THE
SOURCES OF HEALTH
AND
THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE;
OR,
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HYGIENE.
BY
JOHN A. TARBELL, M.D.
MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE HOM(EOPATHIC
NATIONAL INSTITUTE.
BOSTON:
OTIS CLAPP, 23, SCHOOL STREET.
NEW YORK: WM. RADDE.
1850.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by
OTIS CLAPP,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON,
No. 21, School-street.




CONTENTS.
CIHAPTER.                                       PAGE.
I. ON FOOD........  3
II. ON DRINK....                     36
III. ON AIR.........  64
IV. ON EXERCISE.......  80
V. ON BATHING..... 93
VI. ON CLOTHING....  104
VII. ON SLEEP........ 109
VIII. ON OCCUPATIONS.....           114
IX. ON DRUGS..... 122
X. ON MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.               136
XI. ON INVISIBLE INFLUENCES AFFECTING HEALTH. 144
XII. ON IIOMCEOPATHY....               152








PREFACE.
WHILE publications without number have issued from
the press, inculcating various modes of alleviating the
sufferings of the sick, - while opposing systems of practical medicine, based upon fallacious theories, count their
editorial advocates by thousands, few comparatively have
been the works treating of preventive measures best calculated to counteract the manifold causes which give rise to
disease. A proper understanding of the nature of those
causes, and of their action upon mental and physical
health, will tend materially to lessen the chances of illness, and to improve the condition of all classes. The
study of Anatomy, which has recently been, to some
extent, introduced as a branch of elementary education,
is of far less importance than the extension of knowledge
respecting those influences, affecting human health, with
which all are necessarily and continually brought into
contact.
The object of the present work is to acquaint the reader
with the character of those agents which exert an injurious
1




2                    PREFACE.
influence upon health, and to afford instruction regarding
means of adoption most practicable for the successful
resistance of such evil agents. The views of Hahnemann
in this particular will be in an especial manner regarded.
No believer in his doctrine can be insensible to the importance of attending even to the minutiae of matters
modifying health and involving life.
The Author proffers claims to but little originality, and
is far from presuming that the limited views herein offered
do full justice to the important subject of Hygiene. But
the laborers have been extremely few in such a vast field;
and even this feeble attempt to aid in the removal of those
physical obstructions which impede the development of
man's spiritual nature would not have been made, but in
the hope of inducing writers of more ability to pursue the
like path.




THE SOURCES OF HEALTH,
THE most important of those morbific influences
which constantly tend, especially in civilized life, to
the deterioration of health, are Indigestible Food,
Artificial Drinks, Vitiated Air, and Sedentary Habits.
These several subjects will be treated of under their
respective heads; and attention will be afterwards
directed to the various agents which have a less immediate but still most influential bearing upon the
physical well-being of mankind.
CHAPTER I.
ON FOOD.
A GENERAL description of the digestive and assimilative processes by which aliment becomes incorporated with the system for the support of life,
although more strictly physiological than hygienic,
will not be an inappropriate introduction to the subject under consideration.




4                    FOOD.
The presence of food, which has been introduced
into the mouth, stimulates, in connection with the
mechanical act of mastication, certain salivary glands
therein situated, and causes them to pour out an
increased quantity of their peculiar secretion. This
fluid, surrounding and penetrating the masticated
mass, not only facilitates its passage down the canal
(cesophagus) to the stomach, but assists in dissolving it. H-aving entered the stomach, another more
powerful solvent (the gastric juice) mixes with the
salivary secretion, and the food is subjected to their
joint action, until it is converted into a soft paste,
called "chyme." The warmth maintained in the
stomach by the determination of blood to the vessels
of that and the neighboring organs during this exercise, and the continual contraction of its muscular
membrane upon that contained therein, also conduces to the formation of chyme. Then this softened
material passes out of the portion of the stomach,
opposite to that where it entered, into the intestine;
where it is again acted upon by other secretions, and
changed into a fluid state, denominated "chyle; "
in which form the aliment, which has passed through
the different stages of mastication, deglutition, chymification, and chylification, is absorbed by innumerable minute vessels, the mouths of which line the
inner membrane of the intestinal tube that is continued from the stomach. The chyle is conveyed
through these small vessels into the blood; and the




FOOD.                     5
latter is distributed, with its nutritious particles, to
every portion of the frame, - thus ever engaged in
repairing the losses which are ever occurring. The
residue of the material, that which may have been
undigested, or which cannot be converted into nourishment, passes down the canal, or rather through
it, - since the intestine is so involuted as, in one
portion, to have an upward direction, - and is thrown
out of the system as useless.
Now, there exists a great difference in the nature
of alimentary substances with regard to their conversion into that fluid which sustains life.  Many, by
their indigestible properties, cannot be transformed
with facility into " chyme." Oily, tendinous, and
cartilaginous food tax the powers of digestion more
than fibrinous and glutinous substances.   Some
articles, such as skins of fruit, the stones, seeds, &c.
which imprudent persons are often pleased to force
down their throats, continue unaltered and of course
unassimilated, ultimately rejected as foreign substances, or accumulating in the intestinal canal, to
inflict uneasiness and distress, until removed by the
violent action of deleterious purgatives. It is evident
that every thing received into the stomach, which
disturbs the powers of digestion, and does not contribute to the production of healthy chyle, must be
more or less injurious. All crude, medicinal substances, independent of their positively poisonous
qualities, interfere with salutary digestive action, and




6                    FOOD.
invariably derange the secretions. Yet one would
suppose, from the avidity and frequency with which
many would-be invalids swallow the nauseous pre.
parations of the druggists, that they labored under
the delusion that medicines were nutritious.
It must not be inferred, however, that every description of food not easily digestible, is, on that
account, innutritious. On the contrary, a quantity of
fat meat affords nearly four times as much nutriment
as the same amount of lean meat, although the former
is with much greater difficulty digested; in fact, undergoes but little, if any, alteration in the stomach.
After it has moved thence, it must mix with the
alkali of the bile, before it is in a fit state to impart
nourishment.
In this connection, it may be proper to advert to
the prevalent but entirely erroneous opinion, that
bile is frequently present in large quantities in the
stomach, and that its existence there is the cause of
much indisposition. Bile is a secretion of the liver;
and the duct conveying it from that organ, to act
upon the chyme, enters the alimentary canal some
inches below the lower orifice of the stomach. It
there performs its object, passing down with the
digested mass, which is propelled by a vermicular
movement of the intestines, and cannot enter the
stomach except by a strong inverted action. A portion may, it is true, be forced into the stomach in
this manner, when some unconcocted substance




FOOD.                   7
therein is demanding all the activity of digestion.
But, if there, it should be suffered to remain. The
pernicious agency of emetics is not confined to
the simple removal, by a most unnatural mode of
exit, of that which is needed to facilitate digestion,
perhaps in an emergency, but augments the supposed evil by stimulating the intestine to increased
inverted action, thereby compelling a greater flow
of bile into the stomach, when it is required elsewhere. Again, the absurd practice of endeavoring
to remove an imagined accumulation of bile by purgatives, particularly by that most injurious of all
substances which can enter the human system, viz.
calomel, cannot be too strongly reprobated. It is the
very extreme of folly to attempt the regulation of
the bilious secretion by such medicines.   They
more frequently originate the very condition which
they are expected to remove. The extent of positive
mischief resulting from the use of " bilious pills," and
other like preparations recommended by educated
and uneducated empirics, is incalculable. When men
will consent to the exercise of a reasonable degree
of self-denial in the indulgence of appetite, and devote some little attention to the study of the laws of
health, there will be reason to expect, even among the
desperate advocates of A llceopathic doses, that the custom of such wholesale drugging will be abandoned.
An excellent opportunity of ascertaining the comparative digestibility of individual articles of food by




8                  FOOD.
actual observation, occurred in the year 1822. A
young Canadian received by accident a gun-shot
wound in the left side, which penetrated the stomach.
The attending surgeon, Dr. Beaumont of the army,
thus describes this remarkable case:
" The charge, consisting of powder and duck-shot,
was received in the left side, blowing off the integuments to the size of a man's hand, breaking some of
the ribs, lacerating the lower portion of the left lung,
and penetrating the stomach.  On the fifth day,
sloughing took place; portions of the lung, bones, and
stomach separated, leaving an opening in the latter
large enough to admit the whole length of the finger
into its cavity; and also a passage into the chest half
as large as his fist. After one year the wound closed,
leaving the orifice into the stomach, which remained
open two and a half inches in circumference. For
some months the food could be retained only by
wearing a compress; but finally a small fold of the
villous coat of the stomach began to appear, which
gradually increased till it filled the aperture, and
acted as a valve, so as completely to prevent any
efflux from within, but to admit of being easily
pushed back by the finger from without."
Taking every advantage of the chance thus offered,
which never happened before and may never happen
again, of becoming intimately acquainted with the
progress of digestion, Dr. Beaumont experimented
perseveringly and unobstructedly for several months,




FOOD.                        9
and the following were the inferences drawn by him
from minute and most accurate observation, viz.:1. That hunger is the effect of a distension of the vessels that secrete the gastric juice.
2. That the process of mastication, insalivation, and
deglutition, in an abstract point of view, do not in any
way affect the digestion of the food; or, in other words,
when food is introduced directly into the stomach in a
finely divided state, without these previous steps, it is as
readily and as perfectly digested as when they have been
taken.
3. That saliva does not possess the properties of an
alimentary solvent.
4. That the agent of chymification is the gastric juice.
5. That the pure gastric juice is fluid, clear and transparent; without odor, a little salt, and perceptibly acid.
6. That it contains free muriatic acid, and some other
active chemical principles.
7. That it is never foundfree in the gastric cavity, but
is always excited to discharge itself by the introduction
of food or other irritants.
8. That it is secreted from vessels distinct from  the
mucous follicles.
9. That it is seldom obtained pure, but is generally
nmixed with mucus and sometimes saliva. When pure, it
is capable of being kept for months, and perhaps for
years.
10. That it coagulates albumen, and afterward dissolves the coagulum.
11. That it checks the progress of putrefaction.




10                      FOOD.
12. That it acts as a solvent of food, and alters its
properties.
13. That, like other chemical agents, it commences its
action on food as soon as it comes in contact with it.
14. That it is capable of combining with a certain and
fixed quantity of food; and, when more aliment is presented for its action than it will dissolve, disturbance of
the stomach or "indigestion" will ensue.
15. That its action is facilitated by the warmth and
motion of the stomach.
16. That it becomes intimately mixed and blended with
the ingestae in the stomach by the motions of that organ.
17. That it is invariably the same substance, modified
only by admixture with other fluids.
18. That the motions of the stomach produce a constant churning of its contents, and admixture of food and
gastric juice.
19. That these motions are in two directions, transversely and longitudinally.
20. That no other fluid produces the same effect on
food that gastric juice does, and that it is the only solvent
of aliment.
21. That the action of the stomach and its fluids is the
same on all kinds of diet.
22. That solid food, of a certain texture, is easier of
digestion than fluid.
23. That animal and farinaceous aliments are more
easy of digestion than vegetable.
24. That the susceptibility of digestion does not, however, depend altogether upon natural or chemical distinctions.




FOOD.                       11
25. That digestion is facilitated by minuteness of division and tenderness of fibre, and retarded by opposite
qualities.
26. That the ultimate principles of aliment are always
the same, from whatever food they may be obtained.
27. That chyme is homogeneous, but variable in its
color and consistence.
28. That, toward the latter stages of chymification, it
becomes more acid and stimulating, and passes more
rapidly from the stomach.
29. That the inner coat of the stomach is of a pale
pink color, varying in its hues according to its full or
empty state.
30. That, in health, it is sheathed with mucus.
31. That the appearance of the interior of the stomach
in disease is essentially different from that of its healthy
state.
32. That stimulating condiments are injurious to the
healthy stomach.
33. That the use of ardent spirits always produces
disease of the stomach, if persevered in.
34. That water, ardent spirits, and most other fluids,
are not affected by the gastric juice, but pass from the
stomach soon after they have been received.
35. That the quantity of food generally taken is more
than the wants of the system require; and that such
excess, if persevered in, generally produces, not only
functional aberration, but disease of the coats of the
stomach.
36. That bulk as well as nutriment is necessary to the
articles of diet.




12                     FOOD.
37. That bile is not ordinarily found in the stomach,
and is not commonly necessary for the digestion of the
food; but,
38. That, when oily food has been used, it assists its
digestion.
39. That oily food is difficult of digestion, though it
contains a large proportion of the nutrient principles.
40. That the digestibility of aliment does not depend
upon the quantity of nutrient principles that it contains.
41. That the natural temperature of the stomach is
about 1000 Fahrenheit.
42. That the temperature is not elevated by the ingestion of food.
43. That exercise elevates the temperature; and that
sleep or rest, in a recumbent position, depresses it.
44. That gentle exercise facilitates the digestion of
food.
45. That the time required for that purpose is various,
depending upon the quantity and quality of the food,
state of the stomach, &c.; but that the time ordinarily
required for the disposal of a moderate meal of the fibrous
parts of meat, with bread, &c. is from three to three and
a half hours.
The following results of Dr. Beaumont's experiments exhibit the time required for the digestion of
different articles of food, prepared in the various
ways of cooking usually adopted:




FOOD.                      13
Hours. Min,
Rice..Boiled. Digested in. 1
Pig's Feet, soused.,,.                        1
Tripe, soused..,,.                        1
Eggs, whipped.. Raw.                      1  30
Trout, Salmon, fresh  Boiled.1  30,,,,,,  Fried.1 30
Apples, sweet.. Raw.1 30
Venison-steak.. Broiled                    1  35
Brains... Boiled.1 45
Sago,,                      1  45
Tapioca...,,.                               2
Barley...,,...... 2
Milk..,,.........2
Liver, beef's, fresh. Broiled.                2
Eggs, fresh... Raw.                     2
Codfish, cured, dry. Boiled.                  2
Apples, sour... Raw.                      2
Cabbage, with vinegar,,.            2
Milk.,,                                   2 15
Eggs, fresh... Roasted.. 2  15
Turkey, wild...,,.2  18
Turkey, domestic. Boiled.2  25,,,,. Roasted......             2  30
Gelatine.... Boiled                          2  30
Goose.    Roasted.2 30
Pig, sucking...,,.. 2  30
Lamb, fresh... Broiled.2  30
Beans, pod... Boiled.2  30
Cake, sponge... Baked.2  30
Parsnips...   Boiled.2 30




14                  FOOD.
Hours. M.Mi7le
Potatoes, Irish   Roasted. Digested in. 2  30.,,. Baked...                    2 30
Cabbage, head     Raw..                2 30
Spinal Marrow.    Boiled...   2 40
Chicken.     Fricassee.....   2  45
Custard.   Baked...                  2 45
Beef....  Boiled.. 2 45
Oysters.   Raw...    2 55
Eggs...        Soft Boiled...        3
Beef, fresh, lean, rare Roasted...     3
Beef-steak....   Broiled...    3
Pork, salted.    Raw...    3,,,.. Stewed...   3
Mutton, fresh     Broiled...          3,,,,.  Boiled...    3
Chicken Soup,,..           3
Dumpling, apple,,..           3
Oysters.        Roasted...  3  15
Pork-steak        Broiled...   3  15
Pork, salted,,...             3 15
Mutton.        Roasted...  3 15
Bread, corn       Baked...   3  15
Carrot..    Boiled...   3  15
Sausage.... Broiled.....3 20
Flounder.        Fried...   3 30
Oysters.     Stewed...            3 30
Beef.... Boiled.....3 30
Butter...   Melted...                  3 30
Cheese, old       Raw..                 3 30
Bread, wheaten, fresh Baked              3 30




FOOD.                     15
Hours. JMin.
Turnips..      Boiled. Digested in. 3  30
Potatoes, Irish.,....    3  30
Eggs..        Hard boiled.            3  30,,..... Fried..  3 30
Green Corn & Beans  Boiled..3  45
Beets...,,....  3 45
Salmon, salted..,,...... 4
Beef..  Fried..  4
Veal..    Broiled..    4
Fowls, domestic.    Boiled..           4,,,,. Roasted..                      4
Ducks, domestic..,,...... 4
Heart, animal.    Fried..            4
Beef, old, salted.    Boiled..4  15
Pork, salted..    Fried.                  4  15,,,,..   Boiled..4 30
Veal..Fried..   4 30
Ducks, wild..   Roasted.                 4  30
Suet, mutton..    Boiled..4  30
Cabbage, with vinegar,,... 4  30
Suet, beef..,,..5   3
Pork, fat and lean. Roasted.'.        5  15
Here, then, we have facts clearly and irrefragably
established, upon which to base reliable dietetic
regulations.  It will be observed that "minuteness
of division " and " tenderness of fibre," according to
the inferences drawn from Beaumont's trials, are
necessary to the easy digestion of animal food; and
that, in general, the latter contains more nutriment




16                  FOOD.
in a given bulk than vegetable food. Farinaceous
preparations, as arrow-root, gruel, sago, &c. are
quickly digested and assimilated, proving less stimulating than concentrated animal food, and hence
better adapted for the system laboring under febrile
action, or for inflammatory affections generally. All
aromatic condiments are believed to be injurious,
since they are more or less stimulating. The healthy
stomach does not require artificial excitement to perform its work; and the same organ, when enfeebled,
is rendered still more so by stimulants.
The regimen prescribed by the founder of the
Homceopathic practice, long previous to the date of
the above experiments, although drawn up with the
view of excluding all food possessing any medicinal
property that might counteract the operation of the
remedies administered, will be found to have a close
agreement with the facts here disclosed; and, though
the system of diet is recommended with more direct
reference to its consultation by invalids, yet it might
be adhered to with decided profit by all. Old salted
provisions, fat meats and oily substances, raw indigestible vegetables, highly seasoned food, and pastry,
are especially forbidden during medical treatment;
and the exclusion of such articles from the diet of
every individual, in nearly all conditions and under
nearly all circumstances, would undoubtedly tend to
the prevention of disease.
In relation to the adaptation of certain kinds of




FOOD.                 17
food to the requirements of the human system,
modern researches in organic chemistry furnish interesting particulars as to the influence of temperature. According to Liebig, in respiration the lungs
receive a greater quantity of oxygen in cold than in
warm climates. A corresponding amount of carbon
contained in food is required to unite with the oxygen, in order that a certain degree of animal heat
should be kept up, and a proper balance between
the loss and supply of materials preserved. Active
exercise also, by accelerating respiration, augments
the amount of air, and consequently of oxygen,
which is inhaled.  From food the system obtains
carbon; and a portion of this carbon meets, through
the medium of the lungs, with the oxygen supplied
by the atmosphere, and a portion is thrown out in
the form of carbonic acid.  The carbon, together
with a certain amount of hydrogen, constantly
exhausted in this manner, must be as constantly
replaced by equal quantities supplied in the food;
and the amount of nourishment required for its support by the animal body must be in a direct ratio to
the quantity of oxygen taken into the system. It is
evident, therefore, that the aliment which is deficient
in carbon will not be adequate for nourishment,
under circumstances where an unusual amount of
oxygen is inspired. For this reason, a diet containing but little carbon would not support the inhabitant
of frozen regions, although it might suffice for the
2




18                   FOOD.
sustenance of the dweller in warm countries. Liebig
remarks that " vital activity depends upon the mutual action of the elements of the food and the oxygen of the atmosphere combining together, and that
the animal body acts, in this respect, as a furnace,
which we supply with fuel. It signifies nothing
what intermediate forms food may assume, what
changes it may undergo in the body, the last change
is uniformly the conversion of its carbon into carbonic acid; and of its hydrogen into water. In
order to keep up in the furnace a constant temperature, we must vary the supply of fuel according to
the supply of oxygen."
By reason of the excessive cold, and the consequent larger amount of oxygen afforded, the Greenlander lives upon train-oil, which contains nearly 80
per cent of carbon.  Such food would very soon
destroy the natives of warm or even temperate
countries. The inhabitants of the torrid regions are
nourished principally upon fruits which do not contain more than 12 per cent of carbon. But, while
there is no doubt of the need of a proportionate
supply of carbon for the oxygen received, there are
other elements in food necessary for sustenance. It
appears that wherever the human race is located,
there food is furnished capable of nourishing the
body and repairing its losses. That life may be
supported by substances which are extremely diffi.
cult of digestion, and even by such as furnish a very




ANIMAL FOOD.               19
minute proportion of nutriment according to their
bulk, is certain; but that the standard of health
must necessarily be low, under such conditions, is
equally certain. A due amount of vital energy and
consequent physical enjoyment depends upon the
fulfilment of established laws, one of the most important of which relates to the quantity and quality
of food.
The organization of the human digestive apparatus throughout, proves man to have been created
omniverous, capable of subsisting upon animal and
vegetable food, and acquiring the highest state of
health upon a judicious combination of both. The
proportion of each must vary according to the climate, the seasons, the occupation, and the age. For
example, the inhabitants of northern climates require
more animal food than those who live in warm latitudes. In the winter of temperate regions, more
animal food is required than during summer. The
laboring man needs more animal food than the
sedentary. In manhood and in the decline of life,
more is necessary than during the period previous
to maturity.
ANIMAL FOOD,
As a general rule, is more quickly and easily
digested than any other; but it is also more stimulating, and more productive of plethora, with all its




20                ANIMAL FOOD.
evil consequences. If it predominates in the diet,
while sufficient exercise is not taken, the system will
be more liable to inflammatory diseases, and a
foundation will also be laid for subsequent longcontinued and obstinate disorders. It should constitute, in our climate, by much the smallest proportion
of the quantity of food taken, and more especially
by the inhabitants of a city.
The chief proximate principles of animal food are
fibrine, albumen, gelatine, oil, and caseine; each of
which will be briefly described.
Fibrine is found both in vegetables and animals.
It constitutes the principal part of animal flesh, and
enters largely into the composition of the blood.
It is a solid, insoluble in water, becoming semitransparent on exposure to the air, melts when acted
upon by heat, and has then the odor and smoke of
meat while roasting.  It is particularly nutritious,
and is assimilated aAd digested with facility.  If
blood is allowed to remain still for a short time in
an open vessel, it separates into two parts; the
heaviest portion, or that which remains at the bottom, is the fibrine; the remainder, lighter, liquid and
transparent, is called the serum; and
Albumen exists in serum. It is insipid and inodorous, soluble in cold water, and passes at once to the
state of putrefaction, when exposed in a moist state
to the atmosphere. It is coagulated by hot water,
and distinguished by this character from all other




ANIMAL FOOD.                21
animal fluids. From its coagulability, it is of great
use in clarifying liquids. The white of eggs consists
almost wholly of pure albumen.
Gelatine forms the principal proportion of tendinous, cartilaginous substance, exists in all cellular
membrane, and predominates in the flesh of very
young animals.  It is soluble in hot water, and
assumes, on cooling, an elastic, tremulous consistence; that form known as " jelly." The "' portable
soup," which is carried to sea, and preserved in the
shape of solid cakes for several years, is prepared
by boiling any animal substance, clarifying the liquid
with albumen, evaporating to a thick paste, and
afterwards drying by heat. It is precipitated, in an
insoluble form, by tannin; and it is this action of
tannin on gelatine that gives rise to the process of preparing leather for the various purposes to which the
latter is applied. Gelatine is nutritious and readily
digested.
Oil, or fat, is nutritious, nearly the whole being
assimilated; but it is, as has been before stated,
very difficult of digestion, experiencing little change,
until it has been acted upon by the bile.  In the
experiments undertaken upon the free gastric secretion, obtained by Dr. Beaumont, it was ascertained,
that, while the chymification of other alimentary
matters took place seasonably, the oily portions
were long in undergoing modification.
Caseine is insipid, inodorous, insoluble in water,




