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■1

HEALTH, DISEASE,

LONGEVITY,

CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO DIB*; REGIMEN,

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF HYGIENE.

LIONEL JOHN BEALB, M.E.C.S

LONDON:
SAMUEL HIGHLEY, 32, FLEET STREET.

1854.

/■T/ . JL, Jf

LONDON :
T. E. Metcalf, Printer, 63, Snow Hill.

PKEFACE.

Hygiene, or the Art of Preventing Disease,
has of late years attracted attention, as of
equal, if not of more importance than the
art of curing disease. Both branches of the
science of medicine, require the attention of
the medical practitioner, but the former is
that which most deserves the attention of
the public, because the means of preventing
disease are more intelligible, of more practi-
cal application, and not liable to do the mis-
chief which too often results from the treat-
ment of disease, unless based on an intimate
knowledge of the subject. The laws of
health in relation to the prevention of disease,
may be learned and applied by all : perhaps,
when the subject is more appreciated, it may
become, as it ought to be, a branch of public

IV PREFACE.

education; in some degree, however, public
attention has been drawn to the subject, and
very great good has resulted.

My work on the " Laws of Health" has, I am
told, been of some service in helping to dif-
fuse a knowledge of Hygiene ; and I trust
the present, being calculated for wider circu-
lation, may still further extend information
on this subject, one of the most important to
which civilized man can direct his attention ;
for health of mind is so connected with health
of body, that in a definition of the word
" health/' we must include both. An opinion
is too generally held and acted upon, that
disease is so certainly the lot of man, that to
be free from it is the exception, and not the
rule. This is a mischievous opinion, for it
induces that negligence of the means of pre-
venting disease which are within the reach
of all. That health depends on the will of
the individual, is much more nearly the rule ;
and its possession is more within our own
management than we are always willing to
admit. That a highly civilized and refined
condition of society throws impediments in

PREFACE. V

the way of preserving health is unquestion-
able; and an unreasonable indulgence in the
pleasures of social life is assuredly incompa-
tible with sound health.

That a large enjoyment of the more rational
of these pleasures may be indulged, and the
health still preserved by those who will take
the trouble of learning how to do so, is equally
clear. An acquaintance with that, which
truly constitutes health of mind and body, and
the real art of enjoying existence, is known to
very few, and most men struggle through life
without ever learning how to preserve it. The
pleasures of human life are exclusively neither
corporeal nor mental, but a due combination
of both, and the wise exercise of all the facul-
ties constitutes health and happiness : to pur-
sue one class alone must be at the expense of
the other. By over-application to mental pur-
suits, we prevent the proper development and
health of the body ; and by over-employment
of the bodily powers, we destroy all desire for
those of the mind : true wisdom consists in the
employment and exercise of both, and there is
no surer way of preserving health than by an

VI PREFACE.

alternation of the labour, or rather what
ought to be the pleasures, of mind and body.

The first thing to be done in our search
after health, both of mind and body, is to
learn in what it really consists, and the powers
we possess of so managing and regulating our-
selves in relation to the circumstances in which
we are placed as to realize as large a portion
of happiness as possible ; for the search after
health is the search after happiness; and a
perfect knowledge of the whole subject may
almost be said to constitute philosophy or the
search after wisdom.

12, Wilton Place,

July \1th, 1854.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction ...... 1

PART I.

On the Organs and Functions of Digestion, Nu-
trition, Secretion, and Excretion

PART II.

On the Foundation op a Good Constitution,

and the Renovation of an Impaired One . 71

PART III.
On Longevity . . . . . .1(54

2 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

influence on health, and are under our in-
dividual control. The arrangements, venti-
lation, and warming of our residences; the
prevention of exhalations from drains, &c, of
all moisture or damp at the basement of our
houses, of all accumulations of dirt or rubbish.
Gases of fever, and other illness, have been
frequently caused by vegetable and animal
remains allowed to putrefy in cellars. Domestic
Hygiene applies to all the laws of health, as
regards personal cleanliness, washing, bathing,
clothingfair, exercise, and diet. In a weU-regS
lated State, all circumstances applying to Fublic
Hygiene, should be duly guarded, and every
district should have its officer of health. In a
well-regulated family, Domestic Hygiene should
be equally attended to; every head of a family
should be sufficiently acquainted with the sub*
ject as to perceive at once when the laws of
health were infringed. At present the public
mind is not fully awake to the importance of
this subject, but the periodical visitation of
cholera has directed attention to the means of
its prevention, because this is avowedly a dis-
ease but little amenable to medical treatment

4 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

If Public Hygiene in all its parts was looked
after by the Board of Health and local officers
of health in every district of the kingdom, and
if Domestic Hygiene was applied in every
family, the benefits to the community would
be incalculable : in another generation the whole
race would be improved. Who can doubt but
that the superior forms, figures, and faces of
the higher classes of society result from a cer-
tain attention to Hygiene, in the superior con-
struction of their habitations, in the advantages
of air, exercise, and clothing, with that refine-
ment and cultivation of the mental and moral
powers so necessary to a sound condition of
the human constitution as a whole. That in
all the classes of society much improvement in
the general health has resulted from the atten-
tion directed to the subject during the last
twenty or thirty years is unquestionable — the
physical powers and condition of our people has
been greatly improved ; but much yet remains
to be done before the human race shall exhibit
those advantages from a due attention to the
subject, as is shewn in the improvements of the
races of our horses and cattle. We have for

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 5

years applied the laws of Hygiene for the
benefit of our animals, and it only remains to
apply them to our whole human population, to
derive equal advantages in the health and
vigour of the physical powers of man, as the
diffusion of a small amount of general educa-
tion has a little improved the mental powers.
With the evidence of the good results of a dif-
fusion of some knowledge, both of physical and
moral education, we have only to stimulate a
still further extension of both, as a certain
means of increasing individual happiness and
national greatness.

6 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

PART I.

QX THIS ORGANS AND FUNCTIONS OF DIGESTION, NUTRITION,
SECRETION, AND EXCRETION.

When we are about to perform a journey into
an unknown country, we study a map; so, in
considering the human constitution in health
and disease, it is necessary to know something
of the bearings of its various functions, and in
particular those which are principally concerned
in the preservation of health, and the preven-
tion of disease. We shall trace our food through
the organs of digestion, noting the various
changes it undergoes to make it fit for nutri-
tion; when, after having fulfilled its purposes
in the support of the organism, its relics become
the objects of various secretions, to be cast out
of the body.

In thus attempting to shew how food is con-
verted into blood, we must necessarily touch
upon all the important organs and functions of

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 7

animal life; and in so doing, we shall be led
to make some observations on those organs and
functions which are principally concerned in
the preservation of health.

The first process towards converting food into
blood is mastication: — we thus not only divide
our food into very minute particles by the
grinding action of the teeth, but we gradually
mix it with that secretion of the glands around
the mouth, — viz., the saliva^ which renders it
more adapted for the action of the juices of the
stomach. In the stomach the food is mixed
with the gastric juice, the action of which ren-
ders it more soluble and in a state fit for ab-
sorption by the vessels which carry it into the
blood. The roots of plants absorb and imbibe
from the soil the necessary nourishment for
their growth and maintenance ; in like manner
the absorbing vessels of the stomach and intes-
tines may be compared with those of the roots
of plants, and the food to the soil from which
the nutriment is extracted.

The stomach is internally coated with a very
delicate membrane, somewhat similar, but of a
nature much more complicated than that which

8 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

lines the mouth and throat. In its healthy con-
dition the stomach transmits no sensation : we
ought not by any feeling to be aware of its
existence; but any disturbance in its natural
condition, from improper quality or quantity of
food, is immediately perceived: to feel that
we have a stomach is certain evidence of its
derangement. As by its healthy action the sto-
mach provides the elements of blood, and gene-
rates nourishment, health, and vigour, both to
mind, and body, so, in its deranged condition, it
is the primary source — the mother of most dis-
eases. When our stomach is in good order and
our digestion sound, we are in the best condition
to resist all external causes of disease. Infec-
tious poisons act most readily on those whose
digestive powers are weak or depraved ; we can
best resist the causes of ordinary colds, and,
perhaps, we never even catch cold, when the
stomach is quite in good order. Besides the
great variety of dyspeptic, bilious, nervous, and
and other complaints, which may be directly
traced to their source in disturbance of the
stomach ; indirectly it may lay the foundation
of disease by not supplying the blood with

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 9

those plastic elements best calculated for the
nutrition of our various organs, and the system
generally is more open to attacks of disease.
It is easy to understand that as health must
depend on a sound condition of the blood, and
as the stomach is the prime elaborator of that
fluid which is to become blood, if this primary
action is deranged and an unsound chyle gene-
rated, this, in its confluence with the blood, must
carry into the circulation the germs of disease.
IfcLe that more frequent disorder, of sto-
mach arise from quantity rather than quality of
food; various kinds of indigestion are produced
by the unnecessary quantity which most people
take; for there are very few who limit them-
selves to the amount of food which nature really
requires. Bad quality of food produces diseases
of the blood, as well as disorders of the diges-
tive organs, by the depraved juices supplied to
the organs of nutrition. If we would prevent
disease we should take care of our stomach.
Supply it only with what is really necessary,
and we shall suffer very little from disorder of
any kind. The health of that fluid destined to
nourish every part of the body, the various

10 health; and disease.

organs, the muscles, the nerves, and brain, is
mainly dependant on the healthy action of the
stomach, in separating from our food only those
parts which are essential to the well-nourish-
ment of the whole system. The entire consti-
tution — the skin, the brain and nerves, the lungs
and heart, the blood-vessels, the absorbents, the
digestive organs themselves, and every atom of
our organism, are dependant on the soundness
of the primary process of assimilation, or that
conversion of dead matter into vital tissue,
which begins in the stomach.

When we reflect on the wonderful change
that must take place in the conversion of a
mutton chop and a slice of bread into blood,
nerve, muscle and bone, we are lost in admi-
ration at the facility with which such processes
go on in a state of health for seventy or eighty
years. The stomach may be considered the
caldron in which are brewed the various fluids
which nourish the body, and repair the wear
and tear of the solid parts of our frame ; for
every muscular action, and probably every
mental exertion, wear away some particles of
muscle and brain, so that a constant rebuilding

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 11

is always going on in every part. In order that
healthy matter should be concocted, we should
supply the caldron only with such solids and
liquids as are by their nature fit for the pro-
duction of sound and healthy materials for the
repair of our constantly-wasting structures.
The agents of these repairs are the blood ves-
sels ; the material by which they are effected is
the blood. The blood cannot be in good con-
dition if the stomach is not so ; hence the
necessity of great care in the management of
this organ by all who would enjoy health.
There are many other conditions necessary for
sound health, which we shall touch upon in
their turn ; but the stomach is the primary
source of most of the evils which tend first to
disordered action, and then to disease.

In that condition of society when men are
the whole day in the open air, where their
wants are few, and where the climate is such
that they require but little protection either
from houses or from clothes, and where the
soil produces the necessaries of life with the
expenditure of very little labour of mind or
body ; in such a happy or unhappy state, it

12 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

matters little what is received into the stomach
— it digests almost anything. So, in a higher
degree of civilisation, those who are employed
in agriculture, and almost constantly breathing
a wholesome atmosphere, who exert but mode-
rate bodily labour, and little or none of mental,
it matters not what such people take as food,
they can, as they say, away with anything.
But the inhabitants of towns, struggling
through life with every possible impediment ;
worn out in body and wasted in mind by
unceasing exertions — to this class it is vitally
important how they treat their stomachs. Sub-
ject as they must necessarily be to hot rooms,
offices, factories, and many other deteriorating
influences on the health, both of mind and
body, if they would only take in moderation
what they know to agree with them, they
might avert many of the evils to which their
health is subjected. By great care in diet, and
by being very much in the open air, the in-
habitants of towns may preserve their health
even to a greater degree then some habitants of
a healthy country, who altogether despise and
neglect the rules of diet. People who will

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 13

shut themselves in a house from Sunday to
Sunday, and who will eat and drink twice as
much as is required, will have bad health
whether they live in town or country.

According to our present knowledge there
are in nature fifty-five elements, from various
combinations of which, all substances, whether
belonging to the mineral, the vegetable, or the
animal kingdoms, are formed. No element
has yet been found in any living body which
does not exist in inorganic matter. The ele-
mentary substances found in the human body
are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen,
sulphur, phosphorus, silicon, fluorine, potas-
sium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, man-
ganese, aluminium, copper, and a few others in
various animals. The first four may be con-
sidered essential elements ; of the others, some
are constantly found, others only incidentally.
Sulphur, phosphorus, iron, and the salts of
potassium and sodium, are always found.
Every known organic substance is composed
of at least three of the elements. This is essen-
tial to the very existence of organic matter,
and, by the addition of one or more of the

14 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

other elements, the peculiarities of the various
organic substances are induced. In the inor-
ganic world most substances are formed of
only two elements — as the atmospheric air, of
oxygen and nitrogen — water, of oxygen and
hydrogen — lime, of oxygen and calcium — soda,
of oxygen and sodium. In the vegetable
world we find most frequently three of the
elementa Starch, gum, sugar, are composed
of varying proportions of oxygen, hydrogen,
and carbon. In the animal substances there
are generally four or five elements ; albumen,
fibrine, gelatine, being compounds of oxygen,
hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, with a small

q L4Wu,

These four elements (oxygen, hydrogen, car-
bon, and nitrogen) preponderate in the com-
position of all vegetable and animal matter.
They differ from all the rest, not only by their
quantity but by their peculiarities. If vege-
table or animal substances are exposed to a
high temperature, the largest part is dissipated
into the atmosphere, while the rest cannot be
volatilised, and is no longer affected by heat,
all these elements, with the exception of some

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 15

oxygen, are carried off. For example, bone
contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,
phosphorus, and calcium. The three former and
some oxygen are present in bone in the form
of gelatine ; the rest of the oxygen, with the
phosphorus and calcium, in the form of phos-
phate of lime. When the bone is burnt the
whole of the gelatine disappears, leaving only
phosphate of lime. The burnt bone may still
retain its shape, but its weight has been di*
minished by the Combustion of its gelatine.

All vegetable and animal matter submitted
to combustion have their elements changed;
their carbon is converted into carbonic acid by
its union with oxygen, their hydrogen into
water ; their nitrogen escapes as such, and the
ash contains the rest of the elements. Decay
and putrefaction are processes similar to burn-
ing, and the ultimate changes are the same in
their results. The elements entering into the
composition of vegetables and animals have
been divided into those which are destroyed
by a red heat, and those which remain un-
changed at a very high temperature; or, or-
ganic and inorganic constituents. By burning,

16 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

the former are resolved into gases, which afford
nourishment to living plants and animals :
while the latter return again to the soil, and
in their turn are again appropriated by the
roots of vegetables. It is shewn by agricul-
tural chemistry that the growing plant derives
its fixed elements from the saline consituents
of the soil, its carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
and oxygen, from the atmosphere, and, in its
decomposition, returns the same elements to
their respective originals. A similar process
takes place in animals. Both the atmospheric
and saline elements combine with each other
to form a great variety of compounds, which
are known as " the proximate constituents of
plants and animals "—albumen, fibrine, gela-
tine, starch, sugar, vegetable and animal fats;
the great number of acids occurring in animals
and vegetables, coloring matters, essential
oil, and resins, are among the endless variety
of proximate constituents that are formed by
the atmospheric elements. The inorganic or
earthy elements are associated in other com-
pounds, as sulphates, chlorides, and phosphates
of potass, soda, and lime, &c, which are left

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 17

in the ashes of animal and vegetable substances
after burning.

The natural organic compounds are also ar-
ranged in two classes — the nitrogenous and the
non-nitrogenous principles. The non-nitrogen-
ous, including starch, gum, oils, fat, &a, which
are compounds of oxygen, hydrogen, and car-
bon ; the nitrogenous include albumen, fibrine,
caseine of milk, and gluten of corn, and are
composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and
nitrogen.

Albumen and its allied substances, gelatine
and fibrine, are among the most important
constituents of the animal body, being in the
greatest quantity in the blood, and in all the
fluids which contribute to nutrition. A sub-
stance very nearly allied to fibrine is the essen-
tial constituent of flesh or muscular fibre;
albumen again enters largely into the com-
position of nervous matter. The ova of all
animals are in great part composed of albumen,
of which the white of egg is the type. Milk,
besides the caseine or cheesy substance, contains
a large quantity of albumen, so that Nature
has thus provided albumen for the stipport of

18 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

the young, both before and after their birth.
The fats are important principles in the animal
economy; and the vegetable products,' starch
and sugar, are closely allied to them.. Recent
investigations have detected sugar in almost
all the fluids subservient to nutrition. Sugar
and fat also enter into the composition of milk ;
and, in all cases, starch is converted into sugar
in the digestive process.

AU substances necessary for the food of man
may be divided into four classes : —

J. The aqueous — water, composed of oxygen
and hydrogen.

2. The oleaginous and saccharine, composed
of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon.

3. The albuminous, composed of oxygen, hy-
drogen, carbon, and nitrogen, with sulphur, and
in some cases with phosphorus.

4. The saline.

The second class is also called the respiratory
and non-nitrogeneous ; the third class is also
called the plastic and nitrogeneous; and a fifth
class might be added, the gaseous — since atmos-
pheric air and the gases it contains, play most
important parts in the nutrition, as well as the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 19

degeneration and decomposition of the animal
body.

Water is absolutely necessary to all animated
structures. Four-fifths of the blood consists of
water ; and so much of this fluid enters into the
structure of all parts of the body, that the dried
mummies of TenerifFe, the Guanches, weigh
only 71bs. Water is the medium by which all
plastic changes are carried on, by holding in
solution the nutritive parts of our food ; and
it has been proved that persons deprived of
food do not starve so soon if they have a supply
of water. Water is also essential for the re-
moval of our worn-out tissues, the particles of
which must be held in solution before they can
be ejected from the system. Fatty and sac->
charine food is consumed in the production
of animal heat ; what is superfluous for present
use being stored up in fat cells. The albu-
minous substances go to the support of the
muscular and nervous systems, and the tissues
composing the various organs of the animal
body. The saline and earthy elements of our
food are required for the more solid parts »f
our jrame, the bones*

20 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

The proper object of taking food is to supply
materials for the repair of the waste which
results from the active exercise of the organs,
especially of the nervous and muscular systems;
to replace the continual decay which is always
going on in all parts, and to iutroduce sub-
stances necessary for the production of animal
heat. When animals are deprived of a suffi-
cient quantity of wholesome food, degeneration
takes place, and a long continuance of such
privations, from generation to generation, will
deteriorate a whole province, or even a nation.
This is exemplified in some of the natives of
the western parts of Ireland, in the miserable
Bosjesmans of the Cape, the Australians, &c.
In a less degree, insufficient or improper food,
lays the foundation of various diseases in the
organs of nutrition : in the glandular system,
producing various forms of scrofula : in the
bones, producing rickets and deformities, &c.
But, on the other hand, equally unhealthy con-
ditions of a different kind are produced by an
over supply of food In healthy animals a
superabundance of food engenders fat, which
is stored up for future use, Animals likely to

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 21

suffer from deficiency of food in winter become
fat, very remarkable in those which hybernate ;
they require little or no materials for the repair
of the nervous and muscular tissues, the func-
tions of which are totally suspended ; but their
respiration and animal heat must be kept up,
and for this purpose the fat is gradually ab-
sorbed, so that before the end of winter such
animals become lean.

The quantity of food required by the same
person will differ under the different circum-
stances of sex, age, season of the year, amount
of mental, nervous, and muscular exertions,
&c. The average quantity for an adult is from
SOoz. to 36oz. of dry aliment ; but half this
quantity of good food will maintain a person
in good health, unless his work is very great.
The relative value of different alimentary sub-
stances depend on their respective amounts of
solid materials. All vegetables contain much
water, and must be eaten in large quantities
to supply the requisite nutriment. The process
of nutrition may be said to begin in plants,
by the absorption of elements from inorganic
matter, and thus food is prepared for animals.

52 HEALTH AND DISEASE

Vegetables produce two kinds of nutritive ali-
ment — one consisting of oxygen, hydrogen,
and carbon ; and the other of these elements,
with the addition of nitrogen. Of the first
kind, we may here mention starch, sugar, and
oil, which supply materials for animal heat;
and of the last, corn and leguminous seeds,
peas, beans, &c, which, containing nitrogen,
are essential to replace the waste of the animal
tissues ; because, of vegetable substances, these
alone contain the principles, in any quantity,
from which the albuminous solids and fluids
of animals can be furnished. Potatoes, rice,
&c, must be eaten in very large quantities to
supply the requisite nutriment, and people so
fed must be inferior to those races which pro-
vide themselveswith the proper food of man —
corn and animal flesh. Nothing can be more
beautiful than the relations which the physi-
ological systems of vegetables and animals ex-
hibit in their mutual dependencies, and their
mutual subservience each to the welfare of the
other. Carbon is most important to vegetables,
oxygen most important to animals ; the first
is excreted by animals, the last by vegetables.

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 23

The higher classes of vegetables which minister
to the wants of man, can only be produced in
sufficient quantity by resupplying the earth
with those principles which, having renovated
the wastes of the animal economy, are again
committed to the eftrth, taken up by the roots
of wheat, &c, and again elaborated into food
proper for the highest classes of animals. How
beautiful is this circulation of materials, re-
quired for successive generations both of vege-
tables and of animals ; how clear is the design,
and how admirable the adaptation.

The four classes of materials subservient to
the food of man, in due combination, constitute
the blood. Proper food must contain a due
proportion of these matters, and that diet is
the most suitable in which they are all com-
bined ; deficiency or excess in the various
principles of our aliment is attended with cor-
responding evils to the healthy action of our
organs. If nitrogenous aliments are not in
sufficient quantity to repair the waste of the
muscular and nervous tissues, they will de-
crease in vital power; and if the non-nitro-
genous principles be insufficient, we shall not

24 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

retain a due amount of animal heat ; the
substauces which furnish the former being
albumen and gluten, the largest quantity of
these being in the lean of meat and in corn ;
those which furnish the greatest amount of the
latter are oil, fat, starch, and sugar.

Nature has pointed out the proportions of
the various principles of our food, in the
composition of milk, in which are combined
the various elements necessary for the nutri-
tion of animal tissues, the production of animal
heat, a due supply of watery fluid, and the
requisite quantities of saline and earthy mat-
ters. In this especial food for the young,
Nature has combined albuminous, oily, and sac-
chorine matter; the caseine is albuminous, the
butter a modification of oily fat, and the sugar
of milk does not materially differ from ordinary
sugar, while we also find in milk a due amount
of earthy principles to furnish the solids of
animals. It is remarkable how exactly habit
accords with the chemical and physiological
facts in relation to the wants of the system, and
the means of supplying them. Good wheaten
bread contains more nearly than any substance

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 25

in common use the proportions of plastic and
of heat giving materials to repair the waste
of animal tissues, and to support combustion,
which are required under the conditions of life
in the temperate climates of the earth. In cold
weather we require and have a desire for more
fatty matter; and the more we employ our
muscular system the greater is the demand
and the necessity for such food as will supply
the waste. In rice and potatoes the farinaceous
and saccharine components exist in such large
proportions, that we require a considerable
quantity of such kind of aliment to extract a
sufficiency of nutritive particles ; but if we mix
with such a diet a small quantity of animal
food, the same combination takes place as exists
in bread. The colder the climate the greater is
the desire for fat, to maintain the heat of the
body by its combustion with oxygen. The
Esquimaux are said to devour several pounds
of blubber at a meal; while, in hot climates,
there is but little inclination for oily matter.

