disease is brought about by the direct and special interference of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repugnance upon both preventive and curative measures, as alike blasphemous interferences with the will of God. Among ourselves, the "Peculiar People" are, I believc, the only persons who hold the like doctrine in its integrity, and carry it out with logical rigour. But many of us are old enough to recollect that the administration of chloroform in assuagement of the pangs of childbirth, was, at its introduction, strenuously resisted upon similar grounds.

I am not sure that the feeling, of which the doctrine to which I have referred is the full expression, does not lie at the bottom of the minds of a great many people who yet would vigorously object to give a verbal assent to the doctrine itself. However this may be, the main point is that sufficient knowledge has now been acquired of vital phenomena, to justify the assertion that the notion that there is anything exceptional about these phenomena receives not a particle of support from any known fact.

On the contrary, there is a vast and an increasing mass of evidence that birth and death, health and disease, are as much parts of the ordinary stream of events as the rising and setting of the sun, or the changes of the moon; and that the living body is a mechanism, the proper working of which we term health; its disturbance, disease; its stoppage, death. The activity of this mechanism is dependent upon many and complicated conditions, some of which are hopelessly beyond our control, while others are readily accessible, and are capable of being indefinitely modified by our own actions. The business of the hygienist and of the physician is to know the range of these modifiable conditions, and how to influence them towards the maintenance of health and the prolongation of life; the business of the general public is to give an intelligent assent, and a ready obedience based upon that assent, to the rules laid down for their guidance by such experts. But an intelligent assent is an assent based upon knowledge, and the knowledge which is here in question means an acquaintance with the elements of physiology.

It is not difficult to acquire such knowledge. What is true, to a certain extent, of all the physical sciences, is eminently characteristic of physiology-the difficulty of the subject begins beyond the stage of elementary knowledge, and increases with every stage of progress. While the most highly trained and best furnished intellect may find all its resources insufficient when it strives to reach the heights and penetrate into the depths of the problems of physiology, the elementary and fundamental truths can be made clear to a child.

No one can have any difficulty in comprehending the mechanism

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of circulation or respiration; or the general mode of operation of the organ of vision; though the unravelling of all the minutiae of these processes may, for the present, baffle the conjoined attacks of the most accomplished physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. To know the anatomy of the human body, with even an approximation to thoroughness, is the work of a life; but as much as is needed for a sound comprehension of elementary physiological truths, may be learned in a week.

A knowledge of the elements of physiology is not only easy of acquirement, but it may be made a real and practical acquaintance with the facts, as far as it goes. The subject of study is always at hand, in oneself. The principal constituents of the skeleton, and the changes of form of contracting muscles, may be felt through one's own skin. The beating of one's heart, and its connection with the pulse, may be noted; the influence of the valves of one's own veins may be shewn; the movements of respiration may be observed; while the wonderful phenomena of sensation afford an endless field for curious and interesting self-study. The prick of a needle will yield, in a drop of one's own blood, material for microscopic observation of phenomena which lie at the foundation of all biological conceptions; and a cold, with its concomitant coughing and sneezing, may prove the sweet uses of adversity by helping one to a clear conception of what is meant by reflex action."

Of course, there is a limit to this physiological self-examination. But there is so close a solidarity between ourselves and our poor relations of the animal world, that our inaccessible inward parts may be supplemented by theirs. Ä comparative anatomist knows that

a sheep's heart and lungs, or eye, must not be confounded with those of a man; but so far as the comprehension of the elementary facts of the physiology of circulation. and of respiration and of vision goes, the one furnishes the needful anatomical data as well as the other.

Thus, it is quite possible to give instruction in elementary physiology in such a manner as not only to confer knowledge, which, for the reason I have mentioned, is useful in itself; but to serve the purposes of a training in accurate observation, and in the methods of reasoning of physical science. But that is an advantage which I mention only incidentally, as the present Conference does not deal with education in the ordinary sense of the word.

It will not be suspected that I wish to make physiologists of all the world. It would be as reasonable to accuse an advocate of the "three R's" of a desire to make an orator, an author, and а mathematician of everybody. A stumbling reader, a pot-hook writer, and an arithmetician who has not got beyond the rule of three, is not a person of brilliant acquirements; but the difference between such a member of society and one who cannot either read, write, or cipher is almost inexpressible; and no one now-a-days doubts the value of instruction, even if it goes no further.

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

If William Harvey's life-long

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