22               ANIMAL FOOD.
but quickly dissolved by alkalies and some acids.
It is distinguished from fibrine and albumen by its
greater solubility, and by not coagulating when
heated. It may be obtained pure from the curd of
milk, and constitutes the principal bulk of cheese.
Caseine is less digestible and less nutritious than the
other principles above noticed.
Osmazome is another element of animal food, imparting to cooked meat its flavor; but it does not
exist in quantity sufficiently large to be distinguished
as one of the chief principles in such aliment.
It will be sufficient for the present purpose to
notice the three principal divisions into which organized animal substances have been ranged, viz. fibrinous, gelatinous, and albuminous.
In the first class, in which fibrine predominates,
are included mutton, beef, pork, ducks, geese, and
venison.
In the gelatinous class are included veal, lamb,
young poultry, and certain kinds of fish.
In the albuminous class are oysters, eggs, roe of
fish, brain, liver, and the sweet bread.
" The healthy stomach," says Dr. Paris, 1" disposes most readily and effectually of solid food, of
a certain specific degree of density, which may be
termed its digestive texture: if it exceeds this, it will
require a greater length of time, and more active
powers, to complete its chymification; and if it
approaches too nearly to a gelatinous condition,




ANIMAL FOOD.                23
the stomach will be equally impeded in its operations.  It is perhaps not possible to appreciate or
express the exact degree of firmness, which will
confer the highest order of digestibility upon food;
indeed, this degree may vary in different individuals; but we are taught by experience, that no
meat is so digestible as tender mutton. When well
conditioned, it appears to possess that degree of consistence which is most congenial to the stomach.
It will not be difficult," he adds, "to understand
why a certain texture and coherence of the aliment
should confer upon it digestibility, or otherwise. Its
conversion into chyme is effected by the solvent
power of the gastric juice, aided by the churning
which it undergoes by the motions of the stomach;
and, unless the substance introduced possess a suitable degree of firmness, it will not yield to such
motions: this is the case with soup and other liquid
aliments; in such cases% therefore, nature removes
the watery part before digestion can be carried forward. It is on this account that oils are digested
with so much difficulty; and it is probable that
jellies and other glutinous matters, although containing the elements of nourishment in the highest state
of concentration, are not digested without considerable difficulty; in the first place, on account of their
evading the grappling powers of the stomach, and, in
the next, in consequence of their tenacity opposing
the absorption of their more fluid parts. For these




24     DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANIMAL FOOD.
reasons, I maintain that the addition of isinglass and
other glutinous matter to animal broths, with a view
to render them more nutritive to invalids, is a pernicious custom."
DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANIMAL FOOD.
Mutton is, of all meats, the most highly nutritious,
the most digestible, and is perhaps the most generally used. Beef enables one to bear more fatigue;
but it is not so digestible as mutton, and not so well
adapted for dyspeptics and other invalids. Both,
however, are readily assimilated to the nature of
chyme, and hold the highest rank in the dietetic
regimen of Hahnemann.  The broth made from
beef contains less oil, but more osmazome, than that
made of mutton, and is therefore better for the convalescent.
Pork is not readily digested, and by no means
proper food for the debilitated and sickly. It can
only be eaten with impunity by the most robust
laborer. It predisposes to diseases of the lymphatic
system, occasions cutaneous disorders, and increases
any derangement which may exist in the digestive
apparatus. Bacon is subject to the same objections,
though it is somewhat more easy of digestion.
Ducks and Geese, in consequence of their oleaginous nature, are indigestible, and oppressive to
delicate stomachs.




DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANIMAL FOOD.       25
Venison is digested with uncommon facility, and
is very nutritious and wholesome.
Veal is included in the gelatinous class, and is
obnoxious to the same objections as those above
applied to pork. It has not become sufficiently
matured to possess the requisite alimentation. The
same may be said of Lamb, this meat likewise not
having acquired the suitable degree of animalization.
The flesh of all young animals contains more
gelatine than the old, and is much more difficult of
digestion. It is, however, better adapted, generally,
for those who may be disposed to plethora or inflammatory affections.  Gelatine is furnished in
large quantity from the tendinous portions of the
animal. If broth is to be made from either veal or
lamb, - although, in all cases, beef and mutton are
to be preferred for this purpose, - the boiling should
be continued sufficiently long for the extraction of
all the gelatine; and this is to be determined by the
liquid, on cooling, readily assuming the consistence
of thick jelly.
Of a character neither decidedly fibrinous nor
gelatinous, but participating in both, is the flesh of
poultry and of certain fish. The fibres, though differing in appearance, are of the nature of beef,
mutton, &c. while gelatine largely abounds in the
interstitial spaces. Poultry differs in its alimentary
properties according as it is young and gelatinous,




26     DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANIMAL FOOD.
or old and more fibrinous. That of middle age is
the most suitable for invalids. The wild fowl is also
preferable to those reared upon farms. The sea-fish
usually contains more gelatine than the fish taken
from fresh water.
Those articles of food classed as albuminous are,
in general, nourishing and readily digested. It will
be seen, from Dr. Beaumont's experiments, that the
egg, when boiled soft, digests half an hour sooner
than when boiled hard, and that the raw egg is more
digestible than that which is cooked. When in
combination with flour and butter, it is rendered
more difficult of digestion, and, in the debilitated,
often causes uncomfortable sensations of oppression.
Eggs contain much nutritive substance in small
bulk, and, when the stimulus of animal food is to be
avoided, are, of course, improper. Although the
white of the egg is almost purely albuminous, the
yolk contains animal oil, and on this account, particularly by certain modes of preparation, as in frying, may be rendered very indigestible.
Oysters are nutritious, and of all shell-fish the
most digestible, especially if eaten uncooked. The
different methods of preparing them for the table,
while adding but little to their nutritious qualities,
detract much from their digestibility. The liquid
by which they are surrounded in the shell has been
affirmed by some old writers to be "equal, in medicinal virtue, to the most accredited mineral waters;"




VEGETABLE FOOD.              27
but no proof can be adduced in favor of such an
assertion. The clam is not so digestible as the
oyster. Other shell-fish, as the mussel, lobster, and
crab, are not so easy of digestion, although their
nutritient properties may be as great. They sometimes produce gastric derangement, and to certain
persons are positively injurious. Many cases of
poisoning are on record which have resulted from
the eating of different shell-fish.
The flesh of fish resembles that of quadrupeds,
containing, however, no osmazome, but consisting of
fibrine, albumen, and gelatine. It is not, on the
whole, as nutritious; and the comparative digestibility of different kinds of fish depends much upon
the quantity of oil which they contain. Those without scales are more oleaginous, and on this account
less digestible. Smoked and salted fish, as well as
meat thus prepared, are unsuited for those persons
whose digestive powers are not in the most vigorous
condition. They are among the articles expressly
interdicted in the homceopathic regimen for the
sick.
VEGETABLE FOOD.
The principal elements of vegetable substances
which afford nutrition are fecula, gluten, mucilage,'oil, and sugar.
Fecula, or starch, is white, insipid, insoluble in




28              VEGETABLE FOOD.
cold, but converted into a jelly by hot, water. It is
one of the chief constituent parts of most varieties
of grain, of the roots, seeds, fruit of certain plants,
and forms the principal source of nutriment derived
from them. It is generally procured for domestic
purposes from wheat and the potato, but may be
obtained from acorn or the horse-chestnut. The
nutritious properties which abound in arrow-root,
sago, and tapioca, depend almost wholly upon the
presence of fecula.
Gluten. If the flour of wheat is made into a paste,
and washed in water, it separates into three distinct
substances, -a saccharine mucilage; starch, which
subsides on standing; and gluten, which is tenacious, ductile, elastic, and of a browrn-gray color.
It resembles animal albumen, being quickly coagulated by heat, and is found in numerous vegetable
productions, in rye, barley, beans, peas, &c. but in
smaller quantity than in wheat. The tenacious paste
made by the mixture of flour with water is owing to
the presence of gluten; and this principle produces
the sponginess of bread, through the detention, by
its viscidity, of the carbonic acid gas, disengaged
by the process of fermentation. The whole mass of
dough is distended by the detained air. Gluten is
similar, in many respects, both to animal fibrine and
albumen, and has been termed a vegeto-animal
element.
Mucilage, or gum, is common in vegetables, but




DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.   29
is furnished in its purest form  from  the "Acacia
vera," the tree producing what is known as " gumarabic." It is transparent, of an insipid or slightly
saccharine taste, and in combination, in any quantity,
with water, forms a more or less viscid solution. It
is not, however, strictly soluble. Mucilage, like all
the proximate vegetable principles, is very nutritive.
Oil, in the vegetable, is similar in character to
that of the animal. It is very abundant in the olive
(olea), from which it derives its name. It is of an
unctuous nature, either solid or fluid, not soluble in
water, and more or less volatile. Oil exists in the
three kingdoms of nature,- the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral; but originated in the latter
from the decomposition of the former, - the remains
of animal or vegetable existence.
Sugar is obtained from many plants in great
abundance, and is quite nutritious. Its appearance
and properties are too well known to require description. Upon its presence depends the vinous
and acetous fermentations.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.
Of the farinaceous vegetables, or those esculent
productions which are reduced to flour in their preparation for food, and which consist of gluten, mucilage, and starch, wheat is the most important, as
administering most copiously in the form of bread




30    DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.
to man's sustenance.  It stands first among the
" cerealia" of bromatologists.  Indian corn, rye,
barley, oats, rice, and the buckwheat, are also
among the cereal productions.
The bread made from the flour of wheat is that
which is the most extensively used, and the best
adapted for food of all alimentary substances. Its
digestibility depends upon many circumstances connected with its preparation.  If properly kneaded
and baked, it is very nutritious and digestible.
" Good bread ought to be composed of fine wheaten
flour, well kneaded with pure water, seasoned with
a little salt, fermented with good yeast, and sufficiently baked at a proper heat.  When baked, it
ought to appear through a glass like honeycomb,
full of cells, yet the intermediate parts constituting
a uniform substance of a gelatinous nature, which
readily unites with an aqueous menstruum."   A
mixture of the bran with the flour renders bread less
liable to form a cohesive mass, after imperfect mastication, and, though less nutritious than pure flour, is
better suited for torpid habits, on account of the stimulating effects of the bran upon the mucous membrane.
The addition of butter and sugar diminishes the
digestible properties of bread. That which is made
from barley, rye, &c. often becomes acid in the
stomach, and gives rise to uncomfortable sensations
of oppression.  Bread is more wholesome when
eaten the day after having been baked. There are




DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.   31
many injurious articles, such as potash, alum, magnesia, and sulphate of copper, mixed with the bread
made for sale, for the purpose of improving its appearance. Spoiled flour, unwholesome in itself, is
frequently made into bread in Europe, — perhaps
in this country,- and alum, magnesia, or copper
added to give it the appearance of that made from
good flour. Such adulterations are extremely prejudicial to health; and the fact that practices of
this kind are ever resorted to, should serve as an
incitement to the more general use of " household
bread."
Rice is the principal aliment of the inhabitants of
several eastern countries. It does not contain much
saccharine matter, and does not tend to putrefaction
or acescency. It is nutritious and digestible.
The Potato, in which a large proportion of starch
exists, is, when mealy and not overdone, a very
nutritive, wholesome article of food. When water
is, as far as practicable, excluded, and the cooking
is conducted by steam, it is much more digestible as
well as palatable. When roasted or baked, it is less
indigestible than when boiled. The raw potato has
been found useful both as a preventive and a cure
for the diseases induced by a long-continued use of
animal aliment, particularly the " salted provisions."
The sweet potato is as nutritious, though not as digestible, as the common potato.
Among the farinaceous productions selected for




32   DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.
those enfeebled by disease, as being less substantial
but bland and nutritious, are macaroni, vermicelli,
arrow-root, sago, tapioca, &c. The two former are
preparations of fine flour, having the character of
light bread. Arrow-root is obtained from a species
of the " Maranta" herb, cultivated in the West
Indies. It contains a large proportion of nourishment. The most pure is that from Bermuda;, which
is a clear white, tasteless and odorless.  Sago is
procured from the pith of a palm-tree (Cycas circinalis) growing in Java, Molucca, and the Philippine
Isles, where it is the chief article of food.  Tapioca
is the condensed starch obtained from the root of the
" Jatropha Manihot," a Brazilian plant. The root,
when in a raw state, is poisonous; but this quality
is destroyed by heat. All of the above constitute
light and digestible nutriment, especially adapted for
that debilitated condition of body, to which much
stimulating aliment would be unsuitable and deleterious.
The leguminous vegetables, - beans, peas, &c.contain much nourishment, but more fecula and oil
than farina, and for this reason are not so easy of
digestion as those above described. They frequently
cause much pain and flatulence. In the dried state,
they are digested with difficulty.  The bean is
wholly unfit for food, except among those whose
digestive organs are in the most healthy condition.
But few alimentary combinations are so thoroughly




DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.   33
indigestible as' baked beans, flanked with pork and
swimming in fat, - that favorite Sunday-dish of the
New Englander.
The succulent roots, as the turnip, carrot, parsnip,
and beet, are of small comparative importance as
nutrient articles of diet. They possess chiefly saccharine qualities, and are liable to cause heartburn
and flatulency, particularly with dyspeptic sufferers.
The beet consists more of nutriment than either of
the others above named. It contains 15 per cent
of nutritious substance, 12 per cent of which is saccharine.  A large amount of pure sugar is now
manufactured from the beet. The fibrous portions
of these roots are unchanged by the gastric and
other secretions, -of course, are entirely worthless
as aliment. The onion, cabbage, asparagus, and
squash, contain but little nutriment.  The tomato,
though not particularly nutritious, is regarded as
one of the most wholesome and valuable esculents
among vegetable productions. Whenever diseases
prevail in which the digestive organs are implicated,
the vegetables above mentioned should be abstained
from altogether.
Most varieties of fruit are agreeable to the taste,
and refreshing; but their nutritious properties are
very inconsiderable. The same restrictions should
be placed upon them as upon the succulent vegetables, under the circumstances alluded to in the preceding section.
3




34   DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.
It may be well to remark in conclusion, that the
exclusive use of either animal or vegetable food does
not appear to be so productive of health, in temperate regions, as a proper combination of both. The
organization of the human digestive apparatus, as
has been previously stated, favors the view that a
mixture of animal with vegetable food is the most
natural for man; and, although reference has been
repeatedly made by the opponents of animal aliment to the fact that whole nations subsist exclusively
upon a vegetable diet, that they are vigorous and
healthy in consequence, — yet it can, on the other
hand, be proved that the natives of other countries
make use altogether of animal food, and that they
are equally healthy. The Indian on the western
prairies lives upon buffalo meat; the Hindoo, upon
rice and water. Certain African tribes subsist upon
roots; the Esquimaux, upon fat and oil. The principal, and, in some instances, the exclusive food of
the Irish peasant is the potato; and the food of the
" Dobenahs " is the flesh of the elephant and ostrich.
It appears to be well established, that, under certain
influences of climate and habit, not only can human
life be supported, but human health can be maintained, by the exclusive use of either animal or
vegetable food; that either or both are in accordance with man's nature. Whichever may have been
adopted from childhood, or until the system is habituated to it, becomes the most suitable.  It is a




DIFFERENT KINDS OF VEGETABLE FOOD.   35
hazardous experiment for one accustomed to a
mixed diet to enter suddenly upon the practice of
total abstinence from animal or vegetable food.
In either case, as a general consequence, scorbutic
affections, if no other, would result.  Magendie's
experiments demonstrate, that man, in temperate latitudes, absolutely needs the variety of food which is
there so bountifully supplied; that, as nature and
habit have combined to render him omniverous, he
should be content so to remain.
According to the experiments of the distinguished
French chemists, MM. Percy and Vaugelin, -
100 lbs. Lentils.. contain. 94 parts of nourishment.,,,, French Beans.      92,,,,,,,, Rice....90,,,,,, Kidney Beans.      89,,,,,,, Wheat.....  85,,,,, Barley...          83,,,,,, Good Bread.       80,,,, Rye...             80,,,,,, Meat (average)      35,,,,,, Potatoes....      25,,,,,,, Carrots..     14,,,,,,,, Beets..      14,,        9,,,,, Turnips.             8,,,,,,  Cabbage  7..       7,,,,,, Greens.             6,,,,




36
CHAPTER II.
ON DRINK.
THAT liquid which the Creator has furnished for man
in the greatest abundance, making it the basis of all
circulating fluids, - the medium by which all vital
action is executed, and without which even solid
substances would be innutritious, — is the beverage
best calculated to allay thirst, to renovate declining
strength, to form, develop, and support the system.
Water is, in youth as in age, in summer and in winter, in health and in disease, positively, imperiously
demanded by Nature for drink, and no other liquid
will supply its place, -- none other is needed. To
fulfil properly its purpose in the animal economy, it
should be pure, - free from any foreign admixture.
One form in which it is supplied to many dwellers
upon earth is by rain; and this is, or would be, were
the air through which it passes perfectly clear, the
purest kind of water. In consequence of becoming
impregnated with various substances and gases floating in the atmosphere, over large towns especially,
rain-water is rendered impure, unpalatable, and




DRINK.                   37
subject to a spontaneous change, by long keeping.
Besides, it acquires no small amount of additional
impurity by washing the roofs of houses, sheds, &c.
and running through unclean spouts. In the Island
of St. Thomas, spring-water being difficult of access,
large cisterns are provided for the purpose of containing the rain-water, which, after the subsidence of the
foreign matter held in it, is used for, and highly
esteemed as, drink by all the inhabitants.
Water, procured from the melting of snow or ice,
is equal to rain-water in purity, and decidedly more
agreeable to the taste. In northern latitudes, during
the winter, thawed snow forms the constant drink of
the people. They do not suffer from " goitre," — an
enlargement of the thyroid gland, - which so deforms
many inhabitants in Switzerland, and which has been
long supposed to arise from the use of snow-water.
There is no good reason for believing that either ice
or snow-water is in any degree injurious.
Through an artificial process, in imitation of the
natural distillation by which rain is furnished, and in
consequence of the easy exclusion of all alien substances, water may be obtained in its purest state.
There are no solid nor gaseous substances held in
solution by distilled water: it is colorless, perfectly
transparent, and entirely devoid of taste and smell;
leaving no residuum when carefully evaporated, and
capable of preservation for a long time. It is used
in the preparation of homceopathic medicines, and, as




88                   DRINK.
the purest possible menstruum, is preferred for the
administration of remedies in solution.
Although the water obtained from wells, lakes, or
rivers is generally acknowledged to be sufficiently
pure for the preservation of health, a vast amount of
foreign material may be detected in it by chemical
analysis. The water from rivers is more free from
earthy salts than that from wells. The river Seine,
which supplies the city of Paris, furnishes water of
excellent quality; and it has been ascertained that the
great variety of impurities, which are necessarily received by this river, do not contaminate, or alter the
character of the water to any perceptible extent.
Filtration will effect the removal of most impurities;
and no water, which has been procured either from
rivers or lakes, should be used for drink until it has
been subjected to this purifying process. The motionless, stagnant water of small ponds, liable to be
affected by vegetable and animal decomposition
going on within and around it, is not only offensive
to the taste, but would be, as a drink, ultimately, if
not directly, productive of serious consequences.
Dr. Dunglison writes, that, " to render the water of
marshes and ponds potable, it has been advised to
boil them, under the idea that the boiling temperature
will render the organic matters innoxious, and disengage the unwholesome gaseous principles which they
may contain. To improve them still farther, they
may be agitated, so as to restore the air they have




DRINK.                   39
lost by boiling, and be then filtered through sand or
charcoal. It has been proposed to add to such water
a small quantity of chlorine, or of one of the chlorides; but a quantity sufficient to destroy the foulness
of the fluid can hardly fail to communicate a taste
and smell, disagreeable to most individuals." He
also adds that the Chinese never drink water that has
not been boiled.
For the sick, as well as for those in health, simple,
uncombined water should be preferred. The cruel,
mistaken practice of withholding from the helpless
sufferer whose throat is parched, and whose whole
frame is heated with fever, the draught of water
which he urgently craves, is being abolished; and it
is now discovered - thanks to the hydropathist - that
cold water, which was once expressly interdicted by
the medical attendant as extremely hazardous, is best
adapted, in most cases of disease, to afford relief, and
promote recovery. The needless suffering which,
for centuries, has been caused by an obstinate adherence to the groundless prejudice against cold water
for the sick, it would be difficult to over-estimate.
In alluding to the hydropathist, it may not be presumptuous to express the opinion that the practice of
deluging a patient with cold water, internally and externally, and on all occasions, - whether nature does
or does not demand it, - is almost, if not quite, as
irrational as the old, and it is to be hoped the abandoned, custom above referred to. When a sufficiency




40                  COFFEE.
of water has been drank to administer to the existing
necessities of the system, it will be plainly indicated
by the patient's sensations.  A  feeling of satiety
evinces as decidedly, after drinking water as after
eating food, that enough, or more than enough, has
been taken.
The beverages which, next to water, are the most
generally used, and which are entitled to the fullest
consideration, not only for their dietetic importance,
but also for their medicinal properties, are Coffee
and Tea; either or both of which are drank daily by
nearly every individual in the country.
COFFEE
Is the fruit of a tree originating in Arabia Felix
and Ethiopia, now cultivated in many parts of Europe
and America. The berry is at first green in color,
afterwards red, and finally dark brown, and is composed of two derni-ovoid hard grains, enveloped with
a kind of paper-like membrane. That which comes
from Mocha, in Arabia, is of the best quality. Its
peculiar principle is cafeine, which is white, volatile,
and crystallizable, containing a large quantity of
nitrogen; and it has been discovered to be identical
with "'theine," the bitter principle of tea. Coffee
is, to a certain extent, nutritious, and the addition of
sugar and milk renders it more so; but its injurious
effects upon the nervous system-the evil conse.




COFFEE.                  41
quences, in other respects, resulting from its constant
use —more than counterbalance all the advantages
which have been attributed to it. Possessing narcotic
properties, it may be regarded to that degree as poisonous; and no article whatever of such a nature can
be introduced continually into the system, without,
sooner or later, and in some definite form, affecting
health. Its action as a medicine, administered in
homceopathic doses, in subduing restlessness, promoting sleep, relieving certain kinds of fevers,
counteracting the morbid consequences of certain
mental emotions, &c. is undeniable. The strongest
opiate is not more decided in soporific influence.
Hahnemann pursued his investigations carefully with
respect to coffee; and, as the subject is of much importance, we will translate in full from Jourdan's
edition the remarks of the author in regard to its
effects upon the human system. To aid in acquiring
a clear comprehension of the true action of this narcotic, some prefatory observations are made which,
in connection with the body of the treatise, we venture to present to the reader. I-ahnemann thus
writes -
" For the prolongation of life, and for the preservation of health, man should make use of aliment
which is simply nutritive, and which contains nothing
either irritating or medicinal. His drink should be
of a moistening and nutritious character only, like
pure water and milk.