Health cannot be long sustained on any one
alimentary principle: neither pure albumen or
fibrine, gelatine or gum, sugar or starch, oil or

26 HEALTH AND DISEASE,

fat, alone, can give nourishment for any length
of time. Numerous experiments on this subject
have been made ; and it has been found that
animals, after a time, become so disgusted with
being limited to any one article, that they
prefer starvation to such food. Added to or-
ganic compounds, there must be certain inor-
ganic substances taken with our food in order
to preserve health. Common salt is necessary
to digestion, giving its acid to assist the ope-
rations of the stomach, and its soda to form an
important constituent of bile. Salt is found in
the blood, and may aid in preventing decom-
position in the organic compounds. Phosphorus
is found in some quantity in nervous matter,
and also in the bones, and sulphur in several of
the tissues of animals. Lime exists in the bones
and teeth, and iron is required for the red cor-
puscles of the blood. All these inorganic mate-
rials should be taken into the body combined
with various articles of food ; and, if in deficient
quantity, the animal suffers if they are not
otherwise supplied. Salt exists in the flesh
tod fluids of animals, in milk and in eggs, but
not much in vegetable matter; and this is the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 27

reason why cattle thrive so much better when
it is artificially supplied. Most animal sub-
stances contain phosphorus, and it is found in
many vegetables as a phosphate of lime, mag.
nesia, or soda. Phosphate of lime occurs in the
seeds of all the grasses, and largely in combi-
nation with caselTin milk Sulphur is ob-
tained both from animal and vegetable food in
flesh, eggs, milk, and many vegetables, as well
as in the water we drink, which generally con-
tains sulphate of lime. Phosphate and car-
bonate of lime are both found in the ashes of
grapes, and phosphate of lime is very abundant
in corn; hence the value of this salt as a ma-
nure. The same law applies to the soil of the
earth as to the economy of the animal; what-
ever is taken away, used, or consumed, must
be again restored, if we would maintain health
and strength. This law is exemplified in the
eggs of the common fowl. Deprive a hen of the
means of obtaining chalk or lime, and her eggs
will be soft, their inverting membrane not
having its interstices filled, as they should be,
with a layer of carbonate of lime.
To form blood and to supply materials for

28 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

animal heat, are the principle objects of the
process of digestion ; to effect the first we re-
quire aliments which contain nitrogen ; to effect
the latter they must contain hydrogen and
carbon. The digestion of these two classes of
food is different; they maintain a separate con-
dition throughout the animal system, and when
used up, their relics or debris are separated from
the blood, and ejected from the system by dif-
ferent organs. Those articles of food which admit '
of conversion into the albumen or fibrine of the
blood, and of being subsequently assimilated
through the medium of the blood by the tissues
of our organs, have been called plastic or nitro-
genous; and those which constitute materials
for animal heat are consumed in the body, and
effect the changes which take place in the res*
piratory organs, have been called calorifacient,
respiratory, or non-nitrogenous. In the first
clafes are flesh, corn, the seeds of leguminous
plants; in the second are fat, oil, starch, sugar.
Albuminous matters are digested and rendered
soluble in the stomach by the gastric juice;
fat is not digested or absorbed until the food
has passed out of the stomach, and has been

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 29

converted into a kind of emulsion by other
fluids than those supplied by the stomach.
The first commencement of digestion begins in
the mouth, by the minute division of our food
and its admixture with saliva, "which fluid
assists in the transformation of starch, from its
naturally insoluble state to- a condition more
fit for absorption as sugar. Starch is entirely
a product of the vegetable kingdom, and exists
in large quantity in wheat, rice, potatoes, &c.
Starch is by many processes, both in and out of
the body, converted into sugar; one thousand
parts of barley contain forty-six parts of sugar,
while one thousand of malt contain one hundred
and fifty-four of sugar; shewing, that in the
process of malting starch is converted into sugar.
If we add yeast to a solution of sugar, the
latter will be separated into carbonic acid gas
and alcohol. Sugar in the animal system is
converted into fat. Bees eat sugar and form
wax ; and negroes are observed always to get
fat in the sugar-making season. All starchy,
saccharine, and fatty food, by admixture with
oxygen, after a species of combustion and the
generation of heat, is converted into carbonic

30 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

acid gas. The same amount of heat must be
produced as if they were burnt out of the
body. In twenty-four hours we excrete from
fceven to fourteen ounces of carbon, formed from
ptarch and fat ; and if a sufficient amount of
these ingredients is not taken in the food the
accumulated fat of the body is first consumed,
and afterwards the muscles and other tissues
are disintegrated, and carried to the lungs to
support respiration.

All animals require a receptacle for their
food, which in the lowest creatures is of a
very simple nature, the digestive sac being in
some equally capable of absorbing food on its
inner or its outer coat, as in the Hydra or
fresh-water Polype. The gastric juice for the
solution of food is secreted from the walls of
the stomach ; and these creatures being tran-
sparent, the process may be watched. The
arms seize the prey, and convey it to the
mouth ; after being a short time in the stomach
a film collects, on it, and it is gradually re-
duced to a fluid state, while any indigestible
portions are rejected by the same aperture by
which they entered. As the digestive appa-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 31

ratus increases in complexity, an organ like
the gizzard of birds is added for the tritu-
ration of the food, which is then subjected to
the Action of bile, in addition to the gastric
fluid. As we ascend the animal scale we find
an increase in the digestive apparatus, but
essentially it is the same in all. There is near
the entrance of the stomach a grinding appa-
ratus for the mechanical reduction of the food,
either in form of a gizzard or of teeth, ex-
cept in such animals as receive their food in
a liquid or soft state, so as to be readily acted
on by the digestive fluids. In some animals
the food is first received into a mere bag or
preliminary stomach, from which it is again
returned to the grinding apparatus, as in Ru-
minants chewing the cud.

When the food is very soluble by the gastric
juice, a simple bag constitutes the stomach ;
but when from its nature, long maceration is
necessary, we find a more complicated appa-
ratus ; this is illustrated by the stomachs of
herbivorous, granivorous, and carnivorous ani-
mals ; grass-eaters having a more complicated
stomach than corn-e*te?s, and these than flesh-

32 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

eaters, while the stomach of man is interme-
diate, shewing his nature to be omnivorous.
The length of the intestines also bears reference
to the kind of food In the lion it is three
times the length of the body ; in the sheep
twenty-eight times, and in man, six. In
the carnivora the teeth are mere dividing in-
struments like scissors, the action of their jaws
only permitting this movement ; in herbivora
the teeth are rough, and of large surface, while
the jaws are so connected as to admit of much
lateral movement for the purpose of grinding
tough vegetable substances. In man we find
intermediate conditions, both as regards the
teeth and the articulation of the jaws. From
his whole apparatus of digestion we should in-
fer that man was intended to live on a mixed
diet of flesh, and of such vegetable substances
as require moderate crushing or grinding;
this primary process is, however, of great im-
portance; and unless we triturate our food
sufficiently, and thus mix it with a sufficient
quantity of saliva, we impose more work on
our stomach, and may thus engender some
amount of indigestion. .

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 33

Gastric fluid is not secreted when the stomach
is empty, but on the introduction of food, or
other foreign substances, the mucus membrane,
previously quite pale, becomes turged and red-
dened by the influx of a large quantity of
blood, the glands begin to secrete, and an acid
fluid is poured out. Much valuable informal
tion relative to the action of the stomach was
obtained by Dr. Beaumont, who had a patient,
Alexis St. Martin, with a permanent external
opening into his stomach, the result of a gun-
shot wound. Through this opening substances
could be passed into the stomach, and again
taken out, and the gastric fluid could be re-
moved The introduction of a thermometer,
which always stood at 100°, stimulated the
inner coat of the stomach to secrete gastric
fluid, The gastric juice is a clear, inodorous
liquid, rather salt, and very perceptibly acid;
it coagulates albumen, is powerfully antisep-
tic, and is an efficient solvent of the most
important alimentary substances. The gastric
juice softens and reduces into a pulp various
articles of food; but in order to do so the
operation must take place in a temperature

34 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

of 90° to 100° of Fahrenheit ; and it is also
necessary that the food be subjected to the
muscular movements of the stomach, by which
every part is brought successively into con-
tact with the mucus surface, from which the
digestive fluid is poured out in great quantity.
After seventeen hours fasting, Dr. Beaumont
took out of the stomach one ounce of gastric
juice, put into it three drachms of recently-
salted boiled beef, and placed the containing
vessel in a water-bath at 100°. In forty
minutes digestion had commenced on the
surface ; in fifty the fluid became opaque
and cloudy ; in two hours the texture of the
meat was entirely broken up, leaving the fibres
loose and floating in fine shreds ; in six hours
it was nearly all digested. A similar piece of
beef was suspended in the stomach by a piece
of thread ; in one hour it was changed, as in
the artificial digestion ; but in two hours it
was completely digested and gone. Dr. Beau-
mont performed many other experiments. He
macerated a piece of meat in water for several
days, until it acquired a strong putrid odour ;
on the addition of fresh gastric juice it lost its

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 35

smell and all signs of putrefaction, and soon
began to digest.

The action of the gastric juice is supposed
to depend on a principle which has been call-
ed pepsine, and may be compared with that
of a ferment inducing certain changes in or-
ganic matters with which it comes into con-
tact, and itself participating in these changes,
or it may excite by its mere presence some
chemical action ; and that pepsine does act
thus, appears probable, from the very small
quantity necessary to excite the digestive ac-
tion in a large amount of food. The process
differs from ordinary fermentation, in being
unattended with the formation of carbonic
acid, in not requiring the presence of oxygen,
and in the non-production of new quantities
of the active principle or ferment ; but, like
fermentation, whatever alters the composition
of pepsine destroys the digestive power of the
fluid, as heat above 110°, alcohol, or strong
acids. The real action of the gastric juice is
the solution of the albuminous parts of our
food. A high temperature, and the motion
of the stomach, have been mentioned as neces-

36 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

sary for digestion. Salts are also required.
Common salt is required to act on the mucus
membrane of the stomach, or to supply by its
decomposition the muriatic* acid found in the
gastric fluid. Many aromatics and gentle
stimulants, like spices and mustard, also pro-
mote digestion, by their action on the mucus
membrane. As soon as the substances taken
into the stomach are rendered soluble, they
are either absorbed by vessels on the walls of
the stomach, or they pass into the intestine,
and permit a new surface of food to be ex-
posed to the action of the gastric juice. If milk
be taken as food, it is at once coagulated, the
watery part directly taken away by the veins,
and the caseine or curd gradually dissolved by
the digestive process. The ferment of the saliva,
with the bile and the fluids of some other
glands, act chiefly on the most important non-
nitrogenous or heat-producing element of our
food, starch; while the ferment of the gastric
juice acts chiefly on the nitrogenous or plastic
element, albumen.

The various substances taken in food, ac-
cording to our present knowledge, are thug

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 37

disposed of: — Water is taken up by itself as
well as mineral matters soluble in water or in
acids ; non-nitrogenous organic compounds (some
are soluble, as sugar; others insoluble, as starch)
are acted upon by the saliva and other fluids
and rendered soluble by being converted into
sugar; for nitrogenous substances the proper
agent is the gastric juice — it converts albumen,
fibrin, and caseine,into matters soluble in water,
and fits them for absorption into the system
for the purposes of life. There are many in-
soluble parts of our food which pass the stomach
unchanged, and are ejected from the system.

The experiments of Dr. Beaumont and others
shew the rapid absorption of fluids, which are
taken up as soon as they enter the stomach.
Water, wine, weak saline solutions, are at once
absorbed, as is the fluid part of soup, leaving
the rest in a concentrated state. The stomach
of St. Martin, Dr. Beaumont's patient, was
stronger than the average,— his powers of di-
gestion were great, — and some allowance must
therefore be made in his case, but the following
was the order in which various substances were
acted upon. Rice and tripe were digested in

38 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

an hour; eggs, salmon, trout, apples, and veni-
son, in one hour and a half; milk, liver, and
fish in two hours ; turkey, lamb, and roast pig
in two and a half hours ; beef and mutton in
three and a half hours. Fatty matters pass
through the stomach unchanged. Three to four
hours may be considered the average period for 1
the digestion of a meal. As digestion proceeds,
and the dissolved portions of our food are gra-
dually taken up by the vessels, the insoluble
parts become of a firmer consistence, and, pro-
ceeding onwards, assume the character in which
they are excreted from the body. Some parts,
both of animal and vegetable substances, un-
dergo no change in the intestinal canal, as
horny matter, skin, hair, woody fibre, skin of
fruit, husks of seeds, &c. A free acid, usually
the hydrochloric, is found in the stomach, in
combination with the organic digestive prin-
ciple, pepsine; but other acids are also found
in the stomach, combined with pepsine, as the
phosphoric, the acetic, the lactic, the buty-
ric. These acids may all be required in some
of the digestive processes, but they often give
rise to many morbid dyspeptic conditions when

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 89

they are secreted in excess, or that the food we
take does not neutralize the whole quantity.
A liquor containing hydrochloric acid and one
quarter of a grain of acetate of pepsine, is
capable of dissolving 210 grains of coagulated
white of egg, at a temperature of 95° to 104°.
The same fluid will dissolve blood, fibrine, meat,
and cheese. The acid without the pepsine re-
quires a much longer time to act on these sub-
stances ; the acid is considered by some as the
true solvent, and the pepsine is supposed to act
as a kind of ferment. When the gastric juice
is withdrawn from the stomach it retains its
solvent powers, but more time is required, and
frequent agitation, in a temperature of 100°.
At a low temperature no solution takes place,
hence we may infer the impropriety of drink-
ing a large quantity of any cold liquid with
our meals, and those who are subject to dys-
pepsia, should take a hint from Nature, and let
their drink be about the temperature of 100°.
If we take a superfluity of food beyond
the wants of the system, or in excess of the
solvent powers of the gastric juice, it remains
undissolved in the stomach, or passes into the

40 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

intestinal tube in a state to cause irritation
and disorder. Stimulants, as pepper, mustard,
currie, mixed with our food, no doubt, cause
a larger secretion of gastric fluid, and so pro-
mote digestion for a time ; but taken ill ex-
cess they do mischief, by bringing too much
blood to the mucous surface, acting in a simi-
lar way to excess of food, by depraving the
qualities of the secretions ; the appetite be-
comes impaired, the mouth dry, the tongue
foul, and other dyspeptic symptoms follow,
until the stimulus of food itself will excite
no gastric secretion. Probably there are few
persons in health who do not take more
food than is absolutely requisite, and this is
done for a long time without apparent mis-
chief, but sooner or later, serious consequences
follow. Eating too rapidly is one cause of
taking more food than is necessary, as we do
not observe when the stomach is satisfied.
Any one who will try the experiment^ will
find that his appetite ceases with a much
smaller quantity of food when eaten delibe-
rately than when bolted rapidly.
We may form a pretty correct judgment of

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 41

the best way of treating the stomach, by the
effect experienced of the food or drink we
have swallowed. After a meal of plain food,
in moderate quantity, we feel a pleasing re-
freshment, but beyond this, no consciousness
that we have a stomach, and such is the
natural condition ; but, if we take a very
large quantity of food or drink of a stimu-
lating kind, we feel a glow, a warmth, and
"an excitement in the region of the stomach,
which tells us of the existence of the organ,
and that we have over-filled or over-excited
it. After a plain meal we produce no conscious
sensation in the stomach ; but if we take a glass
of brandy, we excite a conscious sensibility in the
stomach, telling us that we have exceeded the
wants of Nature, which she intimates to our feel-
ings by the production of unnatural sensations.
Tome kind of respiration is necessary to
all animals, to complete the process of blood-
making, which is commenced in the stomach ;
the circulating fluids, both of vegetables and
animals, require the chemical action and in-
fluence of atmospheric air, before they become
efficient agents of organic life.

42 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Atmospheric air contains twenty-three parts
of oxygen, and seventy-seven of nitrogen.

Water contains eight parts oxygen, and one
of hydrogen.

Carbonic acid gas contains sixteen parts
oxygen, and six of carbon.

In atmospheric air there is some aqueous
vapour, a small amount of carbonic acid gas,
and a very little ammonia. Air is rendered
tap™ b^the WMng of .ntaaH and V
the combustion of wood, coal, or other fuel,
both processes taking from the air oxygen, and
returning carbonic acid gas to it The law by
which gases are diffused prevents the accumu-
lation of deleterious particles, which would be
incompatible with animal life: for although
carbonic acid gas is much heavier than atmos-
pheric air, it is gradually diffused through the
atmosphere, and does not accumulate on the
surface, except in confined places, — as the
Grotto del Cani, near Naples, where the
lower stratum of air, about two feet from
the ground, consists entirely of carbonic acid
gas, and is fatal to dogs but harmless to men.

Whenever carbon or hydrogen unites with

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 43

oxygen, a development of heat occurs, and the
amount of heat is always in proportion to the
quantity of the gases consumed. The air we
breathe gives out its oxygen in the lungs to
the blood-vessels, the oxygen combining with
the blood, and circulating with it to all parts
of the body ; in this course it meets with car-
bon, the two gases combine, heat is evolved,
carbonic acid gas is produced, and carried on-
wards by the veins to the lungs, where it is
exhaled. The consumption of oxygen, and the
rapidity of the respiratory changes — conse-
quently, the temperature of the body — vary
according to the nature of our food, the
amount of exercise we take, the tempera-
ture of the air, the powers of our digestion,
the conditions of our mind, sleep, age, sex, &c.
All the oxygen received by the blood in the
lungs is not employed in the formation of car-
bonic acid gas. If the total quantity taken
in is represented by 100, the quantity found
in the carbonic acid gas exhaled will be only
seventy-four. The other twenty-six parts go
to oxidise other substances — hydrogen, sul-
phur, phosphorus.

44 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

The temperature of man and the higher ani-
mals is entirely sustained by the combustion
of certain organic materials within the body.
Warm-blooded animals in our climate are ge-
nerally 30° or 40° above the temperature of
the air ; the heat of their bodies varying from
97° to 111°. The production of heat arises
from the action of oxygen on certain elements
of food, especially fat, a#d hydrates of carbon,
starch, sugar, &c, and on the elements of the
tissues wasted by use, the store of fat, &c.
About 13£ozs. of carbon pass through the
lungs daily in combination with 37ozs. of
oxygen, A large quantity of watery vapour
is also exhaled, from the union of oxygen
with hydrogen. These products must, of
course, vary with circumstances— chiefly, the
season of the year, the supply of food, the
activity of respiration, the metamorphosis of
tissue, &a The carbon and hydrogen con-
sumed must be resupplied by food, which
Will be required in proportion to the oxygen
absorbed. When we maintain a high tem-
perature of the body by exercise in the pure
and open air, we require, and may take with

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 45

advantage, a larger quantity of food The
higher the animal heat, the more is food re-
quired The temperature of a child is 102° ;
an adult, 99°; a bird, 105°. Children require
more food, in proportion to their size, than
adults, and they bear hunger less readily.
A bird, deprived of food, dies in three days,
while a cold-blooded serpent will live for
months without. It is easier to bear hunger
in hot than in cold climates. In tropical cli-
mates the number of respirations are fewer
than in cold countries, the amount of food,
required is less, and less exertion can be
made. Moreover, the air contains less oxy-
gen, on account of its greater rarity. A
much less internal development of heat be-
comes necessary, so little being lost in the
surrounding medium. If, under these ex-
ternal conditions, a great amount of highly-
nutritious food be taken, the stomach will
have difficulty in digesting it. The respi-
ratory functions not being sufficiently active
to furnish oxygen enough to decompose the
excess of food, the fatty elements accumu-
late in the system, the liver is over-worked,

46 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

and becomes gorged with fat, as in the Stras-
bourg geese. There is much relation between
the functions of the lungs and the liver; in
the lower animals, in the foetus, the liver is
very large, and when the actions of the lungs
are imperfect in disease— as in phthisis — the
liver enlarges. Most of the cases of liver
disease, from residence in tropical climates,
are "produced by Europeans carrying out the
habits acquired in colder climates, and in-
dulging in as much animal food and beer,
or perhaps more, than they had been previ-
ously accustomed to, while they ought to
diminish the quantity of both, if they would
preserve their health.

In the lungs, gases are on one side of mem-
branes, liquids on the other; the blood in
the vessels, according to the law that denser
fluids attract rarer, imbibe the oxygen through
their delicate coats. It was formerly sup-
posed that the interchange of gases and the
development of heat, only took place in the
lungs ; but there is reason to believe that these
processes take place in every part of the body.
Carbonic acid gas is formed in the ultimate

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 47

parts of the tissues, and it is a component
part of all animal juices. The interchanges
of the gases are between those of the blood
and of the intercellular fluids all over the
body, and between those of the blood and the
air in the lungs. The principal interchanges
are the carbon and hydrogen of our food
mixing with oxygen, forming, in the first case,
carbonic acid gas, and in the second, water ;
and whenever these interchanges take place,
a species of combustion occurs, and heat is
produced.

Experiments have shewn, that of eighty
parts of carbon in food, seventy-four com-
bined with oxygen to form carbonic acid gas ;
and of fifty-eight parts of hydrogen, fifty-four
combined with oxygen to form water.

Two marmots slept for eight days in a
a closed apparatus ; on the evening of the
eighth day there was oxygen enough left
for two days' consumption, but one of the
animals awoke, took all the oxygen, and died
suffocated; the other remained asleep, and
lived on in the same atmosphere for several
hours. Other experiments on animals have

48 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

shewn the difference of the heat of the body,
according to the quantity of oxygen consum-
ed; the temperature being when asleep, 52°;
directly after awaking, 78°; and five hours
after, 90°.

From the preceding account of the progress
and changes in the elementary principles of our
food through the processes of digestion, nutri-
tion, respiration, and oxygenation, it will be
obvious how close is the relationship of the
functions of the stomach and liver with those
of the lungs. All the materials of nutriment
which we take into the stomach, require not
only to be digested, but to be vitally as well as
chemically changed by the action which takes
place in the lungs. Hence the importance of
obeying all the laws relating to healthy respi-
ration and the impossibility of enjoying good
health unless we breathe good air; nothing
contributes more to bad health than living in
hot and ill-ventilated rooms, for all air that has
been once respired becomes unfit to be again
used. The laws which regulate the diffusion
of gases, cause the removal of all particles deli-
terious to animal life and the constant reno-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 49

vation of pure air, but this can only take place
where the currents of air are free. The more
hours we spend without the house in the course
of the day the better for our health, and this
is self-evident by comparing the persons whose
occupations oblige them to live almost all day
in the air, with those who spend most of their
time in chambers, offices or factories. In duly
observing the laws of health, we have many
things to observe — the quantity and quality of
our food, solid and liquid, the necessity of
breathing pure and fresh air, a sufficient amount
of exercise to quicken the circulation and to
aid in the removal of effete and worn-out par-
ticles in our muscles, bones, &a The circula-
tion of sound and healthy blood is necessary
for the due" action of the brain and nervous
system, while the nervous energy supplied by
these organs is essential to the wellrbeing and
due action of all other parts of our constitution.
Hence the influence of the nervous system in
the production of sound and vigorous health;
and for this purpose we require that our sen-
sational, our intellectual, and our moral depart-
ments should harmonise with those of our more

50 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

material functions. It will thus be apparent
that the reciprocal action of the stomach, the
liver, the lungs, and the nervous system, are the
most essential principles of Hygiene or the art
of preserving health; to these must be added
the skin which performs some very important
functions, and wfcch is a great aidto, Z ele-
ment of good health; for perhaps no one means
contributes more than that sound condition of
the skin which is produced by a daily bath and
friction.

The purification and vitality of the blood de-
pends on the air we breathe ; the changes ef-
fected in the lungs between the blood and the
gases we inspire and expire, are the primary
2d most iniorta.t proves in the JZ
economy. Aminal life is supported by absorb-
ing into the blood after every respiration some
of the atmospheric air which surrounds the
earth; every act of inspiration brings renewed
power to animal life, and every expiration sends
out of the body particles that would be preju-
dicial to animal life. However careful we may
be of our health in regard to eating, drinking,
and purity of the skin, we cannot enjoy good

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 51

health, unless the air we breathe is frequently
renovated from the atmosphere; and as there
are many agents operating within a house to
the deterioration of the air; unless we breathe
daily and for some hours in the open air, and
inspire something better than a house affords,
we must not expect to enjoy good health. A
fire cannot burn, a lamp give light, nor an
animal breathe, without destroying a portion of
that part of the air upon which vitality depends,
viz., oxygen; and all these agents add a gas to
the atmosphere, viz., carbonic acid gas, which
is especially dangerous to animal life. The
feeling of languor which occurs after being for
some time in a crowded assembly, is thus to be
accounted for, and hence the great importance
of ventilation in our houses, our churches, our
offices and factories.

The flesh and the blood contain the same
four classes of substances which we take into
the stomach as food : — Water, salts, non-
nitrogenous substances for respiratory or heat-
making purposes, and nitrogenous or plastic
materials for building up and keeping in re-
pair the organs and tissues. The aliments we

52 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

take in differ in their relations to oxygen
with the excretions passing out ; but the same
substances pass out of the system, although in
a different form, as those which have entered.
The animal organism may be compared with
the soil, to which we must re-supply the mate-
rials, or the principles which we have removed,
in the shape of wheat, &c. In both cases,
whether we waste the soil or the animal eco-
nomy, without a due restoration of their re-
spective aliments or fertilising principles, we
cannot expect that either will be in good con-
dition. The weight of the body remaining the
same, whatever we take into the stomach is
used in the daily actions of muscle, nerve,
brain, &c. Bread and flesh taken in at the
mouth, pass into the blood, supply new par-
ticles to the muscular and nervous tissues;
the organs wear them away by their respec-
tive exertions, and the used-up materials,
entering into ne^ combinations with oxygen,
pass out of the system by the lungs as watery
vapour and carbonic acid gas; by the skin, as
aqueous fluid combined with saline matter;
by the kidneys, as water holding urea, lithic

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 53

acid, &o., in solution. Every organic action
results in the decomposition of a certain num-
ber of organic particles, which ought to be re-
novated as they are expended by the deposi-
tion of new particles from the blood.

The due relations of waste and demand, of
expenditure and income, may go on in exact
proportion for years, if no more food is taken
than is required, and no more waste allowed
than can be re-supplied. This is perfect health,
when our outgoings and our incomings are
justly balanced ; but some eat and drink too
much, and many work too hard, both mind
and body: corpulence, indigestion, hemorrhages,
nervous diseases, and premature degeneration,
are the consequences. The salts of the urine
are always increased after a meal, and if more
food is taken than the system requires, the
kidneys are overworked : hence the frequency
of diseases of the urinary organs, and the ab-
solute necessity of large feeders to take purga-
tives to remove the surplus, and to sweep out
the chimney of the factory, to which Liebig
compares the large bowels. It is much better
that our excesses should be at once cleared

54 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

away through the bowels, than that the sur-
plus should first be made into blood and re-
quire an over-action of our internal organs to
convert the superfluity into urea, carbonic
acid, &<x

There are certain relations between the in-
spired oxygen and the quantity and quality of
our food; and probably the discovery of the
complete action of oxygen on organic life, when
made, will rank higher even than that of the
circulation of the blood. The entire effects of
oxygen are obscure and difficult to trace
through all the various organs; for no doubt
ean exist that, from its entrance into the blood
to its exit in various secretions, it pervades
every part of our system, carrying its influence
to the most minute structure, and effecting
changes of the most microscopic kind. Every
muscular effort, every mental action, in all pro-
bability, calls for some expenditure of oxygen;
in the innermost parts of us it enters into
combination with carbon, hydrogen, &c. As
the varying tints of autumnal vegetation owe
their brilliancy of colour to the action of oxy-
gen, so all the colouring matter of animal

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 55

excretions are dependant on the same all-
pervading influence (Liebig).

