situated that he can have an abundance of plain, nutritious food, well cooked, and a variety sufficient to invite the palate. It stands to reason that if the waste in the system, produced by the disease, is not only to be made good, but if, in addition, as is desirable, the patient is to put on fat, he must take into his system material sufficient in quality and quantity wherewith to do it. Any place, be it on a ranch or at a boarding-house, where the table is uninviting and nauseous, is a bad one for the invalid, and one that he should leave as soon as possible. It is on this ground that we base a good deal of our objection to ranch-life. As indicated, the food is usually poor in quality, insufficient in quantity, and indigestible. Contrary to what might be supposed, even on a cattle-ranch, milk is seldom to be had, and, if the black coffee is to be drunk au lait, it is made so with condensed milk. The life, also, is monotonous and trying, and the distance from medical assistance, if needed, is so great as to be, in hæmorrhagic cases, of serious importance. The writer is convinced that ranch-life, the so-called "ranch-cure for consumptives," especially those just out from the East, is a mistake; and he is certain that its good qualities, in giving occupation and an out-of-door life, are to be had without the bad ones, by going to some one of the many towns on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
In conclusion, it may be appropriate to speak very briefly of the classes of pulmonary troubles to which this climate is adapted. It will not be possible to give a complete list, nor to attempt to catalogue the varieties, but merely to mention, in the most general way, the kinds of pulmonary disease that experience has shown to be relieved in Colorado. It may not be inappropriate to begin with a strong negative, and to say that this climate is not adapted to persons suffering from the last stages of phthisis. The elevation and rarity of the air throw so much extra work on the already embarrassed heart and lungs that the difficulty is increased and the end is only hastened. Such cases need the comforts of home, and the consolation of friends, more than change of scene or climate; and we protest against the cruelty of sending such invalids to Colorado as a dernier ressort, when the probable issue will be that they have been subjected to an exhausting and fatiguing journey only to give up their life, in a short time, in a strange land. The opinion that the altitude is not suited to hæmorrhagic cases is generally discountenanced by the medical profession in this State. Such cases are found to do very well here if they be taken early enough; and experience shows that there is nothing in mere altitude to increase the tendency to relapses. Even those cases where there is a strong hereditary tendency to phthisis are found to do admirably in this climate, provided they come early enough. The so-called catarrhal pneumonias, in the early stages, where resolution is slow, are admirably adapted to this climate. Bronchitic and asthmatic patients find relief and cure here. Where heart-lesions exist, especially