42                 COFFEE.
" No seasoning to stimulate the palate should be
taken other than salt, sugar, and vinegar, — and
these three in small quantities, since in this way they
cannot materially injure.  All of the so-called'sweetmeats,' and all spirituous drinks, partake,
more or less, of the nature of medicine. The nearer
they approach the medicinal, - the more frequently
they are introduced into the stomach, and the greater
the quantity taken, - in the same proportion are they
injurious to health, and tend to the shortening of life.
" The greatest danger consists in making habitual
use of purely medicinal substances, which possess
strong active qualities.
" Wine was the only drink purely medicinal among
the ancients; but the Greeks and Romans were wise
enough never to drink without copiously watering
their wine. In modern times, many other medicinal
substances, both liquid and solid, have been introduced into diet. Tobacco is smoked, chewed, and
stuffed into the nostrils; opium is eaten; spirituous and malt liquors drank; tea and coffee used in
excess.
" Medicinal substances are those which do not
nourish, but which injure the health. Every thing
which injures health is contrary to nature, - a kind
of disease. That which is medicinal has the power
of annihilating the unnatural condition which is called
disease, in proportion to the power which it possesses
of producing disease in the healthy body. Except




COFFEE.                 48
in case of disease, medicines are injurious. To make
frequent use of them, to introduce them into dietetic
regimen, is to destroy the harmony of the organs, to
diminish health, and to abridge life.
" Coffee is a substance almost entirely medicinal.
"All medicines given in large doses exercise an
injurious influence upon a healthy person. No one
can smoke tobacco without experiencing, for the first
time, great aversion. No one finds pure coffee with.
out sugar agreeable the first time it is taken. This
is a caution which nature gives us not to violate the
laws of health, -not to trample under foot the instinct which was given as the preserver of health and
life.
" If, yielding to fashion and to example, medicinal
substances continue to be used, habit blunts, by
degrees, the disagreeable impression which they at
first produce upon us. They end often by giving
pleasure; that is to say, the apparently agreeable
action which they exercise upon our organs becomes
insensibly a necessity for us.
" It so happens also, that, having been brought to
a certain degree, into an unhealthy condition by medicinal substances, instinct leads us to continue the
use of them, to comfort us, momentarily at least, by
the palliative influence which they exert upon the in.
conveniences of which they are, from time to time,
the source. To comprehend this, it will be necessary
to understand that every thing medicinal produces




44                   COFFEE.
two opposing effects upon the human body. Its pri.
mitive effect is precisely the reverse of the secondary
effect, - that is, the state in which the body is left
many hours after the primitive effect has ceased.
" Most medicines occasion among those in health
disagreeable and painful sensations, which, during
the secondary effect, are the reverse of those which
exist during the primitive effect; and even their prolonged use never produces agreeable impressions
upon him who is in health.
The primitive effect of coffee consists, generally,
in a more or less agreeable exaltation of the vital
energy. The animal functions, natural and vital, as
they are named, are artificially excited by it at first.
But the secondary effect, which manifests itself afterwards little by little, brings about a totally opposite
state; that is, an unhappy sense of existence, an
ebbing of life, a kind of paralysis of the animal functions, natural and vital.
" When one not accustomed to coffee takes it in
moderation, or when one habituated to this beverage
uses it in excess, he experiences, for the first few
hours, a vivid sense of his own existence. His pulse
is more full, more frequent, but more feeble. A circumscribed redness is seen upon the cheeks, which
does not extend by insensible degrees, but shows like
a stain. The forehead and the palms of the hands
are covered with a moisture.  More warmth is felt
than before, and this sensation produces a pleasurable




COFFEE.                  45
uneasiness. The heart is agitated by agreeable palpitations. The veins of the hands become swollen.
A more than ordinary heat of the skin is perceived
by the touch; but this heat never becomes burning,
even after a strong dose of coffee, and it soon terminates in a general perspiration. The presence of
mind and the faculty of attention are as active as
in the ordinary state. Every object appears to wear
a smiling aspect. For the first few hours, the coffeedrinker is contented with himself, and with all who
surround him. It is this which has elevated coffee
to the rank of a social drink.
I"When the primitive effect has passed, the opposite condition gradually appears, which is the
secondary effect or re-action. The more decided
the first, the more pronounced and disagreeable will
be the second.
" The abuse of this medicinal beverage causes
more inconveniences in some than in others.
" Our bodies are organized with an art so admirable, that slight errors in diet do not greatly injure us,
while we are living in other respects a life conformable to nature.  Thus, for example, the German
laborer drinks every morning a certain quantity of
brandy; and, if the quantity be small, it does not
prevent him from arriving often at quite an advanced
age. His health suffers but little; for his good constitution, and the salubrious mode of life which he
otherwise leads, counteracts the evil influences of




46                  COFFEE.
such a practice. If, instead of brandy, he should
take every morning one or two cups of coffee, the
result would be the same. The vigor of his frame,
the active exercise to which he is subjected, and the
abundance of pure air which he every day respires,
weaken the influence of the beverage, and his health
does not apparently suffer.
" But the injurious effects of coffee are much more
decided upon those who are not placed in such favorable circumstances.
"The man who passes his life confined to his
house or room may enjoy a sort of health, when he
follows a regimen in other respects appropriate to his
situation. If he is temperate, if he makes use of
easily-digested food, if he confines himself to simple
drinks, if he controls his appetites and passions, and
if he frequently renews the air in his apartment, he
may, on these conditions, enjoy a certain degree of
health, which, it is true, may be affected by the
slightest cause, but which is none the less a source of
relative well-being. The action of all morbific influences, of all medicines, for example, is much more
evident and powerful upon such persons, than upon
those who are robust and accustomed to work in the
open air, who can endure pernicious impressions
without much comparative injury.'" When, at the end of a certain period, the primitive action of coffee, that is to say, the factitious exaltation of the vital activity, is dissipated, a desire to




COFFEE.                  47
sleep comes on, accompanied by inertia greater than
usual; Motion is disagreeable, cheerfulness disappears, and is succeeded by a sad and morose humor.
The agreeable sensation of warmth is no longer felt,
the least variation of temperature causes disagreeable
sensations, and the hands, as well as the feet, become
cold. External objects are viewed under a less flattering aspect. A sort of craving, promptly satisfied,
replaces the natural appetite; and, while food and
drink oppress the stomach, the head becomes heavy.
The sleep is unrefreshing; the awaking, difficult
and painful.
" But, in the morning, a fresh resort to the injurious
palliative removes for a while the evil, and again a
factitious energy commences; enduring, however, a
shorter length of time than at first. The coffee must
be taken more frequently, or stronger, as is the case
with opium and alcohol, until a tolerable degree of
energy is acquired. And thus, day after day, the
constitution of the sedentary man deteriorates. The
surface of the body grows more sensitive, not only
to cold, but to the influence of fresh air, whatever may
be its temperature; digestion is accomplished in a
laborious manner; sleep is not quiet and profound,
but a drowsiness which does not re-animate or refresh.  Serenity, cheerfulness, vigor of mind, is
changed to timidity, indecision, apathy, sadness; and
the mind and body vacillate unceasingly between
high excitement and deep depression.




48                   COFFEE.
" It would be difficult to describe all the derangements with which coffee-drinkers are affected under
the name of nervous diseases.
1" It must not be supposed, however, that all who
drink coffee experience, in an equal degree, the consequences above described. Such is not the case.
With some, a particular symptom is more decided;
while, with others, a different symptom of the secondary effect is more obvious. My description embraces
all classes of coffee-drinkers, and I mention those
symptoms only which are fairly attributable to the
source in question.
"The agreeable sensation of increased energy
which coffee causes for a time, gives place, on the
occasion of the secondary action, to many uncomfortable feelings, which are augmented in proportion
to the strength and frequency of the draughts. A
slight influence which would produce no impression
upon one in health and unaccustomed to coffee, gives
rise, in one who uses it, to headaches, frequent pain
in the teeth, often insupportable, recurring especially
at night, and sharp pains in different parts of the
body.  Erysipelatous affections not unfrequently
arise from this cause. Restlessness, feverish heat,
nervous headaches, constantly disturb the coffeedrinker. No impropriety in regimen occasions more
readily and more certainly caries of the teeth than
the use of coffee, unless it be that of mercury. The
incisive teeth are those most quickly affected.




COFFEE.                  49
" In general, coffee exercises a most pernicious
influence upon children, and so much the more as
they are more delicate. After children, women and
literary men are more injured, inasmuch as their occupations oblige them to lead sedentary lives. To
this class may be added craftsmen who are shut up
in their workshops.
" Certain persons, led in some sort by instinct, find
in spirituous liquors a kind of antidote to coffee. It
cannot be denied that these drinks exert this counteracting effect to a certain extent. But they are
merely new irritants, without any nutritive properties; that is to say, medicinal substances, which,
when taken daily, will bring on other inconveniences,
without removing those of the coffee.  They are
fresh exciting impulses to life, leaving in their train
evils of a different and yet more complicated nature.
" The principal means of removing the evil consequences of coffee is, after renouncing the drink, to
exercise actively in the open air. But, if the mind
and body are too much enfeebled for the adoption of
this course, it will then be necessary to have recourse
to appropriate medicines, which will not be here
designated, since this treatise is not for such a purpose designed.
" Supported by a long experience, I do not hesitate to declare that the daily use of coffee is a most
pernicious practice, and as one of the surest methods
of weakening and ultimately destroying all mental
4




350                 COFFEE.
and physical energy. This drink has been termed
medicinal, and it may be said that medicines are
salutary. No medicine can be useful to a man in
health, and no man can be healthy who makes frequent use of medicine.
" It must be admitted that coffee facilitates digestion in some cases; and, when gastric and intestinal
inaction or torpidity exists, it may be temporarily
beneficial.  But the salutary effects attributed to
coffee, and by which those who take much of it seek
to justify the habit which they have contracted, are
reduced almost entirely to palliative results. Now,
a fact admitting of no dispute is this, that, if the prolonged use of any palliative remedy whatever causes
injury to health, nothing can be more pernicious
than such a substance among the articles of daily
consumption.
" While opposing the use of coffee as an habitual
drink, I nevertheless estimate highly its medicinal
virtues, both as a curative remedy in the chronic
diseases, the symptoms of which bear a great resemblance to the primitive effects, or as a palliative
remedy in the rapidly developed and imminently
dangerous affections whose symptoms greatly resemble the secondary effects of this narcotic. These are
the only cases benefited by a medicinal substance,
which millions of men make use of to their own
great detriment, the true value of which few know,
and which exerts a most salutary influence where it
is properly administered."




COFFEE.                  51
Such is the opinion of one who had thoroughly
studied the properties of coffee; and, however exaggerated the account of its action may appear to
many, daily observation confirms its truth. That it
has been partaken of by some as a daily beverage,
without perceptible injury, throughout the course of
a long life, is no better argument in favor of its
general use than is the same argument when applied
to the habitual use of alcohol.
It may be well to remark here, for the benefit of
those who are wedded to this drink, that, when a
large proportion of milk is added to coffee, the deleterious effects of the latter are, to a considerable
extent, neutralized, and the degree of harmless nutriment obtained from this addition of milk makes the
beverage much less objectionable. The French pre,
pare the berry with great nicety, neither charring
nor slightly roasting it, and add to the decoction
one-half, or more, of boiled milk.  In this form,
it is drank with comparative impunity.  Volney,
while travelling, several years since, through the
United States, observed that the Americans hastily
swallowed large quantities of a strong, nauseous,
and muddy decoction, which they called " coffee;"
and, what with their hurried manner of " bolting"
half-cooked food at the same time, it was not very
surprising that dyspepsia should be so prevalent in this
country.




52                   TEA.
TEA.
This plant is a native of China, and, though dignified with the name of tree, seldom attains the
height of more than five feet. Its leaves are dried
upon iron plates, suspended over a fire, and afterwards packed in tin boxes for exportation. Although
a very large amount of these leaves are shipped to
Europe and America, it has been asserted, that, were
the commerce wholly abandoned, the price of tea
would not be much lessened in China, so great is
the domestic consumption. In the year 1838, there
were imported into Great Britain 32,366,412 pounds
of this article. In this country more than 16,000,000
pounds are now annually received and consumed.
The class designated by the term "' green " includes
hyson, young hyson, imperial gunpowder, and hyson
skin. The " black" teas are the bohea, pouchong,
souchong, &c.
With respect to the nutritive properties of tea,
analysis shows that, out of 100 parts, 84 are tannin,
and woody fibre; 6 are gluten; and 6 are mucilage;
the remaining 4 parts consisting of volatile matter,
&o. Thus it will be perceived, that, without the
addition of sugar and milk, its nutrient properties
are small. Tannin constitutes about 40 in 100 parts.
This is well known to be an astringent principle,
consequently acting as a medicinal power upon the
system. It tends to combine with gelatine, as has




TEA.                   53
been before stated, forming an insoluble compound;
and, of course, from this chemical action, must render whatever gelatine it may meet with in the stomach
indigestible. The green teas are found to be more
astringent than the blacks. They are more narcotic,
and, on account of their greater medicinal qualities,
are prohibited during homceopathic treatment; while
the black teas, much diluted with water, are permitted to be used.
Tea, made strong and drank frequently, produces
consequences upon the nervous system almost as
serious as those from coffee. Its effects are like,
those of all narcotic poisons. Though their actionmay be upon some temperaments scarcely perceptible for a time, they are none the less certain to bring
on, eventually, derangements, similar to those enumerated by Hahnemann as produced by coffee; such as
nervous headaches, tremors, mental depression, &c.
The same observations which were made with
reference to coffee, as a palliative, are applicable to
tea. By its diluent and sedative influence, it may
impart relief in many cases of irritability dependent
on febrile action. It alleviates headache; but the
result is effected by virtue of the power which it
possesses of producing headache, through its action
upon the nervous system.
Although, like coffee, it is useless to deny that tea
possesses useful qualities, it is only as a medicine
that it acts favorably; — and, whatever may be the




54                     TEA.
kind or the strength used, it is still a medicine; —
and the impropriety of taking daily any article of a
medicinal nature has been made sufficiently obvious
by the investigations of Hahnemann.
In the Appendix to " Pereira's Treatise," edited
by Dr. Lee, are the following remarks respecting
the article under consideration: " Green tea undoubtedly possesses very active medicinal properties;
for a very strong decoction of it, or the extract,
speedily destroys life in the inferior animals, even when
given in very small doses. This has been repeatedly
tested by experiment, and may therefore be taken
as an undoubted fact. The strongly marked effects
of tea upon persons of a highly nervous temperament, in causing wakefulness, tremors, palpitations,
and other distressing feelings, prove also that it is an
agent of considerable power, and should not be used
to any great extent by persons of such a habit. It
not unfrequently occasions vertigo and sick headache, together with a sinking sensation at the pit of
the stomach, shortly after eating. It is also opposed
to an active nutrition, and should therefore be used
with great moderation by those who are very thin in
flesh. From its astringent properties, it is often useful in certain conditions; and, from  its pleasurable,
exhilarating effects, it is often recommended to the
studious, the sedentary, and those affected with low
spirits and indigestion. We are, however, satisfied
that green tea does not, in any case, form a salu



CHOCOLATE.                 55
brious beverage for persons in health, and should
give place to milk, milk and water, black tea, milk
and sugar, which, taken tepid, form very agreeable
and healthy drinks."
CHOCOLATE, MILKI WHEY, ETC.
Chocolate is prepared from the nut of the cacaotree, a native of the West Indies. The kernels of
the nut, after being heated upon an iron plate, and
afterwards ground, form, with the addition of water,
a paste, which is sweetened, flavored, dried in
moulds of different shapes, and sold in the shops as
chocolate. Cocoa is a preparation of the same substance, - the husks, as well as the kernels, being
ground up together. Both are nutritious as beverages, more so than tea or coffee, and do not contain
any strictly medicinal properties; but the large proportion of oil which enters into their composition
renders them indigestible, and therefore unsuitable
for those whose digestive powers are enfeebled. If
the oil of the nut is extracted, the indigestibility is
of course diminished; and the " prepared cocoa,"
which contains but little oil, is the least objectionable
for invalids. As a daily beverage, however, both
chocolate and cocoa are much to be preferred to tea
or coffee; and, if the process of digestion and assimilation proceed in a healthy manner, they cannot
be productive of any injurious results.




56                   MILK.
Milk occupies a middle rank between vegetable
and animal food. While not strictly a beverage, it
is chiefly used as such by the adult. It has been
considered by some as of a purely vegetable nature;
but it surely is erroneous thus to class it, since it is
manifestly absurd to call the milk taken for instance
from a carniverous animal a vegetable production.
It contains saccharine, oleaginous, aqueous, and albuminous ingredients, - four principles, to which
Dr. Prout reduced all alimentary matters.  The
aqueous principle, which forms so large a portion of
all organized substances, constitutes nearly ninetenths of milk. Dr. Prout regarded fibrine, gluten,
and gelatine as modifications of albumen; classed
all vegetable principles under the head of saccharine; animal and vegetable oils under that of the
oleaginous.  He says that the composition of the
substances by which animals are usually nourished,
favors the mixture of the primary staminal alimentary principles; since most of these substances are
compounds of at least two of the staminal principles.
Thus, most of the gramineous and herbaceous matters contain the saccharine or amylaceous and the
glutinous principles; while every part of an animal
contains at least albumen (assuming here its general
identity with fibrine) and oil. Perhaps, therefore, it
is impossible to name a substance constituting the
food of the more perfect animals, which is not essentially a natural compound of at least two, if not




NILK.                     57
all the three, great principles of aliment. But it is
in the artificial food of man that we see this great
principle of mixture strongly exemplified. He, dissatisfied with the spontaneous productions of nature,
culls from every source; and by the force of his reason, or rather of his instinct, forms in every possible
manner, and under every disguise, the same great
alimentary compound. This, after all his cooking
and his art, how much soever he may be disinclined
to believe it, is the sole object of his labor; and
the more nearly his results approach to this object, the
more nearly do they approach perfection.  Even
in the utmost refinements of luxury, and in his
choicest delicacies, the same great principle is attended to; and his sugar and flour, his eggs and
butter, in all their various forms and combinations,
are nothing more or less than disguised imitations of
the great alimentary prototype, milk, as furnished to
him by nature.
Milk is the natural food of the young of all animals of the mammalia class, and contains all the
nutritious qualities necessary for their sustenance;
but it is not to be inferred, in consequence, that it will
prove sufficient for the adult animal.  It is more
nutritive than vegetable, and less so than animal,
food. Many persons cannot be restricted to a milk
diet without suffering from acescency, and other
symptoms of indigestion; and, in certain morbid
affections, it appears to be entirely unsuitable. As




58                  WHEY.
an additional proof that a diet exclusively vegetable
was not originally intended for man, it may be
stated that human milk is less abundant, thinner, and
more acidulous, and for this reason not so well
adapted for the support of the child, when the
mother lives entirely on vegetable food.  In this
connection, it is well to add that the milk is readily
affected, not only by the kind of aliment taken, but
by mental emotions, and especially by medicinal
substances. The injurious consequences of medicine
in large doses and in a crude state, administered at
times so copiously to nursing mothers, are not confined to them, but act most sensibly upon the impressible system of the infant, through the medicated
secretion of milk; and the helpless young creature
is thus forced to draw in poisoned food, even for a
long time after the direct medicinal action upon the
mother has ceased. So evident is this transmitted
influence, that, in order to counteract many morbid
conditions in the child, it is oftentimes only necessary
to administer the appropriate homoeopathic remedy to
the mother; which, being absorbed without injury
to the latter, is conveyed through the medium of the
food to the little patient.
Whey is the watery and least nutritious part of
milk, freed, in a great measure, from the caseous
and butyraceous properties; and from the absence,
or greatly diminished amount, of these qualities, it is
better adapted as a beverage for the sick, and especially in febrile, acute diseases.




ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.              59
Buttermilk is milk which has been deprived of its
oleaginous portion by agitation.  When milk has
been preserved but a short time before this separation is made to take place, the buttermilk is less
acidulous than if the milk has been long kept before
the butter is separated. In consequence of the removal of the oily matter, it is more digestible than
pure milk, although less nutritive, and, for this
reason, is better fitted as a beverage in inflammatory
and other diseases. It is refrigerant in proportion to
its acidity, but this renders the drink liable to produce gastric inconveniences.
Sugar of XMilk is the saline substance obtained
from the whey by evaporation. It has also been
termed the " essential salt of milk."  That which is
sold in this country is usually procured from Switzerland, where it is prepared from the whey, there
existing in large quantities during the preparation of
cheese. As a non-medicinal vehicle, sugar of milk
is much used in the trituration and administration
of homceopathic medicines, being purified, for this
purpose, from all foreign salts.
ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.
Of these artificial liquors there is a great variety,
the quantity of alcohol varying, more or less, in
each; but they are all, without an exception, injurious to the animal economy. Water is the only




60            ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.
fluid which is appointed by nature for human necessities, the most efficient and only suitable diluent or
refrigerant; and it certainly is unnecessary and unwise to resort to any other. The most commendable
crusade ever undertaken against any of the diabolical agencies which obstruct man's path to heaven,
is that now being carried on against the arch-enemy
to human health and happiness, - alcohol; the accursed thing that man himself has taken pains to
extract from the naturally harmless gifts of God.
Certain medical authors have attempted to stigmatize
the most blessed movement of the present age, —
that of uncompromising opposition to alcohol as a
beverage, and have asserted that the temperate use
of wine, &c. is not injurious to a healthy person.
The course of reasoning adopted to prove this assertion must be of a singular nature. No one in health
needs stimulants. They may be of benefit in imparting temporary vigor to the debilated; although
Hahnemann, as well as others, has demonstrated
that the excitement and strength produced by artificial means is certain to be followed by a corresponding state of depression and debility; and, to
avoid the recoil, continued stimulation is required,
until it becomes a necessity. "' The last state of the
man is worse than the first." A morbid appetite is
created for that which does not nourish, and cannot
become assimilated with, the body. As a beverage,
however, alcohol is here to be referred to; and as




ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.             61
such, in all its forms, no opposition to it can be too
strenuous and persevering.
It is said to be fallacy of reasoning to argue
against the use of an article from its abuse. But, in
this instance, one term implies the other. The use
of any solid or fluid not necessary for sustenance,
and for the perservation of health, may be termed its
abuse; but this alcoholic principle, in any shape
whatever, is not only needless, but positively inimical to the natural operation of the living functions.
It is an absolute poison when pure, and but a diluted
poison when weakened; and, while no one but a
madman would attempt to swallow it undiluted,
many gradually insinuate the poison into their systems
by the more palatable and rather less excoriating
form, deluding themselves into the belief that the
poison is altogether neutralized by being diluted.
It matters not in what shape the " enemy is put into
the mouth," even if in not sufficient force at once
" to steal away the brains;" it still remains an enemy,
and no " ingenious device" can possibly deprive it
of that character.  "It [alcohol] does not form a
constituent part of any tissue or of any fluid in the
healthy body; it retards, in place of aiding, those
series of changes which the aliment undergoes before
it is converted into blood; it is perturbating always,
and deleterious generally, to the functions, whether
they be merely of nutrition, or those by which man
is enabled to speculate on his own situation, and




62             ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.
to fulfil his higher destiny."  (Dr. Bell on Regimen.)
Alcohol is the product of the vinous fermentation.
Having been first obtained from the juice of the
grape, it was denominated'" spirits of wine." By
distillation, or that process by which the volatile are
separated, through heat, from the fixed principles,
alcohol is procured in its purest state. It exists in
different proportions in all intoxicating liquids. To
enter into details respecting the comparative amount
of alcohol present in the different drinks which pass
under the name of rum, brandy, gin, porter, &c.
would be unnecessary. It may be sufficient here to
state that they contain, in a greater or less degree,
the poison which produces morbid changes upon the
stomach and brain, and are, one and all, totally unfit
for beverages.
Were alcohol a principle which benefited, in place
of injuring; improved digestion, instead of disturbing
it; elevated man towards the angel, instead of debasing him below the brute, - still the abominable
adulterations to which it is, in every saleable form,
subjected, ought to exclude it from use.  Wines are
adulterated by lime, alum, lead, corrosive sublimate,
and arsenic. Impure when imported, — since the
United States is the market for the poorest kinds of
wine, - they are doubly so when consumed.  Beer
contains more quassia than hops; and the fine froth,
which is so strangely attractive, is generally the pro



ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.            63
duction of a vile mixture of green vitriol, alum, and
salt.  Porter frequently contains the " cocculus
Indicus," a berry brought from Malabar, which is
exceedingly poisonous. Lead can often be detected
in brandy, by slowly boiling until the alcohol has
evaporated; and so with the others. There are but
few which do not contain a poison, superadded to
that they legitimately possess, which alone ought to
satisfy the morbid cravings of the irrational, selfabandoned toper.