By the process of absorption fresh materials
are introduced into the blood from the air and
from food, and by absorption parts of the body
itself are removed, when they have fulfilled
their office, or for any other reason require re-
moval. Two sets of vessels are concerned in
this process — the blood-vessels, or the lympha-
tics and lacteals. The lymphatics exist in all
parts of the body, the lacteals on the inner
surfece of the intestines, and absorb such part
of our food as is fit for nutrition; both sets of
vessels carry their contents into the blood near
the heart. As soon as anything is swallowed,
the fluid and soluble part is absorbed and car-
ried into the blood by the veins; the lacteals
absorb certain constituents of the food, es-
pecially fat, and derive their name from the
white appearance of their contents, caused by
the minute division of the fat in a state of
emulsion. Chyle is always whitest and most
turbid in carnivorous animals, it is less so in
the herbivorous, while in birds it is quite trans-
parent. Lymph is clear and colourless, contains

56 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

more water than chyle, this having nearly 10
per cent, of albumen, fat, &c, while lymph has
only 3iJ per cent. Both lymph and chyle con-
tain some of the same constituents as blood,
viz., albumen, fibrine, fat, salts, iron, water;
they may be considered as rudimental blood,
and approximate the more to this fluid the
nearer they approach to their confluence with
the blood.

There are two modes by which the content*
of the digestive organs are received into the
blood; all very soluble matters pass at once
into the blood-vessels on the coats of the
stomach, by the process called endosmose, by
which liquids of a less density will at once
pass through a membrane which separates
them from a fluid of greater density, and the
blood being of a greater density than the very
soluble substances, as sugar, gelatine, &c.,
taken into the stomach, these permeate the
very delicate coats of the minute vessels di-
rectly into the blood. The other less soluble
matters pass into the intestines, and are there
absorbed by the lacteals and introduced into
the circulation without passing through the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 57

liver, which the other matters entering the
blood-vessels must do. Thus, one portion of
our food is subjected to the elaboration of the
liver before it becomes blood, and the other
portion is not. Before passing into the liver,
the blood contains much albumen and little
fibrine, but the latter is much increased after
having done so. It also appears that sugar
may be changed into fat by the action of the
liver. Sugar injected into the general circu-
lation is soon found in the urine as sugar,
while, if thrown into the veins which take the
blood to the liver, it cannot be so detected;
hence we may infer that one very important
function of the liver is to act specially on all
matter of a saccharine or starchy nature, and
all products of saccharine fermentation, as
wine, beer, spirits, &c.

Inferences of great importance in medicine
may be drawn from the two modes in which
nutritive matter is taken into the blood. When
the stomach is unable to digest food, the ab-
sorbent power of the lacteals may be alto-
gether suspended, and the body may be starved
as completely as if no food whatever was taken.

58 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Under these circumstances, it is advisable to
introduce such perfect solutions of food, that
they may be taken up at once by the blood-
vessels; this we effect by broths, wine, brandy,
&c., which in the utter inability of the diges-
tive process to supply the respiratory organs
with materials for combustion, keep up the
spark of life while Nature has time to elimi-
nate from the system the poison of fever
or other disease. The modern treatment of
typhus, the merit of which belongs to Dr. Todd,
is a remarkable exemplification of these facts
— the \ heat-producing powers being maintain-
ed by frequently-repeated doses of alcohol, in
cases of great exhaustion. When brandy is
administered in this manner, £ oz. or 1 oz.
every hour, it is so immediately elaborated by
the liver and burnt away by the lungs, that it
cannot be accumulated in sufficient quantity to
produce over-stimulating effects on the system.
Nutrition is the process by which tissues
and organs already formed are maintained in
their integrity. By the incorporation of new
materials into their substance, the loss conse-
quent on the waste and natural decay of the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 59

various organs, &c, is repaired, each part se-
lecting its appropriate particles — nerves taking
nervous matter, muscles muscular substance,
&c. By this process an adult in health is
maintained through a series of years with
the same general outline of features, of nearly
the same size, form, and weight; although
during all this time the various portions of his
body are continually changing, parts decaying
and removed being replaced by new ones,
which also in their turn die and pass away.
In the muscles every act of contraction is ac-
companied with changes in the composition of
the contracting fibres, a development of heat,
and a decomposition of the fleshy tissue into
urea, carbonic acid, and water. Yet the mus-
cles retain their structure and form by the re-
newal of a composition of fresh particles ex-
actly similar to those which have been removed.
Thus nutrition consists in this constant change,
the vessels ever and anon taking away worn-
out or disused matter, and replacing the latter
with new substance, which has first been ela-
borated by digestion, and then taken into the
blood for the support of the animal economy.

60 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

As every tissue differs in chemical composi-
tion and functions, each will require different
nutritive elements, and will have the power of
selecting from the blood those materials best
suited for its nutrition. Bone will require ge-
latine and phosphate of lime, while muscles
and nerves will select their own peculiar con*
stituents. As the amount of repair differs in
relation to the activity of the different tissues,
so the quantity of different nutritive elements
will vary. In teeth and bone the interstitial
changes take place very slowly, while in the
muscles and nerves they are of a more rapid
nature. By nutrition, every part of the body
is enabled to retain its original form, size,
weight, and general character, notwithstanding
the constant change of substance by the dis-
integration and destruction of its component
particles. The manner in which the old tissue
is replaced by the new differs. In some struc-
tures the old particles are removed from the
surface and the new grow from below; the
skin, hair, horn, and nails, grow in this way.
In bone and muscle the growth must be within
the interstices. Slow as must be the nutrition

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 61

of bone, we know that such process is con-
stantly going on; because if madder be taken
with the food, the bones become tinged with
it. The new tissues always take the exact
likeness of the old ones, and although after
some time not a single particle of a former
structure remains, the physiognomy and per-
sonal identity continue through life unchanged.
It would appear that in the decomposition
as well as in the nutrition of each distinct or-
gan and tissue there were peculiar substances
eliminated; after long-continued mental ex-
ertion, there is an increase of the phosphatic
salts in the urine, leading to the inference
that the various acts of the nervous system
are attended with some change in the nervous
tissue, involving the decomposition of phos-
phorus, and an increased quantity of phosphoric
acid in the blood. In every organ the dis-
charge of function impairs and wears away
the tissues, and the nutritive power appears in
their repair and restoration. One of the most
essential conditions for the due nutrition of a
part, is a regular adequate supply of appro-
priate blood, for unless this condition be fill-

62 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

filled, if the circulation of the blood in the
part is partially or entirely cut off, we may
have deficient nutrition or mortification.

All the products of the destruction of tissues
which are not converted into carbonic acid
gas, must be sent out of the system; and it is
the special purpose of certain glands to remove
them, viz., the kidneys, the liver, the intestinal
glands, and those of the skin, from all which
are excreted substances which, if retained in
the blood, act as poisons and destroy life.

Thus terminates the system of nutrition,
and the course the food may be supposed to
take, from its absorption to its ultimate re-
moval from the system. If the supply of nutri-
ment and the waste of the tissues are duly
balanced, these changes continue in the same
order, until they are affected by that law of
every organic atom by which its existence is
terminated by death. Its power of resisting
the action of the forces which destroy animal
structures, viz., the action of oxygen, &c,
gradually diminish in old age, and finally cease
when the individual dies from the completion
of a fixed and definite series of changes. This

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 63

is on the supposition that nothing has inter-
rupted the vital processes; and that nutrition,
respiration, secretion, and excretion, have con-
tinued their progress uninterrupted by disease
(Carpenter).

Secretion is the process by which materials
are separated from the blood, with the object
of serving some ulterior purpose in the animal
economy, or of being discharged from the
body. Most of the secretions do not pre-exist
as such in the blood, but require special ap-
paratus for their elaboration, as the liver for
the bile, the mammae for the milk, &c. On the
other hand, some of the excretions are in all
probability merely separated from the cir-
culating fluid, to be discharged from the body
as carbonic acid, urea, &a Some of the secre-
tions are formed from mucus and serous mem-
branes, some from the skin, and some from
glands. The serous membranes line the in-
ternal cavities of the chest, the abdomen, the
joints, &c., and, in health, the secretions from
their surfaces are just sufficient to lubricate
the parts; while in disease the secretion may
be so increased as to constitute a form of

61 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

dropsy. The mucus membranes line the cavi-
ties which have outlets from the body, as the
nose, mouth, throat, intestines, &c. The mucus
surfaces are covered by a thin membrane, called
epithelium, which renders smooth and protects
the surfaces on which it is placed. The various
kinds of mucus, when in a state of health, con-
sist of this epithelium floating in a peculiar
clear and viscid fluid, which is altered by cold
and other causes of derangement, and in a
morbid condition becomes mixed with puru-
lent matter, as we all know by the effects pro-
duced on the mucus membranes of our nose,
throat, and when under the influence of
catarrh, influenza, &c.

The secreting glands are very various — as
the lacrymal, which secrete the tears; the sali-
vary; the mammary; the liver; the kidneys,
&c. Some secretions are little more than exu-
dations from the blood-vessels, and differ but
little from the serum or watery part of the
blood ; but for others much more than me-
chanical forces appear to operate.* The liver,
for example, may be in a manner compared to
a chemical laboratory, where the changes in

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 65

fluids coming in are of the most complex and
important kind, among which has been men-
tioned the preparation of sugar, fat, and other
compounds of carbon and hydrogen, to fit them
as proper fuel for that peculiar kind of com-
bustion which takes place in the animal body,
enabling it to maintain, in some instances, a
degree of heat exceeding that of the surround-
ing medium by 100°. The discharge of glan-
dular secretions may take place as soon as
formed, or they may' be stored up for ulterior
purposes, or until the retaining vessels are
filled. Those which are in active operation
in separating noxious matter from the blood
are soon discharged ; but when the office they
ftdfil is only occasional, they are retained for a
considerable time. The nervous system has
great influence on our secretions — a familiar
instance of which is the rapid formation of
saliva when the body is somewhat exhausted
by fasting, and favorite articles of food are
seen or even thought of. Another remarkable
instance is the changes produced in the milk
by grief, anxiety, and other emotions ; serious
danger, and even death, having accrued to

66 HEALTH AND DISEASE;

children from the effects produced on the milk
of the mother.

The secretion of urine is very much affected
by the kind of food ; in herbivorous animals it
is alkaline, in carnivorous it is acid ; a dog fed
on vegetable substance will pass alkaline urine.
The specific gravity of urine differs much in
twenty-four hours; the relative quantities of
water and solid constituents are affected by the
condition and occupation of the body during
the time that has passed since the last meal:
in hot weather we lose much watery fluid by
the skin, and the saline part of urine of course
forms a stronger solution; in summer, we pass
about 30 oz. and in winter about 40. The or-
dinary constituents of urine are certain animal
and saline matters, and occasionally are added
various substances taken with the food, as co-
louring matter, &c. ; 1,000 parts contain the fol-
lowing : —

Water 933*00

Urea 30*10

Uric acid 1*00

Lactic acid, Lactates, and Animal matter 17*14

Mucus of the bladder .... 0*32

Sulphate of potash .... 3*71

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 67

Sulphate of soda 3*16

Phosphate of soda .... 2*94

Phosphate of ammonia . . • 1*65

Chloride of sodium .... 4*45

Chloride of ammonium .... 1*50

Earthy matters with a trace of ) - , QQ

fluoride of calcium . i

Silicious earth 0*03

1000-00

These constituents vary much even in health,
according to season of the year, variations in
food, mental influences, &c. : as an instance of
the latter may be mentioned the increase of
the mere watery part by hysterical affections,
under the influence of which it is very pale.
The colour varies, however, without any dis-
order; it is in its most natural condition of a
straw colour, but is sometimes of a deep orange,
and at others quite pale. It will be often ren-
dered turbed by an article of diet, and the ac-
cession of cold or fever will at once change its
appearance and character. In some diseases
the solid parts are much increased. In diabetes
it will contain large quantities of sugar, and in
other diseases, the albumen, instead of going to

\

68 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

nourish the tissues, is separated from the blood
in the kidneys, and passes away with, the
urine.

The principal solid constituent of urine is
urea, it is also the most important, as it is the
chief substance by which the nitrogen of de-
composed tissues and superfluous food is ex-
creted from the body. The secretion of urine
appears to be specially provided for the removal
of urea from the body, and when it is retained
its effects are most pernicious, in extreme cases
acting as a poison. Urea, when decomposed,
evolves ammonia, — hence the smell of stables,
&c. The animal matters in urine becoming
putrid, act as a ferment, and ammonia is the
result of the change, being returned to the
earth in an inorganic form, after having acted
its part in supporting the vital principle, both
in plants and anknals, destined again to go
through the same changes, by being absorbed
by the roots of plants to nourish a new genera-
tion of animals. Urea abounds most in urine
when the diet is exclusively animal, least when
vegetable; it is derived from two sources — in
part from the unassimilated elements of nitro-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 69

genous food — this is shewn by the increase of
urea on substituting an animal for a vegetable
diet; but the larger part is derived from used-
up or disintegrated animal tissues, which is
proved by the fact that urea continues to be
excreted, though in smaller quantity, when all
nitrogenous substances are strictly excluded
from the food, and the diet made to consist of
starch, sugar, and similar vegetable matter. It
is even excreted when no food at all has been
taken for a considerable time. The uric or
lithic acid is another nitrogenous animal sub-
stance, rarely absent from the urine of man or
animals. In birds and serpents it exists in
much larger quantity than in other animals,
and may be said almost to replace the urine of
higher animals. In most febrile diseases lithic
acid is formed in unnaturally large quantities.
In gouty subjects it is deposited around joints,
as urate of soda, forming what are called chalk
stones. The saline substances in the urine are
the same as exist in other fluids and tissues of
the body, with some peculiar to the urine itself;
the sulphates of soda and potash — phosphates
of soda, ammonia, lime and magnesia. The

70 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

wearing out and decomposition of nerve sub-
stance and of brain supplies phosphorus; a
person in health parts with 5 '70 grs. in twenty-
four hours, which is increased by undue exer-
tion of the mental faculties.

BEALTH AND DISEASE. 7 J

PART II.

ON THE FOUNDATION OP A BOUND CONSTITUTION, AND THE
SEPARATION OF A BROKEN ONE.

There are few truths more universally as-
sented to than that health is the most im-
portant object of our life, and the most valuable
possession we can attain; and yet practically
there are few things about which people are
so ill-informed, or so indifferent, or so negligent.
Bitter experience of its loss appears necessary
to all before an appropriate value can be set
on its possession; we only find out its impor-
tance when we suffer from its derangement;
nor does a moderate amount of experience
suffice to make us study its laws, that we may
preserve what remains of it; and the only
pfersons who can sufficiently appreciate its
value are those who have irrecoverably lost it.
When people become valetudinarians, they
begin to attend to the laws of health ; such

72 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

persons form so large a class of the community;
so much of the happiness of others, as well as
themselves, depends on a proper knowledge of
the subject, that it is impossible to overrate its
importance. Probably, in a perfect scheme of
education, the philosophy of health should find
a place in it ; for how many discover, when
they have possessed themselves of wealth,
honour and worldly welfare, that the want of
health saps their enjoyment? A sound mind
in a sound body is a very rare possession; the
combination of an unsophisticated, unpreju-
diced mind, with a body unimpaired in phy-
sical power, ought to be more common if our
education was good; for the want of both may
be attributed to the neglect of true knowledge.
It would be easy to trace unsound health,
both of mind and body, to imperfect education;
for the body is too often disordered by absurd
indulgences from our very infancy, while our
minds are immersed in prejudices which the
experience of a long life too often fails to re-
move. Probably if true knowledge was im-
parted to us in our school-days, the subject of
health, both in mind and body, would neces-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 73

sarily result from the very system of tuition ;
for if we were led forward from a knowledge
of natural objects to their relations and uses
in the arts and sciences, some knowledge of
chemistry and physiology must be acquired,
and with it some acquaintance with the laws
of health. Perhaps our school education is too
much engrossed with the works of man, while
the works of God are comparatively neglected.
The teaching in some infant schools is in
the right direction, and it is to be lamented
that such a mode of imparting the elements
of knowledge is not employed for all classes.
Children readily fix their attention on objects,
and where the real things cannot be shewn,
pictures and models are the proper substitutes.
The very constitution of the human mind con-
firms the wisdom of the arrangements of infant
schools. Nouns are the only words used by
children when first acquiring the elements of
language, and when they have acquired a
number of names of things, they begin to ap-
preciate their relations — connect and compare
them by means of verbs. If, in our earliest
years, we were taught the names and uses of

74 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

every natural object that can present itself, the
curiosity thus engendered would, in the ma-
jority of cases, lead children to acquire more of
this kind of information for its own sake.
Perhaps if the laws of language and of meta-
physical divinity were not forced upon the
mind at so early a period as is usual, it would
be more conducive to the right development
of the intellectual and moral powers. It might
seem that in advocating an attention to the
laws of health, I was going out of my way to
say anything about the laws of education; but
the two subjects are most intimately connected :
probably a high degree of health, both of mind
and body, can only be possessed by those whose
minds have been property developed: hence, a
true education will be the surest road to sound
health.

As a general rule, we may say that every
human being is born with the latent powers of
intellect and morals, of reason and virtue. In
some the innate powers are individually or
generally greater than in others ; but all have
them in some degree, except idiots, and even
these unfortunates have been found, by the per-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 75

severing efforts of modern benevolence, capa-
ble of some teaching ; these form an exception—
but the general rule is, that all children have
inherent faculties, which it is the business of
education to develop. The law appears to be
that the mind remains a carte blanche, unless
its powers are elicited, first by an extensive
knowledge of things, and then by knowledge
of their actions, and relations one on the other.
If we watch the progress of a very young child,
we shall see that the senses are first employed:
he feels and examines a toy mth his fingers,
and afterwards with his other senses : thus are
the perceptive powers of the mind exercised
and developed, and probably we should do
well to limit the teaching of many years of
childhood to the exercise of the faculties of
perception, attention, and memory for things.

The laws of grammar are very proper to be
taught; but perhaps they would be better
known if deferred to a period when the corres-
ponding mental powers had been brought forth
by a more complete knowledge of things ; if we
first taught our children more from the book
of Nature ; — if, in other words, we first taught

76 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

them the things and the laws of God, before we
went into the rules by which men have ar-
ranged and classified the mere symbols of
things, viz., words. We try to teach children
the logic of language, of religion and moral-
ity, before their intellect can appreciate such
things; while we neglect* to give them that
knowledge of things which, when acquired,
must lead to the grammar. Go into many
schools ; examine a child on some absolutely
metaphysical point, and he answers your ques-
tion; shew him half-a-dozen of the commonest
plants or trees, and you will find he does not
know an elm from an oak. It would be very
conducive to the well-being of children, both
as regards mind and body, if they could be
schooled in the open air, and taught the names
of every plant in every lane, field, and hedge-
row ; in the same way knowledge might be
acquired of the ground we tread upon, the
stones we kick, the sand, gravel, &c., we see
dug up, and the earth in which the plants
grow. Every locality offers illustrations for
this kind of knowledge, and it is the kind
truly adapted to the minds of children. Ani-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 77

maJs are so peculiarly interesting to all chil-
dren, that their attention to them does not
even require to be directed. Acquaintance with
a vast number of objects necessarily leads the
mind to class them in some order, and a know-
ledge of how they are employed in the arts
and sciences naturally follows. What a vast
amount of knowledge could thus be imparted
without much effort, and certainly without any
danger of overtaxing the developing mind of
childhood. Having learnt something of the
nature of the things by which we are sur-
rounded, and which we daily use, the mind is
naturally led to take an interest in their struc-
ture and composition; the uses of the at-
mosphere he breathes, the water he swims in,
the fire which warms him, become obvious,
and he will like to know something of their
composition. If the mind has been awakened
to an interest in natural objects, it will be led
on to a knowledge of some of the laws which
govern vegetable and animal life; the laws
which regulate the actions of living beings, by
which the integrity of the animal frame is
maintained. Lastly, the structure of the mind

78 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

itself will excite attention; the classification
of its various impulses, feelings, instincts, per-
ceptions, their relation to each other, and the
adaptation of the mental faculties to the re-
quired knowledge of man. Without some ac-
quaintance with his own mind, how can a man
be said to be educated? Nor is such know-
ledge at all incompatable with classics, litera-
ture, and grammar, more especially the latter;
for, is it not the outward expression of those
laws of mind, which regulate the speech and
language of all races of men— those wonder-
ful laws which, amidst the diversities of the
words and component parts of language, never-
theless require that the construction and
grammar should be the same, because this is
founded on those mental requirements which
are fundamentally the same in all the races of
man.

But what has this to do with the laws of
health ? If we acquire some knowledge of the
nature of life and mind, and the true employ-
ment of these valuable gifts, we should take
more care of them, and study the laws by
which we can retain them the longest in a

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 79

condition to be serviceable. If we knew that
mind is developed in proportion as the laws of
its progress are attended to — if we knew that
the life of grown men and women resulted from
the manner in which they were treated from in-
fancy upwards ; that the physical health and
the moral power might be made what we
please by proper direction, we should not so
basely neglect them as we do. If half the
exertions made to improve the breed of horses,
cattle, and sheep, were employed in similar en-
deavours to improve the physical and mental
powers of the human race, what a different
world we should live in. It is the real duty
of parents to give their children all the life
and all the mind which is possible; and the ex-
tent to which these blessings may be diffused
by right training, we have no present concep-
tion, because we neglect the laws on which
they both depend. Without some knowledge
of the general principles of physiology, and
without some knowledge of the laws of health,
parents will be incapable of giving to their
children that amount of health of mind and
body, without which life ceases to be a blessing.

80 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Exiles of life may be laid down by religion
and by moral philosophy. Rules of health
may be laid down by physicians; but unless
some real knowledge on these subjects — unless
the mind is capable of appreciating the value
of such rules, by knowing their power to in-
crease human happiness — unless the mind of
the taught can go with the mind of the teacher,
the mere enunciation of rules and laws will
make no lasting impression.

The whole subject may be resolved into two
questions : —

1. How to found a good constitution in
mind and body, by training and education.

2. How to re-establish a good constitution
when impaired by bad health, whether induced
by inheritance, or by a mistaken system of
nursery training, prejudice, and ignorance.

The proper answer to the first question is to
point out to parents, and all who have the
management of children, the necessity of learn-
ing the business they have undertaken — for
such knowledge cometh not by intuition. In-
stinct leads an infant to suck, and there are
few mothers so ignorant as not to know what

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 81

to give their baby for that purpose; but be-
yond this point ignorance begins, and the
number of infant lives annually sacrificed to
such ignorance is an awful reflection. If we
could depict the progress of infancy and child-
hood graphically, we should be able in the
process to shew many of the omissions and
commissions by which, at this early period of
our lives, our afflictions begin.

The principal inlets, founts, or origin of dis-
ease, are the digestive and nervous systems.
An infant with quick and healthy digestion,
and with a nervous system not easily disturbed,
will pass through its infantile period without
disorder; but, on the contrary, one that has
inherited weak organs of digestion or sensitive
nerves, will not pass many days of its early
life without betraying its predisposition. In
childhood, vicious management may soon de-
range both these systems, and when we reflect
on the utter ignorance of the subject, of the
entire neglect of any means to acquire the
knowledge necessary for the management of
infants and children, we need not wonder at
the early development of disorders, both of the

82 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

*

digestive and nervous systems. The majority
of persons about to become parents appear to
expect that the knowledge of how children
should be treated is intuitive; while, in truth,
it is a study which it is the duty of all in such
circumstances most seriously to contemplate.
How much of our happiness depends on the
management of our earliest years — health of
body and of mind. How much may be done,
and how much may be omitted to be done, by
those who undertake to conduct us through
the early years of life. Many of the disorders
which return upon us at intervals all through
life, have their foundation in mismanagement
of childhood, in the profound ignorance of
parents and nurses on all subjects connected
with the important duties they find them-
selves called upon to perform. The majority
of people give themselves no thought about
the matter; it has never crossed their minds
that they have anything to learn on the sub*
ject: most children may really be said to take
their chance, and an unhappy chance it is too
often. I believe more real good would be done,
if parents could be made to learn their duty

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 83

in the practical business of assisting the proper
development of mind and body in the founda-
tion of good health in early life, than by all
the sanitory measures that may be enforced by
legislators, important as they are. The wisest,
the best, the happiest, and the healthiest of the
human race, owe all distinctions in their
future career to the early directions of a sen-
sible mother.

