Heredity, health and personal beauty.

  • Shoemaker, John V. (John Veitch), 1852-1910.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heredity, health and personal beauty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    But the physical overdoing of things by members of either sox is not the only cause, among otherwise innocent things, of depressed vitality. We have known many cases where half- formed youth have racked their brains and shattered their ner- vous systems by overstudy at a time of life when a better alterna- te r would have been to saunter along through life picking cowslips by the streamlet's brink. But no such single alternative lies in the situation, for the true alternative is moderation,— moderation, the guiding star of the wise, which even some of the ancients followed as a beacon through life. We were once acquainted with a young man who must needs know more Greek than the capacity of man can property receive within a brief college course. The college where he was a student, although one of the first in the land, one capable of imparting as much Greek to a man as he could well stagger under through life, was not good enough because not Greek enough for him, for in an- other college there was more Greek, and at the end of the vista a splendid prize to be obtained by passing the highest examina- tion in the language. He left his college and enrolled himself at the other, and studied harder and harder as the fateful time approached. The last part of his study was in bouts of eigh- teen hours a day, with wet cloths bound about his head. He won the prize, but what became of the man? We met him upon his return, crushed under the spoils of victory. He asked our advice as to his condition of health. We said : Return to your mother, Earth. There is meaning in the old classical legend where it describes Antaeus, son of Earth, striving with Hercules, and renewing his strength every time his foot touched the soil, until Hercules mastered him at last by raising him aloft and squeezing him to death in his embrace. We said to him: Return to the bosom of your mother, Earth; she will restore you if it be possible. We went with him for a few days, saw him revive under the influence of her balmy breath, and his