64
CHAPTER   III.
ON AIR.
THE character of the air by which man is surrounded,
and which fills the lungs at every inspiration, must of
necessity exert a very important influence upon his
health. Its density and rarity, its dryness and humidity, its sudden alternations of temperature, its
vitiation by emanations from animal and vegetable
life, its electric conditions, &c. produce impressions
upon the human economy more or less direct and
powerful. When it is recollected that there are
between 28,000 and 29,000 inspirations in twentyfour hours, and that, during this period, more than
one million cubic inches of air are inspired into the
lungs for the purpose of rendering the blood which
circulates through the entire frame fit for the support
of life, the influence of any cause which may detract
from the purity of this fluid so essential to existence
must be obviously deleterious.
The oxygen of the air, which constitutes one-fifth
part of the whole, is indispensable to respiration; the
remaining four-fifths is nitrogen or azote, an element




AIR.                    65
destructive to life. Carbonic acid, and other gases
which emanate from different substances upon the
earth, exist in the atmosphere; but in proportions so
inconsiderable to the whole mass, as to be considered
rather as heterogeneous and accidental, than as forming any of its component parts. The only ingredient
in air which, by itself, can support life, is oxygen;
and even this gas is irrespirable, except in that form
of combination which naturally exists, and which is
found to be uniform in every part of the atmosphere
obtainable for analysis. Although, in the ordinary
state of air, carbonic acid, which destroys life more
rapidly than nitrogen, forms but a very small portion,
viz. 1 in 1000 parts, and is, of course, innoxious in
this connection, yet it may, under certain circumstances, greatly exceed this proportion; and, while
most other deleterious matters prove their existence
to the sense of smell, carbonic acid gas may extinguish life, without yielding any premonitory indication
of its presence.
It is well known, that, during respiration, the character of the air inspired is altered; that a portion
of the oxygen, uniting with the carbon which it
meets in the lungs, is converted into carbonic acid;
that this carbonic acid is expelled at every expiration, its quantity being the same in amount with that
of the oxygen which has disappeared. The nitrogen
undergoes no perceptible alteration. It has already
been stated by what means carbon is received into
5




66.                   AIR.
the circulation, before forming its combination with
oxygen in the lungs. As oxygen is constantly consumed in this manner, and its place in the air
supplied by carbonic acid, it is manifest that, without
proper caution, health, in a climate which compels
much confinement within doors, is continually subject to derangement from the invisible influence
which is everywhere present. Ventilation, or the
obtaining a plentiful supply of fresh alr for apartments where human beings congregate, is a subject
to which attention should be especially directed; and,
in a hygienic point of view, is of the highest possible
interest.
Deteriorated air is one chief cause of the production,
or rather the development, of many serious affections.
The rise and progress of " scurvy " is believed to be
owing, in a greater measure than is generally supposed, to the vitiated air which abounds in the
interior of vessels which are not supplied with suitable means of ventilation. The food to which seamen
are usually restricted, is, undoubtedly, the primary
exciting cause of this disorder; but that its ravages
would be greatly limited by an abundance of pure
air is not to be denied. In some of the large manufacturing establishments of England, where the air
is quite impure, " scrofula " and " rickets " are very
common; and, although many other injurious influences, to which disease may be attributed, are at
work upon the operatives, still the confined air which




AIR.                   67
they are compelled to breathe, tends materially to
elicit the above-named disorders, where a predisposition exists. Scrofula, particularly, is found to be
prevalent among the lower classes who reside in the
crowded dwellings situate in narrow, confined streets
of cities. Baudeloque affirms that "impure air
is the true, perhaps the only, cause of scrofulous
disease: wherever we find scrofula, that cause exists;
where it exists, we find scrofula; and where it is absent, scrofula is not known." Carmichael states, in
his small work on scrofula, that this disease prevailed
to an extraordinary extent in the House of Industry
at Dublin; and that, in one room, 60 feet by 18, with
a low ceiling, one hundred and fourteen children
were confined through the night and nearly aill the
day.  "When the door of this ward-room  was
opened in the morning, the air was insupportable."
At the Lying-in Hospital of Dublin, it is stated by
Dr. Clarke, that, in 1781, owing to the impurity of
the air in the wards, every sixth child died, within
nine days after birth, of convulsions; and that, after
means of thorough ventilation had been adopted, the
mortality in the five succeeding years was reduced
to nearly 1 in 20. Sir James Clarke also believes
that "' living in an impure atmosphere is even more
influential in deteriorating health than defective food,
and that the immense mortality among children and
in workhouses is ascribable more to the former than
to any other cause. Dr. Combe, in his " Treatise on




68                   AIR.
the Management of Infancy," thus writes: " Those
whose attention has never been specially directed to
the subject can have no idea of the extent to which
this cause (impure air) of bad health in the young
is left in operation among even the middle classes of
society, and much more from ignorance than any unavoidable necessity. I have seen many examples of
this; but the most striking which I have met with was
in a very large family, in which scrofula raged with
an intensity almost exactly proportioned to the degree
of vitiation of the air in which its several members
lived. The first-born children escaped altogether,
because, in their day, the nursery and bed-rooms
were, of course, least crowded, and it was easier to
have the occupants much in the open air; but afterwards, when five or six young people, and the
nursery-maids, lived and slept in one room of very
moderate dimensions, in which cooking and washing
were carried on, and two more in a small ill-aired
bed-closet adjoining, every one of them  suffered
severely from the disease. The bad air not being
suspected to have any share in the result, no attempt
was made to improve it by adequate ventilation,
even during the day; and, in consequence, all the
medical treatment and means resorted to served only
to retard the progress of the scrofula, but without
being able to cure it.  In this way, the younger
members of the family suffered under it for several
years; and, in a large proportion of them, it was




AIR.                   69
either directly or indirectly the cause of death. If
one-half of the expense incurred for medical attendance and sea-bathing had been devoted from the first
to removing the original cause, and procuring a permanent supply of fresh air, a vast amount of anxiety
and suffering might have been saved to all, and to
none more than to the fond parents, who could only
mourn over a fatality which they never imagined it
possible to prevent."
Vitiated air impairs the quality of the blood; and,
if immediate consequences are not observed to follow
confinement in it, it is nevertheless certain that the
health will be more or less affected, that the constitution will be undermined, and a foundation laid for
diseases which will eventually appear in force, and
perhaps result in death years afterward. The air of
small rooms or shops, where one or more persons are
always present, must be impure, unless a fresh supply
is frequently admitted. It should not be supposed,
because one does not suffer direct inconvenience, that
the air is of sufficiently good quality for respiration.
Small apartments, heated during cold weather by a
"red-hot demon of a stove," with the chimney
blocked up, and every crack and crevice in windows
and doors stuffed with wool, are better adapted for the
dead than for the living; and, in sleeping apartments,
where pure air is especially needed, great care is
exercised in excluding it, as though it were an enemy
instead of a.friend. Is it surprising that indisposition




70                    AIR.
is so often complained of in the morning? If lassitude, drowsiness, inanimation, cannot be accounted
for, in such cases, by the inmates of a poisoned bedroom, let them leave it for a moment after rising, and,
on their re-entrance, they will be at no loss for a
cause. There may be oxygen enough left, it is true,
to sustain life; but there is much more carbonic acid
and other impurities than is suitable for healthy
respiration. It was a sad change, and a most questionable modern improvement, when the open, capacious, ventilating fire-places of a former age gave
place to " air-tight stoves " in air-tight apartments.
In the "Grotto del Cano," kingdom of Naples,
there has long been an accumulation of carbonic
acid gas, which,, on account of its greater density, oc.
cupies the lower portions of the cave. This is a hole
in the side of a mountain near the lake Agnano, measuring not more than eighteen feet from its entrance
to the inner extremity. Dogs are there kept for the
benefit of the curious traveller, that he may have
the rare opportunity of witnessing the immediate and
deadly effects of this gas. One of these animals is
thrust in by the sordid scoundrel in attendance, and,
on being forced to inhale the carbonic acid, it instantly expires; though it is often resuscitated in
order to go through subsequent experiments of the
same cruel description. Such is the noxious gas exhaled from the human lungs; and, were a person to
be enclosed in a perfectly tight box, all external air




AIR.                  71
being completely excluded, he would, as soon as the
oxygen was exhausted, cease to exist, suffocated by
the carbonic acid which his own breathing had generated. Thus it will be readily perceived, that, by
preventing all entrance of pure air into an inhabited
room, a poison is unceasingly accumulating, which,
though it may continue in a diluted state for a long
time, and never perhaps become sufficiently concentrated to produce instant death, is still a poison;
acting like the daily draughts of a weakened narcotic,
gradually to reduce the vital energy, and prepare the
way for the approach of disease and death.
The vicissitudes of temperature, sudden alternations of heat and cold so frequent in our climate, are
exciting causes of much disease. The system may
accommodate itself after a time to the endurance of
either extreme of temperature; for the human race
are capable of enjoying a certain degree of health
in the intense cold of the frigid zone, as well as under
the burning sun of the equator. But when the atmospheric changes are rapid, when the system is kept in
a state of constant perturbation and fluctuation, no
period of sufficient length intervening to enable it to
call up all its powers of resistance to the unexpected
agency, a derangement of healthy action must be the
consequence. If the alteration is from heat to cold,
the cutaneous transpiration, which, as the great
depurating medium, should be uninterrupted, is
checked; a disturbance is induced in the capillary




72                    AIR.
vessels on the surface, which is transferred, through
sympathy, to the mucous membrane lining the interior; and thus catarrhs, inflammation of throat,
lungs, intestines, &c. are produced. When the reverse is the case, when the variation from sudden
cold to heat occurs, a similar irregularity of action
results, and internal inflammations are likewise developed. In passing from a heated room, without
sufficient protection, into the external air of a win.
ter's day, the body is exposed to the like influences
and consequences. The thermometer in the house
may indicate 75 to 80 degrees, and the thermometer
without may be below zero, yet thousands of imprudent individuals are daily exposing themselves to this
extreme transition; stepping at once, as it were,
from the torrid zone into the Arctic regions, with but
a trifling difference of clothing. Many strong men
have thus jumped from their counting-rooms into a
sick-bed; and many delicate women have thus
danced out of the ball-room into the grave.
Emanations from the earth, in certain localities,
are other prolific sources of disease. In the western
parts of our country, the air becomes vitiated by
" marsh miasmata," which induce fevers of a peculiar type. Much ignorance prevails with regard to
the nature of this poison, and much difference of
opinion as to its origin; whether it is generated by
animal, vegetable, or aqueous decomposition, or
by all combined.  Certain it is, that intermittent




AIR.                   73
fevers, which are so prevalent in marshy districts,
also occur in localities where no miasm from such
sources can be produced. Whatever may be the
circumstance or combination of circumstances necessary for the production of the variety of intermittents,
it is admitted that a moist atmosphere exercises a
considerable influence in their promotion.
In respect to the nature of epidemics in general,
what is the peculiar atmospheric condition to which
their existence may be ascribed, nothing is known
with any degree of certainty. Numerous suggestions have been made relative to the causes which
give rise to endemic diseases, such as remittent and
intermittent fevers, &c. confined to certain districts,
as well as to epidemic diseases, such as plague, influenza, cholera, &c. Electric influences, extreme
heat and cold, dryness and humidity of the air, and
other agencies, have been mentioned as direct causes,
and all have been abandoned as universally inapplicable and inadequate. The plague, for example,
which has its principal dwelling-place in Egypt,
appears to be the effect of no definite cause, or union
of causes, which do not equally prevail where there
is no plague. The irregular, undefinable movements
of the influenza, the equally indeterminate migrations of the cholera, admit of no satisfactory
explanation.  That an infectious influence, impalpable, invisible, eluding the keenest investigation,
does exist, —acting with terrific violence upon the




74                   AIR.
human system, and baffling all medicinal measures
of a gross, material nature adopted for its removal,is undeniable; and while an imperceptible cause is
thus in operation, forcing an acknowledgment from
all of its immense and unseen power, the similar
action of poisons attenuated by art is, because
attenuated, by the many disregarded, unrecognized,
ridiculed, as a delusion of the few.
While referring to unhealthy emanations, it may
be well to allude to " intramural interments." It is
a subject to which the public attention has been
recently directed; and it is " devoutly to be wished,"
-that efficient action may be taken for the immediate
abolition of the revolting custom of burying the dead
in the very homes of the living. The putrefaction
of bodies, crowded into a small space, vitiates the
surrounding air; and, as has been clearly established,
is, under certain circumstances, positively morbific.
Several instances are on record of death occurring
on exposure to the exhalations from putrid corpses;
and, according to Baron Percy, at an anatomical
demonstration in Paris, - decomposition of the subject being far advanced, - the celebrated Fourcroy,
after being exposed to the emanations from the
decaying body, suffered from a violent eruptive
fever; that one of the physicians died in three days,
in consequence of breathing the tainted air; and that
two others remained for a long time in a debilitated
condition, from which one never entirely recovered.




AIR.                  7t
Dr. Good states, that, in opening some of the burial.
places of France, the effluvium strikes so forcibly
upon the grave-digger as to throw him into a state
of asphyxia, if close at hand; and, if at a little distance, to oppress him with vertigo, fainting, nausea,
loss of appetite, and tremors, for several hours;
while numbers of those who live in the neighbor.
hood of such cemeteries labor under dejected spirits,
sallow countenances, and febrile emaciation. Many
similar relations might be added, were it necessary;
and, although it would be perhaps difficult to prove
that exposure to animal decomposition would inva.
riably affect health in a directly perceptible manner,
yet that effluvia from human bodies in a state of
decay do, in many individuals and under many conditions, act most injuriously, tending to excite
nervous and putrid disorders, destroying health and
life, is an assertion which no one probably will
undertake to refute. Magendie has expressed his
decided conviction, that the miasm arising from
church-yards, and which is often perceptible to the
olfactory sense of the inhabitants of cities, is a fruitful source of disease, decrepitude, and death; even
though much diluted by the atmosphere, and spread
over a large extent of country.
The existence of a dense crowd of living beings,
men, dogs, and horses, confined within the narrow
limits of a city, is sufficient to vitiate the air, and
render it unfavorable to health, without the presence




76                   AIR.
of the dead. Notwithstanding the best-regulated
sanitary measures, even if constantly carried on with
the commendable energy which characterized the
proceedings of our city authorities in view of the recent pestilence; notwithstanding the multiplication
of " breathing holes," those " lungs of a metropolis'
to which the half-stifled citizen may resort when he
can "spare time" to inhale the " pure air of
heaven,'' there will necessarily: exist many sources
of impurity, much that breeds disease, exclusive of
the oontamination of sepulchres. The mortality of a
city is much greater than that of the country. The
favorable change frequently effected by a removal
from the former to the latter, particularly in diseases
connected with the respiratory organs, is strikingly
indicative of the comparative insalubrity of a townresidence.  And not to the invalid alone is the
change beneficial. All have experienced, on passing
into the open country, the invigorating, exhilarating
influence of pure air, -that blessed, health-sustaining agent of which men are so wilfully deprived
when " jamming themselves" between the brick
walls of a narrow and crowded city, " the hospital
of the living, and the tomb of the dead."
Allusion has been made to moisture in the atmosphere as apparently tending to promote the spread
of malarious diseases. The exciting poison is unquestionably exhaled from the earth, whatever may
be the nature of the exhalations; but it is evident that




AIR.                    77
moisture enters largely into the circumstances which
favor the extension and concentration of the miasm.
In general, the diseases which are evidently produced
by the poisonous emanations from the soil prevail in
marshy districts, where, through the influence of
solar heat, evaporation loads the air with moisture.
It is true that, in dry, elevated situations, the same
diseases have been known to exist; a fact attempted
to be explained on the presumption that the miasma,
which, by reason of its greater specific gravity,
would remain near the surface of the earth, is raised
by the lighter ascending vapor to a higher and
dryer locality.  Independently of its presumed
agency in the transmission of poisonous properties,
atmospheric moisture is more unfavorable to health
than the opposite condition, dryness. Sir Jas. Clarke
asserts, that "humidity, of all the physical qualities of the air, is the most injurious to human life."
He adds, that " particular attention should be paid, in
selecting situations for building, to the circumstances
which are calculated to obviate humidity either in
the soil or atmosphere, in every climate. Thick and
lofty trees, close to a house, tend to maintain the air
in a state of humidity, by preventing its free circulation, and by obstructing the free admission of the
sun's rays. Houses in confined, shady situations,
with damp courts or gardens, or standing water
close to them, are unhealthy in every climate and
season, but especially in a country subject to




78                   AIR.
intermitting fevers, and during summer and autumn."
In travelling from Civita Vecchia to Rome, over a
portion of the Pontine Marshes, the sad consequences
of inhaling air rendered impure by earthy exhalations are strikingly visible upon the health of the
unfortunate inhabitants there met with. Vegetating
slowly and laboriously like sickly plants, struggling
vainly against the deadly influence of the malaria,
with complexions sallow and corpse-like, eyes
sunken and lustreless, limbs "' doughy" and dropsical, imbecile in mind and body, they wander
gloomily about, drinking in, with every breath, the
poison which early consumes them.
At no period of life are the deleterious consequences
of confinement in impure air more perceptible than
during infancy and childhood. "~ Pale countenances,
weak eyes, general relaxation of the body, an accumulation of all the inconveniences and sufferings
of childhood, at length consumption, and early
dissolution of life, are the natural and frequent conse.
quences of such confinement. The daily enjoyment
of fresh air contributes greatly to the health and
sprightliness of children, and is one of the most efficient preventives against that delicate and sickly
condition which is so frequently witnessed in those
who are almost constantly confined and pampered
in nurseries." - (Eberle.)  " Pure, uncontaminated
air is, indeed, most grateful to the feelings of chil



AIR.                   79
dren. After having been carried out but a few
times, they evince, even at a very early age, a strong
desire to return to the open air. When they can
scarcely crawl, they instinctively advance towards
that part of the room from which they have a
prospect of escaping." — (Struve.)




80
CHAPTER IV.
ON EXERCISE.
HEALTH cannot be sustained without exercise. The
due development of the muscles into elastic firmness; the energetic action of the digestive apparatus;
the easy, unobstructed circulation of the blood;
healthy absorption, secretion, and nutrition, are all
dependent upon a proper degree of bodily exertion.
There is no hygienic agent of more consequence,
none which requires such incessant urging by the
medical attendant upon patients invalided through
indolence, and no curative influence more thoroughly,
systematically neglected, than exercise. With muscles torpid from want of action, nerves unstrung,
digestion painful, mind enfeebled, the snail-imitating immortal, wearied with doing nothing,
C"ennuyed" by the merest trifle, fancies that he
requires medicine; and, when told that activity is the
grand restorative, resorts to the favorite easy-chair,
and smiles incredulously; or, if prevailed upon to
make an effort, crawls lazily through a few streets,
and returns to lie down, as though completely ex



EXERCISE.                 81
hausted. There are hundreds in this melancholy
condition; men and women dying from inaction,
" stagnating like sluggish pools;" while the world
is full of objects demanding human interest and
human energy.
The desire for muscular action is exhibited in the
earliest years of man. It is a powerful instinct of
animal nature. There is an involuntary tendency in
the young to move energetically and freely; and
they would be gamboling most of the time, were not
their little frames " cribbed, coffined, and confined "
on the hard benches of a hot school-room, or compelled by their fond parents to keep quiet at home.
Physical activity is a necessity with all animate
things; it is a law universal throughout creation, that
health and subsistence are to be gained by exertion,
"' by the sweat of the brow." Adam was not born
in a rocking chair, before a coal fire, and requested
to sit still and make himself comfortable. He was
obliged to move after means of subsistence, to dig
for roots, to climb for fruit, or to chase the animals
for a meal; and it would be better for all his descendants, morally and physically, were they compelled
to do the same.
By exercise, an invigorating impulse is communicated, through the accelerated circulation, to every
portion of the living frame. Respiration is more full
and free; the cutaneous vessels are stimulated; the
appetite increased; the muscular and nervous systems
6




82                 EXERCISE.
strengthened; secretory action promoted; obstructions
prevented; the spirits enlivened; every function of the
body and every faculty of the mind animated with
natural, healthful energy. It is cruel, in view of these
advantages, to impose restraint upon the motions of
childhood. It is a sad self-infliction for the adult to deprive himself of such beneficial results. It would be
folly to make a fixture of a machine adapted for locomotion, allowing it to rust and be ruined in unprofitable inaction. How much greater is the folly when
that machine is a living, breathing, naturally-restless
thing, every fibre gifted with full powers of action
and endurance, with a wonderful arrangement of
moving forces, and a " spark of divinity" enclosed
that will live for ever, dimmed and nearly extinguished by the unhealthy, unnatural stillness of its
enveloping material, upon whose movements, in no
small degree, its brightness depends!
Sedentary occupations, unless regular intervals
are allotted for exercise, induce a condition the very
reverse of health. Mechanics of a certain class are
liable to diseases of which the active man knows
nothing. Artists, gilders, watchmakers, tailors, and
others of like occupation, are subject to peculiar
bodily derangements. Congestion to the lungs and
abdomen, gastric difficulties, nervous headaches,
irritability and weakness of body and mind, which
render the man a burden to himself and an annoyance to those around him, result from long-continued




EXERCISE.                 83
and close confinement to such employments. Regu.
lar, methodical exercise, which would counteract the
evil effects of such a life, because it does not appear
directly "'profitable," is neglected; and thus too
many needlessly fall victims to complaints which em.
bitter their whole existence.  When the business
demands much mental application, when intense
study is added to want of exercise, the consequences
are still more disastrous. Instances of longevity are
extremely rare among those who devote their hours
to incessant application. Constitutions endowed by
nature with unusual power " break down" in the
very " spring-time of life," without relaxation. Men
of rugged frames and nerves of iron, who might
have fitted themselves almost to cope with the lion
in his strength, and to match the antelope in agility,
become, in a few brief years, puny and helpless, and
early fall a resistless prey to that mortal enemy of
the studious man, — inactivity.  How widely different is the physical training of the civilized citizen
and the savage! The daily labor of the former
frequently consists in merely varying the position of
his lower extremities by forcing a four-legged chair
to become a biped, and by raising his heels above
the level of his head. The savage, on the contrary,
is in constant activity. His limbs are supple, springy,
and powerful. His pedestrian excursions are somewhat more extensive than the five minutes' travel of
a sickly student; for they are forty or fifty miles in