How should a good constitution be estab-
lished? That healthy offspring result from
healthy parents; that much may be done to-
wards the future health of offspring, even be-
fore birth, is unquestionable ; but, as unsound
and weakly people cannot be prevented from
intermarrying, nor could it ever be just to at-
tempt to prevent such marriages, for who
could draw the line of demarcation between
sufficient and insufficient degrees of health;
and as the offspring of delicate parents, by
judicious management after birth, may be
made sound and healthy children, we shall
commence our observations from the period of
birth. We will suppose a child is born, as the
great majority are, of fair average develop-

84 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

ment; it is washed, dressed, and fed, and much
of its future health depends on a judicious
system in these early arrangements. A good
nurse will wash an infant with great patience
and great care, and it requires much of both to
do the office well, especially to an irritable and
crying child ; and this may be one reason why
quiet children generally do so much better
than irritable ones; they have more time be-
stowed on them. The general health so much
depends on health of the skin, that too much
time cannot well be expended in washing,
cleansing, and rubbing the skin of children;
and for the latter purpose there is nothing so
suitable as the human hand. You will see a
good nurse, after a thorough washing and dry-
ing, spend some time in rubbing every part of
the body and limbs with her hand. With re-
gard to the dress of infants, much depends on
the judgment of the mother, for the nurse
must use for this purpose what has been pro-
vided If every tiling is very loose, the form or
materials signify little; the simpler and the
easier in its adjustment the better is the dress.
Some nurses still continue to bind babies too

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 85

tightly; the rapid development of an infant
requires that there should be no undue pres-
sure on any part of its body. I have seen
many well-formed children at birth, who,
in a few months, become narrow and pigeon-
breasted, which I cannot help imputing partly
to bandaging, although bad feeding and general
bad management have much to do with this, as
I shall hereafter point out. In regard to the
feeding of infants there is not much to be said;
it should, during the first three or four months,
be confined to the breast, and the necessary
exceptions to this rule may be looked upon as
a great misfortune, both to mother and child.
How should a mother live to be a good nurse?
is a question often asked; and the proper
reply is, to do exactly as she has. been accus-
tomed, to continue the same habits of feeding,
&c, which have best agreed with her health
under ordinary circumstancea Many women
double their allowance of beer, &c, sometimes
on the plea that their appetite for food is bad;
but nothing can be more injudicious, for the
increase of the stimulant still farther depresses
the appetite for wholesome food. Every

86 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

woman about to become a mother should pay
great attention to her own health; by so doing
she will promote the health of her offspring,
and fit herself for the better performance of
her fiiture duties. A sensible woman will at
once see the wisdom of this, and will do every-
thing to promote the welfare of her child; and
how much she can do, both before and after
its birth, is so obvious, that it would appear
superfluous to say anything on the subject
To those mothers who enjoy firir average
health, the general rules of food, air, and ex-
ercise apply as under ordinary circumstances
-the habite which best a^e in regard to
diet, as much fresh air as possible, and regular
exercise short of fatigue; to those who do not
enjoy good health, particular rules will be re-
quisite in each particular case, and in all cases
much may be done in this respect, for Nature
herself has been so considerate, that most
women, under these circumstances, find their
health improved.

When a child is three or four months old,
it is wise to begin to feed it once or. twice in
the day ; this relieves the nurse, habituates the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 87

child to a change of food, and facilitates much
the future operation of weaning. The simplest
preparations of good bread or other forinaceous
LL with milk, will, in most ca.es, be suf-
ficient; in very delicate children, beef-tea may
be necessary; but all taste for cakes, sweets,
fruit, beer, &c., should never be encouraged.
Among the varieties of opinion one meets with,
we occasionally come across people who think
that children of a few months should live much
as they do themselves, with no exception but
in quantity. It is no uncommon thing to see
a poor, ill-nourished, ricketty child, the picture
of all that is wretched — who, as the mother
informs us, " lives as we do," — partake of a
little of every thing — beer, unripe fruit, un-
wholesome cakes, bread reeking from the oven ;
all and everything, the dear little creature is
permitted to indulge in. It may be very
amusing to see a child enjoying itself over
such things; but it is an amusement for which
the child will have to pay in weakness and
disease, and the parents in anxiety and dis-
tress. The food of young children cannot be
too simple; and to found a good constitution

88 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

in their children, parents should watch with
earnest care all the proceedings of the nursery.
The proper age for weaning is from ten to
twelve months, by which time several teeth
ought to have made their appearance, and the
child thus enabled to eat some solid food. At
this period habits of regularity should be induc-
ed, even if they have been neglected in earlier
infancy. Three meals in the day are now
sufficient; they should be at the same hours
every day, and may consist pretty much of the
same food, for children do not require that
variety which adults indulge in. It is often
injurious to change the food of infants. There
are many different farinaceous compounds re-
commended to every anxious mother, who
with the expectation of advantage to her child,
will try three or four kinds of food, and so
cause diarrhoea, or other morbid conditions of
the digestive organs. Having adopted a food
of proper quality, it is wise to adhere to it,
although possibly some temporary inconveni-
ence may arise. Care should be taken — indeed,
it is impossible to be too cautious on this head
— to procure good food. The flour, or bread,

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 89

should be the best of its kind. The ordinary
London bread is ill-adapted for the stomach of
a tender infant.

It is impossible to impress too strongly the
necessity of inducing habits of regularity and
method in the feeding of children; of confining
the food to those articles alone which are
necessary for nutrition; of avoiding all things
that are useless but to pamper appetite, and
teach children to eat for the sake of eating.

The principal rules to be observed in the
management of the health of infants, are regu-
laxity in feeding, careful washing night and
morning, the most rigid attention to cleanliness,
regular hours for sleep, and that in an airy
apartment. As far as possible, order should
be observed in the earliest management of in-
fants; but as soon as the child is weaned the
most strict attention to regularity in feeding
should be punctiliously observed. With very
good management, and rigid observance of the
rules for feeding, clothing, air, and exercise;
the evils which surround children in large
cities may be alleviated. The kind of food
must be regulated by circumstances, some chil-

90 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

dren requiring more animal food, &c., than
others; therefore, what is said on this subject
must be considered as general rules, liable to
individual modification.

When a child is first weaned, it is advisable
tp give a small quantity of animal food twice
or thrice a week; and I believe the majority
up to the age of six or seven years, would be
well nourished if only allowed meat on alter-
nate days. When they have meat for dinner,
they should have no pudding. It is a very
bad custom to have puddings or pies always
after meat, and it is worse to give pudding
invariably first, as is too much the case at
schools. A child generally prefers pudding,
and, having filled its stomach with that which
it likes best, will have little inclination left
for meat, which is doubtless the object of the
system. Most parents are delighted when
their children come home at the holidays, to
see their round, chubby faces bronzed by the
open air into the appearance of health, but
which is dissipated in a week or two. The
colour goes first and the plumpness next,
being only the effect of a too farinaceous diet.

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 91

It is not solid muscle nor even good fat, that
is produced by this kind of diet, but a loose
lymphatic fullness, which, carried to excess,
and further encouraged by long residence in a
damp and unwholesome locality, or too much
confinement from air and exercise, may pro-
duce a condition favourable to the develop-
ment of tubercle or scrofula.

That animal food is essential to the strength
and full development of the physical and men-
tal powers of man, is a proposition hardly
requiring an argument. We deduce the neces-
sity from the superior physical power of those
who use animal food, and from laws .of our
constitution, which prove that we were in-
tended to use it. The love of hunting, fishing,
&c, are remnants of the instinct possessed by
man to destroy or capture animals for the
sake of food ; and the possession of some teeth
much resembling those of carnivorous ani-
mals, constitutes a pretty conclusive argument
that man was intended to use flesh as food.
Much more might be said in favour of the
argument, but the general conclusions of
mankind in this part of the world are only

92 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

called in question by an occasional dissen-
tient in favour of an exclusive vegetable
diet.

As a child advances in age, the quantity of
animal food should be increased. After the
age of seven, he should have one meal of ani-
mal food daily, and this constitutes the general
rule for all ages ; but I fear it is only a small
minority of mankind who can put it in prac-
tice. That it is possible to enjoy a consider-
able share of health on a strictly vegetable
diet, has been proved over and over again ;
but in all the cases coming under my own
knowledge, the parties have not been capable
of great endurance of fatigue, nor have they
been long-lived. In many cases of disease, we
see very beneficial effects from a purely vege-
table diet ; and life has, by this means, been
preserved for many years after the occurrence
of one fit of apoplexy, and in other diseases
resulting from a plethoric habit. There are
some persons whose aptitude to make blood is
so great that, with only a small allowance of
animal food, they become so overcharged with
rich blood as to require an occasional bleeding

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 93

or cupping, or they are liable to fall into some
inflammatory or congestive disease. No doubt
such persons may be kept in health by a well-
regulated vegetable diet. On the other hand,
there are persons whose blood is so thin that
they require animal food more than once a
day. These are extreme cases — but ihe general
rule is, meat once a day, and then in quantity
regulated by individual experience. There is
an old maxim, that every one at forty is either
a fool or a physician ; and this is quite true as
applied to individual experience. Before the
age of forty, all should have discovered what
agrees and what disagrees with them ; they
should have found out by this time the pecu-
liarities of their own digestive organs, and the
effect of all articles of food on their stomach
and general health. All the particular laws of
health, as applying to their peculiarities, such
as the effects of particular articles of food,
bathing, &c, should have been long known,
and always guarded against, so that every-
thing injurious to health may be avoided.
This, with great sobriety at all times, and
occasional abstinence, are the principal means

94 HEALTH AND. DISEASE.

to establish a sound constitution and long
life.

A medical man can only deal in general
rules, which each must apply to his own case.
No rules of diet are universally applicable.
The powers of the stomach vary in different
persons, as all other parts of the body vary.
In a large family of children there will be the
greatest differences in the powers of digestion,
and it is folly to insist on applying the same
rules to all. If a child is disgusted with fat,
it is often injurious to his powers of digestion
if he eats it, although it is quite right to per-
suade him to try a small quantity ; just as
in those children who would always prefer to
dine on pudding, it is advisable to teach them
to eat a little meat. There is so much in cus-
tom, that we should endeavour to induce good
habits of feeding, as well as good habits of
order, &c. By management, a child may be
induced to take some, at least, of the kind of
food that is best for him ; and it is precisely
this direction of the early habits of children
by which a foundation is laid for future health

9

and happiness. A watchful parent will be

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 95

alive to every peculiarity in a child, and cor-
rect that which has any tendency to be mis-
chievous in its earliest bud. This can only be
accomplished in the nursery, under the eye
of a parent, or a first-rate nurse ; and if left
to ordinary servants, is never properly done.
How much of the misery of life would be pre-
vented, if parents were more attentive to the
nursery ! The subject is almost a science, but
which is supposed to come by instinct, any-
body being thought capable of taking charge
of children ; and we all find, as life advances,
and knowledge of the subject increases by ex-
perience, how much our early management of
children might have been improved.

This is a subject* of vast importance to the
community, as well as the heads of families ;
for how important it is to a state that its
members should be capable of rendering it
physical assistance in time of need. So much
of happiness and well-being through life de-
pends on the direction of the first few years of
our existence, that it is a question whether, in
a well-regulated state, public means should
not be adopted to give this sort of knowledge

96 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

to all classes of the community. At all events
it is the positive duty of all who are likely to
have the superintendence of children, to ac-
quire some knowledge of the proper means
of early training. The acquisition of this
knowledge would save parents from many
an anxious hour, and it would enable them
often to prevent, and in all cases to alle-
viate, and perhaps cut short the disorders of
their children.

I cannot too strongly urge upon every one
likely to become a parent, the wisdom of learn-
ing all that can be learned of the practical ap-
plication of the best rules for the development
of the mind and body in health and strength.
For this purpose, it is not necessary to have
sufficient medical knowledge to treat diseases;
on the contrary, what is recommended will
lead to a discernment of the wisdom of apply-
ing to a confidential medical practitioner in the
earliest stages of real disease, as the prudent
and proper course. The information which all
parents should possess is that which will tend
to the prevention of disorder, or to induce that
vigorous state of constitution which enables a

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 97

child to shake off the diseases to which all are
liable, without laying the foundation of lasting
bad health.

In a country where good medical advice is
always at hand, it is most unwise to treat any
real illness without assistance. Every one
should be very particular in the choice of a
medical adviser: it is impossible to be too
much so. Evidence should be obtained, not
only of his competent knowledge of medical
practice, but of his strict integrity and con-
scientious principles. Having reposed their
confidence, after due inquiry, that confidence
should be unlimited; and it is the wisest and
most economical plan to consult him at the
earliest period, whenever any symptom has
occurred that may be connected with internal
disease. Most important maladies may be cut
short by proper treatment in the earliest stage ;
whereas, too often, the delay of a few days
allows time for the establishment of serious
organic mischief, and may confirm a disease
which, if not fatal, may be of three four weeks'
duration, instead of as many days. My pur-
pose, therefore, is not to advise much know-

98 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

ledge of medical treatment, but of that ac-
quaintance with the laws of health which will
enable parents to manage children in a ra-
tional manner, so as to secure that strength of
constitution which will prevent the establish-
ment of disease.

Every child has some peculiarities of consti-
tution which require to be studied. Observa-
tion should be busy in watching these pecu-
liarities, because general rules can only be
applied with those necessary modifications re-
quisite in every particular case. The most
obvious peculiarities observed in infants will
be in the stomach and bowels, the skin, or the
nervous system. Some infants will invariably
reject a portion of their food ; others, having a
less irritable stomach, will retain it, and throw
off the superabundance by the bowels; while
those who possess powerful digestive organs
will convert all into nutriment, and become
too fat. Great diversity will be observed in
the action of the bowels — some will be too
lax, while others will almost constantly re-
quire management to keep them sufficiently
so. Here let me advise mechanical means, in

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 99

preference to physic, in the cases of all in-
fants whose bowels are costive. A little warm
water, thrown up by an India-rubber bottle,
will generally be sufficient, and not at all in-
jurious; whereas giving medicine by the mouth
may derange the stomach and the whole diges-
tive apparatus, when the object is only to pro-
mote the action of the lower part of the intes-
tinal canal. This advice is equally applicable
to adults suffering from costiveness : the diffi-
culty is in the large bowels, which are torpid
— the stimulus of the warm water induces
them to act. By a lavement, you apply your
remedy to the seat of disorder, while an ape-
rient dose irritates a very extensive line of in-
testine, before your remedy reaches the spot
you wish to act upon.

There is also danger in the constant daily
use of aperients, such as an aloetic pill. Cases
of obstruction in the bowels occur where no
passage can be obtained, and in which, on ex-
amination after death, no mechanical strangu-
lation is discovered. There is a general dis-
tended condition of the whole of the intestines,
which has been considered to be caused by a

1

100 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

kind of paralysis, destroying the contractile
power of the muscular coat, and is thought by
some practitioners to be brought on by the
constant use of purgative medicines.

Some people seem to think that any broken
food, or hotch-potch, or heavy pudding, will
do for children ; but of all species of economy
this is one of the most pernicious. There may
be in the kitchen some cold meat which is to
be disposed of : — " Oh ! it will do for the nur-
sery/' says the cook, and forthwith cuts it up,
re-cooks it into a hash, an Irish stew, a pud-
ding, or some such abomination ; the children
are, perhaps, delighted with the savoury mess,
and their taste perverted for more simple
things. It should be a rule in all nurseries
that fresh meat, in its simplest forms only,
should be given to children ; that cold meat
is wholesome, while re-cooked meat is indi-
gestible and bad ; that all sauces, pickles, &c,
which make people eat more than they want,
should be utterly forbidden in the nursery.
^ Puddings, and those light and good, should
not be every day a regular part of the dinner,
the effect of which is to prevent some children

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 101

from eating as much meat as does them good,
and induces other children to put enough for
a second meal on the top of one amply suffi-
cient, of meat, vegetables, &c. Let every
mother, if she cannot always see her children
at their meals, at least as often as possible go
into her nursery at these times. Good diges-
tion is the primary foundation for a good con-
stitution, and the stomach is the inlet of many
diseases. So long as the stomach does its
duty well, and is only permitted to act on
proper materials, we need fear no disease that
may occur. A child with a sound stomach
and healthy digestion will soon shake off dis-
ordered health. In the intervals of meals
children should be prevented from taking
sweets and other trash, which kind friends
and kind servants are too ready to furnish.
The rewards for good behaviour should never
be stomach-pleasures ; and the pocket-money
should be directed to any other channel rather
than the pastrycooks or the confectioners.
We may even assist the development of mind
while taking care of the stomach ; for if we
direct the taste for pictures, books, or ingeni-

102 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

ous toys, in preference to sweets, &a, we lay
a foundation for the preponderance of intel-
lectual pleasures over sensual ones ; and we
can hardly begin too soon to form such a taste.
To found a good constitution, air and exer-
cise are essential One daily walk of an hour
or two in fine weather is altogether insuffi-
cient. A young child should almost spend
his whole day in the open air. Even a Lon-
don garden, with all its dirt, is better than
a close room. There is much advantage to
children in having a few simple gymnastic
contrivances in a well-ventilated room ; they
form a great resource to children doomed to
a city life, or in bad weather, as well as being
very conducive to health. Weather, unless
very bad indeed, should be no excuse for con-
fining children to the house : the streets and
squares of London afford very good air, if they
cannot reach the Parks. I have known seve-
ral very healthy families brought up in Lon-
don, by taking every advantage of opportu-
nities for air and exercise, and very special
attention to the stomach and its provender.
Of course children subjected to the disadvan-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 103

tages of a city life, should be doubly guarded
in respect to good and wholesome food, for
we may all take greater liberties with our
stomachs while enjoying the fresh and open
air in a healthy part of the country, than
when living in a large town.

Bathing, and every means that will keep
the skin in good condition, is an essential item
in the process of founding a good constitution.
All children should be well washed at night,
and immersed into cold water as soon as they
are out of their beds in the morning. There
are few children who will not be benefited by
a cold bath ; but it should be a rule to do it
as soon as they leave their bed, while the body
is very warm. If allowed to run about the
room in their night-dress first, they do not get
half as much good, because the rapidity and
power of reaction is not so great ; the glow,
as commonly understood, is more certain and
more decisive when the body still retains the
heat of the bed. Mere sponging with cold
water is not so beneficial as actual immersion,
head foremost, but it is a good substitute
where a real bath is impracticable; two, three,

104 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

or four, immersions should be given in quick
succession, and the skin then well dried and
rubbed for ten minutes with a rough towel,
flesh-gloves, and the handa Perseverance in
this process for a few weeks will sensibly im-
prove the health ; and a few months will often
convert a delicate child into a strong one.
An occasional visit to the coast, and daily im-
mersion in the sea, will always be advantage-
ous, but by no means sufficient to supersede
the continuous daily domestic bath.

The great anxiety, as well as necessity in
these days for education, induces many parents
to begin the process with too little regard to
the physical development of the body. A
child cannot begin to learn too toon, but the
learning need not be by tasks ; a sensible
mother is always teaching her child, and at a
very early age may begin to excite attention
to a knowledge of objects. The inquiring
nature of the human mind does not require
much leading for this purpose, most children
intuitively directing their attention to every
new thing presented to them. Something
may be done even in infancy towards the de-

HEALTH AND DISEASE, 105

velopment of a good memory, by keeping the
attention on the same thing long enough to
acquire a complete knowledge of it. Nothing
is so important as a good memory ; and this
appears to be the result of complete know-
ledge of a subject acquired by continuous at-
tention to one thing at a time. What the
French call " attention mivie" is the grand
foundation for retentive memory.

To give a young child a task to learn out of
a book is little less than barbarous, and de-
feats its own end, for the child soon thinks
learning a bore, and for ever after associates
school and its objects with pain and disgust.
To found a good constitution, the first six
years of life should be devoted to physical
education ; three-fourths of the waking hours
of a child's life should be spent in the open
air, in all but the very worst weather, and
the rest of its time in well-ventilated apart-
ments, rather erring on the side of too much
cold than too much heat. This is not incon-
sistent with sufficient attention to mental
development, by storing the memory with a
knowledge of things, pithy sentences, and

106 JHEALTH AND DISEASE.

scraps of poetry ; but a sedentary and stu-
dious child should rather be discouraged, and
amused into more activity. A precocious de-
velopment of any of the intellectual faculties
is not to be desired, for it is too often accom-
panied with life-long disorder. We need not
fear the destruction of Genius ; where that
exists it will be developed in due time, and
better by the natural efforts than by any arti-
ficial aids.

If we can succeed in establishing sound
bodily health in our children up to the age of
seven, we need be under little apprehension for
subsequent years; such children readily shake
off the usual disorders of childhood, and are
in a condition to withstand some considerable
rough treatment during their school-life. The
important question now arises of the respective
advantages of school or home education; I be-
lieve the advantages lie on the side of schools,
both to girls as well as boys; but also that
the most desirable system of education is daily
attendance at a very good school, with re-
sidence at home, thus combining the good of
both, and moreover insuring a certain amount

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 107

of exercise daily, in going to and returning
from school in all weather. However, this
question must be answered according to cir-
cumstances ; for, unfortunately, in some homes,
children learn as much harm as good, and
there are many cases in which school is ab-
solutely best. The choice of a school is
most important; and it is next to impossible
to meet with one combining the advantages
of the most healthy locality with the most
rational method of instruction. But we should
never lose sight of health, and send our chil-
dren to a low, damp situation, or any place
where malaria is likely to exist. We should
also be clear that the mode of feeding is judi-
cious; for the combination of bad air and bad
food will engender scrofula and other diseases,
in almost any constitution. If we are for-
tunate in the school-life of our children, and
give them all the advantages in our power for
health and for elementary knowledge — if the
strength both of mind and body advances with
their years, we may enjoy the gratification of
having done all in our power towards the
establishment of a sound constitution in both.

108 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

It is wonderful how much may be effected by
long perseverance in a judicious method, to-
wards establishing sound health even in chil-
dren who were weakly at birth, and during
their early years; and it is equally certain
that similar perseverance in a right method
will develop intellectual faculties in children
of the dullest original capacities. Nil deape-
randum should indeed be our motto in all
such cases, when we know the wonders that
are now effected by the education even of
idiots, as a visit to the Asylum at Highgate
will prove in several remarkable instances.
Nothing can be more glorious than the power
of aiding the development of mind, and ought
to be the grand pleasure and object of all
parents; and whatever time and attention
may be given to a study of this subject, will
amply repay them in future years. Experi-
ence and philosophy corroborate the unexcep-
tional truth, that if you "train up a child in
the way he should go, when he is old he will
never depart from it." Mere teaching without
example will be too often unavailing to de-
velop in children the moral faculties, and

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 109

although the germs of them have been
implanted deep in our nature, they will not
grow unless they are watered from the springs
of parental feeling ; if the parental garden of
the soul has not been cultivated to the pro-
duction of the fruit of moral principle and
power, the consequent want of due example
will neutralize all mere wordy enforcement
of the rules of virtue. The same principle
applies to heads of schools, and, indeed, all
who undertake the teaching of youth or of
mankind, if they do not verify their precepts
with that test of sincerity, their own example,
their tuition will be unproductive of that
genuine love of the good and search after
wisdom, which follows the instructions of
those who practically apply the truths of re-
ligion and philosophy. Let the brilliant ex-
amples of Dugald Stewart and of Dr. Arnold
of Rugby, be selected to prove this principle.
I should think no two men in the history of
mankind had ever by their own individual
teaching, propagated sound intellectual and
moral views to so large a number of pupils,
many of whom have been the best men of

J 10 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

the age in every sense. A sound mind is in-
timately connected with a sound body ; per-
haps the one cannot exist in full integrity
without the other, the laws of mind bearing
a close relation and adaptation to the laws of
health. If the intellectual faculties and moral
principles have been duly developed, the body,
the mind, and the feelings will always be
under the due regulation of sound knowledge,
judgment, reason — and their harmony of ac-
tion constitutes what we are in search of —
" mens sana in corpore sano!'

The importance of selection in the teachers
of our children must be clear to all, and yet
upon what poor reasons are children sent to
particular schools ; the truth is, that this im-
portance is not sufficiently appreciated, .and
the majority of people do not think at all
about it, but are led to choose a particular
school for mere convenience, or other motive,
without considering they are doing one of the
most important duties of life. Too much time,
and reflection cannot be given to the subject;
and having, after proper examination, placed
our children at a good school or college, no

HEALTH AND DISEASE. Ill

light matter should induce us to remove them,
for nothing is so detrimental to sound educa-
tion and the establishment of fixed principles
of action, as alterations in the system of men-
tal training. The change of schools is a very
frequent cause of vacilation of character, un-
settled opinions, doubt upon all subjects, and
scepticism on the most important guiding
principles of life. Having so far laid the
foundation for a sound constitution in mind
and body, the few years that elapse from our
school-days until our establishment in life re-
quire consideration, for however sound we may
be in mind and body up to this age, every
benefit of teaching and example may now
be annihilated by idleness, indulgence, and a
vicious employment of our time. Much of the
happiness of life in both sexes, as well as their
future health, results from the way in which
the period from school-life to the age of twenty-
two or twenty-three is spent.

There is no greater mistake made by a very
large number of parents, than to suppose that
all necessary education is obtained at school
before the age of sixteen, and that all subse-

112 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

quent teaching spoils a lad for business. To
establish a sound constitution, both of mind
and body, some further teaching is essential to
form those habits of thinking and acting which
constitute the basis for that continuous self-
education without which no man ever became
well informed; and unless a man is well in-
formed, he neither knows how to take care of
his mind nor his body. The Natural Sciences
are among the most worthy, if not the best,
objects of attention, after the rudimentary
knowledge of school has ceased. There are
very few minds that could not be directed to
take an interest in the pleasing information
afforded by Chemistry, Botany, Vegetable and
Animal Physiology, and other branches of Na-
tural History ; nor are there any inquiries
which so much tend to £01 the mind with that
objective knowledge which develops the un-
derstanding, the reflecting and moral powers
of the human mind. If a man is acquainted
with Natural Science, he possesses within him-
self available resources for improvement of
mind and recreation of body, which lead to
habits of life most conducive to sound health.

