Walking up a hill of two hundred feet suffices to increase the pulse and relieve oppression of the chest and other premonitory symptoms of heart-disease. Sleeplessness can be cured, or rather palliated, by narcotics—for a while. The eventual effect of the drug is to aggravate the evil and induce those fifty-hour vigils that drove De Quincey to the verge of insanity. Outdoor exercise will remedy the trouble, not only more cheaply and reliably, but also without the risk of distressing after-effects.
Skilful sailors can utilize any—not too violent—breeze, to keep their course in the desired direction, and there is hardly a form of active exercise that cannot be modified in a manner to obviate the necessity of the drug-monger's assistance, but, besides, there are movement-cure prescriptions of a more limited, but also more infallible efficacy, that may ultimately supersede the use of medicinal specifics.