84                EXERCISE.
length; and when he sits or lies down, it is for the
purpose of resting. After resting, he is refreshed,
and with renewed vigor, and in the wild exhilaration
of high health, bounds forth, with a shout, into the
free air to procure his food.
The institution of the Olympic games by Lycurgus, after the Trojan war, tended more than any
other of his wise regulations to prevent the ancient
Greeks from becoming luxurious and effeminate.
The most important of these games were wrestling,
boxing, quoit-pitching, foot and horse-racing; and
to excel in such exercises, which were conducted
with a view to the development of bodily and mental
strength, was an honor to which all aspired, - a victory which inflamed their ambition more even than
the acquisition of military glory. An indolent Greek
was, in those days, an object of scorn and contempt.
The Romans encouraged their youth to exercise in
the Gymnasiums, as the surest method of forming a
nation of strong and brave soldiers; and, during the
middle ages, when warlike operations were going on
throughout the continent of Europe, when physical
energy and activity were of the highest value on the
field of battle, manly sports were engaged in with
intense ardor by all classes of people, as the principal means of bestowing health and strength. And,
in England, exercises in the open air were regarded
as of such consequence, in the formation of manliness
of person and character, that royal proclamations




EXERCISE.                 85
and parliamentary acts were repeatedly promulgated
for their promotion and regulation.
The youth of the present age, inheriting a predis.
position to chronic diseases, the ultimate effect,
perhaps, of indolent habits contracted by the parents,
are reared like hot-house plants, that the " wind of
heaven may not visit them too roughly," instead of
being subjected to means which forward organic
development, and counterbalance a scrofulous or
consumptive tendency. The germ of disease is fostered with extraordinary care, until it attains an
exuberance of growth which defies all remedial measures; and, in the morning of life, a premature grave
is opened for the burial of the poor victim to perse.
vering mismanagement. At variance with every
known physical law, in contradiction to all that
is reasonable and self-evident, is the too prevalent
notion that weakly children should be at rest. Withholding from the feverish sufferer the only refrigerating diluent (cold water) which nature is urgently
demanding; shutting out from the suffocating invalid
the fresh air for which he gasps; binding down the
quivering muscle already debilitated by unnatural
inaction, are absurdities analogous in character, and
practices abhorrent to every pathological and physiological principle.
With regard to the various modes of exercise,
Walking is generally the most serviceable to health,
as it is the most simple and convenient. A more




8ti6               EXERCISE.
equal distribution of motion is imparted to the mus.
cular apparatus; a more unconstrained position is
assumed in this quiet mode of progression than in
any other. It is an exercise in which the rich and the
poor can, at all times, indulge; and for the neglect
of which no possible excuse, by the sound-limbed,
can be offered. By walking is not meant the lazy
dragging of one foot after the other across a street,
or from the dwelling-house to the shop or office; but
a brisk, vigorous, resolute propulsion of the body
far out into the pure air of the country, where the
eye can rest upon objects that are not wholly artificial, the ear listen to music more exhilarating than
the noise of cart-wheels and voices of charcoal vendors, and the soul refreshed by being elevated
" through nature up to nature's God." A man may
hurry through the crowded streets of a city, dodging
at every step to avoid violent contact with posts, animate and inanimate, until he is fatigued and irritated;
a woman may perform her domestic duties with considerable agility, running up and down staircases
until she is " out of breath,' and beguile herself with
the idea that such spasmodic movements are all that
health requires. But much of the benefit of exercise
is lost, unless accompanied by the inspiration of fresh
air. The circulation of the blood is accelerated by
muscular exertion, and the motion of the lungs is
thereby increased; but, for the healthy oxygenation
of the augmented flow of blood, pure air is positively




EXERCISE.                87
needed; and the more rapid the respiration, the more
necessity exists for the inhalation of pure air. The
women of England and Scotland, in general, walk
twelve to fifteen miles daily. It becomes a pleasurable excitement, as well as a salutary recreation; and
the advantages are visible in the cheerful expression
of countenance, the long-retained fresh bloom of
youth, and the well-developed frame. We allude
not to the idle, pampered aristocracy, nor to the
opposite extreme of society; but to the middle
classes, who are interested in the cultivation of their
health, and have sense enough to appreciate its
value. How melancholy is the contrast of these
happy results with the condition of our own countrywomen; who, with unhealthy looking, emaciated
faces and figures, grown prematurely aged by confinement in the impure air of their dwellings, venture
out only in perfectly pleasant weather, and are then
" tired almost to death," after the walk of a mile or
two!
Dancing is an exercise frequently referred to by
its votaries as greatly conducive to health. It would
be so, doubtless, for it is a movement well adapted
to bring the muscles into united action, were the climate such as to admit of its practice in the open air;
but when conducted, as it necessarily is with us, in
heated ball-rooms, at midnight, inll thin dresses,
vitiated air, and with the liability of exposure to
extreme changes of temperature, it cannot be recom



88                 EXERCISE.
mended when attended by such circumstances, as an
exercise promotive of health. The ball-room, in
truth, too often proves the introduction to a sad scene
of suffering, terminated only by death.
Riding on horseback is rather a passive sort of
exercise, but is beneficial as well as agreeable, and
better adapted than any other for those who suffer
from a torpid condition of the gastric and hepatic
functions. Unless, however, the motion of the animal is easy, or the rider well taught, strong muscular
contraction is required to preserve an equipoise; and
the feeble and delicate system is subjected to efforts
which may prove too violent. The favorable consequences are very decided with those who complain
of indigestion, and the endless variety of anomalous
derangements which have no fixedness, resulting
from  sedentary occupations.  It has been highly
recommended by some for the consumptive; but the
benefits which appear to have arisen may have been
more from the change of air and scene than from
any peculiar influence of the exercise itself. Opinions relative to its suitableness are singularly
contradictory. Sydenham affirms that none of the
so-called specifics, which are used with such confi.
dence for their appropriate diseases, are more effectual than saddle exercise in "phthisis."  Stoll, on
the contrary, says that, if a consumptive patient
mount his horse, he will ride straight to the banks of
the Styx. Dr. Parrish recommends daily and long.




EXERCISE.                  89
continued riding on horseback as the best mode of
exercise, even when pulmonary consumption is
present. A highly esteemed friend, the late Dr. Worcester, of Cincinnati, stated to the writer, that, while
laboring under unequivocal symptoms of tubercular
phthisis, he turned his horse's head westward, and
rode as on a " steeple-chase," more than one thousand miles, through swamps and over fences, through
rivers and over mountains, in one almost undeviating
line; and, on his return to Cincinnati, his health for
a time was completely restored.
The athletic exercises of the gymnasium contribute to the preservation, and, if practised with
moderation and judgment, to the restoration of
health. It is necessary to observe, however, that
muscular exertion, by those who have not gradually
accustomed themselves to severe exercise, may be
carried to an injurious extent; producing such irregularity of action in all the fuactions, as to lead to
serious organic mischief.  The desperate activity
which young, ambitious athletae occasionally force
themselves to exhibit, for the admiration of their
friends, may occasion aneurism of the arteries and
enlargement of the heart, ruptures, lacerations, &c.
Whenever powerful efforts are made from the chest
as a centre, blood is determined, through the retention of breath, to the head, and congestions are
liable to occur therein, as well as ruptures of vessels
or transudation of the contained fluid through their




90                 EXERCISE.
coats. There may be intemperance in exercise, as
in all other things; and, when it exceeds the bounds
of moderation, when carried to the point of exhaustion, injury instead of benefit will result.
As an evidence of the decided effects of judicious
gymnastic management, the following case is related
by Dr. Rosentein:'"' In Berne, Switzerland, a child, three years old,
could scarcely stand upon his legs. At five years,
he could walk with the assistance of a leading string;
and it was not before he was seven years old that he
commenced to walk without aid. He would, however, frequently fall, and could not rise without
exertion. At seventeen, his strength was so feeble
that his limbs could scarcely bear the weight of the
upper part of his body. He felt great weakness in
his arms, his shoulders were drawn forward, his
breast narrow, his breathing short, and his mental
capacities not much developed.
"In 1815, this unfortunate being was sent to the
gymnastic school of Mr. Clias, in Berne. Having
measured his strength by the pressure of his hands
applied to the dynamometer, it was calculated to be
equal to that of a child of seven years of age. The
powers of traction, ascension, running, were null.
In one minute and two seconds, he could scarcely
walk the distance of a hundred steps; and when he
reached the end of his little journey, he felt exhausted,
and was obliged to sit down and rest himself. The




EXERCISE.                 91
weight of fifteen pounds put into his hands made
him stagger; and a child of seven years could easily
throw him down. Five months later, through gymnastic exercise and a suitable diet, his powers increased to double the sum. He could, by means of
his arms, raise himself three inches from the ground,
and remain three seconds in that position. He could
jump a distance of three feet; run a hundred and
sixty-three steps in a minute, carrying along with
him, on the shoulders, thirty-five pounds weight. In
1817, in the presence of thousands of spectators, he
could climb up a rope twenty feet high, and repeat
the same manceuvre on a climbing pole, jump a distance of six feet, and run five hundred steps in two
minutes and a half. In 1818, he could walk five
miles without the least fatigue. And this same person, who at twenty years of age could scarcely carry
himself erect, became, through this healthful exercise, a strong and vigorous man, and could, in
combat, put most men at defiance."
Exercise of every description should be commenced gently. The transition from dead inactivity
to violent exertion may be dangerously precipitate.
There is no propensity requiring more restraint than
that tendency of " rushing into extremes " with which
the North American is so uncomfortably afflicted.
Calm but determined perseverance is better adapted
for success, in physical as well as moral and religious
reformation, than the fierce, restless, quickly ex



92                EXERCISE.
hausted energy of the enthusiast. The sententious
axiom, "Be sure you are right, then go ahead," of
our eccentric countryman, who appeared vastly
desirous of being considered "a horse," does not
necessarily imply and need not be accompanied, in
its application to practice, by that equally favorite
vulgarism,;" Go ahead, if you break your neck."
" Be moderate in all things " is a scriptural phrase
of most important hygienic signification,- a text
capable of profitable expatiation, and demanding, in
this age of independent thought and action, the especial attention of 1" Young America."
Exercise should also be taken regularly; in the
pure open air, if possible; and never directly after a
meal.




93
CHAPTER V.
ON BATHING.
FoR the establishment and preservation of health,
there is no hygienic expedient more easily adopted
and more carelessly regarded than bathing; and,
for the restoration of health, there is no single therapeutic measure which has been more neglected and
more abused. The dislike - the positive repugnance - of the large class of' the unwashed " to the
application of water to other portions of the skin than
those which are exposed to the air, perhaps results
from its prohibition in the clinical practice of former
times, - in the obstinate proscription by physicians
of this invigorating refrigerant, as a very hazardous
external resort during sickness. The opposite absurdity of applying cold water to the body in profusion and indiscriminately, - as well to the sensitive,
delicate infant as to the feeble, aged adult, - at all
times and seasons, and under all conditions, may be
attributed to the enthusiastic hydropathist. Between
the two extremes, as in all things else, there is a
" golden mean," by which the rational and consistent
may abide.




94                 BATHING.
The skin exercises a very important function in
the animal economy. By its secretory vessels, which
are composed of the extremities of the cutaneous
arteries, a vapor is continually exhaled from the
surface, in an imperceptible form usually, but made
visible when the vessels are stimulated by external
or internal heat, or by powerful mental emotion.
This watery vapor is a secretion - like all other
secretions - furnished from the blood, and health is
dependent upon its uninterrupted exhalation. By
insensible perspiration, the blood is freed from
superfluous matter, consisting of water, acetic and
carbonic acid, muriate of soda and potash, earthy
phosphate, and oxide of iron. By sensible perspiration, especially when produced by active therapeutic
measures, the miasmata which have originated disease, as well as medicines which have been taken in
a crude state, and have consequently promoted or as
is probable caused disease, are expelled through the
pores of the skin. As any obstruction to the free
passage of this secretion, through its innumerable
outlets upon the surface of the body, must of necessity interrupt in a measure the secreting process, it
is evidently a point of considerable consequence to
remove, or if possible prevent, such obstructions.
Now, these obstructions are constantly liable to oc.
cur from the presence of particles of dust or of clothing, or from the perspiration itself, the saline particles
of which remain in contact with the skin after the




BATHING.                 95
aqueous portion has evaporated; and washing the
skin frequently with water is the most efficient means
which can be taken to prevent the accumulation of
such obstructing causes.
During the process of respiration, vapor is exhaled
from the lungs, and the quantity is increased if by
any means cutaneous perspiration is obstructed.
The deficiency must thus be made up by the lungs,
if the free exercise of the functions of the skin is
interfered with. Should the latter be the case, respiration must be more than commonly laborious;
and this over-exertion of the lungs unavoidably tends
to debility, and induces consumption, and other diseases of the chest. To offer every facility, therefore,
for the promotion of free, unobstructed transpiration,
is to adopt a precautionary measure against the
occurrence of pulmonary disease, which, as is too
well known, needs in our climate but very little encouragement. The escape of the evaporable portion
of the perspiration may be promoted by the use of
light and porous material worn next the skin, and,
on the contrary, prevented by clothing impermeable
to air and moisture. But the impurities which do
not evaporate, and which are ever accumulating,
cannot be removed except by ablution with water;
and such ablution should be performed daily.
Bathing in cold water is practised much more
generally now than at any former period. That it
is an agent of vast importance in the preservation of




96                 IBATHING.
health is undeniable. It acts favorably, not only by
cleansing the skin from impurities, but, by its secondary effect, increasing the action of the cutaneous
vessels, strengthening the nervous system, promoting
vigorous circulation, and rendering the body more
capable of enduring with impunity the rapid alternations of atmospheric temperature. The immediate
effect of its application to the healthy frame is depressing. The action of the capillaries, or perspiratory organs, that of the nervous and vascular systems,
and even of the mental, are diminished. When
re-action takes place, indicated by a sensation of
warmth, all the animal functions are carried on with
renewed energy, and its happy influence is exhibited
in the re-animation and increased capability of both
the physical and mental powers. This re-action is the
measure of advantage derived. If occurring early,
and in a marked manner, the application of cold has
proved beneficial. If, on the contrary, the primary
action continues long, the sensation of chilliness not
being followed by that of warmth, but accompanied
by debility and exhaustion, the bathing is of doubtful advantage, or rather of decided injury.  It is
evident, that, where re-action does not take place, -
where there is a deficiency of vital activity, from
whatever cause arising, - the influence which adds
to the previous depression of the powers of life, and
is prolonged in its action, must be an unfavorable
one.




BATHING.                  97
Re-action does not readily occur in the debilitated
and delicate, nor in infancy or old age, when the
vital functions are feebly executed.  It may be
favored, however, when delayed, by friction with
some coarse material.  Friction, with or without
bathing, it should be observed, is an eligible substitute for exercise, when the latter cannot be conveniently taken. Although it is not attended with all the
advantages derived from exercise in the open air, it
nevertheless invigorates the muscular fibre, through
sympathy with the cutaneous vessels, and increases
the energy of the whole system.
The external use of cold water has been recommended by some as safe in all seasons, for all ages,
and in all conditions. Those who practise indiscriminately upon such irrational advice will be led into
great error.  It is certainly not beneficial to very
young children, as an extreme susceptibility to cold
exists during the period of infancy, and the system
resists with difficulty the influence of any sudden
change. The consequence of a powerful impression
of this kind to the sensitive membrane, enclosing the
whole delicate mechanism of young life, is a rapid
repulsion of blood from the entire surface upon the
vital organs, and an irritation, by sympathetic action,
of the internal mucous membranes, thereby causing
convulsions, croup, bowel complaints, &c.  This
conclusion has not been admitted as legitimate by
many; but it is, nevertheless, one which will demand
7




98                 BATHING.
more than a simple denial to controvert. The temperature of water ought to be gradually reduced
when applied to infants, as well as when used by the
feeble and aged. It should be constantly modified
to suit particular cases, as well when adopted for the
prevention as for the cure of disease.
To the hydropathic method of treatment, no reference need here be made, excepting to observe, that,
whatever may have been its advantages in certain
disorders, as a system of cure it appears wholly in.
complete. That it has proved effectual in many
complaints, that the " wet sheet," for example, has
been productive of very great advantage in certain
stages of fever, is certain; but it is also as certain,
that the practice, in any of its forms, is neither applicable to all diseases, nor to be safely administered to
all persons, under all circumstances. As an occasional auxiliary to the internal action of medicines
prepared according to the direction of Hahnemann,
who originated the only method of practice worthy
of being called a system, it finds its true place in
therapeutics.
The especial curative power of cold applications,
made use of to a partial extent, when the skin is preternaturally hot and dry, consists in its reducing the
temperature of the surface with which they come
into contact. The diminution of action thus locally
caused is communicated by sympathy to every portion of the cutaneous system of vessels, modifying




BATHING.                 99
the morbid heat throughout the body. By this force
and extent of sympathy it is that the disposition to
inflammation of throat and lungs may be counteracted by the frequent application of cold water to
the feet; the temperature of the water being gradually
reduced, when there is reason to apprehend a deficient re-action. It should here be added, that, always
with the restriction above named, the practice of
frequently bathing the feet in cold water lessens the
susceptibility to those sudden variations of tempera.
ture to which these useful members are constantly
subjected during winter. The habit of " toasting"'
them several hours before a hot fire, and directly
afterward rushing out upon the snow-covered side.
walk, is one much more common than prudent; and
some fortifying process is absolutely necessary. The
epitaph,'" Died of thin shoes," would not be such a
generally applicable inscription over the grave of the
young and beautiful, were the feet more frequently
prepared against exposure by the invigorating influence of a daily cold bath.
The warm bath, or that which exceeds in temperature the natural warmth of the body, is far more
conducive to disease than to health. By its use, the
excitability of the system is greatly increased, the
circulation accelerated, the respiration embarrassed,
the tendency to plethora developed; and the perspiration induced terminates in a state of languor and
exhaustion.  When the water used is 10 or 15




100                BATHING.
degrees lower than the temperature of the body,
which is about 96 degrees of Fahrenheit, its operation in some cases is positively beneficial; for it acts
as an admirable sedative in those conditions of irritability consequent upon fatigue or great excitement,
and it is, above all, advantageous, as preparatory to
the more tonic influence of the actual cold bath, for
the feeble and delicate.
The same observations will apply to the shower
bath, - to its consequences as regards temperature;
viz. that the depression following its application,
when cold water is employed, is too great in cases
where re-action is with difficulty accomplished; that,
under such conditions, tepid water should be used.
It is the most advisable mode, however, of applying
water when there exists a predisposition to certain
cerebral affections.
The most convenient mode of ablution is that
which consists in the use of a wet sponge or towel,
the surface being rubbed briskly with a dry cloth
directly after the cold application. A wash-bowl is
the most portable and the most ready bathing machine. The habit, once formed, of daily ablution in
this manner, graduating the temperature of the
water to the bather's sensations, will not only be
found the best measure of prevention against those
affections incident to our variable climate, but
greatly promotive of strength, cheerfulness, and longevity.




BATHING.                 101
The hour selected for bathing is an important
point for consideration. While digestion is going
on, three hours being the average time for that operation, any strong impulse communicated from
without to the circulatory and nervous systems disturbs the process by withdrawing from the digestive
organs the vital force which they require. Directly
after rising in the morning is the most favorable
time in general; but for those who need immediate
subsequent exercise to promote a healthy re-action,
the third hour after breakfast is the one most suitable.
The system is oftener enervated than re-animated by
a night's repose, in civilized life, and is unable to
endure well much early exercise without sustenance.
Under the head of bathing, one of our best writers
on hygiene, Dr. Dunglison, of Philadelphia, alludes
in the following terms, which we take the liberty of
quoting, to the practice of resorting to watering
places for the restoration of health. The remarks
are not perhaps directly applicable to the subject of
this chapter; but they cannot be more appropriately
introduced in any other place. He mentions having,
in his work on'" General Therapeutics," " animadverted on the evil that must necessarily result in
various diseases from the indiscriminate mode in
which different mineral waters are drunk at their
sources; and to a less degree the evil is experienced
when they are employed by those in health; and has
there remarked that every intelligent physician, at




102                BATHING.
fashionable watering places, has deplored the ignorance of invalids and their medical advisers, which
has doomed many a hopeless case to a most inconvenient pilgrimage; for although the accommodations
at such places ought to be adapted expressly for the
comfort of the sick, attention appears to be paid
rather to the sound, who are able to enjoy the pleasures of the table." He adds that " nothing is more
preposterous than the practice almost universally inculcated and followed at different mineral springs, of
directing immense quantities of the water to be taken
early before breakfast: ten tumblersfull is not an uncommon quantity at Saratoga; and, accordingly, we
ought not to be astonished, that so many persons
visit these and other mineral springs of the country
in the possession of health, and leave them in a state
of disease; when, if they had taken the waters in
moderation, the tone of their systems might have
been materially improved.' It is absurd to prescribe
the same formula for all cases, and to load the
stomach so much in any case; yet such is the popular custom at most of the watering places.
" If the sojourner at the springs be in good health,
let him avoid the waters altogether, or take them
sparingly, leaving the other hygienic influences to be
fully exerted upon him; but, should he be a valetu.
dinarian, the waters must be had recourse to under
appropriate rules, suggested by the nature of the
case, and the peculiar mineral impregnation. Few,




BATHING.                 103
however, of the searchers after health will believe
that the least important hygienic agent is the water;
and, were they convinced of this, they might perhaps
be less disposed to visit, and pass their time at, the
springs, and to reap the other extrinsic advantages
to which allusion has been made. The drinking of
the waters is an object for undertaking a journey;
and, if the journey be undertaken, it may happen
that the use of the waters will be found unnecessary,
if not injurious."




104
CHAPTER VI.
ON CLOTHING.
A FEW observations in relation to the covering necessary to protect the body from the influence of
cold will not be out of place here. Many complaints resulting in death may be directly traced to
carelessness with regard to dress. That material
which is the worst conductor of caloric is the best
protection against external heat or cold; for animal
heat which would otherwise be dissipated is thus
retained, and atmospheric heat also prevented from
acting upon the surface of the body. Flannel is the
article of clothing which best answers this condition,
and it may be worn under or over linen. It has
been objected to as increasing the susceptibility to
external impressions; but the objection applies to
many varieties of clothing. Undoubtedly it would
be better were the surface rendered, in a great measure, insensible to cold by the early practice of
frequent bathing, commenced, as has been already
remarked, by the use of tepid water, and gradually
reduced, in temperature, to the freezing point.