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 113

Science can be prosecuted in gardens, in fields,
on the sea, and on mountains ; everywhere is
the Book of Nature open to our inspection, and
everywhere can we learn those truths which
lead us to contemplate the wisdom and intel-
ligence everywhere surrounding us, and the
wonderful adaptation of our own mental facul-
ties for the acquisition and enjoyment of such-
knowledge. In this respect the prosecution of
Science has a great advantage over the pur-
suits of Literature : health of body as well as
of mind will be strengthened by the one, while
the sedentary pursuits of the other have the
reverse tendency, to say nothing of the mis-
chief often endangered by the class of litera-
ture too generally indulged in — works of fic-
tion and imagination. Many nervous disor-
ders may be traced to over-indulgence in the
absorbing interest of romances and other
imaginary descriptions of life, which render
those who thus season their mind impracti-
cable and unfit for ordinary duties, by having
their imaginations of society so exalted, that dis-.
appointment, and too often disgust, is the result.
I might adduce, as an additional and very

114 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

important reason for an early training of the
mind with a view to its proper development
the melancholy evidence of the unhealthy state
of the understanding in a large proportion of
so-called educated people, exhibited by the de-
lusions of mesmerism, table-turning, spirit-
rapping, et id genus omne. Whether we
attempt to account for the progress of these
absurdities by referring them to long-known
principles of the human mind, to the absence
of self-will and self-possession, to the force of
imagination, or the prevalence in the mind of
one predominant idea, it is a melancholy
fact that there should be a large number of
persons so destitute of force of mind as to be
deluded into the belief that the effects wit-
nessed arise from supernatural interposition.
There is an able article in a latQ "Quarterly
Review/' which places in a clear light the
supposed wonders of electro-biology, table-
turning, &c, shewing that all these singular
delusions of the mind may be traced to well-
known mental operations, which have been
observed and recorded from time immemorial.
A butcher, in taking down a joint from one of

HEALTH AND DISEASES. 115

his hooks was caught by it, held suspended in
dreadful torture, and when released from his
position his sufferings were excruciating from
the supposed wound of the hook, until the
examination of a surgeon proved that the skin
had not been touched, but only his coat, &c.
Here was exhibited the power of imagination
and the force of a dominant idea, just as the
victims of electro-biology, being destitute of
any will of their own, have suggested and
enforced by the authoritative command of the
operator that they cannot rise from a chair,
and have even forgot their own name. That
so many can continue to be deluded with the
idea that tables, turn by some unknown myste-
rious power, when the effect can be proved to
be the consequence of their own muscular
force, is remarkable ; but this is in part to
be explained from that spirit of party by which
some minds will adhere to opinions when once
adopted, in spite of all logic and the experi-
ence of the whole world.

Does not all this shew some great deficiency
in education. The human mind requires to be
developed by tuition, observation, and expe-

116 HEALTH A2*D DISEASE

rience; and, until it is developed, is liable to
delusions of all kinds. In a very early and ig-
norant state of society, every inexplicable cir-
cumstance is referred to supernatural agency.
Many things which are now known to observe
regular laws, and are looked upon by the most
ignorant as ordinary operations of Nature, were
formerly considered by all classes as depend-
ant on direct supernatural agency. The winds,
the weather, various diseases, and even the
common e very-day affairs of human life, were
referred to the interposition sometimes of a
spirit of good, sometimes of a spirit of evil
That the negroes of Africa, and the aborigines
of Australia, should be under the influence of
such opinions, excites no surprise ; but it is
lamentable to see amongst ourselves, and the
enlightened inhabitants of North America and
Germany, that numbers are still led away by
such notions, and it affords evidence of the
existence of a weak and undeveloped state of
the understanding and the intellect.

That state of mind which lays it open to
delusions of various kinds is an incipient con-
dition of insanity; and I believe it is a fact

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 117

that many who have commenced by being
influenced by mesmerism and its sequences —
table-rapping and spirit-moving — in whom one
dominant idea has been generated, and whose
minds are thus abstracted from common sense
principles of action, become, in time, monoma-
niacs. No one with any experience of life
doubts but that frequent cases of insanity may
be traced to the absence of some definite pur-
pose in the mind, the result of early indul-
gence, vicious education, and total neglect of
the means to elicit and give strength to the
powers of self-knowledge and self-possession.
The understanding has been neglected, and
the intellectual and moral powers are almost
as dormant as they were in infancy, while the
sensual organs, the love for the marvellous,
and morbidity of feeling have been exercised,
encouraged and developed in undue propor-
tions. All the supposed marvels of mesmer-
ism, electro-biology, &c, are referrible to laws
of the mind, either in a healthy or a diseased
state; and it is the general neglect of the study
of the laws of mind which renders so large a
portion of the community open to delusions of

118 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

various kinds. If the laws of mind formed
part of our education ; if we were taught not
only how to use our minds but how to direct
and develop them, we might all have logic
enough in us at once to detect fallacies, and no
system of education will be really worthy of the
name, unless it embraces this important element.
The misapprehensions in regard to table-
turning, &c, arise from the false inferences and
conclusions which most people draw from the
observed facts ; instead of looking for an ex-
planation of them from known laws, they
either proceed to impute them to supernatural
influence, or they allow them to float in their
minds as inexplicable and notorious. Both
these conditions of mind are disgraceful to the
age in which we live, for they both testify to
the feet that we so neglect the mind in our
plans of education, that it must be either pre-
judiced and morbid in its opinions, or it must
sleep in the torpor of indifference or the uncer-
tainty of scepticism. Let us endeavour to
elicit the dormant powers of the human mind
by introducing into the education of all our
people as much information as we possess of

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 110

the nature, the mode of action, and the rela-
tions of the intellectual and moral powers ; let
the elements of the science of mental develop-
ment and evolution form part of an unrrersal
system of education, and then there may be
some hope of seeing the public mind less open
to the impostures of quackery, the delusions
of enthusiasm and prejudice, and the sophistry
of falsehood, however plausible may be the
language in which it is clothed.

We now proceed to consider our second pro-
position—how to repair and re-establish an
unsound constitution. We will suppose that
by birth, parentage, or education, a very un-
sound state of health has been engendered —
that from childhood upwards a feeble condition
has existed; that, in youth, the usual games
and exercises were not to be indulged in from
this cause — that sedentary pleasures became
the habit — that the bodily organs were in con-
sequence badly developed; and that all the
functions of digestion, respiration, and nutri-
tion were imperfectly carried on. Under such
circumstances, on reaching the age of matu-
rity, a person would be always, more or. less,

120 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

an invalid, suffering from indigestion, debility,
nervousness, &c. In such cases, can the con-
stitution be improved, and a fair amount of
health established? In the large majority
I have no hesitation in answering in the af-
Urinative, if a steady and very persevering
attention is paid to all the laws of health.
But in weak constitutions, and in chronic dis-
orders, no permanent good can be effected by
carrying out a few rules for a few weeks; in
all diseases of slow growth the means of cure
must also be slow, and a constant undeviating
attention to every known condition of sound
health is absolutely imperative to such invalids.
In attempting to repair a weak constitu-
tion, there are three organs over which we
have great control, and which, if we can place
in a good condition, must establish a fair
amount of health — the stomach, the skin, and
the nervous system; these are the great inlets
of disease, and by placing them in the most
favorable circumstances for the proper per-
formance of their functions, we may in time
re-establish a high degree of health in almost
Any constitution.

fiEALTH AND DISEASE. 12t

Many of the worst cases of stomach and
nervous disorders owe their origin to the bar-
barous practises of nurseries and schools; the
system of governing by fear is the prolific
source of nervousness, from the morbid sensi-
bility of slight cases to the incipient insanity
of others. How much of moral restraint and
intellectual arrangement, which all find so
essential to health and comfort in after-life,
and which to attain costs us so much bitter
experience, might be given to us in early life,
by wise and well arranged tuition. How
many weak stomachs might have been made
strong ones, if all parents would be at the
pains of acquiring some knowledge on this
subject, before they are called upon to attend
to so important a thing as the health and
happiness of their offspring. Disorders of
childhood, as well as disorders of mature life,
are often induced, and always aggravated, by
weak and depraved conditions of the diges-
tive organs, engendered by inattention to
quantity and quality of food. The grossest ig-
norance is too often witnessed in the extraor-
dinary things a delicate child is allowed to

122 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

partake off ; indeed, is often prompted to take,
by misapplied kindness, or the unthinking
system of rewarding merit by stomach indul-
gences.

Disease not only originates in the stomach,
but is aggravated by its cravings, and the in-
judicious supplies granted to its supposed
wants ; and as this organ is the vehicle through
which we must direct most of our curative
agents, it deserves to be attentively studied
under all circumstances, both of health and of
disease. There are many articles of food and
of medicine, which act differently on different
persons — things which may be in general use,
disagree with some persons in any quantity;
it is therefore the duty of every one to study
the peculiarities of his own stomach, and thus
to discover what agrees and what disagrees. If
Cornaro's rule was then acted on — "to take in
moderation what best agrees with us " — there
would be little occasion for such inquiries as
those we are now concerned in. If, by the
study of our own constitution, we knew what
to take and what to avoid, we might most of
us, like Cornaro, live to enjoy a healthy, cheer T

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 123

ful and happy old age. By keeping the
stomach in health, we may put ourselves in a
condition to resist the deranging influences of
the most untoward state of the elements, for
few catch mi ordinary cold when their diges-
tive organs are in the best condition; the
most essential elements of health depending
mainly on a sound stomach and a healthy
skin, and the latter will generally exist as a
consequence of the former.

We might almost say that every disease
depends on the state of the stomach and di-
gestive organs, but there are some especially
that most obviously do so ; among them may
be enumerated gout and rheumatism, which
in many instances may be altogether pre-
vented by acquiring an acquaintance with
the principles of digestion and nutrition, and
strictly acting on such knowledge. Most per*
sons subject to these diseases are great gene-
rators of acid; their stomach may be con*
sidered a vinegar-cruet that is self-supplied ;
many never wake in the morning without
that sure test of an over-acid stomach, rough-*
ness on grinding the teeth together.. Those

124 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

who are in this way inconvenienced, might,
by a. round of experiments on themselves,
determine what to take and what to avoid ;
and all invalids would be able by such know-
ledge to defend themselves from many incur-
sions of their enemy. To be acquainted with
individual peculiarities, is of great value in
adopting the remedies for the cure of any
disease, and a medical man may be much
assisted by the communication of such know-
ledge. Even an incurable disease may for
years be kept at bay, if the stomach and di-
gestive organs can be maintained in good
condition by the strict observance of such
rules as have been found by experience to be
best adapted for that purpose. Confirmed
organic diseases are best treated by both
patient and physician directing their chief
attention to the organs of digestion.

Whatever may be the future development
of disease, the stomach is generally the first
organ to be deranged, and obviously the one
through which our remedies, both of diet and
medicine, must be directed; and to acquire
a full knowledge of its individual peculiari-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 125

ties, should lie the first step towards adopt-
ing a course of remedial means. It is easy
to perceive that our remedies, if not appro-
priate, may do as much, or more harm, than
good. Consider the delicate structure of the
internal coats of the stomach, and the work
it has to perform in the conversion of food
into blood ; its whole surface consists of a con-
geries of most minute and almost imperceptible
nerves, arteries, veins, and various tissues,
adapted for secretion, digestion, and absorp-
tion. When we reflect on all this, so far from
complaining of its frequent disorders, it is
most marvellous that it should so long resist
our indiscretions. Let us only remember how
we treat it ; the variety of pernicious things
the best of us ask it to digest ; what a med-
ley of heterogeneous matter we place in it
during a single meal; what ingenuity in
cookery to torture into every form, to com-
bine in every possible variety, articles, which
by themselves alone, we should never dream
of oppressing our stomachs. This organ, from
our earliest infancy, and in all classes of so-
ciety, is at all times pampered with such an

126 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

extraordinary Variety of materials, that its
taste is almost always depraved; things which
at first disgust it, we induce it by habit to
enjoy ; until, instead of being our servant, and
employed solely for the welfare of the rest of
our body, it becomes our master, and urgently
demands supplies * which may be very dele-
terious to the well-wking of the rJof the
animal economy. How soon are the simple
tastes of childhood perverted: the stomach, in-
stead of being the receptacle of wholesome
food for the formation of healthy blood, be-
comes the deposit of all sorts of trash that
can excite any pleasurable feeling in itself or
its caterer, the, organ of taste. The pleasure
of enjoying the expression of a young infant
induces us to create in it a taste for various
things, which would be better delayed as long
as possible. We make the reward of what
we call a good child to consist of sweets, or
things which please its sensuality. Not con-
tent with this, many parents take infinite
pains to teach, at as early a period as possible,
a love for wine, beer, &c. ; and however dis-
gusting they maybe at first, the extraordinary

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 127

imitative powers of children very sOon im-
parts to them a fondness for the same things
which they observe their seniors to take and
to enjoy. Hence many of the disorders of
childhood. A stomach overburthened with
too much food, or perverted by improper food,
either has its powers impaired, or it converts
all it receives into the element of blood, and
sends into the current of the circulation de-
praved fluid, the germ of many of the diseases
of which an infant, however healthy at birth,
may soon become the victim.

An invalid ought to be scrupulously atten-
tive to the kind of food introduced into the
stomach — the simpler the better ; and in the
case of young children, nothing but the very
simplest articles should ever pass the portals
of the mouth. When we reflect that the
stomach is the receptacle for matter destined
to be converted into blood — that the real ob-
ject of its existence is to subject such things
as are fit for the nourishment of the body
to certain processes which altogether change
their conditions ; when we reflect on what
the blood is, and that the object of eating and

128 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

drinking is to make blood, we must feel the
great importance of studying how to supply
the stomach with food that is best adapted for
this purpose.

Upon the health of the blood must depend
the well-being of every part of us; every organ
and every square inch in our body is interested
in the condition of the blood; it requires,
therefore, very little physiological knowledge
to comprehend how a disease of the skin may
result from bad food. Our mind itself, being
in our present state of existence manifested
through the organic matter of the brain, which
is dependant on the state of the blood, may-
be sound or unsound, in such degrees as are
related to the sound or unsound results of the
action of digestion; our very intellectual and
moral powers therefore are advanced or re-
tarded in their development by the way we
treat our stomachs. As we manage the pri-
mary source of all nutrition, so we prepare for
all the organs and parts of our body the ele-
ments of health, comfort, and happiness; or
the reverse. If we supply only a proper
amount of wholesome food, the general result

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 129

will be a wholesome state of the blood, and
vigour and health to the constitution. The
food of children cannot be too simple; and
when they are sound at birth, not inheriting
ancestorial sins of the third or fourth genera-
tion, they will resist the influence of much in-
correct diet; but if by birth and parentage
they do inherit disease in some shape, then it
becomes imperative that we should be doubly
vigilant, that the stomach is supplied with
those things only which are essential to good
nourishment. Here is the really important
point in relation to health of mind and body :
if we inherited from our parents a constitution
sound in all its parts, what we ate and what
we drank would be of little importance; but
as there are few who do not inherit the germ
of some disease* care in most cases is neces-
sary, and when the inheritance is clear and
distinct, then it is that the most rigid laws of
health should be enforced from earliest in-
fancy : for, by so doing, we may often rear a
healthy tree from the branch of a diseased
stock. Place an unhealthy child under the
most favorable circumstances — attend carefully

130 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

to every element of good health — let no igno-
rant servant pamper him with trash — let him
have nothing but food from which his stomach
may alone extract the elements of healthy
blood; continue such a system for a sufficient
time, and you will convert a sickly infant into
a sound and vigorous child. The same re-
marks apply to all ages; if the constitution be
good and the stomach powerful, it matters
little what is administered to it — you may
much exceed the bounds of reason — very con-
siderable liberties may be taken without any
permanent mischief ; but in a feeble constitu-
tion, and a depraved condition of the digestive
organs, if we would avert evils that oppress
the body, and render the mind incapable of
any true enjoyment of life, we must atten-
tively study the power of our stomach, and
only partake moderately of such things as are
known to agree with it. Every stage and
condition of dyspepsia may be counteracted,
by learning the laws of health, so far as our
individual self may be concerned, and then by
resolutely adhering to them, always bearing in
mind that there can be no general rules for

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 131

diet.; every stomach having its peculiaritities,
it must be individually studied.

In attempting to answer the question, how
to re-establish a unsound constitution? we
should consider the stomach in all its rela-
tions, in health and in disease, because it is
necessarily the agent through which we must
carry on our operations. All our means of
curing disease can only operate on the system
through the stomach or the skin, when it
becomes necessary to introduce medicaments
into the blood; if we can do so through the
skin, it will generally be better than through
the stomach, but our power of doing so is
more limited, although it may be doubted
whether this means of treating disease has
been sufficiently attended to. In the admi-
nistration of medicine, our object is to act lo-
cally and directly on the stomach and bowels,
or to introduce substances into the blood, some
of which act on the constitution generally,
and others specially on a particular organ.
Now the last object can be fulfilled as well
through the skin as through the stomach,
with some medicinal substances, as mercury,

132 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

sulphur, turpentine, &c. Baths, of course, act
through the skin, and this may be illustrated
to non-physiological minds, by the fact that
thirst may be allayed by the fluid absorbed
into the system from >an ordinary bath. The
vessels of the skin absorb, as well as the
vessels on the mucus surfaces of the intestines
— in fact, the mucus surfaces are continua-
tions, if not modifications, of the skin — the
lips forming the intermediate junction of the
two surfaces. When a new lip has been
formed by the operation of separating skin
from the under part of the chin, to supply
what is deficient at the mouth, as the wound
heals, the new parts which are in and round
the mouth gradually assume the character of
mucus membrane and lip. We have therefore
access to the blood through the skin, and
when it is objectionable to introduce medicine
by the mouth, we may succeed in so doing
by absorption from the surface. It is worse
than folly to continue to put medicine into
the stomach when it is in a state of irritability,
or disturbed by the introduction of almost any
article of food; under such circumstances, we

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 133

should allow it total rest until its powers are
restored. The skin then becomes a very use-
ful auxiliary in the treatment of disease, as
well as important in its direct influence on the
health of other organs; for if the skin is in
good condition, the constitution at large will
generally be so: hence the importance of baths,
friction, and exercise.

But the stomach is the organ through which
our principal means for bettering the condition
of the general system must be administered,
either in the way of food, drink, or medicine.
Could we succeed in making the stomach do
its duty properly, we should have little diffi-
culty in curing disease ; therefore it is that a
rigid system of diet and regimen may, by long
perseverance, effect the cure of a disease with-
out one grain of medicine being administered ;
and it is thus that a case of cure under the
Medicine Expectante or Homoeopathy now and
then occurs. But the cure of disease by diet
alone is rare, for several reasons ; — it is rare to
have a patient with sufficient faith in it to per-
severe long enough ; and in truth disease may
be cured much quicker by the joint adminis-

134 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

tration of diet, regimen, bathing, &c, combined
with a judicious employment of proper medi-
cine; That medicine is to be banished alto-
gether from the treatment of disease is an idle
dream which does not deserve a moment's at-
tention, the beneficial influence of numerous
drugs is established on too firm a basis; the
reform wanted is only to employ them when
really required ; and the safeguard the public
have in this respect, is always to give their
confidence to a man of judgment and integrity.
I am quite sure we are running fast into the
opposite danger of neglecting drugs too much;
and all men who profess to cure disease with-
out medicine, or with a Materia Medica which
they can carry in their waistcoat pocket, are
equally dangerous practitioners, pandering ra-
ther to a mistaken view on the part of patients,
or trying to curry favour by advocating some*-
thing new and original " to take the ears of the
groundlings," by appealing to that excessive
love for the marvellous which leads mankind
into all sorts of absurdities.

Whatever may be the diseased part we have
to treat, whether the disease be acute or chro-

HEALTH AND DISEASJS. 135

nic, the stomach either sympathises with the
general derangement, or is itself disordered,
and will require special attention. It not un-
frequently happens, that in trying to relieve
some other disease, the very treatment adopted
deranges the functions of the stomach, as in the
cure of nervous disorders by stimulants. Here
we have a fruitful source of mischief: delicate,
weak, or nervous people think they require a
great deal of keeping up, and by constantly
plying the stomach with food or stimulants,
they induce some form of dyspepsia, and thus
aggravate the original disease. The practice
of always taking something into the st6mach
for every morbid feeling of languor or faint*
ness is quite wrong, for sooner or later disease
of the coats of the stomach will be added to the
original malady. Let any one consider what
must be the immediate effect on an already
irritated organ, of alcohol in its various forms
of brandy^ whiskey, eau-de-Cologne, essence
of ginger, &c, &c. Let any one examine the
change effected by the preservation in spirit of
any dead animal structure, and he will perceive
that it is the life of the part that alone preserves

136 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

it, and then only for a time, from these power-
ful agents. The living principle in some degree
protects the coats of the stomach from various
unwise doings, but not altogether ; for, by the
undue employment of stimulants, many ner-
vous and other invalids seriously complicate
their maladies with some form of indigestion,
by an indiscriminate use of what are basely
termed the good things of life, under the im-
pression that by so doing they are keeping
themselves up. Possibly they may require to
be kept up, but this is not the way to do it ;
on the contrary, it is often the very reverse of
the right way, for by treating the stomach
with more simple means, it might extract some
good nutriment, while under the other system
it extracts nothing but what is very bad. Ner-
vous people of all others should endeavour to
maintain the health of the stomach by great
simplicity of diet, and by attending to the
golden rule of taking in moderation such
things only as they know wiD agree with
them.

Among the complications of disease most
commonly met with, are what are called ner-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 137

vous complaints, combined with deranged or
diseased states of some or all of the digestive
organs, and the two disorders act and react on
each other to produce a multiplicity of mala-
dies, so various, so numerous, so changeable,
and so obstinate, as by their extreme mutabi-
lity to justify the epithet Protean, which has
been applied to them.

Nervous disorders are the complaints, par
excellence, of the largest number of valetudi-
narians. It is very difficult to classify them,
varying as they do with every individual and
every shade of feeling or opinion — depending
as they often do on the characteristic mind of
each individual sufferer, they are as Protean in
shape as is the human mind itself. Eveiy ner-
vous affection is so modified by the bent and
tendency of the mental and moral powers of
the subject of it, that to understand it properly,
we ought to be well acquainted with the indi-
vidual mind of our patient, as well as the ge-
neral laws of mind, which exert their influence
on every form of disease. The influence of the
mind in all disease, and more especially in ner-
vous diseases, always should be closely in-

188 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

spected. We cannot understand the true
character of the various phases of nervous
complaints, without having some knowledge
of the principles of mental and moral science,
and are able to take into account the combined
effect of the manifold constituents of human
character. Nervous people have always some
morbid peculiarity of mental operation : they
are sensitive to impressions which pass un-
heeded by the more obtuse ; they exaggerate
their feelings by their strong imaginative
power ; they magnify the importance of their
symptoms by endeavours to trace them to
some vital organ ; they bring the powers and
peculiarities of their mind into operation by
thinking too much of themselves, and the
symptoms and causes of their complaints. The
modes of thought, the direction and habitual
tendencies of the mind, modify the symptoms
of nervous persons ; and as the mind may be
frivolous, imbecile, superstitious, active or pas-
sive, sensitive or torpid, so are nervous dis-
orders modified ; for it is a great mistake to
suppose these diseases to be always imaginary,
or under the influence of the wilL All ner-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 139

vous people are not malades irimginaires;
whether we designate these diseases as hyste-
rical, hypochondriacal, neuralgic, pr by any
other vague term, they depend on some really
morbid condition of the nervous system or brain,
and are not the result of mere icieness, caprice,
or weakness of mind. Unquestionably they
occur most frequently among the idle classes,
among those whose circumstances and condi-
tion render work either of mind or body unne-
cessary; but still they result from a morbid
condition, and are not at the command of
caprice, or low spirits, or ill temper, to be
assumed whenever the patient wishes, as many
people seem to think. Among the sufferers
from this class of diseases there are people of
every shade of mental power, and many have
what are called strong minds. That there is
in most cases no organic disease, no established
mischief in the structure of any organ that en-
dangers life, is generally true; but still the
sufferings are real while they last, and disturb
the functions of the individual part attacked,
and, as a consequence, the whole constitution.
But although no organic change has yet oo-

140 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

curred, and although years may elapse before
a purely nervous complaint shall establish a
condition bad enough to endanger life, yet the
sufferings are so great, and the number of per-
sons who are more or less affected by nervous
disorders constitute so large a class, that their
causes and effects well deserve our studious at-
tention. We know too little of the real nature
of the matter constituting the nerves and brain,
to be able to account for the various distressing
complaints consequent on their deranged condi-
tion ; but we have only to reflect on the won-
derful powers and delicacy of structure of those
organs, and we shall cease to be surprised at
their frequent derangements. Examine the
structure of the brain or nerves, and bear in
mind what they have to do in the animal
economy, what their office in every mental
manifestion and every corporeal change, how-
ever trifling, and their frequency of derange-
ment may be in some measure comprehended.