CLOTHING.               105
When the system has thus become habituated to the
sudden abstraction of heat, the vicissitudes of climate may be endured with comparative impunity,
even if no addition is made to the linen or cotton
usually worn in summer next the skin. But where
this preservative habit is not in force; where, from
negligence or necessity, a debilitated condition prevails, - an incapacity of re-acting against agencies
to which the body must be exposed, - the protection
afforded by flannel is greater than from any other
material. Independently of its being a bad conductor
of caloric, it acts advantageously by stimulating in a
degree the cutaneous vessels, and by absorbing, in
consequence of its loose texture, much of the impurities thrown out by perspiration, which would
otherwise, especially if bathing were not frequently
practised, accumulate upon the skin. It is believed
also that the poisonous exhalations from the earth, in
certain localities, are rendered less injurious to health
by the use of flannel. Travellers over the marshes
in the vicinity of Rome are recommended to wear
it, as one of the chief preservatives against the
noxious action of malaria.
It is not to be denied, that much mischief results
from the wearing of woollen or any other fabric
which induces perspiration.  Sensible perspiration,
in a healthy person, should be produced by no other
means than exercise.  An excess of covering, as
well during the day as the night, is relaxing and




106                CLOTHING.
debilitating. The quantity promotive of comfort,
one's own sensations being the guide, is the only rule
of safety.
Much attention ought to be given to the clothing
of infants. At this period of life, the power of generating heat is less than at any other time. The great
mortality in infancy is justly attributed to a deficiency
of clothing, in connection with vitiated air and improper diet. In some counties of France, the birth
of every child must be registered by the mayor of
the district, and the personal presence of the infant
is required. It happens, that, where this regulation
exists, more than common inattention is paid to the
clothing of these little creatures, and it has been
found that a great number perish in consequence of
this exposure; while the deaths are much more
numerous in the cold than in warm seasons; and a
much larger proportion occurs among those who are
brought from a distance, than among those in the
neighborhood of the Registry Office.
As the quantity of clothing should be regulated by
the sensations of comfort, it is equally important that
those sensations should be consulted with reference
to the tightness of the dress. No compression ought
to be permitted; no hindrance to the free and easy
movement of the muscles, or to the full expansion
of the lungs. It was one of the most foolish decrees
of that foolish goddess, Fashion, that her votaries
should be forced to respire in a laborious manner;




CLOTHING.                107
should suffer from constriction of the thoracic and
abdominal portions of the frame, or be exposed to
apoplexy by the pressure of a tight cravat upon the
vessels of the neck. It would be perhaps superfluous
to expatiate here upon the folly of compressing the
waist by tight lacing. If this error is persisted in at
the present day, it cannot be from ignorance of its
disastrous consequences, since the practice has been
stigmatized in every publication issued on physiology,
and in every lecture delivered on the laws of health,
since the commencement of the nineteenth century.
No part of the healthy human body, from the crown
of the head to the sole of the feet, will admit of compression without injury, unless it be temporarily
adopted with a view to the immediate support of
some debilitated internal organ.  Uneasiness and
constraint, experienced even in the feet, frequently
bring on sympathetic affections of a serious nature
in the chest and head; and an impeded circulation,
by local pressure anywhere, will ultimately result in
a diminution of strength and disturbance of health.
In concluding these remarks on clothing, it may
not be improper to advert to the covering which Providence has provided for man, and of which he sees
fit, at the sacrifice of a vast amount of time and comfort, to deprive himself. Necessarily more exposed
to atmospheric influences, in his capacity of purveyor
for a household, than the " softer sex," he has been
furnished with a protection not only for the neck




108                CLOTHING.
behind, but also for the neck in front, and a large
portion of the face. The beard which defends the
throat, - the whiskers and moustache which are probably designed for a similar purpose with regard to
the teeth, - the eyebrows, which guard, to a certain
extent, the eye, - are all equally useful. This hair
was intended to answer some valuable end as an integument, or it would not have been permitted to
grow; and the caprice of fashion is in no particular
more obviously absurd, than when leading man to
flourish a dangerously sharp instrument about his
nose, ears, and throat, daily, from the age of maturity until death, in order to cut down that which is
of no possible use to any one, after being removed.
If it is equally useless before its removal, it certainly
proves a strange and solitary exception to that beautiful law of design,- the adaptation of means to an
end, — which prevails throughout nature.




109
CHAPTER VII.
ON SLEEP',
AMONG the necessary means of renovating the vital
energies, and recruiting the nervous system, is that of
sleep; a condition in which there is a suspension
of the voluntary activity that would soon exhaust, if
uninterrupted, the powers of life.  The functions of
nutrition continue in operation; all muscular motion
not dependent on volition goes on, though with retarded action; while the senses are closed to external
impressions, and the crowd of earth-born influences
which " war against the soul " is lost to cognizance.
If this cessation of muscular and mental activity does
not take place, if unceasing application or artificial
stimulants prolong the interval of wakefulness beyond
a certain point, nervous action is unhealthy, and the
whole physical system becomes enfeebled and diseased. The privation of sleep, like that of food and
drink, is the withholding a necessity which nature
imperatively demands. Regularity in the use of the
three necessaries of life is important; and indulgence




110                 SLEEP.
in one as in the other, beyond the actual requirements of the system, tends to the deterioration of
health.
The re-instatement of nervous energy, to be effected
by repose, must be disturbed in its progress through
any cause which interrupts sleep. The more tranquil
the condition, the more salutary will be its effects.
For the promotion of quiet, refreshing sleep, digestion, which is executed with less facility in this state,
should not be excited by a full supper before retiring
to rest. Dreams of an unpleasant nature are frequently the consequence of an overloaded stomach;
and most people have experienced the nervous exhaustion resulting from frightful impressions upon
the mind, when sleep has deprived it of the guidance
of judgment.
A hard, unyielding surface is no more conducive
to healthy repose than the soft mass of feathers upon
or in which many persons luxuriate. The best bed
is the common hair mattress; neither too hard to be
uncomfortable, nor so yielding as to induce restlessness. The covering should be thick enough to preserve warmth, without causing perspiration.
Reference has already been made to an obvious
source of unhealthiness generally attendant on sleep,
viz. the confined air in bed-chambers. It is vain to
hope for re-invigoration and refreshment from  a
night's rest, however favorable may be all other attendant circumstances, if the blood is to be poisoned,




SLEEP.                  111
through the medium of the lungs, by air, impure
perhaps at first, and inhaled over and over again for
several consecutive hours. Every window and door
in a bedroom ought to be opened to their utmost
capacity, in the morning if at no other time, and all
the bed-clothing well and thoroughly aired, if either
health or cleanliness is to be consulted.
Another important consideration is the amount of
time passed in sleep. During this period, the circulation is of course going on, and transpiration, at the
whole surface of the body, of the waste material, is
not only undiminished, but rather increased; while
neither food nor exercise furnishes counter-balancing supplies to the system. If this state of things
is continued beyond the requisite time for the restoration of nervous energy, the consequence must
inevitably be a gradual diminution of vital force,
resulting ultimately in the complete prostration of
the bodily and mental faculties. In early life, sleep
is more necessary than at a maturer age, when the
functions of the nervous system are less energetic.
Eight hours of the twenty-four are sufficient for any
adult who is in health, and much more than has been
indulged in by many eminent men distinguished for
activity, of whose domestic habits history has in.
formed us. Napoleon spent but four hours in sleep,
during the most active portion of a life remarkable
for exhibitions of mental and physical energy. Many
have been contented with even less. Instances of




112                 SLEEP.
this kind, however, should be excepted as peculiar;
for there are but few constitutions that do not require
longer repose. " Seven hours for a man, eight hours
for a woman, and nine hours for a fool," is an old
saying in reference to the proper duration of sleep,
the authority for which it would not be worth while
to give, even if it were known. The time allotted to
the man is doubtless suitable, but it is not physiologically true that women require more sleep than men:
as to the fool, it matters but little how long he
does sleep; and it is fair to presume that none of
that class would be very much interested in hygienic
measures of any description.
The time of sleep should be so regulated as to
admit of early rising.  Sir John Sinclair, who had
closely investigated the causes of longevity, states, in
his work upon that subject, that he had never heard
or read of a single case of great longevity where the
individual was not an early riser. He adds, that
long life has been sometimes attained when some
one of all the other laws of health had been violated;
but he had never known a solitary instance where
the constitution had long withstood that undermining, consequent on protracting the hours of repose
beyond the wants of the system.
People in fashionable society, to which with bitter
irony the term " good " is applied, turn night into
day, and waste the precious morning hours in sleep,
depriving themselves of the inspiriting influence which




SLEEP.                 113
early sunlight produces on all the animated creation.
The laws of the outward world and the laws of
health are alike opposed to this most unnatural practice.




114
CHAPTER  VIII.
ON OCCUPATIONS.
THE deprivation of a suitable amount of air and
exercise, to which attention has been already
directed, - exhausting bodily labor, the inhalation of
volatilized substances, metallic particles or deleterious
gases, exposure to extreme variations of temperature,
excessive mental application or anxiety,- are circumstances attendant on certain human avocations, which
render them to a very considerable extent unhealthy.
Vital action may go on, apparently undiminished, for
years, under influences the most adverse; and, by
the wonderful capacity which the human economy
possesses of becoming accustomed to such influences,
the injury produced may seem so slight as to be, for
a time, overlooked. Yet the effects accumulate; the
progress, though slow, is downward; by a gradual
diminution of vital force that point is certainly
reached, and not far distant, when the constitution
sinks irremediably, and the primary and constantly
acting cause then stands out, in an hour too late to
retrieve the error, a prominent feature of the past.




OCCUPATIONS.                115
The unfavorable circumstances above named are not
necessarily attendant on the occupations to be mentioned; for, if no means of counteraction could be
made available, it would be useless to allude to them
in a work of this kind. It is not possible to avoid
entirely such causes, but their consequences may be
greatly mitigated.
There is no doubt. that the occupations which
allow of the free use of fresh air and muscular exercise are those most conducive to health and longevity.
The following results, in reference to different pursuits as favoring length of life, were published at
Berlin, in 1834. To what extent the researches
were conducted we are not informed; but the general correctness of the observations were confirmed
shortly after by statistics furnished in the " Report on
the Sanitary Condition of the Population of Great
Britain."
Of 100 Clergymen who had attained the age of 70
and upwards, there were... 42,,,, Farmers....... 40,,,, Commercial men..... 35,,,,Military men...... 33,,,,Lawyers....... 29,,,, Artists....... 28,,,, Teachers....... 27,,,,Physicians...... 24
The above estimate, if too limited for universal




116               OCCUPATIONS.
application, is undoubtedly a near approximation to
the truth. It will be observed, that the first half of
the list, the clergymen excepted, are of those who
are necessarily much exposed to the air, and subjected to physical exercise; while the other half are
confined principally within doors, the physician excepted, and engaged in quiet, sedentary occupations.
It would be somewhat difficult to explain satisfactorily the cause of the vast difference between the
length of life of the clergyman and the physician.
It may be that the literary labors of the former do
not usually demand the constant application that
prevents sufficient bodily exercise; and the nature of
his study is such as tends, by diffusing cheerfulness,
hope, and serenity, to the prolongation of life. But
the latter is, from the painful scenes which his avocation compels him to witness,- from the awful
responsibility in which he is involved, subject to
agonizing mental anxiety, that wears away his health,
and is doubtless the chief cause of his comparative
early death.
No mention is made, in the foregoing list, of a
large portion of our population, - the useful mechanics. There is no reason for believing that their lives
are shortened by their occupation, unless that occupation is such as to confine them to a constrained
position, or to force them to inhale irritating substances.  In  the former class may be included
shoemakers, tailors, and other like workmen; and




OCCUPATIONS.              117
in the latter, coppersmiths, plumbers, operative chemists, &c. With regard to the former, much may
be accomplished in neutralizing the bad effects of a
bent position of the body, by assuming an upright
posture as frequently as possible; by taking care to
exercise the muscles in the hours of relaxation,
which are cramped during the hours of labor. The
right angle, formed by the limbs and trunk, which
certain occupations oblige men to assume, need not
be retained in walking. In an inclined position, a
human being must not only propel himself forward,
but must, at the same time, resist the power of gravitation. As to those who work upon metals, the
impalpable impurities which arise may be in part
removed by proper ventilation; and as much that is
floating, in the air may be absorbed through the skin,
particularly particles of lead, and the volatile matter
to which druggists and chemists are exposed, it
would be proper for all of this class to change their
garments frequently, to bathe often, and to remove
every particle that may be absorbed, and also that
which may enter the system with the food.
The abbreviation of life from intellectual employment has been questioned, since numerous instances
of great longevity have occurred among those who
have passed their whole lives in deep study; and
the cases of impaired health and of early death
in such pursuits have been attributed rather to the
collateral circumstances, as irregularity of diet, exer



118               OCCUPATIONS.
cise, sleep, &c. than to the direct effect of cerebral
disturbance. Dr. Dunglison, from whose admirable
work on Hygiene we have already quoted, - after
referring to the assertions of Dr. Madden, that
literary life frequently terminates in palsy or apo.
plexy; Petrarch, Linnaeus, Copernicus, Lord Claren.
don, Rousseau, Marmontel, Richardson, Steele,
Phillips, Johnson, Harvey, Wollaston, Porson, and
Reid being enumerated as " martyrs to literary
glory," -states that the individuals alluded to were
not all remarkable for severe application; that they
did not all die of apoplexy or palsy; that most
of them attained a good old age; and that the habits
of some were such as would destroy any person not
possessing a constitution of iron. In contradiction
to the opinion of James Johnson, which was that a
high range of health is incompatible with the most
vigorous exertion of the mind, and that this last both
requires and induces a standard of health somewhat
below par, instancing Virgil, Horace, Voltaire, and
Pope in support of the latter assertion, he (Dr. Dunglison) adds, that "an impaired condition of the
bodily functions was doubtless present in the cases
referred to; and it has existed, and does exist, in
numerous others. But these are only coincidences,
affording examples of high intellectual attainments
and productions, in spite of the bodily infirmities
under which those distinguished individuals labored,
but by no means showing that they were the conse



OCCUPATIONS.               119
quence of such infirmities. Nothing, indeed, would
seem to be clearer than that full intellectual development requires that the different corporeal functions
should be faithfully and regularly executed. It is
impossible for the mind to aspire to lofty conceptions,
or for the various intellectual faculties to be fully
accomplished, unless the body is devoid of suffering.
Whatever distracts the mind from its own operations
enfeebles the results; and nothing does this more
effectually and unpropitiously, than suffering of any
kind. Every one must have felt the difficulty of
bending the intellectual powers on any important
topic, when the stomach has been deranged simply
by over-distension, and, still more, when food difficult of digestion has been taken; and how much
more must this be the case, under the continued
pressure of functional or organic disease! It can
be easily conceived, however, that, although sickness
may interfere with the vigorous exercise of the higher
faculties, it may yet be the occasion of greater production than a state of health. Disease or infirm health
necessarily confines the invalid, and hence incites to
intellectual exercise, for the purpose of dispelling
the ennui which such a condition induces; and thus
the production may be greater, although the capabilities may be less."
It must be admitted, however, that, if the limited
statistics hitherto furnished on this subject can serve
as a reliable measure of comparison in general, those




120               OCCUPATIONS.
persons engaged in mental avocations are shorterlived than those whose pursuits are such as to require
bodily labor merely.  The sedentary habits of the
former will no doubt answer as a partial explanation
of this difference: still it is reasonable to conclude,
that the constant exercise of an organ, upon whose
unexcited regularity of action the normal condition
of the nervous system is greatly dependent; the
unnatural distension of the cerebral vessels by the
afflux of blood induced by such exercise; the abstraction of vital energy from other organs to serve
the purpose of the over-tasked brain, - must be
productive of injurious consequences to health, irrespective of all other unfavorable circumstances.
Such, doubtless, is the tendency in every case; and,
if exhausted, disordered physical functions enervate
the mental faculties, the latter, urged to continued
exertion, will also affect the physical functions in
proportion to the nervous impressibility, and predispose, if not produce, actual bodily derangement.
The process of thought and of digestion cannot
well be prosecuted together, for the reason that a
greater amount of the vital energy before alluded to
is required, both by the stomach and the brain, for
the proper performance of their functions. On this
account, the application of the same rule that should
be enforced in relation to bodily exertion is advisable,
viz. that much mental exercise should not be under.
taken directly after a meal.  And as, in bodily




OCCUPATIONS.              121
exercise, the muscles may, by systematic, well-regulated training, be made capable of accomplishing
much more than they otherwise would be able to do;
so may the mind, by discipline in a similar gradual
manner, be fitted to undergo an astonishing amount
of labor, at comparatively small cost to vitality. Sir
Walter Scott, whose writings in vigor of thought
and amount of material have rarely been equalled,
effectually disciplined his mental capacities, and economized his time; regulating study and recreation
so judiciously, that he preserved a high degree of
health, and enlivened the social circle, while he was
astonishing the world with the powerful productions
of his intellect. But, when a refined sense of honor
drove him to forget himself to relieve his family from
pecuniary embarrassment, and his proud spirit urged
and goaded its animal attendant beyond its powers
of endurance, exhausted nature sank, — and Scott
died; his life sacrificed to an ambition far nobler
than that of literary distinction.




122
CHAPTER IX.
ON DRUGS.
IN the investigation of agencies which exercise unfavorable influences upon human health, the effects
of none exhibit themselves with more marked pro.
minence than do those arising from the inconsiderate
use of medicine. Material, which has not a single
nutriment-charged particle, not a principle which is
not poison, is thrown into the system, habitually,
from the first days of infancy to the closing hours of
life. With what wonderful pertinacity is the opinion
adhered to, which pathology utterly disowns, that
disease is a substance existing somewhere in the interior of the body, which must be forcibly removed
by a powerful expellant, instead of being recognized
as a simple aberration from the natural condition of
health, a modification of the vital force. " With
such erroneous ideas," Hahnemann writes, " of the
material origin and essence of disease, it is by no
means surprising, that, in all ages, the,obscure as
well as the distinguished practitioner, together with
the inventors of the most sublime theories, should




DRUGS.                 123
have for their principal aim the separation and expulsion of a supposed morbid material; and that the
indication most frequently established was that of
dividing this material, rendering it movable, and
expelling it in various ways; purifying the blood by
the action of herbal decoctions, thus unloading it of
acrid matter and impurities which it never contained;
drawing off the imaginary principle of the disease
mechanically, by means of setons, cauteries, permanent blisters; and, above all, by the expulsion of the
pecant matter, as they termed it, by aperients;- all
so many attempts to remove a hostile material prin.
ciple which never did and never could have existed.
Now, if we admit that which is an established fact,
namely, that, with the exception of those diseases
brought on by the introduction of indigestible or
hurtful substances into the alimentary canal and
other organs, those produced by foreign bodies
penetrating the skin, &c. - there does not exist a
single disease that can have a material principle for
its cause: on the contrary, all of them are solely and
always the special result of an actual and dynamic
derangement in the state of health. How absurd,
then, must be that method of treatment which
depends upon the expulsion of this imaginary priiciple!
" No one will deny, that the degenerate and impure substances which appear in diseases are any
thing else than the mere product of disease itself,




124                 DRUGS.
which the system can get rid of in a forcible manner,
frequently too forcible, without the aid of expellants;
and that they are reproduced so long as the disease
continues.  These substances often appear to the
true physician in the shape of morbid symptoms, and
aid him in discovering the nature and image of the
disease, which he afterwards avails himself of in performing a cure by means of homceopathic agents."
Disease being the result of a modification of the
vital force by which functional or organic derangements are induced, it is impossible to cure, without
correcting this vital alteration; and all agents di.
rected against effects, although sometimes alleviating
temporarily, are not only unavailing in the removal
of the cause, but are in themselves productive of a
new morbid condition. If gastric derangement exists,
removal of the contents of the stomach by emetics
will not serve the purpose of counteracting the dis.
eased action, of which the local derangement is the
consequence.  The abstraction of blood cannot
affect, in a curative manner, the morbid condition,
which is perhaps inducing changes in the character
of the fluid itself. The unhealthy state of the absorbents, which allow of the unnatural accumulation
of fluid in dropsy, is not remedied by removing the
effusion through an artificial aperture. All medicinal action, of whatever nature, when applied to
consequences, is wholly misdirected, and almost in.
variably injurious.




DRUGS.                 125
Homeeopathy does not act against consequences.
It makes a careful collection of every indication
manifested to the senses,- all the phenomena which
can, in any measure, throw light upon the proximate
cause which produces the external manifestations.
The primary agent, having operated, it may be, in
the far-distant past to bring on present disease; the
moral impressions; all previous and existing influences; every thing, in short, which can be collected
to fill up the picture, to form an exact portrait of the
particular disease under consideration, are regarded
as of equal importance in pointing out a remedy. If
the cause cannot always be discovered by human
intelligence; if the totality of symptoms does not
always indicate the hidden derangement; if the nature of the primary alteration may never be known;
it will be evident that there is, notwithstanding, much
greater probability of successful treatment in this
way, than when the whole artillery of evacuants,
antiphlogistics, &c. is brought violently to bear upon
effects. The combined assault of disease and the
doctor upon one poor delicate organ is too often an
intolerable and a fatal infliction.  The medicinal
agent which will reinstate the harmonious operations
of nature quietly, for it cannot be done otherwise, is
the only true remedy; and all endeavors to cure,
while the proximate morbid cause is acting, will be
fruitless.
Were a faithful picture to be drawn of all the




126                 DRUGS.
results which have followed the practice of resorting
to large doses of drugs, it would indeed be frightful.
"' We could present rather a serious tragedy, if we
were to collect all the cases of poisoning by huge
doses of powerful medicines by the disciples of this
physician, and of sanguinary homicide by the imitators of that bold surgeon, though they may both
enjoy high repute." - (Medical Gazette.)
Could all the consequences which have resulted
from the use of a single medicinal agent, - for example, that destructive mineral, mercury, - be brought
together, so as to be comprehended in one view, it
would be impossible for the human eye to look upon
a scene of greater devastation and horror. " Gentle.
men," said Prof. Chapman, in his address to the
students of the Allopathic Medical School in Philadelphia, " if you could see, what I almost daily see
in my private practice in this city, persons from the
South in the very last stages of wretched existence,
emaciated to a skeleton, with both tables of the skull
almost completely perforated in many places, the nose
half gone, with rotten jaws, ulcerated throats, breaths
more pestiferous, more intolerable, than poisonous
upas, limbs racked with the pains of the Inquisition,
minds as imbecile as the puling babe, a grievous bur.
den to themselves, and a disgusting spectacle to others,
you would exclaim, as I have often done,' Oh! the
lamentable want of science that dictates the abuse of
that noxious drug, calomel, in the Southern States!'