The functions of the nerves and brain are
those especially connected with animal life,
with sensibility, irritability, and muscular con-
tractions, with instinct, sensation, and per-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 141

ception, with knowledge, reason, and moral
power. The vegetable world is endowed with
powers analagous to the digestion, respiration,
and circulation of the animal kingdom, but the
addition of nervous matter is the essential
characteristic of animal life ; and among those
doubtful beings which connect vegetables and
animals, and which even the powers of the
microscope have failed in some instances to
elucidate, if we can detect any nervous matter,
it is at once evidence that we are dealing with
an animal. In ascending the scale of animal
life, the nervous matter becomes more and
more distinct; in the lowest creatures in
which nerves are detected, they are uncon-
nected with any masses of nervous matter;
we have only nerves, but as the animal func-
tions increase in number and in power, we
find, in addition to the nerves, small masses of
a similar substance to that which constitutes
the nervous filaments, into which the nerves
pass, and we may consider that the greater
the amount of these ganglia the greater is the
complicity of animal life. The more regular
the nervous distribution, the more the nerves

142 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

themselves are assisted with the concentrated
matter of ganglia, the more advanced are the
instincts and the functions peculiar to animal
life. The ganglia are masses of nervous sub-
stance into which the nerves lose themselves,
and from which other branches of nerves pass
out ; they are found in all parts of the body,
are of the same nature as brain, but are not
entitled to this appellation until they are con-
centrated into one mass in the head of the
animal. The possession of a head does not
prove the possession of a brain, for there is no
true brain in insects or any animal below the
rank of a fish. The brain is not a mere con-
gregation, concentration, or development of
the ganglia; it is a distinct addition of nervous
substance added to the ganglia, and increasing
in size as the functions of animal life increase
in number and power. In the lowest of the
fishes it is very small, gradually increasing in
this class, being larger in reptiles, larger still
in birds, increasing in the different classes of
mammalia as they increase in intelligence,
until it reaches its climax in man. Instincts,
propensities, sensations, affections, are all con-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 143

nected with nervous substance and dependant
on nerves, ganglia, and brain, and ceteris pari-
bus, the larger the brain the larger and more
advanced are these functions and powers. No
one can doubt the possession of intelligence
and affection in the dog, and the more dis-
tinguished a dog will be for these powers, the
larger will be his head, the best bred and
most instructible of the class being easily dis-
tinguished by the roundness and compactness
of its brain-case in comparison with the length
and size of its snout and face. We find no-
thing like affection and attachment in any
creatures without a brain ; and we find the
greatest amount of these powers in those ani-
mals which have most brain ; the parrot among
birds, the seal, and the dog, among quadru-
peds. Love, fear, joy, grief, anger, and other
affections and passions are manifested by dogs,
and a certain amount of intellectual power
must also be conceded to them, all bearing an
evident relation to the amount of brain ; and
some dogs are distinguished by another simi-
larity to the mental and moral powers of man,
in being subject to various nervous disorders,

144 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

very similar to the same train of symptoms in
their masters or mistresses. We may also con-
elude that the greater the development of the
nerves and brain, the greater is the tendency
to that large class of complaints commonly
called nervous.

The larger the brain, the more is the amount
of nervous substance to be disturbed ; and as
the brain partakes of the law applicable to all
other animal structures of increasing in size
by employment and exercise, the more it be-
comes developed by education and refinement,
the greater is its liability to disease. Hence
the greater increase of disorders of the brain
and nerves as society advances in refinement,
education, and purely intellectual occupations
and pleasures. The affections and moral sen-
timents are, in civilized life, of a higher order,
and become more and more complicated with
the general avocations of mankind in the pro-
gress of the social state. The increase of com-
petition in all pursuits, the necessity of consi-
derable mental development and acquirement
in all classes, the collision of mind against
mind in political and religious disputes, the

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 145

intense action of hope and fear, the viscissi-
tudes of life, the precarious tenure of many
occupations, one year giving a large and
another a poor income, the difficulty of main-
taining a family and retaining a certain po-
sition, these and many other circumstances
connected with modern life, demanding larger
exertion of the intellectual powers, necessarily
entail more frequent derangement of the brain
and nervous system. All nervous disorders
are connected with some deranged or morbid
condition of the mind or the feelings, over-
excitement or depression, or both; a debili-
tated condition of the mental powers resulting
from corporeal disease, diseases in the organs
themselves, something implicating the brain
and nervous system as the organs and agents
by which the manifestations of intellect or
feeling are in this state of our existence most
closely and intimately connected, are the seats
of that large class of diseases commonly called
nervous. As we look to the organs of diges-
tion for the seat of the various degrees and
kinds of indigestion, so we must look to the
organs of intellect, feeling, and moral power

146 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

as the seats of the various degrees and kinds
of nervous derangements. The brain and
nervous system, are the organs from which
emanate in this world, all intelligence, feeling,
will, propensity, instinct, or other manifesta-
tion of the mental or moral powers and all
sensibility ; a long-continued excited, or de-
pressed, state, or other morbid condition of
these powers or feelings engender actual or-
ganic disease of the brain and nervous system.
But in their earliest stages, nervous com-
plaints may be only functional derangements
of their organs, and in this condition are much
under our control

In attempting to answer the question —
" How should nervous diseases be cured?" we
ought to be able to look at them in their
moral aspect ; for, in their origin, they will
generally be found to have a cause in some
morbid condition of mind ; but to go into this
subject would require a volume, and not a
pamphlet, and therefore our observations must
be very general. Nervous complaints often
begin after some distressing event has ab-
sorbed the mind of the patient, and diverted

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 147

it from all ordinary occupations, A severe
illness, or death of an object of affection — re-
verse of fortune — inordinate indulgence in
scenes of great pleasure and excitement — the
depressing effect of being withdrawn from
pleasing society to comparative solitude — the
dissevering of ties of affection — the miscon-
duct of a beloved relative; to these, and many
other circumstances operating on the mind or
feelings, may be traced the origin of many
nervous affections. They are usually accom-
panied with indigestion, so that it is often
difficult to say whether the primary mischief
was in the nervous or the digestive system,
because all excited states of feeling at once
put an end to appetite, render the taking of
food irregular, if they do not prevent it alto-
gether, and thus lay the foundation of that
complication of nervous and stomach dis-
orders, which constitute half the diseases of
the civilized world, and are the opprobrium of
medical science. Why they are so, Shakspeare
told mankind long ago : —

" Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the soul a rooted sorrow,

148 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Eaze out the ■written troubles of the brain,
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart V

There lies the secret of cure in all nervous
diseases; if the patient cannot or will not
minister unto himself, and aid the counsels of
his physician by the power of his will, and the
moral influence which God has implanted in
every human mind for this very purpose, then
can the physician alone do little. That our
great business in this life is to instruct the
mind and to temper the moral powers, has
been taught by religion and philosophy in all
ages; that the wisest and best of the Greek
and Eoman philosophers saw this, through the
obscure lights of their own days, is as certain
as that such is the fundamental principle of
the Christian religion. Both religion and
philosophy teach us that the more we instruct
the mind and temper the moral powers, the
more clearly do we see, and the more convinc-
ingly do we feel, that our real destination is
not the mere enjoyment of the pleasures, or
even of the learning, or the affections of this

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 149

world, great as are such blessings, but that all
true acquirement — all true development of our
mental and moral powers can have no other
object than to fit us for another and a more
perfect condition. The anomalies that sur-
round us can have no other rational explica-
tion; calamities, disease, and death are the
tutors of the mind of man, which lead him to
reflect on his true condition, past, present, and
future. God has given us mental and moral
powers all-sufficient to rescue us from any
degree of anxiety and distress, provided we
have developed them, and know how to use
them. Their development results from their
education, their experience, their active em-
ployment. When by such means they have
been matured, they help us to reflections
which are capable of counteracting the greatest
evils this world can inflict on us: —

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ]"

" No," says the physician, " therein the mind
must minister unto itself" And here is the an-
swerto our question — "How should nervous dis-
eases be cured?" By ministering unto ourselves

150 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

those consolations, under distress of mind, that
religion and philosophy alone can help us to.
Some may object to my employment of the
term philosophy at all, and, in truth, I believe
it is superfluous, for the philosophy of Socrates
was as truly religion, as the religion of our
highest minded Christians has been true phi-
losophy. The terms are, in point of fact, syno-
nymous, although, perhaps many classes, both
of religionists and of so-called philosophers,
would not admit the principle. However,
such remarks do not apply to mere partizans
or sectarians, either of religion or philosophy,
but to those highest examples of both classes
who have worshipped the same God, because
they have both acquired the same knowledge of
his attributes through the exercise and teach-
ing of the same faculties which he has implant-
ed in all human minds for the same purposes.
All nervous diseases, from the primary in-
fluence of excessive fear and disturbance at
trifling or imaginary dangers, to the over-
whelming influence of complete insanity, are
disturbed or diseased states of the brain or
nervous system. Probably a person having

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 151

a well-regulated mind is not susceptible of
nervous disorders; but this is a question I
shall not enter on here ; neither shall I touch
on those extreme cases of nervous disease
where unmistakeable insanity exists. The
nervous disorders we speak of, are those 'dis-
turbances of mind and body, which, resulting
from over-indulgence in melancholy feelings,
or the anxiety of real distress, are still within
the domain of a curative treatment, and which
treatment must be applied to the moral causes
and effects of the malady, as well as to the
physical ones; It will be vain to apply phy-
sical remedies alone while moral causes are
still operating to keep up the disease. If the
mind is incapable of ministering to itself, we
must endeavour to minister to it, at the same
time that we are combating the physical mis-
chief by our curative material agents. Had
we always in such cases well-informed, well-
developed, and well-regulated minds to deal
with, our task would be comparatively easy —
but, alas ! such minds are, indeed, few and
far between ; and, as I have before hinted,
probably such minds are never troubled with

152 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

such diseases, and at all events can minister
unto themselves. The classes of minds we
have to deal with in nervous disorders are
too often of the very weakest kind, and the
difficulty of ministering to them is propor-
tionately great ; but there is a way of getting
at the internal spirit and feelings of the most
obtuse and most obdurate of human beings
as well as the most sensitive. So beautifully
has our Creator adapted the mental faculties
to the comprehension of his works and wishes,
that a mind properly tutored can always in-
fluence the most ignorant, by wisely adapting
the subject and manner of its teachings to
the capabilities which the intellect and moral
powers of his patient afford. Nothing can be
more beautiful than the influence of a well-
regulated mind when combined with charitable
feeling and a just view of human nature, over
the ignorant, and even over the most vicious
of our fellow sufferers. There are redeeming
points in all characters, and none can say what
are the unseen, unexpressed, inward feelings
and workings of any human soul ; the most
untoward, and even the most brutal, have in

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 153

all probability moments, when the inward
spirit contemplates in secret long-neglected as-
pirations of something better than its practi-
cal doings would appear possible to a confined
or prejudiced mind. It is at such moments
that the wonderful influence of sympathy,
from one mind to another, would always have
powerful influence if actuated by pure motives ;
it can just touch the dormant feeling in the
right way, and arouse contemplations of some-
thing better than has been the ordinary
occupation of long -perverted feeling and
misdirected intellect.

A judicious combination of moral and phy-
sical remedies is the proper answer to the
question — "How should nervous diseases be
cured?" In these cases there is always more
or less of disorder in the organs of digestion,
and the reaction of the one class of diseases
on the other often increases the evils of both.
Some absorbing interest of mind or feeling pre-
vents persons taking their usual meals, or they
take them at snatches, irregularly; and from
the consequent languor, refresh themselves
with more wine or other stimulants than they

154 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

have been accustomed to. The continuance
of this state of things for some days is certain
to engender derangement of the digestive sys-
tem ; there will be loss of appetite, discomfort
from food when taken, sluggishness of the
bowels — such symptoms accompanying depres-
sion from overwork of mind or body, or from
over-exertion, or over-excitement of the feel-
ings, constitute the ordinary commencement
of nervous complaints. These disorders take
their subsequent character from individual
peculiarities, and are very different as minds
and tempers differ. Persons in robust health,
and of well-attuned minds, minister unto
themselves — battle against the storm; and
when its violence has subsided, repair their
damaged sails and rigging, and refit their
vessel for the prosecution of its voyage, per-
haps with weakened powers, but still sound
enough to escape from ordinary dangers. A
mental or moral shock, occurring to persons
of indifferent health, or of weak reparative
powers of mind or body, will leave traces
more or less permanent, both of bodily and
mental disorder for the rest of life ; and such

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 155

are the persons who constitute that large class
of invalids called "nervous." Among them
we find an immeasurable variety in the feel-
ings, the symptoms, the bearings of their dis-
orders on different organs or parts of the body
— they will have pains here, there, and every-
where ; sometimes a pain in one side, some-
times in the other ; now the lungs will be the
apparent seat of the disease, then the spine or
the liver, or the heart. Perhaps the head is the
part most frequently referred to, and is, in real
fact, the general seat of the disturbance, as is
proved by the frequent termination of nervous
disorders in epilepsy, or other diseased condi-
tion of the nervous centres ; but the termina-
tion of nervous complaints in fatal diseases is
rare in their early stages ; they generally last
for many years, and give more employment to
regular and irregular medical practice than all
other diseases put together.

Distress of mind is far from being the prin-
cipal source of nervousness : there are other
conditions, both of mind and feeling, which
engender this constitutional derangement : the
morbid feeling of having exhausted all sources

i

156 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

of pleasure and enjoyment, of being used up,
of ceasing to take an interest in passing events,
or social meetings : viewing the world with too
much distrust or suspicion : thinking that the
finger of scorn, or the hand of malice, is always
ready to seize its victims. Some nervous people
cease to mingle with the world, because they
think that the entire system of social life is
under the guidance of the Spirit of Evil ; that
all human knowledge, all the most glorious
inventions of the human mind are the mere
temptations of the Evil One ; that science, in
all its agency, and especially such wonderful
applications of it as railroads and steam ships,
are but the evidence of the coming on of the
Infidel Power predicted, as I was once told by
a nervous invalid, " that ye shall be as Gods
is the plea of Satan to the world now, as it
was to our first mother. I am alarmed rather
than interested in the wonderful development
of man's intellect and power in the present
day; and I shrink from association with my
species, thankful that my disordered nerves
oblige me to relinquish what is termed so-
ciety/' In fact, irregular and morbid condi-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 157

tions of mind are the food of many religious
sects, and those who indulge in them rarely
escape one or other form of nervous disorder.
Perhaps it would be wise in all communities
to have religious establishments, to which such
persons could always retire : they are not bad
enough for lunatic asylums, and they are too
morbid to mix with the world without discom-
fort to themselves and all who come in contact
with them. What a relief it would be to many
families, if those who love to indulge in mor-
bid humours, who in their own esteem are too
good to mingle in the affairs of this sinful
world, could retire to a well-regulated estab-
lishment, the entire business of which was con-
templation of the future ; all such incarcera-
tions being purely voluntary, for no lengthened
or fixed term, but with the perfect understand-
ing that the inmates could again join the world
if they so desired. If every distinct religious
sect had a place of this sort for the reception
of its hypochondriacs, its incurably nervous
members, its zealots, and other morbidly-
minded persons, society would be relieved of
many unfortunate individuals, who are the

158 HEALTH AND DISEASE

great support of medical quackery. This for-
ther good might result from such establish-
ments, that we might judge of the comparative
value of the different sects and their different
modes of directly influencing and reforming the
mental operations, by the per centage they
respectively sent back cured into society. We
have instances of persons who have been in-
mates of a lunatic asylum, voluntarily return-
ing on the accession of fits of insanity. 1 have
no doubt such would be the case in the estab-
lishments recommended, which might deserve
the name of "Havens for the Wretched. "
Monasteries and nunneries, under well-regu-
lated laws, and as much supervision as lunatic
asyluni3, limited to the reception of- morbid
minds at present disgusted with themselves
and the world, subjecting such morbid minds
to instruction and discipline, and permitting
their inmates to rejoin society if they chose.
Such institutions might be great blessings, and
a great relief to our over-crowded lunatic asy-
lums, by providing a home for many who are
not really insane.

The number of nervous valetudinarians is

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 159

increased by the disappoiated-whether it be
disappointment in pleasures, sensual or of the
imagination, or in the rewards of literature,
professions, or business. Excessive expecta-
tions froin any condition of life, must be dis-
appointed, whether we place the summum
bonum in a round of absorbing pleasure, in
obtaining a high position either in rank or in
wealth, if our anticipations are excessive and
unreasonable, disappointment and consequent
vexation is the result, and this state of mind
always engenders nervousness and dyspep-
sia. We might arrange nervous invalids into
several classes — there would be the great idle
class, that army of people which have no real
occupatiou, who, by their own good fortune or
the exertions of their progenitors, are placed
in a position to be free from the ordinary cares
of life. Not having any strife with the world,
not having to fight their way through rivals
and competitors to competence, wealth, or dis-
tinction, their minds are free from those anxie-
ties which bear upon the mass in struggling to
provide for themselves and families. Being
released from the necessity of work, either of

160 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

mind or body, if they do not adopt some vo-
luntary and absorbing occupation, they have
too much time to think about themselves.
The human mind must be employed ; if it has
no regular work it preys upon itself, dwells
too much on its own feelings, devotes too
much attention to itself and its present tene-
ment the body, until every trifling disturb-
ance of health is magnified into one of vital
importance. Want of occupation for mind or
body is the principal cause of nervous disor-
ders, whether idleness results from competence,
from indolence, or from vice ; whether a man is
idle because he has no necessity, or because he
does not choose to work, similar consequences
follow. Work is the natural condition of man,
and without it he must fall into a morbid
state of mind or body, or both. It is a great
mistake to pity the working classes because
they are obliged to labour; on the contrary,
if all classes could compare and analyse their
pursuits and the results of them, it would
be found that the working-classes have the
fewest hours of unhappiness. I do not mean
to assert that there are no nervous disorders

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 161

among the working-classes, but when they do
occur, their ravages are not so devastating, as
the mind must necessarily be occupied in some
routine and daily pursuit.

The great speculative class feeds the ranks
of the nervous ; the ups and downs, the con-
tingencies, the fluctuations in value of all
human commodities ; that lottery of life, the
gaining of money by large dealings in articles
which are always changing their money value,
engenders a love of gambling which, in itself
operates injuriously on the nervous system,
but in some of its effects is destruction both to
the mind and body. No man should enter
the lists of the speculative class unless he has
a mind that can look on calmly while a large
fortune may be in jeopardy — when any turn of
the scale may make a difference of hundreds or
thousands ; this is an occupation only for the
hard-headed and strong-willed, who can bear a
severe blow without flinching. Unfortunately,
men assume occupations not because they are
suitable to them, but because circumstances
place them in their way, and therefore many
very unsuitable persons join the ranks of the

162 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

speculative to the destruction of their nerves,
their happiness, and too often of their mind.
A man finds that a stock, a railway, or a com-
modity which he holds largely, is falling in
value. Shall he sell or not ? He cannot make
up his mind, but watches the markets with
absorbing anxiety, neglects his regular meals,
and substitutes stimulants, until he loses his
appetite ; passes sleepless nights, and disar-
ranges both his digestive and nervous systems.
This may go on for weeks or months, giving
rise to various symptoms of derangement,
sometimes in the head, sometimes in the sto-
mach ; but the end often is that he becomes a
valetudinarian for life, ever obliged to be doc-
toring his nerves or his stomach. In some
such cases in advanced life, or in persons dis-
posed to brain diseases, the end is apoplexy,
epilepsy, or other disease of the brain ; which,
if it does not destroy life, leaves its victim a
hopeless cripple or an imbecile.

The literary class affords many examples
of nervous diseases. All men know that the
brain will only bear a certain amount of work
consistent with health ; but absorbed in a sub-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 163

ject that makes captive the imagination, the
flight of time is unperceived, meals are neg-
lected or taken hurriedly and without discri-
mination. Such interruptions as eating or
taking exercise, are not allowed to waste the
precious moments of inspiration; sleep itself
is countermanded and delayed so long, that
weary as the mind may be, it cannot be re-
freshed by "Nature's best restorer, balmy
sleep/' Some of the noblest minds have been
destroyed by over-work, and the annals of
our universities and schools supply many vic-
tims to nervous disorders among their com.
petitors for honours.

164 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

PART III.

ON LONGEVITY.

No determinate limit can be assigned as the
absolute duration of human life ; the great
majority die before the age of 70 — one-half of
the population of England die before the age
of 20 — yet we have so many instances of hale
and hearty people of 80 years and upwards
that there is much reason to believe in the pos-
sibility of a considerable extension of the dura-
tion of life by a careful study of all the sources
of health and of disease. The records of our
Life Insurance offices corroborate the fact of
the increased value of human life within the
last century. The better educated part of our
population are more attentive to the laws of
health ; their habitations are more wholesome,
their clothing more suitable to the season, and
just ideas of the means of preserving health

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 165

are more generally diffused Medical treat-
ment is more simple, more efficacious, and more
within the reach of all classes of the commu-
nity. From these and other causes, there is no
doubt that the average duration of human life
has increased, and there is much reason to think
that it may be still farther extended as a know-
ledge of the means of preserving health and pre-
venting disease is more practically applied.

In attempting to sum up the qualities of
mind and body which have proved favourable

difficult to establish general conclusions — the
examples which are recorded of longevity oc-
cur among persons of such varied habits, that
many at once conclude that it depends on
original strength of constitution, and that a
person so blessed may live as he pleases with-
out disturbing his chances of longevity. The
most practical mode of looking into this ques-
tion would be, to collect numerous instances of
long life, and see whether some general prin-
ciples might not be found characteristic of all
who have lived to a great age, and from which
useful conclusions might be drawn. In all the

^

i

166 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

individual cases of great age within my own
personal experience, I have observed a large
possession of what is called common sense — a
coolness of temperament which rarely allowed
feeling or passion to govern— sometimes a
positive absence of feeling or of affection, or at
least of so utilitarian a kind that it could
easily be shook off if necessary. They have
been, generally, persons free from anxiety,
either living in circumstances that exempted
them from all possibility of worldly difficul-
ties, or of a temperament so cool and collected,
that happen what would, they might be disap-
pointed, but never anxious — they look upon
sickness and death as the common lot of men,
and whether in their own persons or their
dearest connections, they were rarely so com-
pletely absorbed in anxiety as to be prevented
from taking and digesting a sufficiency of food.
With bodily constitutions that soon shook off
disease, they were possessed of minds equally
capable of shaking off anxiety.

Equanimity of mind is an important ele-
ipent towards longevity ; if it results from
reflection and contemplation, from great know-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 167

ledge and sound views of the past, the pre-
sent, and the future, it is one of the most de-
sirable of possessions, and would enable us to
meet the storms of life with calm resignation,
certain«that all present apparent evils will be
rectified in some happy future. Such a condi-
tion of mind, if joined with sound bodily
health, will make longevity desirable, but in
the majority of its examples, we see little to
encourage the wish for great length of years ;
beyond the period when health of mind and
body ceases, and decrepitude becomes our
lot, old age cannot be considered a blessing.
Second childishness is, of all other conditions,
the most lamentable ; the childishness of youth
has all sorts of redeeming qualities, but the
childishness of age not one; to live to be a
helpless creature, dependant on others for every
movement of our body, is a state of existence
the very reverse of desirable. But as lon-
gevity may be our lot, the possibility should
act as an additional reason for taking care of our
health. Seeing, as every one must, so many
examples of long life which are by no means'
enviable, we should do all that is in our power,"

168 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

if we do reach an advanced age, that it may
not be accompanied with hopeless decrepitude.
That we can all guard against every accident,
and altogether prevent ourselves from being a
burthen on our friends in infirmity and age,
would be to assert what is daily contradicted
by fact ; but that very much of the incapabili-
ties of age may be prevented by regulating
our miods and bodies by the laws of health is
an equally unquestionable fact. I believe that
wisdom and prudence will cut very short in-
deed the period of decrepitude, and that the
last stage of all

" Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,"

is a condition that will rarely occur, if we have
guarded our health both of mind and body
with proper care. We do occasionally see an
example of green old age, where soundness of
bodily constitution is accompanied with a mind
stored with knowledge of men and things, and
with all the advantages which long experience
can confer on an observant, a reflective, and
contemplative mind. Such a mind has long
been satisfied that in this state of existence
men must agree to differ; that the various

HEALTH AND DISEASR 169

faculties and feelings which in the aggregate
constitute the soul, exist in such different pro-
portions, that it is next to impossible that any
two should be able to agree on all things ; and
there is no one result of long life and experi-
ence more to be desired than the knowledge
that there are vast numbers who, though dis-
agreeing in present opinion, are all equally in
search of Truth. In such inquiries and con-
templations as must occupy all searchers after
Truth, in the boundless inquiry with our
limited human powers, there must be various
stages where the mind will be as it were in a
state of transition from one set of opinions to
another; for to assert that a wise man forms
his opinions in early life, and never changes
them, is to assert that the human mind is not
progressive in the acquisition of knowledge
and reflective power. The longest life is in-
sufficient to learn all that is known on any of
the advanced sciences ; and as most men have
occupations which necessarily employ much of
their time, there can be but few thoroughly
and completely informed even on one exten-
sive science. All who have devoted their mind

170 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

to inquiry, and have become authorities in any
literary or scientific department, will admit the
progressive nature of their knowledge, and that
their opinions at various stages of life have
been much modified, if not entirely changed
In all minds there must have been transitional
states resulting from different degrees of know,
ledge, and therefore what may have been our
opinions in former days, will differ materially
from those which, in a more advanced state of
our judgment, we have adopted.

Surely this should teach us that, however
opposite may be the opinions of men, that
they should live in harmony, seeing that no
two minds can be of the same shape, or ex-
actly in the same condition ; therefore as it is
impossible they can think exactly alike, they
should agree to differ, and to be charitable one
to another, as being all on their travel to the
land of Truth ; but having different instru-
ments and different powers, they must all be
at different stages of the same journey.