DRUGS.                  127
Gentlemen, it is a disgraceful reproach to the profession of medicine: it is quackery,- horrid, unwarranted, murderous quackery. What merit do
gentlemen of the South flatter themselves they possess, by being able to salivate a patient? Cannot
the veriest fool in Christendom salivate, - give calomel?  But I will ask another question.  Who is
it that can stop the career of mercury at will, after it
has taken the reins in its own destructive and ungovernable hands? He who, for an ordinary cause,
resigns the fate of his patient to mercury, is a vile
enemy to the sick; and, if he is tolerably popular,
will, in one successful season, have paved the way
for the business of life; for he has enough to do
ever afterward to stop the mercurial breach of the
constitutions of his dilapidated patients.  He has
thrown himself in fearful proximity to death, and
has now to fight him at arm's length, as long as the
patient maintains a miserable existence."
And this confessedly dangerous medicine is prescribed upon the most trifling occasion, even for
infants, and for the most simple irregularities of
digestion in adults.  The susceptibility of certain
individuals to its influence is very great; and a few
grains may exercise upon such persons a powerful
influence, which will cause for the time severe suffering, and be the means of permanent, irreparable
injury. It is a well-known fact, that a spoonful of
calomel is frequently given for a dose, even before




128                 IRUGS.
the degree of susceptibility may have been ascertained; and, although with some no immediate per.
ceptible injury is experienced, it is by no means
certain that they will be freed from ultimate consequences of the most distressing character.
Professor Carlisle remarks, that " it seems passing
strange that grave men should persist in giving large
doses of calomel, and order these doses to be daily
reiterated in chronic and debilitated cases. Men,
starting into the exercise of the medical profession
from a cloistered study of books, and from abstract
speculations; men, wholly unaware of the fallibility
of medical evidence, and unversed in the doubtful
effects of medicines, may be themselves deluded,
and delude others for a time: but, when experience
has proved their errors, it would be magnanimous,
and yet no more than just, to renounce both the
opinion and the practice."
Calomel, however, is but one of many medicinal
agents, to whose pernicious influence man sees fit to
subject himself and others. Opium is another, well
known and extensively employed, less directly destructive to organic substance than mercury, but
acting with most deleterious energy upon the brain
and nervous system; producing, in large doses, vertigo, convulsions, delirium, and death. In its different pharmaceutical forms, it is more generally used
than any other medicine. In a pulverized state, it
enters into most of the prescriptions of the physician;




DRUGS.                  129
and as laudanum, paregoric, &c. it is freely resorted
to by men, women, and children. If it relieved pain
and promoted rest, at all times and under all conditions, no reasonable objection could be urged
against its general use, and it would indeed be a
precious remedy; but this is far from being the case,
for it is by no means constant in its operation as a
sedative; and its primary action, if favorable, is certain to be followed by an action precisely the reverse'
The nervous irritability and susceptibility to pain
which may have been lessened for a short time by the
first effect of the opiate, is greatly augmented when
this immediate action subsides; and the existence
of actual pain is less troublesome than the intolerable state of uneasiness which prevails during its
secondary action. Opium-eaters cannot endure the
agonizing mental and physical prostration which is
consequent upon the brief excitement caused by the
drug; and they strive, by repeated doses, to keep up
the primary action, until the nervous system is deranged, the brain stupefied, the constitution ruined;
and the miserable victim becomes a poor, worthless
"mass of humanity," like the abject consumer of
alcohol, - a curse to himself, an object of loathing
and scorn to every man in his senses with whom he
comes in contact. Hahnemann has clearly depicted
the unhappy condition to which the immoderate
coffee-drinker is ultimately reduced; but the effect
of opium is to a far greater extent noxious, inasmuch
9




130                 DRUGS.
as it is a far more powerful poison. All stimulating
narcotics are possessed of the same pernicious property to a greater or less extent; and it is their
unavoidably evil influence upon the human system
which makes it madness for man to resort to them
while in health, and folly to place any dependence
upon them as curative agents.
As has been remarked with reference to calomel,
there exist different degrees of susceptibility in indi'
viduals to the action of opium; and the amount of
susceptibility cannot, of course, be determined until
the drug has once been administered. Dr. Robert
Christison, in his treatise on poisons, states that
"'very young children are often peculiarly sensible
to the poisonous action of opium, so that it is
scarcely possible to use the most insignificant doses
with safety." That thousands of lives have been, by
its various preparations, destroyed during infancy,
there is not the least reason to doubt. That fatal
results among adults, from its immediate influence,
without reference to its prolonged, eventual action,
have been numerous, -far more than the world has
ever been made acquainted with, — is equally unquestionable. The queen of Charles II. died from
the effects of opium administered by her physician
during sleep, after her repeated refusals to take the
prescribed dose, knowing from previous experience
its injurious consequences upon herself. The particulars are recorded by Agnes Strickland, in the work




DRUGS.                 131
entitled " Lives of the Queens of England." From
the conspicuous position of this illustrious victim,
attracting, as she did, the interest of a whole nation,
the facts attending her decease could not be easily
suppressed.
It will not be out of place to quote here certain
observations relative to a few medicines in domestic
use, by a writer in the " Medico-chirurgical Re-;riew," published in London. He writes as follows:
"That which is commonly called a most innocent
medicine may be the source of the utmost harm, if it
be taken at an improper moment, or under unfavorable circumstances. Thus, magnesia has been productive of fatal consequences, from the ignorance
with which it has been administered, or the perseverance in taking it, when it has failed in its expected
influence. Masses unchanged have been found after
death, closely collected together, or patches of the
powder adhering with the utmost pertinacity to the
intestines, because there had been none of the acid
with which it should combine to be properly efficacious. Some very curious instances of this kind are
upon record, and some of the cases have been, from
the apparently suspicious circumstances, made subjects of legal investigation; for even death from
arsenic has been supposed to have taken place, when
examination has shown that magnesia has been its
cause. Manna, simple as it is supposed to be, has
been known to produce dyspepsia of the most obsti



132                 DRUGS.
nate character, and intestinal derangement of an
alarming kind.  Castor oil, one of the favorite
popular remedies, frequently occasions not only excruciating pain, but causes the expulsion of that
which lubricates and defends the lining membrane
from injury; and what has been supposed to be exfoliations have taken place, leaving behind a surface
so irritable that months have elapsed before a normal
state has prevailed.  The neutral salts, those of
Epsom, &c. are not to be trifled with. Dysentery
and other diseases, and sometimes dropsy, supervene
upon their injudicious use. Gamboge, which has
been a fashionable medicine, is of all others the most
uncertain and oftentimes the most pernicious: its
influence is principally exerted upon the muscular
fibre, and hence peristaltic action is increased. It
has been known, from its stimulating power upon the
muscles, to produce intus-susception. Even senna,
which certainly comes nearer to a harmless domestic
remedy than any other, is not so: it is not only a
momentary cause of pain and inconvenience, but it
leaves behind a very great tendency to those uncomfortable sensations, and more particularly if the liver
have not been previously called into some slightly
increased action, by which the bile is poured forth,
and thus the general action of the intestinal canal
been duly and properly augmented. These circumstances demand the very greatest attention and
caution. Indeed, a catalogue of sorrows, occasioned




DRUGS.                 133
by the indiscriminate and foolish use of purgatives,
might be drawn up; but such is the headstrong tendency some have to doctor themselves, that it would
be rather a curious than a useful task to undertake it."
The nature of individual medicines, their characteristics and specific action, need not here be detailed.
It will suffice for the present purpose to state, in
general terms, that emetics cause an entirely unnatural action throughout the alimentary system; —
deranging every healthy process, inducing debility
and sometimes death; while their operation is in no
ease, or to any extent whatever, curative, excepting
in the single instance of the removal of foreign substances accidentally introduced into the stomach:
that purgatives —their presumed beneficial agency,
founded on a pathological doctrine, long since admitted to be erroneous — pass into and through an
organ for which they are not intended, to exercise
their irritating influence upon a delicate membrane,
whose only safety is in their sudden repulsion, and
eventually augmenting the very difficulty which they
are employed to obviate: that tonics and stimulants
increase any inflammatory tendency which may be
present, and by their ultimate action aggravate the
condition which they are intended to counteract:
that opiates cause a moment's suspension of pain
and restlessness, and hours of inquietude and agony:
that depletives, in the form of bleeding, cupping,
leeching, &c. abstract the vitality which the recupe



134                  DRUGS.
rative powers of nature require for her beneficent
operation: in short, that the entire practice of
drugging, in all its branches, acknowledged as of
doubtful efficacy by numerous brave veterans who
have retired from the field, disturbs, instead of assisting, that restorative process by which health is
regained; and is, of all the influences to which men
on this earth are subjected, the most pernicious and
destructive.
It is believed that in no other country on the
globe are drugs used to such a lamentable extent as
in these United States; that nowhere else are the sad
consequences, fairly attributable to their action, so
perceptible. Now, this wide-spread evil has been
promoted by medical men, who are presumed to be
acquainted with the nature of the human organism,
the laws of health, and the doctrine of diseases. And
it is from the blind, empirical practice of such men,
from their profuse and random-shot drugging, that
quackery has originated; yielding dishonorable sup.
port to thousands of unprincipled persons, who dare,
without proper preparation, to undertake the responsible ministration of the physician; approaching the
" sacred precincts of a sick room " with impudent,
arrogant assurance, or circulating their cruel deceptions through a venal press; reckless of all results but
such as are of a pecuniary nature. Countless is the
number of unsuspecting sufferers, who, tortured with
pain and urgent for relief, are induced by the bold




DRUGS.                 135
assertions of the quack to trust to their dangerous
compounds, until their diseases have progressed
beyond the reach of all human skill. Terrible will
be the remorse of those who have thus trifled with
human life, when the earth is to them but a remembrance.




136
CHAPTER X.
ON MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.
THE influence of the mind upon the body, the inti.
mate connection of the moral with the physical, is a
subject of the highest interest in relation to health,
and should meet with special attention. Immaterial
as the mental faculties are, they nevertheless are
dependent upon the action of a material organ, —
the brain: that organ is nourished by the same blood,
warmed by the same life, governed by the same
laws, as other portions of the frame. By want of
exercise or by over-exertion, its vigor is impaired, its
functions deranged, its destruction threatened; and
as care must be exercised in the adaptation of external agencies to the requirements of the body, that
health may be maintained and life enjoyed, so must
it be with the mind, which has its seat in the brain.
As emaciated muscle, softened bone, disorganized
nerve, obliterated blood-vessels, may result from disuse, or injuries equal in extent from excessive use of
the physical powers, so may the mental be disordered
and destroyed by imperfect or extraordinary exercise.




RENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.       137
An unhealthy condition of the mind from inaction
is not unfrequently the unhappy lot of those whose
calling comprehends a very limited range of objects,
or who, provided with a sufficiency or superfluity of
the earth's goods, suffer themselves to sink into a
sort of mental lethargy, becoming resigned to an
uninterrupted state of repose, and almost literally
"thinking of nothing."   Not caring to enter the
wide field of literature; perceiving little worthy of
attention, beyond their own worthless selves, in a
world full of interest and excitement, they fall into
inanity, but few degrees removed, seemingly, from
the " beasts that perish." Those godlike faculties,
qualified for engaging, with pure delight, in the
loftiest contemplations and the most sublime investigations, with a boundless range for their exercise
and expansion, capable of constant advancement
in knowledge, step by step, for ever, are allowed by
many to run almost to waste over a few mean, contracted notions, which blight the brain, and bring
weariness and grief on the deathless spirit.
Intellectual food and exercise are as necessary for
the health of the mind as material food and physical
exercise are necessary for the health of the body.
And as with the latter every part is to be exercised,
in order that the whole may be invigorated, so, with
the mind, each faculty should be in active operation.
The resemblance may be continued; for as excessive
bodily exertion tends to diminish instead of increas



138       MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.
ing vital energy, so extreme mental application, or
violent exercise of the brain, debilitates the power
of thought, and disposes to derangement. It is, of
course, through its physical frame-work that the
intellect is disordered by close application.  The
laws of the perishable material must be regarded,
if we would properly realize the uses of our intellectual nature. The mind will not long act with
vigor in this life, if the nervous system, with which
it is most intimately connected, is in an unhealthy
condition; and neither will the nervous system long
continue in a normal state, while the mind is subjected to constant, unrelaxing exertion.
Powerful mental emotions prove always injurious,
and sometimes instantly destructive to vital action.
The physical condition is affected by the state of the
mind, and on that condition depends the continuance of health and life. The nervous system is the
most directly influenced by strong impressions upon
the mind, and through this communication the impression is transmitted to all the physical functions.
How the immaterial acts thus upon matter, how this
wonderful union of soul and body exists, is an
enigma that man cannot solve. He may ascertain
the cause of an emotion; he may make himself
familiar with its effects; he may, to a certain extent,
neutralize its disturbing action upon the body, by
remedies dynamic in their character, — but he can
go no further. Mental suffering, from a distressing




MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.         139
calamity, prevents the proper oxygenation of the
blood, interrupting the circulation and disordering
respiration. Alarm, on the approach of a pestilence,
depresses the nervous energy, and debilitates the
whole frame to such a degree that death's work
is easily accomplished. Man knows this; but all
inquiry into the nature of a connection so intimate
is as unsatisfactory, as fruitless, as is the attempt to
investigate the principle of life, to account for the
sufferings of the pure and innocent, to penetrate
any of the Almighty's deep mysteries.
The dependence of the body upon the mind, the
close intimacy of the spiritual with the material, is
in no instance more strikingly exhibited than when
vehement passion takes possession of the soul. Falling heavily upon the brain, through that mysterious
communication which God only understands, the
dynamic, immaterial, yet overwhelming influence
is transmitted through the nervous connection to the
centre of circulation, and the heart breaks - literally.
It is not always a metaphor, this sad " heart-break.
ing." There are on record instances of an actual
rupture, from powerful emotion, of the muscular
walls of this organ's cavities, producing instant
death. When the emotion is not of that overpowering nature which kills at once, but is permanent and
corroding, it makes itself seen and felt in perverted
functions, disordered nerves, languid circulation, and
deranged digestion.




140         MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.
Grief is a consuming passion, which, indulged in,
gradually undermines the constitution, wearing out
and wasting away life's energies.. When the mind
is dead to the blessed consolations of religion, there
is no emotion so permanent and remediless, - none
so generally injurious in its effects. Congestion and,
inflammation of the heart, insanity, apoplectic and
epileptic fits, emaciation, impaired functions of every
organ, result from  grief.   The  best therapeutic
measures are those belonging to homceopathy. The
best hygienic influence is submission to the will of
God.
Macbeth. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze 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?
Doctor.                          Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Anger, that terrible passion, which, when amounting to fury, transforms man into a demon, may, if
violent and prolonged, cause hysteria, convulsions,
hemorrhages, diseases of the liver, madness. In its
lightest form, there is an accelerated flow of blood
to the brain, and a disturbance of the nervous
system.  Many counteracting measures have been
advised, such as the instant concentration of all
the mental powers in forming a firm  resolution for




MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.       141
its immediate suppression; the stern compulsion of
that " unruly member," the tongue, to silence; the
careful avoidance of the rage-begetting monster,
alcohol.  But when the pitiably weak subject of an
influence like anger, in its most fearful shape, urges
the entire absence of self-control as a claim to indulgence, the most successful remedy would probably be the hydropathic application of the " douche; "
for this overwhelmingly active refrigerant seldom
fails to calm those enraged animals that cannot boast
of reason.
Fear, joy, and the infernal passions of envy and
malice, all act through the same communication
noxiously upon the physical frame. It is not necessary to enter into an account of the peculiar effects
of each. Dissimilar as the character of the abovenamed emotions are, their effects are not unlike.
The same morbid phenomena, cerebral derangement
in chief, with disturbed nutrition and cardiac affections brought on through the connection existing
between the brain and other organs, are consequent
upon intense excitement from all strong emotions,
save that of love. No harm is produced upon body
or mind by the cultivation of this divine attribute.
We allude to the disinterested, holy love of the
mother for her child; the creature for the Creator;
the pure passion of one congenial spirit for another;
the all-absorbing desire to add to the happiness of the
loved object, unmixed with the base, calculating




142       MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.
thought of self. There is no divinity in the form of
this passion where selfishness dwells, and in that
foul, earth-born sensuality, which the world often
dignifies with the name of love. There is health,
spiritual and physical, in the one; there is sickness,
death, and " deep damnation" in the other. And
when this cheering, celestial visitant enters the mind,
it may be entertained and cherished without fear of
its harming the body. It is not only innocuous, but
it is a preservative of health; and the " blessed in.
fluence of that love which has followed the pardon
of sin." has even cured, and will yet cure, many
physical aliments that baffle human skill.
It will be understood that reference has been
made, in the account of unhealthy influences from
passion, to the consequences which arise from a high
degree of mental excitement. The emotions, from
which no human being is exempt, if not prolonged
to the degree which enslaves and distorts and debases the mind, are not necessarily injurious to
health.  On the contrary, a quiet, well-regulated
indulgence of the different emotions is believed by
Combe and others to be salutary, and there is "a
greater resistance to morbific impressions than when
the functions are executed with a languid sameness."
To those who cannot, or who will not, comprehend the dynamic nature and operation of remedies,
who persist in believing that there is no " more in
heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their philoso.




MENTAL CAUSES OF DISEASE.       143
phy," the assertion that the " Stygian darkness " in
which the materialist has long groped relative to the
cure of mental distempers might be illuminated by
the light which Hahnemann brought, will doubtless
be read with incredulity, perhaps with contempt. Be
it so.  The homceopathic practitioner is too well
shielded now to be vulnerable to the well-worn shafts
of scorn and ridicule. He is not to be driven from
his present position by such weapons. Homceopathy
offers remedies directly curative for many of " those
peculiar diseases of the nervous life and psychical
stages of human maladies whose symptoms exhibit
so much that is wonderful and mysterious, that the
credulity of a dark age imputed their existence to
demoniacal agency. These diseases bring us to the
borders of a spiritual world, whose dark regions no
beholder's eye has yet penetrated, and whose hiero.
glyphics no thoughtful mind has hitherto deciphered;
and the therapeutics of the old school, in relation
to the treatment of such affections, exhibit a struggle
of the crudest materialism against the most obvious
dynamical derangement."
We refrain from enlarging upon curative measures, since the subject is obviously inappropriate
here; and conclude this chapter with the observation,
that no high-minded, honorable physician will slight
any suggestion made in good faith which may possibly tend to the alleviation of human suffering.




144
CHAPTER XI.
ON INVISIBLE INFLUENCES AFFECTING HEALTH.
MANY agents which exert most powerful action on
health and life are imperceptible. Surrounding and
pervading all created things, they are silently operating throughout the universe, having no determinate
shape nor definite proportions, forcing man to recognize their wonderful influence, and humiliating him
with a sense of feebleness and dependence. Such
are light, heat, air, electricity. And the principle
of infection,-that strange, inscrutable agent, --
whether generated from modifications of life-sustaining powers, or existing independently of them, is also
imperceptible. It falls upon mankind with irresistible force, filling the world with lamentations of the
living for the dead, and yet is known only by its terrible effects.  If material, we are certain that the
poison must be exceedingly minute; for it is not discernible by the aid of the highest magnifying power.
Through the agency of certain of the imperceptible
influences, many inorganic substances send out emanations which are perceptible. Odoriferous particles,




INYISIBLE INFLUENCES AFFECTING HEALTH. 14&
immeasurably small, occasion, through the olfactory
sense, consequences often serious, and sometimes
positively destructive.  Headache, nausea, unconsciousness, are not unfrequently produced by the
strong perfume of flowering plants. The daughter
of Nicholas I. Count of Salin, expired immediately
after inhaling the odor of violets. Henry VI. of
Germany, and the wife of Henry IV. of France,
were, as is stated in history, killed by perfumed articles of apparel. Many examples of this kind might
be mentioned; but the establishment of the fact
that invisible forces exert a wonderfully depressing
action upon the vital powers need not depend
upon isolated instances subject to doubt. All must
be aware of the potency of these unseen influences. It is certain that they possess a strong innate
power of action, capable of producing very decided
effects; although, by reason of idiosyncrasy, they
may operate more violently upon one person than
another.
We have alluded to the consequences of malaria,
in a previous chapter.  Those consequences are
sufficiently prominent. The sufferer feels them most
sensibly, and the traveller cannot but perceive them
instantly. Yet the cause, that mighty power which
acts so powerfully, is without odor, taste, color,
sound, volume, or dimension. It broods over the
infected district perpetually, penetrating the organism of man and beast; and the highest mortal in10




146         INVISIBLE INFLUENCES
genuity is baffled in the detection of a single palpable atom of the poison. And so it is with the miasm
of cholera, of small-pox, and other infections; each
producing peculiar and distinct effects; each equally
immeasurable, imponderable, imperceptible.
There are precautionary measures that may be
adopted, to a certain extent, both by individuals and
communities, - to which reference has been made
in another place, - for partial resistance to agents
so subtile and mysterious. It is not designed to treat
here of those measures, but to endeavor to expose
the unreasonableness of refusing to admit the efficient action upon the system, of any poisonous
property, because it is not grossly material. When
miasma can be reduced to masses of matter, and
shovelled into druggists' shops; when electricity can
be measured like Epsom salts, and caloric weighed
like calomel, the time will have arrived when the
ridicule which has been wasted upon " infinitesimal
doses" of medicine will be more legitimately
directed, and perhaps more influential, than it happens to prove at the present time.
There is a principle belonging to all those substances that disturb the vital force, which, according
to Hahnemann, is latent in the crude drug. That
principle is dynamic, as independent of substance
as the soul is of the body. It can only act with unobstructed power, when the material which confines
it is broken into fragments; and the development of




AFFECTING HEALTH.              147
that power is in proportion to the extent of separation of the particles.  When these particles are
separated, it is the released spirit of the drug, a peculiar, immaterial principle, which exercises upon the
human system a specific influence, sui generis; each
medicinal agent having a character differing from all
others. This principle, concealed until disclosed by
human labor, is the active power which corrects the
abnormal condition of organic life, restoring health
to the diseased frame. It is distinct from the grossness of matter, as distinct as is heat and light from
earthly substance.  The disengagement of electricity or caloric from bodies by friction is analogous to
this development of medicinal virtue by trituration.
There is nothing more incomprehensible, nothing
more ridiculous, in one than in the other. No more
do they form actual portions of the substance in
which they are imbedded, than does the fragrance
of the rose form the visible flower.
Now, certain diseases are known to be produced
through agents not recognizable by our senses. Pestilential emanations have never been proved substantial; yet their energetic, penetrating power, the whole
world is acquainted with. There must be a cause
for effects so striking. That cause must be considered dynamic, in the absence of all proof that it is
material. And, if the disturbance of vital action constituting disease is occasioned by a dynamic cause,
why may not the removal of disease be effected




148          INVISIBLE INFLUENCES
through similar agencies? Strange, that, exposed as
man continually is to deleterious influences from
without, which he cannot but acknowledge act intensely, though undiscernible, he should find it so
difficult to believe in the efficiency of minute agents,
when applied internally and intimately to the sensible
organs of life.
Should the animalcular theory ever be proved
correct, and a material cause for epidemic diseases
be established, the fact would still remain unaltered,
that the most powerful action ever brought to bear
upon human health is the result of forces excessively
minute.  Professor D'Amador asks, in the paper
read before the scientific congress at Nismes, " What
are relative greatness and smallness in the case of
the seeds of vegetables, but a mere lusus naturae?
Who could believe that invisible seeds of plants are
continually suspended in the atmosphere? that those
of mosses, of fungi, of lichens, elude our eye, and
float invisible in the circumambient air? Who could
believe, if experience did not prove it to us every
day, that within the case of a seed, which, from its
minuteness, cannot be perceived by the microscope
itself, there is contained the power that shall one day
produce a vegetable? Who could believe, in fine,
that in the embryo of the acorn there exists, in infinitely little, the largest tree of the forest, which only
stands in need of development?  According to
Dodart, an elm can produce, in a single year,




AFFECTING HEALTH.           149
529,000 seeds; Ray counted 32,000 on a stalk of
tobacco. If all these seeds should come to perfection, it would only require a few generations, and a
very small number of years, to cover the whole surface of the habitable globe with vegetables. If,
then, atoms can produce an entire being, why should
we tax them with impotence when the question is
about merely modifying a being? If an atom gives
life, is it more difficult to conceive that it may change
the mode of being? When the greater exists and
starts up before us in the processes of nature, why
should the less be declared impossible?" And, in
another part of the paper he adds, with reference to
the agency of minute medicinal doses, " If the action
of imperceptible agents is opposed to common sense,
that is as much as to say that experience is opposed
to it; but, as common sense and experience are not,
and cannot be contradictory, if common sense
refuses to believe in the action of imperceptible
agents, common sense stands in need of a thorough
reform, which experience will be able to effect.
Science, which is nothing else than the reflection of
experience, has, in this manner, reformed common
sense several times. Common sense believed for
centuries that the world was fixed, and astronomical
science corrected common sense, and brought it to
its own way of thinking. The virtue of vaccine was
repugnant to common sense, at the period of its discovery; but now experience has so completely




150         INVISIBLE INFLUENCES
demonstrated it, that any one who doubted it would
be held to be destitute of common sense.
"Why should we treat with contempt a system of
therapeutics, which is but the application of one of
our most certain maxims? To the diseased vital
forces are opposed the forces of natural substances,
but divested of all material covering: these forces
will thus be brought face to face; they will act
directly on each other, without any interposing
agent; and hence will ensue rapid, cerfain, and
agreeable cures..... Observe, that the vital therapeutics of which I speak are to medicine what the
study of electricity and the imponderables has been
to chemistry; what the study of motive powers has
been to mechanical art.... Far from overthrowing
Hippocratism, or the true vitalism of Montpelier, our
modern therapeutics confirm, complete, extend, and
apply it, add what was wanting to it, and supply its
deficiences. The divine old man bequeathed to us,
so to speak, the code of medicine in which its great
laws were laid down, its principles registered, its
fundamental dogmas established: the work of ages
is, and ever shall be, to deduce from these premises
the most remote consequences; to bring all the great
facts which subsequent discoveries may reveal and
produce within the Hippocratic domain. Some of
these discoveries have been already gathered in,
and can never more be lost; others have been
sown, and as yet exist but in the germ; but nought




AFFECTING HIEALTH.             151
can blast this germ: on the contrary, it will grow,
and the tree will yield its fruit to us and to all
posterity."