It would appear that at all times within the
range of authentic history, the duration of life
has not materially differed from what it is at

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 171

present. In all times, and in most countries,
at least in Europe, an individual has occasion-
ally outlived a century. Great Britain, Swe-
den, and Denmark, can boast of the largest
ratio of centenarians ; and a moderately cold,
together with a moist climate, seems to be
fitvorable to longevity. There exists a record
of the ages of old people, which, if authentic,
would shew that the numbers of those who
exceeded 100 years, was in somewhat larger
proportion than at present. In the reign of
Vespasian, the 77th year of our era, a census
was taken of the inhabitants of Italy. In that
part of the country which lies between the
Apennines and the River Po, the record gives
the number of 124 who had attained the age
of 100 years and upwards : there were 54 of
100, 57 of 110, 2 of 125, 4 of 130, and 7 from
135 to 140. In all probability the whole of
Italy would not now produce so many old
people* There is no doubt that the climate
was much colder in the time of the old Ro-
mans, and this may have been the principal
cause of their greater longevity.
Exclusive residence in large cities is opposed

172 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

to longevity, more especially when they are
closely built, badly ventilated and drained, and
lying in low alluvial soil, hardly raised above
the bed of a neighbouring river. But in those
parts of a great city which are well drained,
and where many open spaces exist for free
ventilation, people live to as great age as in
the country, if they attend to dietetics and are
moderate in all things. The great mortality of
cities more especially applies to children, who
labour under great disadvantages, requiring as
they do better provision for air and exercise
than adults; it is almost impossible they can
have in large towns as much as is desirable ; but
adults of sound constitution, where sanitary
laws are publicly and privately carried out,
may live as long in a great city as in a country
district. In the London workhouses there
have been some very old people. I remember
a woman upwards of 106 in St. Margaret's
workhouse, and among the catalogue of cen-
tenarians given in the subsequent pages, will be
found many inhabitants of towns.

The Bills of Mortality are fallacious in regard
to the number of deaths in large towns, and

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 173

especially capital cities, to which invalids from
all parts resort, for the sake of medical advice :
this and other circumstances, will increase the
number of deaths in the city, and to the same
extent diminish those of the country. To these
may be added the large number of immigrants
of large cities, who kill themselves by intem-
perance and the seductive pleasures of such
places; as well as those who destroy them-
selves by hard work, and the anxieties of the
adventurous life they have selected. If the
number of the deaths in cities be analysed, we
shall find there is an undue proportion of chil-
dren under five years, who are cut off prema-
turely by neglect, ignorance, mismanagement,
want of good air, and other disadvantages
which are so destructive to young children in
close and confined places. To arrive at just
conclusions, we must not calculate the differ-
ence in the total number of deaths : for ex-
ample, the present average is, in London, 1 in
40 ; in all England, 1 in 45 ; in Northumber-
land, 1 in 72. We should first compare the
numbers who die before the age of five and
after that age.

174 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

In Liverpool one-half of those born die be-
fore they reach the age of five; in Manchester
and in Birmingham, nearly as many; in Lon-
don, one-half live to the age of 20. We
must also remember that, in all such places
as Northumberland, the most adventurous, and
therefore those most likely to die early, emi-
grate and swell the deaths of large towns;
while the passive, easy, and contented souls
continue to vegetate in their country districts,
and thus diminish the statistical numbers of
local deaths, without proving a greater degree
of longevity.

In the Metropolis 893 out of 1,000 die be-
fore the age of 70; in the year 1839 the num-
ber of deaths above 70 was 107. In Liverpool
the proportion was 947 to 1,000, and the
number of deaths above 70 was only 53;
while in Cumberland and Westmoreland, only
797 died before 70, and 203 after that age. In
Liverpool, 53 ; in Westmoreland, 203, lived be-
yond 70; these are the extremes of health and
disease, according to the Registrar-General's
report for 1840. In London, during the same
year, 107 lived beyond 70. These facts illus-

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 175

trate the power we possess on health and on
disease, and the extension of sanatory mea-
sures to our towns has already much increased
the value of human life.

It is very questionable whether a purely
natural life, as that of a shepherd, is the most
conducive to longevity, and whether some ad-
mixture of art does not promote long life. In
all civilised countries the life of man must be
artificial, and if art be properly applied to the
promotion of health, we may gain more by the
wise application of experience to the welfare
both of mind and body in a large city, than is
afforded by the chances of longevity in a
country district, unless it be among the most
favoured. The real truth is that long life,
under all circumstances, depends on the mode-
ration with which we indulge our appetites
and passions; and whether we live in town
or country, we cannot enjoy health unless
we live in a simple and rational manner with
regard to diet and regimen.

Long life appears to depend as much on the
mind as on the body. In most instances of
longevity, we find well-balanced minds and

176 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

moderate passions added to sound bodily con-
stitutions, and many of the wisest of men
have been the longest livers. Wisdom must,
as a general rule, be productive of length of
days, because it will lead us to live the kind
of life most congenial with health of body, and
a truly healthy mind can hardly be concomi-
tant with a valetudinarian existence. Common
sense is often an inheritance, and but another
name for wisdom; and among the healthiest
of uneducated people, the majority will be
found to be so gifted. Among the circum-
stances favourable to longevity, we may enu-
merate — equanimity of mind, moderate pas-
sions, simplicity of taste for the pleasures, both
of body and of mind, leading to the enjoyment
of the gjfts of Nature, rather that the excite-
ments of art. Regularity and order in all our
proceedings, mental and bodily, is very neces-
sary to health and longevity. A due amount
of sleep, a due amount of food taken at regular
times, a due amount of exercise to regulate
our secretions and excretions, without which
neither our lungs nor our skin can be subser-
vient to sound health, nor can the absorption

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 177

of worn-out materials, their combination with
oxygen, and expulsion from the system go on
with due effect without a certain amount of
muscular contractions. Regular mental opera*
tions are equally necessary; every mind should
have some special pursuit, some resource as
an object of inquiry and of reflection Nature
has endowed us with a special faculty for
looking into the ftiture, which is all-sufficient
for this purpose, because, if exercised, it must
lead to inquiry sufficient to occupy all our
vacant hours. What is the nature of our being
and our spirit? What is our mind; whence
its origin; whither its destination, its powers,
its desires, its hopes, its apprehensions ? What
the purpose of our existence, and the ^true
way of employing it? If we occupy our mind
in such investigations, restrain our appetites
and passions, look upon the events of life with
equanimity, and take ordinary care with re-
gard to dietetics, we may almost ensure health
and longevity.

All extremes are unfavourable to longevity;
great powers of mind or body, great positions
in rank, wealth, or science, do not supply a

178 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

greater average of length of years than their
opposites of mental weakness and great po-
verty. Mediocrity appears more favourable,
whether of condition, climate, temperament,
or general constitution. Qreat natural gifts,
either of mind or of person, even great strength
of constitution and vigorous bodily powers
may be impediments to the prolongation of
life, by leading their possessors to employ their
faculties with such intensity as to wear them
out rapidly. May not this be the cause of
the comparatively early death of poets, and
especially those in whom imagination has been
the most ardent.

Climate, air, and exercise, are most import*
ant elements towards longevity. In the first
half of life we can hardly take too much exer-
cise; while, in the latter half? it is much less
necessary to our well-being. Idleness is un-
favourable to longevity; a regular and not
disagreeable occupation, which obliges us to
spend some hours daily in business of some
kind, on the other hand, is favourable. Peace
of mind, cheerfulness, and consistency in our
views of life are very desirable, and these will

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 179

materially depend on the opinions we hold on
the objects and duties of life. Is life a per-
petual struggle, a vale of woe, a place of dis-
appointment and trial? Should it not be
looked upon as a condition for continued hope
and continual mental development, by reflec-
tion on our own thoughts and those of others.
Surely the gift of life should of itself be re-
garded as the greatest of blessings, that the
gift is coupled with the means of great enjoy-
ment — that, in fact, enjoyment is the rule, dis->
appointment and vexation the exceptions,
and most frequently the result of our own
want of judgment. Evil appears necessary to
induce us to reflect on our present condition
as one, not of unmixed happiness, but rather
a transitional state — an educational prepara-
tory stage to some more advanced condition
of existence. Our present life must have con-
stant reference to a future. To attain lon-
gevity, and to enjoy it, we must not be afraid
of calamity; we must habituate ourselves to
contemplate death itself as an event which
must occur in the ordinary course of things.
The love of life is not inconsistent with a con-

180 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

stant view of the possibility of death Fear is
said to be a base passion, beneath the dignity
of man. There is nothing of which a wise
and consistent man need be afraid, death itself
being looked upon as a mere change — a neces-
sary passage from one condition to another,
under the laws of a Being of perfect goodness
and justice. Were we consistent in our belief
of the Supreme — had we such perfect reliance
on the absolute wisdom and benevolence of
His government, as a proper and attainable
knowledge would give us, we should hardly
know what fear was; for, however apparently
malevolent was our fortune in this world,
however untoward our circumstances, how-
ever lamentable the separation of our dearest
attachments, however lonely and desolate we
may be left by the death of those who, for a
series of years, may have made existence one
continuous enjoyment; be our calamities
what they may, if our faith be stedfast, we
must conclude that our suffering can be on]y
temporary, and in comparison with the fu-
ture, a mere point in time unworthy of the
sacrifice of our equanimity.

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 181

Mental anxiety, inordinate ambition, dis-
appointments, are all causes of early death;
but all are dependent on ill-developed and
ill-directed mental powers — the want of spiri-
tual discipline, placing too high a value on
temporal things; the non-tutoring of the mind,
to meet the evils inseparable from the very
purposes of our temporary existence on the
earth. The whole of life may be considered as
a series of experiences for the tuition of our
intellectual and moral powers, more or less
progressive, as we employ our existence, more
or less, in a right direction, for the health and
welfare of our souls as well as our bodies.

Although experience shews that persons ot
all conditions of life, and of great variety of
habit, attain old age, yet there are circum-
stances which promote longevity, and some
general conclusions may be arrived at. Cli-
mate is a very important element. Although
many instances may be adduced in hot lati-
tudes, they are few compared with the num-
bers of long livers in colder climates ; and, in
most instances, although the situation may be
tropical, the land is high and mountainous, as

182 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

in Jamaica and Peru, where the inhabitants
live to very great age. There are more very
old people in Scotland than in England Nor-
way and Sweden afford numerous examples;
but Russia in the present day exhibit^ a longer
list of centenarians than any other country.
May not the spare diet of these northern and
poor countries have something to do with lon-
gevity? It is also a question, whether the
records of the great age of many in our own
country during former years, and those in the
Russian empire at the present, may not be
fabulous. Since the establishment of the Re-
gistrar-General's Office, during six years, 1839
to 1844, I find 689 deaths above the age of
100, of which only one exceeded 110.

Among the circumstances favourable to Ion*
gevity, we may consider the establishment of
a strong constitution first and foremost ; and
unless this is accomplished in youth and early
life, it is difficult afterwards, but nevertheless
it is not impossible ; and Cornaro is a remark-
able instance of success in re-establishing vigor*
ous health and long life, after seriously injuring
his constitution by irregularities and excesses

HEALTH AND DISEASE.: 183

carried beyond youth into middle life. Those
who desire the enjoyment of a vigorous old
agfe, should neglect none of the appliances of
health ; and it is, a great mistake to suppose
that attention to such rules deprives one of the
pleasures of society, rational indulgence of the
good things of life being perfectly consistent
with health and longevity. . To eat and drink
to repletion daily; a continuous uninterrupted
indulgence of a large dinner every day of the
week, is incompatible either with health or
long life ; those who cannot be every day mo-*
derate, should adopt the rule of an occasional
abstinence, one^or two spare days every week,
for moderation in eating and drinking is the
most essential element of health.

The most healthy old people have been early
risers. It is a good rul4 to get up as soon as
we are fairly awake, at a reasonable hour, say
six or seven o'clock, and habit soon enables us
to sleep pretty regularly up to the right time.
As soon as w$ are out of bed, some modifica-
tion of cold bathing should be adopted— a wet
towel or sponge rubbed all over the skin, Or a
large sponge of water squeezed over every part,

184 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

or a shower-bath, or complete immersion in
cold water, as may be most convenient, most
agreeable, or most useful according to experi-
ence, and most fitting according to the season
of the year. Some persons cannot use the cold-
bath in its more intense forms, when the milder
modification of a wet towel will be more pro-
per, or the water may be made tepid. After
ablution, a quarter of an hour should be spent
in friction to eveiy part of the body, with
horse-hair band and gloves. This answers two
good purposes : it rubs away the worn out
superficies of the skin, and excites action and
warmth by the exercise. There is no one
circumstance which tends more to establish
soundness of the constitution than most mi-
nute attention to the cleanliness of the general
surface of the whole body ; every part of the
skin should be washed and rubbed daily, win-
ter and summer.

Every body ought to know that the secre-
tions of the skin, and the glands of the folds
of the skin, as the arm-pits,&c, excrete matters
which if not removed, become offensive and
injurious to health. There is every reason to

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 185

believe that the skin by these secretions is a
most important organ in depurating the blood
of worn-out matter, which, if it remained in
the circulating fluid, would be destructive to
life itself; but by being allowed to remain on
the skin, or in its folds, is injurious not only
to the skin but to the general health. A man
may be guilty of many things inimical to per-
fect health if he will take great care of his
skin by frequent changes of linen, ablution,
and friction; much irregularity, overfeeding,
and the ill effects of too much wine, are in a-
great degree counteracted by cold bathing.
Persons who are really too delicate for a cold
bath, or cold water in any form, must use
warm baths or tepid water ; and many very
delicate people will find their health vastly
improved by daily ablution with tepid water,
succeeded by friction with coarse flannel or
linen gloves, if the horse-hair are too rough.
Persons who do not use daily ablutions should
at least take a warm bath once or twice a-
week; to maintain the purity of the whole of
the skin, oovered or uncovered, ought to be as
positive a duty as to wear clean linen; we

186 HEALTH AND DI&EASE.

owe the one, as well as the other, as a claim
of society, and a maintenance of the decen-
cies of life. Now that warm baths can be
had for a few pence,, there can be no excuse
for any person whatever going about the
world with an unpurified skin.

Among the more important circumstances
conducive to longevity may be reckoned regu-
larity in the intestinal function ; the healthy
action of the bowels should be natural,
habitual, and not dependent on medicine.
The frequent repetition of purgative medi-
cine is a very pernicious custom, and engen-
ders disease in those organs, which is very
frequently the indirect cause of frequent ill-
ness and early death. It is no uncommon
thing to meet with cases of obstruction in the
bowels attended with great local pain, which
is sometimes referred to inflammation, of
which no trace is found after death. In some
of these cases the only appearance of disease
that can be discovered, is a distended state of
the bowel, which has been imputed to para*
lysis of the muscular coat, induced by the
practice of taking frequent purgatives; for it

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 187

is usually found in such bases that the patient
had been in the habit of taking antibilkms
or other aperients, two, three, and four tunes
every week. Some persons think that if they
clear away superfluities of food by frequent
purging, they may continue to indulge in the
habit of feeding largely; this is a very perni-
cious doctrine, and an additional reason for
moderate eating should be, to avoid the neces-
sity of taking aperient medicine, the* constant
repetition of which induces torpor and in-
activity of the bowels, aid ultimately in many
cases total parfelyBis of th£ muscular coat.

Of 145 persons recorded to have died at
the age of 120 years and upwards, more than
half were inhabitants of Great Britain ; 63 in
England and Wales, 23 in Scotland, and 29 in
Ireland. The majority of centenarians are of
middle stature, or rather below ; but we have
a record of James McDonald, of Cork, who
was 11 7, and measured 7ft. 6in. Mary Jones,
of Wem, Shropshire, died at 100; was only
2ft. 8in., very deformed and lame.

The Chinese erect triumphal or honorary
arches to those who exceed 100 years, con-

188 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

sidering it a proof of a sober, temperate, and
virtuous life. Temperance is the best security
for health ; the few instances of persons of
licentious habits who attain a great age are
mere exceptions in comparison with the mul-
titudes who are destroyed by them Dr. Fo-
thergill says, "The due regulation of the pas-
sions contribute more to health and longevity,
than any of the other points of regimen/'
More persons of cheerful and contented dis-
positions enjoy health and longevity than
those of irritable or fretful tempers. What-
ever promotes good humour and hilarity must
have a beneficial effect on health ; and it has
been observed that many eminent musicians
have attained to great age. Handel was 80.

The medical art among the Greeks was
somewhat different to our modern systems ;
the prevention of disease being as much or
more the object of its professors. Hippocrates
taught that the art of prolonging life was to
breathe pure and free air, frequent bathing,
and friction of the skin, and moderation in all
things. Plutarch says, " keep your head cool
and your feet warm; instead of taking medi-

Stealth and disease. 189

cine for every ailment, fast a day, and while
attending to the body neglect not the mind."
Health, among the Greeks, appears to have
been studied, while among modern physicians
diseases and their remedies have been more
especially attended to. The art of medicine
among the Greeks, consisting of the appliances
of diet, bathing, and regimen rather than of
drugs : they studied and taught in the open
air, we shut ourselves up in closets until the
feeling of any air, but of the mildest character,
becomes unpleasant to us, and then complain
of the just consequences of our unnatural
habits. Those who stir out only in fine wea-
ther, must be more or less invalids : frequent
changes from art to nature are necessary to
maintain the true harmony of our powers both
of mind and body. Just and true thinking, as
well as bodily health, will be promoted by
country excursions ; frequent views of Nature
will modify those theories and visions which
mystify the minds of eternal dweUers in towns.
The Greek philosophers probably owed much
of the clearness of thought, appositeness in
their logic, and force in their reasonings, to

190 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

their more open air life, their attention to the
vigour, both of mind and body, by regimen
and exercise, and possibly in some degree to
the contemplative habits induced by their inti-
macy with the scenes of wild Nature which
their magnificent country afforded.

A philosophical mind, interested in the study
of Nature and the search after truth, besides
affording the purest of human enjoyments, ap-
pears to have a tendency to promote longevity ;
Plato was 81, Newton 85, Kant 80, Halley 86,
Galileo 78, Buffon 8 1 , Herschell 84, Franklin 84,
Morgagni 89, Hans Sloane 93. The majority
of great poets have died at a comparatively
early age, Tasso was 51, Virgil 52, Shakspeare
62, Dante 56, Ovid and Horace 57. Milton
lived to be 66, and Dryden 70. Of great
modern poets the most imaginative have died
young — Keats, Burns, Chatterton, Byron, &c,
while some who have combined philosophy
with literature, have reached longevity: —
Goethe was 82, Voltaire 85, Corneille 78,
Young 80, Wordsworth 80, Fontenelle 100.
Some celebrated painters have reached a great
age—Claude 82, West 82, M. Angelo 96, Titian

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 191

96. Kings and emperors have not furnished
many instances of very great age — Augustus
lived to 76 ; he was moderate in sensual en-
joyments, simple and abstemious in his habits,
taking little wine, although fond of society.
He is said to have thus expressed himself
shortly before his death: — "Applaud, my
friends, the farce is ended." During a severe
illness, cold bathing was employed as a re-
medy, and this practice being continued with
a beneficial change in his mode of living con-
tributed to his advanced age.

Tiberius died at 78 ; although of a brutal tem-
per, and a voluptuary, he was not inattentive
to health. Augustus called him, " Vvr lentis
MaxiMs" because he was slow in eating, and
probably also, alluding to his indifference as
regards the mere pleasure of eating. Tiberius
used to say, that a man was a fool who, after
the age of 30, consulted physicians on diete-
tics, because all who were not fools would be-
fore that time have discovered what agreed
and what disagreed with them.

Frederick the Great lived to the age of 76,
although much exposed to danger, fatigue, and

192 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

anxiety; but he was moderate in the enjoy-
ments of the table, possessed of great equani-
mity, and of a philosophic mind, undisturbed
by reverses, destitute of all fear, and very
liberal in his opinions. He paid some atten-
tion to the laws of health, and is reported to
have said, "When I consider the physical
structure of man, it would appear that nature
had formed us rather to be postillions than
sedentary men of letters. " His magnanimity
was greater than has been often evinced by
monarchs. On one occasion, riding through
Berlin, he saw a crowd reading something
against a wall. " What is it ?" said the king.
One of his attendants replied, " It is a libel on
your majesty/' " Have it placed lower/' said
the king, " that the people may read it more
easily/' George III., of England, was one of
the greatest examples of longevity among
monarchs; and all the world knows the sim-
plicity of his habits of living and his practice
of taking much exercise in the open air. Of
the Roman and German emperors, in number
above 200, only four reached the age of 80.
In the Library of the College of Surgeons,

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 193

London, there is a very curious record of
cases of longevity, in a volume compiled by
Mr. Easton, of Salisbury. It consists of a
catalogue of 1712 persons who attained a cen-
tury and upwards : for some of the cases he
gives his authority, and we may admit a large
number as authentic. Old Parr and H. Jen-
kins are well-known cases of long-life; but
Mr. Easton gives many others of 130 to 150
and upwards. We have also records up to
the present time in the Russian empire, of
several deaths annually from 130 to 160 years.
Probably in all these instances we must allow
something for exaggeration and the love of
the marvellous. In the authentic records of
our Registrar-General, I find but one instance
of death exceeding 110, and those from 100
to 110 vary from about 120 to 140 annually.
However, I must admit that there is authority
for more cases of very old age than I had be-
lieved before I looked into the subject ; and
I think we are warranted in upholding the
opinion of Hufeland, in the last century, that
human life is capable of extension beyond its
supposed and ordinary duration by attention

194 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

to the laws of health. Hufeland places the
period of our possible existence at 200 years.

This volume on longevity by Mr. Easton is
continued in manuscript by Dr. A. P. Buchan,
physician to the Westminster Hospital, a man
whose memory will be respected by all who
knew him. Long before clinical lectures
formed a part of medical education, I have
heard from him observations on the diagnosis
and treatment of disease, that would have
done him credit even at the present time.
He was the son of the author of Buchan's
" Domestic Medicine/' For the following se-
lection of cases of longevity up to the year
1799, my authority is Mr. Easton ; after that
date it is that of Dr. Buchan, who generally
gives the name of the journal or person from
whom he obtained his information. After
1838 we have the authentic documents of the
Registrar-General for our authority.

Up to the year 1760, Mr. Easton records
380 persons who lived from 100 to 110 years ;
48 from 110 to 120; 43 from 120 to 130; 13
from 130 to 140 ; 9 upwards of 1 40. The fol-
lowing are some of the more remarkable : —

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 195

A.D. 95. — Appolonius, of Tyana, died at the
age of 130. He was a Pythagorean philo-
sopher. At 16 he adopted very strict rules,
renouncing wine, and all sorts of flesh. He
lived in the temple of Escalapius, and is said
to have performed many miraculous cures,
which were instanced by the Pagans as equal
to those of our Saviour.

A.D. 491, — St. Patrick, the first Irish bishop,
died at the age of 1 22.

A.D. 500. — Attila, King of the Huns, is said at
the age of 124 to have married for his second
wife one of the most beautiful princesses of
Europe. About the same time died at the
age of 150, Lywarch -Hen, a Welsh bard, a
contemporary of King Arthur. He had 24
sons killed in resisting the Saxons. An Elegy
on Old Age, and his sons' deaths, is said to be
still remaining.

In 1612 died the Countess of Desmond, aged
145. On the ruin of the house of Desmond,
she was obliged, at the great age of 140, to
travel from Bristol to London to solicit aid
from the Court, being reduced to poverty.
Lord Bacon says, she renewed her teeth two

196 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

or three times, and retained her vigour to the
last. There is a portrait of her in Windsor
Castle.

Cornaro is a remarkable instance of what
can be effected by a persevering regimen. He
lived to the age of 98, after having, by a dis-
sipated youth, brought himself at the age of
40 to such a state of health that his life was
despaired of He had long been under medi-
cal treatment, when he resolved to relinquish
the use of medicine altogether, and put him-
self under a rigid system of spare diet He
limited himself to 12ozs. solid food, and 14ozs.
of fluid daily ; his health began to improve,
and under this regimen, in a few years, his
vigour was entirely restored. He avoided all
extremes of heat and cold ; entirely repudi-
ated all passion and excitement; preserved
his equanimity of mind under all circum-
stances ; even a tedious law-suit, which killed
two of his brothers by anxiety and vexation.
At an advanced age he was thrown out of a
carriage, dislocated his arm and one of his
ancles, and imputes his recovery to the pure
condition of his blood from the simplicity of

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 197

his diet. At the age of 80 he was persuaded
to increase his food to 14ozs., and his drink
to 16ozs., but it did not agree with him, and
he returned to his old habits. At 83, he boasts
that he can mount his horse without assist-
ance. He had eleven grand-children, in whose
amusement he took great delight.

1635. — The most celebrated case of English
longevity was Thomas Parr, who lived to the
age of 152 years and 9 months. He was a
farmer's labourer; at the age of 120 married
a widow, and performed all his usual work
till he was 130. In 1635, he was brought
to London at the desire of Charles I., but the
great indulgences he received at Court pro-
bably shortened his life. He died in London.
His body was examined by the celebrated
Dr. Harvey, who found no organic disease.
Parr had a grandson who lived to 120.

1648. — Thomas Damme, 154. His age is re-
corded on a gravestone in Chester church-yard
and in the registry.