152
CHAPTER   XII.
ON HOMCEOPATHY.
NOT many years since, a doctrine was broached in
Saxony of a novel and extraordinary character. A
long-sought desideratum in medical science was
assumed to have been discovered; a brilliant light
thrown upon the dark path of the groping, bewildered disciples of ZEsculapius.
Samuel Hahnemann, a German chemist and physician, after years of laborious, untiring investigation,
pursued with the earnest, all-absorbing interest characteristic of his countrymen, - after long-continued,
closely studied experiments in developing and ma.
turing into palpable form a conception elicited by
accident, published, in 1811, a voluminous report of
his labors. From this work we learn, that, twenty
years previously, the author instituted certain experiments upon himself, while in health, with the view
of ascertaining the true and positive action of cinchona (Peruvian bark) upon the system; being
induced to this trial by the perplexing and contradictory statements published respecting the curative




HOMMEOPATIHY.              153
properties of this drug. He took several doses of a
strong decoction of the bark in the morning, for
many consecutive days, and uniformly experienced
towards evening febrile symptoms, analogous in every
particular to the fevers arising from marsh miasma.
Astonished at the resemblance of the symptoms thus
produced with those which this medicine is known
to remove, he was led to suppose that the cure of
disease consisted in this similarity of action. For
the purpose of verifying his conjecture, he continued
to experiment with other medicinal agents, long
regarded as successful remedies in certain forms of
disease. Ulcers in the throat, inflammatory glandular swellings, &c. were consequent upon the
continued use of mercury.  Cutaneous eruptions
resulted from large doses of sulphur. And complaints of a similar character are known to be
controlled by the judicious administration of those
minerals. The three medicines referred to had ac.
quired the reputation of " specifics." By what mode
of action such a character had been established,
under what law other than that of " similia similibus
curantur" (like cures like) their " specificity" enrolled
itself, it would puzzle pathologists to determine.
After numerous trials, in all situations and circumstances, the consequences were the same. Different
medicines produced distinct classes of symptoms,
undeniable in existence, unchangeable in character.
By comparing these results with subsequent expe



154              HOMoMOPATHY.
riments upon the sick, it was ascertained that
convalescence became rapid and complete, whenever remedies were employed whose effects upon
the healthy corresponded with the symptoms observable in disease; and, the closer this correspondence,
the more immediate and decided was the recovery.
Day after day, year after year, Hahnemann, with a
few medical associates, pursued his investigations
with uncommon perseverance and devotedness,
anxiously watching the development of a great
truth, seizing upon every circumstance favoring its
elucidation, and sternly rejecting whatever would
not bear thorough and searching criticism.
For more than two thousand years, therapeutics
had been involved in doubt and darkness. Vague
speculations, untenable hypothesis, influenced medical practice, for brief intervals, one theory being
abandoned for another; while various conflicting
methods of cure were at times distracting practitioners' minds, plunging them into a sea of empiricism, and bringing reproach and scorn upon the
"art of healing."  Cheering and most satisfactory
had been modern progression in chemistry, medical
botany, and operative surgery; but, in the absence
of an immutable principle, a fixed foundation upon
which to build, practical medicine had remained
nearly stationary since the time of Hippocrates.
The need of such a basis had constantly been felt
and frequently expressed, and intimations of the




HOMCEOPATHY.              155
existence of the homceopathic law had been given
by Stahl, Bertholet, Paracelsus, Cardanus, Thomas
Erasmus, and others. Haller proposed the administration of drugs to those in health as the only certain
mode of accurately ascertaining their action. But
no one before Hahnemann had undertaken systematically to prove the characteristic properties of
medicinal agents upon the human economy, — to
note the whole extent of their operation, - to regis.
ter, with conscientious minuteness, every alteration
effected by their influence. An intimate knowledge
of the nature and operation of the weapons to be
wielded by the medical practitioner had ever been
most desirable, and that information was thus
afforded. The want of facts as a groundwork for
treatment had ever been deplored, and that want
was thus supplied.
In the practical application of the homceopathic
principle, a striking distinction prevails regarding
the amount of medicine administered. In the crude
state, as ordinarily given, neither vegetable nor
mineral remedies were found to possess so much
efficacy as when a division of their particles had
been effected. The medicinal property appeared to
be augmented in proportion as the substance approached the atomic condition. Certain materials
which, placed in contact with the organism in a condensed form, are inert, become remarkably active
when their particles are separated by friction. More



156              HOMCEOPATHY.
over, an exceedingly feeble influence only is required
to produce a very sensible impression upon a diseased portion of the body. An inflamed surface is
affected by the slightest pressure; the faintest ray of
light acts with painful power upon an inflamed eye;
the stomach, in a state of inflammation, rejects the
smallest quantity of nutriment. This excessive susceptibility is attendant upon inflammatory and other
diseased action, and hence the rationale of " infinitesimal doses."
By a series of trials unparalleled in rigid scrutiny,
Hahnemann claimed to have established, among
others, the following propositions, viz.: —
That a group of morbid symptoms, from whatever cause arising, will be removed by that medicine
which is capable of producing a similar class of
symptoms.
That the curative property of medicines becomes,
by undergoing trituration or succussion, greatly augmented; and that extremely minute doses are, in
consequence, sufficient to counteract any diseased
condition.
That the effect of medicinal substances is destroyed
by combination, and their efficiency advantageously
exercised only when administered singly.
Explanatory of the first proposition, it was remarked that remedies produced a train of symptoms
which were manifestations of a medicinal disease




HOM(EOPATHY.              157
similar to the natural one; and, as the existence in
the system of two diseases resembling each other
was impossible, the morbid must yield to the medicinal symptoms.  The latter, dependent on the
continued application of the remedy, will disappear
when that remedy is discontinued, and the natural
condition of the affected parts will consequently be
restored. Or, again, the symptoms indicative of disease are but manifestations of the recuperative efforts
of nature; and, as the medicinal agent operates in
the same direction, it will aid the restorative process,
and thus facilate recovery.
Respecting the second proposition, that the potency
of medicines is greatly increased by a peculiar mode
of operation, it is asserted that, in the crude state of
a drug, its virtues, to a considerable extent, remain
latent, and are only to be brought into full activity
by a thorough breaking down of the enveloping
material, and a complete separation of the molecules
of matter. Only by the rapid motion of liquids, and
the friction of solids, is the cohesion of particles to be
destroyed.  These two processes' develop intense
power, - as, for example, electricity, —which without
their agency would have no existence; or, rather,
would have existed in an inactive, dormant state.
Whether the curative influence of medicine be disengaged by the minute division of particles, so that
their mobility is increased, and placed more in affinity
with the animal fibre on which they are to operate,




158             lHOMEOPATHY.
or whether a new power is developed like electricity
by friction, being transmitted by successive infection
to inert substances with which it may be connected,
diffusing itself to an almost unlimited extent, while
preserving all its primitive qualities, are mere abstract
questions, in the determination of which no point of
practical importance is involved. Analogous facts
of the disengagement of inherent force by friction,
and of the influence upon corporeal substance even
of impalpable, imponderable agents, are well known
and universally acknowledged.
In relation to the propriety of rejecting medicinal
compounds in favor of simple remedies, but few
remarks are necessary.  A heterogenous mixture
of various substances, thrown into the system, conflicting with and counteracting each other, form a
bewildering complication of drug-symptoms, that
would blind the keenest sight, and embarrass the
most discriminating judgment. A slight regard to
the "improved" therapeutics and symptomatology
would convince any one that a single uncombined
remedy, judiciously administered, is sufficient, in
any given case, to effect all that medicine can ac.
complish.
Under all methods of practice, cures have unques.
tionably been performed. The antipathic method,
which is as old as Galen, and not by any means less
faulty because more ancient, is directly the reverse
of that inculcated by IHahnemann, and consists in




HOMrEOPATHY.               159
the administration of remedies which, by their primary action, bring about a condition opposite to that
which it is intended to remove. Combating isolated
symptoms, and causing violent commotion in the
organism, it, more frequently than otherwise, injures
by repressing instead of assisting the re-action of
nature. As a system, it is unphilosophical, incomplete, and pernicious. The same may be said of the
revulsive method of the humoral pathologists, and
the principle of counter-irritation, which, in nine
cases out of ten, needlessly multiplies the sufferings
of the unfortunate patient; burthening the exhausted
frame with augmented incumbrance, and often irrecoverably disabling organs which were performing
their functions in a healthy manner.  Blistering,
leeching, bleeding, cauterizing, homceopathy repudiates as in a majority of cases entirely useless, and
in all cases decidedly barbarous.
In the investigation of diseases, for the purpose of
curing by the above treatment, opinions as to the
seat of the complaint are at once formed from a few
prominent indications, and active measures are
immediately put into requisition against a name.
There may have been an error of judgment.  It
ought not to be termed invidiousness to assert that
the practitioner is sometimes mistaken in his diagnosis.
The means have been adopted, however, secundem
artem, heroically depletive it may be, and the natural capacity of resistance to diseased action lost,




160              IOMCEOPATHY.
perhaps for ever. Mistakes made in medical practice
cannot always be remedied.
A painter, who had but little talent as an artist,
embraced the profession of medicine. His friend
inquired the reason for such a change. " In painting," replied he, " every fault is exposed to view;
in medicine, they are all buried with the patient."
We transcribe from Rau: " As it would be unjust, on the one hand, to reproach a physician with
the impossibility of establishing a correct diagnosis,
when the means for so doing are wanting, so it
would, on the other hand, be unpardonable to base
a vigorous antipathic treatment upon a purely speculative view of disease.  I will not here detail the
dreadful errors which have been committed by theorists. Two things may occur, if the realization of a
wrong theory in practice should lead to bad results.
Either the physician is too vain to admit his error,
and continues to heap sin upon sin; or else, aware
of his mistake, he changes his view of the disease,
and modifies the treatment accordingly.  In this
way he continues groping in the dark, and altering
his plan of treatment from day to day. The pure
effects of drugs, particularly those of the favourite
compounds, being very little known, the most prominent symptoms of the remedies that are used in a
case are frequently mistaken for new phenomena
of the disease. This leads to new views about the
character of the disease, and to a change of treat



HOMCEOPATHY.               161
ment. Our journals are filled with reports of cases
by the most celebrated physicians, which betray the
most woful vacillation between a pretended rational
and symptomatic treatment.  A gentleman living
abroad, who is affected with a chronic malady, sent
the writer a large bundle of prescriptions, together
with the opinions of five celebrated physicians, who
had leisurely examined his case. All those physicians differed in opinion, each taking a different
view of the nature of the disease. All of them were
mistaken."
The homceopathist is not content with a superficial examination of the sick. The whole assemblage of symptoms, all the accompaniments of
whatever nature, the immediate and remote causes,
the external circumstances which alter, and the moral
impressions which influence to any extent, the morbid
state under consideration, are to him all-important.
He cares but little about nosology then. A complete portrait of the disease, so far as external manifestations can afford it, is what he purposes to
obtain; and, this obtained, there is a remedy. That
remedy is simple, safe, and certain. It acts by no
revulsion, causes no commotion, disturbs in no degree either the mind or the body.
An excellent illustration of the homceopathic principle is given by Kaltenbrunner, in his description
of microscopical discoveries in traumatic inflammation. He is explaining the natural process through
11




162              HOMCEOPATHY.
which the morbid inflammation is dissipated by the
development of a state perfectly similar to it, which
is termed the curative inflammation.   " After a
wound has been received," he remarks, " there
commences an accelerated motion and a turgescence of the blood in the vessels surrounding it.
From this point, those alterations extend to a greater
or less distance. In some of the smaller blood vessels nearest to the wound, the motion of the blood is
thrown into disorder, some canals become entirely
emptied, in some it accumulates in irregular masses;
while, in others again, it diffuses itself into the parenchyma, forming reddish islands of blood, at the same
time the perenchyma beginning to smell. Driven
with accelerated motion, masses of the globules of
the blood, here and there, rush by starts from their
canals, and pour themselves into the parenchyma of
the inflamed part. Here they lie as bright red spots
or islands of different sizes. Soon the whole wound
is surrounded by these islands, and the intervening
parenchyma becomes highly turgid. This process,
which appears at first at the circumference of the
inflammation, by degrees involves also the centre,
and resembles the morbid inflammation completely;
and it is by its means that the alterations produced
by the latter are gradually extinguished."
A distinguishing feature in the homceopathic system is the importance allowed to mental affections
in the selection of remedies.  Although, by reason




HOMCEOPATHY.              163
of the acknowledged intimate connection of mind
and body, the pathology of the old school recognizes
the necessity of attending, in some measure, to the
condition of the former, yet in no mode of practice
heretofore adopted have specific medicinal influences
been directed to the state of the mind exclusively.
No materia medica, except that of Hahnemann, prominently distinguishes moral derangements, or treats
of immediate means for their removal. His experiments have established the important fact, that medicines, operating upon the human structure, not only
alter its vital functions in a peculiar manner, but
exercise a characteristic action upon the spiritual
existence, - the mind and disposition. According
to Mayerhofer, this truth can be made use of as an
available point in therapeutics; and upon this field
of pharmacodynamic psychology, the founder of
homoeopathy appeared not simply as a reformer,
but as a creator of a new world, hitherto shut out
from pharmaceutic investigation.
Another marked distinction in Hahnemann's doctrine is his theory of chronic diseases. He asserts
that the multifarious affections of the skin from which
mankind, the youthful portion especially, suffer, are
but indications of an internal virus, termed psora,
which has been transmitted from parent to child for
ages; that inveterate chronic ailments are, in most
cases, owing to the sudden repulsion, by local applications, of the secondary vicarious symptoms of this




164              HOMCEOPATHY.
virus, externally manifested. Many proofs are adduced in corroboration of this statement; and there
are few practitioners who have not witnessed the
occurrence of serious internal maladies after the suppression of a cutaneous eruption, and a singular
inability in patients of resisting attacks of an acute
disease arising subsequently to the forced removal of
such an eruption. Hahnemann adds that the appearance of the psoric disease is especially favored
by an irritable, vehement temper; by the exhaustion
consequent upon unusual physical exertion; by improper medical treatment, excesses at table, and
dissolute habits. Owing to its peculiar nature, the
psoric virus may remain latent under favorable circumstances. In this case, the patient appears to
enjoy good health, until some untoward cause
rouses the internal disease, and causes it to break
out. Neither the relatives nor the patient, nor the
physician himself, can comprehend how it is possible
that his health should have declined in this way so
suddenly. The diseases which then make their appearance, even after a trivial accident, as fractures,
&c. cannot be traced to any cause: they return in
spite of a first successful treatment, and of the
strictest diet; they increase each time they reappear in the system, especially in the fall or spring;
and finally settle down in the form of a lingering
malady, which cannot be treated according to the
rules of the allaeopathic practice, without exposing




HOMCEOPATHY.               165
the patient to the danger of having a more severe
disease substituted in the place of his former ailment.
There are innumerable causes which may rouse the
internal psora, and cause it to develop its manifold
germs: the evil effects of those causes often bear no
sort of apparent relation to them, which renders it
difficult to consider them the true exciting causes of
the secondary psoric disease, the often fearful character of which ought, on the contrary, to be explained
by the existence of a deep-seated, latent disturbance,
which has broken out on this occasion, and is the
common mother of all such chronic secondary affec.
tions.
The doctrine that chronic diseases are caused by
a virus infecting the system, and also, not unfrequently, by over-doses of medicine taken for the
purpose of curing them, receives an unexpected and
very decisive confirmation from the fact, that, under
hydropathic treatment, favorable changes in the sick
are preceded by the appearance of pustules, ulcers,
&c. upon the skin, and always by excessive perspiration, having the distinct odor of certain medicinal
substances which have been taken at some previous
period, often long distant. Happily, however, the
neutralization of the virus referred to may be obtained by a much less severe and painful method,
viz. by the cautious and judicious employment of
remedies answering homoeopathically to the morbid
effects of this virus, which, if not allowed to settle in
11*




166              HOMCEOPATHY.
the system, may, without difficulty, be completely
eradicated.
Thirty-nine years ago, the "' Organon" was published. Since that time, the method of practice
therein taught has extended throughout Europe and
America.  Public attention was first earnestly attracted by its astonishing success in the treatment of
Asiatic cholera in Hungary. Hospitals were from
that period founded; professorships were granted;
and its extension has since been unprecedented in
rapidity. Among its present adherents are nineteen
professors in European colleges, twenty-three state
counsellors, seventeen medical counsellors, and fifty.
four eminent army surgeons, besides an innumerable
body of well-educated private practitioners; and it
has never been more flourishing than during the
present year, notwithstanding the assertions to the
contrary of its opponents.  Of four professors in
different European universities who have publicly
made a trial of homceopathy, but one has declared
against it: that gentleman is Prof. Andral, of Paris.
The three of the four who declared in its favor,
and now openly recommend its practice, are' Prof.
D'Amador, of the University of Montpelier; Prof.
J. W. Arnold, of the University of Zurich; and
Prof. Henderson, of the University of Edinburgh.
The published, unquestionably veracious statistics
from medical institutions in Vienna, Berlin, Leipsic,
London, Paris, Naples, and other cities, in most




HOMCEOPATHY.              167
instances under the immediate supervision of civil
directors, prove incontestably, by the small proportion of deaths and " dismissed incurables " under
homceopathic treatment compared with the allceopathic practice, the very great superiority of the former
over the latter.  Such advocates as Quin, Jahr,
Henderson, Arnold, Jourdan, Horatiis, Stapf, and
Cramer, all of whom hold some of the highest medical stations in Europe, are not to be lightly esteemed.
No " humbug " ever enlisted minds of such an order.
The hackneyed, oft-refuted arguments of the wilfully
blind affect not, with a feather's weight, the ponderous mass of evidence already existing, and constantly
accumulating, in the progress of homeopathic practice. Were medicine a perfect science, instead of
being lamentably and confessedly inadequate, no
opposition to innovation could be too combined and
inflexible. But, when the oldest and most distinguished men in the profession have distinctly and
publicly affirmed that medical records are little else
than collections of fluctuating opinions, of versatile,
ephemeral views, changeable as the fashions, abounding with conjectures, and conclusions drawn from
premises " baseless as the fabric of a vision," -a
disclination to deviate from the old graveyard-path
is indeed surprising.
That the above remarks may not be deemed illiberal and unauthorized, we quote the opinion of
Dr. Forbes, the former editor of the " British and




168             iHOMEOPATHY.
Foreign Medical Review," a gentleman of acknow.
ledged talent and extensive professional reputation.
He thus writes concerning allceopathic practice,
which, while deploring its deficiencies, he strangely
pursued. With this quotation, our fragmentary
essay will terminate: —
" The comparative powerlessness and positive uncertainty of medicine is exhibited in a striking light,
when we come to trace the history and fortunes of
particular remedies and modes of treatment, and
observe the notions of practitioners, at different times,
respecting their positive or relative value. What
difference of opinion! what an array of alleged
facts directly at variance with each other! what
contradictions! what opposite results of a like experience! what glorification and degradation of the
same remedy! what confidence now, what despair
anon, in encountering the same disease with the
very same weapons! what horror and intolerance
at one time, of the very opinions and practices which,
previously and subsequently, are cherished and admired!
" To be satisfied on this point, we need only refer
to the history of any one or two of our principal
diseases or principal remedies; as, for instance, antimony in fever, blood-letting in pneumonia. Each
of these remedies has been at different times regarded
as almost specific in the cure of the two diseases,
while at other times they have been rejected as use



HOMCEOPATHY.               169
less or injurious. What seemed once so unquestionably, so demonstrably true, as that venesection was
indispensable for the cure of pneumonia? and what
is the conclusion now deducible from the clinical
researches of Louis and others? Is it not that patients recover as well, or nearly as well, without it?
What are the opinions and the practices of the surgeons of the present day, and the indubitable facts
brought to light during the last thirty years, with
regard to mercury?. Are they not, that it is unnecessary (generally speaking) to the cure of those cases
for which it was once thought specific, and that it is
often most injurious, in place of being beneficial?
The medical god, mercury, however, seems as unwilling to be balked of his dues as the mythological.
If he has lost his former domain, he has gained
another, that of inflammation; and many of our best
practitioners might possibly be startled and shocked
at the supposition that their successors should renounce allegiance to him in the latter domain, as
they themselves had done in the former. And yet
such a result is more than probable, seeing that there
exists not a shadow of more positive proof (if so
much) of the efficacy of the medicine in the latter
than in the former case.
" The same truth, as to the uncertainty of practical medicine generally, and the utter insufficiency
of the ordinary evidence to establish the efficacy of
many of our remedies, as was stated above, has been




170             HOMEOPATHY.
almost always attained to by philosophical physicians
of experience in the course of long practice, and has
resulted generally in a mild, tentative, or expectant
mode of practice in their old.age, whatever may
have been the vigorous or heroic doings of their
youth."
Taking into consideration that the foregoing remarks are from the most eminent medical reviewer
-the highest allaeopathic authority —in England,
the most ardent reformer of medicine could not ex.
pect, and would not demand, a more candid admission.
THE END.




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