1650. — Mr. Hastings, 100 ; a great sports-
man, and rode to the death of a stag when 90.
In Ware church-yard is a tombstone to the

198 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

memory of Dr. William Mead, aged 148 years
and 9 months.

1670. — Henry Jenkins; remembered the
battle of Flodden Field in 1513, and is said
to have appeared as a witness in the Court of
Chancery 140 years before his death, which
occurred in his 169th year.

1691.— Mrs. Ecleston, 143. Philipstown,
King's County, Ireland.

1706. — John Bayles, 126, of Northampton*

1711. — Jane Scrimshaw, 127. Born at Bow.
Died in Rosemary Lane workhouse.

17H._William Edic, 120, bellman, Canon-
gate, Edinburgh : married his second wife
after 100.

1732. — William Leland, 140, of Lisneshea,
Ireland; was never sick, or lost the use of
any of his faculties till the hour of his death.

1733.— William Harding, 112 ; fought at the
battle of Edgehill. Married twice after he
was 100. Served under King William and
Marlborough, and died in Chelsea Hospital
The Duke of Richmond and Sir Robert Wal-
pole allowed him a crown a- week besides his
pension.

health: and disease. 199

1734 — John Rousey, Esq., 138, Distrey, in
Scotland He was 100 years old when his
son was born, who inherited the estate.

1734. — John Burnett, 109. Married six
times ; thrice after 100, and died in the same
house in which he was born.

1738. — Margaret Patten, 137, St. Margaret's
Workhouse. Always enjoyed good health till
a few days before death. For many years she
chiefly subsisted on milk.

1741. — John Rovin, 172 ; his wife, 164 :
Temeswar, in Hungary. Both died in the
same year, the 148th of their marriage. Their
youngest son was 116.

1743.— William Kellock, 111, Sangwhar,
N.B., one of the town officers for 95 years ;
enjoyed all his senses, and never wore spec-
tacles.

1744. — Adam Turnbull, Newcastle, 112 ;
able to walk twelve miles a-day until three
years before his death.

1752.— D. McCarthy, 111, Kerry. At 84
married his fifth wife, who had twenty chil-
dren ; he was very healthy, never observed to
spit; no degree of cold affected him. When

200 HEALTH AOT DISEASE.

in company drank plenty of rum and brandy,
and claret and punch when required.

1753. — Mary Jenkins, 110, Cloth- workers'
Alms-houses, London ; never had any illness,
and died suddenly.

1754— Judith Banister, 108, Isle of Wight ;
lived for last sixty years on biscuit, apples,
milk and water.

1757. — Fontenelle lived to the age of 100,
although he was so weak at birth that his life
was despaired o£ He had no violent disorder,
or any of the maladies of age, till past 90, after
which he was rather deaf and his sight some-
what impaired. The tranquil ease of his temper
is thought to have extended his life.

1761.— Charles Cotterel, 120; his wife 115.
They were married 98 years, in great union and
harmony, and died within four days of each
other.

1761. — F. Atkinson, 104, porter at Palace-
gate, Salisbury, in the time of Bishop Burnet.
He wound up the clock at the top of the Pa-
lace every night till within a year of his death.
In ascending the stairs he usually halted half-
way to say his prayers. He maintained his

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 201

good health by regular living and exercise ;
walked well and uprightly to the last.

1762. — Eady Haddam, 114, an inhabitant of
St. Christopher's Workhouse, London, for 50
years.

] 762. — Rob. Oglebie, 1 15, a travelling tinker.
Could see to work a short time before death ;
his wife was 103 ; they had been married 73
years, and had twelve sons and thirteen
daughters.

1762.— Mrs. Esh, 100, Eynes, Burton, York;
a few-days before her death had prepared every-
thing for her own funeral.

1762. — Rev. Peter Alley, 111, Dunamoni,
Ireland, of which he was Vicar 73 years. He
performed the duty until a few days before his
death ; he was twice married, and had thirty-
three children.

1762. — This year there were in the diocese
of Aggerhaus, in Norway, 150 married couples
who had lived together 80 years ; 70 married
couples who had lived together 90 years ; 12
from 100 to 105 years ; and 1 of 110.

1763.— Elizabeth Taylor, Piccadilly, 131.

1763. — George Kirton, Esq., 125, Oxnop-

202 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Hall, York ; was a great fox-hunter till he was
80 ; from that age to 100 was always taken to
the unkennelling of the fox in a wheel-chair,
and drank wine freely until ten years before
his death.

1763.— Robert Maber, 100, Frampton, Dor-
set. An estate had been held on his life from
1663.

1765. — Janet Anderson, 102. Her life was
regular and moderate ; she was remarkably
active, and continued to work at spinning to a
short time before her death. Her faculties
were strong to the last.

1765. — Elizabeth Macpherson, 117, Caith-
ness. Her diet was chiefly buttermilk and
greens. She retained her senses until three
months before death.

1765. — Mr. Dobson, 139, former. By much
exercise and temperate living, he preserved the
inestimable blessing of health : ninety-one chiL*
dren and grand-children attended his funeral

1767. — There died this year, in Great Britain
and Ireland, 59 persons from 100 to 110 ; 10
from 110 to 120 ; 3 of 130 to 134.

1768. — The numbers this year were, — 46

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 203

from 100 to HO; 8 from 110 to 120; 2 of
120; 1 of 130; 1 of 150.

1768. — Francis Confit, Burythorpe, near
Malton, 150; took much exercise and was very
temperate ; very fond of a raw new-laid egg ;
for the last 60 years of his life he received
parish support.

1769.— 25 from 100 to 110; 2 from 110 to
120 ; 8 from 120 to 130 ; 2 above 130.

1769.— Mr. Butler, 133, Golden Vale, Kil-
kenny. He was related to the Duke of Or-
mond ; could walk well and mount his horse
until near death.

1770.— 32 from 100 to 110 ; 3 from 110 to
120; 2 from 120 to 130.

1771.— 38 from 100 to 110; 3 from 110 to
120; 8 from 120 to 130.

1772.— 38 from 100 to 1 10 ; 15 from 110 to
120 ; 4 from 120 to 130 ; 2 above.

1772. — Christian VI., King of Denmark,
with his Queen, this year visited Norway,
and resided with Colonel Colbiornson, at Fri-
dershalL They were amused by a jubilee-
wedding of four married couples of 100 years
each. The women danced with green wreaths

204 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

on their heads, the custom of brides in Nor-
way.

1774 to 1777. — In these four years there
died in the United Kingdom 78 persons from
100 to 110; 12 from 110 to 120; 9 from 120
to 130 ; 7 from 130 to 140.

1777. — Mrs. Jones, Cambridge Workhouse,
125. She enjoyed her health and senses to the
last.

1777. — Mr. Moral, 136, was a surgeon, at
Dumfries.

In the next ten years, from 1778 to 1788,
died 296 from the age of 100 to 110 ; 72 from
110 to 120 ; 12 from 120 to 130 ; 7 above 130.

Jane Davis, 113, a maiden lady of Hack-
ney, who had enjoyed some post under Queen
Anna

Mary Rogers, 118, Penzance ; lived the last
60 years on vegetables.

Margaret Scott, 125, a maiden 25 years,
a wife 50, and a widow 50.

Fluellen Pryce, 101 ; was director of the
village choir until three years of his death;
had a great flow of spirits, sound health, and
great activity ; his living abstemious, herb tea

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 205

for breakfast, meat plainly drest for dinner,
and, instead of supper, a pipe of tobacco.

William Ellis, 131, Liverpool, shoemaker;
was a seaman in the reign of Queen Anne,
and a soldier in that of George I.

Henry Grosvenor, Wexford, surveyor, 115.
By a very sparing diet and much exercise,
preserved what the French call the youth of
old age, being an agreeable and cheerful
companion at 100, when he married his last
wife.

Susan Edmonds, 104, Hants. Five years
before death she had new hair of a fine brown
colour, which began to turn grey four months
before her decease.

Mr. Evans, 139, Spitalfields, retained his
senses to the last; was seven years old when
King Charles was beheaded.

Janet Taylor, Finlay, N.B., 116; was bap-
tized in the fields during the troubles in the
reign of Charles II.

1786. — Magnus Reid, 114, Dunbar. When
80 years old, commenced the business of a tra-
velling chapman, which he continued till eight
weeks before his death.

208 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

London, to see Mrs. Siddons, and attended her
performances nine times. This old lady was
equally active in mind and body. One morn-
ing, during her last visit to London, after sit-
ting for her portrait, she mounted to the
whispering-gallery at St. Paul'a She was re-
markable for regularity and moderation, and
lived for the last 30 years chiefly on potatoes.

1790. — Samuel Fidler, 105, Buxton; walked
daily five miles, till within three days of his
death. He was attendant on St. Anne's Well,
Buxton, and was supported by the company
who resorted there to drink the waters.

1790. — Mary Foley Rothreigh, Ireland, 117.
Her descendants at her death were, 6 children,
94 grand-children, 258 great-grand-children,
and 27 great-great-grand-children.

1790. — Valentine Cateby, 116; went to sea
at 18, was a sailor 36 years, then a farmer.
His diet the last 20 years was milk and bis-
cuit. His intellect was perfect until two days
before his death.

1790. — John Wilson, 116. His supper, for
40 years, was roasted turnips.

1790. — James Pearce, 105, was servant to

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 209

farmer Pope, of Beaminster, Dorset. He walked
to market three or four times a week shortly
before his death. On the farm was a goose 86
years old, having outlived four successive
tenants.

Mary Melvil, 117, Fife, renewed her teeth
at 100, never had an hour's illness, and
could see and hear well to the hour of her
death.

Alexander Macintosh, 112, Dunkeld ; lived
the last ten years on vegetables, and enjoyed
good health till two days before his death.

Thomas Edgar, 108; read many years
with spectacles; twenty years before death
he so far recovered his sight as to read small
print without them.

Mr. Froom, 125, gardener to the Hon.
J. S. Bury Holmes Chapel, Chester, who, in
consideration of his great age, left him i?50
a year. He enjoyed great health until two
years before his death. Left a son 90.

Mary Cameron, 128, Inverness. Retained
her senses to the last. Remembered the
rejoicings for the restoration of Charles II.
Her house was an asylum for the exiled Epis-

210 HEALTH ATO DISEASE.

copalians of the revolution, and for the pro-
scribed gentlemen of 1715 and 1745. On
hearing that the forfeited estates were to be
restored, she said, " Let me now die in peace \
I want to see no more in this world."

Mary McDonnell, 118, Down; was born
in Skye, which she left in 1688. The day
before her death she walked to Moira, 14
miles. In 1783, reaped a ridge of corn, and
was strong, healthy, and active.

John Maxwell, 132, Eiswick; walked ten
miles a few days before his death, and en-
joyed through life exceeding good health and
spirits. He left nine children, the youngest 60.

In 1785, died Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop
of Seville, aged 110. He used to say, "By
being old when young, I find myself young now,
when old." He led a sober, studious, but not
a lazy or sedentary life. His diet was sparing
though delicate, his drink the best of Xeres
and La Mancha wines, of which he never ex-
ceeded a pint, except in very cold weather.
He rode or walked daily for two hours. He
endeavoured to keep his mind in due temper
by obedience to the divine commands, and

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 211

consequently was void of offence to God or
man. "Glorious old age," said the king,
"would to- heaven he had appointed a suc-
cessor, for the people of Seville have been so
long used to excellence, they will not be satis-
fied with the best prelate I can send them."

Jean Jacob, 128, a celebrated patriarch
of Mount Jura. In 1789 he was a deputy
to the National Assembly of France, at the
age of 127; he was led into the hall by his
daughter, and seated opposite to the Presi-
dent. On entering, all the members stood up,
and he was desired to sit covered, which he
did, having the national cockade in his hat.
The king granted him a pension. Thus he
was a spectator of a part of the reign of Louis
XIV., of the whole of that of Louis XV., and
the greater part of that of Louis XVI.

Mary Lacy, 102, Horsferry-road, Westmin-
ster. She died in the same house in which
she was born, and in the full possession of
her faculties.

Archibald Cameron, 122, Keith ; died with-
out a pain, a groan, or any previous sick-
ness. He was domestic piper to seven lairds

212 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

in ninety-four years, but his fingers failing, he
was allowed a small pension.

Jonathan Hartop, 138, Aldbrough, York ;
was very short in stature, as most centena-
rians are. He was married five times, and
left behind 7 children, 26 grand-children, 74
great grand-children, 140 great-great-grand-
cliildren. He could read to the last without
spectacles, and played at cribbage with perfect
recollection. At Christmas, 1789, he walked
nine miles to dine with one of his grandchil-
dren. He remembered Charles II. He ate
but little, and only drank milk. He enjoyed
an uninterrupted flow of spirits. His third
wife was said to be an illegitimate daughter of
Oliver Cromwell. He possessed a portrait of
Oliver, for which he refused <£>300. Mr. H.
lent Milton «£50 ; an angry letter of the poet
was found among the possessions of the old
man.

Hugh Llewellyn, 115, celebrated for his per-
formances on the Welsh harp, which he was
enabled to continue till a fortnight of his
death.

Rachel Huddy, 100, Somerset. She was

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 213

blind for the last eleven years, but continued to
pursue her calling as a midwife notwithstand-
ing, and assisted at the birth of a child seven
weeks before her death.

Thomas Seville, 103 ; retained all his fiicul-
ties in a very remarkable degree ; had a full
set of teeth, not one unsound, Was a very
hearty and cheerful man.

Rebecca Povey, 106; was born Nov. 5, 1688,
the day King William landed. Her mother
was frightened at the noise of the guns, and
was put into a coach, where Rebecca was born.
She enjoyed uninterrupted health : cut two
teeth at 102, and kept her bed but three days
before her death.

Susan Mills, 102 ; lived in a lock-house on
the Bungay navigation, a most unwholesome
marshy situation, surrounded by floods all the
winter. Her husband was the manager of
locks to Sir J. Dalling's grandfather in 1715.

Charles Macklin, the actor, 100 or 107 ; was
very intemperate until the age of 40, keeping
late hours and drinking hard. He afterwards
lived by rules, which he scrupulously observed.
It was his custom to promote great perspira-

214 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

tion by violent exercise, and then to change his
linen. He became moderate, but not abstemi-
ous, and ate and drank as other people till he
was 70, when finding tea disagree with him
he substituted milk with bread boiled in it,
with a little sugar. In 1764 he lost all his
teeth, and lived on a spoon diet for the rest of
his life. His principal beverage was white
wine and water. In his very latter years' he
never took off his clothes unless to change
them. He ate when hungry, drank when
thirsty, and slept when sleepy.

John Weeks, 114. Married his tenth wife
at 106. His grey hair had fallen off, and waa
renewed by a dark head of hair, and several
new teeth had made their appearance.

The Rev. Bellingham, who had been curate
to Dean Swift, died in 1 798, aged 102.

J. Wilson, 100, Blackheath;. after .60 his
beverage was milk and water, with the excep-
tion of two glasses of ale and one of spirit.

In the "Philosophical Magazine," of Nov.
1803, is an account of a man then living at
Polack, in Livonia, who served under Gustavus
Adolphus, and was present at the battle of

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 215

Pultowa, when he was 86. Among the deaths
recorded in 1803, we find Mr. Dennis Crana-
bee, Ireland, 117; he retained all his faculties,
and until two days before his death, never
suffered pain or sickness except toothache.
Three weeks before his death he walked to
Gal way and back, twenty-six miles. He was
Beamed seven times ; the last at 93. He left
48 children, 236 grand-children, 944 great-
grand- children, and 25 great-great-grand-
children. His youngest son was 18.

1804.-r-John Boys, 101 ; never had any ill-
ness ; rose at six summer and winter ; nearly
abstained from fermented liquor of any kind.
All his teeth were perfect, and he could see
to read without spectacles.

1805;rt-Ffestiniog, North. Wales. "With
the woman one loves, with the friend of one's
heart, and a good library of books, one might
pass- an age in this vale and think it a day.
If you would enjoy health, come and take up
your abode here. We hatf e just witnessed the
death of a farmer aged 105, who haa left thirty
children by his first wife, ten by his second,
and four by his third. His youngest son was

216 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

81 years younger than his eldest, and 800 per-
sons descended from him attended his funeral"
— Letter of Lord Lyttleton.

From the Morning Post, Nov. 2nd, 1805 : —
" Mr. John Mirehouse, Loweswater, Cumber-
land, invited between thirty and forty friends
to an entertainment on account of having on
that day completed the 100th year of his aga
The veteran, who enjoys all his faculties, sight
excepted, and who is an intelligent man, has
possessed a strong and robust constitution
with a cheerful disposition. He received his
company seated in a new oak chair and a new
coat, that it might hereafter be said it was
first used when J. Mirehouse was 100/'

" The Hebrides boast of many instances of
longevity. The inhabitants of Southuish are
very healthy. A man lately died there aged
130, having retained all his faculties. The
island of Jura is esteemed the most wholesome
spot of ground belonging to Great Britain: no
epidemic was ever known there. Gout, rheu-
matism, consumption, &c, are rarely heard of,
and madness never. When Mr. Martin was
there, no woman had died in childbirth for 3a

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 217

years. Gillow Maccraw, who died about fifty
years ago, kept about 180 Christmas days in
his own house. A woman in Scort, just by,
lived 140 years, and to live 90 and 100 is not
rare/' — Chamberlain's State of Ghreat Britain.

1805. — At Laymore, near Balyman, Mr. Wm.
Simpson, 119 ; four days before his death he
was walking about the farm in his usual
health ; he was never sick an hour, and never
intoxicated but twice in his life.

Mr. Crick, Thurlow, Suffolk, 125 ; had been
85 years a schoolmaster. " This may, perhaps,
be considered an additional instance of a habi-
tual association with young people tending to
prolong life/' — Dr. Buchan.

Mrs. Miles, Jamaica, 118; followed to the
grave by 265 descendants ; practised as a mid-
wife for 95 years, and followed her business
until two days of her death.

1806. — John Tucker, fisherman, Itching, 131.
Followed his occupation until a few weeks of
his death.

Mrs. Twist, Birmingham, 104. Began to
use spectacles at the age of 50 ; after using
them 30 years she discontinued their use, find-

218 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

ing that she could read very small print with-
out them She retained every fitculty.

There is now living at Wakefield, York,
Samuel Spern, in the 109th year of his age ;
he lives entirely by himself; cultivates his
own garden, milks his cow, and makes his
butter, which he takes to Wakefield market
every week. He is in perfect health, and his
cottage is admired by the surrounding neigh-
bourhood for its neatness and cleanliness.

In the registry of deaths in the Russian
empire for 1806, there is one from 145 to 150;
one from 130 to 135 ; four from 130 to 135 ;
six from 120 to 125 ; thirty^two from 115 to
120 ; 102 from 105 to 115 ; 137 from lOO.to
105, and 1134 from 95 to 100.

Jamaica has produced many centenarians.
In 1807, died Joseph Rann, a negro, on Mor-
rice Hall estate, aged 140. . He remembered
the Duke of Albemarle, governor, in 1687.
He enjoyed great health ; his appetite was
always good, and he walked four miles a few
days before his death. On the 5 th Feb., 1809,
Mrs. Elizabeth Fletcher, aged 120, relict of the
late J. Fletcher, Esq. She retained all her

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 219

faculties ; a good appetite, perfect health, and
great flow of spirits to the period of her death.
She did all the duties of her domestic esta-
blishment until the last three years of her life.

1809.— Nov. 24. Now living in her 108th
year, Sarah Williams, in a neat cottage be-
tween Tavistock and Ledford. Within the
last few years she has cut five teeth, three of
which still remain with ten old ones. Her
diet consists principally of broths. Her eldest
son is 82, a strong, hale-loOking old man.

Mary Robertson, Aberfieldie ; became blind
at 63 by a gradual decay of sight, in her 78th
year she recovered sight enough to read with
glasses, and the following year it became so
strong that she threw her glasses aside till she
was 87, when it again failed. She retained all
her other faculties in undiminished vigour.

There were living at Stockholm, in 1809,
243 men and 364 women, from 100 to 110, and
22 men and 19 women from 110 to 120. One
man at 122 and one woman at 127 years of
of age. The deaths in Russia, 1809, were 294
from 100 to 110, 59 from 110 to 120, 13 from
120 to 130, 1 of 135, I of 145, 1 of 1 55 to 160.
Part of Peru is remarkable for longevity.

220 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

Caxamorea contains 70,000 inhabitants, and
among them were living eight persons of the
respective ages of 114, 117, 121, J 31, 132, 135,
141, 147.

October, 1814. — The oldest Jesuit in the
world is Father Albert de Montaine, in Peru-
gia ; he took his vows in 1724, and is now 126
years of age.

December 15, 1817, a Catholic priest in the
Cathedral of Adria, returned thanks for the
completion of his 110th year. He is without
infirmity, and chaunted the cathedral service
in a firm, manly, and dignified tone of voice.

In 1837, among the deaths in England and
Wales, there were 2,579 between the ages of
90 and 100 ; 105 between 100 and 110 ; of
those who reached 110, one was in Cornwall
and one in Kent.

In 1838, the total deaths were 331,007.
There were 2,498 between 90 and 100, 102
between 100 and 110, 1 of 115. There were 5
deaths of 100 years in the metropolitan districts.

In 1839, the total deaths were 359,604;
from 90 to 100, 2786 ; from 100 to 110, 121.

In 1840, the total deaths 358,624; from 90
to 100, 2876 ; from 100 to 110, 114.

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 221

In 1841-2, the total deaths were 343,847;
from 90 to 100, 2857; above 100, 110.

In 1843, total deaths, 349,157 ; from 90 to
100, 2965 ; above 100, 109.

In 1844, total deaths 356,950 ; from 90 to
100, 2,903 ; above 100, 137.

Among the deaths on record are two of 200
years, one of which is said to have occurred in
the parish of Shoreditch.

In some of the London workhouses there is
a fair average of very old people. In the West
London Union House, of 754 inmates there are
58 between 80 and 90, and 3 between 90 and
100. In 1851, among the deaths, there were
17 between 80 and 90, 3 between 90 and 100,
and 1 above 100. In Marylebone Workhouse
there are 9 men and 43 women between 80
and 90, 2 men and 3 women between 90 and
100, and one woman of 104. In the out-door
poor there are 128 between 80 and 90.

There were registered in 1832, in the Rus-
sian Empire, 4,440 deaths from 90 to 100 ; 722
from 100 to 110 ; 123 from 110 to 120 ; 41
from 120 to 130 ; 5 from 130 to 140; and 3
of 135, 140, 145.

In the United States of America, in 1840,

k

222 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

there were 5,738 deaths from 90 to 100, 2,507
males, S,231 females ; above 100, 791 ; 476
males, 315 females.

In the metropolitan districts, in 184*1, there
died between the ages of 90 and 100, 203
males, 418 females ; and above the age of 100,
7 males and 16 females.

Among the eminent persons who have died
daring the last three years at an advanced
period of life, we find the following: — The
Rev. W. L. Bowles, 89; Wordsworth, 80;
Rev. W. Kirby, 91; Sir M. A. Shee, 80;
Joanna Baillie, 89 ; Dr. Lingard, 82 ; Basil
Montague, 82 ; EL Luttrel, 86 ; Miss Agnes
Berry, 88; J. Landseer, 90; W. Scrope 81;
Miss M. Berry, 90; Dr. Lepsius, 84; J. Cot-
tle, 84 ; Duke of Wellington, 81.

I think I have given examples enough, pour
encov/rager le% .avtres, to shew to all who may
desire to attain long life, that it is to be done.
Attention to the laws of health, regularity,
moderation in all things, cheerfulness, due ex-
ertions, both of mind and body, that acquies-
cence with the position of life in which car-
cumstances have placed us, and making the
best of every event that may occur to us,

HEALTH AND DISEASE. 223

appear to be among the more important ele-
ments of longevity. There is no universal
rule by which long life is to be attained ; we
find among the examples of it persons of very
different habits and constitutions, who have
lived in various ways, some on vegetable
food, others on animal; some have been water
drinkers, others have indulged in wine and
beer during their whole lives, and occasionally
we find an instance of a great spirit drinker
attaining longevity. We have many examples
of great age in towns, and even in very un-
healthy districts; and I think there is one con-
clusion that may be distinctly drawn from our
examples, that the constitution must have been
originally very sound, or has been rendered so
at some period of life by long continuance of
circumstances tending to the establishment of
almost perfect health. Among our centena-
rians we find some who have lived a very
boisterous life in youth, and up to middle
life; some who have from their irregularities
brought on a very depraved condition of
health; but in all these instances there has
been induced in the constitution a great
change, by the voluntary or necessary adop

224 HEALTH AND DISEASE.

tion of a strict system of regimen for the
restoration of health; and the experience of
the comfort and happiness so induced has es-
tablished a regularity in living, the conti-
nuance of which has been conducive to long
life. Wherever there is no established organic
disease up to the age of 50 or 60; wherever
there is sufficient stamina left to be benefited
by regularity and system, it is not too late
to place the constitution in a condition for
attaining a long and vigorous age ; the point
being to lengthen out the period of middle
life, to continue into extreme old age that
equable condition of health of mind and body,
which, in some happy instances, we see con-
tinued to 80 and even 90 years without decre-
pitude. The art of longevity should be to
make that condition of green old age, con-
tinuous to the last, so that decrepitude and
death may be almost simultaneous.

THE END.

T. E. Metcalf, Printer, 68, Snow Hill, London.

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